Abendau's Legacy (The Inheritance Trilogy Book 3)

by Jo Zebedee

  “My Lady, it is true.”

  “I wish to bring him back to where he is loved and is safe. My son will never give Baelan his proper place. He will use him for his own ends. We need to see Baelan released from such cruelty. Together we can do that.” The Empress’ touch carried the sense of Baelan, his tightly-wound powers, his pride. “Will you stand with me?”

  “I will.” Shanisa bowed her head. Resistance seemed alien, in her Lady’s presence. “Thank you, my Lady.”

  ***

  The tribal family left, following the path back to the palace. The garden was silent, still as a church and fitting for the prayer-pool. Slowly, the Empress walked to it, staring into its depths until she could make out the discs dropped into the water in her name. So many; on a prayer-day this garden was open to the city’s honoured.

  The woman had been held by thoughts of her son. Their bond was close enough to withstand the distance away. When Baelan was returned, his mother could be the ally needed to tame him. She frowned. A subtle touch would be needed in the woman’s mind. Too much, and the tribes would feel violated – never knowing, all this time, how much she had been manipulating their people since she had first been taken in by them; too little, and the woman’s strength of feeling to her son would block any suggestion set.

  Steady footsteps sounded behind her, and she turned. Phelps ducked his head as he entered through the bower and stood, parade-ready.

  “The Roamer planet?” she asked. “You are prepared?” It had not been easy to discover the planet’s location from the stolen Roamer children. Their bond with their people – even in those loyal to herself – had proven quite a barrier. To further ascertain the planet’s defences – beyond the vaguest descriptions of a gas-storm – had proved impossible.

  “Of course.” Still arrogant, no matter how she’d reduced him since her release. Still the flare of his nose, the unflinching gaze of his eyes. It was a pity he had betrayed her – once, he had been the only person not to quail from her. Now, he was a shell of what he had been. Ruthless and efficient, yes, but needy, too.

  “Flush Kare out, nothing more,” she said. Even his name insulted her tongue, the hard syllables so far from the name she would have chosen for her son. “Force him to make his move.”

  She smiled, relishing the planning. When she’d first built her empire, each move had been planned, a step towards the future, each step another brick for her to command. She had missed that game. She rolled her shoulders, savouring the warmth of the air and the faint promise of day’s end. She gave Phelps a quick nod, dismissing him. “Inform me when it is done.”

  He bowed. Even without her touch, he would obey. He turned, like the broken-in cur he was, and left the garden, leaving her to stare at the dark depths and glittering coins as she planned the next step in the dance towards victory.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Baelan hunched his legs up to his chest. It wasn’t that the beach was cold so much as that everything was damp. When he burrowed his toes into the sand, it lifted in slabs, breaking and furrowing, and that was wrong – sand should be silky and hot, not clumpy and wet.

  “Baelan!” Kerra teetered on a rock. Beyond her, Syllte’s vast ocean stretched, lined by cliffs and coves like the one they were in.

  “What?” he said.

  “Come and see. There’s a crab.”

  Big wow. On Belaudii there were lizards the length of his leg, and clutterback spiders that could bring down the lizards in one go.

  “Baelan! Quick!”

  He got up, brushing clods of sand off his legs. Kerra was all right – well, better than the rest of his father’s entourage; he’d better see what she wanted. He crossed the rocks, damp and slimed with green algae, his arms out for balance, and made it to the rock pool. He leaned over, peering through the clear water. “I don’t see a crab.”

  “That’s because you took so long.” She got into the water, ankle-deep, and prodded at a rock with a piece of driftwood. “It’s under there.”

  “Here, let me try.” He grasped the rock, and it came away with a sucking noise. The water clouded and whirled as it filled the empty space.

  Something scuttled, making Kerra yelp and jump out of the pool. No wonder: the crab had serious pincers, big enough to take off a toe.

  “By my Lady!” Baelan dropped the rock.

  “You call her your Lady?” Kerra’s look was sharp, shocked.

