The Reforged Trilogy: Book 1 — Crucible of Stars
Chapter 6
Smoke & Flame
“You can lift a gun, but I can lift a heart. So I ask you: which of us has the greater gift?”
– Yinaal Devra, Hyzaari singer (780 MA)
Even with the invention of superluminal engines and their ancillary null-inertia fields, it took months for a starship to reach the rim worlds, stellar systems that lay on the outermost edge of the galaxy. When the CWA arrived on the rim, they were shaken by what they found there. Most planets on the galactic fringe were barren, but not all. Before the Alliance decided that rimworld exploration was financially unsustainable, their pioneers discovered three kingdoms in the outer reaches.
First were the Jinn, a strange tree-like species with long lifespans and not much interest in contact with the Alliance. Next, the CWA encountered the great star-hive of the Nnyth, called The Tower by its inhabitants as best Alliance linguists could guess. But the vacuum wasps quickly chased off all exploration vessels.
After two such expensive and unproductive encounters, the Central World Alliance approached the third rimworld civilization with caution and distrust — the White Kingdom of Arcadia. The fairies were more human in appearance than the Jinn or Nnyth, but their worlds were still so… alien. While the CWA built massive starscrapers of fibersteel and tough ceramic, the fairies made their cities out of glass. Not the thick tempered stuff that gave Axis its mirror shine, but delicate crystal in brilliant colors. Alliance scientists discovered a high and well-organized carbon content in Arcadian glass, similar in structure to carbon fiber or diamond.
But far more shocking than the fairies’ glass cities was their knowledge of both the Jinn and Nnyth worlds. The Arcadians were natural fliers and had never developed any kind of aerial transportation, which included a total ignorance of space travel. Instead, they journeyed to other planets through the use of constructs they called Waygates, which allowed the White Kingdom to span every world of their stellar system and trade with the other rimworld kingdoms. Exactly how these gates functioned could only be understood as ‘magical’ by the Alliance explorers, like so many facets of rimworld existence.
A deep and mutual distrust quickly developed between the Alliance and the White Kingdom. Each was utterly alien and suspect to the other. The fairies were not invited to join the CWA or to trade with their outposts. A handful of Union of Light missionaries ventured out in an attempt to win the polytheistic aliens over to worship of the One God, but found no converts.
Twenty years later, the already unfriendly relationship between the Central World Alliance and the fairies fell apart entirely when the White Kingdom suddenly and mysteriously collapsed. Two million refugees — many wounded or dying — appeared without warning across the five human homeworlds of the Alliance. The fairies were greeted with almost universal hostility. There was no room in the CWA for two million Arcadian refugees.
And in the century that followed, sentiments changed very little.
Orthain Fyre stood in front of Maeve’s tent. He wore his golden hair unbound to frame his beautiful face. The fine plates of his glass armor shone in the bright sun with the edges picked out in delicate scrollwork of red and violet, the colors of his house. Light silk wrappings were visible through the glass of his armor, wound close around his long, lean body. Orthain was tall for an Arcadian — nearly the height of a coreworld human — and could boast an impressive wingspan twice as long as he was tall.
Not that Orthain would ever boast. Not Sir Orthain Fyre, the perfect knight, humble and handsome. Maeve’s heart beat fast at the sight of her teacher. How long had she been his squire? Forever, it seemed sometimes.
“Your time has come, Highness,” Orthain said. He gestured up toward the sun. “Aes has reached the pinnacle of her dance and Anslin waits to hear your vows.”
Maeve rose from her kneel and almost fell down again as her legs shook. Orthain laughed and offered his hand. He wrapped strong fingers around Maeve’s and led her out from the red and gold striped tent. The audience stands bloomed with snapping pennons of every hue, dancing banners of color in a bed of thousands of white Arcadian wings. In the lower working-class rows, Maeve caught sight of nyad blues and dryad browns and green. The assembled crowd sang out their approval, thundering voices shaking the very air as Maeve appeared.
