Chapter One
The clockwork songbirds create an unnatural musical harmony which soars through the house at Elveden. It never gets old. I could listen to them forever. If I lean back just enough I can see them on their gilded branch, the turn of their heads, the way they bob up and down, how they unfurl their wings – too precise every time to be natural, but still beautiful. No one would think they were crafted from metal and jewels, with a Keltan crystal as their tiny hearts. There’s barely a hint of the mechanical about them. They move like real birds should, sing like them as well, but just a touch too perfect, thanks to that piece of a far-away world deep inside them and the work of the craftsmen who live there.
‘Belengaria, your report.’ Nerysse’s voice carries a touch of warning on its edge. She’s caught me again. That’s the trouble with having the woman who nursed you, raised you and cared for you as a governess as well. Why couldn’t I just go to military academy like everyone else my age? Like my brothers.
I know the answer to that. Too well. My father. Or more correctly his family. Because my mother ‘hadn’t been good enough’ for him; because the king said no but they married anyway; because even the daughter of a minor member of the court has to have a governess instead of a real education, no matter how unimportant I actually am. Because Imperial politics trump everything.
The birds fall silent, the little shining traitors, complicit with Nerysse in not allowing me to put this off any longer. There’s no way I can turn them on again with Nerysse looking straight at me. I clear my throat. Only to give me time to think, but it works. Sort of.
‘Anaran states that the key to any strategy is information. The flow of information dictates the flow of battle. When information is withheld, something vital is missing from the overall plan. Possibly something fatal. He draws a comparison to breath – which is completely over-wrought in my opinion—’
‘I asked for a report, not your opinion on the finest strategist Vairian has ever produced, thank you very much, young lady. Continue. On topic if you please.’
‘But you know all this, Nerysse. And so do I.’
Nerysse glares at me, her old eyes still sharp and dangerous. She hasn’t always been a nursemaid and a governess. She was a flight commander when my mother first took to the skies. It doesn’t do to forget things like that.
‘Rather the point, don’t you think? To find out if you do.’
Infuriating woman. But what choice do I have? I’m stuck here and the only way out is through. ‘Information is like air. Cut it off, kill your enemy. Transmit lies and misinformation, poison your enemy. Ration it, control your enemy. With enough of it under your wings, you rise far above your enemy’s machinations. Did I miss anything?’
‘Well, apart from all the details and the poetry of his words, no.’ Nerysse purses her lips and I know I’ve done it, got it right and put it in the succinct terms she usually goes for. The relief is heaven, but it doesn’t last. ‘Very well. Write the report.’
It’s torture, that’s what it is. They should cover it in the Imperial laws.
Thou shalt not make students write reports on Anaran’s theories on a perfect flying day.
‘After that we can try some aerodynamics and engineering,’ says Nerysse, kindly enough.
I try not to make a face. I love to fly, and everything connected with it, but the mathematics involved make my brain hurt. Only my brother Art gets it, boy genius that he is. The other two are as bad as me.
‘There’s always history,’ Nerysse goes on. Is she trying to torment me? Why? ‘Or geography. Tell me about the Firstworld and its satellites.’
I squirm in my seat. I can’t help myself.
‘Or I could just go flying if you’d sign the release paper. Please, Nerysse? Look at those skies this morning. Have you ever seen so perfect a day for it?’
Nerysse glances out of the mullioned window to the azure sky beyond and a look of unexpected pain crosses her face. Damn it, I never think. Or if I do, I think only of myself. Nerysse has been grounded longer than I can remember, her health no longer permitting her to take to the air as once she had. She caught some sort of poison gas when her wing went down. She can’t fly now. Not since the last war with the Gravians, the same time I lost my mother.
‘Oh go on then,’ Nerysse says at last, so softly that I’m not sure I heard the words correctly.
‘Really?’ I’ve got to move, before she changes her mind. I try to get up, close my books and shove them unceremoniously into my desk all at once. ‘Thank you, Nerysse.’
Her face is still serious, her eyes spearing me. ‘But we’ll do an extra hour tomorrow in lieu, understand?’
‘Yes, absolutely.’ Whatever it takes. Tomorrow can take care of itself. It might be grey with rain, or the wind too high. I’ll seize the chance of flight time when offered. As I head for the door, my mind is already on soaring above air currents, and the sound of wind in the canvas and brass flying machine I love.
