Behind the Throne

by K. B. Wagers

  I filed that tidbit of information away to discuss with Emmory later and glanced in Desai’s direction. She answered my look with a raised eyebrow that said, Do you want to stop this or shall I?

  People assume gunrunners conduct business with threats and snarls, waving weapons around and pummeling each other with fists.

  There was some of that.

  More often, though, it was detailed negotiations, promises, well-laid plans, and sly deals. The reminder that I’d done all this with people far more dangerous relaxed me, and I laid my hands on the table with a slow smile.

  “Enough.” I said the word with a forcefulness that cut through the din. “Ladies, this conversation, such as it is, is over. The empress has named me Heir Apparent, a right I already hold by proven blood. You are welcome to obtain some kind of legal proof to the contrary, but as of yet we’ve heard no real objection that would stand up against either tradition or the law. I wish you luck of it.

  “I will, however, caution you. Further destabilizing the throne at a time when leadership is most needed is unwise. My mother is ill, my sisters are gone to temple, and our enemies are chipping away at our borders. There is no coincidence in this. Enemies of Indrana seek to divide us, and we will not sit by and watch our people suffer.”

  I rose and shook out my white skirts, smoothing the red sari draped over them, and smiled coldly. “We will announce Mother’s abdication at the celebration this evening, and the throne expects your full support in public unless you choose to file a formal objection with Matriarch Desai.”

  To file a formal objection to my succession meant they not only had to come up with a solid legal defense, but also had to explain to their families why they’d broken from the decision of the empress on such a serious matter.

  I’d effectively backed them into a corner, which could come back to bite me hard. Civilized people tend to panic when pushed, and they lash out with unpredictable results. I wasn’t in the clear yet, and once they all settled down and read the report about the poisoning, I wouldn’t be surprised to see an objection questioning Mother’s competence.

  Which was why we had to get her abdication signed before she lost it entirely. Right now we were going on the strength of Tye’s impeccable reputation and Dr. Satir’s witnessing my mother’s lucidity.

  Neither of which would stand up to a formal objection.

  I didn’t let that show as I strode from the room, Zin right behind me. Emmory was nowhere to be found.

  “He headed back to your rooms, ma’am,” Zin said at my sideways glance.

  Cas and Jet fell into step ahead of me and at my side, and I hid my shaking hands in the folds of my skirts as we headed back to my rooms.

  The raised voices hit me before we turned the last corner and I grabbed Cas by the arm to stop him.

  “I have listened to your complaints, Nal.”

  “Have you? You haven’t done anything about them. You continue to let your partner fulfill my role. You continue to ignore the fact that it is unseemly for the princess to be guarded by only men.”

  I arched an eyebrow at Zin, who shrugged in reply.

  “I am choosing the heir’s Guards based on their qualifications, not their gender. And I have been listening to your suggestions, Nal. But that doesn’t mean that I have to take those suggestions.” Emmory’s voice was calm, but I could hear the heat bubbling under the surface. “You question me in front of the others. You have constantly thrown obstacles in my way as I try to keep the princess safe. It is no wonder that I have trusted Zin more. You have demonstrated to me that I cannot trust you, and if you continue this way, Nal, I will have you removed.”

  “You can’t do that. The empress appointed me.”

  “I am the Ekam. I can and will do whatever is necessary to keep the heir safe. Get on board with that, Nal, or get the hell out.”

  I moved the moment I heard the door slam, pasting an innocent smile on my face that I knew didn’t fool Emmory for a second. Willimet and Rama looked uncomfortable. Both were staring at the floor and jumped when I greeted them.

  “Highness.” Emmory opened the door and gestured for me to precede him. I raised an eyebrow as I passed, but he was looking at Zin, who gave the minutest of shrugs.

  There was a murmured conversation behind me, and when the door shut, I was alone with my Trackers.

  “So that was an interesting conversation.” I unwound my sari and tossed it over the arm of the rose-colored couch.

  “With the matriarchs?”

