Behind the Throne

by K. B. Wagers

  “Better?” I twirled in a circle, delighted when Jet actually chuckled.

  “It will keep the Ekam’s blood pressure even, Highness.”

  “Let it never be said I’m not concerned about that.” I didn’t know where my newfound good cheer had come from, but I was determined to hold on to it for as long as I could.

  The BodyGuard rooms were next door to my quarters. The main room had bunks along the far wall for the Guards on duty and a smaller kitchen tucked into the corner. There were two doors off to my left—one led to the bath facilities and the other was the command center. There was a third door that joined the rooms with my waiting room, making the whole section a self-contained compound in the event of an emergency.

  I really hoped it never came to that.

  The Guards scattered around the room scrambled to attention when Jet and I walked through that door. “Sit back down,” I said, waving a hand at them. “Finish your breakfast. Kisah, how are you this morning? Is your son feeling better?” I smiled at the well-built blonde with short hair and a wide smile.

  “Very well, Your Highness, and yes. He’s back up and moving again. May your light be stronger than the darkness.”

  “And yours also.” I folded my hands together and bowed as I exchanged the Pratimas greeting with the other Guards. I was still working my way through what seemed like an endless amount of information about all the people who’d been assigned to my detail, but I at least had the names of the four primary teams memorized.

  “Would you like tea, Highness?” Willimet, the other female Guard, was smaller with flawless dark skin.

  “Thank you, no. I actually have chai in my room. I’ll just go get—” As I turned for the door to retrieve my drink, Cas came through with the pale gray cup in his hand. “Thank you, Cas.”

  “Of course, Highness.”

  “Did you tell your grandmother thank you for me? Her embroidery work is lovely.”

  “I did, Highness.” He smiled. “You should have seen her preen over it. All the ladies in her circle will be green with envy.”

  I settled into a chair out of the way and sipped at my chai while I watched the rest of the BodyGuards trickle in. I chatted with them all—Adail’s younger brother was just entering primary school, Rama’s younger sister had just been accepted to the Naval Academy on their open-enrollment program. The members of Team Four—Salham, Calumn, and Erik—were all much younger than their counterparts and answered my questions in soft voices with nervous smiles. It was amusing to note that their comrades didn’t warn the latecomers of my presence, leading to several embarrassing incidents and more than a few good-natured laughs at their expense.

  Emmory wasn’t one of them. My Ekam spotted me the second he walked through the door.

  “Highness,” he said with a nod of his head.

  It could have been my hopeful imagination, but it seemed like his voice was less frigid than last night. There was a moment of awkward silence, and then Emmory cleared his throat. “All right, people, let’s get this done. We’re expected for the Pratimas ritual at the temple in two hours.”

  I had promised to keep my mouth shut during the briefing, and as it turned out, that wasn’t a hard promise to keep. I found myself fascinated by the way Emmory ran the proceedings.

  I suspected things were a little restrained because of my presence, but only a little. There was some laughter and a few snarky comments that reminded me of my crew when we’d plan our next job.

  Emmory allowed it—to a point—but he was also very accomplished at keeping the Guards focused and on task.

  “He’s very good at this.” I subvocalized the comment to Zin over our dedicated comm channel rather than risk the chance of someone overhearing me.

  Zin was leaning against the wall. He looked down at me and smiled briefly before returning his attention to the diagram on the wall. “More so than he’d admit, Highness.”

  “Is he still mad at me?” It was ridiculous how much that sounded like a little girl wondering if she was still in trouble. Thankfully, Zin didn’t tease me about it.

  “No, ma’am. I had a talk with him.”

  “Oh really?”

  Zin’s smile was fleeting. “You sacrificed a lot for us, ma’am. It’s only fair to return the favor. It wasn’t that he was mad about your idea of using me for a hostage, so much as it was—” He fumbled suddenly for words and I had to keep myself from raising an eyebrow at him.

  “Cold? Not his idea? What?”

