Page 5 of Only Hard Problems

ZANE

Ituckedthelunariumjewelry box into my pocket. I adjusted my tailcoat, but the square box was as heavy as a blaster pressing against my heart. I muttered a curse, then left the library, went out the front door, and stepped into the waiting carriage. It too was ice-blue, inside and out, and the enormous round passenger compartment always made me feel like I’d been swallowed alive by an oversize satin pumpkin.

My grandmother was sitting in one side of the carriage, staring out the window, while my father was in the opposite corner, watching a gossipcast on his tablet. Once again, the space between them crackled with tension. I bit back a sigh, slid in next to my father, and thumped my fist on the low ceiling. A second later, the horses plodded forward, and the carriage creaked along the cobblestones.

Dozens of other carriages were also rolling along the Boulevard, right past Promenade Park. Hundreds of people were already picnicking on the park’s rolling lawns, enjoying games, music, and more in honor of the summer solstice, which was a city- and planet-wide holiday.

A few gossipcasters and their videographers had set up their cameras on the edge of the grass and were filming the Regals as we all left our castles for our own solstice celebration. I stuck my head out of the carriage window and waved, catching their attention.

“Woo-hoo! See you at the party!” I called out in a booming, grandiose voice, then added anotherWoo-hoo!for good measure.

Several of the gossipcasters—women and men alike—tittered and waved back at me. To them, I was a veritable Prince Charming with the perfect Regal life. Right now, I would have much rather been preening for the cameras than stuck in this carriage with my angry, secretive family.

The carriage quickly left the park behind and rolled past Crownpoint, the Imperium palace. Unlike the Regals’ colorful castles with their quirky turrets and fanciful parapets that lined the Boulevard, the palace had a plain, ugly façade of chrome and glass, and its miles-high towers glinted like rows of spears in the bright afternoon sunlight.

My gaze locked on the main tower. Callus Holloway hadn’t messaged me today. He probably thought his silence was punishment, but I welcomed the respite from his constant demands that I find Kyrion and Vesper and his not-so-subtle threats about what would happen to me, and my family, if I failed to deliver the truebonded couple to him—

Ding!The shrill tone I’d assigned to Holloway erupted from my tablet. No respite after all. I sighed, pulled the device out of my pocket, and read the message.

Quit preening for the gossipcasts like an idiot. Have some fucking dignity.

So Holloway was watching the solstice coverage and, therefore, me too. Terrific. On the bright side, he never expected replies, only obedience, so I shoved my tablet back into my pocket.

“Is there a problem?” my father asked in a worried voice.

I shrugged off his concern. “Just Holloway being Holloway. I’m clearly his new favorite. He messages me more than a lovestruck schoolboy.”

My father smiled at my joke, but the expression quickly faded away. Beatrice eyed me a moment, then stared out the window again.

Forty-five minutes later, the carriage zipped through an open gate, entered a spaceport, and crisscrossed several long runways before rolling up the cargo-bay ramp of a massive transport. The driver stopped the carriage in the allotted House Zimmer spot nestled in the middle of dozens of other Regal carriages. Horses whinnied, and the murmuring of voices and the chiming of tablets trilled through the air like a muted symphony. A few Regals leaned out of their windows and gossiped with their neighbors, but everyone remained inside their carriages.

I thumped my head back against the cushion. Even for Regal society, this was grandiose overkill. It would have been so much simpler and easier for everyone to take mechanized transports to the celebration site, but alas, the horse-drawn carriage ride along the Boulevard was one of the summer solstice traditions, although I had no idea what it actually celebrated, other than the Regals’ excessive wealth and obsession with opulence.

Once the horses were tended to and the carriages were locked in place, the thrusters fired up, and the transport lifted off the ground. Beatrice pulled out her tablet to watch the gossipcast coverage, while my father kept studying his device, both still ignoring each other.

