Laurel understood. The boy would naturally fear the League when they arrived, and it seemed Gabriel could not be sure his mother and son would be together when rescue came. She smiled, giving him gentle encouragement to continue.
“Laurel, the people of Gartrya believe me to be the Duke’s son,” he said, gazing towards the unlit fire, and beyond it, to some distant thought, “next in line to the throne. The Duke’s wife died giving birth to Shumuyi’beh. When she was but an infant, the Soul Monger brought my mother to the palace, the fulfilment of the Duke’s long-held desire; a whole soul. It is said he fell at her feet, and his good sense left him,” Gabriel smiled gently. “My mother is most uncommonly beautiful, even to this day, and the Duke completely enamoured of her. He told no-one of her origins and executed those who did know, apart from his closest aides and took her as his bride. The Soul Monger told him she was pregnant, and the Duke assumed the Soul Monger had ministered to her, according to legend. When I was born, the Duke heralded me as his son. At first, the Duke believed me the half-soul child of a Soul Monger and my mother didn’t tell him the Soul Monger had not ministered to her. She had no idea she was pregnant when she was taken.”
“I don’t understand how you are now a slave?”
“What can I say?” Gabriel looked down at their hands, intertwined. “My life was pleasant. My mother regarded as Queen and me as heir to the Dukedom. I called the Princess Shumuyi’beh sister, and as I grew, the Duke kept me by his side. He taught me about our world, our history, the sins of the League. As I grew, he and my mother realised my abilities, so he put them to use. When he spoke with advisors, he would say, ‘My son, do I trust him?’ and I would answer, ‘No, papa,’ or ‘yes, papa,’ because I could discern their intent. I was a child and accepted all the stories he told me of the League, the invasion, their control of the mineral and the Inikamaran Purge. The people had forgotten, but the Duke’s anger for old wrongs simmered. I learned to despise the League.”
“Do you still despise it?”
“I despise what they did to the Inikamarans.”
Laurel nodded, but he didn’t see that she agreed with him, so far away was he in his thoughts. She listened and shared his feelings as his tragedy unfolded.
“When I was ten, Shumuyi’beh came to me. I remember so well her words,” he smiled with affection for his sister. “She took my hands and knelt beside me, imploring, ‘Lord brother. When the throne is yours, you must free the slaves and find a way back to this League father speaks of. The Viceroy says there are no slaves in the League’. She was hardly older than I, yet so wise. I laughed of course and told her not to say such things in case father overheard, but I did ask her what had unsettled her so. She told me she crept out to the palace walls, to watch father at his work. Slaves had been brought from the outlying system for processing for fieldwork. The harvest was poor, and the people taxed in preparation for the war. Shumuyi’beh heard father instruct the overseers to ration food to once daily only. In her child’s mind, this was an act of inhumanity.”
“It is inhumane.”
“I had no notion of it,” he shook his head slowly, remembering. “But she did. I had never been beyond the palace and its grounds and regarded myself above such things unless instructed by my lord father. I lived in a caste society as part of the royal family, and therefore, insulated from the outside world.”
“But you are educated, well read.”
“Yes, educated in whatever the Duke felt appropriate. Our accents amused him, so while he encouraged speaking French in private, in his presence, we were only permitted to speak Gartryan, lest we were plotting or laughing at him.”
Gabriel stopped speaking then. The words were there, waiting, but at first, they would not come. They hurt him, and Laurel felt that hurt, but he didn’t try to protect her. When he spoke again, he glanced up, and she saw the bleakness in his eyes.
“I turned sixteen,” he said. “The age of manhood. The Duke became obsessed with the merchants who had, over the years visited Gartrya, convinced that, as he could not discover how they traversed the nebula, they must be Soul Mongers and if so, why did they not bring whole souls. He did not believe my mother, and I were the last, and he would not be reassured, even by mother that the traders were only half-souls. Then one day, he summoned us to his presence.”
