Unconquerable Sun

by Elliott, Kate

  Then they dropped out of the beacon and, engines firing, slid into Chaonia System above Chaonia Prime. She was home. Victorious but not satisfied.

  She pinged her Companions to let them know she was arriving. It took hours longer for the corvette to descend and land in the military airfield on the shoreline of the capital city. Once there, she and Octavian took a Hummingbird out to the palace complex in the bay. A ping from her father dropped in as she was flying, but she ignored the message rather than give the controls to Octavian. The bodyguard kept, an eye on her technique but did not interfere as she landed the ’bird on the restricted airstrip that served the residential wing with its multiple nested gardens and courtyards.

  The Honorable James Samtarras was waiting for her on a stone bench in the shade of a portico overlooking the landing pad. As the rotors wound down and Sun and Octavian disembarked carrying their duffels, he pulled his flatcap off his head and waved it enthusiastically.

  “All hail the conquering hero! Alika is writing you a song.”

  Sun swatted him on the shoulder in greeting, then indicated the complicated three-dimensional virtual spreadsheet he was building up from the half of the bench he wasn’t sitting on. “What are you doing?”

  “As soon as we got the news Hetty told me to make a list of the various installations, factories, assembly halls, and workers’ guilds we’re likely to tour on Molossia and Thesprotis.” He closed a hand into a fist, and the interlocking web of lines and points vanished. “What is up with that anyway, Sun? It sounds dreadful. Did you lose your temper with your mother?”

  “I did not lose my temper, James.”

  “A little touchy about that, are we?”

  She added a dart of her own. “I saw your father and your brother.”

  “That’s punishment enough! I’m so sorry you had to endure His Officiousness and His Pompousness.” He jumped up to offer Octavian an exaggerated mock salute. “Welcome home, Sergeant Major. You’ve done well to keep our scamp of an heir out of trouble, and alive.”

  “I haven’t received your training report yet, Honored James,” said Octavian.

  James gestured with his cap toward an open gate where an older woman with the weathered face and upright posture of a combat veteran had placed herself on guard. “You can’t fool me. Isis sends you my reports.”

  “I did see them,” Octavian admitted, “and it looks to me as if you and I will be taking extra sessions in small-arms fire.”

  “Why this torture?” James groaned with eyes cast to the heavens in supplication.

  Sun started walking. “Let’s go.”

  As they strode toward the gate a miniature pteranodon sailed into sight from over the tiled rooftops to land on Isis’s shoulder.

  “Your Highness, welcome back.” Isis fell into step behind Sun and James as the pteranodon tucked in its wings and cheeped at the new arrivals. “Early reports suggest you did well at Na Iri.”

  “I accomplished the task I was given.”

  With the queen-marshal out with the fleet Sun had expected to find a bare-bones staff at the palace compound, like the single pair of guards on duty at the landing pad. But where were the rest of her Companions? It wasn’t the lack of Alika and Perseus that fretted her. Why hadn’t Hetty been waiting for her at the landing pad alongside James? She refused to ask, and instead cast her thoughts back to the unexpected encounter with Moira Lee.

  “James, I need you to do a deep dig into Lee House,” she said in a low voice.

  “What do you mean?” He glanced up and down the long outdoor passage that led past half-deserted administrative offices to the residential wing. No wasps were allowed within the palace precincts. Since Sun’s private ring network allowed her and her Companions to communicate beneath a sophisticated cloak of white noise that was usually impossible for spybots and tracking devices to penetrate, he was checking for physical eavesdroppers.

  “I want to know why Moira Lee was visiting my mother at COSY. Seeing her there raised a tickle down my spine. Something is going on.”

  “I know that tickle. How many times did it get us into trouble when we were young?”

  “Good trouble.”

  He swept a high flourish with his cap. “You’d say so.”

  Isis remarked, “You’re still young, you sprouts.”

  “Don’t argue with me, James,” Sun added.

  “Why would I bother, since I’d never be allowed to win?” He tugged the cap on over his curls. “So what exactly are you looking for? Moira Lee was one of Eirene’s Companions in their youth. After her older sister Nona Lee died, Moira was appointed governor of Lee House and had to give up her place as Companion.”

