Colonel Drayson raked his hand through his bristly grey hair. “We think the Traders are using providers to crack our security.”
It was a very real threat, but Kelric doubted it accounted for this situation. “Their providers are psions, it’s true. But they aren’t strong enough to access our military web at that level.” As far as he knew, the Traders had only one such psion, Jaibriol Qox. Kelric felt him as a distant presence in the Triad. If Jaibriol had tried to affect the Triad this way, Kelric and Dehya would know. They would feel it, and he sensed nothing of the kind. The three of them were distantly connected, but even if Jaibriol had died, it wouldn’t cause what had happened to Kelric and Dehya.
Colonel Drayson spoke uneasily. “Almost no one has the necessary access to compromise our security the way it happened.”
Kelric understood what he left unspoken. Almost no one—except the Joint Commanders of ISC. He had a truly unpleasant array of options for the assassin: Bolt had tried to kill him, ESComm had an unusually high-level provider, or one of Kelric’s top commanders had betrayed him.
Sashia spoke carefully. “Admiral Barzun was in the War Room when it happened.”
Kelric shook his head. “Chad doesn’t have a high enough Kyle rating.” However, two of ISC’s Joint Commanders could operate on that level: Brant Tapperhaven and Naaj Majda.
Brant commanded the Jagernaut Force, or J-Force, the wild card of ISC: fighter pilots, spies, commandos. Kelric related well to him; they were both Jagernauts, they both had a taciturn nature, and they shared a similar outlook on life.
Naaj Majda was on the other end of the spectrum; she commanded the Pharaoh’s Army, the oldest and most conservative branch of ISC. The iron-grey matriarch came down on a hard line against the Traders and despised the peace treaty. Naaj also held a civilian title as queen of the most powerful noble House. With a history stretching back to the Ruby Empire, the House of Majda was an orthodox matriarchy where women owned their men and kept them in seclusion. To further complicate matters, Kelric had married Naaj’s older sister Corey decades ago, a union arranged for political reasons. Given that he was a fighter pilot, Corey had hardly expected him to follow the sexist roles of an ancient empire. But she had died only a few years after they married, assassinated by the Traders, leaving a substantial portion of the Majda assets to Kelric.
In the chaos after the last war, Naaj had become acting Imperator. She hadn’t liked it when Kelric returned to claim his title after being gone and presumed dead for eighteen years. She lost a great deal of power and also the Majda assets he owned but hadn’t properly dispensed of before his supposed death, on top of which he was a male warlord, which drastically violated her antediluvian view of men. She had plenty of reason to want him gone.
And yet . . .
Whoever had tried to assassinate Kelric had also acted against Dehya. Whatever problems Naaj had with him, she would never attack the Ruby Pharaoh. The loyalty of the army to the woman who sat on the Ruby Throne was legendary. It went back five thousand years, and Naaj was no exception. She would die rather than see Dehya harmed.
Who else? Admiral Ragnar Bloodmark certainly had reason to resent Kelric. Ragnar was better qualified than Chad Barzun to command the Imperial Fleet. Kelric had chosen Chad because he trusted him more. Kelric also remembered Ragnar’s reaction to the Assembly vote on the peace treaty. When the vote had finished, with 78 percent in favor of the treaty, Ragnar’s face had contorted into a snarl. It lasted only the briefest instant, but Kelric had seen. Nor had he forgotten the attack that had nearly killed him and Jaibriol Qox during their treaty negotiations. Someone had discovered their hidden meeting on Earth, and Ragnar was one of the few people with the intelligence, the savvy, and the security clearance needed to find that secret.
However, Kelric didn’t believe Ragnar would harm Dehya. He suspected the admiral coveted her, or more to the point, he coveted the throne of the Ruby Consort. Hell, if she hadn’t already been married, Ragnar would probably be courting her.
Kelric hated this. He wanted better options than doubting people he had known all his life. Until they knew who had masterminded the assassination attempts, no one was above suspicion.
