Impact Velocity (The Physics of Falling)

by Leah Petersen

  “Though I doubted the wisdom of it, and I never changed that opinion, it was a gift to see my emperor, such a serious and responsible boy, grow to love someone deeply, and have that love returned by someone who did not love the emperor, but the man.” He was almost shaking with emotion. “And if any of you still begrudges your emperor the joy and love he found in his husband, then you are a fool, and you should know it.”

  He all but fell into his seat, scowling at his hands which he crossed in front of him in a white-knuckled grip.

  I don’t think I even heard what Duchess Bosi or Duke Tepper said after that. I was still recovering from the shock of Lord Sifer’s speech when my turn came. Whatever self-aggrandizing speech I had planned left me. I stood and found I had nothing to say. The silence stretched.

  “I remember a good emperor,” I said. “I can think of no better way to honor him than to say my heart is too full of grief to remember more than that his reign was too short, and that he should be with us now and is not.”

  The assembled were very still in the wake of my speech. I sank back into my chair, weak with relief.

  ***

  Queen Aliana waited long minutes before she stood. “As Lord Sifer has done, I shall refer to my emperor as ‘Peter,’ for so he asked me to call him on the day I first met him.”

  She drew in a deep breath. “Peter’s family and mine had long been at odds, though we were so closely related. Because of this, I did not know him as a child, and spent little time in his presence until he became emperor and I came to the palace as his heir. However, there was a time when we were still young, that he came to Torrea and I was there to meet him with my father.”

  She looked over the crowd. “I expected him to be cold and distant, as his father was, and mine was to him. It was not so. There before everyone he embraced me and kissed my cheek and said, ‘I have so longed to meet you.’ I did not know what to say, because I had not prepared myself for such a greeting. He did not seem to think less of me for it. He smiled and the formalities continued. But after dinner that night he came to find me. ‘We are cousins,’ he said. ‘Yes, Your Highness,’ I replied. He shook his head and took my hand. ‘Call me Peter,’ he said, and it was not a command from the imperial heir, it was the request of a friend.”

  She glared at the rest of the head table.

  “In this time of great turmoil, my uncle, the Grand Duke Laudley, stepped up and took charge to ensure an orderly transition to the new ruler you will now suffer. He did this with no concern for his own losses, or the lies he had to tell to maneuver into a weak position those of us who could have opposed him. Nor did he shrink from making enemies of those who consider it a mockery that he would do all of this so blatantly, knowing that many of us are confident he was behind the assassination.”

  The room was as quiet as a tomb.

  “So tonight we mourn the greatest emperor the Empire has ever known, and a great man.” She bowed her head briefly before looking up again, facing the crowd defiantly. “Tomorrow he will be succeeded, if it can be called that. He most certainly will not be replaced.” She met my eye. “He was the best man I have ever known. He was a better person than me.” Her expression hardened. She held Laudley’s gaze before turning back to the crowd. “He was better than every one of you.”

  No one breathed as she faced the assembled, powerful in her position and her anger. She sat. No one moved. “We will eat now,” she said, and I heard several people draw breath again. I watched Laudley. His cold, blank expression was exactly as I’d feared, and I wondered if Aliana was ready for the war she’d just started.

  ***

  Everything that followed the breakfast, the opulence, formality, and ceremony seemed anti-climactic. Part of me was angry that Lord Sifer and Queen Aliana had not only upstaged us, but belittled and shamed us. Anything I said or did now would only look crass and arrogant. I was also grateful to her that she’d taken a stand, and that she gave my silence and reticence an appearance of respect.

  I took a place behind Queen Aliana in everything, though I stood ahead of everyone else, even the monarchs of the other imperial worlds. I was given no title beyond ‘Duke,’ but the hierarchy was clear, and I wore the heir’s crown.

  At the last, in the great chapel, the ranking member of each of the twelve oldest noble houses in the empire and their immediate family came forward in turn to pay their final respects to the emperor. Only in this did I take precedence over the queen. They came in their groups of five or six, one family of four, and finally Queen Aliana with only her husband, though it was rumored she was pregnant and that perhaps her heir paid respects as well.

  In this I was the last, and I approached the bier alone. Every step of the way I felt the weight of the people who were not there. My father and mother, both gone too soon, my wife, long dead. My son, Owen, whom I hadn’t seen since he was very small, who was still out of my reach.

  Rikhart looked younger than I remembered, as if he had laid down his burdens, placed them on my shoulders instead and now he slept, free of his cares. I had intended to say something impressive. Something that would be picked up on the recordings and played back years later. This is what Emperor Regent Enryn the First said over the body of his predecessor, the last Killearn emperor. But all my carefully planned words felt dishonest and disgraceful now. I merely bowed in respect and returned to my seat.

  He was paraded out of the chapel and a select group accompanied him to the imperial tomb. There he would be laid beside his father, preserved in stasis for one hundred years. Some future generation, who had never known him, would hold a smaller ceremony. They would turn off the stasis field and lay him on a pyre and there, under the open sky, they would cremate his remains. He would return to the earth, dust and ashes. Like everyone else.

