Unconquerable Sun

by Kate Elliott

  Percy would have been barging around making jokes and getting in the way. He had been the best at distracting observers with his antics to give Sun a measure of privacy.

  Percy. Dead.

  Her cheeks got hot and her throat choked on the rage she could not reveal beneath the eye of surveillance.

  Keep your temper in check.

  She had to move. A roll brought her up to her feet. She called up the encrypted text-only message she had received from her father. It had come in exactly five hours after she’d left a ping in his safe box telling him the news about Perseus and Duke, a message James had managed to get out three hours after the explosion. She’d read the words twenty or thirty times already.

  “This business with Perseus can’t have been an accident. Be alert for more trouble. Your enemies will use his death as an excuse to plant yet another spy into your inner circle.”

  “Maybe my mother genuinely believes in his project, but it’s no coincidence she got both me and Father out of the way before the wedding festivities,” she muttered to Hetty. “Some faction within the court is finally moving against us. I’m sure of it.”

  A shift of air whispered a change of pressure in the lofty hall. One of the passages opened.

  As Sun turned to face the passage she closed her hand into a fist to banish the message. “Here comes the spy. Greet them as they deserve.”

  James rolled up his tablet. Navah stood over by the wall holding the teapot. Candace spun into an en garde position while Alika kept his seat on the sculpture and with a clever cadence shifted into an ancient song from the long-abandoned palaces of the Celestial Empire. His voice was sweet and true, and his singing as sharp a weapon as Candace’s razor-edged battle fans.

  Your cheating heart

  Will tell on you

  A short young woman strode into view. Seeing them, she halted so abruptly the taller person walking behind almost ran into her because the tall one was staring with a glassy expression at Alika.

  Hetty whistled under her breath. “I’d draw her in a heartbeat. What a face!”

  Sun frowned, studying the Lee girl, who was dressed in a severe military-cut jacket buttoned over trousers of off-white damask silk adorned by dangling strings of pearls. “Could James’s wild dive into the twitch have caught the truth? She really does look like her war-hero sister, taking into account the difference in height and weight. I didn’t think the eight-times-worthy and very dead Captain the Honorable Ereshkigal Lee was your style of unobtainable crush.”

  “It’s not the Lee girl that I’m speaking of.”

  “Oh, you mean the cee-cee.” Sun allowed herself to look away from the enemy at the glorious vision standing one step behind and to the right. “Effulgent Heaven! She’s put us all in the shade.”

  “Tread with care. I sense a cunning trap.”

  The passage behind them sealed off, leaving the Lee girl and her cee-cee confined in the hall with them. The intruder finally collected herself enough to speak.

  “I thought you were on Molossia—” The Lee girl broke off as her voice echoed too loudly beneath the roof.

  “You have to be careful when thinking,” remarked James in his laziest drawl, tugging his cap forward for emphasis. “You don’t want to hurt yourself.”

  “Well, that was certainly an original insult,” retorted the Lee girl with a crass lack of manners. She fixed her glare on Sun. “So you are Princess Sun. Is there anything I need to know about serving in your retinue, which it seems I’m now required to do?”

  Sun raised a hand, palm out in the gesture that meant do not fear. “Rule of Sun, Rule One. Never show weakness because the moment we show weakness, we will die.”

  “Does Her Highness speak with the collective ‘we’ or in a royal first-person ‘we’?” The Lee girl quirked up one eyebrow.

  Sun’s jaw tightened. “What do you think?”

  The eyebrow lowered as she ventured a falsely sympathetic smile. “I think the plural royal you—that’s you—shouldn’t trust anyone in Lee House.”

  “Does that advice include the singular individual you—that’s you—standing in front of me as my newest Companion?”

  The smile faded into a hard stare. “Believe me, I wouldn’t be here, forced to become one of your Companions, if I’d had any choice in the matter. What is Rule Two?”

  “There is no Rule Two. There is only survival.”

  “You need to intone that with more of a mwahaha villain voice. Maybe lean closer as if you intend to loom ominously over me.” She tapped the top of her own head with a mocking gesture. “Not that you’re quite tall enough to loom, I mean. Not even over me, and as you may have noticed, I’m short.”

