Queen of Dust, page 10
Moons, this one in particular was giving her trouble.
Why was it so hard to speak to him and so easy to grind her hips into his? When they tried talking, he only made things more complicated. Like in the hall the other night, when he’d offered no apology for his Empire’s actions, and somehow given her something better. Unexpected support. And in doing so, made her question whether she’d been wrong about him. Misunderstood what drove him. Mistaken his natural earnestness for Dern zealotry. In that moment, he hadn’t been an entitled prince, nor a blindly committed soldier. He’d been someone else she hadn’t gotten to know.
Now it seemed Calvy D’Aldiern was a man who questioned, who listened for the answers, who learned. He was a man who surprised her.
She didn’t want that Calvy, sincere and open. She preferred him riled up and hostile. A soldier who volunteered to fight for a cause she abhorred. That detail made things easier, clearer. Even out of uniform, she couldn’t let herself separate him from the enemy. He was Dern—royally, despite the crown’s opinion.
Queen of dust, that’s what my father called her.
Calvy’s sire would know all about it. The particles and smog thick in the air. They hadn’t only killed her people, they’d destroyed her home. Sucked the beauty from its bones like marrow. Taken all the life Balti had to give.
Except hers.
And despite his pledge, there wasn’t anything Calvy D’Aldiern could be or do to fix what had happened on Balti. What had happened to her.
No one could make it better.
Dust. The wind would sweep it away, along with everything else.
Mara didn’t hear the footsteps behind her and jumped, feeling someone pull her hood up over her head. She turned, wide eyes finding the woman from the bathroom, her own hood drawn up, covering her hair. That conversation, the two of them doubled in the mirror—every time she remembered it—seemed less and less real. Just as she’d determined that Queen Balticourt’s Resurrection was a myth, she’d almost convinced herself the encounter itself had been a dream—the wild hope stirred up in her a storm at sea, leaving no trace. The woman as much a ghost as the queen she claimed to support. But here she was again. Her upturned eyes bright despite the shadow of her hood.
Mara moved to sweep her own head covering back and the woman stopped her. “No, it’s too easy to spot, the both of us out here talking.”
“Who would spot us?” Mara asked, following the woman’s gaze to Dannos, who had wandered to the stone wall lining the hill. He straightened when Mara looked at him but she held up a hand to keep him at bay.
“Your bodyguard, for one, I don’t know who he reports to. But there are others.”
“Others who would care about two women talking?”
“Nothing more dangerous.” The other redhead reached out, tucking back one of Mara’s crimson curls. “Together we’re quite noticeable. You really don’t dye it?”
“Why would I?”
“It’s how we spread the message. How we spread hope.”
“Hope for what?”
The woman pursed her lips then released a little sigh. “Say you see the glimmer of red across the square and for a moment, it seems possible that maybe it’s her. Or at the very least, you know you aren’t the only one wishing for change.”
“Her? You mean Queen Balticourt?”
“Of course.”
Mara shook her head and her hood slipped down. She pulled it back up. “That’s not real.”
“Not to you. You don’t need it to be. Taking your leisurely strolls every day, living in your fancy hotel. A right tourist.”
Had the woman followed her? Mara should ask, only she couldn’t help defending herself first. “I’m not a tourist.”
“And yet you haven’t been compelled to work in a factory.”
“And you? You’re not in a factory.”
“I make my own way.”
“Doing what?”
“Offering a little bit of peace. I take care of people, and they take care of me.”
“You’re a Temptress?” Mara almost choked on the words, saying them so quickly.
“I didn’t say that,” the woman snapped, drawing back, a defensive maneuver of her own. “I provide solace but I don’t claim to be a Temptress. There are no Temptresses left.” She breathed out. “Except Queen Balticourt.”
“Right,” Mara said, turning her eyes back to the horizon. It was too far, too much, for her to suspend the facts and believe in fairy tales. As much as she wanted them to be true.
“You have questions. And you must have connections. Maybe we could help each other.”
Questions. Mara had them. She doubted the woman had the answers. Nobody did. Nobody could answer the mysteries that plagued her, that had always plagued her. Except... Along with wondering about herself, she’d always imagined others like her. Was there another little girl, as alone and confused as she was?
“What’s your name?”
The woman squinted at her. “Iola.”
“I’m Mara.”
The wind pushed a white cloud over the sun, but Iola’s eyes remained narrowed. “I thought you wanted to know about the Resurrection.”
“I want to know about you.”
“Why?”
“I—” Mara faltered, unwilling to reveal the sentimentality that had precipitated her question. “I just do.”
A longer sigh from Iola told her she should have done a better job keeping her feelings to herself. “I was born on Balti, my mother was from Niell. We were there visiting when the poison spread. That’s the big moon.”
“I know what Niell is.”
Iola shrugged. “You’re not from here.”
“Yes, I am.”
“I mean you’re not like us. You didn’t live it, wherever you came from.”
