The closer they got to the coronation, the more Rhee had dared to defy her Tai, though it didn’t change the mixture of terror and respect she had for the woman. She bowed her head before Tai Reyanna could change her mind, essentially dismissing her. The ceremonial Kalu headdress that sat upon Rhee’s head shifted slightly, and she had to steady it with her hand. It had a colorful plume that gathered at the top of her head. She’d been forced to wear it, just like she’d been forced to change into a red dress embroidered with gold thread. The grit had been scrubbed from her tan arms, which now prickled with goose bumps.
Veyron and Rhee continued on after Tai Reyanna excused herself. It felt strange to be walking in silence—especially after the long procession of Tasinn and security sweeps. Whenever Rhee had complained about the escort, since the time she was a child, Tai Reyanna always replied with the same answer: “They’re for your protection.” And Rhee had always bit back the same answer: All the security in the galaxy didn’t protect my family.
At the end of the corridor, Veyron tapped a code into a silver keypad. Just as Rhee caught up to him, the door slid up with a quiet hiss and opened to a large room with floor-to-ceiling windows. Her ancestors were projected via holo onto the only solid wall in the room. Clustered along a small ledge were offerings—grain, fruit, myrah candies. Not her quarters, but a room of worship. She nodded to Veyron in respect and thanks. He’d been raised on Wraeta; honoring the ancestors was not part of his religion, but he knew that the practice always calmed her.
Rhee walked toward the windows, bowing before every ancestor and lighting incense as she passed, until she reached the portraits of her own family: her father, her mother, and Joss. If their bodies had been discovered, their cubes intact, she might have been willed certain memories they’d put aside. But even those had disappeared the day they died.
Through the glass, Kamreial fire rained against the darkness of space. In the distance, Rhee saw a pulsing orange light.
Kalu no longer seemed like a fixed point in the enormous sky, but a future she knew would be hers. Another chill ran over her arms. She’d be meeting with various dignitaries, and she’d been prepped by Tai Reyanna in the customs of every planet, until she could curtsy, bow, and sign in her sleep. But there was still much to learn.
She touched her neck instinctively to recall the well-worn memory of a family breakfast, startled to forget she’d powered off. On the cube, her memories weren’t arranged chronologically but by how often she’d revisited them—and this particular memory was always stacked at the top of her queue. But now, without the cube, Rhee had to search for this memory, closing her eyes and climbing down her memories as if feeling along the roots of a tree.
Her father at the head of the long table, teaching, always. “As empress, you must be fair, but decisive,” he’d said, smearing his toast with one stroke of butter, as if to demonstrate his point. He’d been talking to Josselyn, of course. Her older sister had known all her life that she would rule.
Funny. Without the cube, parts of the memory receded into the background while others rose to the surface. How Josselyn had fed a piece of meat to their hounds under the table, winking at Rhee as if they were in on a secret. While on her cube, she had never replayed the memory that far.
She opened her eyes just as a particularly dazzling display of flares burst across the sky. Orange marks clawed against the darkness and faded just as quickly. The silence made it feel like a sacred act. Or an omen.
She looked over at her trainer, who threaded his fingers behind his back. He faced the window, shoulders squared and chest out. Like the soldier he was. He’d barely said anything since they boarded.
“Are you angry with me?” she asked him.
“No,” Veyron said, though he wouldn’t meet her eye. “But they do things differently in the capital. Running away from your duties would not have been tolerated there.”
“They’ll think whatever they please.” Her habit of wearing pants, her martial arts training—it would all strike them as odd. But Rhee feared something worse than popular opinion. She feared that after all this time, all this preparation, she would freeze when the time came to avenge her family and kill Seotra.
But she could not allow Seotra to live. He’d masqueraded as her father’s friend, but it was Seotra who’d arranged for their departure and seen them off that very night. How many times had she replayed the memory of the fight she’d interrupted?
Half the beings in the galaxy will want you dead. Seotra’s bared teeth. The certainty, the hatred, in his voice. Surely this was why her father had gathered them in the darkness of night. Seotra made the Emperor believe they had to flee for their lives, and then he destroyed their craft.
“The Crown Princess has always been so obstinate,” Veyron said now.
Crown Princess. She scowled at her trainer. “You know I don’t go by that title.” It was Joss’s claim. She’d been next in line to inherit the throne, and only because of her death would Rhee be empress.
“I do.” He nodded again as he gazed back at the door behind them. The lights of the flares made red slashes across the side of his face. “But as we grow older, we must also accept the people we’ve become.”