He shrugged, giving me another crooked smile. “Oh, I don’t mind a lot of what I’ve had to learn, honestly. I just spend more time with tutors and trainers than I do my parents or siblings—to say nothing of my friends, such that they are, since no one outside my family is allowed too near me for very long. The sciences have been my escape, actually, simply because they have nothing to do with ruling.”
Loneliness was audible in his voice, a surprising amount, and my stomach rang hollowly in response. “If you royals have time for poetry, for ancestors’ sake, then your parents should spend some of that time with you.” They’re lucky enough to still have you, and you them, I wanted to say.
“My father is very…traditional,” Nev replied hesitantly, as if a lot was being said in the space of that one word. “He doesn’t really see me as his child anymore, like a common parent would. I’m the heir. I don’t really belong to him, but to our system.”
I frowned, trying to ignore the sting of common. “Royal or not, you’re still his son.”
Nev shook his head. “You don’t quite understand.”
“Because I’m common?” I asked, failing to keep the bite out of my voice now. “Explain it to me, then.”
He looked at me warily, as if he knew he was on thin ice. His jaw hardened, but not in anger—more in determination—and he nodded. “All right. When I was officially named heir at age eight, I had to undergo a trial known as my Rendering.” His lips twisted. “Its meaning is manyfold: it rendered me into an heir, my parents rendered me in service unto our people, and the burden of our people was rendered upon me.”
“Burden?” Something in the way he said it made it sound literal as well as figurative.
He paused, staring off into space as if seeing something else. “There was an audience. I had to stand in front of witnesses, including my parents, while my shoulders were weighted down with heavy sacks. I couldn’t cry or ask for help, and my parents had to watch without pity—proof they had given me up as their child for the greater good of our people.”
I blinked. “How long did you have to stand there?”
“All night,” Nev said quietly.
It was his closed expression that disturbed me more than anything. Like he was living it again, bearing such a load without faltering. “There’s no way a kid could stand like that for hours,” I insisted, as if I could somehow make it so this hadn’t happened to him. “Your muscles would have cramped; you would have fallen.”
He nodded. “Indeed. I did.”
“What happened when you did?” I almost didn’t want to know.
“I would be beaten with batons until I stood up again.”
My breath caught as if I’d dropped into icy water. These were royals, the people who thought they were better and more sophisticated than everyone else. It was the most barbaric tradition I’d ever heard of. “But you were eight!” I sputtered. “And your parents just watched?”
“Without lifting a hand to help me or comfort me,” Nev said. “I mean, they couldn’t, that was the point. But while I could tell my mother was trying not to cry, my father stared right at me the entire time without flinching. It was my duty, my rightful burden, in his eyes.”
“That’s the stupidest thing that’s ever glued on wings and tried to fly.” I couldn’t help the words—and that was the least of what I wanted to say. Picturing the boy version of Nev, trying to make his parents proud like I always tried, but with them right there, standing in front of him, cruel and unyielding in their judgment…it almost seemed better to not have parents.
Rather than get offended, Nev laughed. But the weight that had settled onto his shoulders with the story didn’t lift. “I know how it must sound to you, but it is my duty. I’ve been training all my life, never mind that I don’t have much of one, or even much opportunity to put my training to use. That’s what bothers me more than anything. I’m supposed to be everything for my people—shield, sword, link to our illustrious past—but so often a ruler just…sits. My parents are crafting me into the perfect instrument, which, upon completion, is put on a shelf.” He acted out the motion with tired arms. “Or, in this case, a throne.”
I changed the subject, bringing us back into safer territory. “So if you were doing all that, how in the name of the ancestors did you find the time to come dig around in the ice and dirt of Alaxak? We must be the farthest planet in the system from Luvos.”
“You are, by far.” Nev scrubbed a hand through his hair and then winced when it tugged on his split brow. “And how I managed it is a good question. Probably through some combination of my uncle’s support, family tradition, and pure obstinacy, on my part. I took advantage of something called my Flight—yes, another trial, the second after the Rendering, once the heir comes of age. It’s a solo undertaking for the purpose of advancing the family’s prestige. It could involve anything from discovering an old ruin or a lost bit of history in some dusty archive to besting infamous pirates like my father did.”
At least this Dracorte family tradition sounded better than beating a child in front of an audience. “And you chose Alaxak.” I snorted, half on purpose to get the look that I got from him—that spark of light, the sharpness, instead of the dull heaviness in his eyes whenever he mentioned his father. “You must not have checked the weather report before scheduling your trip.”
Nev maintained his wry look. “I wasn’t coming for the weather. I needed to do something, something real, without trainers, instructors, bodyguards, or even my family hovering over me. My uncle’s research has always fascinated me, especially once I realized how much it could benefit us. He supported my bid to come here, since I was one of the few he could trust wouldn’t leak our plan to another family. My father wanted to send someone more experienced, in spite of that risk.” He rested his forearms on his thighs and leaned toward me. “But I found you. You, your crew, this ship…this has been more real than I ever could have imagined.”
Now the light in his eyes was so…earnest. It was almost like all this, somehow, was what he would want to be doing more than anything else.
I was surprised by how good it felt, to have him think of my life as worthwhile, and maybe not just because of any Shadow affinity, but because he saw me.
He didn’t look away. “We can help each other, Qole, trust me. This isn’t just about my family. I want your planet to thrive as well as ours. I want Arjan to stop being afraid. I want him, Telu, and you to live beyond twenty-five. I want you to have whatever it is you want when you close your eyes and let yourself dream. I want this as much as I’ve ever wanted anything for myself.”
There was no stopping the sting in my eyes this time. My hope for all that was so tentative and desperate I didn’t want to acknowledge it for fear of losing it.
Trust him. “I don’t think I could actually put you out an airlock,” I blurted. Ancestors, so much for social graces. I stumbled on, anyway. “I only thought about it for a second before you pulled that plasma X-Force-Thing on me, but I don’t think I could have done it. I’m sorry that Eton and Arjan actually tried.”