I pulled out my own tablet and scrolled through my messages, checking in with all my contacts, as well as some of the other Arrows. Beatrice was an accomplished spy wrangler, with eyes and ears throughout Regal society and out into the galaxy beyond, but over the years, I had built my own network, which was useful for times like these when I wanted information without my grandmother getting wind of it.

Still no confirmed sightings of Vesper and Kyrion, but it was just a matter of time before someone spotted them, especially given the massive bounty Holloway had announced for their capture. I responded to a few messages and read the latest reports from Holloway’s generals about where the couple might have gone, but no one had any concrete information or actionable intelligence.

I shut Vesper and Kyrion out of my mind and focused on another one of my many hard problems: tracking down the Techwave. Over the last several months, the terrorist group had attacked one Regal facility after another across the galaxy, killing workers and stealing all the weapons, tech, and resources they could carry away. But they had been surprisingly quiet in recent weeks, which made me uneasy. The Techwave was no doubt gearing up for another attack, although none of Holloway’s spies had any clue when or where the Techies might strike next.

An hour later, the transport began its descent, and we all put away our tablets. Beatrice and Wendell hadn’t spoken a word to each other the entire ride, and I saw no need to break the tense, angry silence. My grandmother had taught me that Zimmers always put on a happy face in public, and right before a major Regal celebration was no time to instigate family drama.

The transport touched down, the cargo-bay ramp descended, and the carriages were unlocked from their spots. Then the horses circled around and trotted down the ramp. Once again, we crisscrossed several spaceport runways before going through a wide, open gate. This time, instead of cobblestone streets and colorful castles, crushed-shell driveways and quaint cottages stretched out into the Corios countryside.

I stuck my head out the window again. The fresh scent of summer grass tickled my nose, along with the sharp tang of wild onions and the earthy aroma of mud from last night’s heavy rains. Corios was a Temperate planet with four distinct seasons, and thunderstorms often popped up in the hot, humid summer months. Lightning had cracked several branches off the flowering trees, and white, purple, and yellow blossoms were scattered across the roadways like petals a girl had plucked out of a flower basket.

Thirty minutes later, a massive castle appeared in the distance. The wealthier and more prominent Regal families took turns hosting the winter and summer solstice celebrations. Today, Lord Jorge Rojillo of House Rojillo had that honor—and headache.

Castle Rojillo sprawled across the top of a grassy hill that overlooked a man-made lake surrounded by dense coniferous woods. The castle was made of a beautiful pale pink stone that made it gleam like a colorful diamond nestled in the surrounding green, blue, and brown landscape. Every level of the structure featured round windows, fluted columns, and scalloped archways that reminded me of the edges of a seashell. White flags boasting the large stylized, flowering pinkRof House Rojillo fluttered atop the castle’s many turrets, along with a lone limp flag bearing a bronze hand on a red background—Callus Holloway’s sigil and a token nod to the Imperium leader.

The horses climbed the hill and stopped in front of the castle. I opened the door and hopped out, not wanting to spend a second longer inside the tension-filled carriage. My father also hopped out, and I helped my grandmother climb down. All around us, other Regals were also arriving, and their chatter droned through the air like a cloud of excited bees, accentuated by the steadycrunch-crunch-crunch-crunchof the horses’ hooves through the crushed shells underfoot.

One of my father’s friends called out a greeting, and Wendell waved and headed in that direction without a backward glance. My grandmother’s lips pinched into a tight line again. After a few seconds, she smoothed out her expression and turned to me.

“Remember what we talked about,” she said in a stern voice. “You will be charming and attentive to Lady Asterin at the ball. Then, when the time is right, you will present her with the solstice gift.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” I said, tapping my chest where the jewelry box was still nestled inside my coat pocket. “I’ll make all the appropriate remarks about how the necklace is but a mere humble token of my deep affection and will only enhance her own beauty, which needs no adornments to begin with, given how innately glorious she already is.”

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