Stars Rise

Book 3: After Meridies the Sun Sets

LXVIII. Hora Sexta – Part 1

At hora sexta, what should have only been midday but was already past sunset, the news proliferated like pollen on the wind that Caius Solin, the president of Constellation, was dead. 

Under the stars the streets filled with upturned faces, mostly silent except to pass on the news, Gaia Solin is dead, Gaia Solin is dead.

A million or more Soliari came out under the sky onto the streets, balconies and roofs and wondered what the president had gotten herself into and how soon the dawn would come, an hour or two? A minute? What would happen to them and was it out of their control? Had the president been the only person who could have stopped it?

And now she was dead.

Candra watched the whole city come outside tonight from a balcony on the sixteenth floor of the hovering east tower of the Constellation building. She needed one more minute — no longer — to decide what to do. It was a hot night, as if the humidity wouldn't let the day go early even if nothing else could stop it, and she leaned over the refreshingly cool metal railing and looked across to the west building from which she had linked, the tower where Gaia Solin had been murdered in her penthouse.

Not an hour after Candra had held Gaia in her arms.

Candra herself hadn't seen the murderer. She had been rendered unconscious on the president's white leather couch before she knew anything was amiss, and the assassin had kindly left her to be discovered with the body, waking up just in time for an attendant checking in to find her fully conscious, fully clothed, and looking very guilty.

She had had no choice but to fake tears and pretend to try to resuscitate the dead woman before screaming and raising the alarm. More time would have been nice, time to strategize, to decide whether to be the one to tell Justin and what to say, but the crowds gathering in the streets told her he'd have heard by now, the news spreading instantly by link and by simple yelling. Now she was left at even more of a loss as to what to say and how to turn this in some way to her benefit. 

Could she get a reward for information on the assassin? Did she have any? Maybe she should say she did it herself. Say that she killed Gaia. Could she possibly take the credit to the boss, or would he see right through her?

Across the city Cytheria Demarco came out onto the back patio of her manor into the night. She hardly had time to consider whether to grieve or how she might maneuver some gain out of Gaia Solin's death when another call came. The link appeared like a mirror hanging in front of her face, which was reflected back to her, wrinkles and all, and Tian's voice stammered from it. "Mother? Mother, are you there?"

Why did her son sound panicked? President Solin's death couldn't possibly affect him like this.

"Tian, what is it?" she asked as the link went two ways to show, instead of a reflection of her own frightened expression, her two children on the other side of the link, sitting next to one another — she had to blink before she could register that Terra had a gag in her mouth and her eyes were bulging out of her skull, but no more than Tian's.

Cytheria sputtered and sat up with her arms reaching for her son and daughter, even though it wasn't a teleportation link but a closed communication link more like a shut glass window and her fingers hit an invisible force hard.

"Mother—" Tian stammered, cut short by an explosive crack. Cytheria screamed — her son slumped forward and the wall behind him was sprayed with a pattern of red that dripped and ran streaming down the white paint.

Through her gag Terra screamed and cried and struggled, but Tian never made another sound.

Stars swirling over her head in the cool night outside her apartment, Diana Aemilia ran down the pier to the water in her bare feet and stopped a meter from the end of the dock. She panted for breath. The stars swirled one way, and then stopped and reversed, so she focused on the steady break of the wave after wave after wave. Her pulse wasn't done its own race when a voice right behind her said her name, "Diana," and startled her like a shock out of her skin; she jumped and spun, pure luck landing her on her feet and not in the ocean, her knees bent and arms waving to bring her back to equilibrium.