by Adam Burch
This is the day I’ve waited my whole life for. I’m floating!
“Edgaard,” I say with a voice that feels like it comes from another room. “Did Father really think the drugs were necessary?”
“Father felt you were so nervous that they would help relax you. Don’t worry, brother, Alberich and I are here to guide you for the camglobes.”
I watch as Edgaard and Alberich accompany me to the preparation spa. My stubble is shaved. My skin is sprayed with a layer of shading paint that hides every blemish and scar. I radiate an artificial glow. My hair is styled with a glossy finish, making the dark locks shiny and lustrous. Edgaard and Alberich clothe me in ceremonial robes of midnight blue. Armor plated with silver is fitted to my wrists and shins to round out the colors of House Leontes.
The double doors to the hall of Old Wusong open, and a long aisle spreads out before me. It seems to go on for kilometers. The nobles of the Pantheon, dressed in their finery, flank either side.
“Walk,” Alberich whispers in my ear.
“Thank you,” I whisper back, grateful for the direction. The drugs take over, and my body moves forward.
The audience erupts in applause at my entrance. Fanfare plays on gilded trumpets. Camglobes hover in front of my face. Edmon Leontes, the prodigal son, has returned from his self-imposed exile on the Isle of Bone! the aquas will say. He has been living the life of an ascetic, meditating, preparing himself for this day, when he weds the love of his life, the beautiful Miranda Wusong.
A voice tickles the back of my brain. Fight them, Edmon!
Fight them? I think. This is my proudest moment!
Alberich takes position in the crowd. Edgaard, as best man, nudges me forward. “It’s almost over, brother,” he reassures me. “Move up the stairs.”
I nod and lurch forward. My father stands upon the dais, looking every bit the feudal lord. I smile. I love you, Father, I think.
Two women also in the colors of House Leontes stand on his left. One looks like a diminutive porcelain doll with raven hair and refined features. Her perfectly arcing eyebrows frame violet irises. She’s coldly beautiful. Lavinia, my elder sister, I realize. I haven’t seen her since I was nine . . . no, wait, I grew up with her in House Leontes. Didn’t I?
The other girl has a heart-shaped face and long, lustrous copper hair. The smile on her full lips is genuine, full of joy at the pageantry. My dull-witted younger sister. What was her name? Phoebe? I think. I should know this. She and I were constant companions before she joined Lavinia at finishing school. She’s beautiful in a bland sort of way, a perfect pawn for my father to marry off to one of the other noble houses.
Pawn? I chastise myself. Father loves us. He wouldn’t deny us the marriage of our hearts.
The crowd has the same radiant smile that I wear. Camglobes hover everywhere.
Break free, Edmon!
Why do I think that all of a sudden?
I’m tempted by an overpowering urge to flee. I don’t know why. I try to run, to will my body to break free from the hold of the narcotics coursing through my blood. My foot slips, and I almost crash into the carpet. Edgaard catches me.
“Don’t try to resist,” he urges. “You’ll only look bad. Just move forward.”
Thank the ancestors for Edgaard. I’m so glad that I abdicated my position as heir. Edgaard is truly the strong warrior our house needs.
I feel a particular set of eyes upon me. They pierce through my stupor. I feel them as I ascend the dais. I feel them as I bow before Edric’s cold, triumphant gaze. It takes all my strength to turn my head toward the eyes I feel on my back.
Yes! I can move my head! I smile. I knew I was stronger than some silly drugs.
My eyes lock with the gray gaze of Phaestion Julii. He looks back at me from the first row of guests. Perdiccus, Hanschen, and Sigurd are of course by his side, decked in the regalia of their respective houses. The sight of them stops me in my tracks. I’m flooded with images: Hanschen stabbing me with a pair of short swords. Perdiccus with a trident pinning my foot to a mat. Sigurd standing over me with a giant mace. Phaestion kissing me on a beach. A beach with white shores.
Where can I run? Do I try to fight them all? What do I do? Why am I thinking these thoughts?