‘Forgetting something?’
Nerysse holds up a slip of paper. It already bears her signature and the ink is dry. It’s been signed for hours.
It’s not often I hug Nerysse these days. But I ought to do it more. ‘You’re the best!’
Then just in case any other conditions might materialise, I grab the paper and beat a hasty retreat.
As I leave the house, a squadron flies overhead, the iridescent glow of their engines rippling the air behind them. I smile as they whir over me, points of darkness against the wide, blue sky. The lead Wasp turns and heads inland, over the dense Forest of Ilnay and on towards Higher Cape. It’s so graceful, every manoeuvre like poetry. I’ll be there one day, leading my own Wing. It’s my promise to myself. Zander got command of a Wing at nineteen. Luc was only eighteen. That’s less than a year from now for me, if I can’t do it sooner. The Wing follows its leader, the formation perfect.
‘Are you just planning to just stand there looking at them?’ Shae’s voice contains the same laugh I always hear in it. He’s leaning against the wall of the spice store, half in shadow, his lean, muscular form coiled and ready for action. He’s wearing his uniform, just like always. I can’t imagine him out of it.
Except I can. I shouldn’t but I can.
The deep green jacket ends where his weapons sit against his hips, gun on one side, a wicked looking hunting knife on the other. I can’t imagine him unarmed either. I shouldn’t be imagining him at all.
My throat is tight as I force words out. ‘I was heading out for a flight. More hours in the sky—’
‘The more likely you are to get a commission, I know. Still after that Wing?’
I sketch a bow, to hide what I hope he can’t see in my face, and look up at him, grinning. ‘Naturally. There’s always method in my madness.’
Shae shakes his head and pushes off the wall, striding towards me. He looks so good. More than good. Dangerous, lethal, gorgeous. I can’t help but admire that.
‘Madness, yes, that’s a good word. You missed training this morning.’ He stops in front of me, close enough to touch, so unbearably handsome that for a moment I just gaze into his blue eyes. The same blue as the sky. Most Vairians have brown eyes. Blue are rare. I lift myself up on my toes and wish I had the nerve to just lean forward and kiss him.
Instead, I take a step back. If only I wasn’t such a coward. I’d probably give him a heart attack if I acted on that impulse. But if I did… if I kissed him… Kissing Shae is something I’ve thought about for far too long. He’s not with anyone – not that I’ve seen – but there are plenty of people who would do anything for him. Anything. He’s six years older than me but that’s not that big a difference. Not really. I wish I could just kiss him.
But I can’t. Not just like that.
He shakes his head and I wonder, for a mortifying moment if he can read my thoughts, if he knows. If he does, why doesn’t he do something about it? But he’s never given me any sign. Not even an untoward glance.
‘Where are you heading today?’ he asks.
I shrug, and look away, hoping to hide the flush on my cheeks. ‘Out over the forest, maybe as far as the sea. Where the wind takes me.’
He laughs, a deep, rippling laugh that does interesting things when it travels through me. ‘I hope that isn’t the flight plan you filed, or Zander will light you up.’
‘Zander’s an old hen with a clutch of eggs,’ I reply, knowing it isn’t true. Poor Zander hates being in charge of the flight plans almost as much as he hates being grounded. But he’d gone off on a free-wing once too often and our father wasn’t having that. Not of his eldest son. Duty, honour, discipline – that is everything. We may not be particularly royal any more, he says, but we’re still in the rolls. Nobility has obligations.
‘Make sure to check your coms,’ Shae says in firm tones. ‘And pack a survival kit. And don’t stay out too long, okay?’
Something in his tone makes me pause. It’s the uncharacteristic question at the end. Almost a plea. I give him a long look, searching for the problem. ‘What’s up?’
He rolls his shoulders, a shrug that is so much a part of him, fluid and elegant. ‘We picked up some strange transmissions from the outer planets.’
I’m not even going beyond the atmosphere. My Wasp doesn’t have the equipment installed. But then I remember the Wing I saw earlier and don’t make the flippant reply which springs to mind. A more modern Wing, fully equipped, not a pleasure craft like mine. ‘Seriously?’
