Catharine’s entourage rushed ahead sweeping a path for Mars’s new Queen, while spritzing palace perfume over the stench. Six levels deeper than the Stratocracy halls, stone-sized rodent droppings littered edges of the habitat canals and in each alcove uneasy eyes stared from soiled faces. Children scattered and voices whispered. Curses. Doors closed.

  Perfume couldn’t mask the scent of sweat. As the habitat canal narrowed to its end, Catharine’s elite guard charged their pikes, letting rivulets of voltage spider to the rocky ceiling above. Illuminating the constricted end of this path.

  “They live here?” Jendrick raised his chin while behind his back, his hands fidgeted. Catharine saw it.

  “Just watch, my Viceroy.” Catharine rubbed Jendrick’s head until he looked back at the guard.

  She flicked her wrist. “Bring them.”

  A steel habitat door scraped over the dusty rock, ill-fitting and loud. Home to a miner’s family and a half-metre long, fat rodent that was too fast to see when it darted from inside and scratched its way back into shadows of the dark canal behind them.

  Seconds later a woman appeared, with four children. All of them with grimy hands except for the one in her arms. One lip curled as Catharine’s wrist comm heated. The tiny metallic cube-like creature within it stirred, altering the metal until it glowed beneath her fine lace-fringed Juliette sleeve.

  “Do you know who I am?” Catharine looked beyond her.

  “The one who murdered my husband—in cold blood.” When the woman said the words, Catharine’s guard electrified their pikes. A sound like frying animal flesh.

  Catharine tilted her head and traced a finger along the fluted barrel of her modified pin gun. “Cold. Yes you are right about that.”

  Looking at Jendrick, she smiled. “But that is not why I am here. Before your husband died he promised me one of your children.”

  “You’re a liar." The woman’s eyes flashed without fear. Clutching the child, her arms flexed until they were nearly as thick as Jendrick’s thighs.

  Catharine assessed her. Within her station an asset to my Mars.

  “But he said there were three children, not four. Curious.” Catharine stepped before a girl. No older than twelve, clothed in oversized worker canvas. The kind that was worn in the algae farms. Her irises—silver. Why?

  “He didn’t mention you.” Running her fingers through the girl’s unwashed hair, she noticed two earrings of unusual metal—the colour of her eyes. Her wrist comm twinged but she ignored it.

  Pinching and lifting the girl's chin, Catharine brought her close. “Why do you think that is?”

  “I told him that he shouldn’t go to you. With your little man.” Her eyes flashed and dissected Jendrick. “I told him not to trust you and he didn’t believe me. It’s his fault.”

  “I hated—” The girl’s voice caught.

  Anger brewed in this one. No tears. A defiance. Something Catharine admired and her long hair not unlike when she was a young princess. When Rafael—she shook her arm as the wrist comm started to burn. Stop!

  “A girl… like you, could be taught the ways of the palace. Perhaps even in time, rise in stature.” Catharine opened one arm towards the habitat canal behind them. “Or you could return to the algae farms.”

  The girl looked at her mother, and asked without turning. “What about them?”

  “You’d have the choice… to keep them safe.” Her shoulders lifted and she smiled at Jendrick. “Should you follow the rules.”

  “What rules?” No fear resided in the girl’s eyes when she looked back to Catharine.

  “Rules that all little girls need to follow, if they ever hope to become princesses.”

  Like pewter, shiny metal glimmered for a moment as the girl rubbed her pant leg. Something behind the fabric? A trick of the light. Workers owned no metal tools. Catharine’s nostrils flared. “The odor of this place leaves me short on time. What is your name, child.”

  “My name is Veyga. My grandpa Sarrin named me after a star. He said it was the old dialect.”

  “Indeed. And what of your eyes?” Catharine surveyed the child’s expression.

  “Grandpa says it's ‘cause I spent too much time working with the metal in the rocks. Making jewelry… mostly…” Veyga’s voice trailed off as if words couldn’t be said.

  Forcing herself to stare at Veyga’s eyes, Catharine’s feet shifted beneath her gown. “What metal?”

  “Miners seen it, but don’t have a name for it.” Veyga tilted her head and looked at the tiara Catharine was wearing. Her mother’s tiara. Mars former queen. “Grandpa Sarrin calls it Pahar metal.”

  Veyga's expression didn't change. But something flickered in those silver eyes. Satisfaction?

