Winter's Orbit

by Everina Maxwell

It had become increasingly difficult to concentrate in the last week as the Emperor’s Private Office stepped up preparations to replace Taam. Jainan had put his stamp on the permission forms—it was unthinkable to leave Thea without a treaty pair—but they hadn’t yet confirmed his Iskat partner. It could be any one of dozens of minor royals. Jainan wasn’t familiar enough with Taam’s cousins to even judge the possibilities. The uncertainty was like a cobweb across his face; he constantly had to brush it aside to think about anything else.

  He had to focus. A stream of palace residents started to appear at the other side of the gardens, hurrying to the shrine for Taam’s last memorial service, hunched against the cold. Jainan scanned their faces but none of them were familiar. Jainan was due at the ceremony as well, albeit he’d only been given the invitation yesterday. It was understandable that he’d been informed late; all the Iskaners he spoke to were busy with the Resolution visit and had more important matters to deal with. Jainan himself hadn’t seen the Auditor yet. He’d been told to avoid the Resolution visitors until the new marriage was formalized and he and his Iskat partner could speak for the treaty. Jainan knew the importance of putting up a united front.

  At last Jainan’s wait paid off: a figure in a general’s uniform appeared on the long, gravel path that led to the military headquarters and the barracks, trailed by two other officers. Jainan took a sharp breath and set off at a brisk walk to intercept him.

  Taam was—had been—a colonel in the Iskat military. In the aftermath of the flybug accident, Taam’s old commanding officers had swept in to take control and direct Jainan through all the funeral preparations: stand here, go to this ceremony, don’t talk to the press. Jainan had complied like a man in a trance. It wasn’t his role to contradict senior officers in the Empire’s military.

  “General Fenrik,” Jainan said, stopping in the middle of the path. “Could I—” He had to catch himself. Have a moment of your time sounded presumptuous. “May I ask you something?”

  General Fenrik was a broad-shouldered, austere man with clipped white hair, a cane, and the no-nonsense air of someone who had led the Empire’s military forces for forty years. A polished wooden button pinned to his breast pocket was emblazoned with an old version of the Imperial crest. His gaze bore into Jainan without recognition. “Yes? What? Be quick.”

  One of the lower-ranking officers behind him prompted him with Jainan’s name in a murmur. Jainan knew the officers Taam had worked with: this one, with a flint brooch neatly pinned to her collar and a severe, scraped-back ponytail, was Colonel Lunver, who had taken over Taam’s military duties. She had little patience for civilians and less for vassal planets.

  The prompt seemed to spark Fenrik’s memory. “Ah. Taam’s partner. What do you want?”

  “About the ceremony,” Jainan said. His mouth was dry. He couldn’t afford to cause trouble, but he had duties other than his Iskat ones. “Prince Taam has had Iskat rites. There are also some Thean clan rituals—”

  “Thean rituals?” General Fenrik’s eyebrows rose. He didn’t have to say, Taam was an Iskaner, or the Imperial family has to follow Imperial custom; both of them knew that.

  “I can promise it will not be disruptive,” Jainan said, trying to make up lost ground. He should have found a more tactful approach, but there hadn’t been time. “The new Thean ambassador will be in attendance, and the Thean press will take note of what happens at the ceremony.”

  “What do you need?” the third officer asked, slipping the question in deftly as Fenrik frowned. Jainan knew him as well: Aren Saffer, Taam’s old deputy, breezy and nonchalant. Aren’s tone was almost sympathetic, which made the back of Jainan’s neck prickle with embarrassment. But Jainan was too numb to let that stop him.

  Jainan rapidly calculated the minimum level of ritual observance that might avert hostility in the Thean media. “If I could just have five minutes for a recitation during the ceremony. It would be most appropriate when the funeral images are dedicated.”

  “Why didn’t you take this to the stewards?” Fenrik said.

  “They were … unhelpful,” Jainan said. The shrine’s stewards had flat-out refused to change the ceremony, which Jainan understood, since the request came at the last minute. General Fenrik was Jainan’s last avenue of appeal.