‘Seriously. It could be nothing, but special ops are checking it out.’ He’s special ops himself so he should know. I don’t ask how. ‘Make sure that kit is in place.’
I nod. The survival kit is always in my Wasp. Father had drummed it into each of us from the moment we first took to the air. Before, really. Mother would have expected no less. Yolande Astol didn’t plan on joining a noble house, but then she probably didn’t plan on falling in love with my father, Marcus Merryn, the youngest and least important grandson of a king. She was a pilot. She just wanted to fly. I understand that.
Shae follows me to the airfield. It’s a whirl of activity, pilots and mechanics everywhere. The wide-open space contrasts starkly with the densely packed, low huts, all in their drab grey and green. Vairian military style never goes out of fashion here. We were built on war. We live and breathe it. Twenty-five years ago the Gravians tried to invade. The ensuing war lasted ten years and only came to an end with my people entering into an alliance with the Empire to stand against the threat. We’d been outsiders before that, mercenaries at most. For the last fifteen years, we’ve helped the Empress bring stability and calm to this part of the galaxy. But we’re still at the vanguard of her battles. And at the edge of Gravian space. We are always prepared.
Shae checks my flying machine himself in the end, despite the assurances of the various mechanics who have already looked it over. He isn’t a flyer. Shae comes from a long line of infantry and he’s proud of it, but he’s spent enough time around the airfields and my family that he knows what to look for. There’s no point in arguing. He’d just ignore any protests anyway. He’s done this before. And I know it’ll be in perfect order because that’s how I keep it. Always. The Wasp is an older model, originally Zander’s. If I look after her, she’ll look after me. And much like my eldest brother, she needs a lot of looking after. They’re worth it.
Much like Shae, I think, watching the way he peers at the gears, looking for wear and tear. Warmth spreads through me. My feelings for him shouldn’t matter, but somehow they do. So very much. Once again, I imagine telling him, picture his confusion and probably his laughter. That’s what always stops me. I couldn’t bear it if I was wrong, if he laughed. Even if he didn’t, I’m from a noble line, kin to the royal family, which means links to a dozen other noble houses on other worlds, and even the Imperial line itself somewhere way back on the Firstworld. They’re not there anymore, of course. No one lives on the Firstworld, or so I’m told. It’s a dead planet, used-up and broken. The Empress has her seat of power on Cuore, the city planet, and that’s far away from here, in the heart of the whole system. A spider in the centre of her web, my father sometimes calls her, when he thinks no one is listening.
I know what Shae would say if I told him how I felt, if he didn’t laugh, even if he felt the way I do. He’s just a soldier, and even if I didn’t have any great part to play in the grand scheme of things, few people would be able to overlook that. My mother was just a pilot and look at the trouble that caused her.
I’m nobility and Shae isn’t.
But if he loved me… every time I almost convince myself that he doesn’t even see me as a girl, he does something – sometimes just the smallest thing – and my heart soars like my Wasp.
The gentle touch of his finger on my nose brings me back to reality and I almost jump back a yard. He shouldn’t do that, not when I’ve been thinking those thoughts again. But he does and it makes me quiver inside. The fact the finger belongs to a hand trained to fight and kill from the earliest age doesn’t upset me. He’s a warrior. I love that about him. I respect it too. But he doesn’t have to treat me like a child.
‘Maybe you shouldn’t go.’
I fix him with my hardest glare, the one my brothers know not to engage with. ‘You really didn’t just say that, did you? I mean, you’d never say something like that to me, would you?’
Shae gives a brief laugh and pulls my goggles down over my eyes, surrendering. ‘Don’t do anything stupid.’ It’s a warning, but one only half serious. He knows me too.
I examine his strong, sculpted face, and put on my gravest expression. ‘I promise. I’ll be back in no time, you’ll see. Maybe even in one piece.’
I climb into the narrow body of the Wasp wishing it would carry two. What would it be like to just fly away with Shae and never return? What would it take to convince him to come with me, to forsake duty and honour and all the things that define our lives as Vairians and fly off to the farthest horizon?
The engine of the Wasp is a low hum in my ears, pure music, a sound which vibrates along my veins with my blood. Hours of freedom, hours where no one tells me what to do or where to be, or drills me on politics or history… hours of the song of my Wasp and the open air around me.