  Coronations follow funerals. It is the way of things. It felt disrespectful, though, and presumptuous, as if we discarded an emperor so easily. I spent that day fighting the ice that gripped my chest at the thought that this would someday be my fate.

  iv28

  The coronation was held the next day. It was to be a smaller affair, a scaled-down version of a typical coronation. Banquets would be laid out from sunrise to sunset, but there were no formal gatherings until the coronation itself, held in the evening, followed by a feast.

  I woke very early that morning, too edgy and anxious to sleep. Today I would be crowned ruler of the empire. I wasn’t even sure how I felt about that. Such a strange thing to be here again, where I belonged, yet question and doubt everything I’d ever known.

  But there was nothing now that would keep me from the throne of the empire itself. And with the power of the entire empire at my disposal, no one was going to keep me from Owen. I would rule, and he would inherit the throne after me. It felt right, in spite of a nagging sense of guilt and uncertainty I wouldn’t allow myself to think about.

  I was glad I’d insisted on a subdued ceremony. It was good strategy, and there was time enough for all of that when the throne was secure. All the day lacked was Hera, and Owen. The thoughts of Hera were heavy and dragging, all the worse for having been locked away for so long. I’d refused to let Dead End sully my memories of my wife, and it had been years since I’d allowed myself to think of her and acknowledge my grief. At least Owen I could hope to see again.

  Sabria had laid out for me a truly regal set of clothes, complete with some of the smaller pieces of the imperial jewelry. It was a bold and decisive gesture I was glad to make, claiming imperial treasures as if it were my right.

  She helped me into my things, her face expressionless.

  “Are you not happy about the family’s good fortune?” I asked her, frustrated that she would feed my mood when I needed confidence I didn’t feel.

  She regarded me seriously. “Owen should be here.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Dawes and the princess as well?”

 
; Her expression hardened. “Is that what you think of me?”

  “I don’t know what to think of you. You say nothing at all.”

  “It is how you prefer your servants, Your Grace. Silent and obedient.”

  I went still, pondering. Why had I forgotten that? Why did I want anything different now?

  “I have been a long time alone,” I replied, though alone wasn’t exactly what I’d been.

  She pressed her lips together. “Then would you have me act differently? I shall serve as you please.”

  The reaction was not deliberate but I felt the fierceness of the expression grip my face. Her eyes widened and I saw the moment she realized the way her words could be taken.

  I could have done it. I wanted to. She was a lovely woman, and she could hardly say no.

  Sabria went still and waited, passive, expressionless. I turned away. Shame at having even considered it burned my face. I slipped the last two rings onto my fingers and left the room without another word.

  I let myself be seen all through the morning and afternoon, though I spoke to very few and never for long. A quietness had stolen over me, insecurity wrapped in solemn purpose, and a restlessness after the encounter with Sabria. I was too long out of practice. The delicate dance of politics taxed and tired me.

  By mid-afternoon, I returned to my room, making the excuse that I wanted time to contemplate the responsibilities I was to take on in mere hours. There was truth in that, though I spent the hours until the coronation staring out over the ocean, thinking mostly of forgetting. Before I returned to the celebration, I called up a picture of Hera and Owen as I had last seen them. I reached for them but my fingers passed through the image. I turned it off and left.

  ***

  For all its importance, a coronation ceremony is rather brief. It made sense in the traditional way of things. It had always been merely a final capping of a child’s lifelong training for the role. They would hardly need the seriousness of their responsibilities impressed on them.

  I couldn’t help feeling it should be different for me. Not from any desire for display, but because I was so unprepared for this. Duke I may have been, and raised to power and influence and a duchy of my own to rule, but that was hardly an empire. And that man was years dead, replaced by some hybrid who had been born on Dead End and returned to the palace for finishing. I felt as though there should be something more, something to wash away the stain of those years, to restore an honor and dignity that felt thin and shaky.

  The invited guests filled their places in the great chapel. Sabria attached a long, jewel-studded cape to my shoulders, so that it trailed behind me like a train. I had worn the heir’s crown throughout the day but now I removed it, handing it to her before the great doors opened and I made my slow procession down the aisle.

  I wanted to look out at the faces, to meet their eyes, to dare them to challenge my right to this, to prove that I needed no one’s approval or permission, only obedience. Yet my gaze remained locked ahead, and I saw only the great platform and Queen Aliana standing atop it, waiting for me.

  I had been part of the negotiations that had placed her there. The imperial ruler was always crowned by his or her surviving parent, or else another senior member of the family. It was a symbol of the emperor’s right to rule by virtue of birth rather than by anyone’s grant.

  Laudley was perhaps the proper person for the role, but even Laudley knew it wasn’t a good idea for him to so obviously place the rulership on my shoulders. I stiffened at the thought and the reminder that it had genuinely been his to give me, since he was the one who had removed—assassinated—the emperor to make way for his own blood. I caught a glimpse of him in the front row and as if reading his thoughts, I could tell that this was not the triumph he had been hoping for. He’d intended Owen to be on the throne. With himself behind him.

