Kiem squinted at the Ambassador, a tall and bony man in a patterned Thean tunic whom Kiem didn’t think he’d met. What was wrong there? Kiem tried a friendly smile. The Ambassador took a moment to adjust the wooden bracelet on his wrist before he acknowledged Kiem with a shallow bow, his expression cool. “Your Highness.”
“Good to see you here, Your Excellency,” Kiem said, half an eye on Jainan. Jainan didn’t seem to have many friends, did he? Come to think of it, there really weren’t many Theans here. Kiem was sure when Prince Helvi had married her Eisafan partner the room had been half Eisafs, though of course Eisafan was a much more populous planet and a much more important relationship. The Iskat minister for Eisafan had been in the front row of that ceremony. Kiem said without thinking, “Have you seen our Minister for Thea?”
“Ah,” the Ambassador said. His expression wasn’t exactly a smile. “You’re a little late there, Your Highness. Your Minister for Thea retired last year. Your side hasn’t been able to agree on a replacement yet.”
“Your Worship, may we begin?” the head steward said to the judge.
Kiem wanted to ask who was dealing with Thean affairs if Iskat hadn’t appointed anyone, but before he could say anything, the Ambassador gave him a brisk, impersonal nod and stepped back to join the other spectators. Jainan was still looking intently at his contract, as if wanting to get the whole thing over with. The judge made a careful gesture over her wristband.
The sound of a gong rang through the room. All thoughts of Thean politics fled Kiem’s brain as the judge started a rolling declamation of the standard wedding spiel. Kiem swallowed hard.
He’d never been the focus of a ceremony before. The sound of a gong heralded things like the arrival of someone important, or a marriage, or an official appointment. Kiem had screwed up enough exams and had a bad enough reputation with the Emperor—not even counting the nightclub scandal—that nobody had ever considered giving him an important post. He’d always thought that had been for the best, but here he was, and there weren’t only his own concerns at stake. He heard the Emperor’s voice in his head: I have very little appetite for another war.
Half the press corps had cameras up. Kiem tried to look appropriately solemn but felt it came out as something of a grimace, so he settled for normal. He sneaked a look at Jainan to see how he was managing it. Jainan’s face was still pleasantly blank. Kiem wondered how he did that.
In spite of the clear solarium roof, no sunlight made it through the muted gray of the clouds. The judge’s voice was a sonorous rumble. Traditions from the foundation of the Empire, valued alliance with Thea and so on, until finally she reached the end and wound up with some nondenominational blessings that wouldn’t offend anyone’s sect. She solemnly folded her hands on the table in front of her and said, “Your Highness, Your Grace, you may now agree to the terms and seal the contracts.”
Kiem grabbed his quill and leaned over to dip it in the inkpot, offering Jainan a quick smile. Jainan wasn’t looking at him. Instead he reached for the inkpot himself—nervous and too fast—accidentally nudged Kiem’s hand, and knocked the pot over.
A flood of red splattered over the table, pooling on both the documents. “Shit!” Kiem said, blocking a rivulet with the side of his hand in a helpful gesture that on second thought was no help at all. The pot itself rolled, smearing a dark crescent of red over wood and paper. Jainan lunged after it. It hit the carpeted floor with a faint thud.
That broke up the frozen moment among the onlookers. “Careful!” the steward said, bustling up with even less idea of how to be helpful than Kiem. Two junior stewards came up to do more practical damage reduction with handkerchiefs and pieces of paper. Kiem extracted his hand with only a moderate amount of red ink smeared on his sleeve. The judge, annoyed, waved at the press corps to stop the suddenly frantic photo-taking, and Kiem abruptly had to bite the inside of his cheek to stop himself from laughing. He looked around for Jainan.
Jainan had knelt to pick up the inkpot. He was still crouched on the floor, the pot clutched tight in one hand, frantically dabbing at the carpet with his handkerchief. He glanced up at Kiem. “S-sorry,” he said. “I don’t—I don’t know what happened.”
Kiem crouched down, sobering up. “Don’t worry about that, they’ll get it cleaned up later. Here, I’ll take the pot—it’s going all over your hand.” He nearly had to pry it out of Jainan’s grip. “Are you all right? Get much of it on you?” He stood and offered Jainan a hand.