‘Born to fly,’ I’d told my brothers on more than one occasion. Having tried to best me in the air, one after the other they all had to concede it now.
Born to fly isn’t strictly true, of course. I’d been born, if anything, to be a very minor game piece in the interstellar games of houses and bloodlines, married to someone the Empire or my family deemed suitable or at least convenient. I’ve never been one for living under illusions. I can still hope however. My main hope is that I am just not that important.
Lucky for me I’m not my second cousins, with so much riding on their marriages that they barely have any time to themselves at all. They’ll marry royal houses, travel to other planets and found dynasties, be placed in the highest position –that’s the lot of a prince or princess. I hear they’ve already chosen some off-worlder for my cousin Elyssa. At worst, I’ll probably be married off to a minor noble and that will be the end of my political usefulness. If I’m lucky, he’ll be my own age, or close to it, and respect me enough to be bearable. And Vairian, I hope. Oh ancestors, I hope so. Someone who would understand my need to fight, and to fly.
I don’t know when I first realised that I love Shae. It seems like I’ve always loved him. How could I not? He looks at me and my stomach does that tight, twisting thing that makes my breath catch.
How would I ever explain that to my father? He ought to understand. He married for love after all. Surely I should be allowed to do the same?
But what if Shae doesn’t feel the same way? What if he only sees me as… I don’t know – a child, a duty… what then?
I’m too much of a coward to find out.
Here in the air, I can pretend that things are different, that I live to pilot machines of brass and canvas on the currents of the air, to take other mechanisms out beyond the stars, for feats of adventure and daring, for another life.
One that cannot be.
The radio crackles inside my ear, jerking me out of my thoughts.
‘My Lady, this is Control, over.’
Reluctantly, I key up the coms. My Lady, indeed. I don’t know who’s on coms but I’ll let him know what I think about that when I get back.
‘Bel here, Control. Over.’
The noise of some kind of brief scuffle at the other end makes me glance down and then Zander’s voice barks over the radio instead.
‘It’s me. Get home now. Right now. There’s been… an accident. Do you read me, over?’
An accident? My hands tighten on the controls. This doesn’t sound good. It also doesn’t sound like my brother. His voice strains for control, the tone unusually terse. He never talks to me that way, even if he is the eldest of us. Never.
‘Roger. Heading home immediately. Zander? What happened? Is it Father? One of the boys?’
‘Negative. We’re all fine. We need radio silence now, Bel. Over and out.’
‘Roger,’ I whisper, unsure if I have keyed the coms or not this time. ‘Over and out.’
My shaking finger slides off the control and I bank the Wasp around. I have a sinking feeling in my stomach, a sickness that isn’t right. None of this feels right.
Adjusting the canvas by intuition more than design, I fly on in silence, scanning the distant horizon and the rolling tree canopy below. My instincts hum with the knowledge of a threat. An accident, he’d said. But even I know that most ‘accidents’ on Vairian are nothing of the kind. A Gravian hand is generally to be found when you look beneath the surface. Our ancient enemies. They haven’t gone anywhere, not really, despite their defeat. They strike – hard and heartless – and then melt back into hyperspace, ghosts in the ether.
At the end of that bitter war, fifteen years ago, my mother led the Third Wing in defence of the Vairian skies – the Glorious Third. We’ve all heard about them, all our lives. The story never gets old. Not for me. After a lifetime, maybe I should put it behind me. Warriors die in battle. That’s the way of the world. It doesn’t make me feel any better though. It’s only months since the latest Gravian attack. They’ve grown cunning, more dangerous. And I want to take them on. If I was anyone else, from any other family, I would have joined the academy at fifteen, but they can’t stop me forever. Even the chance to spill Gravian blood makes my pulse quicken. I can feel it in my throat, hammering away. It isn’t fear. I won’t let it be fear.
A flash of light on metal in the trees below is the only warning I get. I imagine I hear the whine as the weapon charges. I manage to jerk left as the pulse of a plasma rifle turns the air beside my right wing iridescent.
‘Clear!’ I crow, not that they can hear me. ‘You’ll have to be quicker than—’
The whole Wasp bucks beneath me. It feels like being kicked in the chest by a pack mule. The Wasp’s engine whines, gives a splutter and stalls. My flying machine drops from the sky.
