Page 34 of Last of Her Name

“Maybe.”

“Maybe,”he echoes in a hollow voice. “Well, then maybe you two should turn around and run to Volkov, like the tensor wants. Hand yourself over if you think the Union is so much better.”

“That’s not fair. You know that’s not what he’s saying.” I shoot him a cold look. “Pol, who are these people we’re meeting? What do they want?”

“Peace. Justice. The rightful heir on her rightful throne.”

“And what doyouwant?”

He throws up his hands, as if that should be obvious. “I want to see you where you belong. An empress restored to her place, the galaxy set right again.”

An empress. Not a friend. Notme, Stacia.

He wants Anya.

Maybe that’s all he ever wanted. Maybe all this time, whenever he looked at me, he sawher—this girl I’m supposed to be, this role he thinks I can pull on like a mask.

“I trust them,” he says. “I hope you will too.”

Trust.

Trust is a luxury I’ve always taken for granted—trusting my parents and Pol, trusting I’d wake up each morning and find my loved ones near and safe, trusting that the universe could be a fundamentally fair place. Trusting that my life wouldn’t implode in the course of a single hour.

Trust yourself, Pol urged me, just before we crashed onto Sapphine. Just before my intincts led us into Riyan’s trap. So much for that advice.

But there’s still Clio. I can trust her, even when I can’t trust myself. Especially then.

Whatever it takes to reach her, I’ll do it. With or without Pol, with or without his Loyalists, I’ll do it. Whoever I have to use or betray or leave behind, whatever the universe demands of me, I’ll do it. I’ll go with Pol until his road deviates from mine, and then I’ll go alone.

Worlds may burn and stars may fall, but I will never give up on her. No matter how far away she is, or how impossible to reach, as long as she is waiting at the end of it, my path is clear.

An hour later, we sail into a cloud of asteroids, guided by the data stick Pol inserted into theValentina’s control board. As far as I can tell, Riyan still doesn’t know it’s there.

I’m standing at the control board with Pol, having freshened up and washed my face. A search of the clipper’s rear cabins uncovered several closets stocked with clothes, and I’m now dressed like a tensor, in a complicated wrap of gray tunic and black leggings. The cloth itches. I think it might be actual wool, like, from ananimal, instead of the synthetic stuff I’ve always worn. Pol is dressed similarly, his tunic black and his pants looser than mine, but with his red scarf hanging around his neck.

Riyan appears beside me with no warning, and I nearly jump out of my skin. He moves like a ghost, gliding around in his own little zero gravity bubble.

“You have got to give a warning,” I say, my skin still crawling.

“Sorry.” He doesn’t appear sorry. He still seems angry and is very pointedly not looking at Pol.

The deck sizzles with tension. Pol stares straight ahead, as if the tensor isn’t there at all. I make sure I’m squarely between them. I can’t risk another fight, one that might push Riyan over the edge and cause him to break his own ship in half. The memory of theLaika’s crumpled gravity generator is still fresh in my mind.

Riyan’s staff is across the deck, leaning on the wall. He opens his hand toward it, finger curling, and the air over his palm splinters. The staff scrapes across the floor and then lifts, falling into his grasp.

“It’s called astress field,” Riyan says, catching me staring.

“How does it work?”

He thinks a moment, then says, “Space-time is like a fabric, right? When I tessellate, I’m putting pressure on the threads in that fabric, so things around them are naturally pulled in—or repelled away. Gravity is just a distortion of space-time, after all. A tensor can provide that distortion in the form of a stress field. Whateversomemight think”—he slides a narrow look at Pol—“it’s not magic or witchcraft.”

“It’s incredible,” I breathe.

Pol looks up, his jaw hard. “We’re almost there. So how about we stop with the science lessons and focus on finding the base?”

Riyan’s hand tightens around his staff. “I hope you’re not wrong about these people, aeyla.”

Pol savagely bites a ration bar and says nothing.