Please, try.
—Gal
A disbelieving snort escapes me before anything else. The only one he trusts? He shouldn’t trust anyone at this point—not after twenty of us turned on him out of nowhere. But I did go right after him yesterday, and that speaks to something I can’t dispute.
I stare out the slit of our window as the cool gray of dusk settles over the prairie. The word “sleepers” lances through me like a needle. How could Gal have been monitored at the academy without anyone discovering his identity? How could he be protected so thoroughly that Seely’s mutineers had to make their attempt during a flight drill? I’ve spent two and a half years sleeping beneath Gal. I thought I was clever for noticing Seely’s teeth. So how could I have missed—
The realization hits me like a static shock. I scramble out of bed and barrel out the door, breezing past a pair of grayed-out first years who flatten themselves against the wall as I rocket by.
If Gal hasn’t seen the sleepers—
If they aren’t protecting him—
If no one’s protecting them—
I leap up the stairs three at a time until I’ve reached the top level of the dorms, where the young officers sleep. This hall’s much more quiet and orderly than the cadet bunks below, but there’s an eerie layer to the silence that settles over me as I stagger out of the stairwell and up to Jana’s door.
With Gal’s magnetic personality, it made sense that he befriended even the upperclassmen. No one questioned it. No one could blame them for continuing to check in on him, even after they’d graduated. I think of all the times they stopped by our room, all the times I caught him waving to one of them across the mess, the way they were such a constant, comfortable presence in our lives.
Always keeping an eye on him. Just the way they were supposed to.
“Jana?” I call out, rapping twice on the door. The quiet around me is stifling. I feel like I’m the only one breathing on this floor. Calm down, Ettian, I scold myself. You saw her yesterday. But I saw Gal yesterday, and now I might never see him again. I saw Seely yesterday and now he’s nothing but scattered pieces across several miles of Rana’s surface.
I try the door. Unlocked. Jana never leaves her room unlocked—hasn’t since she found herself on the receiving end of one of Gal’s pranks when she was still a cadet.
Gods of all systems, so that’s how he was able to get away with—
The first things I notice are the scuffmarks. Long streaks of peeled rubber tell the story of boots dragged across the floor unwillingly. The bed’s a little untidy, but for Jana that speaks volumes.
I step into the room, turn, and find the most telling marks of all. The wall by the door is pocked with the impact scars from three blaster bolts.
Someone removed Jana from this room. Whoever it was, she fought them tooth and nail to stop it. Whoever it was, they were confident enough that they didn’t feel a need to mask what happened here. Whoever it was must run this place.
I slip back out the door, closing it carefully behind me, and duck into the stairwell. Leaning against the wall, I drop into the dark behind my eyelids.
Yesterday, I acted on instinct. Today it’s a choice—a choice I’ve spent so long burying that I’d fooled myself into thinking I’d escaped it entirely. But Archon’s not as dead as I once thought, and the apathy that’s cloaked me ever since the empire fell is starting to constrict. Now I have to decide what’s more important: the empire that built me up with promises of heroics and then abandoned me, or the boy who had to be dragged away from my side, who’s fought for me like no one has.
The boy who talks his way out of fights like a rational human being.
The boy whose stupid, pacifistic essays I’ve been proofreading and turning in for years.
My breath catches in my throat.
Now I see the long game—the one he’s been secretly playing the whole time. Gal’s spent his entire academy career training himself not to emulate his parents’ violence but to rip its teeth out.
My choice is as clear as the void. I gotta get him off this planet. I gotta get his ass on the throne.
But first things first, I really need that drink.
CHAPTER 4
THREE HOURS LATER, I’ve managed to waste five shots of polish over my shoulder and gained an entourage nearly thirty people strong. The cantina is packed to bursting, and true to her word, Rin’s buying—not just for me, but for every cadet in the bar. Gods of all systems bless her parents’ deep pockets. As far as I know, they’re the heads of a mining corporation that struck exclusive rights to one of the newly acquired Archon belts, although Gal has gone and made it difficult to take even that at face value.
“TO THE HERO OF THE EMPIRE,” Ollins roars from the top of a table, and the crowd roars back at him, hoisting their drinks in the air. The legal imperial age is eighteen, but the academy cantina has always made an exception for upperclassmen—otherwise it’d be full of sad officers and no money.
A few of those officers glower at the rest of us from a table in the back corner. My eyes are on them as I fake another sip. That’s right. Dumb, drunk cadets. No reason to sound any alarms.
I wish there weren’t so much on my mind. I want to soak this in. If it were any other night, Gal would be by my side, matching me drink for drink and lamenting that we’re less than a year away from graduating to the officer ranks. Some of us will stick around for command training at the academy, harvesting the opportunities present in the new territories, but many will be assigned closer to the interior, where the appointments are more prestigious and the competition is a thousand times more cutthroat.
For now, the air is sweaty and electric, my drink is cold enough to numb my hand, and the noise and crush of people is overwhelming. Some aggressive, melodic Umber rock anthem blasts from the speakers—the type of music no one but the older officers and Hanji enjoys unironically. Two boys are making out in the corner, anonymous in the blur of bodies stuffing the cantina, and a pang of cheer-stained jealousy twinges in my chest.
I want to be wrapped in this night forever. We have only so many of them left to go.
“I can’t believe we have class tomorrow,” Rin groans, clinging to my waist with one arm as she tries to steady herself. “I’m going to vomit on the drill field.”
“I’ll be right there with you,” Hanji cackles from her other side. “What about you, Ettian? You feeling strong?”
“Oh, I’m feeling strong.” I slide my arm around Rin’s shoulders, and she tucks her head against my ribs.
“How strong are you feeling?”