by Rhonda Mason
Contents
Cover
Also Available from Rhonda Mason and Titan Books
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Author’s Note
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Also Available from Titan Books
Also available from Rhonda Mason and Titan Books
THE EMPRESS GAME
CLOAK OF WAR
RHONDA MASON
TITAN BOOKS
The Empress Game: Exile’s Throne
Print edition ISBN: 9781783299454
Electronic edition ISBN: 9781783299461
Published by Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP
First edition: August 2018
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Names, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.
© 2018 by Rhonda Mason
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
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To the three most wonderful women in the world—
my mother Beverly and my sisters Rosemary and Andrea.
Thank you for your unconditional love, I would be lost without you.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The character Wetham, who debuts in this novel, is named in honor of a special friend of mine—Matthew Thomas.
I only write about heroes. Matthew is a hero, facing a great many struggles in his daily life. “Meeting” Matthew through letters has enriched my life, and I wanted to show my appreciation in a way near and dear to my heart— character naming.
1
THE YARI, CENTER OF THE MINE FIELD, IMPERIAL SPACE
Vayne Reinumon finished his final push-up with a groan of agony. Shoulders burning, core quivering, he collapsed on the deck of his cabin on board the Yari—Ordoch’s ancient warship. Exertion had opened his Eustachian tubes and the roaring white noise of the room’s mild air currents wrapped him in isolation; no one asking how he was, no one burdening him with their concern, no one waiting for him to self-destruct.
You don’t look well, my dear Vayne.
No one but his ghosts.
The voice alone stoked his simmering rage. It was the voice of the kin’shaa Dolan—the Wyrd Worlds’ most prolific intellectual sadist.
Dolan, who had murdered Vayne’s family and abducted him from his homeworld of Ordoch. Dolan, who had torn his soul and his sanity apart through five years of torturous mind-control experiments.
Dolan, who should be dead.
He is dead.
“Perhaps,” Dolan said, appearing in the center of Vayne’s cabin. “Then again, perhaps not.” The apparition took a seat at the cabin’s lone desk and then smoothed his lilac robes around his diminutive frame.
Holy—
Vayne shut his eyes. Wasn’t it enough that a demented part of him had imagined Dolan whispering in his mind for months? Now he’d graduated to full-blown visual hallucinations? Saliva flooded his mouth as nausea struck.
For five years Vayne had known that every time Dolan visited his cell or called him to the “playroom,” he would be warped further, another piece of himself torn away. Mere months of freedom couldn’t undo the unconscious conditioning, nor erase the sick, despairing fear that Dolan’s presence inspired.
This isn’t real!
He focused on his body, on what he could feel with his other four senses. He stank of sweat. His limbs trembled with exhaustion from a long workout. He was thirsty. Those sensations were real, not this hallucination.
Satisfied that he’d talked himself down from the edge of madness—again—Vayne opened his eyes.
Dolan remained.
Would he never outrun this demon?
Dolan smirked. “Not today.”
Vayne pushed himself to his feet. The hallucination was so convincing that for a split second he was back in his cell, powerless.
And that really pissed him off.
“You’re dead,” he snapped. “I killed you.”
“Technically your ro’haar, Kayla, killed me.” Dolan’s smirk stretched into a smile, eyes twinkling. “And wasn’t she glorious while doing it? You merely pulverized my corpse afterward.”
Vayne’s fingers curled into fists at the way Dolan purred Kayla’s name.
“Touchy today, aren’t we?” Dolan sounded so pleased that Vayne took a step in the figment’s direction, fists curling tighter.
And now what? Was he going to strangle a specter?
Dolan laughed, a deep, intensely satisfied sound. A sound that brought with it so many mortifying memories.
“I love that you’re trying to reason this out,” Dolan said. “I’m dead, I’m a specter, I’m your psyche torturing you…”
All of the above.
Time to put an end to this nonsense. Vayne focused all of his awareness on Dolan’s image, willing it away. The kin’shaa merely sat there, one eyebrow slightly raised, waiting.
Bastard.
Vayne tried again, straining with the effort. He was one of the strongest psionics alive. He could defeat any telepathic attack, could bend lesser minds to his will if he chose. It was inconceivable that he couldn’t order a figment of his own imagination away.
“Am I just a figment, though?”
And there it was—the crack. The breach in the hull of his surety. Had Dolan done something to him, somehow embedded a form of his consciousness into Vayne’s brain?
Scans done on all of the Ordochian POWs back on Falanar said no.
Dolan chuckled. “You’re going to rely on primitive imperial tech for an answer?” He chuckled again. “How quaint.”
He could check again, use the Yari’s equipment… which was just as primitive, being five hundred years out of date. Damnit.
“The equipment in my laboratory could have confirmed your fears. A pity you destroyed it.”
