Starbound: A Starstruck Novel (11 page)

When we reached the gate, though, I had no trouble identifying the
Echtrans
, even apart from their
brath
—two men, talking quietly together, both a little too handsome. In fact, when the taller one turned his head I had to stifle a gasp, he was so over-the-top gorgeous. Dark-haired and strong-jawed, he looked a bit like an older version of Rigel.

He glanced over and caught me looking, then whispered something to his companion. They immediately headed our way. Before they reached us, Mr. and Mrs. O’Gara both stepped casually in front of me while Rigel and Sean just as casually flanked them. Though I appreciated it, their protectiveness seemed kind of silly in such a public place, especially since the men didn’t seem at all hostile.
 

“I see we’re all on the same flight.” The super-gorgeous one’s voice was as amazing as his smile, low, smooth and assured. “Devyn Kane. The O’Gara family, right? I believe we met once, back in the, ah, old country.”

“Yes, of course.” Mr. O’Gara shook his extended hand. “How have you been?”

“I’ve been well. Even better these past months, of course, as I assume we all are.” His eyes flicked to me, where I still stood behind them, then back to Mr. O. The other man wasn’t as restrained, blatantly staring at me. Devyn glanced his way. “Have you met Gordon Nolan?”

“Pleasure.” The shorter, fairer man stuck out his own hand. “Pleasure. Would these be your children?” His gaze roved over Rigel, Sean and Molly before coming to rest on me again. I stiffened slightly. In addition to the usual
Echtran
brath
, Gordon Nolan also had a faint whiff of what I termed “bad guy vibe,” something I’d picked up from some of Faxon’s followers last fall. This one would bear watching.

Got it,
Rigel thought, edging a little closer, creating more of a barrier between me and the newcomers.
 

Mrs. O’Gara smiled back, not appearing to sense anything sinister. “Sean and Molly, here, are ours. These are Rigel Stuart—” She nodded his way— “and Marsha Truitt.”

Neither man showed any surprise.
 

“Hello.” I managed a smile. “It’s nice to meet you.”
 

“Honored, of course.” Devyn gave a very slight bow of his head, which his companion, still staring, echoed. “I regret we can’t greet you properly in such a venue. Please know we mean no offense by it.”

“No, that’s fine,” I said quickly. “I appreciate your, um, discretion.”
 

“I imagine we’ll see you all in Bailerealta.” Gordon’s smile now seemed forced, his eyes darting from me to Rigel, then back.

The O’Garas assured them they would. When they headed back to the other side of the gate, I let out a relieved breath. “Are those some of the Royals you mentioned before?” I whispered.

Mrs. O nodded, frowning at their retreating backs. “Planning to take the same ship we are from Bailerealta, no doubt to build support of their own.” Her mouth primmed with disapproval. Maybe I
wasn’t
the only one who’d picked up that questionable vibe.

“Devyn Kane was becoming quite prominent in political circles before Faxon’s uprising.” Mr. O’Gara kept his voice low. “The youngest minister in a century or more, on track to become High Chancellor one day. Possibly your most serious competition for leadership of Nuath. I notice they were careful not to pledge their allegiance to you, for all they showed outward respect. I’d hoped such shifts in attitude were exaggerated.”
 

I wasn’t particularly surprised when the two Royals boarded with the first class passengers. I wondered if they were surprised I didn’t. Boarding several minutes later, the six of us made our way to our assigned seats: three rows of two, one behind the other, along the windows. Sean and I were in the middle two, with Mr. and Mrs. O’Gara in front of us, Rigel and Molly behind.
 

Sitting next to Sean for the whole flight, ignoring that faint tingle I always got from him—and making sure Rigel didn’t pick up on that
at all
—was going to be a challenge. At least I had a window. I stared out of it during taxi and takeoff, watching everything below us grow smaller and smaller until Chicago looked like a model of a city and the Great Lakes like ponds. Then we climbed into clouds and there was nothing to see but a floor of dazzling white foam with brilliant blue skies above. I released a small sigh.
 

Glad you enjoyed that.
Rigel’s mental tone was indulgent, making me smile.

