While Alek attempted to absorb the fact that a five-star admiral in the Regulon Fleet was organizing a rebellion on the Empire’s home planet, Vander Rigel poured a finger of karst for each of them. They raised their glasses.
“To the rebellion,” the admiral said, looking him in the eye.
“To the rebellion,” Alek echoed. Omnovah! What had he done? The next time Tycho eased out of the Fleetport high above Regula, she wasn’t coming back. He downed the karst in one swallow, dedicating a battlecruiser—and his life—to the rebellion. To Tal. If he could find him.
“And, Captain, when Tycho ships out, you may have an extra crew member.”
The old boy was actually looking smug. What was he up to now?
“Tal once appealed to my instincts as a father, and I found, to my surprise, a rather warm satisfaction in protecting a young woman stranded far from home. And now a second opportunity has presented itself. So kindly do not reject an addition to your crew simply because you’re heading into the unknown. Anything is better than where she is now.”
“I take it the person’s presence on Tycho will be as clandestine as our destination?”
For a moment the confidence that was so much a part of Vander Rigel dissolved to pensive. “How fortunate I enjoy playing with fire,” the admiral murmured.
“It runs in the family,” Alek returned with a ghost of a smile before he remembered he was committing his own family, as well as his crew, to Omnovah only knew what. The snake of anxiety was back, skittering up his spine.
Too late. There was no going back.
Chapter 12
Psyclid
During the fifteen kilometer drive back to Crystal City, Jagan’s last words at the Weapons Depot penetrated M’lani’s lassitude, twisting her lovely face into a grimace of guilt. Enough, M’lani. Stop! It’s a test, M’lani. We’re not trying to destroy the whole Reg armory in one night! Fizzit, M’lani. Stop!
And she did. But only because she’d collapsed. And now that she was home, fear overwhelmed the guilt. She hadn’t killed anyone—but if soldiers had been inside that T-bot, she doubted she would have cared.
Great goddess, she had become a monster. As bad as Jagan’s dragon.
“No!” She slapped Jagan’s hand away as he reached for the black tunic she was wearing. “You’re not going to undress me.” They were in her bedchamber, where Jagan had carried her after sending Tor and the groundcar back to the Archeron embassy.
“You can’t stay in those clothes. Your maid will scream the house down, come morning, thinking she’s found a burglar in your bed.”
“I assure you, my maid has nerves stronger than crystos.”
“You can’t raise so much as your pinkie finger, so how are you going to change?”
“My maid is loyal,” M’lani muttered, but of course every word Jagan said was true. “You’ll find a nightgown in the bottom drawer.” She nodded toward a white chest of drawers elaborately decorated with vining swirls of flowers.
Five minutes later, breathless from the intimacy of Jagan’s touch, and utterly mortified by his calm efficiency—not so much as one salacious glance, blast the man—M’lani allowed him to tuck her up in bed, pulling the heavily embroidered gold satin quilt up under her chin. “Good-night,” she murmured, unable to look him in the eye.
But instead of leaving, he sat down beside her. The deep-set black eyes staring at her were those of the Sorcerer Prime, not Jagan Mondragon. “You know, do you not, what was really tested tonight?”
“Yes.” The merest whisper. “Papa set me to be a calming influence on you, and in some grotesque cosmic irony we have switched places. You were forced to control me.”
“If the goddess is kind, we will balance each other.”
Silence stretched between them. M’lani suspected Jagan was having as many doubts about that overly optimistic remark as she was.
Suddenly, he pounded his fist into the coverlet. “I am torn, M’lani! I want to run out into the park, shouting that we have found the ultimate weapon to wipe the Regs from the face of Psyclid. And yet reason says that if you cannot control this gift, we can never use you at all. I could feel the power building in you. Each ‘kill’ fed the flames, breeding greater and greater destruction. I could see it—after the machines, people—first Regs, then who knows how far it might go? I felt the madness, M’lani. The question is . . . did you?”
In a very small voice she admitted, “Yes.”
“So what are we going to do?”