Not possible. Vayne had won. Tia’tan and her people had traveled all the way to the Sakien Empire from the Wyrd World Ilmena on the rumor that Dolan might be holding Ordochian POWs. Tia’tan had joined forces with his ro’haar Kayla—his twin sister, bodyguard, and closest friend in the universe—and Kayla’s friends in the Imperial Diplomatic Corps to rescue Vayne, his older sister Natali, and their uncle Ghirhad. Kayla had stabbed Dolan in the throat with the kin’shaa’s own torture implement in the process, giving Dolan a violent death that was the bare minimum of what he deserved.
Death would never be enough to counter the wounds Dolan had inflicted on Vayne and his family, but it should have at least ensured an end to the mental torture.
“And yet,” Dolan said, “here I am.”
Vayne squared to face Dolan straight on. At this point, what did it matter? Talking to a hallucination or ignoring it, he was still messed up enough to be seeing a dead man in his cabin, so he might as well get it over with. “What do you want?”
Dolan leaned back in his chair and rested an elbow on the molychromium surface of the desk. The shimmering pink-gold metal, so precious to Ordoch in current times, made up the bulk of the Yari. He toyed with a figurine of the Monmoth Tower that rested there, a keepsake of a long-dead crew member, relic from a life that ended over five hundred years ago.
“I want what I’ve always wanted: to see how deep you’ll go, to see how far I can push you. You have depths in that heart of yours that even I haven’t plumbed—yet.” Dolan rose, set the figurine down, and crossed to stand by the door.
A faint whoosh, then a click sounded, but Vayne ignored it.
“You’ve so much untapped potential for darkness that even in five years I couldn’t access it all.”
The words, so close to his own fears, turned his sweat to frost. Vayne tightened his fists.
“Vayne?” Dolan took a step toward him. Another. His arm reached out.
Vayne backed up until his calves hit his bunk.
“You are mine, Vayne,” the voice whispered in his head. “You always will be.” Dolan’s slim hand reached for him and there was nowhere to go.
“Natali’s been summoning you.” Dolan’s lips moved as he spoke, but the voice was odd, higher than the kin’shaa’s. Then it slipped lower. “You remember Natali,” Dolan’s voice purred in his mind. “What fun we had with your sister…”
Vayne’s answering growl of rage shook the room. A hand closed on his upper arm and he lashed out, flinging Dolan against the door with telekinetic force. Dolan impacted with a satisfying grunt as the wind rushed from his lungs. Lavender eyes blinked wide. The fact that their color was all wrong didn’t penetrate Vayne’s fury. The hurt was still too fresh. The humiliation. The disgust.
He launched himself at Dolan, leading with his left forearm, planning to pin the man to the door by his throat.
The strike never landed.
Instead, Vayne felt his arm caught at the wrist and twisted. Dolan spun him around with amazing quickness. The momentum carried him face first into the door and stars exploded in one eye when his cheek struck the molychromium. Behind him, Dolan wrenched his left arm into his back, sending pain screaming through his shoulder and pinning him in place. He struck with his free elbow but Dolan blocked, then trapped that arm to the door, his fingers around Vayne’s wrist like a manacle.
What the frutt? Dolan never fought. Actually, Dolan never came to them without his psionic shield active, now that he thought about it…
Harsh breaths sounded in his ear, and Dolan’s body pressed against his with each hard-fought lungful of air.
Only it wasn’t Dolan. It couldn’t be. Not unless he had grown by a dozen centimeters as a ghost.
“I don’t want to hurt you.” Tia’tan’s voice. Her grip on his wrists cut off circulation to his hands and her feet were planted inside of his, making it impossible for him to move.
Reality slammed into him, along with a bone-deep shame. Why couldn’t it have been Uncle Ghirhad who found him, or even his older sister Natali? They’d been tortured alongside him, had their own nightmares of Dolan, their own secrets to keep. They would both pretend they hadn’t found him talking to a dead man.
But no, it had to be Tia’tan, his… well, not quite friend—he wasn’t really capable of that. She was, though, the one ally whose opinion had begun to matter to him, so naturally she’d be the one he would attack in a hallucination-fueled rage.
Vayne closed his eyes, resting his throbbing cheek against the metal door, trying to erase the last few minutes of time.
“You okay?” she asked quietly. When he gave her a stiff nod she released him and stepped back.
“I’m not crazy,” he said without turning around. He couldn’t bear to see her thoughts written on her face.
She didn’t respond. And really, what could she even say to that?
He forced himself to turn around. Dolan was gone. Tia’tan stood tall in the center of the room, her vibrant energy filling the space. Judging by the salt at her brow, the sweat stains on her tank top and the mid-thigh bruise revealed by her shorts, Tia’tan had spent her afternoon sparring. But while she looked like the glowing picture of health, strong inside and out, he felt like he was breaking down.
I’m not crazy, he wanted to say again, but that would only cement it.
Tia’tan swept her long lavender bangs to one side and tucked them behind her ear, politely looking away, giving him a moment to get his shit together.
An echo of Dolan’s laughter floated through his head and Vayne shoved it down deep inside.