X
Fires of Vengeance
“I’ve never been in the sky.” Aliana was sitting in the co-pilot’s seat, gazing out the flyer’s windshield. Her shoulder brushed Red’s elbow. He was sitting between her chair and Tide’s pilot’s seat, straddling a control panel. Tide hadn’t asked him to move, which surprised Aliana; even she could see it would make Tide’s piloting easier if he had access to the panel Red had commandeered instead of Tide having to use the auxiliary panel in the pilot’s chair. Red was so enraptured with the view, though, she couldn’t have asked him to move, either.
The ocean flashed beneath them, sparkling in the pristine morning light. The sun rested huge and molten on the horizon where the sea met the dawning sky. Above them, the sky was lightening from the deep purple of night into the pale stone-blue of day.
“It’s so pretty,” Aliana said.
“You’ve never flown before?” Tide asked.
“Not once.” She felt provincial. “Before Red and I stowed away, I’d never been more than a few blocks from that cesspool where my stepfather lives.” Aliana shuddered. “I swear, sometimes I thought he hated me more than anything else alive. Am I really such drek?”
“No, damn it!” Tide said. “Don’t ever believe that.”
“Stepman have rusty eyes?” Red asked.
“If you mean, was he part Aristo, then yeah,” Aliana said.
“You provider,” Red told her. “That why he hit you.”
“I am not!” Aliana scowled at him. “Don’t make things up.”
“Not make up.” He touched her cheek, his finger lingering. “Gold skin. Like provider.” He lowered his arm. “Pretty, like provider. And your brain hears thoughts. Like provider.”
“What the hell?” Tide jerked so hard, the flyer swerved. “Are you saying she’s an empath?”
“Empath. Telepath,” Red said.
Aliana’s gaze flicked between the two of them. “What are you talking about?”
“He claims you feel people’s emotions,” Tide said. “Maybe their thoughts.”
“Oh, that.” Aliana shrugged. “It’s no big deal.”
Tide made a strangled sound. “I’m going to die.”
“Whatever for?” Aliana had never seen him like this. He was usually the man of cool.
Tide tapped a panel that said autopilot. Then he turned to give Aliana his full attention. “It’s true what Red says, that a lot of providers have been genetically altered to resembling precious metals or gems. Like blue eyes that look like sapphires. Or gold skin. Metallic gold. Like yours.”
“Yeah, well, I’ve never been a provider,” Aliana said.
“Did your mother have gold skin?” Tide asked.
“Of course not.” Although she didn’t like to talk about her mother, it didn’t hurt as much now as it had eleven years ago. “She was beautiful. And sweet. But not gold.”
“What about your biological father?”
“I have no fucking idea.” Aliana crossed her arms and stared out at the sky.
“I’m not trying to hurt you,” Tide said. “But you got that gold skin from somewhere.” After a moment, he added, “Did your mother work in an Aristo’s household? If she was a psion, I could see an Aristo wanting to breed her to another strong psion.”
“No, my mother never served an Aristo,” Aliana said coldly, watching the horizon. “Never saw an Aristo. Never spoke the freaking name of an Aristo.” Thawing a bit, she added, “She hardly even lived in Eubian space. She grew up in the hinterlands, on a world even worse than this one. My stepfather brought her here.”
A sense of stillness came from Tide. Uncrossing her arms, Aliana glanced over to find him staring at her hard. “What?” she asked.
“What do you mean by hinterlands? A border region with Skolian space?”
> “Well, yeah. So it was a crummy place, okay. I can’t help that.”
“Aliana, could your father be a Skolian?”
“Oh, go drill yourself.” What was with him, making all these rude cracks? It wasn’t like him.
“This can’t be,” Tide said.
“You bet it can’t,” Aliana said.
“Skolians have providers?” Red asked.
“If Aliana’s father was a provider,” Tide said, “She wouldn’t be so big.”
“Are you done insulting me yet?” she asked.
“I’m not insulting you.” Tide took a breath. “You aren’t ugly, Aliana. Your stepfather told you that to hurt you. You’re beautiful, but not like a provider. They’re bred to be soft, pretty, sweet. Docile.” Wryly he added, “You’re about as docile as a Balzarian she-devil.”
Her anger eased. “You got that right.”
