The Empress

by S. J. Kincaid

  And then the bot drove its injector into his forearm. Tyrus winced and told Pasus, “In the future, I’m perfectly able to find my own veins—” He stopped talking.

  For a moment, he stared into space. Then, “Oh, that’s . . .” And he plunged toward the ground.

  I hadn’t been ready for that.

  Pasus had. He caught Tyrus immediately and nodded for a pair of his people to rush over. He stroked Tyrus’s hair back from his face so he could examine it. “Hmm. Not what you expected, was it?” He smiled. “It never seems to be.”

  I stared at Tyrus. His eyes were rolled back, his pale lashes fluttering. I’d seen this happen to people who overdosed on opiates or other sedating substances. “Are you sure he’s . . .”

  “He is quite well.” He shook Tyrus. “Your Supremacy. Your Supremacy!”

  “Tyrus!” I said.

  Those eyes pulled open sluggishly, unfocused, pupils dilated. A tangle of anxiety within me.

  “Satisfied?” Pasus said, and then he reached down and withdrew the scepter from the sheath at Tyrus’s waist. “Your Supremacy will feel the weight of this in your hand one day. But only after you’ve learned that art so alien to you Domitrians. I would have introduced it to Devineé, had she retained the wits to speak, but I think I prefer to show you.” He grazed the scepter over Tyrus’s cheek. “You will learn to say ‘please.’ ”

  He tucked the scepter under his arm and snapped his fingers. Two Pasus servants hiked Tyrus up between them, one with his arms, one with his legs. They began to carry him out of the presence chamber, and Tyrus’s head flopped back toward the ground, exposing his column of throat.

  That roused me out of my spell, and I jerked forward to follow.

  Pasus’s hand shot out and seized my arm.

  “No,” he said, holding up a forbidding finger.

  My fist had risen on instinct, ready to punch him—though I still felt like every movement was dragging, heavy, the low drone of the neural suppressor just in my hearing range.

  “You agreed never to board my ship,” Pasus said.

  I threw a surprised glance toward Tyrus, saw the men disappearing into the corridor leading to the Colossus. “Wait. No. Then bring him . . .”

  Back.

  That last word never left me. I understood now why, specifically, Pasus had demanded I never board his ship. He was going to keep Tyrus there.

  Hatred seethed between us.

  “When will I see him?” I said.

  “If he asks for you, I’ll arrange it,” Pasus said, his voice dripping with condescension.

  Only after he’d left me did I realize how vaguely he’d answered me. If he drugged Tyrus heavily enough, he would never ask for me.

  • • •

  After Tyrus disappeared into that ship, I didn’t see him for a solid week. At first I paced in the Valor Novus, eyes on the corridor leading to the Colossus. As my anxiety mounted, I began accosting anyone going in or out, but the Grandiloquy guests just smiled with contempt or awkward refusal, and Pasus’s servants and employees did not even speak to me or acknowledge my questions about Tyrus’s well-being. I didn’t have the physical power to obtain answers the way I most wished.

  Then the news bounced from ear to ear, and I heard it: the Emperor was throwing a gala of celebration to honor the reconciliation of all the Grandiloquy.

  I would see him there.

  Shaezar nan Domitrian dutifully presented me with a selection of attire, but he hadn’t been allowed on the Colossus either.

  “I hear only the most trusted Pasus servants are given access to him,” Shaezar said. “They don’t speak to the rest of us.”

  Disgruntled, I chose the first outfit and color scheme he showed me. The only specification I had was that a V neckline needed to show the concentric sun mark of the Interdict over my heart. He fitted me with golden steering rings, the magnetized loops clasping my limbs so I could direct my momentum in zero gravity.

  Then to the ball dome, where I felt like I was crawling out of my skin. We detached from the rest of the Chrysanthemum. The gravity disappeared as we floated a short distance away from the superstructure. I leaned out of the viewing box, batting aside my purple-blue halo of hair when it kept drifting into my way.

  No one was in the Emperor’s box yet.

  I waited, on edge, my eyes idly picking over the decorations: algae plants wavering in the air, a scattering of animals engineered just for this occasion. I found myself watching the swirling limbs of a creature with eight slippery legs. When the first strains of music sounded, and I still didn’t see Tyrus, dread welled in me.

