“What’s the matter?” he asked.
She smoothed down his shirt and refastened his trousers. “You look a little worse for wear.” She looked at the back of his shirt and cringed as she tried to brush off the dirt there.
He shook himself off and re-tucked in his shirt. Then he pushed a hand through his tousled hair. “There. How am I?”
“You still have some dirt on your back.” She giggled as she looked at his face. “Plus, you look like you just had sex. Try not to look so relaxed and happy.”
“Not much chance of that.” He gave her a kiss. “I’ll live with the world knowing I just had great sex. You ready to go over the wall?”
Kyla took a deep breath and let it out. “I’m ready.”
***
Fifteen minutes later, Hall put a hand on Kyla’s back as they stepped into the outdoor café where he’d arranged to meet with Lenna.
Lenna was not going to be pleased.
He was prepared for it, though, so he wasn’t surprised or particularly worried when he saw her frowning as he and Kyla approached her table.
“What’s going on?” Lenna demanded softly, glaring at him after giving Kyla a quick look.
“This is Kyla,” he said calmly, nodding at Kyla to indicate she should sit down.
She was worried—glancing nervously between him and Lenna. He needed to make sure he didn’t let Lenna scare her off.
“I know who she is,” Lenna said, her blue eyes shooting out sparks. “What is she doing here?”
“She’s coming with us.”
Hall couldn’t believe he was actually saying that to his partner. He couldn’t believe it was true. He couldn’t believe that nothing else had ever felt so right in his life.
What the hell had happened to him on this planet?”
Lenna’s sharp eyes studied him closely, and she obviously saw everything she needed to see in his expression.
She let out a breath. “You have got to be kidding me.” She shook her head and appeared more annoyed than genuinely angry. “Damn it, Hall. I thought you were immune to losing your heart.”
He managed not to flinch, although he was a little taken aback about her saying something like that. He hadn’t lost his heart. He hadn’t lost anything.
He was still himself—and completely in control of this.
“It’s not like that,” Kyla said softly. “We’ve made no commitments or anything. And I promise I won’t cause any trouble or get in your way.”
Lenna was still shaking her head. “That’s nice of you to say, but how do you know it’s true?” She looked back at Hall. “She’s part of the royal family. Are we going to have Evalonian guards chasing us down?”
Hall glanced over to Kyla for an answer.
She shook her head. “Not after we’re off-planet. They don’t leave the planet, unless forced to by the Coalition.”
“Well, that’s something I guess.” Lenna sighed. “Fine. As long as we keep to our original schedule, you can come along.” Her eyes narrowed. “But there’s not going to be any fucking on my ship, and I’m not going to listen to any sappy declarations of feelings.”
Hall felt an uncomfortable twisting of his gut that was entirely inappropriate, but Kyla actually laughed. “It’s a deal.”
Lenna smiled at Kyla, but her expression changed when she turned to Hall. “You have to agree to it too.”
“Of course I agree.”
Lenna didn’t look like she believed him.
Eight
Kyla woke up the next morning hoping she wasn’t going to get a migraine.
It was a familiar feeling. She thought the same thing every morning as she opened her eyes. She’d close them again and mentally check her condition, making sure she didn’t feel parched and there wasn’t any sort of faint throbbing behind her right eye.
This morning, she experienced a familiar relief that her head seemed to be clear. Then she remembered what day it was.
She was leaving today. With Hall.
Nothing would be the same after this evening.
She hoped she was doing the right thing. It felt like the right thing, but sometimes feelings led one astray. There was nothing for her here, though. She’d never get to be anyone other than a younger sister.
She wanted to be a sister, but she also wanted to be a lot more.
She just didn’t know what yet.
Kyla lay in bed for a long time, trying to imagine where she’d be when she woke up tomorrow. She couldn’t picture it. Only twice in her life had she been off-planet, and both had been when she’d been a child and her parents had still been alive. Things had been a little looser with the Coalition then. They’d been able to go on vacation without worrying that the throne wouldn’t be gone when they returned.
She almost wished she was a child again, when the universe had still felt free.
Finally, she made herself get up, bathe, dress, and eat breakfast. She did all of it slowly, but when she was done it was still far too early to go see her sister.
She couldn’t say goodbye, but she had to at least see her today. It would probably be the last time she ever would.
To kill time until her sister woke up, she sat out on her terrace and looked out at the lush gardens and orchards of Evalon. They were manufactured to look and smell exactly as they did, but that didn’t mean they weren’t beautiful.
Other planets wouldn’t be nearly so beautiful.
Or maybe they would.
She sat in a daze until her maid came to tell her that her sister was now up and dressing. Kyla stood up and shook herself off, calming herself until her expression was bland and natural.
Then she walked down the hall to her sister’s suite.
As she’d been yesterday, Patrice was seated at her dressing table, brushing her hair. “Two mornings in a row,” she said in a lazy drawl. “What have I done to deserve this?”
“Nothing,” Kyla said, fighting back a shiver of anxiety. “I just wanted to see you, and this is the best time to catch you alone. I feel like we haven’t talked much lately.”
“That’s because all you want to do is nag.”