Laurel saw his mind as though she were there with him. She sensed the shadowy figure of the Duke, cold, menacing and soulless.
“In the throne room, it was customary to kneel,” Gabriel’s face was transfixed at the memory. “Forever angry, this was where he paced the floor, ordered executions for trivial crimes, and condemned anyone who spoke against him. As a young man, even I marked his descent into vengeful madness with my own eyes. On that day, he informed us he would live to see the eradication of the League, that he would personally tear out its heart and feed it to them, that the only thing stopping him was a passage through the nebula. Then he called upon his Viceroy to show us the ancient chronicles he discovered, revealing the ships that carried the Inikamarans and whole souls across the nebula after the Purge.
“My mother tried to reason that such a course of action would serve only to heighten the suffering of the people.” Gabriel drew a deep, ragged breath, and hunched his shoulders, “He stood over her, that giant of a man, even as she knelt at his feet. I feared he would strike her, but he screamed as she fell on her face, spittle flying from his mouth, ‘I will not be counselled by a slave!’, the coldness and bitterness in his voice chilled me. ‘You and your son are the last of your kind, our ships are small, and two of you are not sufficient to deliver us through the nebula. I need more.’ I knew better than to speak. I was confused, and I didn’t understand what he meant when he called my mother a ‘slave’ or the words ‘last of your kind’. Then he turned to me. ‘Son, you are sixteen, old enough for you to become a father. You and your mother must provide offspring, within ten years, we will have enough whole souls to carry our army through the nebula’.”
Unable to hide it from her, Gabriel’s despair now engulfed Laurel. Too numbed by the awfulness to even cry, she realised he had to endure the sadness forever.
“My mother’s anguish flowed through me,” he continued, “but I couldn’t go to her, reassure her while the Duke was in his hysteria. She wept, entreating him that in her culture, such an act was unthinkable. I’d never heard myself referred to as a whole soul, but then I realised, he meant for me to impregnate my mother. I searched for understanding and found it in my father’s mind; only two whole souls can produce a whole soul child, no other union will result in a child with the gifts the Duke coveted. And I learned then that he was not my father. He sneered at mother’s tears. ‘You dare speak of a culture?’ he screamed, ‘You have no culture, only that which it pleases me to allow. It is decided, boy, take your mother. I wish not to look at either of you until you deliver me good news’.”
Laurel didn’t understand. “Records show whole souls don’t procreate with other whole souls in this universe,” she said.
“The Duke didn’t believe that,” Gabriel shook his head. “He thought that as I was born into this universe, perhaps I could. I couldn’t imagine violating her, so I left her in my chambers and ran away.”
“And caught, obviously?”
“After two days,” he closed his eyes. “In that time, I realised the measure of the misfortune of the people. My father’s hatred and desire for vengeance stripped these simple people of their prosperity, their livelihoods, their dignity and many of their young women trafficked for ships and equipment. Shanty towns sprouted up around the walls of the city, filth, sickness. But it would take many years before he was ready; before the lifeform gave him the means for his vengeance. And in the meantime, he became drunk on thoughts of retaking Inikamara, and he feasted on bloodlust.”
“What happened when they found you?”
“They beat me,” he said. “Severely, but not as severely as my mother. She could not walk for a ye
ar. The Duke denied her healing processes, so I could care for her and see what my disobedience cost.”
“But it was you who ran away!”
“Yes,” he looked at Laurel, his eyes hard. “A master uses the slave’s protectiveness as a weapon against him,” but his expression softened, as it always did when he spoke of his mother. “In the assault on her, she lost any capacity to give birth.”
“He didn’t banish her?”
“The Duke worships her. Her body was crushed, but he didn’t touch her face. He carried out the beating himself to ensure that.”
“This Duke is a barbarian.”
