“Start distributing the rations and med kits,” Zahn said to the driver and the guard seated beside him. “Make sure the citizens follow us to the grounds.”
The guard nodded, then motioned for his soldiers to drop the silver boxes down to the citizens as he exited the carriage. One by one, the boxes fell, like angels descending to the needy. The citizens crowded around them like bugs, ripping and tearing at the contents inside.
“Greet them, Darai,” Nor commanded.
Her adviser opened the window and leaned his balding head out. “Come, Xen Pterrans!” Gasps rose from the now-massive crowd of onlookers. Darai’s voice was soft, but it carried like a wave. Faces covered in filth and grime angled toward the carriage in the sky. “Your queen will feed you. She will heal your afflictions, if you will only come and listen to her words.”
Below, the citizens trailed after them in hordes.
Darai leaned back into the hover and smiled at Nor, the bones in his cheeks standing out. The scars on his face had never faded, though his, unlike hers, had not come from the war. And yet he wore them with a survivor’s pride.
“Why feed them, my dear, when you know how low our resources are running? We have soldiers to feed, scientists to...”
“I do not wish to hear any more of your opinions on this matter,” Nor said. They’d been arguing about it for weeks. “This is your last warning, Uncle.”
Darai crossed his arms over his chest. “Someday, I will grow old, and I will be gone. Then you’ll miss my commentary, and my advice.”
Nor huffed out a breath.
Many times, Zahn had asked Nor about her short temper when it came to the old man. He’d raised her, protected her, and yet she was often so cold with Darai that he could have been an unwelcome stranger. But Nor knew Darai didn’t truly mind it.
He respected her coldness, her short temper, the way she spoke to him—because it made her stronger.
Darai believed that love was a weakness.
He never wished for her to show him her softer side. The few times she had growing up, he’d punished her for it. And so she gave him exactly what he desired. The cold queen, rather than the tormented, injured child she’d once been.
After several long minutes, Nor asked, “Do you remember that insipid little creature my father gave me as a gift on my seventh birthday?”
Darai nodded with a small smile. “The feathered Indriga. It followed you around the palace as if it were starved for attention. Your constant shadow.”
“It was loyal to me from the start,” Nor said. “And do you know why, Darai?”
His silence was answer enough.
“I fed it,” she explained. “Give a pet food, Darai, and it will do anything to stay by your side. Starve it or beat it, and it will begin to fear your very existence, only coming out of hiding in the moments when you have something to give and it to take.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
Nor closed her eyes and pinched the space between her brows, a headache brewing from the exposure to the polluted air outside her tower. Her uncle was growing dim in his old age. Lately, she had begun to outgrow him, seeking his guidance less and less. “The people of Xen Ptera are my responsibility now. But more than that, they are my soldiers, and I wish for them to follow me always. No matter how dark the path I choose to walk upon.”
“Wise words, my queen,” Darai said with a bow of his head. “A ruler is only as strong as her army. Your father used to say the very same thing.”
“His army was weak,” Zahn said, rejoining the conversation. He looked at Nor as if she were a goddess. “Hers will be the strongest this planet has ever seen.”
She took his words to heart and reminded herself to reward him later, in her private quarters. Together, they looked down upon the crowd of people still following below.
Nor slid the curtain closed as the hover moved on.
She knew her people were struggling to survive, but she couldn’t allow herself to think about their pain when there were bigger plans in the making. Her people were resilient, capable of surviving the very worst betrayals from the other cursed systems in Mirabel.
She had to fortify herself against the past in order to bring about the future. Today was the mark of a new start. Today, she would call her Xen Pterrans to arms.
When her plan came to fruition, they would cheer her name in these desolate streets, knowing they would soon be free.
*
Nor’s carriage slid to a stop at the base of a mountain of rubble. Years ago, a glistening, pristine black-and-red spired palace stood in its place. As she took in the sight of the destruction, memories flooded her senses.
Rubble crushing her arm. Blood dripping into the dust. Nor’s father beside her, his screams dying out as the weight of the palace stole his last breaths.
Somewhere in the sky, an explosion rocked the world.
A voice from the past called out to her, keeping her conscious.
“Nor, my sweet Nor. You were meant for so much more than this...”
“Are you ready, Nor?” Darai asked now, his voice pulling her back into the present as he motioned her toward the door. Outside the curtain, she could see her people—thousands of them crowding in to stand amid the wide expanse of debris.
This very place used to be the palace courtyard, so vibrant with life that on the sunnier days, her eyes had ached to look upon it. She remembered running through the gardens here. Laughing as her father chased her, the ever-blooming Nhatyla flowers changing colors with each season. They were the only flower that never died with the cold. In winter, when all else faded, they grew the brightest, a purple so deep it rivaled a nebula.
Such colors no longer existed on Xen Ptera. Nor’s personal guard, dressed in bold red uniforms, were scattered amid the crowd, the only bright shade aside from her gown. It reminded her of the blood that once pooled in these crumbling streets, the fires that burned after the bombs were dropped on thousands of innocents.
“Majesty?” Darai stood before her, holding out his veined hand. “It is time.”
She pulled the skirts of her gown away from her ankles and stepped out of the carriage under her own strength onto the slab of rock that would act as a stage while she addressed her people. A silver microphone stood ready to amplify her words.
Nor stopped before it. Her breath carried out across the crowd. Thousands of bodies were packed in around the ruins of the palace. Voices hummed throughout the crowd, pleading with her to feed them, clothe them. Mothers lifted their infants overhead, begging their queen for salvation.
There was a reason Nor rarely left her tower. Standing here, so close to the chaos and destruction, her silk shoes standing atop the bones of her past... A weaker woman would have bent and broken. Xen Ptera was her home, and the citizens were living, breathing pieces of the whole—and each of them was falling apart little by little.
Soon there would be no life left in this desolate place.
The screams got louder as she stood there, looking out at the throngs of people below. This was the future of Xen Ptera. This was her army.
Weak.