Star-Crossed

Chapter Twenty-Five: You spend your whole life dreaming, then you wake up dead

IN THE END, Rhea is the one who guides me to the control room while Xerxion and the others work to keep In Tempestate from breaching the ship. Since Rhea is a Royal-and therefore the only one among them with abilities like Rania of the Cosmos'-she's supposed to be instructing me on how to fix what has been damaged.

"The ship was damaged when we crashed here," Rhea explains as she leads the way, somehow managing to walk gracefully even as we are hit again and the ship quakes violently.

I'm walking like a baby deer, my legs buckling from the violent vibrations that shake the entire spaceship, causing some of the lights around us to flicker off for a moment before turning back on again. I have to hold onto the wall to keep from falling on my face. I want to punch Rhea for looking so damn graceful.

"We were worried we'd be stuck here," she continues. "But, if you can fix the ship maybe there is hope for us after all." She sighs in what can only be relief. "I will be glad to be done with this planet. Mankind gets worse with each of their centuries that pass."

I recognize the disapproval in Rhea's tone. It reminds me a lot of when she told Rania of the Cosmos about all of the terrible things their parents had done. I gather right then that she is clearly not humanities biggest fan.

"You and Rania's parents, they're the reason for this, aren't they?"

Rhea continues walking and if I hadn't seen the way her back stiffened, I would've assumed she hadn't heard me.

After a moment, she asks, "How much did you see, soror?"

"You and Rania were walking in the woods and she asked you about your parents. She remembered the day you left a couple of hundred years before and she asked why. You told her your parents burned the city Niutu. A city filled with innocent men, women, and children. You said they burned it all." The last sentence comes out as a whisper.

"So you saw quite a lot of our conversation," Rhea observes.

Another blast hits us and I fall against the wall. Rhea continues walking as if it never happened and I'm forced to get a grip and follow after her.

"Yes, our parents are the reason In Tempestate are after us. After you, to put it plainly. They want our family off the throne. They thought that, with you being dead, they had finally achieved their goal. But when Xerxion went off to search for you, it wasn't long until word began to spread of your survival in another world. In another body. And now-"

"They're here to finish the job," I finish for her, my voice grim.

Rhea glances back at me, her golden eyes drinking me in seriously. It seems like she's trying to understand what I'm thinking, like she's trying to figure me out. Finally, though, she acknowledges my statement with a nod.

"And In Tempestate, do you think they killed Rania of the Cosmos?"

She turns away from me, but I catch the crushing grief on her face before she can hide it. Her golden eyes burn like she's in pain and I can't help the twisting in my chest. Something in me stirs at seeing Rhea hurt. Some protective instinct, one that I've only felt for my kids, swells in my chest and I long to comfort her. To hold her hand like Rania did in the memory and tell her that it's okay. That she is my soror karissima.

But I don't do any of those things. Because, although Rhea calls me soror, I'm sure she's well aware I am not Rania of the Cosmos. I am not the little girl who followed her older sister around the palace, admiring her beauty and trying to imitate her grace. I am not the girl Rhea spent endless days and nights training with to teach her to be the strong leader our planet needed. I am not the girl Rhea shared thousands of laughs with, that Rhea cried with. That she walked hand in hand with and loved to the farthest spaces of the Cosmos and back.