I isolated the cabin even from the rest of the estate and told the other servants I’d sent her away. If they didn’t believe me, they didn’t show it.
The estate is the same as it has been for as long as I can remember. I’m the one who is different.
iv17
I inherited the duchy when I was eighteen. My mother called me into her sitting room, the day after my birthday. My father had died only weeks before, and the loss was still unfathomable and raw. That day, my mother sat across from me, reclining on a divan like Cleopatra herself, a priceless goblet of wine in one hand. She sipped from it, gracefully and artfully, as she spoke.
“I wish I could put this off, my love,” she said, “so it would not ruin your celebrations, but I have delayed as long as I have been permitted.”
I presented the impassive, noble expression and posture she required, though I was hung over and unsettled by the atmosphere in the room.
She sighed, setting down her goblet, but her eyes followed it, flinching almost imperceptibly when it clinked against the glass of the side table. She picked it up again, sipping from it with a nervousness I’d never seen in her. “Your father did not kill himself.”
I sucked in a startled breath. The emperor had already ruled on the cause of death. Poison. Self-administered.
She swirled the wine in the glass, watching it intently. “He was murdered,” she said. Her head came up and she met my eye. “By me.”
I had been raised to be the example of noble mien and composure, but I might as well have been a spawn of the slums for all I was capable of concealing at that moment. “What do you mean?”
She sighed, giving me a sad smile. “It was necessary, Enryn, for your future. Your father had become too liberal. He was threatening your inheritance, the established order of things, and your place in that order. I couldn’t permit it to go on.”
I sat in a daze. I’d thought my parents were happy with each other, or at least content. Theirs had been a political marriage, but that was hardly unusual. Twenty-five years they had been together, and it had seemed peaceful and without much strife.
“I believed I had done it well enough,” she said, “and that I had gotten away with it. But the emperor knew better, and he has offered me an option. A quiet, dignified death at my own hand, in order to avoid the scandal and public execution that would result from exposing my crime.”
“Mother—”
She held up a hand and I stopped. “You and I both know that there is no choice in the matter at all. Scandal and exposure must be avoided at all costs. For the family name, and for you, my son.”
I stood, unable to remain still, and yet I didn’t go to her, because that wasn’t how it was done in our family. I didn’t move, trembling with emotions of every kind, rigid with anger and fear and loss. “You don’t have to do this,” I said. “We will find some way to hide you, fake your death. Don’t do this, Mother.”
She nodded toward my chair and I sat down, obedient as ever to the one person in the universe I deferred to completely. She swirled the wine in her glass once more before finishing it off, draining the dregs, and setting it down on the table with a trembling hand.
“I already have.”
***
I was home again and I had no idea what to do with myself. My body was weak; Earth gravity felt like the weight of a mountain on me with every step. I was tired all the time.
But there were other sensations, things that I never realized I missed until I had them back. The brush of the breeze in my hair, the warmth of the sun on my hands and face, the clear and complex smells of life, not just a human stench covered by the sting of sanitizers. The world, in all its colors and sounds; the beauty I had once struggled to capture on paint and canvas, laid out before me like a banquet.
These things I noticed, but as if they were happening to someone else. I could detect, even understand the perfume of flowers, but it was as if I existed here as only an actor playing a part from within the cocoon that surrounded me.
I spent what energy I had wandering the estate, and when I grew too tired, I simply sat outside. When I had to be indoors, all the windows and doors were open. Many times, I drowsed off in the peace and comfort of it, only to find myself back on Dead End. Each time, I woke in panic and cold sweat, wondering if that was the reality and this was the dream.
In spite of Lady Chou’s dramatic exit, the servants warmed to me again rather quickly. I had no doubt it was because I told them to come to me at any time if they had a story of Owen to tell. It didn’t surprise me that most had an anecdote or two. What servant didn’t have many and varied observations of his master?
What I didn’t expect was that so many involved some conversation or interaction with my son. When I was a boy, my mother had always discouraged any familiarity with the servants, but apparently my son was being taught differently. While I wanted to hate that, it yielded little treasures of him, glimpses, insights into the person my son was becoming. Stories of him at play, laughing and smiling, full of delight and moments of childish unconcern about the world around him. He had a gentle temperament, like his mother.
They also told me that he came to the estate twice a year with Dawes and the young princess. The emperor came as well, though he usually didn’t stay as long as they did. It was the same amount of time they spent each year in Dawes’ own duchy. It was little less than I would have brought him here, if things hadn’t fallen out the way they did. That Dawes would take care to see that my son knew his home estate was unexpected and baffling.
I was grateful for the time I had to wait before being dumped back into the most dangerous game in the empire. In that wretched prison, I had never let down my guard, lived every day using the words, looks, and expressions necessary to keep myself safe. But on Dead End, the worst they could do was hurt or kill me. The stakes at the palace were much, much bigger.
