Last of Her Name Read online

  At last, we overshoot the wide, flat peak, nose pointed at the stars, and Riyan pulls back on the yoke. The ship turns a lazy half loop, diving and swooping toward a large slot in the top level of the pyramid.

  Within, a lit hangar awaits. There must be fifty ships anchored there, from cruisers to catamarans. None as gorgeous as the clipper, though.

  Once the Valentina is inside, Riyan quickly engages the landing system, bringing the ship to rest. The space is stark, open, and polished, a fair bit more sophisticated than the makeshift hangar the Loyalists had carved into the asteroid. And it’s quiet—I don’t see any pilots or mechanics hanging around. The other ships rest in silence.

  “Where is everyone?” I ask. “Do you think they know we’re here?”

  “They know. They’ll have known since we broke through the barrier.” He shuts his eyes briefly, then nods. “Here they come.”

  The wall in front of us rumbles as a stone door sinks into the ground, lowered by a group of tensors behind it. They approach the Valentina slowly, cloaked and solemn, shaven heads decorated with the same tattoos as Riyan’s, carrying similar staffs. There are a dozen altogether, and they spread out into a line, waiting.

  “Let’s get it over with,” Riyan says, grabbing his staff and heading for the hatch.

  We’re a few paces behind him as he rounds the ship and approaches the twelve tensors. Pol grips his ribs, wincing a little, still in pain. If it comes to a fight, he won’t be much help. I wish I had a gun or something to defend myself with.

  I wonder when I became the sort of person who expects a fight at every turn. Riyan said we would be safe here, but his nervousness is making me nervous. Little about our welcoming party actually says welcome, and I remember all the worst stories I’ve heard about the tensors. My head spins a little.

  Remembering what he told us about the moon’s lower O2 levels, I raise the mask to my face and take a few deep breaths. My head settles and the panic in my chest eases somewhat, but I still watch the waiting tensors with apprehension.

  “Riyan Ayedi,” says a tall, thin tensor with milky skin stretched over an elongated bone structure.

  “Jorian,” replies Riyan. His eyes flicker over the others.

  “You presume much, boy, by returning here.”

  “This is still my home.”

  Jorian scowls and turns to whisper with the others. We all exchange looks, and I can see Mara and Pol are as worried as I am. I glance back at the Valentina; we could be inside the ship and out of here altogether in a matter of seconds, if this goes badly.

  But then Jorian turns back to us, his face smug. “Riyan Ayedi, you are charged with larceny, desertion, and dereliction of duty. Do you accept these charges?”

  Alarm splinters through me, and I turn to stare at Riyan.

  He swallows but doesn’t look surprised. “I accept them.”

  “This was a bad idea,” Pol whispers in my ear.

  “You will be tried in five days’ time,” Jorian says to Riyan. “Until then, you’re not to leave the city.”

  Riyan bows his head. “So be it. I only ask for asylum for my companions. This one needs to be taken to Damai for healing.” He gestures at Pol.

  “A lawbreaker cannot claim asylum for anyone,” Jorian replies.

  “I have not been proven a lawbreaker yet, have I?” returns Riyan coolly, and in the look he gives the man, I sense a long and turbulent history between them. “I’ve only been charged.”

  Jorian looks ready to argue again, but the woman on his left puts a hand on his arm. His lips tighten, but he waves a hand. “Bring them, then, but they’ll have to be cleared through quarantine first.”

  The tensors turn, making space for us to pass through. As we do, I grab Riyan’s sleeve and whisper, “You knew this would happen, didn’t you? Why would you come back here if you knew they would put you on trial?”

  “Because you will be safe here.” He pauses, then adds softly, “In my people’s tradition, when someone saves your life, they become blood to you. Pol is my brother, and you are my sister. What I would do for any of my family, I would do for you.”

  He walks on, leaving me to follow with Mara. I stare at his back, until the tensors surround us and he blends in with the rest.

  An hour later, Mara and I find ourselves in a small room, clutching our oxygen tanks and staring at a single wide bed. Beside it is a wood nightstand, a shaggy hide rug that I can only assume is from one of the frost bison Riyan told us about, and a tiny, narrow window that looks east. Like all the walls I’ve seen so far in Tyrrha, these are all slightly angled, following the slope of the pyramid’s outer walls.