“That’s not true.” She sounded petulant, a child tugging back her toy and shouting mine. Only the toy she was fighting for was pain. She was claiming her own tragedy—it was all she had, and she wouldn’t let anyone take it from her. “I lived it. I survived it. Saw it all from a drop shuttle. I was here.”
Iola raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Your parents weren’t already off planet.”
“No. They died in the poison. This is my first time back.”
“And?” Iola asked.
The boats knocked together again. Mara wanted to say more. To confess that she found the entire planet unrecognizable, so frustrating she wanted to tug at her hair, pull every red coil from her scalp. That the moments Balti felt like home were fleeting, like she was trying to cup the wind, hold on to something that wasn’t there anymore when she opened her hands.
But it was Iola who answered her own question. “I remember how relieved I was, when we finally came back down. I went right to my house, like I was expecting my father to still be there, waiting. The feeling was short-lived.”
This was another version of the story. And Mara felt a flare of jealousy for it. What if she had a place to check? A person to miss?
“We all need something returned to us,” Iola said quietly. “You don’t believe in the cause?”
Mara blinked quickly and cleared her throat. “I would, if it were possible.”
“Then you do, for it is.”
“The Balticourts are dead. By all accounts—there are pictures—”
Iola rolled her eyes. “Pictures can be doctored. Think about the source, Mara.”
Tightening her arms across her chest, Mara shook her head. “That’s a reach. Explain the rest: Where would she go? Why hasn’t she returned?”
“You’ve only just returned—haven’t you? She’s like anybody. Waiting for the right moment. That’s our job, to make the moment happen.”
There was conviction in the words, reverence. Mara felt it anew as Iola spoke, the hope glowing inside of her. But she didn’t trust it.
“Our people were annihilated. And those that witnessed it forced to work.” A cold breeze rippled off Iola’s hood.
“Why don’t they find something else, if they don’t like the factory?”
An incredulous look took over the stranger’s face. “There are contracts. There are—you don’t understand. This isn’t your life. Even before Dern, the people down here kept the Balti way to themselves. We weren’t at risk of being washed away on the moon, but we had our own struggles, our own ups and downs to combat, yet no Temptress bothered to grant us any rapture.”
Mara shifted side to side, Iola’s revisions to her narrative making her uncomfortable. She’d never thought about what prejudices might have been present on Balti long before the Dern arrived.
Iola waved the past away, saving it for another time. “What we must do first is rid ourselves of the Dern, that’s the only way to be free. To rebuild Balti better than it was. Stop it from becoming some sooty production planet.”
How did Iola do it? Make the Resurrection sound real. Possible. Just like Jimma had believed. Maybe Mara was too disconnected, too other to manage that kind of belief.
Iola started down the road, the wind at her back deepening the cave of her hood around her face. “Think about it. Think about what you believe. Think about what you want.”
She turned away and Mara was left behind, staring at the boats just as she had been. Another thud. Another clink. But a new sound joined the chorus—the screech of a bird. Above Mara a shoregull hovered in the wind, wings spread, going nowhere.
She’d been searching since she got here. Searching for her place. And so far she’d just been drifting, bobbing idly in the current. Finding nothing.
If it was possible.
It wasn’t.
But if it was.
She’d have a purpose. She could be part of something.
Chapter Thirteen
“Damned Virtues, Mara—is there something you like about me standing outside your door every night with a raging hard dick?”
Mara gripped the dresser, as far as she’d gotten on wobbling legs after dismounting Calvy midclimax. “I assumed you gave it a tug yourself before coming to work.”
“It’s not the same.” Calvy fell back on his bed, his fists balled and his eyes squeezed painfully shut.
A creeping guilt wound its way up her spine. The guilt of seeing him differently, and using him the same. Hearing the pragmatism in his tone instead of insults. Reframing all those questions he’d asked not as mockery, but genuine interest she’d mistaken for derision. She forced the guilt back. When she provoked him, he always revealed his true Dern colors. “That’s not my problem.”
“Is part of being a Temptress making someone hate you as much as they want you?”
He should hate her. Hate the way she used him.
Sometimes she hated him. Hated that she’d started seeking him out even when she wasn’t aching for him, when she wanted companionship, wanted to talk. Hated that she had noticed how he’d begun to fill out, his shoulders rounding and widening. She’d seen him running along the boulevard, his army-issued cargo pants tucked into his boots, a white cotton undershirt stark against his newly tanned skin, tucked tight at his waist. Everything pinned down, in place, where it should be.
“Training,” he’d huffed as he went by, though she hadn’t asked aloud.
“Are you sure you’ve enough pockets on those pants?” she’d called after him. He’d turned to grin back at her and she hated the flush it’d brought to her cheeks. The reaction she should not have had.
Mara straightened herself and went to the door. “Why don’t you confer with Liam, he’s due to call tomorrow.”
“Fuck Liam.”
Calvy’s ragged breath filled the room. And she was the cause.
It took all of her effort to smile casually and tell him, “I would. If he were here.”