Phaestion is taller, broader. His form under his black suit is muscular and powerful, yet still sleek and athletically quick. His thick red hair is shorter and coiffed beneath the silver circlet of victory.
We’re eighteen now, eligible to enter the Combat, old enough to wear the forearm tattoos of a Patriarch, to bear the weight of black robes and white masks of the Census. These boys plan to rule, I realize, while I am standing here in a frozen body on my wedding day. This should be the happiest day of my life, but somehow I have a dreaded feeling that really, I’ve failed to save the ones I love from death. Looking around the room—my brother, Edgaard; my teacher Alberich; my sisters, Lavinia and Phoebe; and of course Phaestion—all those I’m supposed to love are alive and well.
Wait, Phaestion is an enemy of my father, right? Why is he here then? I wonder. To gloat because I did not join him?
I wince. My head hurts. All these thoughts are too much to sort.
On Phaestion’s other side sits a decrepit old man with snow-white hair, Lord Chilleus of the Julii, Phaestion’s father, still alive. Next to the Patriarch is the bald alien with the cat eyes, Talousla Karr. The hairless man attends the old lord like a nursemaid.
A scientist with a favorite lab fish, I think. I know that man. Why do I know him?
The spypsy glances from the old man to Phaestion, gauging their reactions to the scene. More than a century separates father and son. Even so, Phaestion bears a wonderful resemblance to the old man, though younger, taller, and more powerfully built.
This is how a father and son should be, I think. The father old and kind, innocuous. The son the image of his father, only greater.
Phaestion nods at me. Triumph and coldness are in his gaze.
What does that mean? I wonder.
The double doors open again. A hush falls. The veiled girl enters ahead of her father, Old Wusong, who is carried on a palanquin. The old man resembles a corpse; his eyes are black ball bearings staring blindly out of sunken and sallow cheeks. His heavy ornamental headdress looks as if it will topple off his wrinkled eggshell-head and pull him with it, crashing to the floor. I hold my smile. I must be respectful to my future father-in-law, the emperor of the greatest civilization in the known Fracture.
I cannot make out Miranda’s face beneath her veil. It makes no difference. She is the only woman I have ever loved.
It takes them what seems an eternity to arrive at the dais. Miranda helps her father step from the palanquin. Old Wusong clasps his daughter’s white hands with gnarled fingers. He brings them gently to his livered lips. A retainer helps the old man into a seat alongside the other nobles. Miranda ascends the dais to stand beside me. She takes my hand in hers, knowing what’s expected of us both. The oaths are administered.
“Say the words,” Edgaard whispers in my ear, and I do.
“Elder Stars illuminate only because there is darkness. A warrior can know righteous cause only because there is evil. Heart to thought, thought to voice, harmony rises from discord. This is the Balance. Two are now one.”
My tongue moves slowly as I say the words by rote.
I have a horrible feeling in the pit of my stomach that I can’t explain. I want to break down and weep, but I don’t know why. I ignore the impulse and smile. My father informs me I may kiss the bride. I watch myself from outside again as I lift the veil, revealing a painted snow-white face, a perfect moon, soft and doughy. Her thin lips pull back at the corners. Her teeth are painted black, in the ancient tradition of Old Wusong. Who is this? This is not my love!
I gasp suddenly. Images rush through my head—a girl with dark hair, a small mole on her cheek. She pulls me up onto white cliffs, preventing me from falling into a green sea. Now she is older, and we are
making love on those same cliffs, our bodies matching the rhythm of the waves. We are in bed on a morning, my birthday, and later she is telling me a child is to be born . . .
Nadia. Her name is Nadia!
“Kiss me,” Miranda hisses. She steps on her tiptoes to kiss me. I try to pull away, but she grabs my neck and pulls me in closer. “The globes are watching.” She clamps her lips to mine. The crowd explodes with applause.
A reception is held upon the rooftop of the House Wusong central scraper. I sit at the head of a table next to Miranda. She smiles black-toothed and nods politely to attendees who offer congratulations and gifts. Musicians fill the air with tinny metallic tunes. Guests dance in the center of the floor.