“Do you know how rare telepaths are?” Tide asked. “At best, one in a million. Maybe one in a billion. Pretty much the only Eubian ones that exist are those bred by Aristos to be providers. So how did someone like you end up in the slums of some unknown planet? It’s like finding a billion credit gem in the trash.”
Red pushed up his sleeve, and his wrist cuff glittered in the dawn’s sunlight. “Can happen.”
“Gods almighty.” Tide gaped at Red. “Who the hell did you belong to?”
“Admiral Muze.”
Tide’s face turned ashen. “The Joint Commander of the Eubian Fleet?”
“Yes,” Red said. “That right.”
“Gods,” Tide muttered. “Maybe I should just commit suicide right now.”
“Tide, stop it,” Aliana said. “You’re scaring me. Why would you be in trouble?”
“Oh, nothing much,” he growled. “Just for having two of the most valuable pieces of property on the planet and not turning either of you in to the authorities.”
Aliana gave an uneasy laugh. “That’s not funny.”
“No.” He turned back to his controls. “Believe me, it’s not funny at all.”
Aliana didn’t understand him; he came from a life she knew nothing about, where people like him guarded the princes of an empire. She spoke slowly, as if the words themselves could end what little joy she had eked out of her life. “Are you’re going to turn us into Admiral Muze?”
“Hell, no.” His hand was clenched so tight on his navigation stick, his knuckles had turned white. “ESComm ordered my execution just because I have the same DNA as a Razer who died saving the life of the Aristo he protected. The executions stopped, I don’t know why, but I’ve no intention of drawing any attention to myself. I might not survive a second time.” His voice tightened. “And damned if I would turn you in anyway.”
“You know,” Aliana said, “you don’t sound like a Razer.”
“I suppose that’s why our line was decommissioned.” His tension eased and he smiled, almost. “My programming is for me to guard whoever I’m assigned to protect. So now I’m protecting you two.”
“By calling me a Skolian?” she grumbled, mainly to cover her relief.
“Aliana, listen. It makes sense. Maybe your father was a Skolian soldier.” He glanced at her. “Some of them are psions. If your mother’s world was in a border region, it’s possible a Skolian soldier went there as a spy or on reconnaissance.”
Bile rose in her throat. “You mean some Skolian scum raped my mother?”
Tide spoke quietly. “She was forced?”
“Well, actually, that wasn’t what she said.” Aliana felt as if she were lost at sea instead of above it. She had been so young when her mother told her about her father, not even five yet, but she treasured the memory. “She said she loved him, that he was kind to her, but that he had to go away. Neither of them knew she was pregnant when he left.”
“If he were a spy, he would have had to leave eventually,” Tide said.
“Good way to learn about your enemies,” Aliana said bitterly. “Pretend you’re in love with one, get all her pillow talk, and then dump her when you’re finished.”
“Why pretend?” Tide said. “She wouldn’t have anything to tell him if she was a low ranked taskmaker on a slum world. Maybe he really loved her.”
“Then why didn’t he take her with him?”
“He probably couldn’t get her out, especially if he had to leave unexpectedly.”
“Yeah, right.” His logic made her feel better, though.
“So we go to Skolian embassy?” Red asked.
“Oh, honestly, Red,” Aliana said.
“Good gods,” Tide said. “That’s the answer!”
The answer? It sounded nuts to Aliana. But then, she understood zilch about Skolians, except that she didn’t want to meet any. “How do you know about Skolian embassies?” she asked Red.
“Admiral Muze not like them,” Red said. “He want them burned. Emperor say no.”
Her mouth fell open. “You’ve met the emperor?”
“Seen him. Not come close. He not like me.”
“How do you know he didn’t like you?” Aliana asked.
“He say Admiral Muze must send me away.”
“Oh.” She squinted at him. “Then you don’t have any good gossip about Emperor Jaibriol?”
Red frowned at her. “Is wrong to gossip about gods.”
“Oh, sure,” Aliana said. “Like they’re really gods.”
Tide made an incredulous sound. “Aliana, stop that!”
“Stop what?”