  Yet as Empress-to-be, I had to dive out first, so I thrust myself down, hoping to have a wider view from outside my box. Maybe Tyrus was elsewhere. Maybe he’d join me.

  But it was Senator von Aton who rippled down next to me, his garb floating in the weightlessness like some sea anemone. With his false-youth, he resembled his son Gladdic—if Gladdic were not so pretty.

  “I am partnering you first tonight,” said Aton, offering a palm.

  I was aware of all the eyes about me, all these ridiculous Grandiloquy looking on with their own costumes, their vivid, multi-hued scales, a Grande laughing with his friends where he’d snared the eight-legged animal as it floated by and was mock-dancing with it in his box. The music was playing but I didn’t even take Aton’s hand.

  “Where is the Emperor?”

  “I am the one here.” Since I didn’t take his hand, Aton took mine, and he smiled pleasantly. “I’ve been so curious about you.”

  But if he wished me to play along, to dance, to make a show of acting like everything was fine, he would be disappointed. I didn’t move a muscle, so anyone looking down at us saw an extravagant Grande twisting and turning about a woman who was at a total standstill.

  “Is the Emperor even coming?”

  “Yes,” said Aton. “On another subject, did you know I had a Diabolic?” He hooked me under the arm to spin me about, though I did nothing to aid him, as though he hadn’t even noticed my intransigence. “His name was Rancor. Great big creature with brilliant red hair.”

  “How interesting,” I sneered.

  “He was more loyal than a dog,” said Aton sadly. “I did hate to crush him in my gravity chamber, but it was an Imperial decree. I meant to watch him out of respect, but I simply could not abide it. When I heard Gladdic had been deceived by you, I wondered how I’d fathered such an astounding idiot.”

  I looked at Aton, malice seething through me. I knew when I was being toyed with. And in one abrupt movement, I tore him toward me, and clamped my knees about his head. “Surely Rancor showed you that even with minimal strength, Diabolics are deadly. I can break your neck with ease. Where is the Emperor?”

  Aton’s hands settled on my thighs, and it took me a moment to realize he wasn’t trying to break my hold on him. . . . He was roving his hands over them. “The Emperor is with Alectar von Pasus.” There was something cheeky, too revoltingly pleased in his grin.

  “Fine. So where is Alectar von Pasus?”

  “He is with the Emperor.” His hands squeezed. “I may need more incentive to say more.”

  Oh . . . Ohh, I was so hideously tempted to damage him. I gritted my teeth and stamped my leg to knock him away from me, and ignored the gasps of those who’d noticed my uncouth, uncivilized conduct. Shaking with anger and frustration. I thrust myself into the viewing box directly opposite the Emperor’s. I fastened my eyes on those empty seats. I waited. I passed the gala that way, ignoring the silly people romping about like sea creatures. Outside the ball dome, great explosions of vibrant lights flared against the void, and at first I ignored them. . . .

  Then I found myself looking at them, for who was paying for these?

  Between dances, celebrants began to call out cheers for the good fortune they’d received recently. Incredulous, I called up the transactions registry of the Chrysanthemum. The computer screen in the box dutifully listed each of the gifts t
hese Grandes and Grandeés had received recently, the gifts they were giving thanks for.

  The Hyperion. That was a Domitrian vessel, inactive since the death of one of Randevald’s sisters. Now it belonged to Senator von Amador. The Tigris went to Aton. The Farthingale was used for Domitrian servants. Now it was Senator von Wallstrom’s. Worst of all, the Alexandria, Tyrus’s own vessel, was for Senator von Locklaite, the first to defect to Pasus.

  On and on the list went, and a sickening realization crept over me that Pasus had divided up every asset of Tyrus’s, of the Domitrians’, of the Chrysanthemum in general, and had given them away.

  Pasus even had the gall to give himself Gorgon’s Arm, which Tyrus had offered him for Lumina. He had both now.

  And an eighty-year lease on the Valor Novus.

  Tyrus was now a guest on the vessel of the Domitrian royals.

  All that was left was the Hera.

  For now.

