There Before the Chaos

by K. B. Wagers

  “Empress, I am comming you as requested.” He winked. The wind teased at the ends of his brown hair but the audio was unaffected by the breeze. “I hope you are no longer angry with me over the rather improper tone of our first meeting.”

  “No, but I’m angry at you for killing one of my people,” I murmured.

  “I have a request for you.” Aiz folded his hands together, his intense gaze focused on the camera. “We had hoped you would join us in this righteous fight, but at Mia’s urging I tried to respect your desire to keep your empire out of it. However, as you well know, things are escalating and I know they will only continue to get worse. Through forces outside my control, you may already be too tangled in this situation.” The smile twisted the corner of his mouth.

  “It looks as though the one thing I want is the one thing I cannot have.”

  I tried to ignore the way my skin crawled down my arms at his words.

  “The Solarians have contacted me with an offer. They wish to host a peace summit between the Farians and ourselves. The unfortunate casualties in our last few encounters have resulted in the Solarians’ involvement in our conflict. I am in reluctant agreement and have told the Solarians we will come to the table, but only if you are the one to lead the negotiations.”

  I heard Emmory’s indrawn breath beside me.

  “I suspect you will hear from the Solarians shortly, but I wanted to ask you personally. I will be honest with you: I do not think that anything will come of this summit—the hatred between my people and the Farians is old and full of teeth. But I will not let it be said that the Shen are unwilling to at least listen, even if all the Farians will do is spout lies.

  “You can send a reply to the Solarians directly. And if you wish to message me back, you know how to contact us.” He smiled, and this time it was weary, clinging to the edge of hope. “I look forward to speaking with you.”

  The screen blacked out and I whistled, rubbing a hand over my face. “Bugger me, Emmory. Thoughts?”

  “He’s not lying, but that doesn’t make him safe,” Emmory said. “The second message from Caspel is a priority message from the Indranan ambassador on Earth.”

  “Put it through.” I frowned. “I’d bet good credits that it’s something about this peace summit. I’m in agreement with you about Aiz. He may not be lying, but he’s not telling me everything.”

  “He’s telling you enough to get your attention, same as the Farians.” Gita shook her head. “Trusting him is a bad idea.”

  Emmory rubbed a hand over his face. “But his claim that the Farians have killed their own people is more than a little worrisome.”

  “Dhatt.” I shared a look with them both. “We’re caught in a battle between asuras.”

  “Adityas and Danavas,” Emmory murmured in agreement. “This is going to be ugly.”

  “We’re going to get trampled unless we can stop them,” Gita added. “If this fight truly spills over into our arms of the galaxy? It’s humanity who will pay the price.”

  “Do we even know which side to back if it comes to that?” Emmory’s question was soft, but it cut through me like a knife.

  I stared at him as my brain tried to catch up. The question was so simple, and yet—we had no way of knowing if the Farians were the good ones here. All we had were their assurances that the Shen were bad.

  Heretics.

  Dangerous.

  I swallowed. All we knew about the Shen were what the Farians had told us, and I already knew I couldn’t trust any of that as the full truth. “They have been our allies for thousands of years, Emmory,” I whispered, the words raw in my throat. “Am I supposed to believe they’ve been lying to us all this time?”

  “I don’t know, Majesty.”

  “As odd as it sounds, you know who I’d back right now if they demanded an answer?” I waited a beat for Emmory to raise an eyebrow. “Fasé, Emmory. She wants peace. These others. They just want more war.”

  Emmory smiled softly. “You’re not wrong,” he admitted.

  “What kind of chaos am I going to cause if I show up at this supposed summit at the request of the Shen?”

  “Technically it’s the Solarians doing the asking.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  Emmory closed his eyes, his breath hissing out. “I was afraid you were going to say that. They are not safe. I can’t condone you going into a meeting with two alien races who could kill you just by touching you, even if one side is supposedly prohibited from doing so.”

  “It’s no more dangerous than anything else we’ve done, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m just saying, what if I send them a reply? Tell them I’m willing to listen to their request for my presence at this summit?”

  “Best-case scenario? This entire thing ends up as a full-blown war between the Farians and the Shen.”

  “That’s your best case?” I couldn’t stop the laugh from bursting out into the air.

  “Worst case is Indrana and the rest of humanity get dragged into the war as well,” Emmory said, and I muttered a curse under my breath as I cued up the message from the ambassador.

  “Your Majesty, I am Heyai Zellin. It is a great pleasure to serve as the empire’s ambassador to the Solarian Conglomerate. This morning I received a message from the president and I have attached for you an invitation to a summit that is being held on Earth in two standard months. Your presence has been requested by both parties involved.”

  “Oh, well, that solves that problem.” I rolled my eyes. “Apparently the Farians want me there, too.” It was more than interesting that only the Shen had sent me a direct message about it.

  Gita muttered a curse.

  “If you could provide me with a reply at your earliest convenience, I will pass it along to President Hudson.” Heyai smiled and folded her hands together, touching them to heart, lips, and forehead. “Shiva’s blessings on you, Star of Indrana.”