  “Actually,” said Octavian, who was walking in front but always listening, “Moira Lee had to give up her place as Companion before Nona Lee died. She was having a sexual affair with Queen-Marshal Nézhā. Favoritism of that kind between rulers and Companions is quite against court protocol, as Moira knew perfectly well. Nézhā’s consort found out about it and demanded Moira’s removal from Eirene’s household, as was within her rights.”

  “The same Hesjan consort who betrayed Nézhā and was responsible for his death?” Sun asked.

  “No one saw that coming, it’s true, and we could never prove it,” answered Octavian. “But get your events in the right order and you’ll have a better chance of figuring out if there’s something to the instinct that’s nagging at you.”

  “Do you have any other insights, Octavian?”

  “No, Princess. That was all common knowledge on the flagship back in the day. Anything more would have been above my rating.”

  “Isis, how about you?”

  “I’m just an average grunt who wasn’t near the court then,” said the much-decorated Isis, not that she wore her medals any more than Octavian ever did. “But we are approaching the sixth anniversary of the death of the eight-times-worthy hero Ereshkigal Lee. Maybe Lee House has plans to honor their daughter’s sacrifice with a procession and wants the queen-marshal’s imprimatur.”

  “Maybe. James, start digging.”

  “In case you forgot,” James retorted, “Lee House controls the Ministry of Security, Punishment, and Corrections. I don’t fancy them throwing me into their undersea oubliette if they uncover me sneaking into their secure data.”

  “I keep you around because you’re better than everyone else at what you do. Am I not right about you after all?”

  He grinned. “You’re always right, Sun. I am, in fact, the very best at what I do.”

  And he was, which was exactly why she could not ask him to look into her father’s secret project. Her mother did not threaten lightly. Sun couldn’t take the chance that James’s digging would alert Eirene’s intelligence trip wires.

  They had skirted the entrance to the queen-marshal’s inner courtyard and entered the consorts’ wing through a side passage rather than its gilded front gate. Startled attendants ceased their dusting and sweeping to stand back with hands pressed respectfully together as Sun passed.

  Because she was unmarried Sun still lived in the consorts’ wing. As heir she had her own secondary courtyard and suite of rooms for her Companions adjacent to the large courtyard suite reserved for Prince João. Its gate was guarded by twin statues of guardian lions. She relaxed as she crossed into her own territory at last.

  The rooms were quiet, reflecting her recent absence. Dust motes swirled in streams of light angling through windows. A small janitor scrubbed the passage’s marble floor with a cheerful whir. It was traditional for the queen-marshal to employ human attendants for mundane tasks like cleaning to display her wealth and her generosity. Sun had early on replaced the people assigned to her area with mechanicals that James made sure couldn’t spy on her. Except for Octavian and her Companions’ companions—cee-cees who like Isis combined the services of bodyguard, valet, and attendant—there was only a trusted cook, two factotums, a high secretary, and a clerk to round out her personal household.

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nbsp; As they broke out of shadow into the daylight gleam of the private courtyard, a crescendo of exuberant melody greeted her. Alika was standing in his favorite spot beneath the red gazebo. He didn’t look up from his guitar because music was how he most comfortably communicated. The clack and shush of bladed fans opening and closing in time to the song’s ecstatic rhythm traced Candace’s martial practice around the gazebo. Isis and Octavian watched with approving nods. The cee-cee whirled to a halt, snapping the fans closed and hooking them on her belt in one smooth motion as Alika brought the piece to a close. He flashed a smile toward Sun.

  “Perfect,” she said.

  “Your training scores have remained excellent, as expected, Honored Alika,” said Octavian.

  “Shoot me now,” muttered James.

  “And yours too, Candace,” added Octavian.

  “Your Highness.” Candace bowed. “Sergeant Major. Welcome home.”

  Sun greeted the cee-cee with the appropriate words of reply but was already searching the courtyard’s alcoves and shade-drenched benches for Hetty. Before she could ask, the sound of hurried footsteps brought her head around. The Honorable Perseus Lee barreled out of the service alley carrying a covered bowl.

