Lady of the Star Wind

by Veronica Scott

  “I forbid you to see this cadet again, Alessandra.” Her mother’s voice was cold, cutting. “You’ve thanked him sufficiently for saving your life, which was, after all, his duty as an imperial cadet officer. There’s no need for you to be visiting him repeatedly in the hospital. Such condescension on the part of an imperial princess doesn’t show you to your peers in a good light.”

  Surprised her usually remote mother was even aware she’d seen her rescuer, Alessandra shook off an odd sense that they’d had this conversation before and stepped away from the portal. “Are you afraid people will talk?” Pivoting to stare at her mother, she laughed. “No one cares what I do. I’m too far down the list of heirs to the throne to matter.”

  “I’m more concerned about what this cadet will think.” Her mother shook a finger at her. “He’s a Denaltieri, after all, a warrior, and you know how their clan is, always seeking advantage. His grandfather was Ekatereen’s lover for a time, which is where the family got the bulk of their fortune and honors. This man may be seeking political or financial advantage from a liaison with you.”

  “But Mark—I mean, Cadet Denaltieri—killed two men and wounded the third to rescue me. I’ve never seen anything like the way he fought, except in the adventure trideos. He took a great risk for me.”

  “And for himself and his family. Surely the assassins would have pinned the blame for your death on him, and his family would’ve been in trouble. It’s not a given that the empress would have interceded with Stastre to demand blood price for your death on our behalf either.” Her mother frowned. “Although she probably does have a lingering affection for the Denaltieri clan, which might have outweighed your uncle’s schemes. If you made more of an effort to please her, she’d pay more attention to you and we’d have a safer position in these delicate matters."

  “This constant maneuvering and politics drives me mad,” Alessandra said. “I’m sick of it. I refuse to simper and flatter and connive like the cousins you so admire.”

  “I know you prefer to think yourself above it all, but Ekatereen’s blood runs in your veins, and that makes you part of the mix, unlikely though it may be that you’d ever sit on the throne.” Her mother poured herself a cup of tea, no doubt liberally laced with strong feelgoods. “Getting back to the original subject, your father and I don’t want to hear that you’ve seen this Denaltieri boy again. I’m sure he’s quite handsome, but the time to take lovers is after your marriage, not before, Alessandra. There’ll be others to choose from in the future, just as well favored as this cadet, I promise you. Although they do say the Denaltieris are unusually…blessed in their physical endowments.” With a saucy wink, she sipped the hot beverage and sighed, relaxing into her chair. Words slurring a bit, she said, “You’ve a duty to the family to uphold.”

  Alessandra took a deep breath. Arguing with her mother, especially when she was under the influence of her favorite recreational drugs, was a futile and exasperating effort. “Not to upset you further, Mother, or deny the wisdom of your counsel, but I do need to see him today because I agreed to accompany Cadet Commander Barent Kliin to the hospital. Together we’re to present Denaltieri with an award for his deeds. I funded the medal from my private stipend.”

  “Barent is highly regarded. It’s an excellent stratagem to use this incident to move into his circle.” Her mother’s voice was approving. “Ekatereen is known to favor him above the others in this generation, although she’ll keep playing them all against each other. Perhaps you’re cleverer about the politics than you give yourself credit for. Very well, proceed with your plans for the day, after which we’ll be done with the Denaltieri matter.” Waving a languid hand, her mother leaned against the cushions and shut her eyes as the feelgoods hit her system.

  Gritting her teeth in annoyance, Alessandra escaped into the corridor, working her way through the crowd of courtiers and minor nobility with practiced ease. Heading toward the courtyard where a family groundcar waited to whisk her to the hospital, she took perverse pleasure in her mother’s assumption that this morning’s ceremony was a scheme to attract the attention of the odious Barent Kliin. True, Alessandra chose to exert unusual energy in playing a courtier’s game this one time, but the object of her planning was none other than Mark Denaltieri.

