Page 88 of Last of Her Name
And I’m almost there. After nearly three months of endless running and bouncing from one system to the next, I’m so close to Clio I can almost feel her presence, like she’s standing just around the corner.
We skim along the curvature of Alexandrine’s atmo, through a nearspace cluttered with ships and stations. The planet’s population has overspilled its boundaries, and these suburbs sprawl all the way to Alexandrine’s white moon. Clusters of stations link together, creating zero-gravity versions of neighborhood blocks, microworlds caught in an orbital dance. Their lights flash as we drift past, neon exclamations advertising ship dealers, casinos, shopping malls, spas. The busyness of Alexandrine’s orbit is dizzying; there are probably ten times as many people up here than there are on the whole of Amethyne. I watch it all slip by with a feeling of disconnection; I am a fish in a bowl, unable to touch the world just outside my glass walls.
A path is cleared for us. Lighter ships scurry away, tiny orbital transports that buzz about the astronika’s exterior like flies around a mantibu. Several security escort ships flit ahead, bullying aside any vessels slow to make way.
Finally, a golden moon appears around the brow of the planet. Only it’s not a moon, I realize, but the Autumn Palace. At this distance, with Alexandrine curving between us still, the hive of buildings looks like a solid object. The nearer we get, the more they separate, and twenty minutes out, the place looks like a molecule hovering in the air. The Rezidencia is unmistakable, a rotating white orb at the center of the compound, larger than all the other buildings. The shield rings spin around them all like a gyroscope, generating an impenetrable, unseen wall. Though it isn’t totally impregnable, I remember. Sixteen years ago, Volkov got through with his rebels, in their solar-powered attack ships.
It all feels familiar after my explorations of Zhar’s holomap. I recognize each building and its function—trade, travel, tech, military. Lots of military. After the chaos and noise of the orbital suburbs, the palace is stunningly pristine, all its buildings uniformly white. Narrow tubes connect the buildings, incorporating them all into an elegant frame.
I remember as a kid, I was once given a school assignment to re-create the palace by connecting foam blocks with narrow sticks. Clio helped me label each building. It took days to complete, and I remember my mother bursting into tears when I unveiled it. I thought she was crying because I’d mixed up some of the labels and ruined it.
Now I think it might have been for a different reason.
Did my parents live here once? I try to imagine my easygoing dad and my quiet mother in this bustling, floating metropolis. They’d seem as at home here as a mantibu on Sapphine, but maybe I don’t know them as well as I thought I did.
The idea leaves me hollow.
Once we’re in the palace, everything will change. Volkov expects me to give him the Firebird, but I have no idea how to do that. He hasn’t brought it up since our first conversation, and I haven’t dared bring his attention back to it. I know he must think of it every time he looks at me, but whatever his plans are for extracting it from my DNA, he hasn’t said what they are.
I watch closely as the astronika approaches the palace shield. The space around us flickers blue and parts, just like the vineyard security fence back home, though no doubt a thousand times stronger.
I twist my multicuff, my stomach filling with nervous flutters.
The shield reseals behind us, and we glide through the compound, navigating the framework with gentle nudges from the thrusters.
A memory drifts back to me—a conversation with Pol after we’d finished a history lesson. Instead of sending us to the local school in town, our parents had enrolled us in the same cyberschool. When our courses synced up, we liked to do them together, usually sprawled in the shade of the vineyard with our tabletkas hovering over us. Clio would braid my hair while we studied, weaving in leaves from the grapevines, and Pol would quiz us on the lesson.
“Isn’t a floating city a dumb idea?” I’d wondered after one of our civics lectures.
“Weren’t you listening atall?” Pol explained that the Autumn Palace had originally been the lab where the Leonovs conducted their work, back when they were scientists. The zero gravity of space was the optimum environment for their experiments. After they discovered the Prisms, their orbital station became the center of their growing empire. Scientists turned conquerors.
Only now I know that their research into the Prisms went much further than anyone realized, that they could somehow control the crystals’ energy and wield it against their enemies. How twistedly brilliant they were, to seed Prisms all over the galaxy. Making their subjects dependent on the very thing the Leonovs could use to destroy them.
The astronika makes a hard dock in the palace hangar. I’m escorted out of the ship by a cloud of vityazes, Volkov walking beside me. The hangar is massive, and there are four more astronikas docked there, each as shining and vast as the first.
A white, egg-shaped lift waits to whisk us through the palace’s tube system and to the Rezidencia at its heart. I sit between Natalya and Volkov, my hands between my knees, heart hammering. The lift and the tube are mostly made of diamantglass, so it feels like we’re soaring through open air. Looking out, I watch the palace’s buildings flick past, and beyond them, the transparent veil of the perimeter shield shimmers like an oil stain.
The pod slows to a stop in the center of a wide circular chamber inside the Rezidencia, where glass walls look out to the rest of the floating palace. I recognize the room from the holomap. Voices echo off the walls; even whispers are amplified in the wide space.
“Princess Anya,” Volkov says as he helps me out of the pod. “Welcome home.”
I suppress a shudder. This place feels nothing like home.
Red-clad vityazes await us in orderly rows, snapping to attention as Volkov strides past. I bob in his wake, noting the differences between the Rezidencia of now and of before. In the holomap, these walls were decorated with imperial banners, but now only Unionist rings are there.
The direktor is dressed up today, suited in a floor-length red coat with white trim. I match him, but not by choice. When I opened my wardrobe this morning, all the clothing had been removed. Only this remained—a white gown with red trim, cut in a vaguely military style, with the embroidered front mimicking the pattern of the vityaze’s armor. I can read the not so subtle message in the dress’s colors: Unionist red paired with Loyalist white. I’m meant to show unity between the two factions, whether I want to or not.
I feel numb as I follow him out of the hangar, Natalya a few steps behind. I glance back at her, still searching for some sign of the real Natalya. There must be some way to override the brain jack, or to get her to wake up from her fugue. Stars, if I could get her out of here, if I could somehow return her to Riyan, that would be worth every bit of my surrender. Maybe I can convince Volkov to let her leave with Clio. I could tell him I’ll refuse to cooperate unless he does.
But my hopes are faint. I know how fully I am in his control now, reduced to a piece on his game board.
Another smooth glass lift takes us through floor after floor of the Rezidencia. I press my hands to the walls and watch the levels as they flick past, losing count as the lift gains speed. Blue lights race across my skin, then slow as the lift comes to a silent stop.
We’re at the heart of the Rezidencia. Because of the structure’s spherical shape, it’s the largest floor, nearly a mile wide. And its center, just like in the holomap, is a conservatory.
We step out into a misty, humid room. Simulated sunlight filters through leaves of every shape and color. Plants cluster around the lift tube, so that it’s almost hidden. The door seals behind Natalya, and Volkov gives me a little smile.
“Your father and I used to hide in here and pretend we were Motherworld adventurers, exploring the ancient jungles.”