And there was no denying I was no longer the man who had lived that life, been that person of power, sure in his place and his purpose, so earnestly idealistic. That man had believed himself invincible. How naive he had been.
I was afraid of the man I had been, and the man I had become. I was almost more afraid of the devious and insular world of imperial politics than I was of Dead End. There is more than one way to destroy a man.
I need your help.
Are you all right?
Sure. Except I think Molly’s going to drive me crazy.
Oh. I’ll be right there.
iv18
We ate dinner on the veranda, in the cool breeze and with the remnants of sunset. The view of the ocean was blocked from this vantage point and I was glad. The associations were too strong, and I felt so fragile that even such a little thing could break me. We were a subdued group; even Molly’s easy chatter was missing for long intervals, and from time to time she examined all the other faces at the table, frowning.
Jonathan’s was one of them. He’d tried to fall back into the servant’s position and I barely had to growl one complaint before he gave in and sat with us. For a disorienting moment, it felt like a skewed and distorted version of the family I’d had only yesterday, with Pete sitting where Jonathan was now. My stomach roiled but when I looked up, Jonathan was watching Molly, almost entranced, and the feeling passed.
In the middle of one of the long silences, Molly threw down her fork with a clatter.
“Where’s Papa?” she demanded angrily. Jonathan and I looked at each other in shock. Owen had gone pale. I reached for Molly’s hand. “We talked about this, sweetheart, yesterday. Don’t you remember?”
She frowned. “But I’m tired of this game. I don’t want to play it anymore.”
My stomach dropped. “Mol, baby, this isn’t a game. Why do you think it is?”
She glared at me. “Because we’ve played it before. It’s the Being Safe game. It’s usual
ly just me and Owen, or just me, but this is how it goes, except we never got in the little ship before. I’m tired of the game now. I want to go home and see Papa.”
I closed my eyes against the pain.
“Oh sweetheart.” I pulled her into my lap. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know. But this isn’t a game, it’s real. We can’t go home. And Papa’s not waiting for us there.”
“Why?” Her voice was still sharp, a demand, but her hard determination sounded brittle.
“Because someone killed Papa. We’re not going to see him again. It’s just us now.”
“No!” she yelled into my face. “Papa said that if he was gone I’d be empress. So he can’t be gone.” Her hands fisted in my shirt. “He’s not gone. Don’t say that!”
Owen touched her hand. “Molly.”
She shook him off, refusing to look at him. I think she knew as well as I did that she’d believe Owen if he told her it was true.
“Molly—”
She scrambled off my lap and ran into the house as fast as she could go.
***
It took a long time trying to reason with a hysterical four year old before Molly finally cried herself to sleep, furious, her back to me, but holding my hand so tight in her sweaty fist that it hurt. Pete was better with her. She was too much like me.
But Pete was gone. I watched Molly’s sleeping form with a knot of dread tightening in my belly. She needed him, not me. He could handle us, that was how it worked. He knew how to temper the ragged edges. What would we do now?
I sat with her longer than I realized. When I finally went to look for Owen he was asleep in his bed. I wasn’t sure how I felt about the way he trusted Jonathan enough to have fallen asleep without needing me. Owen was incredibly perceptive. I sometimes trusted his opinions more than my own. With a sigh, I sought my own bed.
Two hours after I’d gone to bed, as I lay there wide-awake, Jonathan entered the room. He didn’t knock, or ask, because that was how it went with servants, and I’d lived that life for years. I wondered why it felt strange now. I sat up as he crept quietly into the bedroom.
“Don’t you knock?”
“Never.”
For some reason that made me smile. The motion felt odd on my face.
“Did you always creep into my room at night?”
“No. There were nighttime servants for that. I did make sure they came for me if you truly weren’t sleeping well.” I thought about it, how there had always been a servant nearby if I asked, but how it had only ever been Jonathan who would try to bully me into using sleep meds or just annoy me enough that I stopped brooding in bed and started walking around the palace. And it was always him quietly following when I did.
“Did you ever consider me a friend?” I asked.
He settled into a chair, something he never would have done before.
“No. Not because I didn’t want to be, but because I knew that I was being everything but a friend to you behind your back.”
I sighed. “I was never very good at friendship anyway. I’m a dangerous friend to have. Who’s left? Chuck. Dr. Okoro. Aliana.” I shook my head. “Are they safe now?”
“Yes.”
I scowled at him. “That was too quick. You don’t even know, do you?”
He gave me a small shake of his head as his mouth cocked in a faint smile. “Of course I do. They’re all in very secure positions, and I’ve checked on them. They’re fine.”
“You always have everything taken care of and under control, don’t you? Do you ever not know what you’re doing?”
There was no trace of a smile on his face anymore. He stared at his hands in his lap. “All the time, Your Highness. All the time.”
“Jake,” I corrected quietly.
He didn’t look up, and he didn’t reply.