  Biting back a sigh at the mental image of the gallant and handsome scion of a warrior clan, she hoped he was as good at intrigue as he was at hand-to-hand combat. Would he take the risk of getting to know her better? If they were both discreet, no one would ever suspect anything between them. After all, their stations in life on Throne were worlds apart. The intense attraction she felt for him didn’t make sense, given that they’d just met, but the idea of never seeing him again was like a knife to the heart. She refused to deny herself a chance at learning more about Mark Denaltieri.

  Now that he was out of the hospital, he was back on duty, with a schedule to uphold. Sandy knew that, knew he could get into trouble, so why was she late to this assignation?

  Mark didn’t remember her being tardy to their first clandestine meeting, away from prying eyes and wagging tongues, so why was she late in this dream? Leaning on the doorframe, he stretched side to side judiciously, hoping to ease the lingering pain from the knife wound. He’d forgotten how much it hurt to take a force knife in the ribs. He gazed into the golden haze of a Throne afternoon in midsummer, enjoying the quiet beauty of Sandy’s most secret retreat, where he guessed she hid from the poisonous intrigues of her grandmother’s court.

  Any moment now, she’d hasten across the overgrown meadow to this long-abandoned library, so old it held crumbling books. The library was concealed deep in the oldest section of the palace, accessible through a series of corridors and winding garden paths that became overgrown the deeper one penetrated into the recesses of this quadrant of the grounds. She’d told him how she’d explored the abandoned areas of the complex as a child whenever she could escape her relatives and minders. The fact she was able to do so told him how little she mattered to them as a person or an imperial princess. It seemed no one much cared.

  Well, he cared.

  She’d shared the location of the hidden door with him on her final visit to his hospital room, the last she could make without arousing anyone’s suspicions. With Barent Kliin looking on, no less. Mark grinned at the way she’d connived right under the bastard’s nose. He stared at the overgrown, broken gate through which Sandy would pass. Her arrival was a certainty, he knew now, where his much-younger self had been nervous and skeptical. Maybe even a little scared about the step he was taking, becoming involved with an imperial princess, no matter how removed from inheriting the throne. When he’d left his home planet to accept the appointment to cadet school, his grandfather warned him against forming romantic alliances too early in his career, especially with the royals.

  “The inheritance situation is too unstable right now,” the old man said. “Guess wrong about which faction to become involved with, and your chances may turn to ash. You don’t want to incur Ekatereen’s wrath either, so stay away from anything and anyone likely to offend her. The empress is the center of the universe on Throne. Cross her at your peril.”

  Good advice. Too bad that in some ways he hadn’t heeded it.

  A small sound snapped his attention to the overgrown tangle of garden in front of him. Sandy walked into view, young and demure in her white dress. “I thought you weren’t coming.” Stepping over the threshold of the library, he went to meet her.

  “I almost didn’t.” She stopped about two yards away. Wringing her hands, licking her lips, she avoided his gaze. He had the impression she teetered on the verge of fleeing.

  This reality diverged from his memories of the events. He reached her in two steps, taking her into his arms, relieved she offered no resistance. He gazed into her eyes, realizing he was finally in the presence of Alessandra of the Future, the woman who’d journeyed with him to Nakhtiaar. She had the face of the beautiful girl, but her eyes were far too knowi
ng.

  “Thank the Lords of Space, you’re back with me. When did you realize what was going on?” He hugged her, relief running through his body like a cool rain. He’d been afraid she might never catch up to him, dreaded the idea of going through this nightmare alone.

  “Yesterday morning when I awoke. You called me Sandy last week, in the garden, which certainly seemed an odd form of address from someone I’d never met. Yesterday I realized why you called me by that nickname.” Her lovely face was set in a troubled and sad expression, eyes hooded, lips turned down.

  “What’s the matter?” He kissed her on the cheek, nuzzled her neck playfully.

  She studied their clasped hands. “You do realize if we stop now, right now, if we never let ourselves take this affair further, you can have your life back? Accomplish all the ambitions luring you to Throne in the first place?”