  The memory of blood in water was never far from Sun’s thoughts. “We can trade insults all day, but I don’t care about your cheap shots. Your brother and his cee-cee were murdered.”

  The Lee girl swayed. Her cee-cee placed a hand on her back in a show of support. “I was told it was an accident.”

  “It’s true the judiciary ruled the incident a mishap with a malfunctioning motor. But consider this.” She glanced toward Hetty, who looked over to where Navah was setting out the tea tray. Sun whispered so only the Lee girl could hear, “If the tender had been stowed in its storage hatch inside the yacht when it exploded, we all would have died. It’s pure chance Percy and Duke had taken it out when they did. It wasn’t an accident, no matter what the judiciary ruled. It was an assassination attempt.”

  The Lee girl sucked in a breath, but she didn’t give ground. “That’s a serious charge. If it were true, Lee House would know. My father is a seer of Iros, obliged by his oath to the god to tell the truth. He told me it was an accident.”

  “So your father always tells you the truth?”

  “Of course he does. Doesn’t yours?”

  “Nice try, but you obviously don’t know my father. So let’s get back to your honest dad. Did he ever tell you all the Lee House daughters, including you, are clones of your aunt?”

  “What? What?”

  “What, are they clones? Or, what aunt are they clones of? To answer both questions, clones of the aunt who was implicated in the destruction of an entire refugee camp.”

  “First of all, clones have been illegal since the plagues that hit during the collapse of the Apsaras Convergence. Eight hundred years ago.”

  “Yes, thank you. I know history too.”

  “Second of all, my aunt Nona died before I was born. And your so-called history about her is just plain wrong. She did everything she could to save the camp.”

  “Of course that’s what Lee House would say. They’re the ones who covered it up. She bombed the camp into shards for the crime of being inhabited by refugees who dared to seek a safe harbor away from the fighting on Kanesh. She claimed the refugees were harboring Phene spies. She said there wasn’t time to sort out the innocent from the guilty before the guilty betrayed the republic.” She tilted her head to the left as she measured the Lee girl from top to toe before looking her in the eye with a shake of the head meant to convey disappointment. “Your father never saw fit to tell you the truth about her?”

  “You’re making that up to rattle me. You weren’t alive then either.”

  “I’m the heir. I know a lot of things that involve the highest level of security clearance as well as particular information the official histories keep secret.” She glanced at James. He tipped his cap. “For example, your aunt’s grotesque legacy of illegal bio-experimentation is why all the Lee House daughters of your generation are named after death goddesses from the Celestial Empire. Unless they really did not tell you. I suppose they might not have wanted you to know.”

  Hetty squeezed Sun’s hand. “Enough. That is enough. You can stop now.”

  The Lee girl was shock-faced and pallid. “You b—”

  “Perse,” interrupted her cee-cee, gliding forward like trouble on glorious wings. She wore a glistening dress, a crown of hair woven with tiny lights, and a
smile so polished it was a threat. Her bow was gracious, her hand gestures like flowing silk. “Peace be upon you, Your Illustrious Highness.”

  “And upon you peace.” Sun crossed her arms as a shield against an ambush.

  “As her humble cee-cee, please allow me the honor of introducing to you the Honorable Persephone Lee, your new Companion. She comes to you today in obedience to the covenant pledged between the seven Core Houses and the constitutional throne, the eighth House, that each House shall always provide one of its own children as a Companion to the heir. As hostage, as guardian, and as loyal friend. I myself have the name Tiana Yáo Alaksu. For myself I have sealed a seven-year contract to serve the Honorable Persephone. We had expected a more formal introduction and perhaps even a briefing.” She caught the Lee girl’s eye and gave her a nod before turning back to Sun. “You may find us unprepared for the transition into your esteemed company. If there is anything we need to know before we proceed with today’s expectedly joyous celebration, I pray you humbly, let me serve as I am trained to do.”

  Hetty laughed with delight.

  Alika plucked a wrong note and, startled by the dissonance, stopped playing.