Orthain grinned at her and hummed softly. “Courage, Highness.”
One of Maeve’s handmaidens, a pretty young nyad girl with pearls braided into her long blue hair for the occasion, scattered rose petals and flakes of beaten gold on the grass before the princess’ feet. Orthain guided Maeve across the field to a dais covered in flowers.
The king and queen of the White Kingdom sat in their birchwood thrones on top, worn smooth and polished by millennia of hands. They wore flowing silks of House Cavainna red and gold and smiled down at Maeve. Her mother, Princess Beltain, stood beside her brother’s throne and pushed back the black curls of her hair. Even baby Caith squealed in Beltain’s arms and waved his tiny fists at Maeve.
On King Illain’s other side, Crown Princess Titania — Maeve’s cousin — lifted her wings and silence fell across the field.
“Who stands for Maeve Cavainna, child of Princess Beltain and Sir Arlinn?” the king asked.
Orthain bowed until his white wingtips brushed the grass. “I am Sir Orthain Fyre and I stand for my squire. By the stone of Erris All-Singer, Maeve has proved herself to be of strong spirit. By the fire of Aes Cloud-Dancer, she has proved herself a fierce warrior. By the wind of Anslin Sky-Knight, she has proved herself to be fair and just.”
Maeve drew herself up proudly. For fifty years, she had dreamed of this moment, toiling and training as Orthain’s squire and student. Her father, Sir Arlinn, stepped forward on the dais, carrying a long spear with a glittering glass blade. His eyes shone with tears and he beamed down at his daughter.
King Illain rose and took his own spear from where it stood beside his throne. He thrust the blade out toward Maeve, who knelt to receive his blessing. She waited, but didn’t feel the cool glass against her shoulder. Something was wrong.
No. It did not happen like this…
Maeve looked up from the grass and stared at her uncle, her king. His eyes rolled back, leaving white crescents, and blood ran from the corners of his mouth. The spear in his hand had turned a sickly gray and twisted this way and that like an angry snake.
Please, no! Leave me this. Do not take this memory from me.
Dark clouds filled the sky, turning the sun into a flat iron-colored coin. Muttering from the assembled fairies rose to a terrible wail, and then terrified screams. The grass was red with blood. The birchwood thrones were in flames and their black smoke was a spreading, choking cloud.
Maeve lurched and beat her wings, trying to fly away from the carnage, but Orthain was suddenly holding her hand again and didn’t let go.
“Courage, Highness,” he said.
Smoke swirled around Orthain and he closed his eyes, waiting to die.
The chirp of the ship’s com woke Maeve. She jerked upright in her bed, kicking. The sheets were a sweaty tangle around her ankles, leaving the rest of her bare body uncovered and shivering.
The Blue Phoenix was two days out from Axis’ bright sun. With the ship presumed destroyed by their star, the Axis control officers had quickly stopped searching for the missing ship. Cautiously, Tiberius flew the Blue Phoenix to the edge of the system, waiting until their next move was decided well outside the deadly heat and radiation of the sun.
Maeve shoved messy black hair back out of her eyes and stood. She groaned as her wings cramped, stiffened by the narrow confines of the bed. Crumpled paper wrappers and plastic narcohol bottles littered the floor and rolled under her feet as Maeve made her way to the beeping communications console. Still naked, she opened the channel.
The screen lit up, displaying Xia’s smiling silver face. Behind her, the rest of the crew was gathering around a table in the mess and chattering over breakfast. Xia took in Maeve’s state of undress and tactfully placed herself between the table and the video feed.
“Good morning, Maeve,” Xia said. She gestured back with a six-fingered hand to the pile of pancakes on the table. “I made breakfast, if you’d like to join us. Hurry, before the others eat it all.”
Xia closed the channel with a conspiratorial wink, her jeweled eyes whirling a mischievous sky blue. Maeve grimaced at the darkened screen. Xia was a kind woman who treated everyone like a treasured friend. Even those who didn’t deserve it.