  It was my turn to curse as I rubbed at my face. I held up a hand and started the recording. “Ambassador Zellin, thank you for your message. If you would, please let President Hudson know I need to speak with my people at home before I agree to any requests of this magnitude.” I sent it along and then reached into my pocket for the data chip I’d been carrying since that day on Pashati.

  23

  That evening, Alba paced my room until I stepped into her path and steered her toward a chair. “We’ve got a three-day trip to Desira. There’s plenty of time to sort out any problems. You don’t have to do it right now.”

  “Sorry, Majesty.” She smiled sheepishly at me.

  I frowned. “What is it? What’s bothering you?”

  “I don’t know, ma’am. I feel—” Alba paused, searching for words. “Everything feels heavy—or maybe weighted is a better word. Like we’re right on the edge of something big. Have you ever been through a hurricane?”

  “Not a lot of those in space,” I said, smiling. “And when I was young, we were moved to the summer home in the country several times for safety. I never stayed in the palace through one.”

  “There’s so much preparation, ma’am. So many things to do. Everyone is a flurry of activity. Once that’s done, there’s this moment before it hits … you don’t have anything to do except wait. There’s nothing you can do, even though you know this massive thing is bearing down on you.” Alba made a face. “Ever since the Farians arrived with that request, I don’t know why, but I’ve felt like that. It didn’t go away when the Shen took you, it only got worse. And now they both want you to sit in on a peace summit? Why?”

  “I can’t blame you,” I replied, my voice low. Alba had just given voice to the feeling rolling around in my own gut. It grew worse with every passing day and every new piece of information that landed in my lap. The conflict between the Farians and the Shen would continue to escalate, and I knew that the efforts of the Solarians to bring them to the table would fail.

  Forcing a reassuring smile, I patted her on the back. “We�
�ll get through it.”

  “I know, ma’am.” Her shoulders relaxed with my touch. “That’s what we do.”

  The door opened, and Zin came in as Alba got to her feet.

  “Let me know immediately if Ambassador Zellin messages again.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The door closed behind her. Zin passed over the address to contact Aiz without comment, and I waited a beat before raising an eyebrow in his direction.

  “You don’t think I should do this?”

  “I—don’t know, Majesty.” Zin made a sound of frustration I was all too familiar with since normally it was directed my way. I bumped my shoulder into his with a chuckle. “I promise not to tell anyone I asked for your opinion if you won’t. Alba is nervous about all this. What’s your take?”

  “All this meaning the Farians and the Shen?”

  “If you want you can weigh in on this gunrunner-turned-empress mess, too, I’ll just remind you that you’re the reason she’s in charge to begin with.”

  “That’s colder than space, ma’am.”

  It was a relief that even after six months of peace, my Ekam’s husband hadn’t gone back to his painfully formal behavior from when we’d first met. The jokes came mostly in private, but there was still the occasional one where others could hear.

  Zin was the perfect complement to Emmory. My Ekam could bust his way through a bar fight without breaking a sweat, but Zin could walk into any fancy restaurant in the galaxy and get us a table for twelve, no matter that they were booked six months out. He was kind and thoughtful, a calming influence with just his presence alone. Zin could decode anything, was an amazing cook, and seemed to have a bottomless well of patience—not only for his husband but for me.

  To say I adored him was something of an understatement.

  “I think we’re all waiting for something to happen,” Zin said carefully after a moment’s silence. “I hope I’m wrong, but it’s hard to trust that the peace will last.”

  “We’re looking for something to go wrong because we think it will eventually anyway?”

  “Basically.” He lifted a shoulder and went back to staring at the message on the wall. “Things like this or the Farians’ strange request for you to visit their homeworld are bad enough. But Aiz waltzing in and dragging you underground? Both the Shen and the Farians wanting you to head this summit? Those things don’t help settle my nerves.”

  I leaned into him again. “Stop blaming yourself for what happened in the café, would you? I know you all are. The man is a Shiva-damned ghost. I’ve been over the recordings and can’t figure out how he got in either.”

  “Emmory mentioned that he let you have them.” Zin sighed. “I guess it was too much to hope that we’d get lucky and you’d spot something we all missed.”

  “Maybe; I’m still looking at it, though. We could still get lucky. So you think we’re overreacting?”

  Zin shook his head. “I didn’t say that. You spent twenty years out there in the black, ma’am, you know what people are capable of. Emmory and I … we’ve seen the dark, hunted it, been kissed by it. We always expect the worst because we’re so rarely disappointed.

  “Alba, though.” He rubbed a hand over his dreadlocks. They’d grown out since I first met him and were gathered in a neat ponytail at the back of his head. “She grew up outside the capital on the coast. Her parents weren’t nobility, but they are well-off. She went to university, got a good job in Clara Desai’s household. Until we ended up on the run at Red Cliff the most trouble she’d probably ever been in was the time she got drunk with a bunch of college friends and almost got a citation from the local PD.”

  My laughter slipped out. “I wasn’t aware of that.”

  “He let her off with a warning.” Zin smiled. “My point, Majesty, is that I could discount it to a certain degree if it were just us jumping at shadows and being suspicious. That’s nearly impossible to train out of a person; but to train into one? It would take lot of effort and a lot of time. Alba being worried worries me.”