  His face went hot. He’d called the Empress by the tribes’ honorific since he’d been old enough to talk; it wasn’t something he could switch off, even if a few weeks in her company had been enough to stop him worshipping her forever.

  “I…” There was no easy way to explain, not without knowledge of the tribes and their focus on the Empress. “It’s a habit.” He pointed into the pool, glad of something to take the attention from him. “I didn’t know crabs could be so large. It’s nearly as big as a clutterback—”

  “No, the spiders are bigger.” Kerra crouched down. “He’s hidden again. He’s really good.”

  “You know about the clutterbacks?” Baelan splashed the water with his fingers, keeping his face down and hidden. He’d been looking forward to going back to Belaudii and showing Kerra the real desert. It surprised him how easy it had been to get to know her and even like her. Perhaps it was because she had powers and knew, at least a little, what it was like. Or maybe it was that she was an outsider, too. Not to her family, but to those who knew what she was destined to become – an Empress, not someone normal. Her life had been shaped by her destiny, just as much as his had. But it felt deeper than that – even when he’d first met her in the palace, he’d understood her fear and need to be safe. So often he picked up how she felt about things without trying. Even with his mother, there had been a distance between them. He could sense her presence, she was so much a part of him, and pick up her feelings, but not like he did with Kerra – as if they were, in some odd way, an extension of his own.

  “Yeah. Dad said I had to learn what might hurt me. He got me a tutor – an outcast from the tribes.” Her eyes still carried the sharpness from earlier. “Your necklace, do you have to wear it all the time? What about in the bath?”

  “It’s not a necklace. It’s my ankhar.” He put his hand on its pendant. He should have worn a different top, one that came up higher and hid it. He dropped the pendant, letting it swing free, astonished at the thought. A tribesman’s duty was to wear his ankhar openly. Not to do so would be a betrayal of his mother, who’d chosen the green pendant to match his eyes. A wrench of loss made his stomach twist. His mother, whom he hadn’t seen for weeks.

  He glanced at his half-sister, half jealous. Outsider or not, she had everything to his nothing: she was the Roamer princess, next in line to inherit the mesh and their father’s title, no matter how much she claimed she didn’t want to be an Empress.

  Baelan couldn’t understand that. He’d love to inherit. No one to answer to, no one to obey, just him in Abendau Palace with the tribes forced to follow him. After years of being hidden away, of making excuses for who his father was, it would be fantastic. He’d bring his mother to live with him and help run things.

  “Sorry,” said Kerra, bringing his attention back to the beach. “I shouldn’t have asked. I know the ankhar is special to the tribes.”

  “It’s okay. I can’t take it off. I got it the day I stopped being a child, at my naming ceremony.”

  “What happens then?” Kerra seemed fascinated by the tribes, and it made him feel important, to know things that no one else did.

  “I drank nightfire and made an oath, and was given my quest to complete.” It was nice to talk about his other life; it reminded him it was real. “If I don’t complete my oath, or go against the tribe in any way, I’ll be cast out and they’ll take my ankhar. I bet your tutor failed in his oath.”

  “He wouldn’t tell me. I tried to probe his thoughts – don’t tell Dad, he’d go mad – but they were buried too deep. It was kind of creepy.” S
he narrowed her eyes. “But you’re not part of the tribe anymore? I mean, they gave you to the Empress.”

  “They didn’t give me to her. My quest was about her, so I went to….” He stopped himself – he daren’t tell her what he’d promised at his ceremony. He poked around the pool, trying to divert attention. “Anything else in there?”

  “What was your oath?”

  Damn, she was good at reading him: better than anyone he’d met.

  “I can’t say.” He kept his head down, but the Empress’ last words came flooding back, the way they’d been doing when he let his guard down. To kill his father. He gulped, trying to push the thought away, but bile rushed up, driven by her hatred. He took a deep breath, and managed to get some sort of control back. “There’s a big rule that I can’t tell anyone outside of the tribe.”

