Dominion Rising: 23 Brand New Science Fiction and Fantasy Novels

by White, Gwynn

  The laundry load had been reduced by half with her father bedridden, but that gave her no comfort. He’d once worn a constant, white-toothed smile that brightened just for her. Now he’d been reduced to a twisted, pained old man. She missed seeing her father’s jacket slung across the chair when he came home from the woodshop covered in a light film of sawdust. His excitement at having finished a new piece of furniture, his childlike begging for her to come see. The way he knelt beneath it, bending and pointing to a tiny detail that nobody would ever see. He believed each piece of furniture better than the last—more intricate, more finely made.

  Ember never saw his work the way he did, but his pride made her smile all the same. His last piece was the table in their main room. Her mother had refused to let him sell it, and when she died . . .

  Ember cut the thought short and went to empty the water tubs. One for her washing, one for his. She and her father had a cautiously comfortable relationship now, three years after her mother’s death. But at first it had been strained. Almost like he blamed her.

  He was right to. There was nobody else to blame.

  A distant voice floated through the air from the road. She couldn’t make out the words for a long while. Finally she recognized the voice as the neighbor’s twelve-year-old son’s. Was school over for the day already?

  “The shuttle is still here,” he belted out to his companion. “I saw it, big flag and everything.”

  Another voice responded, although she couldn’t distinguish the words. Their footsteps in the dirt street were loud now.

  Her stomach did a little flip, but she ignored the nervousness. Ember had made her decision. Meeting the officer was too much of a risk. She’d sneak out to meet Ambrose for Dai’s medicine and then hurry back. Even if the officer made good on his threat to come find her, she’d say she forgot and apologize profusely from the safety of her home.

  “Look, there’s the old maid’s house,” the neighbor boy said.

  “Should we throw rocks at it?” His younger sister’s voice. Jaelle, if Ember remembered correctly. She was about six.

  A pause. “Nah. She’s probably not there anyway. Market day, remember? The big shuttle? I’m telling you, your ears are stuffed with mud. You never listen to a thing I say.”

  “Maybe if you’d stop talking once in a while, I’d start listening.”

  The voices died off, and Ember breathed a sigh of relief. Kids often threw rocks at her house, but whenever she confronted them, they pretended it was an accident. She’d even reported it to their chief, Talpa, who did exactly what he always did. Nothing.

  Dai was right about the village hating her, and Bianca was right about the gossip. But it wasn’t enough to persuade her. Coste was nice enough, but he’d barely spoken two words to her in his life when he’d proposed. He was nearly twenty years older and a widower. And Babik had only proposed after discovering how much Ember made future-telling on a particularly good day.

  Her village was the last kumpania on Earth. The others had been integrated into gadje society and now lived across the galaxy. Only the traditional Roma had been left behind—which meant her prospects were limited.

  She didn’t want to marry to please her neighbors or Bianca or even Dai. She wanted so much more than an arrangement with someone suitable. She wanted—well, what she’d seen in the vision with Stefan. Just not with him, of course.

  Ember gave the hanging laundry one last look. It would take longer to dry in the evening, and there was a chance of her clothes being stolen. She’d check on it again after dark.

  She emptied the tubs, then went inside and scooped up the plate with Dai’s dinner on it—two slices of cooling bread with Bianca’s fig jam and the ewe, still perfectly seasoned. She paused near her father’s doorway. Should she wake him? Their conversation had taken much out of him, and he spent the day sleeping. Perhaps it was better to let him rest peacefully a bit longer.

  The walls took on an orange hue, which meant it was sunset. The officer would be waiting for her now. Was he pacing her market stall, looking at the hill where her village sat? How long would he wait before leaving—or deciding to come find her?

  Let him come. I’m not leaving my father alone so long tonight.

  Her stomach rumbled at the smell of the food beneath her nose. She set the tray down on the table and grabbed a tomato for her own dinner from the box on the counter. She’d give Dai a few more minutes to sleep. In the meantime, she’d take this opportunity to get some long-neglected chores done. It had been far too long since she cleaned, and it would take her mind off that terrible officer.

  The shelf caught her eye. A thin layer of dust had settled upon its contents, making each object look a uniform, ashen gray. Her mother’s things. Three years later, everything remained just as she’d left it. Dai and Ember had never discussed leaving them out. They just had.

  They weren’t valuable objects. They’d sold anything of value long ago. No, these objects held memories more than price. Her mother’s bridal photo. Ember’s first skirt. An old, worn set of tarot cards, the top one askew—her mother’s first set of cards, a cheap deck from an old store. A hand mirror. A stained-glass frame with a photograph of their family inside, taken when Ember was fourteen.

  Ember carefully picked up the frame and wiped the dust off with a rag, cradling the smooth object in her hands with all the care she could muster. The image had faded slightly in past years, but it was still clear enough to see her parents standing on either side of a younger Ember. Even at fourteen Ember’s head had towered over her mother’s, though she still wasn’t as tall as her father. The women looked somber, not daring to show their teeth, and her father—well, he grinned as if it were the happiest day of his life. It may have been. The traveling photographer was an old friend of Dai’s, one he hadn’t seen since the military. He’d invited the man to stay with them that night. They’d talked for hours over stew, and the next day the man had presented them with this image before hurrying back to his shuttle.