He was actually asking her, the girl he had spent his life ignoring? Almost . . . oh yes, it was almost worth the terror of this curse of a gift. Yet how far she had fallen from autocratic princess to this, a girl so shaken by a glimpse of what she might become that her wits were scrambled. One thing remained clear. “You must promise me, Jagan,” she said, facing him squarely, her green eyes cold and determined, “that you will always be there, that you will stop me by whatever means necessary.”
She’d swear his dark eyes flickered. Surprise? Distaste? Revulsion? He huffed a breath, his gaze dropping to the thick pastel-patterned carpet.
“Jagan?”
Tonelessly, he replied, “Agreed.”
“And I will destroy your dragon if you misuse it as you did with Killiri.” Good. Her voice sounded a bit stronger. Her confidence, so badly shattered, was coming back.
“Touch my dragon and I’ll throttle you.”
M’lani heaved a sigh of relief. Jagan was back.
Several corridors away in the royal bedchamber, Jalaine could feel her husband seething beside her. “Midamaran, you know you wanted them to come to an accommodation.”
“He’s been in there over an hour!”
“And the goddess only knows what they were up to tonight before they came home.”
“What kind of Sorcerer Prime is he if he doesn’t know you can tell when he’s sneaking around our daughter’s bedchamber?”
“He does know. And gives us not the slightest thought.”
“Humph!”
“Ryal . . . something happened tonight, something significant and worrisome that has nothing to do with sex. I must talk with M’lani in the morning.”
“Something to do with her gift?”
“I fear so.”
“She has killed someone.” Ryal’s horror filled the room, his pain manifesting itself in a swirling gray storm cloud, marked by whorls of black.
“I do not think so,” Jalaine returned hastily, “but I feel fear. Even from Jagan, which cannot be good.”
“We are pacifists!” The words burst from him. “Peace is the soul of Psyclid. We are taught from birth to do no harm, yet my eldest runs off to the Regulon Space Academy then becomes a rebel. She has killed, Jalaine. My L’ira has taken life. And now M’lani has caught the Reg sickness as well. Aggression. Death—”
“Your daughter was born with the Gift of Destruction long before the Regulons turned their greedy eyes on Psyclid. She is ours, Ryal. Born of our flesh. Proof, if you will, that violence cannot be bred out.”
Ryal plunged his head into his hands. “I compromised my beliefs with L’ira. I compromised when I set Jagan to free us from the Empire. I struggled with the concept of enlasé but again allowed it. I have given my children—all three of them—to the cause. But that M’lani should use her gift to kill is beyond my tolerance. It cannot happen. It will not happen.”
“A rebellion is a war,” Jalaine offered softly. “For all the power we have, you and I, we cannot change this. No one controls war, Ryal. War controls us. The best we can do is give all our time and attention to M’lani, training her to control her gift. Perhaps we can find a way to turn her power into something constructive . . .”
Ryal snorted. “I am king of an entire planet and three moons, and my daughter could turn me to ash with a look.”
“Two moons, midamaran. You gave Blue to L’ira, if you recall.”
Ryal groaned.
“Shall we ask Captain Rigel if he will
send us K’kadi so you will have support against the females in your family?” Jalaine inquired in her sweetest tones.
The first twittering of birds drifted in from the courtyard, filling the silence as the royal couple exchanged thoughts without words. “Perhaps,” Ryal said at last, reaching for his wife, “it is time to think of something more pleasant.”
Jalaine, in spite of anxiety for her younger daughter, readily complied with her husband’s suggestion.
To the few rebels who knew about the mysterious disappearances at the Heavy Weapons Depot, a great void seemed to settle over the land. Not so much as a ripple broke the great wall of silence surrounding the incident. Each day they expected the news to break. Each day nothing happened. It seemed—perhaps, not surprisingly—the Regs weren’t going to admit they’d been hit where it hurt.
Nearly a week passed before tales told by drunken soldiers—terrified drunken soldiers—began to circulate through the tavernas of Crystal City and out into the workplace. By the time the stories reached the countryside, the entire weapons depot, men and machines, had disappeared in a puff of smoke.