A used needle rolled under Maeve’s foot as she dug through the filth for something to wear. It spun away and came to rest against the spear propped up in one corner of the room. The spear Maeve had seen in her dream, with a haft of smooth-polished birch and a glass blade colored by delicate swirls of red and gold. There were dozens of ribbons tied along the spear’s handle, each of them a prize from some tourney or competition and boasting rights for the knight that carried it.
The ribbons were frayed now and there was no one left to recognize them. The knights of the White Kingdom had all died defending it. All except Maeve.
She found a pair of denims with only one torn knee and put them on. Maeve fished around for a shirt and untangled a red scarf from an empty narcohol bottle. She pulled it free and ran the fabric between her fingers. The ends were embroidered with graceful golden loops and circles. It had been a gift from her father so many years ago, when a younger Maeve flew away to serve her first post as a full-fledged knight of Arcadia.
But Sir Arlinn was dead now, along with the rest of her family. Caith had been too gentle and clumsy to follow Maeve into the knighthood, but he was one of the first to die when the White Kingdom fell. Orthain survived a little longer, but Maeve wasn’t there beside him when he died. She was already gone when they killed Orthain, flying as fast as her wings would carry her.
Maeve seethed with the familiar molten heat of hatred. She screamed in fury and smashed her fist into the nearest bulkhead as hard as she could. Everything beautiful in the universe was dead, leaving Maeve behind and alone.
But she lived. So, for the moment, did Kessa and Coldhand. How could the bounty hunter let himself be captured so easily? For days now, Coldhand merely sat in the room that served as his cell while the Blue Phoenix waited outside the Axis system. When Maeve brought him aboard, she assumed that Coldhand had only accompanied her as part of some clever ploy to finally take down his mark. When would he do something?
Maeve looked down at the scarf still in her hands. Her knuckles were bleeding and left smears of darker red on the fabric. Maeve wound the scarf around her chest and tied it off just beneath her wings. Good enough.
When she was dressed, Maeve made her way down the narrow corridors of the Blue Phoenix to the mess. It doubled as a kitchen, with a stove, oven and counter along one wall. The rest of the crew was gathered around the table. They laughed as Gripper — who took up an entire side of the table — folded three pancakes in his claws and devoured them in a single bite. Xia pulled a few from the pile in the center, covered them in sweet amber mantle syrup and then handed the plate to Kessa, who was eating almost as ravenously as the Arboran. Maeve ignored Gripper’s invitation to sit.
“What about Logan?” she asked. “Has anyone fed him?”
“I’m not walking into a room with that man unless I have to,” Xia answered with a shudder. “Did you see that hand?”
“Coldhand isn’t going to starve to death,” Tiberius said. “But no, he hasn’t been fed yet today. You can take care of that, princess. After we talk.”
Duaal nodded. “We need to figure out where to go next. The Sisterhood is widespread, but we didn’t get much else out of Coldhand. So where can we take Kessa that she’ll be safe?”
“And how do we find Vyron?” Xia asked. “Kessa doesn’t know where he went. Is he still on Axis? We’re not exactly popular with the Axis police right now, so going back to look for him isn’t really an option.”
“They believe us dead,” Maeve said.
“True,” Xia agreed. “But I don’t know that we want to rely on that so soon after our disappearance. Our registry is still flagged in the Axis system, I’m certain.”
Kessa sighed and wiped syrup from her mouth. Gripper patted her shoulder, almost knocking the young woman face-down into her breakfast.
“We’ll find him somehow,” he promised. “I’d love to leave some kind of message, but we’re way out of range of the Axis mainstream now.”
“One problem at a time,” Tiberius said. “We didn’t have the chance to finish refueling and restocking on Axis before we took off. This bird can’t fly forever. We’ve wasted several days waiting for Coldhand to talk, but that man’s lips are sealed tighter than an Axial’s wallet. We’ll have to get Vyron later. Somehow.”