“I’m fine,” Jainan said. He took the hand. “I’m sorry for the disruption.” His grip was warm, with callouses on the fingers, and for a moment Kiem was distracted. But when Jainan was on his feet, he tried to pull his hand away as soon as politely possible. Kiem let go hurriedly. A steward offered Jainan a wipe for his hands.
Kiem jumped as Bel tapped him on the shoulder. She passed him a handkerchief. “Don’t say anything,” Kiem muttered.
“Just try not to get it on your face; the press will think you broke your nose again,” Bel murmured. She gestured to two of the stewards, who had magically produced a tablecloth to hide the stains. A third laid out a fresh set of contracts, which Bel straightened then stepped back with a meaningful look at Kiem that said, Try not to have any more disasters.
“We resume the ceremony,” the judge said.
“Right,” Kiem said. He tried to ignore the after-impression of Jainan’s hand on his, like a ghost touch. Before there could be any more accidents, he grabbed the quill and signed his name with only a minor blot. Beside him Jainan dipped his own quill in the remaining pot of ink, taking great care. His hands were shaking. That must be adrenaline; it hadn’t been that embarrassing.
There was a round of polite applause. Jainan set the quill back and straightened, turning to Kiem.
Oh shit. Kiem had managed not to think about the fact he was going to have to kiss him, whether Jainan wanted it or not. All right, he told himself, taking a wary step away from the table. Just keep it impersonal. Jainan stepped in, and Kiem’s gaze was caught by the unconscious elegance of the movement, by his dark eyes and the slight natural crookedness of his mouth.
No, Kiem told himself. Just because Jainan was his type didn’t mean Kiem couldn’t act poised in front of the cameras.
Jainan took another step and closed the distance, his hand coming up to rest on Kiem’s chest. Desire sparked across Kiem’s skin like a current. His breath stopped under the touch, and before he could think about it, his hands came up to clasp Jainan’s waist—but no, what was he doing? Jainan was in mourning. Kiem managed to stop himself from instinctively pulling their bodies in closer. Jainan froze in response, staring at him from a couple of inches away as if wondering what had gone wrong. Jainan clearly decided after a moment that Kiem wasn’t going to take the initiative; he tilted his head and leaned in dutifully. Kiem gave the whole thing up as a bad deal, leaned forward, and had the most excruciatingly awkward kiss he’d ever had with a person he was extremely attracted to. They both tried to draw back at the first contact then realized their mistake, and Jainan’s nose bumped against Kiem’s clumsily, and they both drew back again. And despite all that, even the light pressure of Jainan’s lips had Kiem’s heart beating off-rhythm in his chest.
Jainan stepped back. Kiem dropped his hands back down as if he’d been burned. He managed to catch Jainan’s eye with a grimace of apology. Jainan only looked blank.
“Gentlemen! To the front, please,” the steward said. Belatedly, Kiem held out his hand, and they both turned toward the reporters. Hren flashed him a hand signal that meant Kiem was booked for interviews afterward.
“Your Highness? Count Jainan?” a reporter called out. “What does it feel like to be married?”
“Wonderful,” Jainan said. Kiem felt a tremor go through Jainan’s hand.
That question had been directed at Kiem. He pulled up a smile from somewhere. He didn’t want to know what it looked like. “Great!” he said. “It’s great.”
CHAPTER
4
The empty hoverchest bobbed in the middle of Taam’s rooms, but Jainan didn’t start packing straightaway when he returned. Instead he sank into a chair and held his head tightly, tightly, as if he could squeeze his skull into a better shape and relieve the pressure.
In the few words he and Prince Kiem had exchanged after the ruined ceremony—the ceremony Jainan had ruined—Jainan had tried to find an opportunity to apologize but hadn’t been able to get the words out. Stupid. Useless. All he’d managed to do was turn down Prince Kiem’s offer to help with the packing and retreat, like a coward, to Taam’s rooms. Leaving Prince Kiem to think him ungrateful as well as unfit. He had turned down the post-ceremony interview requests, as well, and hadn’t realized until it was too late that Prince Kiem seemed to have accepted them and had gone off to give the interviews on his own.