  I’d never really understood money, having never controlled it, never earned it, but I knew this was a devastating blow. Near the end of the night, the dance Hades and Persephone began, and applause swept over the ball dome. Then—across from me he appeared. A silhouette in the box, and another behind him that had to be Pasus.

  I shoved myself out of my box and angled the steering rings toward him so I could see how he was faring, what toll the Venalox was taking, or . . .

  Or . . .

  Abruptly, my magnetized steering rings jerked me to a stop, someone remotely barring me from flying in Tyrus’s direction. I floundered there amid applause, like swimming in sludge, while Tyrus was shown to them, to give a sign of the Emperor’s approval of the event.

  Fine. I couldn’t fly directly to him. I would still get closer, I would see his face. I had to.

  I aimed myself first at a wall, then ripped off my steering rings just before I met it. Then I kicked off as hard as I could. Startled cries as Grandes and Grandeés quickly steered out of my way, but Senator von Wallstrom didn’t move in time, and she and I collided and knocked each other off course. She had steering rings; I’d cast mine aside. In anguish, I flipped end over end, unable to control my momentum. I caught a glimpse of the box holding Tyrus, but Pasus was all I saw now, and he caught my eyes a moment before his lips twisted into a hateful smile. . . .

  And an opacity screen rose to block my view.

  Couples swirled all about me, and then trios for the dance called the Triumvirate, and still I spun with little forward momentum. A flash of stenciled scales, and then someone caught me, and I dragged my gaze up bleakly to meet Gladdic’s eyes. In my thunderous mood, I couldn’t say thanks. Just, “Steer me to the side.”

  “If that’s what you want. Should I help you find your rings?”

  My head pulsed. A wild thought came over me that those were probably too valuable to lose, now that all that remained of Domitrian wealth was the Hera. Abruptly, I felt like I was going to be sick.

  I barely noticed as Gladdic steered me back toward the box opposite the Emperor’s. His voice was like an afterthought in my ears: “I apologize for my father. I don’t know what he said to you, but you looked angry and I don’t blame you. Father is . . . He’s constantly bored. He treats everyone like—”

  “Gladdic, I don’t care. Stop talking.”

  “Of course.” He lapsed into silence. And then he couldn’t resist: “ I knew nothing about the Resolvent Mist. I didn’t know.”

  “Your inoculation against Resolvent Mist didn’t tip you off that Resolvent Mist might be deployed?” I said, pitiless. I had no sympathy to offer.

  “I didn’t know what it was,” Gladdic said gravely. “I thought it was a tracking diode, maybe. But . . . but I was there when it happened.” His face crumpled. A tear streaked down his face, drawing black kohl with it. “They didn’t deserve that. The Luminars—they treated me well. I was a prisoner, but they didn’t treat me that way.”

  He looked in need of a hug. I was the wrong person. “What’s your point?”

  “I asked my father to help Neveni.”

  Neveni. My hands curled, and I thought of her waiting for me to walk into an ambush. That had not been a hologram. It was actually her. “I don’t care. She aided Pasus. He destroyed her world and she still sided with him.”

  “Nemesis, she didn’t know about Lumina.”

  I dragged my gaze over to him. “She didn’t?”

  “She passed along your information after you’d been gone a month. Then . . . then she just disappeared. I was still with her family. Her father grew worried, and I was even getting ready for a trip back here. They trusted me to make inquiries, to search for her. . . . Then you know what happened.”

  The words stole my breath. “The Resolvent Mist.”

  “Pasus kept her in isolation for months. He convinced her he had her family, that their lives hinged on whether she cooperated with you. After . . . after you were here, I finally had a chance to see her. I told her I was so sorry about Lumina, and that’s . . .” His face fell. “That’s when I realized no one had told her.”

  “Oh. Oh no.”

  “Before that, though, she told me . . . she was frustrated. She’d tried to tell you without Pasus realizing it that she’d been compromised. She said it was in the message. Something about Devineé.”

  The breath seemed to have been stolen from me.

  “The major news first: the Successor Primus died. It happened two weeks after you left. I don’t know the details, but obviously I’ve been weeping off and on ever since. . . .”

  I thought it was sarcasm.