  Her words surprised and shocked him, as if she’d slapped him. Astounded, never expecting this line of reasoning from Sandy, he released his hold on her. A flash of anger made his next words come out harsher than he’d intended. “Do you want your life as an untouched imperial princess back? Does knowing you’ll become the heir mean so much to you?”

  “Please, listen to me.” She took another step away from him. “I’m consumed by guilt right now because of what’s going to happen to you. All my fault! When I think about the hell my grandmother is going to put you through—”

  Reaching out, he took her hand, tugging her into his arms. This was the Sandy he knew and cherished. He skimmed her forehead with his lips, a gentle kiss before tilting her face to his. “I love you. I can endure all the pain and hardships as long as I know we’re going to be together at the end. I didn’t have such comfort the first time I lived through torture and exile.”

  “You wouldn’t change a thing? Not anything?” Toying with a fastening on his cadet tunic, she challenged him but made no attempt to escape his embrace.

  “No. When I woke up in my cadet’s quarters last week, all I could think about was getting to the damn garden before the assassins arrived. I had to save your life all over again.”

  She wasn’t giving in yet. “What if we left right now? What if we escaped Throne together, today, and made a life somewhere else? Maybe even in the Sectors?”

  He contemplated the intriguing idea for a moment. He had the skills to get them off Throne and safely to the Sectors. He hadn’t forgotten a thing he’d learned—would learn—in the Special Forces. At the moment he was an unimportant cadet and she only a minor player in the imperial family’s dynastic calculations. Not a Favorite of the Empress, Sandy wasn’t spied upon to the same degree as other girls of her generation. At this point no one knew they loved each other, which could make an escape easier to pull off.

  But even as he toyed with plans and contingencies, he shook his head. He led her into the library, joining her on the deep couch. “It’s no good. Your grandmother would have us hunted down no matter where we fled for shelter. She’d stop at nothing because she never lets anyone or anything she considers to be hers escape her control. You know that. She’d have her own secret service after us, bounty hunters, every lowlife in the Sectors. The price on our heads would become astronomical until someone bagged us. A fugitive’s life is cruel, hopeless.”

  “I know,” she admitted. “I hate to think of what’s coming, so soon. And all those sad desolate years until we find each other again.”

  He rubbed his hand over the velvet-soft skin of her arm.

  “What are you doing? You’re giving me goose bumps!” Laughing, she pulled away.

  “I’m looking for the bite marks from Sherabti. Remember Nakhtiaar?”

  “Of course I do. As clearly as I remember this life we’ve plummeted back into. I just don’t know if we’re trapped in a dream together, or if Haatrin’s door really sent us through time to relive the turning point of our lives. What are you getting at?”

  Waving his hand at the surroundings, he said, “I think this—all this—is some kind of a test.”

  Forehead furrowed as she pondered his guess, she said, “You mean we’re being tempted with other possibilities to see what we choose?”

  “I didn’t have to go to the garden and save your life. When I arrived there the first time decades ago, it was by accident. I’d gotten lost, and I walked into the middle of a situation where I had to take immediate action to save you and myself.” He rubbed a hand across his eyes. “When I woke the other day, the idea of abandoning you never even crossed my mind, but I think it must have been the first decision point in this—this test, if you want to think of the events in such terms. I think that’s why I knew what was happening to us before you did. The initial choice—saving your life—was mine to make. And according to Babsuket, loathsome old crone that she is, I’m the weak link in your ability to use the mirror.”

  “You could have stayed away, let me die, and lived a totally different life,” she said. “Followed the path you’d originally set out upon, as one of the empress’s officers.

  “No, I could not,” he said, anger flaring that she could even suggest such a thing. “I love you, and I want to live my life with you, come what may. I’d give my life to save yours, here and now, or in the future, or on Nakhtiaar. If that isn’t enough to satisfy whoever the powers are that control the mirror you desire so much, I don’t know what else to do or say.”

