“Princess Kalinda.” Someone speaks from behind me, and I glance around. It’s one of the people in the weird white robes—a girl with long braided blond hair and a sweet face. “It’s not safe. You have more people depending on you than are on this ship. And your duty is to the many, not the one. You have to come away from there.”
I can see from the expression on the princess’s face that she doesn’t want to listen—not to the advice and not to the speaker giving it. But the girl lays a hand on her shoulder, and the princess’s whole body seems to sag.
She turns her head, and their eyes meet in some kind of communication I just don’t get. The princess blinks, and I think she’s about to cry. I’m not sure I want to be around if she does. But her back stiffens before she sheds a tear, and instead, she reaches out, touching her fingers briefly to the metal bulkhead before turning away.
Thank God. I turn as well and feel relief tug at my shoulders because Max is standing there, one eyebrow raised. He tosses me a bag—my kit—and I snag it out of the air one-handed.
He lifts a brow, and though he doesn’t say it in my mind, I know he’s calling me a show-off.
“Nice catch,” is what he says instead.
I ignore it. “About fucking time.”
“Hey, I’ve been waiting for you as instructed. You’re the one who’s late.”
“I’ve been saving damsels in distress.”
He frowns. “That doesn’t sound like you.”
I wave a hand to encompass the little group. Along with the princess and the blonde, there’s a big dude in a long white robe—Seratian from the look of him. He seems about as happy as I feel.
“Meet Princess Kalinda,” I tell Max.
I can see her looking back and forth between the two of us, taking in the similarities. Max is dressed in the same black-and-gray guard uniform as me, but it goes further than that. We look pretty similar, though Max is a little shorter, a little wider, and smiles a hell of a lot more than I do.
Fucking candy-ass.
“No shit.” He looks incredulous. “A princess? Really?”
“Really.”
The grin is back. He steps forward and holds out his hand. She eyes it like it might bite but then takes it briefly—no screaming at him not to touch her, I notice.
“I’m Max,” he says. “Nice to meet you, Princess Kalinda.”
He glances at the other two and then at me.
“No fucking clue,” I respond.
The blonde steps forward. “I’m Rain,” she says, holding out her hand. Max shakes it. “And this is Merrick, my…friend.” She turns to me. “Thank you for what you did back there. I think we would have died if you hadn’t shot out the door.”
The dude in the robe says something in a language I don’t understand, presumably Seratian. That’s the only planet with its own language, likely because they were cut off from the rest of us for so long. Or maybe because they just like to be different—the Sisterhood thing they’ve got going definitely attests to that.
The girl gives a solemn nod before turning to the rest of us. “Merrick says if we’re going to leave, we need to do it now. This place is unstable.”
Too right. I’m ready to go—the ship is juddering beneath and around us, and the air is thick with smoke. I don’t know how many more explosions the Caelestis can take before she implodes, but I do know that I don’t want to be here when it happens.
I glance around and go still. The docking bay has been reduced to carnage. “Shit.”
“Yeah,” Max mutters, “shit just about covers it.”
The place is in ruins, littered with the corpses of all the bright, shiny shuttles. Gone is the neat semicircle of parked ships. In its place is a disaster zone. But over at the far end, near the airlock doors, stands a dilapidated ship, seemingly undamaged.
“The Reformer, huh?” I ask Max in my head.
He nods.
Finally something’s going our way. “Gage?”
“Fuck knows. But he did his bit—paid off whoever needs paying. All we have to do is get on board, and the crew will pretend they never saw us.”
“Good riddance to him, then. Let’s go,” I tell him.
He glances toward the others, but before he can say anything asinine, the princess asks, “So, what do we do now?”
“Our shuttle looks like it’s the last one still intact.” The Merrick guy nods toward the shuttle at the other end of the group of burned-out wrecks. He’s right—she looks in way better shape than the others.
“Well, have a good trip,” I say, because I certainly can’t take her on the Reformer.
Strangely, I feel a flicker of what I’m guessing is guilt. It’s not an emotion I’m overly familiar with, though, so maybe it’s something else. Indigestion?
“You’re not coming?” the princess asks, and there’s something in her voice, too, that has me glancing at her sharply. Does she sound disappointed? But then her eyes narrow on my uniform. “Isn’t it your job to keep us safe?”
Nope, not disappointment; just more of the Ruling Families’ arrogance. Good fucking riddance. My regret—scratch that, my indigestion—probably came from Max’s look…and what I knew he was going to suggest. He’s always been the kinder man.
Then again, he hasn’t spent the last few minutes with the princess snarling at him.
“Not anymore. I guess this is goodbye, Princess.” I send her a last smirk and turn away, then start to move through the scattered debris in the direction of the Reformer. Max is close behind me.
“Wait! You can’t go. I demand you—” She breaks off, and I glance back to see what’s stopped her. She’s staring aghast at the last remaining shuttle. Flames are flickering from the rear engine.
Suddenly, there’s an ominous crack.
“Get down!” someone yells.
Too late. The whole shuttle explodes. The force knocks me off my feet, and I’m flying backward through the air. I crash into something behind me, the air leaving my lungs in a whoosh.
“Fuck.”
Chapter 8
Rain
“High Priestess? Rain. Rain! Talk to me.”
I blink my eyes open at the sound of Merrick’s panicked voice and immediately see stars. Am I floating in space? Panic starts to take me over, too, but then I realize I’m breathing. Which means my space hypothesis is pretty unlikely.
I blink again, and the stars clear. I blink once more and realize I’m lying on my back, staring up through thick black smoke at the high curved ceiling of the Caelestis’ landing bay. My nose hurts, my throat is raw, and my ears are ringing—I’m pretty sure I hit my head—but underneath all that, I can hear screams from somewhere far away.
“Rain? Are you okay?” Merrick asks again.
Okay seems like it’s asking a bit much, considering everything hurts. But I’m hanging in there.
I sit up slowly, shaking my head to clear it, and the screaming becomes louder and not so far away. My whole body is trembling, and my heart feels like a trapped faconal trying to pry its way out of my chest.
Life in the monastery did not prepare me for this.