Jainan’s head gave another stab of pain. There was always some negotiation around the terms of the vassals’ treaties before the Resolution agreement set everything in stone for the next twenty years. Thea was not a significant political force and did not have the leverage to negotiate more favorable terms. It was the smallest of the Empire’s seven planets; it clung to its allied province status and the independence it brought. Jainan needed Prince Kiem on his side. He had made an appalling start today.
It wasn’t really a surprise that Jainan had made a poor impression. Prince Kiem was confident, charismatic, and as good-looking as Taam had been. Like Taam—like any Iskat royal—Kiem would expect his public and personal life to go smoothly. He had clearly been doing his best to conceal his disappointment in his marriage that morning. Prince Kiem was at least less naive than Jainan had been.
Enough. Jainan rose to his feet. This was self-pity. He had only one duty now—to keep up appearances in his new marriage—and even if he could never be liked, he could at least be agreeable. He wouldn’t cause inconvenience by delaying his packing.
He moved mechanically around the familiar rooms, gathering his possessions and fitting them into the chest. He’d always been neat and he’d tried to keep it that way. It surprised him, though, how little space everything packed down into. His devices, toiletries, and shoes filled only a fraction of the chest. The clothes took longer, as he pulled them out of the wardrobe one by one, trying not to touch Taam’s uniforms that still hung there. He’d meant to send someone a memo about them. His head was all over the place these days.
He had run a superficial search on Prince Kiem when he’d first been given his name. The results seemed hopeless: Prince Kiem at parties, Prince Kiem with a string of partners, and one report where he was apparently tipsy and balancing on a statue in Arlusk’s main square. Jainan knew there was nothing he could do to appeal to someone like that. The only glimmer of hope had been something buried in a long profile by a gossip log: Prince Kiem says he’s easygoing, it said. He likes to enjoy life. Ask him about his career, and he’ll only tell you he didn’t join the army because it sounded like too much hard work. You certainly won’t catch him advising the Emperor.
Jainan hadn’t read further. If Kiem liked things to be easy, Jainan could at least manage that.
The rooms’ storage units were concealed cunningly in the Iskat style, slotted gracefully into the curved white pillars and walls, their handles invisible until you touched the right spot. Jainan opened them all, checking he had missed nothing of his among Taam’s possessions. He didn’t touch any of the contents. But in the lowest unit in the corner, which only opened halfway because of Taam’s desk, he found a box at the back with Thean scribing on it.
His hands slowed as he slid the lid away. He hadn’t seen these in years. A Thean ceremonial knife he’d once thought he would wear at his wedding. A clan flag from his aunt. A slim paper volume of classical poems Ressid had given him, insisting they wouldn’t be available in the Empire—Jainan was not a poetry reader, but he had never been able to convince Ressid of that. He cut off the memory swiftly before it made him unnecessarily maudlin.
These things didn’t really have a place here. Perhaps it was finally time to clear them out. But even as he thought that, he found himself taking the box and packing it in the bottom of the hoverchest. There would be another corner for it, maybe. He’d probably lose it again; he seemed to have been getting steadily less organized over the past few years. Taam would have laughed.
As Jainan turned back from the hoverchest, his wristband gave a chirp that meant it had hit another error. It had been behaving erratically for weeks. Jainan tried to clear the error, but as he did, he saw it was pinging Taam’s account to refresh a backup file. Taam had always stored some of his backup accounts on Jainan’s device. Jainan had forgotten.
His headache sent up another flare of pain at this unexpected responsibility. He tried to convince himself it wasn’t important. The investigators looking into the flybug crash already had all the data from Taam’s devices. Jainan could be forgiven for just ignoring this.
He had never ignored something that had to be done, though. He shut his eyes for a brief instant, breathed out, and brought up a small screen from his wristband to call Internal Security.
The call didn’t go through to the agent working on the case, of course. They had stopped answering him some time ago, when the investigation wound down. The person who appeared on the screen was a low-level Human Intelligence processor.
They recognized Jainan immediately, smoothing out their expression and resigning themself to wasting their time in a way that made Jainan’s skin crawl. He knew they did not consider him credible.
