Page 80 of Star Bringer
Her eyes are wide, and she blinks a couple of times. I actually think she’s enjoying this. “Well, admittedly the Sisterhood isn’t popular with everyone in Senestris. Certainly climate activists may notloveme and what I represent. We’re often at odds with the Empire. So sure, I guess there could be lots of reasons someone would want me dead. But I mean, if I die, I’ll just be reborn again, so what would be the point?”
I can’t help wondering if she actually believes that. That every high priestess is really just the same soul reincarnated over and over again. It seems impossible to me.
But something does occur to me. “Why were you on theCaelestis?” I ask. “I know you stepped in for Ambassador Frellen, but whyyou? You don’t seem…” I search for a way to say this without hurting her feelings, because I genuinely like Rain. I think she might be the nicest person I’ve ever met.
“Very diplomatic?” Merrick suggests dryly. “Believe me, I’ve been thinking about the same thing myself. I think maybe the Sisterhood had gotten word about the heptosphere and wanted to see if Rain reacted to it.”
Rain and I look at each other. Suddenly, her appearance on theCaelestisseems even more mysterious.
“Why would she?” I ask.
He gives a shrug. “There are many stories in our scriptures connecting the high priestess with alien artifacts.”
I’d never heard that before, but the Sisterhood is a secretive lot. “And did you?” I ask Rain.
“I don’t think so. But I only touched it briefly.”
“Okay, so ‘everyone’ for Kali and ‘everyone’ for Rain. Cool.” Ian rolls his eyes before turning to Merrick. “What about you? You piss anyone off recently?”
“Probably,” Merrick answers with a shrug.
“Fucking great,” Ian snarls, sounding increasingly frustrated. “Gage?”
“I work for the Corporation,” Gage says matter-of-factly. “We aren’t exactly popular.”
“Fuck!” Ian is pacing now, pulling at the ends of his short hair.
I lock eyes with him. “Well, what about you? I mean, you did kidnap a princess, and you’re keeping her here against her will now. It’s probably the Empire looking for my safe return.”
“That doesn’t explain why your face is plastered on those wanted ads right alongside ours, sweetheart,” Ian argues. “And for someone who’s here against her will, you sure don’t seem to be protesting very much.”
I let out a huff. “Fine. But I’m sure you’ve annoyedsomeoneto the point of murder recently.”
He smirks. “You mean other than you? Sure, every day.”
I throw my hands in the air. “So we’re no closer to narrowing down who’s after us than we were before.Anyonecould be chasing us, wanting us dead. We’re all guilty—which means we’re all innocent,” I reason.
“Look, I don’t know about you, Princess, but no one even knew who Max and I really were on theCaelestis,” Ian argues. “We just got caught up in someone else’s shit.”
“Whywereyou on board?” I ask. “I know you’re looking for Milla, but what made you think she was on theCaelestis?”
For a moment, I don’t think he’s going to answer. But then he glances at Max, who shrugs.
“Milla was captured about three months ago, while we were on what should have been a straightforward job. But when we broke into the prison she was supposed to have been remanded to so we could rescue her, she was already gone, with no obvious trail as to where she’d been transferred.”
“Maybe she’s dead,” Beckett says, though she at least has the sense to look contrite about it. “They often execute prisoners quickly. I know it’s what I expected.”
“But what about a trial?” I ask. “People aren’t just executed in the Senestris justice system.”
Beckett gives a contemptuous roll of her eyes, but she doesn’t answer my question.
“She’s not dead,” Max tells her. “We’d know if she was.”
I want to ask him how they can be so certain, but Ian is talking again. “Anyway, we found her after the prison. It took us a little while—we had to get some money together for bribes—but we found out she’d been transferred to theCaelestis, though as far as we could tell, there was no official paperwork to back it up. With a few more bribes, we got taken on as guards—their security is actually pretty lax, like they think they’re too fucking important for anyone to mess with. But by the time we got there, she was already gone.”
“When was this?” Beckett asks.
“About two months ago. We figured she was transferred, so we got our very expensiveaccomplicehere”—he waves a hand in Gage’s direction—“to break into the records and learned that she was taken off theCaelestisand onto theReformer. An illegal prison ship run by raiders out of Vistenia. But there was no record of where she’d been shipped to.”