  “You think she saw something and just doesn’t realize it?”

  “It’s possible. I’ll talk with her, see if I can get her to name what’s bothering her beyond a vague feeling.”

  “I’d appreciate it. I know you’re good enough to figure out where it’s coming from.”

  “Found you,” he replied with a grin.

  “You had help, that doesn’t count.” The thought of Portis wasn’t sharp. Instead it was just a sadness, an emptiness in my heart, and I knew I’d carry that hole for the rest of my life.

  The ping of an incoming com on my private address jerked me back to the present before I could fully sink into missing Portis once more.

  “It’s Alice,” I said to Zin, waving him toward the door as I answered it.

  It wasn’t just Alice, I realized as I put the com up on the wall, but Caterina also.

  “We just finished talking to Ambassador Zellin,” Alice said without preamble. “You need to go to Earth.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest and stared at my heir. “Excuse me?”

  “Majesty,” Caterina said, the word heavily laced with a sigh. “What Her Highness meant to say was that the Matriarch Council believes very strongly that averting a war between the Farians and the Shen will be in the best interests of all. Because both factions have asked for you to head this summit, it seems fairly obvious that you should go. You can pick up your tour after you are finished on Earth.”

  “Caterina, that still sounds suspiciously like an order.”

  “It is in the best interests of Indrana,” she replied.

  “I don’t know that I agree with you.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “What happened to our ‘Indrana is not going to involve herself in this’ stance?”

  The two women glanced at each other, but it was Alice who answered. “None of us like the idea of Indrana stuck between two warring human forces right now, let alone two alien ones. I don’t see how averting a war could be a bad thing. The Solarians want this to happen; both sides are willing to come to the table.”

  “We don’t jump just because the Solarians want us to, Alice.”

  “You sound like your mother,” Caterina replied, and I bit down on my tongue. “I’m sorry, Majesty. That was unkind. My point is, Indrana has a chance to have a real impact on the galactic stage. We haven’t been in a position to be this involved for several decades. This will also show them our stability. If we can afford to send you to Earth in the middle of a tour, no one will question that you’re secure in your position. Peace between the Farians and the Shen, brokered by the Empress of Indrana—it’s not only something for the history pages, but the economic repercussions will benefit us all.”

  I shook my head with a sigh. “The more I hear about it, the more I’m certain the Farians and Shen have been at war since before there were humans. While I understand the Solarians’ concerns with these latest attacks and I certainly share them, I do have to take my own empire into consideration. This conflict between the Farians and Shen is a bigger issue than anyone can guess at.” Waving a hand at myself, I pinned the women with a challenging glare. “Yet everyone thinks I’m going to be able to make them agree.”

  “You are very good at being diplomatic, Majesty.”

  “Oh hush.” I shot Caterina a look. “You were there the last time I was in a negotiation. Did you forget the part about a building coming down on our heads?”

  “That wasn’t through any fault of your own. You were, in fact, doing very well with things before that happened,” Caterina replied, unsuccessfully holding back a smile. “Hail, this might be our only chance to get out of this without war breaking out in our arm of the galaxy.”

  “I know.” I was unwilling to give words to the unease growing spiked thorns into my chest and snapped my fingers as an idea struck me. “I will agree to lead the negotiations on one condition—that the Shen and the Farians agree to Fasé and her faction taking part.”


  My words surprised me almost as much as they did Caterina and Alice; however, I was much better at hiding it. But my conversation with Sybil about Fasé’s importance floated back into my brain, and I suddenly knew it was the right thing to do. Fasé needed to be part of these negotiations for them to have any hope of succeeding. Her faction was growing in power every day, which meant with every day that passed the Pedalion was having to devote more resources to trying to contain her message rather than fighting against the Shen.

  “Majesty?”

  “I’d have gotten a less shocked reaction asking for someone’s head,” I muttered, and Gita choked on a laugh. “I didn’t stutter, Alice. I’ll do it, but only if they agree to this.”

  “May I ask why, Majesty?” Caterina asked. “We can’t afford to have a war break out on any scale, but the amount of destruction the Farians and Shen could rain down on us if you propose something they object to—”

  “Fasé’s return to Faria is vital to their stability. The more the Pedalion focuses on this schism with her instead of the war with the Shen, the less they’re focused on the fight out there. The Shen will defeat Faria if that happens, I’ve seen this play out so many times before with other governments.” I found the explanation easily, as my conversation with Sybil on the beach suddenly made perfect sense. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t particularly trust the Shen to stop after they roll over the top of the Farians. If we have any chance at preventing a civil war on Faria, it will happen at the negotiation table.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Both women dipped their heads.

  “I’ll send my reply to Ambassador Zellin and we’ll see what they say. In the meantime, we’re going on to Desira, and I’ll continue with this Shiva-damned tour as planned until we hear otherwise.”

  “We’ll talk later,” Caterina replied.

  I disconnected the com after a nod, shoved both hands into my hair, and folded over with a long sigh. “Adityas and Danavas.” I inhaled. “We are going to get fucking trampled.”