  “Alika,” said James with a smirk, “you look like you’ve been pole-axed and left for dead. Your mouth is open.”

  Alika closed his mouth. When Tiana smiled sympathetically at him in her most decorous manner, he began fiddling with the tuning knobs.

  “Dearest Alika,” James continued, “sometimes I forget you’re the most rustic of country cousins, plucked from impoverished obscurity. And then I remember all over again.”

  Alika flushed. “Could you be more of a jerk, James?”

  “Yes, I could, but I won’t be out of respect for our new comrades.” James pulled off his cap and offered a sweeping bow in Tiana’s direction. “To beauty and accomplishment, I offer all my admiration.”

  “Enough games,” Sun went on, flooded with manic cheer now that the Lee girl had been put in her place and gutted. “We loved your brother, Persephone, and we don’t want you. That’s the collective we, for me and my companions. But it seems we are stuck with you despite—”

  “What joyous celebration?” the Lee girl interrupted. “Lee House is in mourning for my brother.”

  “Fake innocence doesn’t work on me any better than mockery does,” retorted Sun. “Furthermore both tactics annoy me, as I hope you’ve learned with our last exchange. If you haven’t, our time together is going to be very rough. So back off.”

  A bell rang once, twice, and three times. Isis appeared from a passage behind them, checking her harness of weapons. Wing landed on her shoulder and, with a chirp of satisfaction, folded its leathery wings.

  “What bell is that? What signal do we hear?” asked Hetty.

  “It’s the official summons,” said the Lee girl. “You do know that Scylla Hall is where supplicants and criminals are made to wait before they are brought before the Lee House tribunal, don’t you?”

  “So your family is deliberately insulting me by making me wait here, is that what you’re saying?”

  The Lee girl’s expression shaded from hostility to something more like puzzlement. “Yes, but why would they want to insult you? They are loyal Chaonians, and you’re the heir.”

  Sun muttered in a voice that only Hetty was close enough to hear, “I am as good a Chaonian as any of them are, as I’ve proven ten times over. What do I lack that my mother the queen-marshal allows me to be slighted in this way?”

  Hetty rested a hand on Sun’s forearm with the softest touch. “In my eyes you lack nothing. That’s the truth. Well, patience, maybe, and a tuneful voice.”

  The gentle humor slid right off Sun’s armored nerves. She stood in rigid silence as her Companions and their cee-cees efficiently readied themselves.

  Then she beckoned to the newcomer. “Persephone, you may stand beside me as your twin used to do, and murmur secret messages in my ear. Percy knew everything and everyone and all their business too, just as a child of Lee House is meant to do. I rely on you for the same service.”

  The Lee girl’s look of alarm surprised her. Tiana whispered in her ear and evidently reassured her enough that her expression relaxed marginally.

  “Of course, Princess Sun.” With her cee-cee as close as a shadow behind her, she stepped in and took her place.

  Sun hooked her fingers around the girl’s elbow, just as if they were the best of friends. “Call me Sun. All my Companions do. It’s a mark of our familiarity and equality. I’ll call you Persephone.”

  “I prefer Perse.”

  “I am sure you do, Persephone.”

  The girl had a dead-flat stare like she’d tamped down the steam trying to boil out of her ears. Unlike Percy she had the ability to remain silent.

  “We go,” said Sun.

  Octavian had all this time been standing in camouflaged silence against the wall. Shock staff in hand, he stepped out of the shadows. His booming voice startled the newcomers.

  “Princess. Stay on full alert.”

  A passage opened. Beyond the open seal a rectangular, glass-walled transport pod awaited them. They hung on to overhead bars as the pod shot out on tracks over the clear water of the central lagoon. Iridescent fish flashed within alternating patches of white sand and feathery coral speckled with brilliant anemones. A right curve took them to a long boardwalk lined with walled pavilions, each large enough to accommodate big crowds. They disembarked in front of a pavilion draped in festive red. A swarm of media wasps zoomed in on their group and especially on Alika.

