Page 138 of Star Bringer
She moves a little closer, and I move a little farther back—and to the right. She follows me, and I do the same thing again. It’s not the most impressive move, but hey, we’ve been in a fight for a full thirty seconds and I’m not dead yet, so it can’t be all bad, either.
She lunges for me, and I let out a startled squeak as I jump back. Then immediately hate myself because she’s laughing at me now—and I don’t even blame her. Especially since I realize that was a mock attempt on her part anyway. She was just trying to shake me up.
Like I need to be more shaken up?
She moves like lightning to the left this time, and I circle just as quickly to the right. I have one second to congratulate myself for lasting another thirty seconds when she lashes out again. This time, convinced she’s just messing with me, I don’t jump back nearly as far. And she whirls, kicking out with one leg.
The next thing I know, I’m flat on my back and she’s above me, a terrifying darkness in her eyes as her knee presses into my chest.
The air leaves my lungs in a whoosh.
“This is for my father. And Jarved,” she snarls, and her knee presses down even harder.
And suddenly, I’m furiously angry as well. What right does she have to think she has the monopoly on bad shit?
I go limp and close my eyes like I’m all weak and pathetic—which I am honest enough to admit that I am. I sense the moment she thinks I’ve passed out, her body relaxing, and I sweep up with my arm as hard as I can.
My fist connects with her nose, and blood spurts everywhere. Beckett actually has the gall to look slightly impressed before she lets out a bloodcurdling cry. She straddles my hips and presses my shoulders into the floor with both her hands. And I’m sure I’m going to die, but I’m still too angry to be worried. Her blood drips on my face.
“That was formyfather,” I yell at her. “Your people killed him, and he didn’t deserve that. He was the best person I’ve ever known.”
At first, she doesn’t react. But then I see the moment she comes back to herself, the darkness fading from her eyes. She swings her leg over so she’s no longer on me and sits, knees bent, looking at me as though she can’t quite believe she didn’t kill me. The rage is gone, and now she just looks…sad.
I lick my lips and taste the sharp, metallic tang of blood. I’m not sure if it’s mine or hers.
“We didn’t kill your father,” she tells me as she puts her hands on either side of her nose and jerks it back into place.
“Maybe you didn’t, but the rebels did.”
“That’s what I’m saying. The rebels had nothing to do with his death.”
“I don’t believe you.”
Beckett gives me a pitying look. “Believe me—it’s not something I’d deny if wehaddone it. I’m not always proud of the things we do, but I never back down from admitting them. And guess what. The Rebellion did not kill your father.”
I don’t want to believe her, but there’s a ring of truth in her voice that’s hard to ignore. It’s also hard to ignore the fact that my mother has lied to me before. Is it really so hard to believe that she lied about this, too?
But if so, why? And if the Rebellion didn’t kill my father, then who did?
Chapter 53
Kali
An hour later, I’m lying in bed, drinking a glass of water, staring at the weird alien metal of the ceiling, and still trying to work out the answer to the question of my father’s death.
But I’ve got nothing. My mother sold me such a bill of goods on the Rebellion being responsible for my father’s death that I never thought to dig any deeper when I was at the palace. And now that I want to dig, I’m out here at the edge of the system with absolutely nothing to go on but the word of a rebel who wants me dead most of the time.
It sucks. Everything just sucks.
Maybe one of the other Ruling Families decided to kill my father. Or maybe it was someone within the Council—the desire for power is a dangerous thing at the best of times. In a solar system on the brink of extinction, it’s more than dangerous. It’s downright apocalyptic.
So is it such a stretch to imagine that one of the power-hungry councilors decided to do my father in? I don’t know what they would have hoped to gain from it—except to destabilize my mother so badly that they could launch a coup? If so, it didn’t work.
It’s also common knowledge that there were many within our family and the Council who were unhappy about my mother and father’s union. Maybe his death was a byproduct of that.
Or maybe the Sisterhood did it. Maybe they harbored a grudge that he’d left them for my mother. I used to think that the Sisterhood was basically peaceful. Now I’m not so sure—they have a freaking army stationed on every planet. And Merrick is definitely not what I would call a pacifist…
If not the rebels or the Council or my family or the Sisterhood, then who?
