Jessica solar's Arc

Chapter 14 of 15

By dawn Jessica had two hull plates welded and the third clamped. She left Michael on watch and took the copies of the star chart up to the throne room. She had not been in that room since the crash. The doors still hung crooked. The coronation throne sat where it had always sat, cracked down the middle from the impact, one arm sheared clean off. Someone was frozen to it. He was small, pale as bone, in a coat that had once been fine. A silver crown sat crooked on his head. Frost climbed the throne where his hands rested on the armrests. His eyes tracked her the moment she stepped in. "Don't scream," he said. "It wastes air." Jessica did not scream. She set the toolbox down and stared. The throne was hers. This room was hers. She had walked past that door for months and never opened it. She stepped closer. The frost on the throne dimmed a shade where her body warmed the air. "Who are you." "Rook Gale. Crowned at the exact moment this ship broke. I have been here since." "You're stuck." "I am the throne, at present." She unrolled the star chart on the floor in front of him. The lines glowed faint blue. She had copied every mark from the wall beneath the drydock. She could read none of it. "Can you read this." His eyes moved across the chart. Something in his face changed. Not warmth. Recognition. "Yes." "Then read it." "Get me off the throne." Jessica knelt and touched the frost on the armrest. It softened under her fingers and hardened again when she pulled back. She understood then. The cold held him because nothing warm stayed close enough, long enough. "If I thaw you, you read the whole chart. Every mark. Every symbol." "Yes." "If you lie, I put you back." "Fair." She went down to the engine bay and pulled a heat core off her greenhouse rig. She carried it up and set it at his feet. She sat on the cracked step of the throne with her back against his knee. Her body heat bled into the coat. The frost on the armrests thinned. His fingers moved, slow, then faster. He lifted one hand. It shook. He pointed at the chart. "This mark is a rendezvous. This one, a fleet count. This cluster is a delivery window. Three days." "Delivery of what." "A weapon. The crimson faction has been waiting for the coordinates. They still don't have them. You do." Jessica looked at the chart. Three days. She had the map. She had the location. She had a fae lord thawing onto her coronation throne, and the crimson faction was about to arrive at a place they could not find without her. She stood. "Keep reading." Rook flexed his fingers. "Where are you going." "To decide whether we get there first."