Kessa looked as if she were about to object, unwilling to leave the world where her mate might still be hiding. But the Dailon laid her hands against her belly and nodded. There were new burdens in her life now, but burdens coupled with blessings.
The sun was brilliant in the sky, as though Aes Cloud-Dancer herself was celebrating. Orthain grinned at the news, too. He leaned on his spear, silk wrapped around the blade so that he could practice safely with his young squire.
“And now you have a little brother,” he said. “I suppose I should release you from today’s lessons.”
“The gods have been kind,” Maeve answered. “But I… I will remain if that is your wish, my teacher.”
Orthain laughed and there was a bright twinkle in the older knight’s eyes that made Maeve’s wings go weak.
“The All-Singer must have gifted your father with a mighty spear indeed,” he said, “to have granted your mother so many children.”
The young princess blushed furiously. “You should not say such things! My father is your ranking officer, Sir Fyre.”
“Of course, Highness,” said Orthain. He covered his broad, handsome grin with a deep bow. “Now is no time for crude jokes. Go, Maeve. Go meet your new brother. We will resume your training later.”
Maeve stammered out her thanks and launched herself into the air. Orthain watched the princess soar up into the cloud-dappled blue sky with a smile. She looked down and thought she saw his lips moving. Maeve knew that song.
“Two hundred eighty-eight days of light…”
“What about Stray? It’s only about a week away,” Xia suggested. “We have to go there for some new phenno, anyway.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Gripper said. “Stray is on the edge of Alliance space and pretty close to the rim. Even if Blue’s Sisterhood sent word that she’s run off, that message isn’t getting all the way out to Stray for a while.”
“But Stray is a cesspool,” Maeve protested. “That is no place for Kessa to raise a family.”
“Anything’s better than going back to Axis,” Kessa said. “I can go to Stray.”
Tiberius nodded. “Fine then. Stray it is.”
With their next step decided, the crew of the Blue Phoenix went back to their breakfast and conversation turned to the current CWA fashion; tight-fitted Ixthian styles in stately monochromatic color schemes. Kessa listened in awe as Xia and Duaal argued the merit of human versus Ixthian models.
Maeve paid little attention. Instead, she fumed silently. Stray? Stray was a terrible choice. It was a dangerous planet, perhaps even more crime-ridden than the lower levels of Axis. What were the chances that the Sisterhood hadn’t taken up residence there? Bad, Maeve thought. Very bad.
Maeve collected some of Xia’s pancakes onto a plate, not bothering with the butter or mantle syrup. Coldhand was their prisoner, after all. No one noticed Maeve leaving the mess.
When she arrived at his door, Maeve keyed it open and stepped inside without announcing herself. She found Coldhand sitting on the corner of his bed. Wordlessly, the bounty hunter took the plate with his right hand when Maeve held it out. He set the food on his knees and balanced it there as he ate, leaving his metal hand curled motionless over the edge of the bed. There was no hate in the man’s pale blue eyes, no anger or even fear.
“Are you not worried that I might have put something in your food?” Maeve asked.
“Poison me, you mean?” Coldhand said between bites. “No. I’ve studied your record, Cavainna. You have sixteen attempted murder charges, but nothing so premeditated — mostly self-defense against other hunters. Or are you talking about the charge on the main bounty posting, the private one…?”
Maeve ground her teeth and couldn’t bring herself to answer. Coldhand needed to be more careful if he was to live long enough to complete his hunt. He finished off his breakfast and held out his plate.
“I am not your servant,” Maeve snapped.
“I can take the dishes myself,” Coldhand said evenly. “Just unlock the door. I’m sure I can find the way.”
Maeve snatched the plate and cocked it back over one shoulder. Fury turned her blood into acid and it burned through her body. Coldhand watched her with clinical detachment, gauging her reaction, but didn’t move. Was he that sure Maeve wouldn’t hit him? Or simply didn’t think she could harm him if she did? If so, he was wrong on both counts… But Maeve dropped the plate onto the bed. It bounced across the covers and landed half on top of a worn datadex.
