Queen of Dust, page 7
But where did he get that nose? Whose black eyes had he inherited?
His father had given an order once. To kill the Balticourts. And what was Calvy? The kind of soldier who’d follow it.
“Mara, can—”
Mara let go of the door and it fell shut.
She sat on the couch, still in her cloak, and looked out the windows. Her first night in Balti left her feeling lonelier than she’d felt since she was a little girl. The city was changed. The people were gone.
What had she thought she would find here?
Chapter Eight
Mara did her best not to see Calvy after that. When he split the extra-long day into shifts and assigned himself the stretch of night when she was asleep, she figured the separation was mutually agreed upon. Harper (the better alternative, she realized now) or Dannos was waiting outside her door during the long bloom of daylight hours. They accompanied her whenever she left the hotel, which was just about whenever she wasn’t sleeping. After two weeks of walking the city’s streets she’d become familiar with the geography, if not the people. If not herself.
Her favorite part of the city was west of the Ring, where the moonclan had settled in the tight buildings that covered the hill leading down to the docks. They must have been like her. Obsessed with the water, wanting to be near it. The way it changed from day to day, a kaleidoscope of colors and moods. She could stare out at it for hours. She did.
The sky was equally captivating. And equally changing. Some days it was open and bright, warm enough that she could stand and bake her arms in the sun, while others she had to wrap her cloak securely around her shoulders against the grey cold. She loved to see the shoregulls swooping through the limitless vault above the black sand beach. And it delighted her to catch sight of the ospreys further out, diving into the water after their prey. One day she and Harper were enthralled watching the blue-grey birds take down a drone that had whizzed by on its way out to a drilling rig.
“Not one of ours,” Harper said.
“How do you know?”
“Ours don’t go down. The birds are drawn to electromagnetism.” That Mara knew, thanks to Rozz and her version of the Pry Balticourt story. “Mr. Pent had ours outfitted with blockers, they emit a repeller signal.”
“Liam won’t tell the army about the tech?”
“Not until they’re willing to pay for it.”
A rare smile covered Harper’s face and Mara shared it internally. They both liked to see the Pent Corporation triumph over the Dern.
Another day the tide was out, the black sand stretched before Mara, studded with green and grey. She watched a woman walk out on the glossy beach, her reflection pausing over the deep puddles that pocked the surface. Mara had been hesitant to get too close to the water—it seemed too willful, the depths too unknowable. But today the edge of it was so far and she was curious enough to follow.
The woman noticed her and beckoned her over. That was the way it was with the people on Balti. They saw her hair and either pulled her in or pushed her away. It was the older people who opened up to her more often. They would look at her and it was like they saw so much more. They saw what she wanted to see: Balti as it had been. She’d get that look from the younger set too, but it was often tinged with skepticism. Like they didn’t believe what they were seeing was real. Like they didn’t believe she belonged here anymore.
The woman pulled a rock from the pool. Not a rock, Mara realized, as the woman used a stubby knife to pry the thing open. A shell.
“Oesters,” the woman said, offering the bottom half to Mara like a bowl. “The thing I missed most up there.” She nodded to the moons above them, the ones they couldn’t see, but knew were circling. “Did you miss them too?”
“I never had one,” Mara admitted. “You drink it?”
The woman smiled and nodded. The shell was rough against Mara’s lip and tasted of the ocean. The oester itself was cold and slippery, sending a shiver of bliss down her spine.
“Small pleasures,” the woman said as she continued to the next pool, to fill the net that hung on her arm.
“May there be many,” Mara replied, the automatic response coming from deep inside her.
There were a few encounters like that. People would notice her. But limit their interactions. She remained separate from them as she gathered information, searching for her place among them.
She longed for a deeper connection. But she had no one but Dannos to lament to, staring at a row of vacant buildings, paint peeling off the wall in great colorful flakes, revealing the rough sand plaster beneath. “Those damn Dern spend all their time on street posts. But what about these walls?”
Dannos shrugged. “What’s the use? Unless the buildings require weatherproofing—what does it matter how they look?”
“You’re as bad as—” Mara stopped herself before she said his name.
Another afternoon she’d stumbled into the preparations for a gathering. A table set in the street ran the length of the block. Was it the full moons already? It had to be. Full moons were celebrated on Balti. The moonclan would dine under them tonight, after they were done in the factory. She imagined them here, sharing stories, passing plates. The laughter, the flicker of candles. She almost went back that night—to see it in action. To see it for real. But she didn’t go.
It wasn’t her place.
Instead she stood by her window, staring at the twin orbs. They were impossibly round, impossibly bright. She’d never known the moons would glow like that. She thought for a moment that she must be dreaming, that she was back on the ship, and hadn’t yet made it to Balti. Who had she been the last time she’d stared up at these moons?
Every passing day, it became harder for Mara to ignore the knot that pulled tighter inside of her. She needed to loosen it. And the small pleasures weren’t enough. The relief of stable ground was short-lived. The thrill of fresh food did not last. At first she slept too hard to be bothered, her body unused to the exertion, the way sunlight and wind drained and energized her at the same time. But as the weeks wore on, as her days of exploration, of searching, came up empty again and again, her mind grew restless. And so did her body.