  “But I’m your sister, not just anyone.”

  “Yeah, I know. Even so…” The crab ran and he pointed. “Wow! There he is again.” He shivered as a cold wind sprang up, whipping the rock pool into small waves. “Shall we go? My ship will be leaving soon.”

  “Sure.” They clambered over the rocks and walked along the sandy beach away from the water’s edge. A cliff rose ahead of them, its face slashed by the long, wide crevice that served as access to the port. Baelan squinted; the crevice might look huge from here, but when you were in one of the ships, streaking across the water, it seemed very, very small.

  “Why are we going to Ferran?” he asked. “There haven’t been any more attacks.”

  She bit her lip as if deciding on something, and he found his fists clenching. So much for them being brother and sister and trusting each other. She must have come to the same conclusion, because she gave a small shrug and a smile.

  “Dad plans to step down. As Emperor.”

  Baelan blinked, trying to take that in. His father hadn’t spoken to him about any of this, and he should have been told. He was his son, he had a place. He should at least have been asked his opinion.

  “Really?” He kept his voice neutral. “Why Ferran?” And what did that mean for the Empress? Would it mean she could seize the title? Surely their father wouldn’t be so stupid.

  “He plans to centre a new republic there. It straddles the middle zone and outer zone, and its hub is the central meeting-point for intra-systems trade routes.” She was obviously well versed. “Dad says that the Ferrans must be given their place. Mum’s going to be in the governing body, she thinks. Dad says she’ll be better at it than him.”

  Baelan zoned out. Dad says. It should be Kerra’s nickname. Their father hadn’t done anything for Baelan. He hadn’t even found his mother. He claimed it was because the Empress had her in the palace, but he had agents, and networks, and he could have looked for her.

  Remember your oath as a man.

  Baelan gasped; it was as if the Empress was standing beside him. Kerra carried on talking, about what they’d do when they got to Ferran and what her dad had told her about the planet. He tried to focus on what she was saying and not the voice circling inside him.

  He stepped through an arched entrance and started to climb the rough-hewn steps that led to the port. Their father wasn’t the great hero Kerra made him out to be, but an oppressor who’d kept the tribes impoverished in the desert and launched his fighters against their settlements.

  Power leaked from him, and he fought to hold it back, but it was too strong. He had to let it out, the way the Empress had been teaching him. He looked over his shoulder, towards the beach, and focused on the rock-pools until one started to hiss and fizz.

  “Are you doing that?” asked Kerra.

  He took a breath and found himself calmer, the power contained where it should be. “Yeah.” He grinned to make it look like he’d been doing it for a joke. “Cooked crab?”

  She looked horrified. “You didn’t really.”

  He shrugged. There was no need to upset her. “No. It was a different rock pool.” Although it was impossible to tell from where he was standing.

  “Good.” She glanced at the beach, almost wistfully. “I wish I had your sort of power.”

  “But you can heal. Everyone wants to be a healer.” And to control the mesh: so far it had resisted every attempt he’d made to merge with it.

  “Bor–ing.” They’d entered the main port full of Roamer ships, their paint glistening in the lights. She leaned in a little. “Do you know what I’d love?”

  “What?”

  “To fly.” There was a light in her eyes he’d never seen before. “You know our grandfather was Ealyn Varnon?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He was the best Controller ever. How cool is that?”

  He paused, not wanting to hurt her feelings, but when your grandmother was an Empress and your father the strongest psycher ever known, being a good pilot wasn’t really up there. Her face, though, was eager, her eyes shining. It seemed, for Kerra, it was. She was the same about the mesh, going on and on about how amazing it was. He’d been in it once, and intended never to go back. All those minds, touching him and trying to know him. The thought of that, let alone the tangled circle of power that interfered with his own and fought against it, was enough to set something creeping along his skin.

  “Baelan?” Kerra’s voice was sharp. “Isn’t that cool?”

  “Yeah. Really cool.”

