by K. B. Wagers
I came out of the bedroom dressed in a blood-red corset, my skirts a wide circle of embroidered fabric in the same hue. A sari trimmed in golden tassels hid my hair, wound itself around my throat and waist, and hung down the back of my skirts.
My lips were painted crimson-gold, and a stain of black cut across my face, over my eyes. I’d had to fix the paint three times because of the damn tears.
The seven women and men sitting in my main room stared for a stunned moment—even my Trackers seemed shocked—before they scrambled to their feet and bowed to me as a unit.
“Highness.” Emmory’s dark eyes were unreadable.
“I go to temple to see my sisters,” I said formally.
Emmory dipped his head, replying with equal formality, “I go with you, Highness. Zin, Cas, Jet, you will join us. Nal, you and the others get settled and see to the things we’ve discussed here.”
My smati recognized the men as Emmory pointed at them. The baby-faced blond was Cas, and the man with the hard slate eyes was Jet.
Gesturing for me to follow the younger Guard out the door, Emmory moved into the space at my side with such ease that for a moment I found it hard to believe we hadn’t been doing this my whole life.
If we had, maybe my sisters would still be alive. I clenched my hands against the guilt, wondering just what my BodyGuards would do if I put one of my fists into the mirror as we passed it.
“Are you all right, Highness?”
I managed to keep the burst of laughter in check, knowing it would sound hysterical. “Oh, I’m just lovely, Ekam. How are you?”
That earned me a look from Emmory. I ignored it and continued down the corridor.
We moved through the corridors, and I felt like I was floating through a dream—disconnected and disbelieving. The few servants out at this hour bowed out of my way, their eyes locked on the floor at my feet as I passed.
The family’s private entrance to the temple was draped with filmy curtains of white gauze. They were streaked with red, signs that my sisters’ journey was still within the three-moon mourning period.
The incense-laden air hit me like a slap as we passed through the curtain, the soft, everyday scent giving way to the heavier local Nag Champa. A red-robed priest met us at the bottom of the stairs. He bowed to me.
“Princess.” It was Father Westinkar, his aged face grooved even more deeply than I remembered. The black mourning powder coating his eyes sank into the crevasses of his lined face—so dark against the paleness of his skin.
I didn’t say a word, wasn’t allowed to speak until I’d paid my respects. So I swallowed down the things I wanted to scream, and they burned like bile in my throat. Folding my hands, I pressed them to my forehead and bowed to him in return.
Emmory whispered orders to the other two Guards, then he and Zin followed me up the marble staircase into the temple itself.
Chanting floated on the air with the incense. A lone female voice, hidden somewhere among the carved and painted columns stretching back toward the altar, sang of loss with such aching clarity it cracked my heart.
Seeing the trio of clear caskets lined up on the altar broke it apart entirely. My sisters’ faces were so peaceful and pristine, they couldn’t be real. Ami looked like an exact copy of her mother. They were obviously holograms, digital projections for bodies that had been rotted away by a virus or reduced to vapor and ash by an explosion.
Just like Father. Gone. Erased from existence. It’s too fucking easy.
“Mother Destroyer.” I stumbled, catching my boot tip on the hem of my stupid skirt. Zin and Emmory both grabbed for an arm, keeping me from falling on my face. A wail struggled for freedom in my chest and I fought against it with a choked sob.
“Easy, Your Highness.” Zin’s voice was low, gentle.
“How could you have let this happen?” It wasn’t a fair question. Neither of these men had been responsible for my sisters’ safety.
Emmory, surprisingly, didn’t chastise me as he released my arm. Neither did Zin. They didn’t answer me because there wasn’t an answer to be had.
I sank before the rows of flickering candles, the little lights throwing shadows through the multitude of colored glass holders. My hand shook as I lit a wax-coated stick and moved it to a row of unlit candles. I lit one, two, three. A blue for Cire. A green for Pace. And a white for the niece whose favorite color I would never know.
Pressing my hands to my eyes, I let the grief come. Now at least I could allow the scream that had been building in me to fly free.