“Yes, Your Grace?”
“I wanted to inform you that I found some more of Taam’s files,” Jainan said. He could hear himself sound even more stiff and formal than usual. “I believe it to be a backup. It is protected by a passphrase.”
Taam’s various messaging and storage accounts had been a tangle of different encryption layers, all of which were compulsory for military officers. Jainan knew Internal Security had managed to get most of the relevant keys and passphrases from Taam’s superiors, but it seemed nobody had known Taam well enough to have a full overview of his life. That person should have been Jainan.
“The investigation isn’t currently active, sir,” the agent said.
“I know.”
The agent paused. “Please pass us a copy and then delete it. Someone may visit to ensure it’s been completely wiped.”
“I will have moved quarters.”
“Yes,” the agent said. It wasn’t as if they didn’t know where Jainan was going. “Thank you for your information.”
Jainan watched the screen in front of him die. He felt exhausted; maybe that was relief. He sent a copy to Internal Security, but discovered the file wouldn’t delete without a passphrase. Never mind. He couldn’t read it anyway, and the investigation was inactive.
He shouldn’t even be thinking about this anymore. He had a new partner, a new duty that required all his attention. He couldn’t be distracted by stray thoughts of Taam. He and Taam had spent five years together—five years that ended suddenly, brutally, like the punch of a demolition claw through a wall—and that was it. That marriage was over.
A white indicator light glowed on the wall. Jainan turned and opened the door in the split second before the chime had a chance to sound.
A smartly dressed staffer stood outside. Jainan consciously ran through the Iskat social cues: her wristband was emblazoned with a crest, thus she must work for the palace, and her earrings were obviously flint, so at least she could be clearly read as female. Iskaners thought their gender presentation was very simple—wooden decorations for men, flint for women—but it was sometimes impossible to spot a bead or stone if it was displayed discreetly, and some people wore neither. The staffer wasn’t wearing a uniform tunic. She must be someone’s aide.
“Count Jainan?” The aide bowed. “My name is Bel Siara, Private Secretary to Prince Kiem. His highness has sent me to assist you.”
Jainan automatically bowe
d back. She looked vaguely familiar—Jainan must have seen her around the palace at some point, but he was bad at remembering people and worse at making connections. This transition might have been easier if he’d known people outside Taam’s immediate circle, but just moving out of Taam’s rooms was like moving into a city full of strangers.
“Honored to make your acquaintance,” he said. The formal phrase came out easily, polished by use, but then he had to think of what to say next. He had to stop his breathing from speeding up. Bel Siara was in a position to do him a lot of damage if she decided she didn’t like him. “I’ve packed. I’m ready to go.” He turned before she could reply and keyed the chest closed.
The lid slid shut, and the chest unmoored itself, bobbing toward the door as he touched the handle.
“Allow me,” Bel said and moved in to take a pull cord instead. Jainan backed off and let her.
Prince Kiem lived in an entirely different part of the palace. Taam had been given rooms in the Emperor’s Wing, the high-security heart of the palace, though of course he was several floors away from the Emperor. Prince Kiem seemed to have missed out on those; the Courtyard Residence was a long, echoing building of white stone that housed lesser relatives and high officials. Like all the grand buildings of the palace, they were linked with a snakelike maze of glass-covered walkways. Iskaners had a compulsion for glass roofs and windows that showed the sky, which had always baffled Jainan, as for most of the year there was nothing there except a blanket of clouds. Iskaners called it a fine autumn day if it stopped snowing for an afternoon.
Jainan used the walk to go over his half-formed apologies for the ceremony. He never got the chance to use them: when they arrived, Prince Kiem’s rooms were empty.
The suite was a smaller version of Taam’s, built according to the same model. Jainan had been there before, on his brief, panicked visit before the ceremony, but he still stopped in the doorway, disoriented again by how much difference the furnishings made to the atmosphere. Bright lighting picked out the edges of the mismatched coffee service and a cheap, cheerful rug, chosen by someone with more enthusiasm than talent for interior design. The main room was tidier than it had been earlier. Iskaners liked their surroundings to be largely a pristine white, he knew, but Jainan felt there had been more color then, just because more things had been strewn around.
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