  “Dangerous. I know you think Emmory is invincible, ma’am, but the same rules don’t apply with Tracker pairs. If something happens to either one of us, you know the other will probably lose it, right? We’ve been together for a very long time. Emmory was worried, but not for me or himself. He was worried about leaving you unprotected. He swore an oath, and that means more to him than our safety—or our lives.”

  I knew it and the very thought of losing either of them made me sick to my stomach. “Whatever Portis told you, I did take care of myself pretty well for twenty years.”

  “Of course you did.” There was laughter in Zin’s voice. “I don’t particularly feel like dying anytime soon, but it is an occupational hazard, Highness. Emmory just—he doesn’t like losing.”

  “Join the club.”

  “I am glad to be along for the ride; it’s proving to be pretty damn exciting.”

  “Trust you to say that.” I had to swallow back my own laughter so it didn’t spill into the air. “I bet you jump out of tall things just for fun.”

  “Only if they’re also moving fast, Highness.”

  My snort of laughter was little more than an exhalation before I stifled it. Emmory heard me anyway and gave us a curious eyebrow before returning his attention back to Willimet’s report about the security inside the temple.

  The meeting lasted a little over half an hour. When it was done, I headed back to my rooms so Stasia could poke and fuss and prepare me for the day.

  An hour later I emerged from my bedroom dressed in a brilliant emerald sari a shade darker than my hair and weighted down with enough gold to pay for Sophie’s fuel for a year.

  “Are you ready, Highness?” Emmory asked.

  “Not yet,” Stasia answered before I could. “She needs her coat.” She shook out the same silver-fur-trimmed one I’d worn down to the beach and held it out to me.

  “Stasia, we’ll be inside most of the—” I swallowed down my protest at her fierce look, wondering just when my maid had turned into such a terror, and obediently turned around to put it on.

  Zin was grinning at me and I couldn’t stop myself from sticking my tongue out at him. That dragged a burst of laughter out of Emmory, who tried to cover it up with a cough.

  The public ceremony was a blur of light, color, noise, and chanting. Colored sparklers flared even with the sun high in the sky, and people greeted each other with kisses on cheeks and holiday blessings spilling from their lips.

  The unease that had plagued the empire had disappeared in the flood of celebration washing through the capital. Today, the grief over my sisters’ deaths faded. Today, the concern over the Saxons’ recent attacks was put aside.

  Pratimas was, quite simply, the release we all needed to shake off the miasma of the dark year. The triumph of the light over the dark, the end of all the things that had plagued us. I knew all this hope was being pinned on me, but for once it didn’t scare me.

  “Anand, Highness.” The young woman bowed low, her bracelets jingling.

  “May your light be stronger than the darkness.” I pressed my hand to her dark hair.

  She glanced at Emmory as she rose. “Highness, may I?”

  Emmory nodded so I pressed my cheek to the girl’s and smiled for her picture. She thanked me again and moved on with her friends, all of them giggling with delight.

  “Highness.” The young man who followed had solemn brown eyes and a threadbare coat. He held out an unlit sparkler. “For you, Light of Indrana. I hope your reig
n brings us the peace and equality we have so long awaited.”

  I let Emmory take the sparkler; our agreement about how best to handle the potential dangers had been discussed in the aircar on the way over. “Thank you for your faith in me.” I took the young man’s hand in mine. “What is your name?”

  “Mika, Highness.”

  He couldn’t have been more than fifteen, still a baby in a society that so clearly discarded his worth without a second thought. I forced a smile out past the sadness, squeezing his hands as I did. “Your family?”

  “Just my father and I, Highness. We work at the Hollster Docks. He does traffic control and I clean the building.”

  Hollster was a Solarian company, one of the newer non-Indranan space docks on Pashati. “Do they pay you well?”

  “Well enough, Highness.” His smile was shy. “My father was laid off from the Naidu shipyard when my mother fell ill because of the time he missed from work. We were lucky they were willing to hire both of us.”