I punch the controls, frantically trying to start her up again, turning the engine which only clunks and gutters painfully. There’s precious little gliding in a Wasp but I manage to get the machine under control before it goes into a full spin.
It’s like trying to fly a brick.
Further weapons fire lights up the air behind me. I keep the Wasp steady, tracking the ground ahead for the safest place to put down. All trees. This isn’t going to be easy. Or in any way pretty.
Transmit position – the instructions drilled into my memory replay now, my mother’s voice, calm and reassuring, persistent. Transmit position in an emergency just as fast as you can. Get the Wasp down in one piece. Take the survival pack and weapons and get clear in case of an explosion.
Training takes over. It’s effortless. I move before I think.
‘Base, come in, this is Bel. I’m going down. Repeat, going down. Coordinates—’
Zander’s voice cuts me off. ‘Negative!’ he yells. ‘It’s an open channel. Negative on the coordinates. Over.’
What? This is madness. I’m crashing, Zander. I’m going to die.
‘Under attack!’ I protest, my voice tight. ‘Wasp is dead. Over.’
‘You know what to do! We’ll come for you. Repeat, we’ll—’
The impact with the canopy shakes the whole ship and throws me upwards. I hit the roof hard and slam down again, tumbling with the Wasp, crashing through branches, the screams of torn canvas, metal and wood drowning out my own, deafening me. My head slams into the controls and the sudden pain is blinding. With an almighty, bone shaking crash, we land, my broken Wasp and I, and all is horribly still.
The radio hisses. Something has done for it. My vision blurs as I try to look around. I blink furiously to clear it. As I attempt to move, icy pain shoots through my shoulder and my stomach heaves. Damn it, I’m hurt. And concussed, probably. And my Wasp is in bits.
I can’t think about this now. I’m a sitting duck. I have to get out.
It hurts so much that twice I think I’m going to pass out. But I push myself out of the Wasp and tumble onto the forest floor.
My goggles are cracked but the world of the shattered Wasp seems even worse when I push them out of the way and drop them. There’s blood on them too. Don’t think about it. Not now. Keep moving. But my face throbs and there’s sticky stuff covering the side of my head… more blood…
Survival gear, my training tells me adamantly, forcing me to ignore pain and damage. They don’t matter. Only one thing does. Getting out of this alive.
Oh, and weapons. Yes, weapons too.
Weapons are terribly important when anyone is trying to kill you.
A laugh bubbles up in my throat, born more from panic than humour. Is this shock? Feels like shock.
I roll out on to the churned earth and then reach inside the broken machine, feeling around for both the slim pack of supplies and my rapier. The pistol at my side is loaded at least, but I have no extra charge packs.
It’ll have to be enough. It’s all I have.
I hear them before I see them. Grunts, Gravian ground troops, crashing through the forest towards my downed Wasp. They’re wearing heavy body-armour that makes them look like beetles, but inside they’re pale and fleshy. I’ve read the files, looked at footage, seen them dead. I know the weaknesses in their armour, where to hit to wound, or to kill. As they move forward they take no precautions to conceal themselves, or to check ahead. They probably think I’m dead or injured, or that I’m too stupid to get out or maybe even that I’m no threat at all.
They don’t know me then. I’ll show them a threat.
Flicking the catch on the pistol, I aim with care, my thumb resting on the charge button, my trigger finger primed. I’m focused now. Totally in the moment, fixed on them. The whine of the charge might alert them but it’s still fast. I’m fast.
If only I had a plasma rifle. One of those huge, solid ones Shae carries. Or a grenade launcher. That would be better. I’m good with them. And they do a hell of a lot of damage. I scored higher than anyone on the training field with one.
How many? The pistol will only take out one before they attack me. Logically, it has to be a last resort. But if they spot me, if they come for me… They have a nasty reputation when it comes to prisoners. Those that are ever found anyway.
No way I’m letting them take me.
Some would tell me to turn the pistol on myself, to die unsullied, with my pride intact. Because that helps, doesn’t it? No.
Better a dead one of them than a dead one of me.
I know this forest. It’s my home. I can blend in and wait for them to go. I have all the time in the world. It isn’t far to get back to Elveden and home. If I climbed a tree I could probably see the willowy towers and red roofs of my home.