Maeve recognized the device — it belonged to Tiberius. She picked up the datadex and found The Still Wind displayed on its scuffed screen.
“Elonna’s shining black eyes had become pale and dull,” she read out. “Blind. Elonna trembled in my hands and I promised my falcon vengeance for what they had done to her. The wind grew still and silent, as though God had bent close and held His breath to hear my vow.”
Maeve rolled her eyes and dropped the datadex back on top of Coldhand’s empty breakfast plate. Only Prians could write about birds with that kind of overwrought passion. Other Prians, at least… Coldhand didn’t wear any of the leather gloves or sleeves that Prians used in order to safely handle their predatory birds. There were many deep scratches in the metal of his cybernetic arm, but none of them looked like those left by a hawk.
Leaving backwater Prianus wasn’t cheap. How could Coldhand afford the journey but not a hawk or falcon? Hunting and dueling birds were precious on his homeworld and no respectable Prian would be without one.
“Where is your bird?” Maeve asked.
“Back on Axis,” Coldhand answered. “Tiberius flew away without letting me retrieve it.”
“Not your ship. Your actual bird — a hawk or a falcon, as favored by your people.”
“I don’t fly hawks anymore,” Coldhand said in an icy voice that didn’t invite further conversation.
Maeve ignored his tone. “Prians are well known for their love of birds. Even your ship is called a Raptor. But if you had the money to buy it, why not a hawk?”
“I didn’t buy my Raptor,” Coldhand said. “When I left Prianus, I took it with me.”
“You stole it?” Maeve asked. She shook her head and laughed. “How… appropriate. The bounty hunter is himself a criminal. The Nameless has a truly wicked sense of humor.”
Now it was finally Coldhand’s turn to look curious. “Nameless?”
“A god of my people,” Maeve said. “The goddess of death who waits to take all of creation back.”
“No one sent me,” Coldhand answered. “Unless you count the bounty boards.”
Arcadian religion was considered a fringe cult by the Alliance and studied by only a handful of exopologist. The refugee fairies’ private worship wasn’t expressly forbidden, as long as it didn’t bring them into conflict with the Union of Light, the CWA’s official and almost aggressively inclusive church. But few non-Arcadians were familiar with their mythology.
“Erris All-Singer was the first god of my people,” Maeve said. “But he was alone, with no one to hear his songs. So Erris created three other gods to be his companions.”
“I didn’t ask, Cavainna,” said Coldhand. But he leaned forward on the bed, listening.
“From the soft down feathers of his wings, Erris created Aes Cloud-Dancer,” Maeve told him. “She was the most beautiful of his creations. Erris fell instantly in love with Aes and claimed her for his wife.”
“Romantic,” Coldhand said.
Maeve glared at the bounty hunter, but he quieted again. She cleared her throat and continued.
“From the strong pinions of his wings, Erris created Anslin Sky-Knight to watch over the All-Singer and his bride. Anslin was the first knight and the father of spearcraft.
“But Erris All-Singer was wearied by his creation and made the last god from the sweat of his brow and only half his heart. The Singer gave this final goddess no name and no purpose. The nameless god was furious with her creator for his inattention and fled the heavens, swearing revenge on the other gods. She hid in darkness so long that her wings turned as black as midnight.”
It felt good to tell the old stories. For a little while, at least, it was like Maeve was back home. Like the White Kingdom still stood and she wasn’t the last survivor of her house. Maeve could almost hear her father’s voice and feel his strong wings around her.
“Erris sang in the heavens and Aes danced to his every song until her heart and her wings ached. The gods grew to know every note and every step until their delight faded. Aes and Anslin came to Erris and begged him to make others, creators of new songs and new dances. But Erris was too proud and refused, saying that his creations were already perfect.