  The tensor who brought us here is a stone-faced woman with a shaven and tattooed head. She separated us from Pol and Riyan in order to unceremoniously strip us, push us into showers, then poke and scan us until she was sure we weren’t carrying contagious diseases or Committee spying equipment. Now she stands in the doorway, her suspicious gaze making the back of my neck prickle.

  “Um,” I say. “Is this the only bed?”

  “On Diamin,” says the woman coolly, “sleeping is a communal arrangement. But we thought you might want privacy, being offworlders. Perhaps you would be more comfortable in a proper sleeping chamber, with fifty other girls?”

  I quail at the challenge in her gaze.

  “No, uh, this is great. Right, Mara?”

  “Cozy,” Mara says, rolling her eyes and breathing from her oxygen mask.

  The tensor woman sniffs and steps into the corridor outside. She icily informs us dinner will be served in one hour. Then she shuts the door, which is made of white wood and opens on hinges, thank the stars. Half the doors in this city, it seems, can only be opened by tessellating.

  “I’ll take the floor,” I say.

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Sleep on the bed—it’s huge. Unless you snore.”

  “No. Do you?”

  She looks for a moment as if she’s going to pick a fight, but then she gives a dry laugh and flops onto the bed. Then she groans, pressing a hand to her side. “Let’s both take the floor. This thing is hard as a rock.”

  “I’m not surprised.” Everything I’ve seen of Tyrrha has been hard, smooth, and sterile. My cell in the Loyalist base was almost more welcoming.

  Mara makes room for me to sit beside her. We both end up lying back, staring at the stone ceiling, separated by a wall of silence. How many times have I shared a bed with Clio, just like this? Lying side by side, whispering and laughing, making plans. The dull ache I’ve lived with for the past few weeks suddenly sharpens. The pain of missing her is as acute as a cold blade between my ribs. I let out a shuddering breath, wondering if she’s been crammed into a room with a bunch of other prisoners or if she’s in isolation. Is someone looking out for her? Is she with the other Afkan prisoners, who might be able to help her? Does she think I’ve abandoned her? Does she blame me?

  I should never have left her behind, not for a moment.

  Mara sits up, raising one eyebrow at me. “You’re crying.”

  I raise a hand to my face and find my cheeks damp. I hadn’t even realized the tears were there. Wiping them away, I close my eyes and press my oxygen mask to my mouth. The rush of air helps steady me.

  “Look,” she says, “if you want the floor that badly, it’s yours.”

  I snort, opening my eyes just enough to glance at her. She looks a bit bewildered by my tears, as if they’re a language she doesn’t speak. If there were ever a polar opposite to my sensitive, nurturing Clio, it’s Mara Luka. But I’m glad she doesn’t try to comfort me. Tenderness right now would only send me over the edge, into the dark, sucking abyss of grief that I’ve been trying my best to stay out of. I envy Mara her toughness. But I know that deep down, she’s hurting too.

  The silence grows heavy while I search for the words I haven’t been able to say in the last sixteen days.

  “I’m sorry,” I start, my voice thick. “Your dad—”

  “Don’t,
” she says. “Don’t be sorry, as if you forced him to do anything. He made a choice and I have to respect that.” After a pause, she adds, “I just hope you’re worth it.”

  I sit up. The walls seem to press in on me, squeezing the air from my lungs. I want to tell her I’m not worth it. I’m not worth any of the sacrifices that have been made on my account. But the words stick to my throat.

  Mara watches me. “I don’t hate you, Anya. Or Stacia, or whatever you want to call yourself. This is a war, and in war, soldiers die. Just … don’t forget what side you’re supposed to be on. Promise me that, and I’ll be your ally.”

  I nod, feeling sick.

  This may be war, but I don’t feel like a soldier. In many ways, we’re still just kids. The only thing we should have to fight for is a later curfew. Mara shouldn’t have had to leave her father to die. Clio shouldn’t be sitting in a gulag, waiting to be interrogated. Pol shouldn’t be recovering from a gunshot that came within an inch of killing him. Riyan shouldn’t have had to hunt across the stars for his stolen sister.