  “I appreciate the effort you’re making. If this test involves me choosing between the mirror and you, I’ll always choose you.” She kissed him. “How much of our history do we have to relive? What’s expected of us if we’re trying to repair the rupture Babsuket saw in our ability to wield magic?”

  “I don’t know and I don’t much care, to be honest. I feel trapped.” He stroked her back. “Not trapped by you. By the situation. But then, I think about Nakhtiaar, and I want to be there. It’s become home to me—I belong. I never fit into the Sectors, and I certainly don’t have a place in Outlier anymore. In Nakhtiaar I’m needed, part of something I believe in, somewhere I can make a difference.”

  “You mean working for Rothan, part of his rebellion against Farahna?”

  He considered his answer. “I can help Rothan, not as one more spear carrier in the ranks but by teaching his army techniques, strategies, mentoring… There’s more potential for me on Nakhtiaar. I can put my talents to use because we fit in there, both of us.” He tapped his finger lightly on her chest. “You have a valued place whether you can use that damn mirror for anything or not.”

  “I know. But I could be so much more help to them if I could unlock the power in that mirror.”

  He frowned. “At first, life in Nakhtiaar was odd, primitive, compared to what we’re used to, but the place grew on me. They’re good people. We can help them. And we can be together freely there, you and I, and make a life, the way we never can here. Even if we did escape to the Sectors, we wouldn’t have a happy life.” He paused, trying to gather his thoughts to explain to her what he was beginning to realize himself. “In the beginning when we got to Nakhtiaar, you were angry with me because I wanted to stay on the move. I threw us into Rothan’s quest to find the lost city and the Crown of Khunarum without hesitation, right?”

  Her face was serious in the gathering shadows, her voice pitched low. “Yes, I was livid. And hurt. The oasis seemed so perfect, offered a wonderful opportunity to rekindle our love, a dream come true, for me at least. But I realized immediately you weren’t comfortable, as if you were in a cage or a trap. Being with me wasn’t enough for you.”

  “I never meant to hurt you.” He kissed her to emphasize his regret. “I was confused by what I felt, seeing you again. Scared of reopening my heart to emotion after all the years of locking it inside. Keeping in motion, going into action represented an easy escape from having to deal with the feelings right away. But then, when you nearly died from the snakebite, when I thought I might lose you, I was ready. I wanted time out to be together and sort through our relationship, th
ere in the Mikkonite village. But you were already caught up in the search for the mirror. Served me right for trying to hide from my emotions in the first place.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize. You didn’t ask the Moon Sisters to snatch you. I’ll never take anything about us, or you, for granted ever again.” He kissed her long and hard. “The mirror is part of who and what we’re meant to be there, an integral piece of what we can do to help them. No one else has the ability but you. I accept that. Maybe our connection to the mirror is the reason Lajollae sent us there, which is fine by me. I love you. Lajollae’s magic bubble took us to the one place where we could be happy and build a life.”

  Sandy left the couch, strolling along the walls, stopping here and there to pull a book off the shelf and leaf through it for a moment before setting each volume carefully in its place. “You know this room isn’t here anymore.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Grandmother had the entire wing burned and the gardens dug up.”

  He found the news distressing, like a punch to the gut. This library had been their one special place to be together, to be themselves. “Does it bother you to be here again?”

  “No.” She glanced at the crowded bookshelves, at the pillows and quilts she’d stacked on the old couch, then at him. “No,” she repeated in a soft voice, a blush spreading over her cheeks. “It makes me happy to have a chance to revisit it with you.”

  Returning to the couch, she tugged at his scarlet uniform tunic and pulled him closer, kissing him with a hunger and a passion stoked by all their years apart. Sandy broke off the embrace, running her fingers through his hair. “I’m glad you want to return to Nakhtiaar, whatever happens. I felt at home the first moment we arrived in the Travelers’ oasis, but I knew you were unhappy, restless—”