It rolled out of my throat, bouncing off the marbled floor and shooting up into the gossamer web of the ceiling. There it stuck, quivering like a trapped fly, and I sent a second to a similar fate. I balled my hands into fists, feeling my blunt nails cut into my palms as I screamed a third and fourth time—inarticulate curses thrown like a gauntlet at the gods. My fifth scream trailed off into sobbing and I slumped back, exhausted.
The flames danced in front of me, oblivious to my grief. I put a hand out, and watched the light flicker off my palm. It glimmered on the streaks of black and red. My blood mixing with the mourning powder. Heat prickled, then stung when I dropped my hand lower.
“I was not here,” I murmured as the pain built. “Forgive me for being so selfish. I should have been here. I should have kept you safe.”
Emmory closed his hand on my wrist, dragging it away from the flame. I jerked, staring up at him with tear-blurred eyes, and could have sworn I saw some sympathy hovering in his face. I’d forgotten they were there, standing guard still and silent.
“Enough, Highness. Your sisters are gone. It is done, but it was no fault of yours. Lay the blame where it belongs with those who did the horrible deed.”
I pulled away from him—or rather tried to, but his grip on my wrist remained and I only ended up tugging him down toward me. “I want blood, Emmory. Do you hear me? I want the ones responsible at my fucking feet begging for mercy that will never come.” I gritted out the last words, the hatred in them tearing at my throat like splintered glass.
He opened his mouth, but something in my face stopped him and instead he turned my hand over, scanning my burnt palm with calm dark eyes. Whatever he saw satisfied him and he let me go. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Princess.” Father Westinkar emerged from the shadows, his hands folded inside the voluminous sleeves of his crimson robe. “Have you paid your respects?”
“I have. Father—” I got to my feet. “It has been a long time.”
“Too long, my child. I’ve missed you.” Westinkar wrapped me in a hug. I buried my face against his shoulder and wept.
7
In what my mother had said was one more indication of my poor judgment, I’d always been fond of the priest who was in charge of the family temple at night. Since I was a member of the royal family, it would have been more proper for me to associate with the Mother Superior, but I—and my sisters—found a better connection with the kindly old man than the stiff and oh-so-formal head of the Indranan Church.
I couldn’t afford to let my grief show for long and clung to the old priest for only a moment before I released him and stepped away.
“Father, what is going on?”
Black eyes flicked to my BodyGuards and then nervously back to me. “Not in the open, child. Even in this temple the things said reach more ears than just the gods’.”
Translation: We were being watched. But by whom?
“Highness, we should go.” Emmory’s voice was pitched low and his hand was on my arm. Again.
I reacted without thinking, managing only at the last second to change from a jaw-breaking punch to an open-handed slap. Mourning powder mixed with the blood from my palm glittered in a streak over his skin like diamonds on satin.
Emmory didn’t react. Zin gaped at us, the look on his face clear that he was torn between defending his partner or keeping his mouth shut.
I was going to have to apologize for this anyway, so I settled on the o
ption most likely to make anyone watching think I was still a spoiled princess, even after all my time away.
“I haven’t asked for your counsel, Ekam, and you do not order me around.”
Father Westinkar also looked between us, his black eyes wide in his wrinkled face. I kept my gaze locked on Emmory until he dropped his head in a barely civil bow I hoped was an act.
“My apologies, Highness,” he said, raising his head. “I am concerned for your safety.”
“Be as concerned as you want, Emmory. I have known Father Westinkar my whole life. He will not harm me. From now on, unless I’m actually in danger… you keep your hands to yourself.”
“Yes, Highness.”
I smiled at Father Westinkar and looped my arm through his, walking him away from my sisters’ bodies and toward the fountain on the far side of the temple. The water should hide our conversation. “I’m sorry, Father. We’re still working out the kinks in the chain of command.”