  I nodded, feeling the anger coil up in my gut. “I’m glad of it. Please tell your father to have a blessed Pratimas.”

  “I will, Highness, and you also.”

  I smiled, moving on through the crowd. “Alba,” I subvocalized over our com link. “Please make a note somewhere to look into the fair employment practices of the major shipyards.”

  “Yes, Highness.”

  Families were entitled to spend time with ill loved ones without losing their jobs. The FEA—Fair Employment Act—had carried over from the early days of the colonization.

  My good mood dampened by the conversation, I continued through the celebration. Even convincing Emmory to let me light the sparkler Mika had given me and spin it around to the delight of several nearby children. The shadowlike attachment of Emmory or Zin—who appeared to have temporarily filled Nal’s absent spot—didn’t waver until we were back in the family’s private temple. Only then did either of them relax and, along with the rest of my teams, faded back along the walls as I knelt next to my mother at Lakshimi’s altar.

  Mother was dressed in a deep purple sari. Normally a color that would have suited her, now it seemed to make her skin ashy, and the circles under her eyes took on the bluish cast of bruises.

  I’d never felt much of a connection with the Goddess Lakshimi. I’d always felt too awkward around her beauty and grace. Even after Father’s explanation of how she was the eighteen-armed warrior who killed the demon Mahishasura, I couldn’t seem to transfer my affections from the Dark Mother to this lighter one.

  “Are you feeling all right, Mother?” I wasn’t even sure I’d actually said the words until she responded.

  “You mean other than dying from the poison running through my veins? Oh, I’m fine.” Her lips curled into a smile that was surprisingly not bitter. “Are you ready for the coronation?”

  “No.” I couldn’t even say why the terror wrapped around my throat when she said that. This was where things had been headed all along. This was exactly why Emmory dragged me back here, why Cire had told him to bring me home.

  “Don’t fuss, Haili. You knew this was where things were going.” Mother echoed the words in my own head with uncanny accuracy. “I know this wasn’t how you wanted it, but then I didn’t really want to lose my husband, my daughters, and my granddaughter. You’re included in that, by the way. I let you go because I thought it was what your Father would have wanted and I could see that what I wanted was killing you.

  “I’d always hoped I would have a chance before the end to tell you that I loved you, even if I wasn’t always the best at showing it. I got more than that. Our time together over the last week has meant the world to me.” Her smile was fleeting. “Funny how staring your own mortality in the face makes one sentimental.”

  “This isn’t the end.” I was shocked by the tears in my voice.

  “For me it is. For you, it’s just the beginning. You will be empress.”

  I didn’t know what to say to that, so I stared back up at the candles, trying to ignore the tears tracking down my face. “It’s not fair. I’m going to lose you, too.”

  “That’s life, Haili. I’m sorry. Sorry to leave you with this mess. Sorry that I couldn’t figure out how to let you live your life a little sooner. Sorry that I couldn’t keep your sisters safe.” She gave my hand a squeeze. “I’m exhausted, Hail. I’m going on back to my rooms. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  Leaning heavily on my shoulder, she pushed herself to her feet, then transferred her weight to Bial and shuffled from the temple.

  I stayed on my knees and stared at the flickering candles until my vision blurred.

  “Highness?”

  Turning to look at Emmory, I blinked my now dry eyes until they cooperated and refocused. He was crouched at my side, the only evidence of his worried frown hidden away in his dark-brown-and-silver eyes. “I’m all right,” I said, reaching out and squeezing his forearm. “We’re running late, aren’t we?”

  “Just a little, Highness.” Alba melted out of the shadows to answer my question. “You need to be at the Garuda Square to see the children’s dance troupe in about fifteen minutes.”

  “We’d better get moving then.” I pushed to my feet and took my coat from Cas.

  We took an aircar and made it to the square with just enough time to get settled for the performance.

  I’d loved the square as a child, even though our visits were rare, and the older I got, the more I was expected to behave, rather than splash through the colored waters rolling in tiny waves around the base of the massive fountain.

