“Does a man of your rank really need to play coy?” she said, picking up speed as if she was impatient.
“I’m—new,” Conrad managed to say.
She raised a perfectly groomed eyebrow. “Of course you are,” she said in a tone that indicated she didn’t believe a single word he said.
They stopped in front of the door from which she’d exited. It slid open.
“Get in,” she said, in a tone of voice that brooked no argument.
“Lady Tai,” he began. “I…”
“Come,” she said, glaring at him. “They can wait outside. I have a feeling this won’t take long.”
Ask her about the lift, mouthed Baltasar, and gave Conrad a mad grin as the door closed.
Chapter 19
Jira Tai’s room was barely larger than Conrad’s Academy bunk. It fit a bed and a simple wood desk, covered in what appeared to be small white squares of paper. There was no decoration on the walls, save for the fine, nearly invisible carvings that covered the walls of the palace.
She sat down on the bed, her arms folded under her breasts. He tried hard not to look at them, but failed.
“Let’s get to it,” she said briskly. “What are you waiting for?” It was almost a challenge.
Suddenly, Conrad felt indignant. Who does she think she is?
“You know, you’re not very good at this whole… concubine thing,” he said.
Her eyes widened and then narrowed. “And you’re one to judge?” she snapped back at him. “Oh yes, I’ve forgotten. Of course you are. How many concubines have you enjoyed this week, milord?” she demanded. “Well, the faster you’re done, the better. Once you’ve passed on those precious Satori genes of yours you can move on to the next girl, and I’ll just be one of the more forgettable ones you’ve been with this month.”
He stared at her, speechless. Did she really expect him to… perform?
He backed toward the door. She saw his move toward the exit and sprang up from her place on the bed. “Wait,” she said, her obvious hostility fading slightly. “Don’t leave.”
“You want me to stay?” Conrad said, more confused than ever.
She rested a hand on her forehead for a moment. “If you go they’ll just send someone else,” she said. “And you’re not as… detestable as some of the others.”
“Thank you?” Conrad placed a hand on the doorframe, searching for the release. He’d never been in such a hurry to get away from a woman this beautiful.
She advanced toward him, tossing her braid over her shoulder. “I apologize if I insulted you,” she said, and reached out her hand. She rested it lightly on his chest and looked up at him. Her eyes had specks of gold in them, he realized. She took his hand and cradled it in hers. “I’ve just been here for so long,” she said, shyly. “In two years no one’s taken an interest in me until now.”
“I can’t imagine why,” he managed to get out.
“It’s true,” she said. “Little Jira Tai, from a planet no one cares about in the middle of nowhere… why should someone like you stop to notice a woman like that, when there are so many other beautiful concubines here, of the first and second ranks?”
She laid his hand on her chest, his fingers on her collarbones. “I’ll have to convince you, I see,” she said.
He opened his mouth to speak. In that moment she seized his wrist and yanked his arm down, planted an elbow into his chest, and knocked him onto the floor. She climbed on top of him, pinning him to the ground with her weight. She pulled a small, pointed knife out of her bodice and aimed it at his throat.
“And this should do all the convincing,” she said, perfectly calm.
Conrad stared up into those large, gold-specked green eyes of hers. She had moved so quickly, and he hadn’t expected so much force to come from the body of such a slender, compact person.
I’ve had bad luck with beautiful women lately, he reflected.
“What is it you really want?” he asked, as the tip of her knife grazed his Adam’s apple.
“To get out of here,” she said immediately.
“What a lucky coincidence,” he replied. “That’s what my friends and I are trying to do, too.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”
“The two of them outside your door,” he said. “We broke into the palace. Once we get what we came for, we’re breaking out.”
The tip of her knife didn’t twitch. “And what is it you came for?” Her eyes glinted with suspicion.
“Starmaps. Navcharts,” he said, remembering what Baltasar called them.
“Why?”