The old priest’s mouth twitched as though he was holding in a burst of laughter. Then he sobered, and said, “Before she lost her voice, Pace asked me to give you this—when you came home.” He held out the charm suspended on a silver chain, a polished piece of shell wrapped in silver. It had a pearly sheen, and a thin spiral decorated the surface.
For an instant the world narrowed down to the space around the gently swinging necklace. I froze in the act of reaching for it, a thousand thoughts colliding in my head, all of them screaming for precedence. I took it, blinking away the image of my sister’s face, and hugged Westinkar again.
“Thank you.”
“When was the last time you spoke to a priest?”
“The day before I left home when I came to see you.”
That wasn’t technically true. A drunken, excommunicated cleric from the Holy Roman Republic was the last priest I’d talked with some six months ago, but I was pretty sure that wasn’t what Father Westinkar meant since our conversation revolved around how the man had been dishonorably discharged for leaving his post during a firefight.
“There is more I must tell you, but we need to be careful.” His whispered words were right against my ear and I stiffened.
“Highness, we should go.” Emmory didn’t grab me, but he was hovering so close I could feel his warmth through the heavy fabric of my sari.
I pulled away from Father Westinkar and looped the silver chain around my wrist so that it tangled with the leather already in place. Folding my hands, I bowed to him. “Thank you, Father.”
He laid a gnarled hand on my head. “Bless you, child. I know you have had a long journey. I am sure the Mother Superior won’t mind if I excuse you from Light Mass this morning.”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak, and with a final bow, turned and walked away.
The other BodyGuards were absent when we got back to my rooms. This time I stood quietly in the hallway with Cas and Zin while Emmory and Jet checked out the premises. When the all-clear sounded, I brushed past them all and headed for my bedroom without looking up.
I closed the door with a snap, cursed at my empty room as images replayed themselves, and jerked it back open.
“You two, in here.”
“Highness, I apologize—”
“Stow it, Emmory. You’re only apologizing because Zin just elbowed you,” I said with a laugh. “Close the door.” Turning my back on them, I unwound the sari. The patterns woven into the fabric caught my fingertips and I traced them absently as I stared unseeing at the floor and tried to collect my thoughts.
Rock and a fucking hard place, Cressen. Get a hammer.
“Or a plasma pistol,” I muttered under my breath.
“Highness?”
“Sorry. Are we clear here? Or is someone listening in?” I shook my head and folded the fabric over a hanger, smoothing the wrinkles out to give my hands something to do.
“We’re clear, Highness.” Emmory turned his palms up, revealing the jamming device lodged in the wrist of his glove. It was flashing a series of green lights. “I haven’t had a chance to check out all the surveillance on your rooms, but for now I can ensure at least a few minutes of privacy.”
“I’m the one who needs to apologize. I’m sorry I hit you.”
“It was your right, Highness.”
“Oh, cowshit,” I tossed back at him and he raised an eyebrow at me. “I’m on a hair trigger here and hit you because you grabbed me. I shouldn’t have, you’re trying to do your job, and it’s my job to make that easier, not harder.”
“I figured as much.”
It was my turn for an eyebrow. A smile flickered at the corner of Emmory’s mouth and then vanished.
“I did apologize because Zin elbowed me, Highness. I realized what you were doing when you slapped me instead of punched me. Zin didn’t. Close your mouth and keep up.” He reached out and tapped Zin’s chin.
“I hate you both,” Zin muttered, then flushed. “I’m sorry, Highness, I didn’t mean—”
I raised a hand, cutting him off. “I need something from you two. I know offering unsolicited advice is against your nature, but—” I cocked an eyebrow at Zin’s suspicious coughing fit. “I need you to be honest with me. This isn’t going to work otherwise. We’re soldiers, you and I. I need truth from you. Show me deference in public, whatever you need to do to play with these cowshit societal expectations of men keeping their mouths shut, but in private, I need to know you’re not just agreeing with me to be polite.”
Emmory, unsurprisingly, didn’t even blink. “Done, Highness.” He glanced at Zin and the pair shared one of those silent conversations that longtime partners often have. Zin nodded at me in wordless agreement.
