Beyond the Red (37 page)

I think of the way she went rigid when I touched her shoulder afterward, like she actually thought I might hurt her. Of the way she turned away from me and completely shut me out, like what we felt together didn’t mean a blazing thing.

I stare up at the pitch-black ceiling, wishing I could see the night sky. Wishing I could look up into the glittering expanse of the universe and feel Day and Esta and Nol watching over me.
We’ll be with you wherever the stars reach,
Esta said, but all I see is empty shadow.

I’m in the place where the stars don’t reach, far from home and family and everything I ever loved. And now, I’m going to die alone.

Emptiness feels like a living thing. A parasite growing in the center of your chest, somewhere behind your heart, taking every ounce of warmth and light and happiness and consuming it until there’s nothing left. Emptiness feels like exhaustion, like there’s no reason to fight, no reason to take another breath, no reason to try to survive.

But emptiness also feels like freedom. Because it doesn’t just take the good, it takes the bad, too—the anger, the bitterness, the pain—and when it’s done, it leaves you with just you. A cold, shell-like echo of yourself, but still you.

After hours of staring into nothing, the echo is all I have left.

Footsteps. The sound is muffled, like dripping water several yards away. I open my eyes and stare into empty space as a low, buzzing noise slices through the silence. My door slides open with a quiet hiss and I stand, squinting through the dim light flooding my cell.

Roma enters and nods at someone behind him. The ceiling flickers to life and cold white light surrounds me. I squint harder and peer through the white as the door glides closed and Roma steps toward me. He told his guards to wait outside, which doesn’t seem right. Why would he come in here by himself? I’m obviously cuffed, but do I seem that unimposing that he feels it’s safe to enter my cell without a single guard for protection?

Maybe there is protection—protection I can’t see. Or maybe he’s an opponent I shouldn’t underestimate, especially with my hands tied.

Roma walks right up to me and pushes me against the wall. He leans in so close that the tip of his nose nearly touches mine. He peers into my eyes. His grip slides from my shoulder to my jaw and he presses my head against the wall and reaches toward my left eye.

I squeeze my eyes shut and try to lean away from him, but his fingers force my eyelids open and he squeezes a liquid from a little dropper onto my eyeball. He repeats the process on my right eye, and my eyes sting and flood with tears as he releases my jaw and steps back. Roma glares, clenching his fingers into fists, crushing the dropper in his hand. Shakes his head.

“You’re a fool if you truly believed cosmetic surface nanites could disguise you, half-blood.” He steps back and crosses his arms, his heavy glare softening into a sortuv curiosity I wouldn’t have expected from him. “So tell me, then. Which one of my weak relatives dishonored my family? Hmm?”

He doesn’t know. I blink away the tears from my stinging eyes. “I don’t know.”

Roma snorts. “You don’t know, and yet you have the audacity to come to this place? It’ll take much more than a golden gaze to take me from my rightful place on the throne, boy.”

Blazing suns, is every royal so paranoid? I roll my eyes and lean against the wall. “I’m not here for your throne.”

“If you expect me to believe—”

“I’m here for Kora,” I say. “I’m here because I have nowhere left to go. Because I’ve been assigned to protect her, and I made an oath, and it’s the only choice I have.”

He raises his eyebrows. Cocks his head slightly to the left. “So the desert trash have rejected you entirely. Interesting.”

I just shrug and look away. “I have no ambition to take your throne, and anyone who tells you otherwise is just trying to make you paranoid.” I pause and add, “I doubt I even have the right to take your place, anyway. I imagine not all of your golden-eyed relatives have the right to rule.”

“Not all do,” he says, eyeing me. “But you aren’t the least bit curious to see if you’re one of them?”

“You say you’re not a fool, but neither am I. I know full well a half-blood will never sit on the Sepharon throne. Who fathered me doesn’t matter—I’ve been disqualified since before I was born.”

“True.”

I face him again. “So you can release me.”

Roma laughs. “Release you? And I thought you said you weren’t a fool.”

I grimace.

“Your ancestry doesn’t matter. The fact is, you are living proof of a great dishonor that has befallen my family. You may not be a threat to the throne, but you are a threat to my family’s name, and that cannot stand. You should have been eliminated at the moment of your unfortunate birth.”

I steel my expression. Pull my lips together and clench my fists.

“You’ll be executed tomorrow morning in Jol’s Arena. Pray to
Kala
while you can, for your hours are numbered.”

Serek and Roma argued for several moments before a guard came to my side and suggested I wait upstairs for the dispute to cease.

Serek didn’t even notice when I left.

I paced in my room for what felt like an eternity. Washed my face of tears and makeup and sat on the floor, tracing shapes on the stone. Eros was a prisoner, again, and it was my fault, again. I owed him so much and yet it seemed all I ever managed to do was get him arrested, hurt, or tortured.

He saved my life and I couldn’t even manage to keep him decently safe. What use am I, if I can’t even accomplish that much?

Two knocks and the door opens behind me. I spin around and face Serek, but the sight of him sends my stomach plummeting—his eyes are hard and sad.

Whatever was said, it clearly didn’t go well.

He straightens his shoulders and clasps his hands behind his back. “Kora …” he begins, but I don’t want to hear it.

I rush toward him and clasp his arms. “You have to convince him. You know Eros doesn’t deserve this—he saved my life twice, Serek! I can’t just let this happen!”

“Is that all?” he asks.

I frown. “Is what all?”

“Is that the sole reason you wish to save him? Because you owe him a debt?”

My hands slide off his arms and hang useless at my sides. I can’t meet his eyes. “What are you asking me?”

“You know exactly what I’m asking, Kora.”

