Page 17 of Last of Her Name

“My father asked me that day if I could take that vow too. And I did. Because even at twelve years old, I hated the Committee, Stacia. I hated the Union. Under your family’s rule, the aeyla were safe. We were equal. But now, we’re not allowed into universities or to take high-security jobs. We’re not even allowed off Amethyne. We’ve been stripped of our rights, and that’s only the start of the Union’s tyranny. I knew I had to help. So I trained to protect you, learned the protocols to follow if you were ever exposed.”

“Stop.”I lean over, elbows on knees, face in hands, trying to control the chaos inside me. “It’s a lie!”

“My father didn’t die for alie, Stacia.”

I drop my hands to look at him.

“What?”

He stares ahead, his hands in fists on the control board. “He set off that explosion as a distraction, so I could get you out of there, but he didn’t get away in time. The bomb was supposed to go off three blocks away, in an empty warehouse. But a vityaze spotted him and shot him just outside the town hall, detonating the blast early.”

“Pol … Oh, Pol.”

I slide my hand across the control board until our fingers meet. For a moment, I think he’ll pull away. But then his hand closes around mine, squeezing so tightly I half worry he’ll break my fingers.

The events of my life seem cast in a wholly new light. All those times Pol stopped me from getting too close to the snapteeth or the top of the waterfall above our house. His obsession with the vineyard security. The way he followed the uprisings in the central systems. I’d always thought him a bit paranoid.

But all along, he was acting out of duty to some vow he made as achild, before he could possibly have understood what he was committing to. But he made that vow because my own parents urged him to, because all along they had a secret past life I never knew about. And Spiros, my friend, Pol’s father,diedfor that vow.

I lurch to my feet, shaking from head to toe.

“Stacia?”

“Don’t,” I murmur. “Don’t say anything else. Please.”

I push through the cockpit and into the back cabin, where I can be alone. There, I curl up on the lower bunk and pull a pillow over my head. I can hear him pouring water in the tiny galley outside and try to shut out the noise. Really, I’m trying to shut out my own thoughts, but the more I attempt to ignore them the louder they get.

Princess Anya Petrovna Leonova.

It’s a mistake. A colossal mistake. If Pol’s father had waited one minute more, maybe I could have told them that. Maybe none of this would be happening, and everyone in Afka would be okay and I’d be at home right now. Pol would still have his dad.

But a part of me—a very strong part—knows that isn’t true.

Even if I’d managed to convince direktor Volkov that I’m not the girl he thinks I am, he would have found someone else to call Anya, if only to save face. Maybe Clio.

I stroke my bottom lip with the pad of my thumb. If I were a kid, I’d pop it in and suck on it for comfort, the way I used to when I was four.

But I’m not a kid anymore.

I can’t hide from my problems or scream for someone else to fix them. I have to face them head-on.

And that means, as much as it turns my stomach, that I have to at leastconsiderthat Pol’s story is true.

That thought lights like a fuse, setting off an explosion of panic. I jolt upright, only to smash my head against the upper bunk. Swearing, I roll off the bed and pace the tiny area, punching the wall every time I reach it. My knuckles sing with pain, blocking out everything else. The third punch leaves a streak of blood on the wall.

In moments, Pol is there, standing in the doorway.

“Stacia, stop.”

“Shut up.”

“You’ll hurt yourself.”

“Shutup.”

He slides between me and the wall just before I can punch it again. My fist strikes his chest instead.

Pol’s hand wraps around my wrist. He doesn’t let go until the tension seeps from my shoulders and I sag against the bunk. I stare at my bloodied knuckles.