  The bracelet around her wrist cinched tight and an array of symbols scrolled over it. Too quick to read as if it were angry. Cuneform. One of the symbols something Catharine shouldn’t recognize. Sumerian. Pahal. Secret—secret metal.

  Her entourage stared as if they worried for her, while her eyes deciphered the vanishing shapes just as Catharine lifted her gaze.

  “We leave for the palace—now.” Catharine’s voice sharp. Impatient.

  Catharine began to turn, but held out her hand toward the girl. “Choose.”

  When Veyga squinted into the shadows where her mother stood, each of them placed their right hand across their chests. Another archaic worker superstition.

  “Where are we going?” The girl placed her sandpapery hand within Catharine’s.

  “Palace Trianon.” Catharine’s measured steps dragged the child to the clearer air of the service tunnels and then the palace.

  Beside them in a rocky niche, a sound as if bones were snapping. Veyga looked away. A curious behaviour.

  “Where Krrel lives?”

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  Catharine rubbed her wrist. “Mars is no longer obsolete, child. The old elitists have faded.”

  “What does that mean?” Veyga stopped—wrenching Catharine’s arm.

  “That the king no longer walks the palace halls.”

  The child's eyes fixed on Catharine's hip.

  On the pin gun. The modified one.

  Catharine waited. Let her look.

  After a moment, Veyga's gaze lifted. "Where will I stay when we get to the palace?"

  Resuming her steps, Veyga’s gaze steadied on Catharine’s. No tears. No accusation. Just pragmatism.

  Interesting.

  “Perhaps Xylia’s old room.”

  Xylia's name. Just thinking it made the wrist comm burn. No—not burn. Twist. The metal beneath her skin moved. When Catharine gritted her teeth and pulled her sleeve down the child was watching her. Not frightened. Stoic.

  "Come," Catharine said. Her voice came out strained.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Where Mars’s authority is borne. A place where princesses and future queens ascend.” Catharine nodded to the guard and gestured to Veyga. “Come.”

  “This place is below the palace.”

  Veyga glanced at the rock walls. The low ceiling. “I know these tunnels.”

  Good. Catharine smiled as Jendrick followed. Paces behind.

  When the door to the Tractability Laboratory opened a hiss of antiseptic air lifted Veyga’s hair. Wide-eyed and curious, she peered into the space where technicians stood. “Who are they waiting for?”

  “Those who deviate from Mars and its queen.” Catharine’s eyes lifted, when she noticed a pike tremble beside her.

  “What are all those bottles? The ones with the coloured water?” Veyga stepped into the room. Claiming space.

  “We take essence from the minds of those who serve the palace.” Adjusting her necklace, Catharine moved to the hovering silver drill. “So that it might heal… ensuring the patriotic and steadfast.”

  “Fix their brains, like the mad king?” Veyga slipped between two technicians and picked up a clear vial.

  “Mars no longer concerns itself with the former king.” Placing her hand over Veyga’s head, Catharine pointed to the freshly assembled examination tables. “But this is a place of reconciliation and allegiance.”

  “I understand.” Massaging her leg, the child assessed the guard and Jendrick. She squinted and pointed to a vial with blue liquid. “Why does that one spin inside? The blue—like it’s alive.”

  “An ill advised experiment by the former apothecary to synthesize fragments of ore and combine them with my sister’s cerebral fluid. Former apothecary."

  “Your sister, Trianon?”

  “No.” Catharine breathed the vile name. “Xylia.”

  At once Catharine pinched the child’s shoulder, then tapped her on the forehead. Right between the eyes. “It remains locked,” she said, then withdrew her hand. “Unless…”

  Veyga’s eyes narrowed. Joining Catharine’s gaze.

  “I chose well, didn’t I?” Catharine’s eyes met Jendrick.

  He nodded. Before he could speak, Veyga answered. “Yes.”

  ∞

  They walked in silence. Fifteen minutes through the service tunnels, then Catharine halted her guard before the palace lift. When she spoke to Jendrick, Catharine’s body stiffened. Every whispered word, sharp and clipped.

  “Where are they going?” Veyga stared directly at Catharine, as if measuring her.

  “To alter the chain of command…” Crossing her arms, she gazed back to the habitat level. “Assure that I never have to deal with your family in the same way. Quite distressing, to the palace, if your little brother got hurt in being assigned below.”

  Veyga yanked on the handle of a pike, testing the guard’s grip.

  “They’re not my family anymore.”