“We’re… not from here,” he said, his breath hitching in his throat as he felt the point of the knife. “We came through a portal. From a place where the Empire doesn’t exist. We need to get back to my world.”
Conrad had a suspicion that this woman had no love for the Satori. He took the chance, looking up into her eyes without blinking.
“You’re not Satori?” she asked.
“No,” he said, and she lowered her blade.
“You’re of no use to me, then,” she said, standing up. She still held the blade in front of her, with a self-assurance that suggested she’d had years of practice with the simple weapon.
Conrad pushed himself up onto his elbows. “If you want to leave,” he said, “you can come with us.”
She lowered the knife, just a little. “You’ll never get into the archive where the navcharts are,” she said. “A Satori bloodprint is needed for that, and if you’re not Satori—”
“I’m Satori enough,” he said, holding up his hand. “I don’t know how it’s possible, but my bloodprint works. But I swear to you, I’m a stranger here. And I have no interest in… whatever it is the Satori do here.”
She dropped her arm, but the knife was still clutched in her fist. “The Satori have spread their descendants all over this side of the galaxy,” she said. “But how could they have found their way to an unconquered planet? Your story is suspicious. If your bloodprint works, then how can I trust you?”
An idea occurred to Conrad. “I’ll prove it to you,” he said, climbing to his feet. “Open the door, and I’ll prove to you that I’m not one of them.”
She came up close to him, so close he could hear her breathe. “If you’re lying…”
He flashed his biggest, toothiest smile. “To a lady like you—I’d never.”
The door opened. He beckoned to Argus, who entered the room with caution, his ears flickering. Baltasar sidled in behind him as the door slid shut.
Argus saw the knife and bared his teeth, growling. “Argus,” said Conrad. “She’s a friend. I think.” He glanced at her and tried to smile before turning back to Argus. “You don’t have to pretend anymore. You can stand up, and you can talk. Don’t worry about her.”
Argus slowly rose up to his full height, rolling up through his spine until he towered over the woman with the knife. She didn’t take a single step backward, but her eyes widened as she looked up at Argus’s unreadable alien face.
“She’s holding a weapon,” Argus rumbled.
“I know,” said Conrad. “But I don’t think she’s going to use it—will you, Jira?”
“Lady Tai to you,” she said. “And no, I won’t use it, unless you force my hand.” She studied Argus without fear. “You talk,” she said to Argus. “Does he tell you what to say?”
Argus rumbled. “Only if he wants me to beat him senseless.”
She flicked the knife away, tucking it into the folds of her dress. “Good enough,” she said, suddenly businesslike.
Baltasar looked between her and Argus and Conrad. “Was she going to stab you?” he asked, his eyes boggling.
“I was,” she said, “but a man who treats a non-human as his equal is no Satori. We all know what they think of non-human sentients.” She offered her hand to Argus, who nuzzled it curiously.
“Whyever would you want to stab a Satori?” Baltasar asked, almost jokingly.
She lo
oked at him, deadly serious. “Because I need his blood to get out of this place,” she said without blinking an eye. Obviously.
Conrad folded his arms, looking at the small, deadly woman. “You were going to kill one of them?”
She shrugged. “Maybe not kill—unless I had to. Maul, maybe. Borrow a little blood. Nothing he’d miss in the long term. But that’s behind us now,” she said firmly. “I can lead you to the archives, in exchange for the use of your bloodprint. And I can get us out of this place.”
“Who are you?”
She gave him a little smile. “You’ll find out,” she said.
They hid, spending a restless night on the floor in the concubine’s room. She let Argus up on her bed, letting the Kazhad curl around her protectively. Strangely enough, Argus had taken to her, and there was no other room in her quarters. Conrad lay on the thin rug on the stone floors, wondering if he would feel her blade on his throat again as he drifted off completely.
He awoke to the sound of her voice instead.
“You’re a wanted man,” she whispered.