“So Aes and Anslin conspired. When the All-Singer called upon them, Aes would not dance and Anslin covered his face with his wings, refusing to watch or listen. They told Erris that they would not serve their purpose until Erris promised to do as they asked.
“Enraged, the All-Singer turned his back on Aes and Anslin. But in time, he grew lonely for his bride and his friend. That was when the Nameless returned to him.
“She wore Aes Cloud-Dancer’s form, with wings as soft as whispers and hair as golden as the dawn. The Nameless embraced him in lover’s arms and Erris was overcome with joy. He agreed to all Aes had asked, but the Nameless demanded one more thing.”
“Death,” Coldhand guessed. “Every culture has a death myth.”
“Yes,” Maeve said with a nod. “The Nameless told Erris that his new creations must be mortal or else their songs, too, would grow ancient and stale. Erris was consumed by passion and agreed.
“The Nameless cast off her disguise and laughed at Erris. Death was promised, the Nameless gloated, and every life that the All-Singer created would fall ultimately into the endless same dark to which he had condemned her.
“Erris was furious at the Nameless for her trick. He tore the wings from her shoulders and left the goddess naked and shivering, bound forever to the ground. But Erris could not take back the promise he had given. As the All-Singer wept, the Nameless fled on bare feet like a low beast.”
One of Coldhand’s eyebrows rose a bit at that, but the bounty hunter didn’t interrupt again.
“Erris confessed his terrible mistake to Aes and Anslin. He could not bear to forge new life only to let their Nameless sister take it away. But he had made promises , so he would give his new creations a gift he had not even granted Aes and Anslin.
“‘You have given us power, beauty and strength,’ Aes told her husband. ‘What else can you give them?’
“‘I will give them the one gift I always kept for myself,’ Erris said. ‘The ability to create life. New life, born of love. Perhaps with the gift of life, they will forgive death…’”
Maeve looked up at Coldhand again. The warm feeling of home was gone and she was back in cold black space, the domain of the Nameless. Coldhand was watching her closely, but he hadn’t taken advantage of her distraction to attack.
“That must be the Arcadian creation myth, too,” Coldhand said. “You were the new singers Erris made, correct?”
“Yes.”
“What about the other fairies?”
“The gods created them later, to serve the Arcadians,” Maeve answered. “…Or so it is said in our oldest songs. During our brief contact with Alliance scientists, though, they found our genetics to be very similar. Like the human species, we were told. The dryads and nyads might even have been able to interbreed with us, had our culture permitted it.”
“What happened to the dryads and nyads when Arcadia fell?” Coldhand asked.
“They died,” Maeve said. “All of them. Only a small percentage of the fairies escaped the destruction.”
“Only Arcadians?”
Maeve nodded. Coldhand had another question, but her com chirped and Tiberius’ voice crackled over the line when she turned it on.
“Maeve, I need to talk to you,” he said. “Get up to the cockpit.”
Coldhand leaned back on his bed, gesturing for her to go. Maeve bent to take the plate from beside him. She could drop it in the sink on her way to the cockpit…
The borrowed datadex slid as Maeve pulled the plate out from beneath it. Coldhand reached out with his cybernetic hand. It was an unthinking, reflexive motion and the datadex slipped through his metal fingers. He tightened his grip, clamping down on the thin screen until it cracked with a sharp snap.
Coldhand stiffened and his illonium hand opened as though burned. The datadex fell to the floor and the hunter stared down at it, his glacial eyes blankly unreadable. Maeve sighed and reached for the broken device. It was trash now and as long as Maeve was serving as Coldhand’s maid, she may as well throw it away.
Maeve paused when her fingers closed on the datadex’s casing. The corner was rough against her skin, covered in fresh, jagged scratches. Maeve picked up the datadex to inspect the roughened metal. Even Coldhand’s cybernetic hand couldn’t have damaged it this way. The datadex had been used to scrape or pry at something. Used as a tool. So he wasn’t just sitting idle in this room.