  Catharine stepped back. When she did, a glint of silver dazzled from the young girl’s finger. Jewelry? Workers don’t have jewelry. “What is that insignia on your ring?”

  Cinching Veyga’s hand, she turned the face of the ring to the light. “It looks like a knife.”

  “TriRapier.” Veyga said. The girl touched her leg as if it were stiff.

  “What’s that?”

  Veyga’s stance widened. “Nothing, my queen.”

  Wrinkling her forehead, Catharine caught the fragrant scent of the palace air. “Very well, come this way and you’ll get out of those disgusting rags. They are not suitable for a young lady of the palace.”

  “Where are you taking me?” Walking beside the queen, Veyga mirrored Catharine’s steps.

  “You’ll reside in my sister’s old room. It’s time to put some old shadows to rest.”

  Twenty-five metres along the lower halls and her Lady in Waiting opened the door to Xylia’s old room. Star pictures still adorned the room as did the canopied bed. The geometry papers and her strange mathematics crumpled in the waste. Today, folded neatly upon Xylia’s old blue quilt, Catharine's dress, from when she was Veyga’s age. Layers of pink lace with a short sweeptrain and crimson embroidery. Strata Cydonia colours. A princess’s dress.

  Tilting her head to the Lady in Waiting, Catharine pointed. “See that she’s bathed… completely and dressed as a princess to be.”

  “I’ll do it myself. I don’t want that witch touching me.” Veyga touched Catharine’s arm at the elbow.

  Just then Catharine’s wrist comm glowed, heating rapidly. Ignoring it, Catharine laughed. Bemused. “Very well.”

  “When I see you next, you should look as a princess-to-be.”

  Holding her hands behind her back, Veyga’s eyes gleamed, but she was surveying the guard.

  Why is she looking at the guard?

  ∞∞∞

  It was almost two hours later when Catharine and her Lady in Waiting returned to Xylia’s old room. Veyga’s room now.

  Catharine closed her eyes and inhaled.

  As the door opened, silhouetted in front of the arched window was a memory and vision. A time long passed. Veyga’s hand on the glass gazing toward Pavonis. The red sky. Catharine gazed at the Lady in Waiting and smiled.

  “Turn. Let us see you. As a princess should look.”

  The girl pivoted and the sweep train arced behind her. Every step a measured, confident stride. Brushed dark hair that fell about her waist. A strand or two to be braided and she’d look absolutely regal. Catharine’s childhood dress celebrated once again.

  Carefully her eyes surveyed from the fringes of the dress, up over the embroidery, the waist and higher, meeting Veyga’s eyes.

  Catharine’s smile froze.

  Her hair.

  The sparkles.

  Xylia’s aigrette.

  “Take that off now—and wash those—those sparkles out of your hair!”

  Falling to her knees, the Lady in Waiting sobbed. Tension ignited the air. A presence—not Veyga—choked off Catharine’s voice. Xylia’s memory. Still here. Then the twisting metal, an alien disapproval crushing her wrist. How dare she.

  “Yes, my queen.” A ringing in Catharine’s ears masked Veyga’s words, but when she looked up again, as she removed the hair jewels, it looked like the girl was smirking.

  No.

  It took two glasses of Krrel’s worst wine to calm Catharine’s anger but when Veyga finally entered La Chambre Rouge an hour later, the sparkles were gone, as was any hint of a defiant expression.

  “My queen.” Her lady in waiting bowed, as she escorted Veyga into the queen’s chamber.

  Within the child’s hand was Catharine’s childhood doll. Lilac.

  Emotion wavered her smile but Catharine forced it to still. “You’ve repaired my old doll. Lilac… but how?”

  Catharine's hand reached out. Then stopped. She hadn't seen Lilac whole in years. Not since Xylia destroyed her.

  “My mother… I know how to sew.” Veyga held up the doll. Its body seemed stiff. Unbending. “And I used some... metal... to hold the body together.”

  Catharine's throat tightened. “May I?”

  But the child kept it out of reach. Cradled it. “It's still fragile, my queen.”

  That can’t be true. It looked perfect. Lilac's button eyes, her stitched smile. How had this child done this?

  Instead Veyga leaned next to Echus and petted the back of his head while squinting at her elite guard.

  Massaging her temple, she watched the snake’s half metre tongue flick the air. Tasting. Testing. The way he did when content. Strange that snake has taken to her.

  ∞∞∞