Across a Star-Swept Sea

Ten

FOR A LONG TIME, the soldier called Trina Delmar floated—weightless, senseless, like she used to at the bottom of the tide pools in the cove where she and her brother played when she was younger. Back then, she used to dream she was a fish, and wished she had the money to get a gengineered sea pony like the aristo girl up the bay had. But then the revolution had come and the aristo girl and her parents had disappeared and one day, Trina had seen the pony washed up on the shore, its marvelous coral flippers ragged and torn, its big, faceted golden eyes lifeless and swarming with blackflies.

The revolution. It was supposed to save them all. But then her brother had told her of impossible treasons and she’d tried to help him, only to be confronted with bleeding old men and guards who didn’t seem to care as much for equality as for making people pay and a cliff top where the last person she’d expected to voiced the same fears as her brother had—fears she didn’t even want to admit were possible.

Senses began to intrude on her solitude. The muffled sound of people talking, far, far away. A light, white and creamy, soft and blurry. The smell of orchids in the air. A soft, melodic tinkle that sounded almost like water in a fountain, but was far too musical for that. And, most of all, the ropes binding her ankles and her arms.

Her eyes shot open to see a bright dome above her head, framed at the edges by palm fronds strung with orchid leis. She sat up, and a wave of dizziness overtook her, but she tensed her muscles and blinked her eyes until her vision cleared.

“Hello, Citizen Delmar,” said the woman—or rather, the girl—seated on the dais before her. She was all white from the tips of her high-piled hair to the sculpted white eyebrows against her golden-brown skin to her long cape and shimmering gown. At her feet knelt two handmaidens, both swathed in hooded robes of silvery gray. The princess regent of Albion, Isla. A royal, an aristo, and an enemy of the revolution. “Welcome to my kingdom.”

In a rush, the memories flooded back. The Wild Poppy. She’d been captured by the Wild Poppy. She looked desperately around the room for an escape route, for a weapon of some sort. The white cushions and rugs wouldn’t help her. The enormous planters would be too heavy to lift, even if she could break free. She tested the bonds and they tightened further.

“Trina,” the princess admonished, in a tone that meant she’d probably said the word a few times already. Right. Her name. So they didn’t know. That could be useful. “Don’t waste your time, dear. You can’t escape from nanothread ropes.”

“What do you want?” Trina asked. Her voice trembled on the words, which was not ideal behavior for a revolutionary soldier, but it’s not as if she’d had much training in that area. She might have skills with a gun, but she was no Vania Aldred.

“To talk to you,” said the princess serenely. “Though, to be honest, I personally don’t see the value in it. You were captured by a sea mink. You’re hardly a crack soldier.”

Just a child, echoed her brother’s voice in her head. You can’t possibly help. She’d hoped to prove him wrong, and now . . .

“But the Wild Poppy assures me you have potential, and his is an opinion I trust.”

“Hers,” Trina corrected before she could stop herself. “I saw her. She’s a girl.”

The princess regarded Trina, her eyes half-lowered, as if she was bored by the whole proceeding. “Nothing wrong with her memory, I see.”

Trina felt the urge to cower. It must be that she was effectively at this woman’s mercy, bound and imprisoned. After all, she’d not been raised to feel inferior to aristos, to bow her head before royalty.

“This is a waste of time,” Princess Isla said now, her tone almost thoughtful. “Let’s just kill her where she lies. I have some gengineered neuroeels in my dungeon I’ve been dying to put to use.”

Trina’s blood ran cold. She’d seen neuroeels once, while diving for abalone with her brother down at the cove. A whole flock of them had descended upon a manta ray nearby. Her brother had held tightly to her arm as they watched the fight in horror. Not that it had been much of a fight. The ray was big enough to ride on, yet a few seconds into the attack the eels’ neurotoxin sent its muscles into spasms. The ray had bolted toward the surface, its massive, seizing wings churning the sea into a froth. Shudders had run the length of the manta ray’s body, making its smooth gray skin look like ripples on a pond. The neuroeels clung fast to its white underside, little more than deadly black strings on the wings of a dying angel.

