Suffrage (World Key Chronicles Book 1)

by Julian St Aubyn Green

  “Prince Ahmed,” came the melodious voice of The Song-stress’s AI as Thalia’s ephemeral form shimmered into existence.

  “Go away,” he responded, wiping more grime from his ash-laden face and beard. This was the first respite the countess had granted him and he intended to take full advantage of it.

  “The king has awoken and requests your attendance at a small luncheon and strategy meeting in his private quarters,” she relayed, her musical voice making the invitation sound enticing.

  This was what he needed to explain himself to the king and regain some measure of dignity. Ahmed gave his assent to the AI and stood, looking down at his ruined clothing and disheveled appearance in dismay. He took the barest time possible to remove his soiled clothing and wash up thoroughly.

  Without missing a beat, he oiled and combed his immaculate beard, doused himself in sandalwood cologne, and shrugged on a new jacket. With its gold epaulettes and faintly military design, he felt it suited the theme of a strategy meeting.

  Glancing in the mirror one last time, he smiled. He always strove to present himself as ready to meet the moment head on. It would be unseemly to show up looking like a mere citizen in the presence of one of the Five. Most of those outside the nobility failed to realize the importance of such a simple thing.

  With his confidence buoyed, he exited his cramped quarters and stretched to enjoy the more open feeling of the hallway. Almost instantly, his personal guard straightened, preparing to accompany him. He shook his head, instructing the Elite to remain, and made his way quickly towards the king’s chambers.

  As he approached the door, he saw one of the ship’s assassin drones standing outside, optics focusing on him.

  Why does the king need a guard? He must still be weak. Don’t draw attention to it, Prince Ahmed thought as he strode to the door. It opened at his approach and he stepped through confidently before pausing to survey the situation.

  Inside the luxurious quarters of the king, a highly polished table of rare, silky oak stood surrounded by antique chairs. The smell of roast game bird with heavy notes of cream and garlic filled the air, and several people already sat in audience. The damned countess lounged on the king’s right, with unsightly bags under her eyes and hair frizzing out of her coiled braid, but appearing indomitable nevertheless.

  King Mycroft’s mysterious, masked envoy perched on Heinrich’s left with his piercing violet and gold eyes half-closed in either sleep or meditation. Thalia’s avatar remained obediently behind the king’s chair while a second assassin drone was poised, attentive, yet motionless in the corner.

  Prince Ahmed bowed in the king’s direction. Glancing up from the half-demolished game bird on his plate, Heinrich motioned to the remaining chair. “Sit,” he stated dryly.

  As well versed as he was in the intrigues and dangers of the Royal courts, there was something about Heinrich’s tone that unnerved Prince Ahmed. Drawing upon all his years of practice in the courts of the Dragon, he kept his sense of unease obfuscated behind polished motions and a steady countenance. He was of Royal blood, he reminded himself.

  He lengthened his stride to hurry without the appearance of moving any faster than comfortable. Prince Ahmed aimed to appear obeisant. One didn’t defy the Monarchs, even the weakest of them. It was a credo the nobility enforced on all their subjects. It was how the world worked. Defiance meant death.

  “Your Majesty, my thanks for your kind invitation,” the prince returned politely. Internally, worry gnawed at him. He knew he shouldn’t be particularly concerned. He was of Royal descent, after all, and not some Lifer to be publicly whipped. He reflected on the possible strategies they might consider, but held his tongue, waiting for the king to address them.

  As Prince Ahmed sat, he took a white damask napkin and laid it on his lap. As he looked attentive for the king, Heinrich spoke. “Please, enjoy the food. Everyone.”

  Ahmed had a decade of experience at court. Meanwhile, the king was over 100 years old despite his youthful appearance. Thanks to the Undying Queen and her Gift, all the Monarchs remained young and strong. Try as Ahmed might to discern some further meaning or nuance from the king’s words, he was unable to read beyond the relaxed features he presented.

  The others at the table picked up the silver cutlery and commenced eating at the king’s invitation. For the first time, Prince Ahmed saw Mr. Delta remove his ever-present face mask. Puckered, mottled, and scarred skin distorted his features terribly. Lumps and bumps of healed flesh pockmarked his lower face, the scarred skin extending under a high neckline.