The reaction of Pysclids everywhere: Bless the goddess, the Sorcerer got the Regs good.
Ryal and Jalaine, informed of the full enormity of their daughter’s loss of control, withdrew from society, claiming the Princess Royal was seriously ill. Truthfully, M’lani did feel ill. Who would not after suffering her father’s fury, her mother’s disappointment? Their deep concern. And fear. Through seemingly endless days when M’lani struggled to dominate a gift that refused to be dominated, only K’kadi showed sympathy, his face appearing to her late one night as she sat in her bed, staring at nothing, wishing herself any place in the Quadrant but where she was. The illusion lengthened, becoming a full-size K’kadi, so lifelike she felt she could reach out and touch him. Tears fell from his slightly tilted azure eyes.
“Go away. I don’t deserve your pity. I’m a monster!”
K’kadi’s head shook so vehemently his white-blond hair whirled about his head.
“It’s true. No matter how hard I try for control, I seem to feed on the power until it sweeps reason away. It’s horrible, K’kadi, truly horrible.”
K’kadi held out his hand, a giant hologlobe expanding just above his palm. The planet Psyclid, with four black spots, equally spaced, hovering above. The four Reg frigates constantly on guard above the four major cities. Eyes fixed on her brother, M’lani nodded her understanding. With his free hand he pointed at her, then back to the hologlobe. The black spots on the surface disappeared. The frigate icons winked out.
“No-o!” M’lani cried. “I can’t, I won’t. Never!” And then more softly, “Papa won’t let me.”
The hologlobe disappeared. K’kadi, clearly upset, pounded a fist against his head. M’lani could almost swear she heard him groan, even though everyone knew he’d never made a sound, perhaps the only baby in the universe who never cried.
The hologlobe reappeared with the four frigates back in place. Instead of winking out, they floated across her bedchamber until they disappeared into the silk wallcovering. M’lani heaved a sigh of relief so profound she could feel the air tearing through her lungs. “If we are successful on the ground, the Reg ships will go home.”
Vigorously, K’kadi nodded, his face breaking into a broad smile.
“Thank you!”
And he was gone, leaving M’lani feeling like herself for the first time since those terrible moments at the Weapons Depot. She could conquer her monstrous gift. She could. She would.
Chapter 13
As Red Moon waxed, casting its full rosy glow over Crystal City, then once again shrank to a crescent, M’lani was confined to the palace, Jagan banished from her side. Vid reporters speculated that the romance between the Princess Royal and the Archeron Ambassador had been short-lived, the princess in seclusion with a broken heart, not the fever announced by the palace.
Neither the Governor General nor any of his officers ever admitted anything unusual had happened at the Heavy Weapons Depot. Killiri’s informants reported the missing armaments were replaced with fresh supplies from Regula Prime. Reg soldiers, under duress, had recanted their tales of mysterious disappearances. The incident never happened.
Only Blue and White moons shone in the night sky when the Archeron Ambassador was finally granted permission to visit the palace, where, after briefly paying his respects to Ryal and Jalaine, he was allowed to speak with M’lani in the privacy of the courtyard. Once seated on the crystos bench that surrounded the fountain, M’lani burst out, “It was all for naught! I struck the Regs where it hurt. I was so pleased with myself—ecstatic!—even the fear and guilt that came later couldn’t banish my pride. But the Regs act as if nothing ever happened, and my parents think me a menace. No!” M’lani thrust out a hand to stop Jagan from interrupting her tirade. “And now I am confined like a prisoner in a dungeon, enduring hour after hour of training from two people who never destroyed anything larger than a kito in their lives!”
When M’lani paused to draw a shuddering breath, Jagan took her by the shoulders, his grip hard. “You did not fail. The machines are gone, whether the Regs admit it or not. And Ryal and Jalaine are just trying to help you control your skills. You are truly our most powerful weapon.”
“I cannot kill, Jagan,” M’lani wailed. “Truly I cannot. Day after day, I’ve heard little else. Control, control, control! I must rise above my ‘curse,’ never lose my temper. I must not kill, must not destroy.” M’lani covered her face with her hands as her voice shattered on a sob.