He opened his eyes. She was on her stomach, dangling over the edge of the bed with a small white square in her hand. No one else was awake.
Conrad sat up, his heart pounding and his back aching from the hard floor. “What?”
“I used your bloodprint to access one of the encrypted military streams,” she said. “Your bloodprint’s got an extraordinary clearance level, princeling.”
Conrad reached for the square, but she pulled away. “A man and a half-sentient of unidentified species discovered shepherding Vehn,” she said. “Judging by the description of the half-sentient, that must be you and your friend. And then a Fleet storehouse was plundered two systems over, on Pac Ishi. The captain who first encountered the man made both reports.”
“Heik,” Conrad said.
Jira set the square down. “I don’t envy you, princeling. This Captain Heik will hunt you down. And rumor says he’s a powerful man in that sector. A rising star in the Fleet.”
“Not if we get out of here first.”
She gave him a rueful look. “The Satori love the hunt,” she said softly. “It is at the heart of their military culture, you see. They’re hunters. They’ve sent their troops to planets full of sentients and had their soldiers hunt them down to extinction—for sport.”
Conrad swallowed thickly. “My people would never commit an atrocity like that,” he said. “Never.”
Her feet came to the floor. “Everything will change when your people encounter the Satori,” she said, as if it was inevitable. “They will either bend and be conquered, or refuse to bend and be destroyed.”
“Or we’ll refuse to bend, and they’ll be destroyed,” Conrad said. “That’s also an option.”
She smiled at him. “I like you, princeling.” She leaned down and whispered in his ear. “Try not to get yourself killed today.”
“The concubines live mostly on these levels in the base of the palace,” she said, moving briskly down the corridor. “The ones from newly conquered worlds, anyway. Our own people send us here at the behest of the conquerors, hoping we catch the eye of some Satori duke or prince. Once they get us with child, then they send us back, intending that their bastard children will rule our worlds in their traditions, and bind their conquests to Albion Prime. If they find us especially amusing, then they keep us here. Sometimes they even marry a concubine. Some of the women here pin all their hopes on that.”
She walked a little faster. “I’ve done everything I can to keep myself from seeming even slightly amusing. So I knew sooner or later they’d send someone to me, just to get the job done and get rid of me.”
“That’s what you thought I was?”
“I should have known,” she said, glancing over her shoulder to look at the three of them. “No prince would travel in such… company.”
“What’s wrong with my company?” Conrad couldn’t help but ask.
“Only one servant and a little pet?” she said. Argus growled at the suggestion that he was little. “I try to stay out of their way, but these two are hardly the kind of companions a prince would choose.”
She stopped at the edge of an atrium. After rounding the corner she ran her hand over the wall until she found what she was looking for. She turned to Conrad and pressed her hand against the wall. “Here,” she said. “Touch your hand to this place.”
Conrad looked at the wall. There was no outline of a door here. “How did you know this is where the lift is?” he asked.
She swept her palm over the wall. “The human hand is more sensitive than you’d think,” she said. “It can feel and find patterns and words by touch alone. If you know what you’re trying to find, then you will know how to find it by touch alone. The Satori have no intentions of letting their guests run amok in the upper palace. They hid the lifts and many of the doors, so only they would know how to travel in this place.”
“How did you learn all this?”
A smile tugged at her lips. “I’ve spent two years here,” she said. “I had to find something to do while I shirked my responsibilities.”
Conrad pressed his hand to the invisible panel. It pierced his skin and the lift opened.
“We’re going up,” she declared, entering the lift. “Excepting guards, only those who can reach the level of the general audience chamber have clearance to go down to the archives.”
The lift halted and the doors opened. Jira turned to them, her back to the door. “This is as far up as the lift goes,” she said. “This is the main floor—where the Imperial family holds court, and where all the Satori, as well as the Fleet admirals and commanders and all their ilk, congregate. You’ll need to be on your best behavior here. If you give us away, we’ll all be missing our heads before the day is over.”