  This answered the mystery of the Sis-B violet eyes of Mr. Delta. The man looked as if he’d been dropped in a deep fryer at a young age. Obviously, the man hid his features from the world out of self-consciousness and shame. Whatever the cause of his injury, he’d been lucky to survive. The prince filed that piece of the puzzle away for later.

  Prince Ahmed managed to hide his surprise at the revelation under a thick veneer of practiced manners as he picked up his silverware and cut into the roast meat on his plate. He was accustomed to the sight of burn victims. He’d made more than a few himself. Several of the Honeytown girls bore his brand. It was so easy to convince an impressionable girl to do things they wouldn’t normally consider when one carried the title of prince. He enjoyed using his Gift in such a way, and even paid them handsomely afterwards.

  The king resumed his demolition of the food in front of him. From personal experience, Prince Ahmed knew that overextending a Gift left one extremely ravenous. He’d eaten enough food for three people and slept like a dead man after the incident in Rio. That was, when he wasn’t cutting ships apart and welding pieces back together. He refrained from shooting the countess a scathing glance.

  Picking up his wineglass, the king took a sip and sat back, his green eyes resting on the prince. He seemed patient enough to wait until his guests finished their meals before starting any major discussion.

  Heinrich ran a fingertip lazily around the rim of the glass. It made the crystal sing softly. It was faintly off-putting, and Prince Ahmed wondered if it was simply a habit or if the king intended to unsettle his guests.

  As the prince placed the last morsel of food in his mouth, the king leaned forward once again. Heinrich’s steady voice betrayed no hint of emotion as he commanded, “Thalia, bring up a schematic of The Songstress.”

  “Certainly, Your Majesty.”

  A glowing, three-dimensional projection of The Songstress appeared above the table, portions of the ship marked in red where repairs were ongoing.

  “So. Prince Ahmed. Tell me why you damaged my ship and jeopardized the success of this mission.”

  The prince stopped mid-wipe of his mouth. While he only barely managed to hide the surprise on his face, his eyes told a different story. His role in damaging The Songstress was not the topic of discussion he expected when invited to this ‘strategy’ meeting.

  “I—I …” Words failed the prince for the first time in many years. All of a sudden, several details surrounding this meeting struck him with new and stark clarity. Fear crept into his mind and his voice quavered for a moment before he managed to gain control of himself.

  “No. Your Majesty, it was an accident. I intended to vaporize the Rebels. I had them. I had no idea they had a Gifted among them! Who could have known, Sire? My fire—I didn’t mean to …” His voice cracked once again and fell away at his final assertion.

  Part of him knew it was true. Part of him refused to remember what had actually happened. The sheer pain of thousands of people hurt in The Songstress’s bombardment had flooded his mind. The Rebels’ Gifted forced him to become an emotional voyeur the likes of which he hadn’t considered possible. All of those fear-wracked minds and frantically beating hearts blamed the lights in the sky.

  Overwhelmed by the emotional onslaught in that brutal moment, he too blamed the lights in the sky. He desperately wanted to put those lights out during those few seconds. And after he released enough he
at to melt tungsten, only the vague memory of that gut-wrenching feeling remained. The emotional connection itself was completely severed, as if it were merely the end of a phone call.

  The king held his hand up for silence and received it. “Let me clarify. I charged you with the task of collecting their remains and tech. You unwisely chose to engage them when they were already targeted by our weapons array. Imagine the surprise of the forward gunnery crew who were no longer able to simply bombard the Rebels without risking the displeasure of the Dragon should you come to harm. Explain to me why you chose to disregard my orders.” The king raised an eyebrow in expectation and resumed that irritating sound with his wineglass.

  Between his tumultuous emotions and the infernal crystalline warbling of Heinrich’s wine glass, Ahmed couldn’t formulate a reasonable justification for his actions. That awful noise was purposeful, meant to put him off and disquiet him.