  Garuda Square was named for that fountain topped with a white marble statue of Krishna riding on the back of an eagle, but other statues of imperial heroes decorated the kilometer-sized area. Right now the fountain was dry for the winter but still popular with the children milling around its base.

  They sang and danced, their bright costumes standing out against the gray sky and their voices tumbling through the chill air. A pair of older girls performed an intricate dance routine, their saris swirling as they spun across the stage in a mock battle. One was dressed all in black, the other in shimmering white. They fought and spun and sang until the dark one dropped exhausted to the floor. The girl in white posed in heroic triumph over the top of her vanquished foe, beaming with pride. The performance ended and I rose with the rest of the crowd, clapping my hands for the beaming children onstage.

  “There’s a sweetshop on the far side of the square. I want to pop in after we’re done here,” I whispered to Emmory.

  “I’d rather you not.”

  “Come on, I want to see if Mr. Haversham is still there. Dhatt, Emmy, it’s not like some member of this shadowy group is going to be in a candy shop just waiting for me to come in so they can kill me.”

  “It’s not outside the realm of possibility,” he replied without looking away from the crowds. Through the whole conversation he kept scanning left to right, his augmented eyes tracking more things than I could hope to follow on a good day.

  “I realize I pay you to be paranoid, but really—” I broke off when the message rang through my head, locking my knees to keep from falling to the ground. I knew the others who were linked into the palace network received it at the same time because their faces reflected the same shock and sorrow in mine.

  “The empress is dead. Long live the empress.”

  “No.” My denial was useless, a wasted breath lost in the collective inhale of the men and women around me.

  “Majesty, please sit down.” Emmory, of course, recovered before everyone else and didn’t seem at all hesitant with the sudden change in my title.

  “What happened? Emmory, what happened, she was just—” I pressed my gloved hand to my mouth to keep the insane babbling from spilling out into the air.

  “I have an incoming message from Bial,” he said. “It appears your empress-mother suffered a stroke shortly after returning to her rooms. Dr. Ganjen was summoned and was present at the time o
f death. Bial wishes to know if you would like him to send out an official notification.”

  “No, I’ll do it. We need to get back to the palace.” I wrapped my arms around my waist at the news, knowing full well I couldn’t lose it in front of everyone. This was the moment I had known was coming all along.

  Those closest to us in the crowd were throwing curious glances our way, but no one except my BodyGuards and Alba had been near enough to hear the news. The kids were still clustered around the stage, laughing and chattering with their parents and each other.

  That’s the future, Hail, the voice in my head reminded me firmly. That’s who you need to keep it together for. I got it now, this need to present a face like stone to reassure everyone else around you that things were going to be okay. Even Hao had done it from time to time when things were really bad, and I had to admit it was better than people seeing me cry.

  A gentle tug on my fingers dragged my attention away from the scene, and I looked down into a pair of wide dark eyes in a tear-streaked face. My heart skipped a beat, and I looked around for the girl’s mother before the oddness of her appearance broke through my surprise.

  Emmory moved to shoo the girl off. “Majesty, we should—”

  I waved him off and dropped into a crouch. The little girl was dressed in a frilly pink concoction that looked as brand-new as her shiny black shoes. But her brown hair was tangled, her hands were dirty, and she wasn’t wearing a coat.

  “Are you lost, sweetie?” I didn’t have much experience with kids, and in truth I wasn’t sure how I felt about them. But she looked upset, so I reached out to push her tangled hair from her face. She flinched, jerking away from me but not releasing the fingers of my other hand.

  “They said to come find you. Said Alim would be okay if I did.”

  I frowned. “Who said? What’s your name, sweetie?”

  “Ramani,” she replied, scrubbing at her eyes with her free hand. “The men over there said.” She waved behind her. “I was supposed to come find the lady with the green hair and stay with you until it’s over. Alim will be safe if I do what they say.”