But my head is aching and the blood is getting in my eyes. I’m worried I may pass out.
A flash of metal in the face of the nearest makes my breath lodge in my throat. Not just Grunts then, but Mechas too. That’s the other thing they do with prisoners, or at least those who fall in battle – turn them into man-machines with next to no will of their own. Only programming. A mesh of dead flesh and machinery which does exactly what it’s told.
‘Report. Find me something.’
The hiss of the lead Gravian’s voice sends my skin shivering. It’s thin and tinny, coming over a radio. Their leader isn’t even here with his troops, but directing them from afar. He shot down my Wasp. He’s trying to kill me.
‘Where is she? I want that girl.’
The Grunts mutter among themselves but the Mechas say nothing. They’re his eyes and ears here. I don’t know if they can speak. Maybe they take their tongues out too? Do the dead speak and, if so, what would they say? I don’t want to know.
My finger itches to fire. To see at least one of them go down spasming in agony. But if I do that the rest would be on me in no time. I have to wait, silent and still. The weapon is my last resort.
They search my Wasp, tearing out equipment and discussing it as if it is no more than a heap of junk.
Anger builds in my chest, burning and hard as steel.
A whisper of air brushes against my cheek and hands seize me, one over my mouth and the other on my weapon. I struggle instinctively, draw in a breath of alarm but don’t waste it in a scream. I kick back and bring my elbow down for a stomach jab.
My captor twists slightly, evading me with no effort at all. Only one man moves that way, could have approached so silently in the first place. He taught me almost everything I know about hand-to-hand combat and strategy. No one can match him for stealth.
I relax in his embrace, thanking my ancestors. I’ll go and light candles for each and every one of them, even if it takes a week.
Shae doesn’t say a word, but releases me once he realises I won’t cry out and give us away. As if I would. He gestures over his shoulder and signals a withdrawal. We move like forest cats, ghosts amongst the trees.
Other Vairian warriors appear out of the undergrowth, infantry and artillery mostly, with a couple of trackers leading the way. My sudden relief at no longer being alone rocks me. My head swims again, leaving me sick and dizzy, and at the same time elated. Shae came for me. My treacherous heart beats a little faster.
Once clear of the Gravians and their Mechas, Shae pulls me to a halt and examines me from head to toe, trusting his own eyes before anything I might say at the moment. Because I’d tell him I’m fine, that there’s nothing I can’t handle, that I’d head back there now on my own without a qualm and take them all on by myself. All lies of course, but he doesn’t know that. And he never will.
‘You’re unharmed?’ he says at last. His voice sounds gruffer than usual. His eyes search my face. I can see my reflection in them. My head throbs and there’s blood down the side of my face. I look like shit.
‘Yes, Captain,’ I reply, unable to hide the loopy grin, which makes his expression harden still further. ‘Did you think I couldn’t cope?’
Giddy with relief to be alive, I’m a cocky idiot.
Normally he’d tell me that. Normally he wouldn’t hesitate. I’ve known Shae since I was five. He was a war orphan, taken in by my family and raised with us until he joined the academy. He’s only home between furloughs, before he heads off again into the various Imperial battlefronts. Valiant, disciplined, lethal – he’s the perfect Vairian soldier. There is no one like him. No one in all the world. While my brothers had laughed, put frogs in my hair and thrashed me in every training game until adolescence – when I’d shown them what turning the tables actually meant, and maybe broken two fingers in Zander’s right hand (never proven) – Shae has always been on my side. He doesn’t joke now. It’s more than serious. It’s terrifying.
‘No time for games, Lady Belengaria. Matters have changed.’
Lady Belengaria? I blink as the phrase sinks in. Shae never uses my title, let alone my full name. We agreed that years ago. Bel and Shae. Simple as that. It saves time.
‘What’s happened?’
Shae wraps my arm in his and leads me forward, his troops still flanking us, some scouting ahead. They’re on high alert, as we move carefully away from the crash site. All the while he keeps his voice pitched low so that even I, walking right beside him, have to lean in close to listen. It’s almost as if he doesn’t want to say it out loud. Doesn’t want the others to hear. But I can tell from the way they stiffen, that they already know.
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