  Ember’s hand tightened on the glass. She didn’t deserve to handle her mother’s beautiful things. Not when it was Ember who had taken her away from all this. The stars knew she hadn’t mean to do it, and she still didn’t know how she had. She just knew what was.

  Her finger caught something sticking out the back. Frowning, she turned it around. A piece of white was caught in the small hatch. She pulled it open and caught the object as it came fluttering out and landed in her lap. Another photograph?

  Ember secured the hatch again and gently set the frame on the shelf. Then she picked up the paper with trembling hands and examined it. It was an article. The paper was thin and brittle against her fingertips, as if printed from a machine, like in the old days. A much younger version of Dai smiled faintly from the photograph. He was perhaps her age, maybe younger, and wore a dark uniform with several pins dotting the collar, although the uniform was slightly different than the one the officer had worn today. It looked more like a jacket. He held a large rectangular piece of glass with tiny words etched into it. A string of thick black words was printed across the top, just above his head: “Lucinello Wins Intergalactic Service Award.”

  Under the image was a bit of text in Common. Ember strained to read the strange words.

  Mario Nicolas Lucinello, a product of the Empire’s successful flicker breeding program, was awarded the Intergalactic Military Service Award Friday night for exceptional performance in last week’s battle at Germini Minefield. In a rare speech after the award was presented, the emperor himself praised Lucinello, calling him “a priceless trophy for all those who doubt the Empire’s pledge of protection for systems within the Empire.” Lucinello declined to speak upon receiving the award, indicating that he was overcome with gratitude at the cabinet’s generosity. General Kane also spoke but would not elaborate on the military hero’s next assignment. “We’re taking him all the way to the top,” Kane told reporters before the event concluded. While the meaning of the statement
is unclear, many experts agree Empyrean is a strong possibility. If true, at age nineteen, Lucinello will be the youngest flicker in history to be allowed access to Empyrean. Some strategists speculate that Lucinello’s next assignments will include combat in the Archaean System—

  The text ended there, torn off midsentence. Ember read the paper several times and then let it drop to the floor. Mario Nicolas Lucinello. The village knew him as Nicholae, and that was what her mother had called him. Nobody had ever questioned it. Who’d saved this clipping, and why? Perhaps Dai was proud of his accomplishments and wanted to remember his glory days in secret.

  But that felt wrong. He had never acted proud of his time in the military. Maybe something had happened between the article’s publication and his arrival on Earth.

  She had so many questions now. What was a flicker? What did it mean that he was the product of a breeding program? And where was Empyrean? She’d never heard of that planet before.

  Ember sat there for a long time, absorbing the words. But the questions overwhelmed her, and it soon grew dark as the sun disappeared for the night. Surely the officer knew she wasn’t coming by now. Hopefully he was already gone.

  She picked up her father’s food and entered his room, determined to wake him and demand answers. But he looked so peaceful and still, his breathing finally regular. She couldn’t do it.

  She set his plate on the chair next to his bed where he would see it upon awakening. Then she flipped on the lantern in the corner to its lowest setting. As she left, she gave him one last look.

  “The medicine will work,” she whispered. “You will get better, and we’ll move on together because I refuse to lose you, too.”

  5

  She waited until the village went quiet, then snuck out to the hollow where she always met Ambrose. He wasn’t there. She waited nearly two hours, until the air went chill and her teeth chattered, before going home. Eight nights she’d tried to meet him. What could possibly be holding him up? Didn’t he understand how desperate their situation was?

  Her dreams that night were jumbled, peppered with space battles and hard-faced officers demanding their futures told. Each time she declined, they shot her and she crumpled to the floor, reaching out for Dai. But he was already dead, his body just out of reach.

  “Please,” she found herself begging. “Let me help him.”

  But every time she stood up, the men raised their weapons and insisted she read their futures.

  She finally sat up in bed and looked around but saw only darkness. Her father’s breathing, slow and regular, sounded from the next room over. Just a nightmare.

  As she was beginning to roll over again, she heard something—a scraping from outside her room, barely distinguishable above her father’s breathing.

  Ember strained to hear it again, but there was nothing except the gentle clucking of the hens in the courtyard. Whatever this sound was, it was inside the house.

  Sala probably got inside again, she assured herself. The hen was constantly hopping through their other window, low as it was and without glass. Best to return her to the courtyard before they woke Dai.

  Something scraped again.

  This time it sounded remarkably heavy. A boot, perhaps.

  Panic rose within her, and adrenaline shot through her system as fear got the better of her. She was paralyzed, unable to move. It was too much like the night everything had gone wrong. The memory leaped back into her mind before she could block it.

  Ember’s eyes flew open as a hand clamped over her mouth and nose. She gasped for air but got a terrible gritty taste instead. The smell of dirt overwhelmed her, filling her lungs, and she coughed and thrashed her arms about until the hand tore away. The two dark figures on either side of her bed scrambled to secure her.