They’d never known what triggered the attack. Her brother had explained that neuroeels generally didn’t go for large prey, despite the strength of their poison. He’d wondered, later, if they hadn’t been escaped guard beasts, trained to torture people. One never knew what the queen had kept in her dungeons. At least, not until the revolution.

“Please . . .” she whispered. “Please don’t.” If she died here, her brother would never even know what had happened to her. No one would. Even if there was a record of “Trina Delmar” being captured by the Poppy, she’d still disappear without a trace.

And then her brother would be truly alone in the world.

The princess blew out a breath of air through her nostrils. “And you think this girl would make a good spy? Please. What will happen the first time Citizen Aldred threatens her with a Reduction pill?”

At the sound of the name, Trina flinched again. Citizen Aldred would never Reduce her. Ground her for life, possibly. It was her brother who would kill her for getting into this mess—that is, if she did get out alive.

All she’d wanted to do was help him before his moment of temporary insanity branded him an enemy of the revolution. What did she care about some Reduced aristos? But then she’d gone east and seen what was happening to old men, little children. Somehow, seeing the Reduced made all the difference in the world. And she’d started to understand why her brother had risked it all.

A flash of gold hovered near the princess’s hand, and she turned over her palm and closed her eyes for a moment. “A bandage on Lord Lacan’s thumb,” she murmured to no one in particular, “is hardly evidence of sympathy to our cause.”

Trina could certainly agree with that. She was not the one trying to stop the revolution. That was all on her brother. The idiot.

Then she cringed, remembering the way the guards had laughed when Lacan had cut his thumb. Remembering the way his grandchildren—real children, not practically grown teens like her—had been stumbling about in the field, their voices silenced, their brains wiped. What could they have done to deserve Reduction?

But that didn’t mean she was on the side of the Wild Poppy.

One of the handmaidens cleared her throat. Another golden flower buzzed at the princess out of nowhere. Flutternotes, Trina realized. She’d never seen them in person before.

“Perhaps she just wanted to keep him alive to suffer longer,” said the first handmaiden, lifting her head. Trina recognized the blue-haired girl from the attack.

“Of course I wouldn’t do that!” she snapped.

“Oh, so you wanted him dead?” the princess asked.

“No! I—” Why were they asking her these questions? What did it matter? “I wasn’t even supposed to be there, all right?”

Now the second handmaiden raised her head, and Trina saw the face of the girl dressed as a boy who’d attacked her on the skimmer. The face of the Wild Poppy.

“You,” she whispered.

“You,” the girl who was the Wild Poppy replied, “are not a soldier at all. I knew it. I knew there was something off about you.”

“You don’t know anything,” Trina spat at her. “Especially not how much trouble you’re about to be in.”

“Oh?” said the princess. “And why is that?”

And then she released her most powerful weapon of all. “Because I’m not Trina Delmar. My name is Remy Helo, granddaughter of Darwin and Persistence Helo, and I’m no traitor to Galatea.”

She expected shock, and she got it. She expected disbelief, and she got some of that, too, especially from the princess. But she didn’t expect the bark of laughter that the blue-haired one let out.

“She’s lying,” said the princess. “Remy Helo is a schoolgirl.”

“We were schoolgirls a few months ago,” said the Wild Poppy. She peered out from beneath her hood, her amber eyes keen and penetrating. “She may be Remy. I see a family resemblance. And of course, we could always do a quick genetest.”

“Family resemblance?” Remy asked, confused.

“Silence.” The princess raised her hand. “Speak only when you are ordered to, prisoner.”

The Wild Poppy gave the princess a look. “Assuming this story is true, and I’m inclined to believe it, do you think that behavior is going to get you anywhere?”

The princess sighed. “At least this makes the entire operation simpler.”

“Does that mean I’m off the hook?” the Poppy said. “I mean, technically, I already fetched her.”

“If you mean the public relations aspect, no,” replied the princess. “The romance will still be useful.”