***
I stood on the surface of the asteroid that was home to Dead End. I was alone, in silence under the pitiless, hungry expanse of space. A noise crackled on my com, which should have been dead because once again I was on solitary for something I hadn’t even done. Solitary that was slowly driving me to madness and the siren song of death.
“Jake!”
The com noise was faint but the panic in the voice was all too clear. Pete’s voice. I spun, too fast, because gravity was more idea than reality here. And I saw Pete, drifting, drifting. Too far away, too high off the ground. The void had already claimed him. There was no getting him back. I could only join him. And I was going to join him. There was no question about that.
“Daddy?”
Molly’s sweet voice was like a stab of ice through my heart. I looked down and saw her. She held her arms up to me. “Daddy?”
I cast a look of longing and despair at Pete, already so far away. “I’m sorry,” I choked. He reached toward me in desperation, his eyes wide with panic. I couldn’t bear it. I bent to pick up Molly, tears fogging my vision and clogging my throat. I lost my grip, shoving at her instead, sending her spinning off in the opposite direction. She screamed.
I bolted upright in a tangle of panic-soaked sheets, my throat raw from screaming. I scrambled from the bed, stumbling blindly toward the closet. It had been the only refuge from the dreams when I was at the IIC. When I didn’t have Pete.
The closet was too big, of course. Even away from the palace, everything in this life had always been too big, too much. I wanted to weep in despair. But then I saw a door, set within the closet, just beside the shoes. I opened it.
It was a small closet, big enough for me to lie in if not stretch out. There were clothes hanging in it, things that might have been for Owen, or me, or Pete. Little dresses Molly was too big for now. A tattered sheet. And on the floor was a pillow and folded blanket. I curled up on the floor, closing the door behind me, reaching out to touch the illusory cover and protection of the things hanging above me. I pulled the blanket over my head and gave in to tears for all I had lost, and everything I hadn’t.
I crave their stories of my son as I crave air and sunshine. And yet they hurt, sometimes more than any beating I ever endured. So many years lost. He doesn’t know me at all.
iv19
I wasn’t sure what to expect, and Laudley sent me no message. But on the fourth morning after my return, a standard transport for official palace business arrived. A man stepped casually out of the transport. His posture was open and easy, sure. He was young, no more than his late twenties, and walked with a confidence only a man raised with power could affect. Though he was vaguely familiar, I couldn’t place him.
“Your Grace,” he said, his voice oddly lyrical.
No, I’d never met him before, but I’d seen him on the broadcasts. This was the new Head Minister, Lord Naganika. He gave me a friendly smile and a slight bow, the formal greeting between equals, but he held it a little longer than I did, dropping his eyes before straightening. I wondered what it meant.
No matter what his rank otherwise, as Head Minister he did not have to show deference to a duke. That he did so now, even with so minor a gesture, carried a great deal of meaning. But what that meaning was, I didn’t know. When he straightened, he gestured toward the door of the house.
“Shall we have a chat, Duke Blaine? I have quite a lot to tell you, and I’m sure you have many questions for me.”
“This way.”
I led him into my study with its expansive view of the lake and the stream cascading into it in a delicate waterfall. When the door was shut, he sank into a chair in front of my desk and nodded toward the corner of it.
“I understand you have something there that we might want to use right now.”
Embedded in that side of the desk was a spy filter, and activating it would make our conversation as private as it was possible to be. If the empire had methods capable of penetrating the web of defenses that device activated, I didn’t know about
them. This office was one of the few places my father-in-law had ever been willing to have detailed conversations. And if he’d sent Lord Naganika here for a chat, the anti-eavesdropping and recording measures must still be up to date and reliable. I triggered the device. Lord Naganika sat back with a smile.
“Have you enjoyed your holiday here? I’m sorry it must be so short.”
I settled into my chair with nonchalance I had been practicing for days. “I have. What news from the palace?”
His smile quirked a bit, as if I’d passed a test. “The news is, at present, that Grand Duke Laudley has taken control of the council. With all appearance of benevolence and concern for the former Imperial Family, of course, and they believe him. Or, if they don’t, they’re afraid to cross him.” He shrugged. “Either way works for now.”
“Indeed. And what does he tell them?”
“What they need to hear. He’s securing the palace against whoever was behind the assassination, he’s searching for the children, he’s determined to see justice done for Rikhart IV, and he will personally ensure a safe and peaceful transition to the rightful heir.”
“So he’s ruling the empire until such time as the rightful heir is produced?”
“Correct.” He grinned wryly. “Though that’s not exactly how we’ve been phrasing it.”
I made a dignified sound of dismissal. “And to what ‘rightful heir’ is he referring?”
Lord Naganika sat forward, elbows on knees, eager. For a moment I thought less of him for giving himself away so easily. But then I wondered if he’d done it on purpose, and I decided not to let my guard down. “Well that’s the question, isn’t it? He’s certainly implying that it’s Princess Marquilla.”
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