  “Sun! I was going to go with James to meet you, but it just happened.” He jolted to a halt in front of her and with one of his radiant smiles tipped back the lid. “Look!”

  Sun stared into the bowl’s water, which bore a strange undulating quality but was apparently empty. “What am I looking at?”

  “Medusas. Duke finally got them to reproduce in the lab.”

  Now she saw tiny translucent bell-shaped domes and dangling tentacles as sporadically visible fine lines washing back and forth in the water. Her eyes opened wide as she took it in. “Everyone told him it couldn’t be done.”

  He slid the cover back on.

  “Oi! I want to see,” objected James.

  Perseus started walking toward the alley. “I’d better take them back. I probably shouldn’t have disturbed them, but I wanted to show you right away. I’m sure it’s a good omen. They’re said to be immortal.”

  James looked at Sun. She waved a hand, giving permission, and he raced off.

  “Percy! Wait up.”

  The door to the kitchen area slid aside. Navah, Hetty’s cee-cee, came out with a tray laden with a teapot, cups, and an artfully arranged platter of sweet bean cakes and deep-fried sesame balls, still warm. The pleasant aroma chased through the air.

  “Your Highness! Welcome home! Cook has baked your favorite sweets.”

  Navah placed the tray on the table under the gazebo and began setting out the cups with her usual brisk efficiency and charming smile. Alika had started playing again, plucking out bits and pieces of melody as he did when composing. Candace gave Sun a skittish glance before going over to help Navah.

  Sun frowned as it became clear Hetty wasn’t here to greet her.

  In a low voice, Isis said, “Your Highness, it’s the anniversary of her father’s death. She’s at the shrine.”

  “Of course,” Sun muttered, swept by a dark wave of shame. “I should have remembered.”

  “Hard to reckon time in any one system when you’re traveling by beacon,” said Isis kindly. “Octavian, I have a few things to discuss with you now you’re returned. Shall we go to the office?”

  Sun left her duffel in the courtyard for the factotums to deal with. After changing into slippers on the entry porch, she walked through the empty audience hall to the private reception room. Its balcony overlooked the palace’s Memory Garden of the Celestial Empire. The pleasing arrangement of stone pavements and promontories, waterfalls and still pools, and flowering trees and scented bushes usually soothed her restless soul. Today she barely glanced toward the bright peonies and azaleas. Instead, she cautiously approached a small side room, off the balcony, which was set aside for the household shrine. Because Companions officially left behind their birth households to become part of hers, the shrine had a raw, fresh aesthetic unlike the well-worn traditional altars of long-established houses.

  The Honorable Hestia Hope knelt on a pillow in front of an elaborately carved open cabinet arranged with a lamp, flowers, stones, and images of the deceased. Her long black hair was braided back in a casual fishtail adorned with a white ribbon to signify her mourning. Her posture was exact, hands pressed palm to palm and head bent just enough that her fingertips brushed her forehead. A pulse beat softly in her pale throat as she took in breaths after each long stream of prayer.

  Standing in the entry, Sun let the flow of the beloved voice spill over her. By the slight lift of her chin and faintest blush on her cheek, Hetty had become aware of Sun’s presence. But of course, being Hetty, she finished the full cycle of prayers at the prescribed tempo before she bent in a final bow toward her father’s image. Only then did she rise in a rush of movement to face the princess.

  “You’re home, my dearest Sun. You have come home.” Hetty’s smile was a flower in full bloom.

  Sun took a step toward her and grasped her hands tightly in her own. Only then, as if shocked awake by Hetty’s cool skin, did she remember to glance over her shoulder. The shrine was in full view of the reception room and balcony, so she released her. Words failed her, as they often did when this stark, vulnerable emotion clamped her in its jaws.

  “I know you’re furious at the queen-marshal’s command,” Hetty said with her usual instinct for pushing straight to the heart of things, “but think, dear Sun, how well it benefits you.”