  My stomach turned to ice. What benefit was it to Laudley to have me take the throne? That I would pass it on to Owen was no doubt his ultimate goal, but he hadn’t murdered an emperor merely to step back and cede all power to someone else. He must at least intend to control me as well, no matter what our relative ranks would be after this day.

  It was with these thoughts in my head that I ascended the steps of the dais and came to stand beside Queen Aliana. To our right, out of the spotlight but conspicuous enough to draw attention when it was his duty, Lord Naganika stepped forward.

  “All in attendance pay heed and serve witness that on this day, Enryn Gambol Avin Ellis Blaine, the first of his name, does take the duties and privileges of Regent of the Empire, invested with all imperial authority until such time as the rightful heir is old enough to reign.”

  I faced Queen Aliana. “I do take now the crown, and with it, all duties and privileges of emperor of all the citizens and worlds of the Empire.”

  She held the crown in her hands, her eyes hard on me as she began to lift it. Halfway between us she stopped.

  “You will answer me this first,” she demanded in a harsh whisper, low enough that no one else could hear. “Did you have a hand in killing him?”

  “No.”

  She didn’t move. “Why should I believe that?”

  I held her gaze without flinching. “Because Hera was beside me until the end.”

  Her expression began to relent but then it firmed. “Promise me you will yield this crown to Princess Marquilla or I will not set it on your head, no matter what it costs me.”

  “Owen is my heir,” I said evenly.

  “And Molly was his!”

  I could hear the faint rustlings and murmurs of the crowd as they watched us gripped in our tableau. I did not look away from her. “I can make you no promises, Aliana.”

  She sniffed. “Because you are just a pawn. You know this.”

  “No.” I took her wrists in my hands. “I will be no one’s pawn. Not yours, and certainly not his.”

  Her eyes widened a fraction but she kept her control. “I promise you this, husband of my cousin, my niece will be found and she will hold this throne or I will bring the full might of the planet of Torrea down upon you.”

  “I would expect nothing less.”

  She stared me down with such a powerful fury and determination that I steeled myself for a blow. But she visibly composed herself and raised the crown, settling it on my head. “Thus I pass the crown to the lawful ruler of the empire.” She held my gaze, leaving me in no doubt of what she really meant. I let it settle on my head before I nodded my respect. She turned to face the assembled.

  “May the emperor live forever!”

  I was thinking of going out to the nebula for our anniversary.

  It’s a long trip.

  It’s not worth it?

  I didn’t say that.

  iv29

  My husband was buried.

  I wouldn’t allow my children to watch the live feed. Owen had seen enough images of his father over the years that I was afraid he would recognize him. And I could only imagine all the ways Laudley could make the experience miserable for me if he chose. It was a torture all its own, waiting, as Jonathan edited and compiled the broadcast of my husband’s funeral.

  When at last it was done, we sat on the bed together, Molly, Owen, Jonathan, and me, and watched the funeral of Emperor Rikhart IV.

  Jonathan had offered me the full feed from the palace of all the events of the day leading up to the final ceremony, from the eulogy breakfast to the final interment, but I didn’t have the heart for it. It was the laying to rest of an emperor. I mourned a husband.

  I tried not to watch but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want to see this—this final claiming, putting their seal upon him, locking him away in their mausoleum, their vaults. Closing out his life the way it had begun, with all the pomp and ceremony of an emperor. In the great chapel, the most powerful and important people in the empire
sat and watched. It was the same place where he’d been presented to the empire as an infant heir, and where he had been crowned after his father’s death; where we had been married, where he had presented his first child and heir to his subjects, and now where he was to be put neatly away, a relic of the empire. He lay there, so pale and still.

  I watched Aliana stand before him, her face quiet, but I knew her too well not to see the pain in her eyes. What must it cost her, to stand there and be a part of this farce, knowing how he had died? So powerful and yet so powerless.

  Molly lay with her head in my lap, her feet pushed up against Jonathan who, though he sat with us as I’d forced him to, kept an obvious distance between himself and the family. Owen sat on my other side. Though I kept an arm around him the entire time, he was stiff and silent, as if at attention. Molly sniffled into my leg every now and then, but it sounded more like exhaustion than grief. It was all so far away from us now. I thought I’d cry over my husband’s funeral, but I was dry, wrung out and tearless.

  Pete was carried out of the chapel. The screen went to black, the imperial crest in the center, so that all in the empire could observe a final moment of silence for Rikhart IV.

  I turned it off.

  ***

  I sat on Molly’s bed a long time after she fell asleep, petting her hair. She had my hair, thick and dark brown, and it was beautiful on her. Just then I wished she had Pete’s quirkier, honey colored hair that would start to curl around his neck and ears when he put off getting a haircut. Maybe it would have been like touching him again, just a little.