“I forgot this was your first time flying,” Sean said at almost the same time, probably in response to my sigh. “Glad you’re not scared.”

“Scared? I’d better not be, considering—”
Considering I’ll be getting on a
spaceship
in a week,
I thought to Rigel. Then, aloud, “I think it’s awesome.” I turned back to the window, wondering how it would feel to watch the whole planet getting smaller the way Chicago had.

aitlean
(ayt-lee-AN)
: airplane; primitive aircraft used extensively by Duchas; Earth’s primary means of intercontinental travel

Sean

M finally falls asleep somewhere over the Atlantic, not long after they take our dinner trays away. She’s been so keyed up all day, I figured she’d crash eventually. Can’t blame her, I’m excited too. It’s going to be way cool to show her around Bailerealta and I can’t
wait
to get her back to Mars. I wonder how much has changed in two years?

Some attitudes, for sure, like Dad said after those two
Echtrans
talked to us at the gate. How anybody who calls themselves Royal can possibly
not
want M to take her place as Sovereign of Nuath is beyond me. Almost makes me wish they could get demoted to another
fine
or something, even though I know it’s genetics and not a choice. Still.

My eyes are beginning to get heavy when M starts to lean…toward me. I hold my breath as her head droops further and further my way until, finally, her head is resting on my shoulder. I slowly lean my own head back, careful not to jar her awake. It’s beyond awesome that she trusts me enough to relax so completely against me, especially after yesterday. For a long moment I savor her closeness, her wonderful scent, the soft sound of her breathing…until something painful twists my gut. Because I know, deep down, she’d never let me be her pillow if she were awake.

I try to push that thought away, pretend she’s leaning against me on purpose. Pretend she’s sitting next to me on this plane by choice and not because Mum assigned her this seat. But my gut knows perfectly well that if it were up to her, she’d be one row back.

With
him.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy having her head on my shoulder for as long as it lasts.

I wake up a couple of hours later and pleasure lances through me when I discover M is still snuggled against me. I smile down at her for a long moment, then look past her out the window, where the sun is just rising…over Ireland!

Much as I don’t want to wake her, I don’t want M to miss her first sight of Ireland even more. Gently, I touch her arm, the one that’s not pressed against me, then shake her just a little. She stirs, then opens those amazing green eyes, looking adorably confused. But then she wakes up for real—and immediately pulls away from me, obviously embarrassed.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” She struggles to sit upright. “I didn’t—”

I grin down at her. “No, it’s fine. I hated to wake you, you looked so peaceful, but…look out the window.”

She does, and gasps. Because Ireland is spread below us in every conceivable shade of green, dotted with lakes and crisscrossed by roads that are getting bigger and bigger as we start to descend.
 

“Wow, no wonder they call it the Emerald Isle. It’s beautiful!”

I’m grinning again, drinking in her pleasure and sharing it. “Isn’t it? I knew you’d like it. And I promise, you’ll like our, uh, final destination even more.”
 

I keep an eye on those two disloyal Royals as we go through Immigration. They’re near the front of the long non-E.U. passport line, which means they must have come to Earth via Montana instead of Ireland. Unfortunately, M and Rigel have to wait in that line, too, while the rest of us breeze through the E.U. line.
 

“Guess we’d better go find our bags,” Dad says. “Anyone want to wait here for the others?”

I volunteer, since I’m watching M like a hawk anyway. She and Rigel are standing way too close to each other, in my opinion, even if those Royal
Echtrans
are already through and gone. They’re not all lovey-dovey like when I first got to Jewel last fall, but they still act more like a couple than a Bodyguard and the person he’s protecting.
 

The way they look at each other, smile at each other, sometimes it’s like they can communicate without words, they’re so tuned in to each other. Even in the middle of conversations with other people. Impossible, of course, bond or no bond. Just me being paranoid again. I still don’t like it.

Finally they’re through and we all head to where Mum, Dad and Molly are waiting with our luggage. Customs is quick, then we go pick up our rental, an SUV big enough for all six of us. I don’t see those Royals again. Probably had a limo waiting.
 