“He believes himself noble. I tended my mother for a few months, and she did improve, Shumuyi’beh had married well and lived away, so she was spared seeing us. When my wounds healed, they returned me to my chambers. A girl was there, a half-soul. My father’s Viceroy sealed the door. As I had not provided a whole soul child, the Duke decided I would now be his son in public and his slave in private. In the ancient tradition, he would assure himself of my obedience.”
“You had to impregnate the girl?”
He made movements of his head and shoulders, uncomfortable to tell her but also knowing the confession would be incomplete without this detail. “The distress of learning my slave status tore at my heart, but knowing that my father’s affection for me ran only to what I could accomplish to his glory, and that he would, without conscience, use my mother and any child I had against me, in return for my abilities, fueled a rage inside me…” his mouth became a bitter line. “A rage I feel to this day. I refused to look at the girl. But no-one came to open the door. And she was sweet, gracious. She recognised my distress and was sympathetic. I was sixteen, she …well, a few days after that, she was collected by the Viceroy and declared pregnant.”
“But she knew you were the Duke’s son?”
“She was what is called a ‘free mother’, used solely to produce either slave children or if a woman was unable to conceive. She had no idea of my identity. Few people outside the palace walls ever saw me. The Duke executed her after she delivered, anyway.”
“I’m sorry.”
He wasn’t listening; he let go of her hand and turned his palms upward as if in the act of receiving. “The infant was handed over to me within hours of his birth. I took him to my mother—she was walking again by then—and the child seemed to give her renewed life, even though she knew he was a means to secure our loyalty. The Duke never looked at him, merely declared he was to be given the privilege of living with us and would be passed off as a folly of my youth. I later found out the Viceroy had tried cloning both my mother and me, but our cells were resistant.”
“And your son is aware you are not the Duke’s son?”
“He doesn’t know. When Marcel was still small, only just walking, the Duke informed me of the progress of the war plans, that my earlier disobedience no longer counted, and that another way had been discovered to cross the nebula. I knew the creature that burrowed and ravaged the land had returned and been captured. The Duke had the opinion I might sense something of it, read its mind if it had one, but all I felt was its fear and dread. The guards fired upon it repeatedly, but nothing penetrated, only causing damage internally by the impact. The creature was young; it had come to our world to moult, a process that it could not halt, so it could not leave and fly to safety. It started to discard the skin, making it vulnerable. Gartrya’s scientists found a way to imprison it using its sensitivity to sound, and experiment on it.”
“And the skin now covers this fortress?”
“Yes, and the Duke’s ship. The lifeform begged me to end its suffering, communicating to me which element could pass through its hide, setting off a cascade that would end its torment.”
“Alisitrite?”
Gabriel made a slight inclination of his head. “The Duke has three gems in his throne, compressed from the mineral, it isn’t valuable, but the lifeform is vulnerable to it, that’s why it chooses to moult only where the mineral is absent. But I couldn’t help the creature, and I couldn’t risk what would happen to my mother and Marcel if any deception was exposed. The scientists eventually found a way to return it to the nebula in service of the Duke”.
The glimpses into Gabriel’s mind were horrific. His awful, desperate life, going from believing himself a loved son, only to find out he was a slave, to be used and abused at his master’s whim. She felt tears pricking behind her eyes, but she knew he hadn’t finished. Even cruelty, she would learn, often has a cruelty all its own.
“The Duke,” Gabriel faltered as he relived what happened next, “didn’t believe me when I said I couldn’t connect with the creature. He removed Marcel from the palace. I knew, to get him restored to me, I had to show humility, my devotion, my fidelity. My mother, as she so often did now, fell at his feet, imploring him. I too humbled myself. Nevertheless, he kept Marcel away for a year. When they returned him, he was weak, malnourished, his tiny body covered in sores. He had not been well treated. My anger choked me and swept into the Duke’s mind, but he laughed at me, then forever after, had me watched for signs of betrayal.”
“You’re not treacherous,” Laurel said, her heart saddened, not knowing how she could offer comfort. “The Duke has your loyalty.”