  He took a moment to gather his thoughts. He was more than a little addled at finding himself on the wrong end of the king’s displeasure. He coughed, then swallowed and tried to speak. His mouth felt completely dry, so he took another moment to shakily sip some water, searching for a way out of the situation.

  Internally, his thoughts collided with one another, preventing any meaningful traction.

  How dare he do this to me? I am the Dragon’s own son, am I not? King Heinrich may be a Monarch, but even the Monarchs must observe propriety. Here I sit, interrogated like a common thief in front of a low countess? And what is Mister Delta? Is he even a citizen? Most likely one of Mycroft’s Lifers, his brain turned inside out to ensure loyalty. I’ll speak to my father about this. Of course, he couldn’t very well say any of it out loud. Prince though Ahmed was, Heinrich had the right and power to simply drop Ahmed off outside the ship. While they were still at altitude.

  He spoke out loud, attempting to justify his actions. “King Heinrich, the Rebels have a force emitter. I saw the main shinkari bursts deflected. If their emitter was powerful enough to deflect then it was powerful enough to reflect and potentially damage the ship. A second attacking position would have prevented that. I also felt that if I could end the fight quickly, we would sooner be able to finish this mission and return home. Glory awaits us for this, Your Majesty. I felt a swift end would—”

  The king raised his hand again and frowned, cutting Ahmed off mid-sentence. “I care not for glory. Your father has been remiss in your education if you believe such a thing exists. Only taking those Rebels should have mattered. Not your role in doing so. Let me reassure you Ahmed, I am not intolerant of mistakes, and you raise a valid concern about the force emitter. But it was not your concern to deal with, it was mine. No one is perfect. I am however very intolerant of those who do not follow orders and who put personal motivations ahead of the greater good. We live by the Principles and are examples to our subjects. Your personal ambition does not have a place on my ship.” The king topped up his wineglass and then returned his gaze to Ahmed. “What we are about to discuss is of the utmost importance. However, before I allow you to partake in this discussion, I must be sure of your obedience.”

  Prince Ahmed swallowed over a sudden lump in his throat. The last time he’d seen this sort of behavior from a Monarch, it was his father dealing with the remains of a group of Rebels. Most died before capture. The rest, the Dragon put his mark on each of their backs and faces, too large to hide, the cold look on his father’s face contrasting greatly with the pervasive heat of the room.

  King Mahmoot didn’t enjoy giving pain, but he, like all the Monarchs, demanded absolute obedience. In his father’s realm, those who broke the Principles severely enough were branded as Lifers before their service started with the Dragon’s own personally applied brand. Those so branded would never be able to find refuge anywhere. Even looking in the mirror would remind them of their failed adherence to the Principles. It was the same frigid expression of inhuman disconnection in King Heinrich’s eyes that unnerved Prince Ahmed at that moment.

  King Heinrich applied the Principles with the absolute and unquestionable authority of a Monarch. Unbidden, Ahmed inwardly admitted his own failings. That’s why the king is doing this to me. I didn’t follow orders, I’ve … failed. Taking things in stride was part and parcel of being one of the Royals. But it was a steep climb out of his present pit of despair.

  “I understand, Your Majesty. As ever, I am a servant of the Monarchs.” He couldn’t hold Heinrich’s gaze and his eyes dropped even as he answered, dejectedly. Whatever the king planned, Ahmed knew he had no choice but to submit. The Dragon might take issue, but to openly defy a Monarch, his father might brand and sentence Ahmed himself.

  The king nodded, accepting Ahmed’s words, then dropped his bombshell. “The Rebels are here to steal this reality’s version of the world keys. We will stop them.”

  Delta dreamed of the white-walled, sterile environment of the Facility where Juliet was the strongest empath. She was the last one to succeed in creating a mental shield. Everything that the white-coats had done, she’d felt.

  She wanted to help everyone pass the tests. He remembered that best about her. She was always helping with a quick, broadcast feeling of sympathy, as natural as breathing.