  I gave Emmory a look. “There was little ‘conversation’ there, actually. A lot of hand-wringing, accusations, insults of the veiled and not-so-veiled variety, and we ended with me telling them that if they didn’t like me being their new empress, they could file a formal complaint. We’ll see if anyone can come up with something that won’t make them look like idiots. I was talking about that”—I waved a hand at the door—“little event with Nal.”

  “She was angry that I’d sent Zin into the matriarchs’ meeting with you instead of letting her go.”

  “Sounded like a bit more than that. It’s pretty obvious she doesn’t like you being in charge, but is that Indranan conditioning or something else at work?”

  Emmory shrugged. “I don’t know, Highness. We can’t afford to trust her. You’ve read her file. There aren’t any obvious flags, but—”

  “It makes you itchy,” I finished. “I know.”

  I had read Nal’s file, and it was so clean, it squeaked. Which, of course, made me nervous as all hell.

  “I’ve already gotten a few comments from the matriarchs about having a male Guard in the chambers, and Alba has found several news stories where it’s mentioned.” I didn’t add in the number of times it had been brought up on my Hansi. The younger generation using the service weren’t particularly caught up in things like tradition, but there were some who seemed to be offended—on my behalf, of course—by the fact that my Guard teams were overwhelmingly male. “We have enough things on our plate, Emmory, without adding having to fight to keep you in your position. Let me know if she gets out of line again. I’ll intervene.”

  17

  I haven’t been this nervous since the first time I met Po-Sin,” I murmured the thought to no one in particular, but it was Adail who responded.

  “I’d think that would even make Emmory nervous, Highness.”

  “Auho!” I laughed. “I doubt it very much. He’d stand up to the whole Zhang family without blinking until they turned over their warehouse codes.”

  My green-eyed BodyGuard laughed, earning a glare from Nal. I grinned and moved from the window to the rose-colored couch. I was in a comfortable salwar kameez of gray silk decorated with silver embroidery and bells on the bottom hem. I wouldn’t be able to sneak up on anyone with this outfit but I loved it nonetheless.

  “Highness, your family is here,” Nal said. Emmory’s ass chewing appeared to have improved her attitude.

  I stayed in my seat. Emmory and I had gone over the intricacies of this first meeting with my nephew and the tone I wanted to set right off the bat. If he was involved in the plot against the throne like Tefiz suspected, I wanted to know. Zin stood quietly in the corner and Emmory was in the surveillance room, where he could watch Laabh’s every move unimpeded.

  My nephew came through the door behind his wife. Leena Surakesh was tiny compared to her husband. Laabh, by constrast, was tall and blocky, dressed in a formal Naval uniform, and I could see the hint of Cire’s loveliness in his handsome face. It was ruined by the dissatisfied expression smeared across his features, which he didn’t hide behind a polite mask fast enough.

  “Your Highness,” Nal said. “Allow me to present Leena Surakesh and her husband, your nephew Laabh.”

  “Your Imperial Highness.” The young couple both dropped their heads. Leena’s pale yellow curls danced about her dark cheeks when she dipped a perfect curtsy. “It’s a great honor.”

  “It’s very nice to meet you.” I waited a be
at before waving a hand for them to rise and held the same hand out to Leena. There was genuine pleasure in her eyes, but my nephew’s dark gaze flickered with poorly concealed anger. Anger at what, I couldn’t begin to guess, so I gave him a smile and held my other hand out to him.

  “I am sorry for the loss of your mother and your sister,” I murmured.

  “Your kindness is appreciated, Your Highness.” His words were stiffer than his shoulders.

  “Please sit down. Leena, I saw the news about your recent promotion at the accounting firm. Congratulations.”

  “Thank you, Your Highness.”

  “And Laabh, you recently graduated from the Academy.”

  “Yes, Your Highness,” Laabh replied, straightening his shoulders under his dark blue uniform. “Just a few months ago. I was placed on the Makara.”

  “So you’re following in your father’s footsteps? I hear he left with 2nd Fleet for the Saxon border.”

  “Yes, Your Highness.”