I get to sit next to M in the car, since there’s no knowing what
Echtrans
might be on the roads. It’s obvious she and Stuart don’t like being split up, but that’s tough, since the point is to get her Acclaimed Sovereign ASAP. Unfortunately this car has separate seats in the middle, so she doesn’t even have to try to keep from touching me. Still, if I concentrate, I can feel a hint of that tingle from her—which means she must feel it, too.

“Don’t let me miss any castles, okay?” M’s staring out her window.

“You know I won’t,” I promise. “Hey, Mum, how come we didn’t fly into Shannon? Isn’t Dublin a lot farther?”

“It is, but between no nonstop flights to Shannon and this new highway, this was the faster option.”

“So we’re driving all the way across Ireland?” M sounds surprised. “Bailerealta’s on the west coast, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but it should only take four or five hours,” Dad says.
 

“Oh, I don’t mind.” She sounds upbeat, even sitting next to me instead of Rigel. “It means I get to see more of the country.”

“It is pretty, isn’t it?” Molly’s upbeat, too.
 

M nods, still staring out the window. “Even greener than I expected, and you told me it was really green.”

“Wait till we get to the Burren.” I grin. “Nothing green about that. Though the bit right around Bailerealta is.”

Finally M turns to me. “Tell me more about the village. I studied everything I could about the colony on Mars but hardly anything about Bailerealta, since we’ll only be there a few days.”

With her looking at me like that, I want to tell her that her eyes are as green as Ireland, and more beautiful. I stop myself in time. “It’s tiny, only about four hundred permanent residents. Purposely hard to find, if you don’t know where to look. But once you’re there, it looks about like any other little Irish village—at least from the outside.”

“But not from the inside?”

“Depends. There are the
teachneaglis—
technophobes, I guess you’d say, maybe a hundred of them, who are practically Amish, the way they refuse to use any Martian technology, or even most Earth technology.”

Molly pipes up from the back. “Yeah, until we got to Indiana, I didn’t know there were
Duchas
like that, too. Though these aren’t anti-tech for religious reasons, I don’t think. Anyway, they mostly keep to themselves, and the rest of the villagers are pretty normal.”

“You mean, using omnis and stuff?” M glances at me again with those incredible eyes.

I nod. “You’ll see. I can’t wait to show you around.”
 

For a second I wonder if Brenna will be happy to see me. We’d had kind of a thing going before the news came about M. Funny, I’ve hardly thought about her at all since then. Or maybe not so funny.
 

Because M is my life now…or she will be.

Bailerealta
(BAY-luh-ree-AL-tuh) (pop. 412)
: village on the western coast of Ireland, est. circa 1575, populated entirely by
Echtrans

Despite my nap on the plane, we’d only been driving for an hour when I found myself getting sleepy again. Which I guess wasn’t surprising, since it was about four o’clock in the morning back in Indiana. I was just starting to nod when Rigel’s voice startled me back to alertness.
 

M! Look! A castle!

“Where?” Jerking upright, I looked around. Only when I noticed Sean’s confused expression did I realize Rigel’s comment had been silent. Oops. “Dozed off,” I explained with an embarrassed shrug. But then I saw the castle, only a stone’s throw from the highway, and pressed my face against the window. “Oh, wow! I’ve never seen a real castle before, not up close! How old is it?”

“That one? No idea,” Sean said. “Probably hundreds of years—most of them are. Ireland is lousy with castles.”

Even Rigel laughed at his phrasing. “Well, for us New Worlders, it’s pretty cool to see something older than the United States. Hey, are there castles on Mars?”

“Not like the ones here,” Molly told him, “but there are some fortress-y things left over from the early days of the colony, before we had Sovereigns. Maybe half the villages have one, or at least the remains of old stone walls.”

“Huh. So are there Martian archaeologists?” Rigel asked.

I knew there were, because of all my studying, but I let Molly answer again. “Oh, sure. They’re still finding out stuff about those early days, since almost nothing was written down. I’m not sure people back then could even read and write.”

That and similar topics kept my mind away from more dangerous stuff for the next couple of hours, as the countryside got wilder and more rolling and even greener than before. I did more listening than talking, quietly enjoying how well Rigel and Sean seemed to be getting along, away from Trina’s poisonous influence. I hoped it would last.