“Let’s root on the nearest planet. A couple of days in some distant paradise will be good for the crew. We’ve been chasing our tails for months now. Ever since the…”
He couldn’t bring himself to say the word, but that didn’t stop him from hearing it in his head. Defeat. He had been defeated.
The engineer seemed to sense his misery. “We will reclaim our planet, sire. We will take the interloper and we will destroy him a thousand times over. We will make him regret the moment he set eyes on our world. We will rain down fire, and we will…”
“Yes. He will regret it in a great many ways.”
Chapter 7
The voices in the hall were muffled, but Elizabeth was getting the gist of the meaning. There had been some kind of defeat in the past, and Konan had been on the wrong side of it.
She knew he’d be furious if Konan knew she was listening, but she couldn’t help it. There wasn’t any point in helping it. Staying ignorant wasn’t going to be of any use to her.
Elizabeth had heard many secrets in her time, but this one explained more than perhaps any other. This king was brutal and cruel, and he hurt on the inside in a way that was tangible when he was inside her. Now she knew why.
He’d lost everything.
That was the secret he was hiding. That was the darkness behind his gaze. It wasn’t fury. It was pain. His world was gone. His kingdom, lost. All he had left to rule over was the ship which seemed to take as much care of him as he did of it.
She moved away from the door in case Konan came back in all of a sudden. The last thing she needed was to be caught eavesdropping. He’d go back to the whole spy narrative and probably whip the hell out of her, clap her in irons, throw her in the brig. This ship probably had a brig. She was kind of surprised she hadn’t been put in it already.
Sitting on the bed, she felt the ship’s tendrils reaching for her again. It was careful and delicate, fast for a plant, but slow for an animal. If this thing ran the entire ship, then she was starting to understand why the missiles never seemed to make contact with their targets. The plant wasn't into it. Konan might be king, but the ship was maybe even more powerful than he was. At least, while she was inside the ship. She suddenly felt safe, as if she was wrapped in a blanket of natural kindness and mercy. This ship was something else. Something transcendent.
“You’re the real story,” she whispered, tracing her fingertips lightly over a tendril. She felt the plant’s tendrils curl back, swiftly and almost as affectionately her own touch.
“Don’t let him hurt me,” she whispered.
The ship could not speak, but she felt the tendrils squeeze her fingertips for just a moment before drawing away.
REEEEEEEEEEEEE
The door screeched in the sort of way metal does when it is penetrated with biological material. It opened as though it was in pain, the sound making her cringe with new empathy for the ship. The poor thing was visibly falling apart.
Now that she had heard Konan’s secret, and seen what she had seen, she was starting to get the feeling that this wasn’t a situation that was going to be able to work for much longer. And not just the ship. Everybody on it was on edge. Chaos was in the air. She breathed it in, and she exhaled it again.
Konan stepped through the door, his eyes immediately locked on her with that dominance and suspicion which had come to exemplify his presence. The lord of chaos and death himself. That’s what she would write if he allowed her to make any notes.
She searched his face for signs that he knew she’d overheard him. There were no such signs. He looked the same as he always did. Grumpy. Kind of mean. Far sexier than he should have been considering what he’d done to her, and what he still intended on doing.
“We’re going to be landing shortly. I’ve selected an uncharted planet, so don’t get any stupid ideas about escaping, because there’s nothing stopping you from ending up inside a hungry carnivore.”
“Oh okay.”
“Such a casual response for such a dangerous undertaking.”
Elizabeth shrugged. “I have been in the middle of dangerous undertakings for the last several months. I have been captured and ravaged by a king. I don’t really feel like there’s anything on any planet anywhere that can scare me now.”
“Then you’re naive. The universe is a big dark nothingness filled with small infernos around which orbit spheres of horror and self-consumption. Birthing only to die. Eating only to be consumed.”
The king was not in a good mood, evidently. But she understood the reason for that now. Elizabeth imagined that kings didn't like losing their kingdoms. A king without a kingdom was just… well, just a guy. Not that Konan could ever be considered just a guy. Or just an anything. He was excessively everything. Maybe there was something she could say to make it better. She thought for a moment.