  And I … I just want everything to go back to the way it was before. But it never will, even if I save Clio and take down the Committee and find this Firebird thing, whatever it is. Even if everything from here on out goes exactly the way I want it to, I’ll never get back what I lost. Something fundamental has changed deep inside me, and I think it’s changed in Mara too, and in Pol and Riyan. I shudder to think of how Clio will have changed, when I finally reach her.

  None of us will ever be kids again.

  Mara lies back again, eyes closing, her hands folded on her stomach. I kick off my boots and press my feet into the rough hide on the floor, the fur white and coarse. Through the narrow window, the great gas planet is rolling into view, yellow orange and ominous, like a dying sun.

  Not long after, the peal of some massive horn sounds through the whole pyramid city in a bone-rattling groan. Mara, who’d nodded off, wakes with a sharp intake of breath.

  I panic at first, thinking we’re under attack, but in the corridor we find a stream of tensors calmly making their way along. They give us odd looks when we burst out of our room with wild eyes and racing pulses. Then I realize what we’d heard was the tensor version of a dinner bell.

  We follow the people at a slight distance, me hopping as I put my boots back on, my oxygen tank swinging from my belt. No one takes much notice of us, at least not openly; I see plenty of sidelong looks and curious glances, especially from the younger tensors, as we stand in a long line to pick up our dinner. Mara yawns and stretches, her eyes still red with sleep.

  The mess hall—or Hall of Sustenance, as they insist on calling it—is nothing more than a long, narrow room with a long, narrow table. The ceiling is probably a hundred feet high, and because of the angled walls, it’s almost twice as wide as the floor below. Hard to tell, because the shadows obscure it from view. Along one wall, the tensors’ motto is carved forbiddingly into the stone: Imper su, imper fata. Candles—not holos but actual tallow candles—burn along the center of the table in varying degrees of height. At the far end, where the youngest sit, a couple of kids are playing some sort of tessellating game, making candles float around and trying not to spill the hot wax. Mara watches them with a mixture of fascination and bewilderment.

  They’re a strange, solemn society. No one raises their voice, and there is no shoving in line or racing to get a seat at the tables. I think of Riyan telling me the tensors prize self-control above all else and begin to sympathize with his sister Natalya. I can easily see how a girl longing for adventure would come to feel chafed by the tensors’ quiet, restrained world.

  Mara and I pick up bowls from an elderly tensor stirring a large pot and carry them to one of the tables. She watches the gruel slide from her spoon to land with an unappetizing plop in her bowl.

  “I’ve learned something today,” she says.

  “Yeah?” I shovel the stuff in, swallowing the chunks of frost bison meat whole, since they’re as chewable as an old rubber gasket. It’s best, I realize, to get it all down quickly.

  “I am not cut out for tensor life.” With a look of distaste, she pushes the bowl away.

  Only to have it slide back toward her as if pulled by an unseen string. Mara jumps.

  “In Rubyati culture,” says Jorian, tucking his hand back into his sleeve, “refusing the food offered by your host is an invitation to a death duel.”

  “Name the time and place, then, mate.” Mara glares at the tensor until he walks on, his eyes sliding mistrustfully from her to me.

  “You shouldn’t push him,” I tell Mara. “He could crush you into a pebble. And he looks like he’s waiting for an excuse to do it.”

  She snorts and looks down the table at the rest of the tensors bent over their bowls. Several of them look just as miserably at their meals as we do ours.

  “I’m going to check on Pol,” I say, rising to my feet.

  “And I’m going back to bed.” Mara yawns and raises her oxygen mask to her face for a deep breath. The low O2 levels make me sleepy too, but I haven’t had a chance to see Pol since we landed, and I’m anxious to see how he’s doing.

  Mara and I split up in the passageway outside the mess hall. She goes up, I go down. Tyrrha is all stairs, it seems, and that combined with the low oxygen levels means I stay perpetually winded. The tensors, of course, just float up and down the stairs like blazing leaves on the wind, and not a few of them with smug little glances at me.