Kyla nodded at her sister’s significant glare. “I know. I’m just worried. But I’m not here to nag today. I promise.”
“Good. Because I’m honestly not in the mood.” Patrice turned her head, her eyes running up and down Kyla’s body as she pulled a chair closer to sit down. “You look different. Have you finally had sex?”
“What? No! Of course not.” Kyla kept her eyes wide and innocent, although she was startled and dismayed by her sister’s perceptiveness.
Patrice might be blind to a lot of things, but she’d always been astute about sex.
“Are you sure? You look…I don’t know. There’s a man, though, isn’t there?”
“Of course there’s not a man.”
“Don’t lie to me. I know better. Oh, it’s Tor, isn’t it?”
“No! It’s not Tor. We’re just friends!”
Patrice’s eyebrows drew together as she continued brushing her hair. “He would be a fine choice for a lover, but don’t get any ideas about a lifetime partner. You can’t have one, you know.”
“I know. Tor isn’t my lover!”
“It’s not a stable boy or a gardener, is it? That wouldn’t be appropriate at all. Someone you’ve seen in Court?”
“It’s no one! Would you stop?” Kyla hadn’t expected the conversation to go like this at all today, and she was rattled by how close Patrice was getting to the truth. “I’m lover-free, as always.”
Patrice chuckled. “No you’re not. But you don’t have to tell me, if you don’t want.”
“Patrice,” Kyla murmured, swallowing hard.
Patrice smiled, changing the mood between them. “You’ll tell me later.”
“Maybe. Not that there’s anything to tell.”
“Of course not.”
Kyla smiled too, feeling a swell of affection for her sister. They hadn’t always gott
en along—and sometimes they fought viciously—but they were still sisters.
“I was thinking earlier,” Kyla began, following the line of her thoughts, “about when we took that vacation to the beach when we were kids. Remember? On Callison III?”
“Of course I remember that. I wish we could still do vacations. But it’s not safe to leave an empty throne these days.”
A throne could be dangerous in other ways too, but Kyla managed to hold back the urge to say so. “I know. But that was the only time we’ve ever seen an ocean.”
There were no oceans on Evalon—no large bodies of water of any kind.
“Those waves,” Patrice murmured, evidently caught up in the memory too. “They were terrifying.”
“But thrilling. I never knew water could be so powerful.”
“I didn’t find it all that thrilling. I was constantly having to pull you back so you didn’t go too far into the waves and get pulled out.”
Kyla closed her eyes. “That’s what I was thinking about this morning. Do you remember what you kept saying to me, when I asked you why I couldn’t go out any farther? Because I’m your sister. That’s why you stay with me. Hold my hand…”
“That’s what I’m here for,” Patrice said very softly, her voice breaking unexpectedly on the words.
A surge of emotion rocked Kyla, so suddenly and powerfully that she literally couldn’t breathe. She squeezed her eyes closed and swallowed over it until her throat finally relaxed.
When she could move again, she reached over and wrapped her arms around Patrice, giving her sister a quick, tight hug.
Patrice hugged her back before asking on a breathless laugh, “What’s gotten into you this morning?”
“Nothing,” Kyla said, surreptitiously wiping away a tear as she sat back into her chair. “It just feels like we’ve been arguing a lot lately, and I don’t like to do that.”
“Me either, believe it or not.”
Kyla sniffed, trying to cover for the grief she still felt. She was leaving tonight. She’d never see her sister again. It hurt so much it might have stopped her from leaving if it wouldn’t have hurt even more not to go.
Patrice was watching her closely now. “What’s going on? What’s wrong?”
Kyla was so tempted to tell her, to beg her to come with them, get away from this planet where they could both finally be free.
But Patrice didn’t want to be free. She would stop Kyla from going. And she might even stop Hall and Lenna from getting away. There was no way Kyla could take the risk.
“Nothing, really,” Kyla said at last. “It’s probably just that time in my cycle.”
“You know, there are injections you can take to avoid all those ups and downs.”
“I know. But messing with my hormones gives me migraines.”
“Everything gives you migraines.”
Kyla stood up, knowing she needed to leave now before she gave something away. “Speaking of, I think I’m getting one now.”
“Well, go take something and lie down. Maybe it will be gone in time for Court this evening.”
Kyla didn’t have a migraine, and she wasn’t going to be in Court this evening. But she murmured, “Hopefully. Maybe I can get rid of it quickly.”
Unable to stop herself, she reached over to take her sister’s hand before she left. She wanted to say something, but everything she might have said would reveal too much.
Patrice met her eyes, and then frowned in a slow confusion, as if still trying to figure out Kyla’s mood.
Kyla made herself walk away, but she didn’t release her sister’s hand immediately. She held onto it, letting Patrice’s palm slip out of hers as they drew part, until only their fingers were touching.
It hurt like a wound when their hands finally broke apart, but Kyla kept walking away.
She went back to her room, explaining to her maid that she had a migraine and wasn’t going to go out for the rest of the day.
She cried when she was finally alone. But the curtains were closed, the door was locked, and the lights were off in her room, so nobody saw.
***
Kyla spent the rest of the day in bed, partly to keep up appearances and partly because she had absolutely nothing to do.