“He’s the emperor. You’re going to get yourself killed if you aren’t careful.”
She shifted in her seat. “I meant no disrespect.” She had, actually, but she saw Tide’s point. “Will you really make me go to a Skolian embassy?”
“It may be your only way out of this.” Tide glanced at Red. “Both of you.”
“Me not Skolian,” Red said. “Can’t go to embassy.”
Aliana sat up straighter. “I’m not leaving Red behind.”
Tide exhaled. “All right, listen. I never told you what I’m about to say. If you claim I did, I’ll deny it.”
“Told us what?” she asked.
“Providers who ask the Skolians for asylum are always granted it,” Tide said. “By Skolian law, providers are considered prisoners who have been tortured in violation of interstellar law. A Skolian embassy is Skolian territory. So if they give you asylum, you’re free.”
“Why would anyone want Skolian asylum?” Aliana said. “It sounds like putting you in a house for the insane.” Which was where they’d belong if they wanted to live with Skolians.
“You have a better idea?” Tide asked. “Aliana, sweetheart, you beat up one of Orzon Muze’s bastards and his bodyguard and you stole one of Admiral Muze’s providers. And if you really are a psion, any Aristo who comes near you will sense it. You’re in trouble, babe. You want to be tortured for the rest of your life? A lot of Aristos would enjoy breaking that eff-you spirit of yours.”
She stared at him. “Shit.”
“Yeah,” Tide said. “That sums it up.”
“So we three go to embassy?” Red asked.
Tide turned back to his piloting, his gaze shuttered. “Not me.”
“Why not?” Aliana asked. “You said yourself, you’re in a mess.”
“I can’t go to the Skolians.”
“You’ll make us go, but you won’t?” She wanted to shake him.
He spoke quietly. “I was a bodyguard for a highly ranked military officer on Glory.”
“So?” She clenched her fist. “I’m training to be a bodyguard.”
“It’s not the same thing.”
“Why not?”
He met her angry gaze. “If I defected to the Skolians, I would be committing treason. Their military would take me apart.”
“Oh.” She felt as if she had rammed into a wall. Of course it was different. Her paltry attempts at training couldn’t compare with what he had done in his life. Nor did she want him risking execution for treason.
“But what will you do? You said you’re in trouble, too.”
“I’ll manage. As long as no one knows I took you two to the embassy.”
“How you hide?” Red asked. “Aristos know everything.”
He shrugged. “I was around them for decades, learning their security. Hell, I was part of that security. I know a few things myself.”
Aliana spoke softly. “I’m sorry, Tide. I never meant for you to be involved.”
His expression gentled. “I chose to come after you, babe. That was my decision.”
“Why would you make a crazy decision like that?”
He started to answer, but then he glanced at Red and stopped. Turning back to his piloting, he just said, “I have no idea.”
“Oh.” She didn’t know what to make of that.
“You are so damn young,” Tide muttered.
“That’s curable, you know,” she said. When he laughed, she asked, “So where is this embassy?”
He brought the flyer around in a shallow arc, changing their heading from south to east. “This way. Muzeopolis is on a large island to the south, and the embassy is on the mainland.”
Aliana could see only water in every direction. But sooner or later, the land would come and the life she had known would change forever.
Burning red mist surrounded Dehya. She couldn’t remember why or how she had come here. Music pounded:
I’m no golden hero in the blazing skies.
I’m no fair-haired genius, hiding in disguise.
A man’s thought came to her, curling out of the mist. When he sings fair-haired genius, he means you.
Dehya’s focus sharpened. Taquinil? Is that you?
The red faded into a gentler color, soft and golden. As the universe cooled, the man’s thought came again. My greetings, Mother.
The landscape swelled into a shape that resembled the diffraction pattern from a circular aperture, like the wavelets in a pond after she dropped a rock into the smooth water. It grew into a symmetrical peak in the center with smaller ripples circling it. Taquinil. Her son. He existed only in the Kyle, his mind centered in the peak, his thoughts spreading in every direction. The waveform glowed gold, like his eyes in the real universe, against a background as black as his midnight hair. Sparks of light flashed along the ripples.
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