  The infirmary is a pleasant room, by tensor standards, anyway. Instead of hard wooden chairs devised to torture one’s vertebrae, the seats here actually have soft pillows on them. The sloping outer wall is set with windows that overlook the mountains, and Diamin’s distant white sun is just peeking over the shoulder of the nearest summit. Thin, silvery rays slant across the snowy plain far below, where a herd of frost bison moves ponderously through the drifts.

  Pol is standing at the window, silhouetted against the rising sun, his back to me. For a moment I almost don’t recognize him for his newly grown horns.

  Hearing my footstep, he turns. He’s wearing only loose tensor trousers, his scarf knotted around his waist like a belt. His chest is bandaged tightly.

  “Hey,” he says.

  “Hey.” I scratch my elbow, my eyes slightly averted. “You want to put on some clothes, maybe?”

  He looks down at his bare chest, then up at me. “You’ve seen me like this hundreds of times.”

  “Yeah …” But those times, the sight of him didn’t leave me weak. It’s like something changed between us on the way here, in that blazing ceremony of his. I’m not sure how to get back to the way we were. I have even less idea where we actually are, and what the jitters in my stomach mean. Or how in the stars I would explain them to Clio.

  I try, desperately, to lighten the mood. “So! How about that bison meat? Chews like a sock, am I right?” I punch his shoulder in a poor attempt at playfulness, just as a tensor girl emerges from another doorway.

  “Easy!” she snaps. “He isn’t healed yet. You’ll undo all my work!”

  “Sorry,” I mutter.

  “This is Damai,” Pol says. “She’s incredible, Stacia. All that pain in my chest? Gone.”

  “Your bones are strong,” Damai says, setting down a pile of clean bandages and going to Pol. She is tall and lean, her hair woven into many braids that she piles atop her head. She presses her hand against Pol’s chest, fingers lightly probing his sternum, and nods to herself. “He had several broken ribs. But I was able to ease the pressure on his lungs.”

  “Turns out gravity-magic is great for healing,” Pol adds. He grins at the girl.

  She smiles back at him. “I’m fascinating by this Trying of yours. You aeyla have such exquisite bone structure. I hope you’ll let me study it for my notes. We know so little about your people, and it would be a great service to our medical library.”

  “Oh,” he says, lifting his eyebrows. “Well, I guess if it’s helpf
ul …”

  She laughs.

  “Right. Damai, thank you.” I cough, noting her hand on his chest, her fingers lingering on his bare collarbone. “Pol, you weren’t at dinner. I’d thought you died or something. Again.”

  “That’s Stacia,” he says to Damai. “Always exaggerating.”

  I suck in a sharp breath. “Well, at least I don’t go around getting myself shot.”

  “Oh, I got myself shot? You’re the one who had to jump in front of Riyan—”

  “They were going to kill him!”

  “Well, better they kill me than him, then. You know, I saw you two cuddling up on the bridge on the way here.”

  “Cuddling?”

  Damai’s gaze darts between us. “All right. Enough. You need to rest, Pol. You might feel better, but your bones still need to heal.”

  She moves to walk me to the door, whispering, “You probably should stay away for a few days, until he’s stronger. You upset him.”

  “I what?”

  “When he talks about you, his pulse goes nuclear. Your being here is even worse. You’re bad for his blood pressure.”

  “I’m what?”

  Damai ruthlessly pushes me out of the infirmary door.

  “My patients come first,” she says. “I must see to his well-being.”

  With that, she shuts the door in my face, tessellating it slightly so it sinks into the floor. My efforts to push on it get me nowhere. That’s the tensor version of a lock, I guess.

  “I am not bad for his blood pressure!” I yell through the stone. “What does that even mean?”

  No answer. She’s probably in there studying Pol’s exquisite bone structure with her long, clever fingers. Well, see if I care. I kick the door, then yelp at the splinter of pain that shoots through my foot.

  “Whoa,” says a voice behind me, and I jump, startled. “While I appreciate the irony of breaking one’s foot on the infirmary door, surely there are less destructive forms of self-expression?”