She’d packed a small bag, but she couldn’t carry much with her. She was going to have to sneak out of the palace without anyone noticing, and they’d notice if she was lugging a trunk full of her worldly possessions.
The only things she owned that hurt to leave were the boots she’d only half-finished.
In her mind, as she waited, she played out the steps to her escape this evening. She would wait until Court was fully in session, everyone caught up in food and sex and wine. Then she’d sneak down the back staircase and tell the guard she was taking a walk.
He might think it was a strange, but he wouldn’t stop her. She was allowed to go wherever she wanted on the palace grounds. Then she would meet Hall at the head of the trail, where they’d arranged, and the two of them would walk toward the road that led from the main palace entrance. In the curve, before the guardhouse, they would jump on and hide with the smuggled cargo until they got to the launch port, where Lenna was waiting with the ship to fly them out of here.
A simple plan. And Hall was always able to use his gift if they were stopped or anything else went wrong.
It should work just fine, and in a few hours she would be gone, heading toward a completely different life.
She really hoped her sister wouldn’t do anything stupid in Court tonight. One day, she would go too far, and Kyla wouldn’t be around to help her out of trouble.
She pushed that thought from her mind. She’d done what she could. If Patrice wanted to run headlong toward danger, then Kyla couldn’t stop her.
She managed to hold out until it was dark outside and she could hear the Court revelries going on two floors below her. She sat up. Smoothed her hair. Put her boots on. Went to get her bag so it was just beside her.
Then she waited another hour until it was almost the appointed time. Finally, she stood up, so terrified now she was breathing raggedly.
She couldn’t believe it was finally time to go down and meet Hall.
It felt like someone else was doing it—using her body, leaving the suite of rooms she’d spent her entire life in, walking down the quiet hallway and then hurrying down the stairs.
She almost cried out in surprise when she nearly ran into someone coming up.
He stopped short before he plowed into her, and it took them both a minute to stabilize themselves and figure out who each other was.
It was Tor, she realized with a wave of relief. She saw the same relief on his face, although she didn’t understand it.
“Where are you going?” he asked. Then shook his head quickly, as if dispelling the thought. “No, it doesn’t matter. I was just coming to see you.”
“What?” She blinked. There was no normal situation in which Tor would ever come to her bedchambers. Something must be wrong.
“You need to get out of here,” he said quickly, urgency tight on his face. “Out of the palace. Off of Evalon. You need to get your sister and leave right now.”
Kyla blinked again. “What?”
“The Coalition knows about your sister’s…performances. There was a Coalition scout in Court tonight, and she did another one of her claims to be Empress. The scout will have already reported it. They’ll be sending a squad to arrest her. And you.”
“Me too?”
“You’re part of the royal family. They’ll need to clear the ranks completely, after what they’ll call an act of treason. Neither you nor your sister are safe.” He took her by the shoulders and gave her a little shake. “I’m sorry, Kyla, but you don’t have time to be shocked. You have to get out of here right now. If you’re arrested, you’ll be sent to a prison planet or banished on a planet dump. Either way, you’re not likely to survive more than a few days. Do you hear me?”
“Yes, yes.” She w
as almost dizzy from emotion and confusion. “But won’t the palace guards—”
“Try to protect you? Yes, of course. But they only have swords. It would be a massacre.”
Of course, it would. Kyla felt sick at the visual of their loyal guards being killed trying to protect them in a hopeless scenario. “But how do you know it was even a scout? How did the scout know to come?”
She stared up at him when he didn’t answer, and she saw a very brief expression flicker on his face.
She gasped. “You told them! You reported her!”
“Yes! Yes, I did.” He rubbed his eyes with a muffled voice. “I told you she had to stop doing that. She left me with no other choice.”
“But why—”
“Because I’m the Coalition liaison! What do you think I was doing off-world for so long? They were training me. Indoctrinating me. If I didn’t report it and they found out some other way, it would be a death-sentence for me. What the fuck else was I supposed to do? I’m risking my life right now by even telling you.”
“Okay,” she gasped. “Okay. I get it.” She was angry and betrayed and hurt at the same time, but she didn’t have time for any of those things. Hall would be waiting for her. He was. Right now. “Patrice is still in Court, isn’t she?”
“Yes. I’ll make up an emergency to get her out of there. That’s as much as I can do. You meet her and the two of you get out. Hire a ship at the launch port and get away as soon as you can.”
“But what about everyone else here? Will they be in trouble too?”
“Of course not. The Coalition will want to get rid of the royal blood but keep this place as a lucrative vacation spot. Everyone else will fall in line. If we don’t, they’ll threaten to decommission the habitation zone and the planet will turn back into a wasteland. Do you really think anyone on this planet is going to risk such a threat over traditions that don’t mean anything anymore? You and your sister are the only ones in real danger. Now, go. I’ll get your sister out of the throne room. I figure you have maybe an hour before they land their hop and get here from the launch port.”
“Okay.”
Tor raced down the stairs in the direction he’d come. He’d have to think of a really good excuse to convince Patrice to leave Court halfway through, but Kyla couldn’t worry about that right now.