CHAPTER 1
MY STOMACH DROPS when I see it. Not in horror—something closer to exasperation sculpts the feeling of my mess-hall-slop breakfast bottoming out. The hangar outside the equipment room rumbles with activity. Engines firing, boots on concrete, the crackle of announcements over the intercoms. I give the cacophony only dry silence in return, because Gal Veres has forgotten his helmet.
Again.
“One of these days, you’re not going to have me to cover for you,” I mutter under my breath as I cross the room and scoop it off the shelf. “One of these days, the officers are going to come down hard on your ass, and I won’t do a thing to stop it—I swear on the gods of all systems.”
But not today, and probably not tomorrow, either, and I’m already out the door with Gal’s helmet under one arm and my own under the other.
The hangar swallows me whole, folding me into the Umber Imperial Academy’s mad scramble. On a busy morning like this, at least three different flight drills are running simultaneously. The cavernous vault of the ceiling rattles at unsteady intervals as a line of ships passes overhead. People scamper back and forth—cadets, officers, mechanics—all of them moving with frantic purpose along the designated pathways painted between the spacecrafts.
This hangar plays host to every conceivable sort of ship, from narrow, sleek fighters to massive carriers that can skip between star systems at superluminal speeds. Every hull is marked with the obsidian and brass of the Umber Empire, shimmering in the low light. There’s not a junker in sight—all of these ships are less than five years old, their metal fresh from the mined-out asteroid belts of the former Archon Territories. I’m forced to stop as a Razor taxis toward the hangar doors, a hungry promise in the thrum of its engines. My heart lifts as the vibrations rattle down my spine. Soon, the pump of my blood swears. Soon I’ll be in the air. Soon I’ll be nothing but the raw impulse it takes to pilot a fighter.
Just as I’m about to take off at a run, a hand comes down on my shoulder, yanking me to the side. “What the rut—” I choke, but already they’re dragging me into the shadow of a skipship’s wing. I twist out of the grip and find myself staring down the suspiciously perfect teeth of Tatsun Seely. Three of his friends hover behind him, blocking us from the main path.
“Ettian Nassun,” Seely says, all charm and no sincerity. In the two and a half years we’ve been at the academy together, I think I’ve had about three conversations with the guy. Now he’s smiling up at me like we share some secret, and I’m not keen on finding out what it is.
“We’re gonna be late,” I tell him. Not that it matters to Seely—his whole crowd treats exercises with willful disdain bordering on open resentment. Which I understand. Really, I do. Seely’s an orphan of the former Archon Empire, like me. One of millions of kids whose lives were upended when Umber took our homeworlds seven years ago. Like me, his frame is stick-thin from half a life on Archon portions, barely rounded out from seven years of Umber abundance, though I’m a little taller and my skin is several shades darker. Like me, he was shuffled into the Umber military establishment once they opened this academy on the planet Rana, mere miles away from the former Archon Imperial Seat.
Unlike me, he’s got a massive chip on his shoulder about it.
Which brings me back to his teeth and my suspicions. Because Seely’s chompers are not your everyday set. They speak to years of good dental work—the finest dental work, stuff that must have started long before the Umber Empire’s victory. You see teeth like his on governors, high-ranking officials, and probably even on imperials themselves.
And, presumably, on their heirs. At ten years old, Seely would have been far too young to be revealed to the rough-and-tumble world of galactic politics when the Archon Empire fell. If he was someone’s next in line—maybe one of the planetary governors in an interior system—he would have been tucked safely in the shadows, raised in secret for a role his blood destined him to play. And when Iva emp-Umber won her war and claimed her spoils, she stole his bloodright out from under him.
It’s a bit of a reach to explain why he half-asses everything, and it requires some logistical leaps to justify how he made it to the academy after the empire collapsed. But it’s probably the most interesting thing about Tatsun Seely, so I entertain the notion.
“Ettian, hey—” Seely snaps his fingers in front of my eyes, and I fix him with a glare.
“Seely,” I say coolly, “get to the tarmac.”
I try to shrug his arm off my shoulders, but he clamps down tighter, pulling our heads close together. “Yeah, I’m not taking orders from you,” Seely mutters, his voice dropping low and serious. His face contorts as he tries to maintain an amicable smile. “Doesn’t matter what fancy call sign the higher-ups give you—you’re one of us. And we need to talk about the company you keep.” His eyes track an officer as she bustles past, but in the shadow of the skipship, we’re off her radar.
“Really?” I snap. Now I get what this is about. I’ve caught the scornful looks Seely and his crew throw my way more than once. They know I was born right here on Rana. I come from the nearby city of Trost, the capital and heart of the former Archon Empire. Theoretically, I should be more pissed than any of them about the Umber conquest, but instead I’ve thrown myself headlong into the new establishment. We’ve been at the academy together for two and a half years—I’m surprised it’s taken them this long to confront me about it.
Archon is dead. It’s gone. I can’t carry it with me. The only productive thing I can do is latch on to the opportunities that rise out of the postwar reconstruction. That’s what’s kept me alive for the past seven years.
Seely’s pride doesn’t allow for that sort of thinking. It’s a miracle he’s survived this long. His lips curl up over those uncanny teeth. “Face it, Gold One, you’ve rolled right over for Umber. But we can help you fix that. There’s a chance to regain a little dignity. A little honor.”
His fingers start to fidget on my shoulder. To the untrained eye, it looks like a simple nervous tic, but every child born on Archon soil knows better. He’s tapping a rhythm against my bones, one of the ancient beats that sculpted the old empire’s culture. Some are soft and comforting, a resting pulse. Others scream of triumph in fast, emphatic strokes.
Seely’s beat is urgent. Rising. A call to arms.
It freezes my blood. Seely feels me lock up against him. He leans close, his breath in my ear. “Remember the knights?” he whispers. “Remember how it felt to see one flying over a city? A single human in a powersuit that could tear the wing off a fighter craft? We’re gonna be heroes like them.”
And just like that, I’m unstuck. I duck out of Seely’s grip, clutching the helmets uncomfortably against my hips. Sure, I remember the suited knights. The heroes of the Archon Empire, keeping the peace and fighting for justice across the systems.