“What was that all about?” she finally asked.
How long had she been in his cabin; what had she actually seen? “You surprised me, that’s all.”
Despite her calm demeanor, Tia’tan’s lavender eyes were full of concern—concern and something else he couldn’t name. Caution? Distaste? Dolan’s mind games had destroyed his ability to identify and trust emotions in others.
She studied him for another moment. Was she worried he might snap, or certain that he already had?
“Natali’s been comming you. I buzzed your door several times before entering.”
“My mind was elsewhere.” For frutt’s sake, say what you came to and leave me alone.
“When I walked in… it wasn’t me you saw, was it?”
All he wanted was quiet, peace. Solitude to go insane with no one watching.
“If you want to talk…”
Vayne shook his head. “I’m fine. Why are you here?”
Tia’tan pursed her lips, clearly debating pushing the issue further, but the moment passed. She rubbed the back of her head, fluffing her short bob haircut. “Kayla and the imperials have arrived and are holding position outside of the Mine Field. Your sisters want to have a conference before Kayla attempts Corinth’s plan of taking a hyperstream straight into the heart of the field. I knew you wouldn’t want to miss it.”
His tension ebbed. Finally. Kayla was almost here. Everything would be better once he had his ro’haar back and they could combine their strengths. She might even be able to talk sense into Natali.
That is, if she and her imperial friends survived the journey to the Middle of Nowhere. The Mine Field was filled with the wreckage of a war long lost by both sides. It stretched in a void between the farthest Sovereign Planet and the closest Protectorate Planet. A freak exception to kinetic laws drew all of the hyperspace streams in the area through the point, and the same energy anomaly caused disruptions in hyperspace such that fifty percent of ships dropped stream there. Popping out of stream midfield was usually a death sentence. If you didn’t wreck your ship on all the debris, the rooks got you. Vayne had seen them himself and he still couldn’t say what a rook actually was. An ancient mechanical sentry? A ship flown by pirates? An alien species from another dimension? All he knew for certain was that they were gigantic and could tear a ship apart in minutes.
“Come on,” Tia’tan said. “Natali’s setting the conference up now.” She gestured toward the door but didn’t touch him, careful to give him space.
She cared enough to come looking for him, knowing he would want to speak with Kayla before the last leg of her journey. Not only that, Tia’tan took his insane behavior in her stride, making allowances for what he’d been through. What about him warranted such kindness?
“Women are such suckers for wounded animals, aren’t they?” Dolan whispered in his mind.
Vayne fled his cabin.
* * *
THE LORIUS, IMPERIAL SPACE
The Lorius slumbered like a space-born glacier on the outer reaches of the Mine Field. The custom-built luxury starcruiser opalesced white-blue-purple as fuon fibers within the hull’s thermal protection system caught the starlight. The Vrise-class hyperstream drive was cold, the ship peaceful. Who would guess that such a rare beauty hosted the Sakien Empire’s most wanted fugitives?
Anyone watching the news vids, Kayla thought sourly. They incessantly aired the manufactured story of her “stealing” the ship with the help of Malkor Rua and his octet. Thankfully, the octet knew how to disguise the ship, as well as change out its supposedly tamper-proof transponder for a dummy version. They’d made the journey without incident, the changes making them indistinguishable from any of a number of rich imperials with the credit capital to buy a luxury starcruiser of this size.
Kayla Reinumon, exiled Wyrd Princess, Empress Game winner and ro’haar to Vayne and Corinth, shifted her position in her allegedly stolen bed. In truth, the emperor-apparent, Prince Ardin, had willingly given his one-of-a-kind starcruiser to Kayla, Malkor, and the remnants of Malkor’s octet to aid their getaway. And perhaps to apologize for his wife Isonde’s perfidy.
Kayla refused to think back on Isonde. There was enough to worry about looking forward. Soon she would be reunited with her family, with Vayne, especially with Vayne. Il’haar and ro’haar had yet to determine how one’s five years in captivity and the other’s in hiding had affected their bond. More than that, Kayla couldn’t deny her sense of dread at discovering just how much the loss of her psi powers would hurt their bond.
She pulled the silken covers higher, careful not to tweak her damaged arm, and then curled toward the naked man asleep beside her.
Malkor Rua.
Her Malkor.
She hooked her leg over his hip to pull herself even closer. She felt his skin, his heartbeat, his breath. Smelled the scent of his hair, his body, and the aftermath of their lovemaking. Malkor cradled her in his sleep, and it was the most natural thing in the universe.
She loved him. If she could fuse their souls together, she would.
But that was the problem, wasn’t it? Her soul was essentially fused to Vayne’s. That bond, twin to twin, ro’haar to il’haar, was supposed to fulfill her, complete her. And she had a second, less intense though no less important, bond with her younger brother Corinth, to whom she’d been acting ro’haar for the past five years. As a ro’haar, she shouldn’t want any more than that.