  The general examined him, as if he suspected Jainan was trying some sort of political trick. Jainan endured the scrutiny. Five minutes wasn’t really enough for a clan recitation, but he could see even that was pushing the boundaries.

  But Fenrik apparently decided five minutes was a small price to pay to end Jainan’s petitioning. “Take care of it,” Fenrik said to Colonel Lunver, who snapped her mouth shut on what she had been about to say and saluted. Fenrik gave Jainan the briefest of nods and moved on, clearly intending to spend no more time on it. His two officers sketched a bow to Jainan and followed.

  Jainan stepped back to let the three of them pass. He ought to feel relief, but he only felt the cold prickle at his back and a distant dread of the ceremony itself. He had no room to indulge those sentiments.

  He waited a moment to pace after them, keeping his distance from the gathering crowd of attendees. He couldn’t face condolences. As he drew nearer to the front gates, he could see a view down the hill toward the city of Arlusk and a queue of flyers approaching the palace, waiting to disgorge their guests. The low dome of the palace shrine rose up to his right. The press had been allowed up to the doors: half a dozen aerial cameras circled around the marble dome, snapping pictures of the attendees. There was no way to avoid them. Jainan made sure his expression was neutral.

  Inside the shrine, the smell of resin hung starkly in the air under the high stone rotunda. The space under the dome was at least free of aerial cameras. The spectators milled around to fill up the seats that circled the edge of the shrine; a uniform gleam came from the rows of decorated military officers, broken up by civilians in sober, light-colored clothes.

  A line of seats was reserved for the twelve treaty representatives. The Eisafan representative was expansive as usual in a flurry of extravagant bronze-and-cream capes, with her royal partner beside her and a gaggle of staff standing behind. Her hair was woven through two heavy flint rings—an ostentatiously Galactic way of showing her gender. The delegates from Rtul and Tan-Sashn had chosen to dress in Iskat mourning grays like Jainan; they looked grave and impassive. Sefala’s seats were both occupied by Iskaners. The Kaani representative had not even made an appearance. Jainan felt a distant admiration for their ability to find a different niche Kaani malaise every time they were disinclined to attend something.

  Someone tapped his elbow. “Your Grace?”

  Jainan pulled his arm away and stepped back. It was a young man, tall and skeletal, dressed in a Thean-style tunic. Jainan took a moment to realize the white and navy was a set of colors he knew: the clan style of the Esvereni. This must be the new Thean Ambassador.

  “Count Jainan of Feria,” the Ambassador said, and waited for Jainan’s nod of confirmation. “My name is Suleri nal Ittana of the Esvereni. I was hoping to catch you here.”

  Jainan bowed. He and Taam were supposed to be above politics, but surely nobody could complain if he greeted the ambassador from his own home planet. “Your Excellency. Congratulations on your appointment.”

  The Ambassador gave him a dispassionate smile and said, “Thank you. To tell the truth, Your Grace, I was beginning to worry about you. I’ve invited you to the embassy several times over the last few days. You haven’t responded.”

  Jainan took a short breath. It had taken a long time for Iskat to accept the appointment of a new ambassador, precisely because the last one had tried to interfere excessively in palace affairs. Inviting Jainan to the embassy before he even married his next Iskat partner made it look like Thea intended to start that all over again. This Esvereni should have been briefed, but then, the Esvereni had never been known for their tact and political restraint—Jainan caught the old pattern of thought and squ
ashed it. Thean clan biases had no relevance on Iskat. “I apologize. I have been busy with religious duties.”

  The smile thinned. “I’m sorry to hear you’re so busy, Your Grace. Unfortunately, since the Resolution is here for the treaty ceremonies, I have more to ask of you. I need to know you’ll at least take part in the remnants handover. No one on my staff is authorized to interact with the Auditor.”

  Jainan hesitated, feeling the horribly familiar loss of a thread that had slipped out of his grip. There were several Resolution ceremonies before the treaty was renewed, he knew. One of them saw each planet hand over all the xeno remnants they had found over the last twenty years, uncovered from space junk nets and dig sites and terraforming refuse. Thea had found some minor shards that must be given up to the Resolution. Jainan would play his part, of course, but his new partner had to agree. He stepped aside to let a party of civil servants take their seats. “Yes, though I’m still awaiting the schedule—”

  “Of course,” Ambassador Suleri said. “I couldn’t ask you to do anything without Iskat’s approval.”