  A hush fell over the cavern. Baelan craned his neck and saw his father entering from the main cavern. Kare nodded to a couple of the Roamers, and wove his way through the ships and maintenance teams, seemingly oblivious to the awe that followed his movements. Baelan wasn’t fooled. His father knew exactly how people were around him. He loved being the centre of attention, no matter how much he protested otherwise.

  He reached Farran, hands spread, apologetic. Another delay before take-off, presumably. As if sensing Baelan’s attention, he looked up and their eyes met. Baelan blocked his thoughts, hiding the compulsion that pressed on him, but it was louder than ever: remember your oath as a man.

  He turned away from his father, and boarded the ship. Better to wait, alone, than allow his anger to build. He hurried down the narrow access-way, his steps echoing on the metal flooring, beating time with his circling thoughts, and into the cabin that had been allocated to him. Small, but functional, with a basic rest-facility provided. He pulled the door shut after him and leaned on it. He couldn’t hide forever, he knew that.

  He heard footsteps along the corridor, slow and measured, followed by the bang of another cabin’s door, and anger surged in him again.

  Forever seemed like a good option, all of a sudden.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The flight underway, Kare leaned over the holo-projector the Roamers had supplied for his cabin and brought up the holo-map of Belaudii. The data was two days old, but it was in real time, and a credit to Lichio’s spy network. He twisted his hand, making the holo rotate, and took in the detail of the planet’s defences: too strong with too many fighters and too many soldiers, just as the intel reports had conveyed.

  He zoomed in on Abendau’s port and palace complex. The gardens were a startling green against the desert, their lushness obscene on such a dry planet. Without her empire, his mother must have a dent in her income – she might find it harder to afford ice for her moat. He half-smiled; Abendau would be a little less polished when he ousted her.

  Ships lifted off at intervals on the display. Soldiers gathered at strongpoints along the parapets, taking a commanding view of the city and palace. He chewed his lip, mentally going over the defences, layer by layer. No easy options there, either – although, considering the number of troops, his mother wouldn’t have replaced all his garrison yet. The officers, yes, but not the soldiers. That might be to his advantage.

  He leaned against the wall, staring at the holo as if inspiration might strike. There had to be some chink in his mother’s defences that didn’t rely on him being lucky with the garrison personnel. Something the intel team hadn’t thought of. Damn, h
e was supposed to be strategic and see things others missed. Today, no inspiration came knocking.

  He needed a way into the palace. Once in, Baelan was adamant the Empress wouldn’t pick up the Roamer powers. Kare glanced at the cabin door, thinking of his son, so self-contained it was difficult to get below the surface. And not untalented at keeping his thoughts to himself. Combined with the boy’s reluctance to enter the mesh – the means Kare had put in place to hold him close and know his planning – it was impossible to know what was going on in his head. Yet, the assault on the palace could end up hinging on Baelan’s presumptions: he had to know the boy was sure.

  He went down the corridor to Baelan’s cabin and tapped on the door. There was no answer, so he tapped again, a little harder. “Baelan?”

  “What?” The voice was surly.

  Charming, as ever. Kare pushed the door open. “Do you mind if I ask something?”

  “I’m tired.” The boy lay on the narrow bunk, curled up and facing the wall.

  Kare took a deep breath. It was no wonder Sonly had chosen to travel with Kerra instead of Baelan; no one wanted to spend time voluntarily with him. The argument about splitting the dynasty was a good one, and long-standing, but he’d never seen anyone select their personnel so quickly. He stepped into the room. “It will only take a minute.”

  The boy sat up, his face closed and unfriendly, the damnable barrier he carried all the time in place and impenetrable. “Go on, then. You will anyway.”

  “Thank you.” Kare fought to keep his voice steady. “I wanted to ask about the way you sense psychers. What’s different about me?”

  “I’ve told you. The powers don’t move with you because you take them from somewhere else. Until you pull on them, they aren’t there to be sensed.” Baelan lay down, arms crossed behind his head, eyes on the ceiling, clearly dismissing Kare. “Now can you go away?”