  “How does a six-month glad-handing tour of factories and training camps benefit me when I should be out on the front lines with the fleet?” She broke off. “Wait. I got a message from my father.”

  She blinked three times to activate the private link and its encrypted message, sharing it with Hetty via her ring network. Her father never used voice only. He always appeared in hologram, a gauzy ghost of a figure wearing spectacularly rich garments. This time he wore a long sleeveless embroidered coat that, hanging open, revealed a knee-length fitted gold tunic over loose trousers. Hetty whistled appreciatively at the bold geometric patterns of the coat.

  “Don’t share this message with another soul, not even the sergeant major.”

  Hetty made a move to step away, but Sun grasped her elbow. “We are one soul with two bodies, are we not? You will always know all that I know.”

  “I have to go under the highest restriction of security for this project. That’s Eirene’s ears only, in case you are wondering how restricted it is. Not even Lee House is in this loop. So you won’t hear from me for a while. This is the chance I’ve been waiting for, working for, all my life. We can break the hold of the Phene … I’ve said too much. Say nothing about what you heard. But be sure I’ll be keeping an eye on your activities. Sun, your stubbornness about your Companions needs to end. You must pick Companions from Jīn, Bō, and Nazir to fill out a full complement. You should replace the Hope girl, too, with a Companion from the governor’s line of Hope House instead of that disgraced Yele-tainted side branch.”

  “Not a chance,” muttered Sun.

  Hetty squeezed Sun’s hand.

  “You cannot needlessly antagonize the seven Core Houses. You need the support of all their ministries to rule effectively as queen-marshal, or to rule at all, given people’s distrust of me. You should know better by now. I shouldn’t have to be blunt. This goodwill tour can become a useful expedition to break in new Companions. Here are my suggestions—”

  With a grimace of irritation Sun blinked off the sound, although she recognized the shape of the names on his lips. “Alika, James, and Percy are the only ones I trust. Besides you and Octavian, I mean.”

  “The prince—”

  “Yes, I trust Father too, of course. I’m his most valuable resource. But I’m also a piece in whatever strange game he’s playing, which I’ll never fully understand because I’m only half Gatoi and wasn’t born and raised on the wheelships as he was.”

 
Hetty’s smile had a laughing quality that always softened Sun, reminding her she could be wrong once a year. “I meant to say, the prince is right. Here’s why.”

  She gently released Sun’s hand and walked into the reception room and out onto the balcony. Leaning on the railing, she waited for Sun to come up beside her. Sunlight gilded the central pool, flashing on the backs of bright koi. Wind chimes sang. Fan-shaped gingko leaves flashed in the breeze as flower petals spun down to float on the water.

  “You need all seven Core Houses. You know that. You need each ministry’s support in full. Each of us Companions is your link that reassures each House you honor them.”

  “I’m not replacing you no matter what my father says.”

  “Hope House is well content that I am here. Prince João does not fully understand the politics inside each House or why Hope House would find it safer to stow me within the palace rather than their halls.”

  “Of course. But the other three just want to put more spies in my household.”

  As one, they glanced toward the open doors and the dim audience hall beyond. A rectangle of light marked the opening onto the courtyard where the other Companions and their cee-cees were, presumably, waiting for Sun and Hetty to return so they could enjoy a celebratory tea.

  “James and I have done a little search,” remarked Hetty with a mysterious smile.

  “Are you saying you have some honorables in mind? Ones the Houses haven’t already put forward? Or the ones I’ve already rejected?”

  Hetty waggled her eyebrows.

  Sun pressed a sudden kiss at the corner of Hetty’s tender mouth, which tasted sweetly, sharply, of ginger. “How did I ever manage those years you were away from me on Yele Prime?”

  Hetty pulled away and beckoned toward the garden’s lovely expanse. It seemed uninhabited at the moment. But a stray gardener might be working behind a luxuriant shrub, or the personal attendants of the third consort could be taking an opportunity in the queen-marshal’s absence to stroll amid the flowers and pavilions. Still, she allowed her left little finger to touch Sun’s where their hands rested side by side on the railing.