  Jainan shut his eyes for a brief moment and felt a flare of something uncharitable. A new, inexperienced ambassador from a rival clan was yet another problem to navigate, another chaotic factor in the equation. Suleri did not know how easy it would be to ruin the balance of relations. “I will send you my schedule as soon as humanly possible,” Jainan said. “I promise. The wedding is tomorrow. I will know by then.”

  He saw something taken aback about Suleri’s expression at tomorrow, but Jainan was too tired to read it. Suleri cleared his expression and bowed. “Tomorrow, then. I’ll expect a message.”

  Jainan turned away feeling like he had just crossed a floor rigged with explosives. He took his seat with moments to spare before the ceremony started.

  As a row of priests filed in, the Eisafan representative leaned over. “Your new ambassador seems to have had some difficulty getting an invitation,” she murmured under the next set of chanting. “My staff had to help him. Are you having any trouble?”

  Jainan stared straight ahead. “The invitations were sent out late,” he said. Taam had generally handled the other treaty representatives. Jainan could feel it even now, in the way the Eisafan representative looked at the empty chair beside him before she addressed him. “Thank you for your assistance.”

  “Our pleasure,” she said, and sat back. Eisafan was the model planet of the Empire: richer and more populous every year, integrated with Iskat at every level. Eisafan would not have had a problem getting its ambassador invited to any event.

  Jainan forced himself to pay attention to the rest of the ritual. The one-month Mourning was a formal Iskat ceremony, the style of it dictated by Taam’s sect. He had technically followed a different sect from Jainan, but in truth Taam had only joined one because the army expected it, and neither he nor Jainan had paid much attention to ceremony outside of the high holidays.

  Jainan breathed out as the chants curled upward. This was the sixth funeral ceremony in a month. He barely remembered the details of the previous ones—they blurred into one long row of priests and grave-faced soldiers, watching while Jainan struggled to remember his part in rituals he’d never attended before.

  He was at least used to that by now. He stood when one of the priests beckoned him and walked steadily up to the circle of offering tables, which were crowded with gray-framed pictures of Taam. The rotunda was quiet. The press wasn’t allowed in until the end.

  Jainan lit a coil of waxed rope set into a resin pot, and a thin plume of smoke rose, adding to the haze in the dome. He should feel something, but instead he was numb; the numbness had a chill and a weight like a pool of icy water. He stood with the burning taper in his hand and watched the wisp of woodsmoke spiral upward. In front of him, a priest whispered a formula Jainan was not properly allowed to hear. Taam’s face looked back at him from every angle—flat, lifeless, nothing like Jainan had known him—but the soaring space above was empty and calm.

  This was when he should start the recitation. Jainan realized with a jolt that he hadn’t made sure that Lunver had warned the priests. She’d be seated in the front row with General Fenrik, but he couldn’t turn around now to look at her, and if the priests weren’t expecting it, he would make this very awkward. But Taam had married into the Feria clan, however little that meant to Iskaners, and Jainan felt deep in his bones that it would be wrong to say nothing. He closed his eyes and spoke.

  It was an old chant and a simple one: it listed the names of Feria’s core clan for the last few generations, spooling out one by one like a thread pulled from a tapestry. The first names dropped into dead silence. Jainan had to clear his throat several times as he recited. Even after that, his voice was still irritatingly quiet and hoarse. He had not spoken in public in a long time. He caught sight of a priest who had frozen while she collected Taam’s pictures—had she been told about this? Was Jainan ruining the ceremony? He felt prickles of mortification on his temples, but he couldn’t stop halfway through.

  At last he came to the end of it. The final names—Jainan’s parents—fell into the hush. Jainan listened to the echoes die away. His mind had gone blank with relief; he couldn’t remember what he was supposed to do next. There was an awkward pause. The priest in front of him coughed.