Pok! Jagan enfolded her in his arms—how could he do anything else?—but his mind seethed with far from loverlike thoughts. He had not supposed Ryal such a hard-headed fool. And surely Jalaine had better sense. They were ruining Psyclid’s best weapon. Pacifism was a lovely concept if no one was trying to slit your throat.
Marriage held little appeal, particularly marriage to M’lani, but Fate was against him. The rebellion needed to separate her from her parents. They needed to set a date.
Fizzet, no! There had to be other ways around this set-back.
Jagan looked to the stars twinkling above, as if suggesting that sometimes even the Sorcerer Prime needed divine guidance. He heaved a long sigh. “Then we’ll scare them back to Regula. They’ve had a warning. No matter what face they put on, they have to be nervous.”
M’lani lifted her head from his shoulder, her royal nose offering a sniff of disdain.
“Baby steps, M’lani. We learn as we go. When we reach the point we can coordinate attacks around the whole planet at the same time . . . then we’ll be free. And with as little bloodshed as possible.”
“My parents say they want freedom,” she grumbled, “but they won’t pay the cost.”
“Pacifism is our heritage, a mindset hard to bend.”
“L’ira did it!”
“And I,” Jagan admitted softly. “Hell Nine added a good deal to my education.”
“So why must I not—”
“Because your potential for destruction is so much greater. Annihilation on a grand scale can never be the Psyclid way.”
“But waiting for everyone to learn enlasé is such a slow process,” she protested. “I want to grab our magic by the throat and make it happen now.”
“As do I. But it doesn’t work that way.”
“I know.” M’lani hung her head, taking a deep breath. “They’re letting me out tomorrow, in time for the next rebel meeting. Will you come for me?”
“Of course.” Jagan offered a wicked grin. “You don’t think the parents are going to let you out without me, do you?”
She tried to be angry but couldn’t. The whole thing hurt too much. “I don’t want to be a menace,” she whispered, her voice hiccuping at the end.
“If it’s any consolation . . . I rather like the new M’lani.”
“The M’lani who’s beaten into the ground?”
“The M’lani who is about to rise from d
espair into triumph.”
“Says who?”
“Jagan Mondragon and the Sorcerer Prime.”
“I wish I could believe you.” M’lani’s shoulders slumped. “Go, Jagan. By tomorrow I’ll have my mask back in place. But Killiri better not make any remarks about—”
At this renewed belligerence, Jagan cut her off. “M’lani, you’ll be the death of us all.”
She smiled and patted his hand. “It’s difficult to keep a princess down, and I have K’kadi’s assurance that all’s well that ends well. Look up, Jagan. Blue Moon is rising above the walls. They’re up there waiting for us to do our job so the rebellion can move forward. We can do it, I know we can.”
“What happened to the pessimist who was here a few minutes ago?”
“It must be the moonlight . . . or K’kadi.” She reached out and took his hand. “Or perhaps present company,” she added softly. And then it finally hit her. Something had changed. Drastically. She was no longer the insignificant princess with no talent. She might not have the years of training that Jagan did, but she could stand eye to eye with him and hold her own.
And with that thought the power in her reached out and seized his, as if this were the moment it had been waiting for. Where their bodies touched, a wild current surged, pulsing with a sensation unlike anything she had felt before. Her essence sliding into his, his into hers. Bodies and souls melding, becoming one.
Loss of self.
Panic.
A strange euphoria as her new self became so much more than the girl she’d once been.
No! Whatever it was, she didn’t want this. This mysterious surge—of what?—was more terrifying than the Gift of Destruction. Shocked, M’lani pulled away, numbly watching sparks of fire flaring in the courtyard’s dim light, dancing around them in a chaos of celebration. Her head, her whole body, swirled just as madly. And if what vision she had left did not lie, Jagan felt something as well. He was shaking his head, black eyes gone wide and sightless. “Fyd!” he breathed at last. “This could be a problem.”
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