Page 86 of Star Bringer
I frown. “Why?”
“Because she’s the Empress of Senestris, the most important person in the system,andshe’s my mother.”
“I never knew my father, and my mother was murdered when I was eleven,” I find myself saying. I can’t believe I admitted that. I never talk about my mother.
Her eyes widen. “I’m so sorry, Ian. That must have been so hard.” She reaches out and touches my arm, and my skin burns beneath her touch.
Chemistry is so fucked up. Usually, I don’t mind that fact—hard to mind when you don’t spend more than a couple of days in any port and you can fly away from all your problems—but it sucks right now. Especially since every time I think she’s as big a monster as the rest of the Ruling Families, Kali proves me wrong.
“My father was murdered, too.”
I don’t answer. I just reach out and stroke her hand.
She grabs onto my fingers. “He was a good man, and I loved him. I want to be the kind of ruler that would make him proud.”
“Isn’t that the same kind that would make your mother proud?” I ask.
It doesn’t seem like a hard question, but she thinks about it for a long time. So long that I start to think she isn’t going to answer at all. But then she says, “I used to think so. But after the last few days, I’m not so sure. My dad hated for anyone to suffer.”
Then he really picked the wrong woman to fall in love with, didn’t he?
I manage to stop myself from blurting it out, but something about the look in Kali’s eyes tells me she’s already thinking the same thing.
Her hand is still in mine, and I stare down at it, feeling the warmth from our touch seep through my body. At least until she realizes we’re basically holding hands and snatches hers back.
I stand up. This conversation is clearly done.
“As soon as we find Milla, we’ll make sure you get home safe. Okay?” Just saying it fills me with a weird queasy feeling, but I’ve always known that had to be the endgame. No use getting bent out of shape about it now.
“I can wait.” She smiles a little. “I know how devoted you are to finding Milla. It’s admirable, really.”
Her words give me a little stab of…something. Guilt, maybe. Because my saving Milla isn’t really altruistic—at least not the way she makes it sound. I hate keeping secrets, and I hate feeling guilty even more—I just haven’t had enough practice for it to come naturally—which tends to make me mean.
Maybe that’s why I lash out.
“So, yeah, let me do what I need to do, and then we’ll get you back to being a sheltered princess. And just forget about any more kissing,” I throw in.
A hurt look flashes in her eyes, and there’s that goddamn guilt again, stabbing me in the gut. Even her eyes harden.
“What kissing?” She sniffs. “Hey, looks like I’ve already forgotten it.” Her eyes gleam.
And suddenly, the air in the room charges and we’re both thinking about kissing each other.
I take a step closer. “And just so you know, it’s never going to happen again.”
“What isn’t? The kiss that was so unremarkable that I’ve already forgotten it?”
My lips twitch. The really sad thing is, I like her. Besides Milla—and that’s very different—I’ve never actually liked a woman before. Maybe because I’ve never allowed myself to know them well enough to get to that stage, or maybe because none of them were as fascinating as Kali.
The problem is that she makes me feel like the world might not be such a bad place after all. Which makes no sense, considering her family is a big part of the reason this system of ours is such a shitty mess.
Not to mention she just agreed to let me bring her back so she can help Mommy make it even shittier.
I mean, sure, I know everyone says the world is going to end unless we do something drastic and that’s why we all have to suffer—and by all, they mean everyone who isn’t in the Ruling Families—but I’ve always believed it’s just another ploy to try and keep us down. As for the Sisterhood saving us by embracing the Dying Sun or whatever, that’s just a big steaming pile of shit, no matter how genuine Rain seems to be.
“You sure are thinking awfully hard,” Kali says, breaking into my cheerful thoughts.
“Just contemplating the shitty state of the world.”