His sad eyes were bright with unshed tears. “I’m not loyal to him, Laurel. I’m loyal to my family. When he decided I might betray him, he added a codicil to the Charter of Succession, citing my ‘treasonous attitude’ as justification. When the Duke dies, I will be deemed a traitor and the fate of my family sealed.”
“I don’t understand, Gabriel. If the Duke dies, how can you be branded a traitor and your family punished? Will this codicil be acted upon regardless of how he dies?”
Gabriel nodded, and she saw it, in his mind, as though he’d unfolded a scroll for her to read. The Charter of Succession. Neither of them spoke as she took in the significance of what the Charter meant.
Laurel felt her face twist in anger. No person of good conscience could abandon Gabriel’s family to the awful fate that awaited them if the Duke died. Her mind raced to find a way they could both escape, go to his family, but his violet eyes held hers and calmed her.
“The Duke would know if I left the fortress, Laurel,” he said, reading her thoughts. “It has to be you.” His palms were still upturned, and he knelt beside the bed in a position of supplication, pleading with her to help him. She turned his hands over and wound her fingers through his. He didn’t need to beg.
“We’re relying on the trader,” she said. “Can’t we take a ship?”
“You saw what happened with the elevator shaft, Laurel, and even I can’t remove a ship without authority. We can only trust the trader hears my message and comes for you. Then and only then can you go to Gartrya, save my family and take the Alisitrite gems. This fortress, with the Duke and his generals, will be destroyed, and the Viceroy’s Primature Council, who hold the Charter, will not learn his fate until after my family have been brought to the League, to safety.”
“And you?”
“I will remain here.”
“You’ll be killed.”
“That is unavoidable,” he said, and she saw that he was resigned to his fate. “I cannot leave. Each member of the Primature possesses the codicil, none are aware of its contents, but when the Duke dies, it will be opened, and his final wishes carried out without favour. Shumuyi’beh’s succession will only happen after those final acts.”
“Then your family will not be on Gartrya when the Duke’s death is reported.” Laurel thought her heart would break as she sensed his gratitude that she would stand by him, that she would help, and even though they both had the thought of what would happen if the trader did not hear the message, and the Duke arrived before she could escape, neither gave it voice, but Gabriel bowed his head, as if carrying an unbelievable burden.
A sudden spark of light lit the single teardrop tracing its way over her hand, and Laurel felt the warmth of
the fire as it ignited. She would not let all be lost to him, not if it was within her power, and with that thought, there came to her a sense of redemption, of hope. It was not yet over, for either of them. Reaching out with her free hand, she lifted Gabriel’s damp hair from his forehead, wishing to soothe him, to calm him. He caught her hand and kissed her palm, holding it against his cheek.
“Gabriel,” she whispered.
And slowly, he lifted his beautiful, violet, anguished and grateful eyes to hers.
Chapter 38
“Laurel!” Gabriel shook her awake urgently. “Wake up. You must leave.”
“Leave?” she rubbed her eyes. The fire still burned, so morning hadn’t arrived.
“Come, dress,” he thrust her uniform at her, and dragged the blanket that covered her onto the floor. Impatient, Gabriel gave her no time, and pulled her from the room half-dressed and into the elevator beam, while she tried to hop into her slacks and only one arm in her jacket.
“Where are we going?” she said, trying to shake off the effects of being startled awake.
“The merchant answered my call,” Gabriel said, his voice grim, his anxiety sweeping over her in waves. “We have to move quickly before someone observes us.”
“Where’s Lien?”
“Asleep. I drugged him.”
The elevator deposited them onto the lowest level. Placing his finger on his lips, Gabriel held her against the wall as distant voices reached them. He turned and nodded, propelling her further along the corridor and away from the sound. A narrow slit in the wall led to the catacombs below. Laurel’s lower half fitted easily through the opening, but the squishing required to accommodate her upper parts would almost certainly result in some reasonable bruising. She waited in the dim tunnel below as Gabriel squirmed himself through.
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