What were they talking about? They were supposed to fall all over themselves to apologize. She was a Helo. “Pardon me, Princess, but I must insist upon my immediate release. I am the foster daughter of Citizen Aldred, the Protector of the interim government of—”

The princess waved her hand at her. “Oh, we know who you are, brat. We just wish you truly were Trina Delmar. She was useful to us, and you are an inconvenience.”

“One thing is certain,” the blue-haired handmaiden said. “We shall not be returning her to Citizen Aldred.”

“Oh no?” Remy scoffed. “You think he’ll let a Helo remain in your aristocratic hands?”

This seemed to amuse all three young women.

“Here’s a question,” said the Wild Poppy. “Does anyone in your family know you’re here?”

Remy hadn’t thought of that. How was Uncle Damos supposed to fight for her return if he didn’t know she was imprisoned?

The princess cocked her head at Remy. “Maybe I should use those neuroeels.”

This time, however, the threat held no weight at all.

“Why did you take a false name and join the army?” the Wild Poppy asked her.

“None of your business.” The only good to come out of this mess was that with Lacan and his family spirited away to Albion, there was a chance Uncle Damos would never discover her brother’s betrayal. If the prisoners on the Lacan estate were no longer in custody, no one would ever find out that their pinks hadn’t worked properly.

As far as she knew, Justen hadn’t sabotaged anyone else’s drugs.

“Bet I can guess.”

Remy was quite sure the smug aristo spy could not.

“You had plenty of political power as one of Aldred’s inner circle. You had no need to take a false name unless whatever it is you wanted to learn was something you figured your foster father would disapprove of. Am I correct?”

Remy swallowed.

“And there you were at the Lacan estate, of all places in Galatea, watching over the aristo who might have been your grandmother’s greatest ally. Watching him suffer, watching him bleed. Watching his children and his grandchildren tortured . . . and why?”

Remy could barely meet the older girl’s gaze. Her eyes watered with shameful tears.

“So here’s what I think. You hated what they were doing to the aristos on the Lacan estate,” the Wild Poppy said to her, rising and coming forward. Her hood fell back, revealing hair the color of frangipani and eyes as bright as the scales on that long-dead sea pony. “You don’t want to admit it, but deep down, you know your guardian is no longer interested in helping Galateans. He just wants to punish his enemies.”

Enemies like Lacan. Enemies like Justen would be if Uncle Damos found out what he’d done. . . .

“The revolution has betrayed you, has betrayed your whole nation. You are not a traitor, it’s true. But your loyalty lies not to the leaders destroying your country but to its citizens—all its citizens—who have the power to make it great.”

Remy found she could muster no response to this enemy of the revolution. It made no sense at all. This woman—this girl, really—stood for everything Remy hated. She rescued aristos. She was an aristo herself. She undermined the revolution. How often had Remy heard Vania and the other soldiers complaining about the Wild Poppy?

So why was she saying things Remy agreed with?

The Wild Poppy made a quick motion with her left hand, and Remy’s ropes fell loose. If she wanted to flee, now was the time. But her heart thrummed in her chest as the spy’s words settled into the space between the two girls. How did this Albian know exactly what had happened to her? She looked only a year or two older than Remy, she was clearly an aristo, and yet it seemed she could see right through to Remy’s soul.

All she’d wanted was to save her brother, and this was where she’d ended up. In the throne room of a monarch, kneeling before a young girl who was the embodiment of the aristocracy Remy had wanted so hard to fight, the embodiment of the spy Remy had tried so hard to be. This girl who was making her question everything. Everything.

All she’d wanted was to help her brother, but now she wanted more. To help the people the revolution had harmed.

The Poppy held out her hand, and Remy saw the flash of her palmport. No wonder she’d been hiding it under her glove when they’d met in Galatea. There was no way folks would fail to recognize her as an aristo with that hardware in her hand.

“Will you join us?”

“Yes,” Remy said, though it was more like a sob. “Yes, I’ll help you. Tell me what I have to do.”