  “How is Taran? It was very kind of you to take him in, Leena.”

  “He is holding up, Your Highness,” she said. “And it was the right thing to do. He would have been all alone in the palace with his father constantly away and with the empress being ill…” She trailed off and the awkward silence filled in the gap left by her words.

  “It is awful.” I had to remind myself that everyone else still thought my mother was suffering from dementia. Forcing a smile, I gestured for Stasia to bring the drinks over. “I’m sorry it took me so long to see you. As you can imagine, things are slightly chaotic. I’d like to see Taran also when the time allows. I’ll have my chamberlain contact you.”

  “Of course, Your Highness.”

  “Did you see him twitch when Leena mentioned my mother being ill?” I used our com link to talk to Emmory.

  “I did, Highness. It’s hard to say what it means though.”

  “Nothing good.” Accepting a chai from Stasia, I returned my attention to my guests. “I appreciated your mother’s support in the council meeting the other day, Leena.”

  “Of course, Highness. We are ever the throne’s loyal subjects.” She smiled softly. “Mother was quite irate about Matriarch Khatri’s behavior.”

  Laabh fisted his right hand.

  “To be honest,” I said with a wink, “she didn’t say anything that wasn’t true. I was more surprised by Matriarch Prajapati’s support of my cousin.”

  “According to my mother, you running away from home was Matriarch Prajapati’s major complaint.”

  “I wonder if she’ll change her mind when she finds out that I left home for a very different reason.” I surveyed their confused faces over the rim of my mug. “Former GIS Director Britlen is giving an interview that should be going live any minute now about my hunt for the man who’s responsible for my father’s death. I suspect it’ll clear up a lot of the objections the matriarchs have—most of them anyway.”

  “My mother never said a word about this,” Laabh said, his eyes narrowed.

  “She wouldn’t have.” I smiled and stood. “It was all kept very quiet.”

  “I suspect that will change more than a few minds on the council,” Leena said as she rose. “Thank you for making time to see us, Highness. It was very kind of you.”

  “You’re family, Leena, and I owe you for taking Taran in.” I took her hand and squeezed it. “I’ll see you again. Both of you.”

  “Highness.” Laabh only hesitated a second before he took my hand, then he tried to release me but I tightened my grip.

  “Take care of yourself, Laabh. Someone’s after our family and there’s not many of us left.” I didn’t smile as I said it and watched him swallow. “I have enough vengeance to deal out. I’d hate to have to add you to the list.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Good.” I released him with a smile that almost split my face. The smile vanished as Nal and Adail followed my visitors out the door and I turned around to meet Zin’s grim look. “He’s up to his neck in this, isn’t he?”

  Zin nodded. “And you weren’t very subtle there, Highness.”

  “I’m too mad for subtlety, and I want him to be terrified of what’s going to happen when I find out he was directly involved in any of these deaths.” I stopped and raised an eyebrow at him. “What?”

  “You don’t seem the slightest bit shocked he could do something that terrible, Highness.”

  “How did you stay so naïve, Tracker?” I hoped my smile softened the words. “Or is it just that I’ve spent most of my life in a world where a man would sell his whole family to pay off his gambling debts. I’m afraid there’s very little left that would shock me. Money and power are shiny things; even the strong have trouble doing what’s right when everything they’ve desired is laid out in front of them.”

  “Still, to push him might not be wise. Desperate people do desperate things. I’d rather they stick to whatever plan they have concerning you rather than some impulsive attempt to kill you that we might miss.”

  “I think we’ve blown their plan out of the water already, don’t you?”

  Zin shrugged, a half smile on his face as he studied the door. “Maybe, but it’s early yet. If it were me—” He broke off when Emmory came into the room, but then continued. “If it were me, I’d have a decent backup plan or two. You’ve always been the wild card, Highness.”

  I snorted.

  “I don’t mean it that way. We’re pretty sure they didn’t know where you were until just recently, or they’d have tried to kill you a lot sooner than they did. But they would have had to take you out; leaving you alive wasn’t an option.”