  Babik cursed softly in the darkness. “Hold her still already. There are two of you and one of her.” It was the chief’s son, the man whose offer of marriage she had rejected the day before.

  “You hold her down, then,” someone else whispered. “Get your own teeth kicked in.”

  She tried to scream as she thrashed, but a hand clamped over her mouth again before she could get a sound out.

  Babik swore again. “There’s not enough rope.”

  “Well, I’m not waiting an hour for you to get more,” the second man hissed. “Just claim her now, before someone comes.”

  The scraping sound was closer now, coming every few seconds. Ember swallowed back the fear and slid off her bed, landing in a crouch. Surprise was the only weapon she had, and she intended to use it.

  Well, there was one other weapon, but she would never use it again.

  The intruder paused for a moment, then brushed through the divider cloth, breathing heavily, shakily, sounding almost afraid.

  The dark figure made its way to the bed and slowly lowered an arm. There was something small and dark in the hand extended toward her.

  Ember didn’t want to know what it was. She scrambled to her feet and bolted through the divider as the intruder gave a soft cry of surprise. She recognized the voice. Babik.

  He was married now with a child on the way, but apparently that hadn’t stopped him from wanting to finish what he had started.

  She raced for her father’s doorway, but a large figure moved to block her and she slammed into the man before she could stop, his arms enveloping her, crushing her until she could barely breathe.

  “Running instead of fighting this time?” the deep voice asked. Talpa, the chief and Babik’s father. It seemed he had decided to accompany his son this time. The man’s breath smelled heavily of alcohol. She bolted to the side, but he grabbed her hair and spun her backward against him, then wrapped one massive arm around her throat.

  She tried to cry out, but the pressure on her windpipe increased even more until she thought it would fold right in half. Her head began to spin.

  Talpa took several wide steps toward the front door, pulling her alongside him, like a child dragging a teddy bear.

  Not enough air.

  She fought and kicked and tried to turn her head, but the harder she fought, the tighter Talpa’s grip became. Blackness had begun to close in by the time they stepped outside, but the sharp coolness of the night air blasted her back to consciousness.

  Rough hands fumbled with her wrists, but Talpa’s grip didn’t loosen.

  “Tighter than that,” Talpa hissed, and a sharp pain sliced through her wrists. Only then did Talpa release her. She crumpled to her knees, gasping and sucking in precious oxygen.

  Next to the Roma chief stood a man in black, surrounded by four guards. One guard was taller than the rest, but she couldn’t see their faces in the darkness.

  “Is that sufficient, High Commander?” Talpa asked.

  The man motioned to the taller guard, who raised a hand lantern to Ember’s eyes. Ember squinted against the painful brightness.

  “That’s her, sir,” a female guard confirmed in a strangely deep voice.

  “Very well,” the officer said. “I will make a note of your village’s homage in our records. But I will not be so kind when I return if you have neglected to pay what is due yet again.”

  “Of course, High Commander,” Talpa said. “As you say. Whatever you’d like is my pleasure.”

  The officer gave Babik a disdainful look. “You might consider sending your boys into the military rather than marrying them off young. Then your people might actually be worth something to the emperor.”

  “I will . . . consider that, Commander.”

  “Think long and hard.” The man turned to Ember. “I warned you to come as ordered, gypsy girl. Now we’re out of time for testing. To the ship.”

  Ember, whose breaths came short and fast now, pushed to her feet and began to stumble toward the front door.

  The tall guard whipped out her weapon with surprising speed. There was no sound, but an unbelievably strong force slammed into Ember’s chest. A scream ripped from her throat.

  Then th
ere was darkness.

  6

  Ember’s throat burned.

  She forced her eyes open and lifted her head, her kinked neck protesting the sudden movement. She struggled to rub it but couldn’t move her arms. They were secured to the armrests of her chair.

  Not a chair. A seat.

  Ember took in the vibration of the floor at her feet, the hum of an engine outside. The windows spaced evenly apart. The dark figures draped in their seats around her. Someone was snoring.

  She swung her head to peer out the window but saw only darkness and the faint golden glow of a thruster. The cabin, too, was dark except for the illuminated lines indicating an aisle to her left.

  An aisle. Windows. Seats. A shuttle.

  Her breaths came too fast now. The air circulating around her was stale and cold, and it made the deep pain in her throat worse. She tried to thrash around, but the bonds around her arms bit painfully into her skin. Her upper body and stomach were secured by a harness. She tried to raise her feet, but they were completely numb.

  No, no, no. This can’t be real.

  “Hold on,” a voice said from across the aisle. The man unlatched his harness and approached her. It was too dark to see his face, but his voice was familiar somehow. He knelt and fumbled with the bonds at her feet, and the tightness eased immediately. He rose and sat on the empty seat beside her. “Is that better?”

  Ember recognized him now—that man from the market yesterday, the one whose future she’d read. Stefan. She was definitely on the Empire ship.

  She looked around. Several more rows of seats lined the cabin, and by the sounds of breathing, they were all occupied. “I shouldn’t be here.” She swung her legs up. They felt disconnected somehow. It would take awhile for the blood to flow correctly again. “Why am I here? How dare you tie me up like this.”