  Delta was the strongest telepath. It was hard reading minds, especially if they knew you could. The mind naturally constructed barriers, like a screen of white noise. Mostly he got surface thoughts; ‘skimming’, the white-coats called it. All the crèche could skim the surface, read thoughts directed to them. With time and concentration, he could dig deeper than anyone else, and with more than one person at a time, so long as he wasn’t shielding.

  Charlie was the strongest telekinetic of all of them. Alpha had the greatest degree of precognition. Sometimes she got what she called a flash: a blinding moment of insight when she could see possibilities.

  It had been the four of them that had been singled out from the main crèche after the testing revealed their strengths. They received additional tests, and consequently additional rewards for their successes and punishments for their failures.

  All of them possessed telekinesis, but Charlie could lift the heaviest weights. Half of the weight that Charlie moved with negligent ease was enough to give Delta the shakes and make him bleed from the nose. Even Juliet, the smallest of all of them, could lift more weight than he could. He had burned with shame when he thought about it.

  Juliet felt the emotion and managed a focused broadcast, only to him. ‡But you’re the strongest telepath Delta. Stronger than anyone else.‡

  All of them were closer than twins, but from that moment forth, he’d felt a special closeness to Juliet. Far greater than what he had with his other siblings. As the months proceeded, they had shared a bond the others couldn’t.

  And then the Rebels had come with their bombs and stolen away everything he’d ever known. When they kidnapped Juliet and left the rest of the crèche on the carpet in the training room, sadness gripped him and a terrible fear. It choked him, erasing all thought in a tsunami of emotion that built with ferocious intensity.

  Then he had felt it.

  Despite the distance and the pain, despite the order that they couldn’t use their abilities except at the order of a white-coat, he felt Juliet reaching out to all her siblings. She had disobeyed an order. To offer comfort as the inevitable moment approached.

  Juliet’s mental touch of affection, melancholy, and sorrow at their fate slowly retreated as the distance between them increased. She was speeding away through tunnels on a ship made of vibrating metal tinged with freedom, the crèche trapped on a carpet made of synthetic wool and shattered hope.

  Ordered to stay on the carpet, they couldn’t move beyond hugging each other close, with the body of the white-coat, the only one that could free them, lying nearby.

  They knew what was coming. Alpha told them in a voice filled with emotion. They couldn’t use their abilities unless ordered to do so. The only exception was Alpha’s precognition. Her
ability to see the future in an unexpected and unpredictable fashion meant they always allowed her that one. In the final moments, tears streaming down her face, she leant towards Delta with the light of hope shining through that familiar expression of blinding realization. She was whispering.

  “Brother. You’re going to live, but there will be pain. Stay strong. You’ll see Juliet again.”

  Those words said, Alpha’s scream joined the siblings’ chorus of fear as she threw herself on top of him. A thousand tons of concrete and steel collapsed on top of his world, and his siblings.

  Blackness and choking dust, the crush of great weight around him, Alpha’s unmoving body pressed against him: this was the aftermath. Without thinking, Delta had reached into the mindscape and she was not there. No one was, and even knowing it was merely a dream, a shadow of remembrance, could not dull the horror.

  Around him was a mental wasteland. He’d never experienced a mental landscape so empty. No connection. Alone. He shivered.

  Within the stygian confines that surrounded him, in both the ethereal and physical, he could hear a drip and flow of liquid. ‡Trapped. No. No, I’m trapped!‡ He tried some of the calming mental exercises he’d been taught, without success. Breathing in shallow, rapid spurts, his eyes darted around, seeking any shred of light, and his heart pounded in his chest.

  The liquid drip and sloshing came closer, this time accompanied by an acrid scent. Water? Is that water? Am I going to drown? No. Alpha said I would survive. But she said there would be pain. Closer it came, gravity guiding its inexorable path, and it filled him with a premonition of dread.

  At first it had been just a sensation of wetness. Then came the searing pain. Worse than the pain of any punishment he’d ever experienced from the white-coats. He screamed, voice weak as the agony sucked away his breath. Driven by animal instinct, he pushed and flailed at his surroundings, splashing more onto his legs and feeling his skin bubble and blister. He failed to move more than an inch as the wetness traveled up his legs and the pain intensified.