  Pressure wrapped Jainan’s chest like an iron band. Iskat religious ceremonies ran on smooth rails with no pauses. The spectators would think he was going to pieces. He hurriedly looked down and remembered what he was supposed to do; he picked up the stick of charcoal that lay beside the incense burner and smudged a line on the table in front of each of the white-framed photos. Taam’s image stared calmly at him, oblivious to Jainan’s mistakes.

  “Thank you, Your Grace,” the priest said. Jainan tried not to hear the censure in it. “Please be seated.”

  Jainan turned away from the central table. He had to get himself together. He couldn’t afford to let the palace think he was falling apart.

  Before he could say the final blessing and move, there was a muted disturbance at the doors to the shrine. They opened halfway, letting in a sliver of pale light and a handful of people. Jainan felt cold; the press weren’t supposed to be let in yet. He had spoiled the timing of the ceremony.

  But these weren’t reporters. Two of them had the oddly cut clothes and broad, folded collars of people from the wider galaxy. Each had a shimmer in front of their left eye, as if the light was diverting itself around an obstacle.

  The last one must be the Auditor.

  The Auditor was dressed unassumingly like his two staffers—Jainan couldn’t see any ornaments from here but knew his gender from reports—but the most startling thing was the shell of soft illumination that cut off his eyes and most of his face. It wrapped around his forehead and eyes like armor, a color that Jainan’s visual receptors refused to parse. Jainan thought he saw human features through it but couldn’t quite make them out; he felt nauseous when he looked at it.

  Jainan couldn’t imagine why the Auditor had come to a religious ceremony that had nothing to do with politics. But the Auditor didn’t seem to be there to make a scene; he sat in the back, nonchalantly, with the air of an anthropologist making observations. As he sat down, he moved like a person, and his head turned on his neck like a person, though his face was an unsettling blank. It took Jainan a second to realize the Auditor was looking at him.

  Jainan was used to spikes of panic. He knew nothing showed on his face. It was unfortunate that the Auditor had walked in to see one of the treaty representatives standing frozen, having just disrupted an Iskat ceremony by insisting on Thean customs, but it wasn’t a disaster. They would have a chance to show a better picture of unity later, when Jainan’s new partner was chosen. Jainan tried not to think of how his partner would view this morning’s events.

  He brought himself back to the duties in front of him. He turned back to the offering tables, consciously keeping every movement under control, spoke the
final blessing of Taam’s Iskat sect, and bowed his head correctly before he turned. He couldn’t think of the future; it was a terrifying void; but if he could only control the present, he would at least do that to the best of his ability. Thea could not afford for him to falter. Whoever his partner was, they would understand the need to keep the treaty stable must override everything else.

  CHAPTER 2

  Oh hell. Oh, hell. Kiem managed to reach his rooms before he collapsed facedown onto the sofa. Summoned out of the blue today, married—married!—by the end of tomorrow. He wondered if they’d told his unfortunate partner the schedule yet.

  He’d always known he would marry at some point and probably not for love, though he’d had a vague notion that eloping might be fun. It was just that even in Kiem’s most realistic moments, he’d thought at least he and his partner would have a few months to get to know each other. But to convince a grieving stranger not to resent everything about the situation after being forced into a rushed marriage—that would take more than being persuasive. You’d need to be a bloody miracle worker.

  Which meant he would end up shackled to someone who resented everything about him, and Kiem was going to be the lucky one in the arrangement. It would be worse on Count Jainan. This wasn’t an equal partnership: as Thea was the junior partner in the alliance, Jainan was the one who’d be expected to fit his life around Kiem’s. And he was probably reading through Kiem’s press record right now and wishing it had been Kiem instead of Taam in the flybug accident.

  Kiem let his head sink into the cushions and groaned.

  “Your Highness,” his aide said from the entrance, faintly disapproving. “The couch is for sitting, the bed is for lying, and the shuttleport bars are for whatever unholy combination of both you’re doing there.”

  Kiem rolled over and half sat up. As usual, Bel looked like the model of a royal aide, with a freshly laundered coat and her hair in a mass of impeccable braids. When Bel had taken up her post she had told Kiem she would adapt to Iskat custom, and she didn’t do things by halves; she indicated her gender with flint-and-silver earrings, and had even switched from her Sefalan accent to an Iskat one.