  “Memz joined my crew three months after an incident on Candless cost me my navigator. She rode with us for six years. If she’d been working for these people, wouldn’t she have tried to kill me early?”

  “Not necessarily. They could have got to her at Shanghai. That’s a deal I’d want to do face-to-face.”

  I rubbed my hands over my face. We’d had five days of leave at Shanghai after closing the deal with the Chengs. More than enough time for someone to track her down and make the offer. I hated to say it, but it didn’t surprise me at all that they’d gone after Memz, or that she’d agreed to it. My only consolation was that she’d never gotten to spend all those credits. “So how did they track me down?”

  Zin glanced at Emmory and they shrugged in unison. “We would have followed the money, Highness.”

  I stood in the shadows, watching the colorful crowd below mingle in the cavernous ballroom in the north wing of the palace. They looked like butterflies dancing over a field of flowers. I snorted softly. Deadly butterflies dancing over a toxic field would be more appropriate.

  The ballroom was reserved for special occasions, and the walls were covered with priceless tapestries. Golden statues were strewn about the room in an ostentatious reminder of my family’s wealth, and vases older than the empire itself sat on pedestals protected by force shields.

  Mother’s coronation had been in the throne room, but the after-party had been here. My sister’s wedding reception would have been in this room and the party to celebrate Atmikha’s birth. Their funerals would have been in the temple.

  Now I was about to be announced as the heir. Officially.

  No objections had been lodged with Clara, and Mother had been lucid enough before the celebration not only to sign the declaration, but to record a brief message about her “illness” and what it meant for Indrana. I didn’t know when my coronation would be but I was sure we’d try to do it as soon after the holiday as could be managed.

  I’d told Alice Gohil the truth about not running, but it didn’t mean I wasn’t terrified of screwing all this up or, worse, for everything to go sideways while I was still in this limbo of being almost, but not quite, in charge.

  The lives of billions were going to be in my hands.

  That thought made me want to throw myself off the balcony. Surely the drop of thirteen meters and the impac
t on the pale gray marble below would kill me.

  Except Emmory and Nal were right behind me. Knowing them, I’d be grabbed before I could get a leg over. I let go of the carved railing, dropping my hands to my sides.

  They disappeared into my massive sleeves. The heavy white satin of my court dress was finished off with gold thread and little oil-slick pearls. The hanging sleeves dropped all the way to the ground, the wide openings showing off the golden silk wrapped around my arms.

  I felt like a gods-damned mummy.

  Stasia had done up my hair so that green curls spilled down my back and over one shoulder. There were enough gemstones in the crown buried among my curls to feed a large family for a month.

  I was grateful for the slender reassurance of the knife tucked against my left forearm. Stasia had protested, but I wasn’t going to be moved on the subject. Illegal or not, I wasn’t going anywhere in the palace unarmed.

  Just because I could kill someone with my bare hands didn’t mean I liked how the odds shifted if they happened to have a gun.

  After I promised not to draw it on any nobles unless they really tried to kill me, she’d relented and promised not to tell my Ekam.

  “Ready, Highness?” Nal offered me a tentative smile. Her attitude had continued to improve, though her posture was still ridiculously formal.

  “I suppose.” I attempted to smile back, glanced over my shoulder at Emmory, and started forward down the wide stairs.

  The swirling collection of people below us froze at the sound of the gong, and more than four thousand pairs of eyes turned our way.

  “Ladies and gentlemen. Her Imperial Highness, Crown Princess Hailimi Mercedes Jaya Bristol!”

  The crowd burst into applause and cheers—a predictable reaction, but I still jumped. Ostensibly they were there to celebrate my return and the holiday, but I knew better. Somewhere in this crowd were those who were plotting to overthrow the throne.

  “Smile, Highness,” Emmory whispered from behind me. “You look like you’re about to shoot someone.”

  “If you’d let me have my gun with me, I would,” I hissed back from between the clenched teeth of my fake smile. “Let’s get this damn thing over with.”