Conrad swallowed. He’d had the standard protocol trainings any corpsman would have, but this was a completely different situation.
She looked to Conrad. “Stand up straight and don’t make eye contact with anyone. You’re a prince,” she said, and then turned to Baltasar. “You—try not to look so nervous. Don’t look around too much, or people will notice. And as for you—” She turned to Argus last. “Try not to look so… threatening. Keep your eyes on the floor. Look tame.”
Argus flattened his ears against his head. She lowered her hand and scratched lightly behind those ears as he purred. Conrad stared down at him with surprise. The only person Argus had ever purred for was Rose.
She straightened and slid her hand under Conrad’s elbow. “Are you ready?”
The door slid open before he could answer.
Chapter 20
“Lords of the dark,” Baltasar exhaled.
The hall into which the lift opened was lined with white stone, as wide as a river, and stretched so far that Conrad could barely make out the end of it. Its ceilings stretched up fifty meters high. There was a flight of stairs at the far end, vast and terraced, climbing up beyond what they could see.
The soft light of the late afternoon poured in through the tall windows on both sides of the hall. The black and white flagstones of the floor shone beneath the light, polished for hundreds of years under the feet of the Satori.
The hall was milling with people—courtiers, Conrad guessed. They were dressed in resplendent clothes of all colors, trimmed with gold and silver and furs. There were extraordinarily beautiful women among them—women like Jira—and military officers sprinkled throughout the hall, their dress uniforms echoing what Heik had worn on the Secace.
Jira took the first step forward, her head raised high. Conrad went with her, her arm locked tightly under his elbow.
He kept his gaze straight ahead, barely daring to blink. He sensed the eyes of courtiers on him, but he focused on walking steadily and trying not to trip.
“Relax,” Jira murmured to him out of the corner of her mouth. “No one will question you, your highness. Not here.”
He swallowed, his mouth dry. He
could hear the soft swish of Argus’s tail, and Baltasar’s footsteps, just as uncertain as his own.
“We just have to get to the staircase,” she whispered. “Almost there…”
He felt a hand on his arm and startled. He turned his head to see a woman dressed entirely in shimmering blue silk. She smiled at him, her eyes openly inviting. “My lord,” she said. “Excuse the presumption, but I don’t believe we’ve met before.”
Jira swung around and pushed her way between Conrad and the woman. “No,” she said. “And I don’t believe you’ll be meeting him now.” She glowered, every bit a jealous lover. With that she pulled Conrad along.
“Sorry,” said Conrad to the woman, awkwardly. “She’s—a lot to handle.”
They advanced toward the grand staircase. Jira paused at the massive column at its bottom. Conrad stretched out his hand, offering his bloodprint. The guards looked at Conrad, and bowed their heads after the bloodprint registered.
Jira’s eyebrows rose. As they ascended, she brushed past him. “Impressive bloodprint you’ve got,” she murmured. Conrad wondered what her plan would have been if it hadn’t worked.
The slim concubine picked up the pace, hurrying up the stairs, holding her skirt in her hands. She moved confidently, as if she knew exactly where she was going.
Conrad looked up. The stairs rose up into an audience chamber. It seemed almost as vast as the hall before it, but its walls, floors, and ceilings were black. The windows cut into the walls were thin and tall. It was dark inside, and on the far side of the chamber sat a single throne, placed on a platform meters above the chamber floor.
It was made entirely of metal, Conrad realized. Strange, for a palace where everything was built of semi-precious stones and marble. And not only metal, but old metal, charred toward the base of the throne. The platform was scored with white markings on black stones. Conrad looked closer and realized it was a map of stars.
The audience chamber spoke of understated power, of restraint. Where the main hall was nothing but pure grandeur, the chamber was something else altogether, regal and simple at the same time.
Sanctuary's Soldier: The Darkspace Saga Book 1 Page 12