“I need to get up to speed. I’ve been gone for a long time.” I blew out a breath and forced a smile. “Which—” I stopped when Emmory raised a hand.
“Highness, Bial is here. Cas said he’s asking to see you,” Emmory said.
Sleep was apparently not in the cards right now. I hung up my sari in the wardrobe and started for the main room, but Zin stopped me with a half smile and a circle of his hand around his face. “Bad?” I asked and he nodded.
“I’ll clean up. Have Bial wait in the main room. Are we sure he’s not asking to see Emmory?”
“Yes, Highness,” Emmory said, heading for the door. “Take your time. He can wait.”
I didn’t dawdle, but I did make sure every trace of my smeared makeup was off my face before I came into the main room.
And found myself facing not Bial, but Matriarch Desai, Dr. Satir, and a man my smati labeled as Prime Minister Phanin.
Zin and Jet were in the room, as was Nal. Emmory wasn’t anywhere in sight, and since Cas was absent, I assumed my baby-faced Guard was getting his ass chewed for not telling Emmory how many people were actually at the door and for not announcing the matriarch properly.
Awkward.
Equally awkward was the fact that one of the matriarch’s BodyGuards had come into my rooms with her and stood at her side with her hand on her gun. Nal was blank-faced over the obvious breech of protocol, but my other two Guards wore looks of stone-faced fury.
Bial and Emmory came into the room, my Ekam’s jaw tight as he crossed to me. I glanced his way only briefly, folding my arms over my chest and flicking my gaze at the others one by one. I finished, deliberately, on Desai’s BodyGuard. Gun or no gun, I could take the young woman apart and we both knew it. I let a smile spread over my face and everyone except the Guards at my back shifted uncomfortably.
“So we’re starting things off on the wrong foot bringing armed Guards into my living quarters. Emmory, an explanation?”
“I objected, Highness.”
“And I overruled him, Princess,” Bial said, somehow managing to make my title almost an insult. “The matriarch’s Guard insisted on accompanying her and I felt—given your history—it was for the best.”
I was a little startled that the choked-off snarls behind me were from both Zin and Emmory, but thankfull
y neither of them spoke.
I laughed. “That was a neatly dressed insult, Bial. But we don’t need to stand on ceremony here; you can just say it’s because I used to be a gunrunner.”
Twitching my skirts out of the way, I took two steps until I was in his face. “It’s the truth, so it’s not much of an insult as they go. You know what insults me more? That you think you had the right to overrule my Ekam when it came to my personal safety and break the law by allowing someone armed into my fucking living quarters.” I dropped my voice to a whisper and watched him flinch. “Don’t fool yourself into thinking I am some uncultured gunrunner. Where I have been and what I have been doing since I left home haven’t changed my blood. I am a Bristol, a princess of the empire. Don’t think that I don’t know the laws that were hammered into my head from before I would walk. And don’t think, for one second, that I won’t hesitate to shoot you myself if you break them again. Am I understood?”
“Yes, Highness.”
“Good. I’m going to assume we don’t actually need you for anything. Get out of my rooms.”
“Princess Hailimi.” Clara Desai, an older woman built like a DLine pro-baller, smiled and folded her hands together as she bowed. I remembered being terrified of her as a child and how Mother would frequently threaten to bring Desai in to discipline us if we wouldn’t behave.
Clara was the head of the Matriarch Council, the fourteen women—one from each of the founding families—who would approve me as heir.
“Matriarch Desai.” I dipped my head. “With my apologies, we can either move this meeting to another venue, or for the sake of my Ekam’s blood pressure, I’m going to have to insist the law is upheld. Your BodyGuard can either leave or present her weapons to my man at the door.”
Clara studied me for a moment, her eyes dark in a smooth face that belied her age, and then nodded. “Trisa, wait outside, please.”
“Ma’am—”
“Don’t argue with me. I’d like to think at least one of the BodyGuards in the room is capable of following orders without fussing over it. I’m perfectly safe, and I’m sure the prime minister will jump to my defense if necessary.”
