At first, Nev stood off to the side, but then Telu seized his wrist and yanked him between the two of us. We both stiffened for a second, but then his silver gaze locked onto mine again, and both of his arms enveloped me, and behind me, Arjan. In the tangle of limbs, Nev’s hip pressed against mine, and one of his hands found the small of my back. I closed my eyes as everyone whooped and jostled, and let their euphoria wash over me. My family. And Nev.
I’d sworn I’d never touch him again, but, well, that was before we’d all almost been, in his wry words, captured, tortured, and maybe explosively dismembered.
Another laugh flew out of me, and I tossed an arm around his shoulder, the other still around Arjan.
This. This was what I would do anything to protect. This was why I was risking everything to go to Dracorva. And if the man standing next to me, a certain Nevarian Dracorte, had something to do with it, in more ways than one…so be it.
Several days of smooth, faster-than-light flying later, the Belarius Drive deactivated itself at the coordinates Nev had supplied, and I got my first view of Luvos. It took my breath away. Bright greens and blues twined the surface of the planet—sparkling oceans and lush landmasses—and even from here I could see the lines of white and gray, fractaling out like frost in discernible but complex patterns.
“Cities,” Nev said next to me, his eyes alight with the excitement of being home. Unfathomably massive cities, he meant, but ones that looked incredibly organized and beautiful even from space. He pointed. “There’s Dracorva…”
And then we saw the line of destroyers. They took my breath away too, if not in the same way. It didn’t help that they were all of Treznor make. The Dracortes couldn’t help it, I supposed, since they were resource barons, not war-machine-manufacturing barons. Treznor made the best, and of course the Dracortes would have the best.
It still wasn’t a pleasant sight.
“Quite the welcome wagon,” Telu said, sounding nervous. I couldn’t blame her. “I knew they’d be expecting us, Nev, but what exactly did you tell them?”
Nev had commed home and let them know he would be arriving with me on the Kaitan, isolating himself for a couple of hours to talk to his father and uncle. I was amazed the ship’s QUIN still functioned—I hadn’t exactly been talking to anyone across the system recently, and I doubted my father ever had. It was eerie to hear the smooth voice of the AI program help direct Nev’s comm, or maybe it was just strange to know a vessel so well and to have never heard it speak. Nev hadn’t used it before because he said he’d needed to keep a low profile—hah—and to do all this on his own because of the Dracorte Flight thing, which sounded absurd…though, as a Shadow fishing captain, I wasn’t one to scoff at crazy family traditions.
I nonetheless hadn’t been able to resist raising an eyebrow. “So, let me get this straight. I’m like some prize you’re bringing back to your family to prove your manhood?”
It was my first time seeing Nev blush. Then he’d lapsed into “formal” speak. “Not at all. Forming diplomatic relations with you as a representative of your planet and hopefully advancing our ability to use Shadow is the accomplishment with which I will present my family and complete my Flight. And it’s not about manhood—I’m already of age, for systems’ sake—but about becoming a functioning member of the family and proving I’m ready to…um, inherit.”
“Well, whatever,” I’d said, not wanting to interrogate him further if it was an awkward topic. “It still would have been nice to have some of your family’s destroyers helping us out.”
I hadn’t been sure of that even as I’d said it—how in the systems could I want more destroyers in my life?—and I was definitely reconsidering now. Maybe it would have been better if he hadn’t alerted his family ahead of time…if we had just slipped in instead.
Because now the destroyers were hovering around us, flanking us in a flight pattern that I couldn’t help but read as threatening rather than protective.
Nev seemed to agree, because he pushed the inter-ship comm button without asking my permission. “This is Prince Nevarian Thelarus Axandar Rubion Dracorte.” I blinked at his full name, at the raw power in his voice. I imagined we all did, even though I couldn’t see everyone, especially not over in the destroyers. “That isn’t an offensive formation I’m detecting, is it? Because I find offensive formations rather…offensive.”
A cool but slightly strained female voice came back. “No, my prince. This is on my king’s orders. We were to first confirm your biometric signal, which we have, and now we’re to escort the Kaitan Heritage directly to a holding bay in Containment Block Three—”
Nev’s eyes narrowed. “Did my father say I couldn’t countermand his order with a direct one of my own?”
“No, my prince.”
“Then take us directly to my family’s private docking bay in the citadel. Immediately.” His tone left no room for argument whatsoever.
The woman didn’t argue.
The destroyers still escorted us through Luvos’s atmosphere as if we had no choice in the matter. Not even a closer view of the planet’s intriguing surface could shake my uneasiness. In fact, it increased it. My hand clenched the controls in a fist. What were we doing here? Nev belonged here, of course, but not me.
Nev touched my shoulder, and I almost jumped. “It will be all right, I promise. Nothing bad is going to happen to you here. You’re safe.”
His voice was reassuring, but even his words put me less at ease. It was for an absurd reason, but part of me still thought he shouldn’t have had to repeat himself so much. I swallowed and refocused on flying, tailing a lead starfighter to our destination.
Dracorva itself, though, rising out of a green, forested plain, did take my mind off just about everything else for a moment. I’d never seen a city so beautiful.
White spires stretched into the blue beyond like a forest of pale winter trees, or endless inverted icicles. And then I got closer and realized I didn’t really have the means to describe them. The towers weren’t natural or haphazard. Intricate patterns carved and decorated their entire lengths, and elegant skyways arched between them. Like lace, came the thought, though I’d seen the material only a few times outside of an infopad. Even the glittering river that ran through the towers was too symmetrical, with bridges cascading over its width. Or maybe there was something in nature so beautiful: a snowflake perched on the tip of my finger before it melted, standing like a miniature palace of ice. But this city wasn’t nearly so impermanent or, of course, miniature. From this altitude, the white swept as far as my eye could see, and it looked as if it had stood, and would stand, forever.
So this was the capital city of the people who had hollowed out my planet? For a split second, I wouldn’t have minded watching it all burn.