I do, but I’m too terrified to answer. Because I know what the answer should be, and yet I can’t seem to speak it.

“I see.” Serek sighs heavily and looks away. He steps to the desk and sits in one of the chairs. My stomach churns and guilt nags at the back of my mind, but then he speaks. “He cares for you as well.”

My gaze shoots up to his and his shoulders slump—a defeated exhale. He readjusts his posture and the hurt in his eyes twists a guilty knife in my core, but I can’t deny what he seems to already know.

“I can’t be with him,” I whisper. “It’ll never work.”

“Because he’s a half-blood?”

I can’t meet his eyes to answer. “And a slave. With my authority over him … it wouldn’t be right.”

“Kora …” Serek sighs, stands, and steps toward me. He rests his hands on my shoulders and when I dare to look up at him, his expression surprises me. He should be angry, or disgusted, but instead he looks at me with a soft understanding that I don’t deserve. “One way or another, I believe Eros’s status will change. As for his blood … has his mixed heritage made him a lesser man in any way?”

I shake my head.

“Then what is it? If you care for him, what stops you?”

“I don’t know,” I admit, and he smiles sadly.

“I told you once our union was a decision I wanted you to be secure with. What I didn’t say, and I should have, is I don’t want you to choose me for the wrong reason. I care very much for you, Kora, but having you and seeing you regret choosing me would be much more painful than letting you go. Just give that some thought.” He releases me and sits at the desk again, inhaling deeply as he rubs his face with his hands. Something inside me aches seeing him like this, knowing how much I’ve hurt him.

But he’s right. As much as I care for Serek … I’m falling in love with Eros.

“Roma spoke to your brother,” Serek says.

My brother. I bury the emotions welling up inside me and glance up at him. “And?”

He sighs. “Roma says Dima provided compelling evidence against Eros. He wouldn’t say what, but he said it proved to him without a doubt that Eros replaced your lipstain with poison and gave your hand servant the antidote in the form of a sweet to give to you, so that you wouldn’t poison yourself.”

I clench my fists at my sides. “Eros never even looked at my accessories, let alone switched some of it with … that’s ridiculous, Serek.”

“Furthermore, he said Dima showed him proof that Eros was taking orders from the rebels. That they intended to strike your brother and you next.” Serek looks at me and shakes his head. “Roma has made up his mind.”

My whole body is shaking. “You can’t believe this. That doesn’t even make sense—if they supposedly wanted me dead, they wouldn’t have bothered with an antidote. Tell me you don’t believe this nonsense—”

“I don’t, Kora, but what I believe doesn’t make a difference. I am not
ken Sira
, Roma is, and he has already made a decision. There’s no talking sense to him. Eros is to be executed tomorrow morning.”

Something like a knife rips through me, filling my lungs with fire. Eros is going to die. Eros is going to be executed and it’s my fault. I brought him here. I destroyed his home, cut the only ties he had to his people, and dragged him across the sands to this place.

His blood is on my hands. But this time, I won’t sit idly by. “We have to release him.” I step toward the door, but Serek grabs my arm.

“There’s more.”

I try to pull out of his grasp, but his grip is strong. “I don’t care about anything else—I’m going to release Eros before—”

“He’s ordering the immediate execution of every untracked redblood.”

The fire within me dies and is replaced with the coldest of winds. “What?” My voice is a breath.

“He said they’re more trouble than they’re worth. That Safara must be cleaned of their … infection.”

I can’t breathe. “But Serek, that’s …”

“Genocide. I told him as much, but he wouldn’t listen. He’s already begun preparations.” Serek’s hand slips off my arm and he covers his mouth, then stares at the floor.

My legs go numb, so I sit beside him. “He can’t just … that’s tens of thousands of lives!”

“Kora, he can do whatever he wants. There isn’t a spirit on Safara that can overrule
ken
Sira
.”

He’s right, of course—everyone answers to
ken
Sira.
His word is law. But how could he order something so horrible? How is it even possible? “And he intends to send his armies across the planet to somehow track them down and slaughter them all?”

“Not an army,
naï
.”

“Then?”

He bites his lip. “Nanites. He’s programming nanites to target and kill all who share their genetic code and aren’t tracked.”

Nanites? “Can that even be done? I didn’t think they could seek out a genetic code.”

“I didn’t either, but Roma has assured me it can be done.” He frowns and stares out the window. “I’m not the only programmer working for my brother. There are brilliant men and women on the team, and if he believes it possible, then he must have something ready.”

Bile rises in the back of my throat. I close my eyes and see the blond boy from the camp. The children playing in the sands. Even the man who left me for dead in the desert.

Entire generations decimated by a force they cannot fight. An invisible killer impossible to avoid.

“When?” I whisper.

“Tomorrow night.”

My breath catches in my throat and ice trickles down my spine. “We have to release Eros so he can warn them. It’s their only chance.”

“Kora, even if he warns them, they can’t fight it. And he can’t warn his entire species—”

“It doesn’t matter—he won’t stay here while his people are dying. We’ll release him and we’ll stop Roma ourselves.” Serek hesitates, and I take his hands before he can speak. “You told me once you didn’t believe in the unnecessary shedding of blood. I know you don’t believe this is right—you know
Kala
would never honor this. It’s genocide. It’s up to us to save countless lives. No one else will do it, Serek, and no one else can.”

Serek takes my hand and squeezes it gently. “Kora, believe me when I say I will do everything in my power to try to stop this. But there’s nothing I can do for Eros. Roma suspects us. We’ve been specifically forbidden from setting foot in the underground for two nights, and Eros will enter Jol’s Arena tomorrow morning. We’ve been ordered to attend.”