That afternoon, in an attempt to settle herself through exhaustion, she’d walked from the stacked shipping container barracks the Dern built across the canal at the city’s northern edge, through the Ring, down to the empty mansions at the foot of the Pearl’s grounds. Those wide streets were almost entirely deserted, except for the Dern crews working diligently to post signs on the larger corners. She was forced to stop before she reached the southernmost point of the continent. A series of fence posts connected by crackling red lasers had been built around the grounds. The Pearl remained distant, untouchable behind them.
Now, weary but wired, Mara stood at her window, looking south to the Pearl on the hill. Built in the shape of a sphere, it was round and pale and grand. A natural jewel where the royal family had lived, where the people of Balti had been invited to gather. So far, she’d had no response to her request for a tour from Dern officials. When Liam got here—in just a couple more weeks—she was sure he’d get them in right away.
She could wait. He was almost there. She could wait.
She hated waiting.
Mara sighed, turning away from the window and searching for a tin of water. Kneeling in front of the refrigeration unit under the table behind the couch, she was low enough to catch the conversation that stole under her door from the hall.
“I’m thinking of asking Cap for the night shift. Not sure how much more wandering I can take,” Dannos was saying.
“Just do your job,” Harper shot back. It was that easy for her.
“You’re right, he’s suffered enough.”
“That’s not what I said. Stay sharp, I’m going out.”
“Where?”
“Some of us serve Mr. Pent’s more lucrative interests.”
Wandering. That’s what it seemed like to them. Mara wasn’t wandering. She was hunting. She wanted to find a clue, something, anything she remembered. A door or a park or a smell that would jar something loose in her mind. Make this place feel like home.
She’d walk every inch of the city until she found it.
The knot inside her looped and tightened.
What if she didn’t? What if no matter how long or where she looked, she never found out where she came from? In a way it had been easy to claim her Balti heritage on Støsh—she looked the part, she’d learned from Jimma. But here, she felt like an imposter, because she couldn’t say for certain where she’d begun. Her chosen abstinence made the disconnect worse—it wasn’t the Balti way to resist temptation, but to indulge.
Life was giving her another dose of citrin, and it was honey she needed to distract her, to provide a reprieve from the bitter rind she’d been chewing since she arrived on Balti.
And she planned to get it tonight. Just as soon as Liam screened in. He’d made it to Theos, and finally had a stable enough connection for a video call, not the short texts she’d been receiving. With any luck he’d find everything to his liking, sign his name with an impatient flourish, and be back on his way to her in a few days. But until then: Mara had plans for the call. Her hands slipped down her sides, the navy satin that barely reached the tops of her thighs rippling like the ocean under moonlight.
The mirrored surface of the coffee table began to glow and the speakers chirped to announce an incoming call. Mara nearly tripped over the armchair between her and the table as she jumped to tap the display on.
And then he was there, projected in front of her. He was as real as a mirage in the desert and Mara could feel thirst spread through her at the sight of him.
“Ms. Leanor.”
“Mr. Pent.” She breathed his name, her heart beating double time.
“Fine evening.”
“The moons rise well,” she agreed.
His mouth opened in a hungry smile and he leaned forward, as if the urge to touch her made him forget the screen. “I think it’s the sun that has done you a service.”
Mara skimmed a hand up her tanned arm. “Dannos says I’m so bronzed I could be painted.”
“He’s wrong—it’s unmistakably natural on you. You’re stunning.”
They stared at each other for a long moment and Mara felt her cheeks heat with longing.
“Oh, my dove—you need something.”
“I do. You.”
“You’ve not made use of the private, then? Your on-Balti Tempter.”
“That’s not a thing. A Tempter. Men are too selfish in their pleasures, too quick to release. There’s not enough to admire.”
“That’s quite a stance—even in your black-and-white world. But you are a Temptress.”
“Meaning?”
“You’re a zealot, Mara. An extremist. You and the Dern you oppose, both abiding your binary doctrines. There’s a topic you and D’Aldiern might discuss.” He straightened a thoughtful finger against his lips, then directed the point at her. “You’re more alike than you’d ever admit.”
She sat back. She did well enough avoiding Calvy, she didn’t want Liam bringing him up. “We don’t talk. I hardly see him. I wish you were here. I thought we might pretend you were.”
“It’s too bad you don’t have one of these,” he said, tilting the stone between his fingers. “A damsel in town showed me a way to link them while we fucked—it was like being one mind.”
It had been a few weeks. She knew how Liam was—of course he’d already needed someone—for him that was a woman. For her, it was someone who wasn’t Calvy D’Aldiern—and that’s what she’d get from this call: someone who’d proven he could ease the ache that twisted inside her.
So she shrugged. “We’ve never needed gimmicks.”
“No, we haven’t.” She let her knees drift apart and he rolled the stone in his hand. “But it would help us close the distance.”