  The pavilion’s massive archways were carved to resemble the intertwining necks of scyllas. They opened into a huge hall packed with round tables decorated in red tablecloths and gold place settings. Notables from every branch of the republic and the court were already seated, chattering noisily. All wore festival clothing.

  “This looks nothing like a funeral meal.” Persephone’s lips pressed together as her gaze dropped to compare her clothing, then lifted to examine how Hetty had softened the brightness of her yellow dress with a cream-colored crocheted overskirt wrapped in a decorative netting over the skirt of the gown. “Why is everyone dressed for a wedding?”

  Sun tightened her fingers on Persephone’s arm harder than she needed to, but all the girl did was tense her muscles against Sun’s grip. “You do know who my mother the queen-marshal is marrying, don’t you?”

  “No.”

  No.

  “How would I know?” Persephone went on. “We receive a censored feed at the academy. I haven’t spoken to my family for almost five years.”

  A pinprick of suspicion shivered in Sun’s mind. “Is that true?”

  “With your stratospheric level of security clearance you can easily find out where I’ve been.” Under her breath she added, “Ass-hole.”

  Tiana whispered, “She really doesn’t know, Your Resplendent Highness.”

  “Princess Sun!” An attendant wearing the emerald tree badge of Lee House pressed palms together for a bow. “Your Highness! I’m afraid all the seats are filled, but we can set up an extra table in the overflow pavilion. If you’ll follow me I’ll take you—”

  “Oh no, don’t agree,” said Persephone. “They’re setting you up to place you in the cheap seats with the lesser dignitaries.”

  “Or you’re setting me up to discourteously reject your powerful relatives’ hospitality and be seen to make a scene out in the public eye.” Sun gestured toward the watching wasps.

  The Lee girl rolled her eyes. “Fine, then. Have it your way. Lead on.”

  The pinprick in Sun’s head sharpened.

  “Your Highness,” said the attendant, “come now or be left outside.”

  From inside a fanfare of horns announced the imminent entrance of the queen-marshal. Sun wanted to distrust the Lee girl. But that pinprick burned.

  With a click, the doors began to slide closed as a second fanfare blared.

  15

  A Feast for W
eary Souls

  Sun tugged Persephone forward through the narrowing archway into the cavernous hall. A quick scan gave her the lay of the land.

  A head table was set up on a platform at one end. A wing of auxiliary head tables flared out to either side of the head table. Here the governors and notables of the seven Core Houses sat in places of honor, raised above the rest. Perseus’s mother, Aisa, was not in attendance. Even if legally the duty of arranging proper funeral and mourning rituals for Perseus had fallen on Sun, it wasn’t surprising his womb mother was avoiding the banquet, twisted with misfortune as the Honored Aisa must surely feel, having now lost two of her three children. Her spouse, Kiran, was also absent.

  As the governors turned to look at Sun, the buzz of conversation quieted. People craned their necks to see who had arrived in the nick of time.

  By casual measures Sun did not stand out when among her Companions—not as tall as Perseus or Hestia, nothing like as striking as Alika, and lacking James’s affectations of dress and posture. But no one could ever mistake hers for a placid, tranquil soul. Her heart was an inferno and her will an adamantine blade.

  She caught the eye of Crane Marshal Qìngzhī Bō of the Seventh Fleet, seated with his staff at one of the front tables.

  The marshal stood. “Let the hero of Na Iri take this honored place.”

  His staff vacated their seats.

  Hetty sat to Sun’s right as Sun gestured Persephone to the seat on her left. Alika, James, and the cee-cees took other seats at the table.

  The fanfare gave its third and final call. Everyone rose.

  Queen-Marshal Eirene strode in with confidence. By the ruddy color in her cheeks she’d already partaken of a few cups of wine.

  As host, Moira Lee entered last of all. The governor of Lee House was dressed in an outfit of an unimpeachable shade of rose pink. Her daughter, the Honorable Manea, walked beside her, dressed in a consort’s elaborate red robes embroidered with golden phoenix feathers. The way Persephone’s mouth dropped open in astonishment at the sight of her cousin garbed and painted as a bride turned the pinprick in Sun’s mind to a warning that seared.