The drugs have begun to wear off, and I reach for wine, downing a glass in one gulp. Across the twilight sky, I see the thousands of glittering skyscrapers of Tao lit up like ornaments in celebration of the auspicious occasion. This is wrong. I feel it. I don’t know what it is, but I feel an anger boiling inside of me. I cannot get the image of the girl with dark hair out of my mind.
“More wine,” I mutter to the waiter who refills my glass. I gulp it immediately. “More, I said!” I shout again. I want to break something, but I don’t know what. I don’t know why. I have just married the love of my life, Miranda Wusong, yet I’m filled with nameless rage.
She is not your love, a voice whispers inside me. I feel the truth of the words even though I know them to be a lie. What is happening to me?
“Don’t you think you are overdoing it, husband?” Miranda hisses at me through hideous teeth.
I stare at her coldly. “Don’t tell me what I should think or feel.”
Where did that come from? That’s not like me. Or is it? I drink another glass of the wine. She ignores me and returns to greeting guests from some minor noble house who have offered us a jewelry box or some other useless item.
“House Ruska’s tokens of affection will be cherished for all time,” Miranda politely tells the fat youth who presents the gifts.
“If I could have a moment of Lord Edmon’s time?” he asks.
“My husband needs his rest at the moment,” Miranda says, cutting off the boy.
“More wine!” I slam my fist down on the table. The youth blanches and moves to sit among the crowd of other fat, milky nobles.
I need to banish the thoughts in my head. I need to be happy again. I need to forget the girl with the dark hair.
“Do you think that I’m enjoying this?” Miranda whispers at me. I turn, startled. It actually didn’t occur to me for a second what she thought. “I’m just as much a pawn in our fathers’ games as you are, but I have the decency and intelligence to suffer through it and wait for an opportunity to make a move.”
“If the opportunity never comes?” I ask.
“Then I will have bettered my position by calmly accepting the situation, rather than drinking myself into oblivion. Don’t think you are the only one who chafes under the confines of tradition, Edmon Leontes. I may not be an aquagraphic star, a musical sensation, or a freedom fighter, but I am an emperor’s daughter. I demand to be treated as such.”
I want to strike her, and an image flashes through my mind of my father striking my mother in front of a crowd like this when I was a child. I am horrified at the memory. What is happening to me?
“Your arrogance presumes you know anything about my life,” I sneer. “I will treat you accordingly, wife.” The word sounds wrong. I shove myself back from the table.
Phaestion stands on the outskirts of the party, holding a court of his own. The Companions crowd around him. The rest of the young men of Tao hold him in their eyes like a god. He sees me looking from across the room and raises his glass. My head explodes with images—a haughty boy arriving at an island manse, claiming my room for his own.
I never lived in an island manse, did I?
“He’s the perfect specimen, is he not?” the sly voice of the spypsy, Talousla Karr, whispers in my ear.
I don’t deign to look at his hairless face beneath the hood. Somehow, I know this snake of a man.
“Depends on your definition of perfection.” I sip my wine.
“Your people are so curiously fascinating,” he goes on. “There are others throughout the cosmos who have used genetic manipulation as means to adapt to niche habitats . . .”
“Like space gypsies who craft hollow bones or hairless bodies?” I ask.
He nods and prattles on. “Most humans merely change the color of their hair or the shape of their eyes to suit some arbitrary beauty trend, but yours is an entire culture obsessed with physical perfection. The whole of Tao society is built around achieving it. Politics, economics, cultural behaviors, mating rituals . . .”
“The Combat, the Pavaka,” I add sarcastically.
“The strong survive. The weak are cast out. Your race is remarkably resilient, all without microcellular science to achieve it. Some humans in the known cosmos may be stronger, or faster, or fit some unique function better, but the median level of physiological and mental capability here is astounding. It’s a considerable achievement. Rarely do you see government becoming an environmental pressure that impacts evolution.”