Mara huffed out a sigh. “I can’t. You know that. Jimma said the Balti kept their bodies free of all tech. No chips, no regulators—”
“Nothing that can interfere with the natural rhythms of the body. I remember. My dedicated Temptress.”
“You don’t seem to mind my dedication to certain other practices.”
“I mind nothing that benefits me. And I am the only one who benefits from that skill of yours?”
Irritation crept into her voice. “I already told you—I haven’t even seen him. I’m waiting for you.”
Liam didn’t respond. He’d become distracted by the glowing device.
“Can you put that away?”
“No. I’m waiting for a message from Mi-isk.”
“I thought your contract was with Theos?”
“It’s not a contract until I sign, my dove, it’s an offer. And if a better offer comes my way before the thumbprint is on the screen, what sort of businessman would I be to ignore it?”
“But you said Theos-made weapons sell at a higher markup.”
“They also cost more to make—this planet is too proud, too slow. Production here takes too much time.” He tapped the stone to his mouth and looked at her. “How’s Balti—everything you hoped?”
“It’s... I don’t know—I’m—” Mara drifted from answer to answer, her hands twisting in her lap. She wanted to tell him, wanted to open up about her doubts, but she couldn’t get the words out.
Liam wasn’t listening anyway. In a burst of energy he fisted his stone, holding it up in triumph as it glowed red for an incoming message.
“I almost don’t want to ask what that was.”
“I got a better offer.”
“What does that mean, Liam?”
“We’re off to Mi-isk, to make sure this goes through.”
“That’s another three weeks, just to get there!”
“And then however long it takes to ensure our interests.”
“And then five weeks to get back? That’s months, Liam.”
He blinked. “What would you have me do, Mara? Business is—this is necessary.”
“I know, but I’m—”
But his eyes weren’t focused on her, his mouth was moving, already replying to the message, making plans.
“Mara—I’ve got to cut this short. Need to get out of Theos before they hear I’m in bed with Mi-isk. Don’t pout—you know I’d rather be in bed with you. You look like you’re going to burst—take my advice, don’t wait. More soon.”
And then the projection cut out. The coffee table’s mirrored surface went still. The silence rang in her ears.
More soon. He’d be gone for months. She needed more now.
If only he cared about her needs as much as he cared about his—
But Mara couldn’t finish that thought. Because Liam did care about her needs. He’d seen this coming, planned for it, as he did for all things. Liam was a smart man. A thoughtful man. He knew her—knew what she needed and he’d tried to provide.
He’d arranged for a substitute.
If only it weren’t Calvy D’Aldiern.
Mara put her feet up on the table and sank low in her chair.
Why did it have to be him?
What options did she have? Even if she managed to sneak out of the hotel, it would be a betrayal to Liam—it would be reckless for her—to try to find someone else on this planet where she knew no one.
Mara’s foot tapped as she thought it through. Liam had given her parameters: that anything that happened was to be for her benefit, not Calvy’s. That box was easy to check—she knew she’d benefit from a release. And she knew—it would be so much easier if she didn’t know—that Calvy could provide it.
But the other rule was harder: that she had to initiate it. They weren’t exactly on the best terms. Still, it was his job. If she told Liam he refused, Liam would deal with him. But she knew Calvy wouldn’t refuse. He’d said as much on the shuttle down to Balti. He endeavored to please.
She didn’t have to do anything for him. She could take what she needed and run.
Mara shifted her hips in the chair. Restless.
She needed to feel like herself. She needed to feel like a Balti.
Use him. That’s what Liam said. Think about me.
That’s what she’d do.
That’s what she had to do.
Chapter Nine
“Where’s Calv—where’s Private D’Aldiern?” Mara asked Dannos when she opened the door to the hall.
One of his eyes narrowed as the other went wide, expressing his confusion. “The captain?”
“He’s been demoted, has he not?”
“I heard the story from some gents stationed with a gal from his squadron. He’s the captain—no matter what the bastards above have to say about it.”
“What sto—no, never mind. Do you know where he is?”
“Sleeping, miss. If you’d like to—”
“Down the hall?”
“Miss? He’ll be on in an hour—it can’t wait? I’m to see to you until then.”
No. She couldn’t wait.
“I’ll need the key.” She held out her hand. “The captain will understand.”
The room shared by her security team was smaller than the living area of Mara’s suite—three long beds lined against a wall. Two of them empty. One pillow on each. Even the blankets seemed thinner than hers. It was just down the hall from her but she felt as though she’d left the hotel and had arrived at a military barrack.
Calvy lay in the bed furthest from the window, closest to the door. He slept on his stomach, his arms bent above his head, which was buried under just enough pillow to cover his eyes, block the sunlight while he slept. Mara felt like an intruder, catching him disarmed, unaware.
The thinning dusk cast the room in a half-light as she made her way to the bed. Since the moment she’d decided to do this her body had come alive. The memory of their first encounter primed her desire, excitement coiling in her muscles. She longed for pleasure and she was here to claim it.