  She’d tried to tell me something. She knew that I knew she’d never mourn that woman. My vision blurred out of focus. I’d assumed Neveni was a traitor, deceived into making some deal on behalf of Lumina. I hadn’t given thought to her since learning of her planet’s destruction. There’d been too much to worry about when it came to me, to Tyrus. My anger at her melted away.

  “The other two Diabolics are still alive, also. They’re not scheduled to be killed. If you’re wondering.”

  I couldn’t care less about the fate of those two, but Neveni—she tried to warn me. She had to be saved. “Gladdic, I need you to do something. Find out when she’s due to die. Tell me as soon as you know. If you have any influence, urge explosive decompression, not gravital crushing. If it is crushing, let me know soon enough so I can sabotage the gravity chamber. I just . . . I might be able to do something for her.”

  He nodded and looked at me with those wide green eyes like he wanted to ask, but he thought better of it. And despite everything, as I gazed down at the dancers, a tiny bloom of hope opened within me. I didn’t know if I could save Tyrus. Or myself.

  But Neveni was my friend.

  I would save her.

  26

  I WAS summoned for the first meeting of court since our return. I knew what it meant: Tyrus would be in our midst. I could finally see if he was well. I chose a gown that deliberately angled down in a V to display the Interdict’s mark on my heart, and then I plunged out into the sea of hostile eyes in the presence chamber.

  There was a throne lower than Tyrus’s, yet positioned at the top of the chamber . . . meant for his future Empress. I took it, and it gave me a grim satisfaction to see the resentment and bitterness on the faces of the onlookers as they beheld me in the Empress’s place. That was the single pleasure I could take from Pasus’s bargain.

  And then—at last.

  Pasus stepped into the presence chamber, and I saw with a rush of fury that the scepter was in a sheath at his waist. He was followed by two of his servants, steering Tyrus forward by the arms. I rose to my feet, gazing at him intently, waiting for his eyes to meet mine, but they didn’t seek me. Tyrus’s face was cloudy.

  That was why he hadn’t waved back to me, or done anything at the gala.

  Trust me, he’d said.

  I trusted Tyrus. But trust also implied something: it implied he’d be in a position to act in a way that might disappoint or
please me, and when his eyes drifted past me, a cold, crawling realization sank over me that the Venalox was stronger than he’d realized.

  He would give me an indication if he was faking this. Some tiny, tiny hint.

  But his head slumped back without anyone holding it as he was placed on his throne. He never turned toward me, his fingers dangling toward the ground.

  Tyrus, look at me, I thought, staring hard at him.

  Then I said it: “Tyrus. Tyrus.”

  His head moved toward the sound of my voice, his eyes unfocused. I reached out to touch his arm, and his gaze dropped to my hand with a naked, open, lost look that belonged on a child—not on Tyrus.

  I felt like the breath had been driven out of me. We needed a new plan.

  “You’ve helped him,” Pasus’s voice came to me. “Now remove your hand.”

  I tightened my grip. “You expect me never to touch my fiancé.”

  Pasus prowled toward me. He said in a furious undertone: “Sensory input confuses him. You will agitate him.”

  “How much of this drug have you given him?”

  “Enough. Let go, or I will say you have taken ill and must be removed.”

  And as I was, I couldn’t fight back. I lifted my hand from Tyrus, and it shook in the air with my rage. How glorious it would be to feel Pasus’s heart thrum in my hand as Elantra’s had, to watch his life seep out beneath me. . . .

  I pressed myself back in the seat, knowing what those thoughts were.

  The malice of a Diabolic.

  I traced my finger over my concentric suns mark, reminding myself: I am a person.

  Even if people, I mused as I watched Pasus, did most malevolent things too.

  “Shall we begin?” spoke Senator von Pasus, to the hearty assent of those about. He linked his hands behind his back in a masterful gesture, surveying those present, then turned gracefully as if doing a pirouette and began walking in a reverent Grandiloquy gait to the seat of Tyrus’s throne—three steps, dip, hands to his heart, three steps, dip.

  Why even bother? The strange bits of formality he clung to bewildered me. He knew Tyrus was in no state to notice his presence or absence. Everyone watching here knew just what the situation was. But Pasus reached the foot of the throne, and Tyrus wasn’t looking at him. He was staring at an overhead crystalline chandelier as though he, new to this universe, was viewing such a thing for the first time.