Page 15 of Taken By the Alien Killer
Star’s glance lingers a heartbeat. My answer stays nailed to the floor between us.
By the time the handlers lead the beasts back to their stalls and the last of the envoys has been sent off with a box of spiced shortcakes and a promise of paperwork, the light has gone thin and gold. We walk the last twenty meters to the grav-car in a configuration that will look correct from any angle: Kaspian and Star a half step ahead, Sneed to their side like a shadow with a calendar, me and two guards behind at the proper distance. The wind carries the smell of hay and far salt. Somewhere a greathound bays; somewhere a door slams; somewhere my heart remembers what it’s for and beats so hard I think the stones can hear it.
Star’s shoulder shifts as if she’ll look back. She doesn’t. I let my gaze pass over the line of her spine and slide away as if it never wanted to stop there. Kaspian clears his throat and thanks me—again—for vigilance. I give him the same nod I’ve given commanders before him. It’s the only language I trust.
The car’s door opens with a sigh. I take my place where I won’t have to smell the citrus in her hair or the cedar in his jacket. Sneed’s slate ticks softly as it updates the next obligation. The city leans toward evening, all copper and shadow.
I make myself a wall with eyes and nothing else. It’s the only way I survive the day.
The Gardensof Reflection sit on the south slope where the cliff light turns glossy and the wind smells of crushed mint. The paths thread between mirror pools and low obsidian walls that keep the world quiet. Even the insects fly slower here, skimming the glassy water like skaters rehearsing. I walk the perimeter twice before the picnic party arrives—map sight lines, count exits, clock the hawks riding thermals over the gullies, and note three places where a rifle could nest out of drone range. A gardener in linen gloves pretends not to watch me measure angles with my eyes. Sneed watches me watch the world and checks something off on his slate like paranoia is a line item that pleases him.
Servants unfold a blanket the size of a sail. Crystal flutes line up like small soldiers. The smell of citrus and sugared pastry drifts on the heat and coats my tongue even from ten paces. Kaspian arrives with that court balance of ease and caution, nods to me as if he recognizes in my stance something he’s seen guarding his own halls. Star comes last, a cloud of slate-blue silk and bare forearms, hair twisted into something simple that makes the hollow at her throat look vulnerable enough to make my hands ache. I take my mark—two steps beyond and one behind, outside their intimacy, inside any bullet.
The small talk starts. Kaspian does the work of being interesting in a polite way: a story about a tutor who fell asleep mid-lecture and kept waking at the same sentence; a harmless confession about getting lost in a two-corridor wing of his childhood home. Star indulges him with a smile that lands politely. I catalog a shimmer on the far water—only a dragonfly—and a glint in the wisteria canopy—just a danglingcharm someone tied for luck. I force my lungs into a measured draw and let the heat gather under my collar without shifting to scratch.
At some point the servants fade back and Sneed glides off to bully a distant seating arrangement into being perfect. The quartet from last night has been replaced by a lone harpist at the upper terrace whose notes fall like clear stones into the pools. Kaspian excuses himself to take a call with his mother’s attaché—he says it with an apology so practiced it feels gentle rather than rehearsed—and steps toward the comm alcove under the fig bower. It leaves the air thinner. Star turns, not all at once, but in increments: first the shoulders, then the chin, then the eyes until I have nowhere else respectable to look.
“Commander,” she says softly, stepping off the blanket like she’s walking from a stage into an alley. “Is this perimeter to your liking, or should we build another ring of walls and hire a small army for the mint plants?”
“Perimeter is acceptable,” I answer, neutral because it’s safer than every other tone in my throat.
She stops nearer than she should, the sun laying a gloss over the down on her forearms. “You do realize I can hear you say things like ‘acceptable’ and ‘copy’ and ‘affirmative’ without spontaneously combusting.”
“Good,” I say. “Combustion complicates evacuation procedures.”
She snorts, light but edged. “I’m trying to joke.”
“I’m on duty.”
“You’re always on duty.”
“That’s the duty.”
“Is that what we’re calling it now?” Her smile is quick and brittle; the green of her eyes goes brighter in the white glare off the nearest pool. She lowers her voice like she’s asking a favor ofa locked door. “Rayek, just… talk to me like I’m me and you’re you for a second.”
My name in her mouth is a pressure point. I step half a pace to re-sight the angles across the water because if I stand still I will reach for her. “My Lady, I am speaking to you in the capacity assigned.”
“That’s not what I asked.” She tries again, lighter, a fresh angle like on a chessboard. “Fine. Professional, then. Which pastry is least likely to assassinate me? Sneed over-ordered and I fear the lemon tarts are treasonous.”
“The apricot,” I say before I can edit out the memory of which fruit she favors. “The seeds lodge in your teeth less.”
She brightens like I’ve unlocked a hatch. “So you do remember the important things.”
“I remember hazards.”
“Seeds are hazardous?” She huffs, then softens. “I’m not a dignitary. I mean I am, apparently, by birth, but right now I’m just… Star. Standing in front of you. Trying to be a human in the middle of a ceremony I can’t breathe inside. Humor me.”
She steps closer; the scent of her—citrus, warmed silk, something like smoke from a memory I won’t touch—slides under my armor. A bead of sweat crawls between my shoulder blades; I refuse it the dignity of a shift. “My guidance is unchanged,” I say. “Stay within my line of sight. Avoid the wisteria trellis—loose fittings. Walk the flagstones, not the gravel; the fissures could turn an ankle. If anyone approaches without a court pin, I intervene first.”
She studies my face like she’s hunting for the man who used to accept a bad joke and return one that was worse. “You could just say you’re all right.”
“I’m functional.”
“That’s not the same.”
“It’s sufficient.”
The words do damage I can’t take back. She holds them in her eyes for a count of three, and the hurt is not loud—no scene, no teary theatrics—just a small recession, like the tide pulling back from a rock. Her mouth tilts, confused and wounded together. “Did I do something?” she asks, quiet enough that it slips under the harp. “Besides the obvious?”