Maeve held the datadex out to Coldhand. He narrowed pale blue eyes at her, but took it.
“It is said that the Nameless, too, learned the secret to creating life,” Maeve told him. “There are stories of her children on other worlds, creatures of death with short lives and no wings. When they could bring no more death to their own planets, they learned how to create great metal wings to carry them further out into the darkness.”
Coldhand tucked the broken datadex under his mattress. Maeve turned away and opened the door with her handprint.
“You’re flying on those metal wings, too, Cavainna,” Coldhand reminded her.
“Our kingdom and our home is gone,” Maeve said. “The dryads and nyads are dead. We are homeless and despised. I doubt my species will survive very much longer. We are all sons and daughters of death now.”
Maeve stepped out of the door and locked it behind her. She made her way through the Blue Phoenix, pausing to deposit Coldhand’s plate in the mess, then headed up to the front of the ship.
The cockpit was small, not much more than a pair of pivoting chairs bolted down in the middle of a busy crescent of displays and controls. Duaal was somewhere else in the ship, but Maeve’s wings made sitting comfortably in his seat impossible, so she stood in the open hatchway.
Tiberius wasn’t alone in the cockpit, though. Orphia watched Maeve coldly. The hawk perched on the back of her master’s chair, carving another deep set of gouges with her talons to match a hundred others in the hard plastic. Orphia’s once-vivid black and brown markings had faded with age, but the old police hawk was still as deadly and grumpy as her master.
Orphia clicked her wickedly hooked beak at Maeve, cocked her head to one side and then decided that the other bird was no threat. With that, Orphia flipped her wings and ignored Maeve.
“Princess, I need to know something before I take us to Stray,” Tiberius said. The captain rubbed his bearded chin. “Well, two somethings.”
“What are they?” Maeve asked.
“Why the hells did you bring Kessa here? I can barely rely on you to come back to the Phoenix yourself. You don’t care about much. Not even your pay, as far as I can tell.”
Tiberius glanced up at Maeve, perhaps to see if he had insulted the fairy. But she just shrugged and gestured for him to go on. Orphia preened her feathers, ignoring the conversation entirely.
“You’re a wild one, dove,” Tiberius told her. “Always have been. Coldhand was in the right to wonder why you give two cen about Kessa, and you were right not to answer him. But now I’m the one asking.”
“My kind gives birth only infrequently,” Maeve admitted. “It is a sacred gift granted by our first god.”
Tiberius’ brow furrowed. “That’s it? You’re helping Kessa because your god says so?”
Maeve made herself meet her captain’s gaze, but it wasn’t easy. “No. But you would not understand.”
“Try me, princess.”
“Kessa was just a girl when she followed her sister into that gang. Young and stupid and afraid to be parted from her sibling,” Maeve said. She heard the raw red wound in her voice and hated it. “I have seen the pain that results from such a decision all too near and would spare Kessa that loss.”
“You’re saying that what Kessa’s going through hits a little close to the nest?” Tiberius asked. “That’s why you got us all into this?”
Maeve didn’t answer. It was more complicated than that but… yes. Eventually, Tiberius grunted and spoke again.
“Fine, then. Look, I’ve given up on Coldhand being any help to us, but I need a warning if the man will be a problem. Of everyone on this bird, you’re the only one who knows much about him.”
“As well as any prey knows her hunter,” Maeve said.
“Coldhand must have realized we weren’t going to release him once he was on the Phoenix. Why did he come at all? Not to let you out of his sight, he said, but now he’s in a bind. Coldhand should have known — or at least suspected — that this would happen. So why did he stay with you?”
The princess shrugged. She didn’t know, but Coldhand never did anything without a reason, usually one involving money or his job or… something else. Tiberius sighed when Maeve did not respond. He turned on the ship’s com.
“Duaal, get up here,” Tiberius said. “It’s time to fly ourselves out of here.”