But it wasn’t just her tone that felt forced. She’d been with Liam for two years, together daily on board the ship for eight months of it. They’d only been parted for the last three. And she felt it. Time and distance pulling on their connection, stretching it, thinning it. He was expected back in a week, maybe two, and then, she hoped, everything would snap back into place.
It would. It had to. Because this thing with Calvy, and the fact that it wasn’t as unpleasant as she’d imagined—not even remotely—it made her feel like she knew less about herself than she had when they’d landed.
Her whole life, she’d used her Balti heritage as a shield. Strengthening it around her. Hiding her missing pieces behind a wall of bold identity. And now it felt thin. It might be easier to let it drop. There was no one here to perform for anyway.
After a fitful night of sleep, Mara sequestered herself in her room. Liam was supposed to screen in. She’d missed the last time he’d tried to make contact and the message he’d recorded for her had not given much detail—other than that he planned to leave Mi-isk in the morning. For some reason he’d been out of range ever since. But it had been enough to know he was heading here, to her. That he was on his way back. Still, it had been too long since she’d seen him and she couldn’t risk missing him again. Not now, when it felt like their relationship depended on a clear connection.
The morning passed slowly and Mara roamed the space, her body used to being out. Despite the wide window the room seemed confining. The sun was just angling downwards when the coffee table’s chirp registered an incoming call. She could barely see the glow in the sharp shards of light that slanted into the room.
Mara activated the display and Liam appeared.
“One second,” she said, transferring crumb-filled plates from an early lunch to a side table.
“What’s happening?” He cocked his head to the side, trying to get a better angle on her.
“I’m cleaning.”
“Now?”
“I’m almost done. There.” She sat on the couch. Liam looked back at her. “Hello.”
“Hello.”
His pale green eyes were even more subdued in the projection but his gaze was sharp as ever. Mara looked down, shifting on the stiff cushions. “When are you getting in—week end or—”
“Didn’t you get my message?”
“Yes, that you’d left Mi-isk weeks ago.”
The image flickered as Liam shook his head. “And then we had to go further out.”
Her palms pressed flat in her lap. “How much further? Where are you now?”
“The Rim.”
“The Rim.” She repeated the words, testing them, trying to make sense of them.
“There’s an incredible view of the Pebble Belt.” He twisted the camera around but Mara saw nothing, a blur of rocks in deep black space. Dust. More dust. “My dove, your face almost makes me regret this decision.”
“You were—you were to be here in two weeks—”
“It’ll be closer to three months now. To get back.”
Three months. Another three months.
Mara stood, pacing the floor between the couch and table. She tried to articulate the problem, but she couldn’t. The sphere on the hill winked at her in the noon light. “We were supposed to go to the Pearl—I’ve been waiting. I told you, didn’t I? The Dern won’t deal with me. If you were here they’d—”
“I’ll call in some favors. See what I can do—there’s no need for you to wait. There. Is that all? Mara? How can I fix it?”
But Mara had turned her back on the screen, her eyes filling with tears she would not let fall. “I’m fine,” she said, filling her lungs with air. Gulping it down, gasping for breath.
“It’s been hard for me too. Why don’t you show me what I’ve been missing?”
Three more months.
Mara swiped at her cheeks. “I’ve been in all day, waiting for your call.”
“And?”
“And I’ve got to—” Do something. She grabbed for her cloak, hanging on the back of the couch, and jabbed her arms into the sleeves. “Go out.”
“I was talking about taking clothes off.”
There was an edge to his voice that she ignored. “Cal—Private D’Aldiern thinks the city isn’t safe at night.”
“Private D’Aldiern sounds like he’s doing his job dutifully.”
It wasn’t a question, so Mara provided no answer.
“According to his reports,” Liam finished.
Of course Liam knew. Of course Calvy had reported her visits to his room. The good soldier that he was.
Mara forced herself still as Liam watched her closely for a reaction.
“I’ll be back when his contract ends,” Liam reassured her.
A tremble shook her hands. She hoped it wasn’t something the screen could pick up. That if it were visible, Liam thought it a glitch in the display. She needn’t have worried about him focusing on her too long. His eyes shifted off target for a moment and Mara pictured the stone in his hand, glowing red, another distraction. Accusations that would do her no good rose in her throat and she fought them back. She had to get him off the screen so she could calm down.
“I’ll let you go,” she said, shutting off the display as soon as he nodded.
Then she was pulling the door open. Some urgency compelling her forward. Setting her in flight.
She was in the elevator before she realized she was alone. No one had been outside her room and now she was heading out of her hotel for the first time without anyone shadowing her steps.
The elevator doors opened and Mara was free.
At least from that room. That conversation. And her chaperones.
Inside she still felt trapped. Suffocated by the feeling that had ignited in her hearing Liam’s news. The feeling she hated the moment the smoke of it expanded her lungs.
Three months, he’d said.
And it had cracked through her body like lightning, electrifying her. As unexpected as the man who’d caused it. Because the feeling that charged through her when Liam said he wasn’t on his way, the one that made her want to fight and flee, was relief.