“You don’t know your ancient history.” I wash down the last of my glass. “How many warlike empires from Ancient Earth sought to control their people? How many cultures threw away a child because it was the wrong gender or because it suffered some deformity? Do you know what happened to all those cultures? Those empires? They all ended, choking on their own perfect blood and ashes.” My voice is filled with venom rather than veneration. I am deeply disturbed. I am supposed to think the Nightsider way is the pinnacle of human success.
“I said it was rare, not that it’s never happened,” the man corrects. “I marvel at what they were able to create for their brief moments in time. Here is Tao, an entire planet dedicated to the principles of such excellence.”
“We call that arête,” I say bitterly. “The idea that each being should strive for perfection of the self—physically, intellectually, and morally.”
“Imagine what a geneticist like myself might accomplish were they to have access to such a specimen as, say, your father? Already superior in strength, speed, and athleticism. A hormone activated, a gene transferred . . .”
“You want my father as an experiment?” I ask.
The man shrugs. “I’ve made do with other options.”
He means me, the pale reflection of the great leviathan. I am his experiment. He did something to me, I remember.
He leans close. “In all my studies, I’ve come to a conclusion about what pushes humanity forward, makes us better than we are . . .”
I hang on his words.
“Pain, struggle, obstacle,” he whispers. “Push a man to his limit, push him past what he thought those limits were, break him. If he’s strong enough to survive, he becomes something more.”
“What’s that?”
“A god. A monster. Who is to say?” he answers cryptically.
For some reason, his words fire me with anger. I find my legs are not as wobbly as they should be. “The eel that devours every last minnow eventually turns to its own tail. Don’t be surprised if your experiments blow up in your face.” I stalk off, feeling his eyes on my back the whole way.
I grab a drink from the bar. I’m not drunk enough. Not nearly enough. If I cannot burn the images from my mind, I’ll burn myself. It does no good. With each sip I imbibe, my head swims with more dark memories.
I must do something. I don’t know what.
“Look at you wallowing,” a voice says. I spin. “The great Edmon Leontes, voice of a generation, reduced to a blubbering drunkard.”
Voice of a generation? That’s what they called me.
“Or do you not remember?”
Lavinia. The delicately boned woman arcs a dark, wicked eyebrow.
“Sister, you hardly know me.” I pound the liquor in the glass to the back of my throat. It t
astes of fire.
“What I know is what I see in the aquagraphics.” She smiles. “Someone with idealism and charisma, someone who makes others believe in something. You are a Leontes, after all.” She casts her gaze to our father, who sits at the head of the feast table, concubines doting on him.
“I’m nothing like him,” I answer.
She merely smiles. “You’re just like him. You don’t like to lose. And right now, you are losing.” She grabs a drink of her own and sips. “It’s ironic, really.”
“What is?”
“You’re the one born to the power, and you’ve done nothing but try to be rid of it. Me? I’m given nothing, but I would take that power gladly if I could.”
“Would you?” I mutter acidly.
“I should’ve been born a man. But for my gender, on this planet anyway, I would have been our father’s heir. After all, I am the eldest, dear brother.”
“Sounds like you’re the one who’s losing.” I smile.
“Some things can’t be changed.” She purses her lips tightly. “But there are more ways to fight than with a sword. Sometimes truth is enough.”
“And what’s the truth, dear sister?” I ask.
“I know everything that happens within these castle walls.” She gestures to the surroundings of the glass skyscraper. “I manage all our house’s finances. Without me, House Wusong-Leontes would be bankrupt within a year.” She shakes her head. “None of that is important to you, I’m sure. This is your day. You must be so happy with your blushing bride. She’s really charming, isn’t she? That white, dough-painted face? Those beautiful black teeth?”
I do not love Miranda. I am supposed to love her. I’m told I love her and no other. It is a lie. I clench my fists. My head pounds. “What do you want, Lavinia?” I seethe.
Her voice drops low. “I want what you want. Father defeated . . .”
I want Father to succeed in his plans for our people.
“I want you and Edgaard absolved of all noble duties . . .”
I want to see Edgaard become the Patriarch of our family. I want to marry my beautiful wife and serve her and our charitable work for the College of Electors.