Rebel Princess

by Bancroft, Blair

  Kass offered a regal nod, struggling not to show the glow Biryani’s words produced. If her people, many of them psychic, agreed with her feelings about Tal Rigel . . .

  “Biryani, you have seen far more of Torvik Vaden than I have. Do you consider him trustworthy?”

  The majordomo took his time before answering, even forgetting himself enough to rub his chin. “Before the krall, Highness, I would have said yes. Since then, I am less certain. I could conduct a discreet survey, discover what some of the others think. Unlike the captain and yourself, the chairman is not a daily topic of conversation.”

  Daily topic of conversation. Kass couldn’t subdue her blush. Fizzet! Perhaps it was good she was going to Psyclid. Out of sight, out of mind. “Forgive me for pressing you, but I have one more question.”

  Biryani, reverting to his customary stoic self, didn’t so much as blink. “Highness?”

  “Have you formed any opinion of Captain Tegge?”

  Kass would swear the old man almost smiled. He saw too much!

  Which was exactly why she was questioning him. “Well?”

  “Captain Tegge,” Biryani reported, still standing at stiff attention, “appears to be everything a captain should be. Firm, fair, and sheltered by the devotion of her crew.”

  Well, fyd! “So she has your approval?”

  “She has given me no reason to disapprove.”

  Kass studied her hands, properly draped in her lap as her mother had taught her. She suddenly felt very young and foolish, just when she needed to be regal. To think of her people, of Tal’s people, and not let her imagination go wild over a twinge of jealousy.

  Kass looked up, straight into her respected servant’s eyes. “Thank you, Biryani. I value your judgment.”

  “Highness.” The majordomo bowed himself out.

  Kass sighed. When they went on the mission to Crystalia, Tal would undoubtedly leave Dorn in charge. But, technically, Jordana Tegge would become the ranking officer on Blue Moon. And if courted by Torvik Vaden . . .

  Pok! Just another risk they had to take. And Tal didn’t need her to tell him so.

  But perhaps a word of caution to B’ram Biryani before they left . . .

  And to the Psyclid officers who controlled the ridó . . .

  To Dorn and Mical and the remaining marines . . .

  Tal might not know it, but on Blue Moon she had responsibilities. She needed to protect both her own people and Tal’s rebellion. She needed to make sure they came back to the same Blue Moon they left.

  Chapter 34

  Tal leaned back in his chair, locked his hands behind his head, and stretched out his long legs beneath the desk where King Ryal once sat. He had about a thousand problems to deal with, yet here he was with a silly smile on his face, basking in thoughts of his night with Kass. Omnovah bless the architect who had designed Veranelle’s secret passages!

  Tal’s smile broadened. What did he say when he met the king? I havee enjoyed your office, Your Majesty. Enjoyed your bed. Enjoyed the easy access to other parts of the palace.

  And what did that say about Ryal? Tal had heard Psyclids were more—ah—flexible about sex, but did Ryal actually practice droit de seigneur, the sexual rights some rulers assumed included anyone who took their fancy. Hadn’t Kass once accused him of doing the same?

  In his own case it wasn’t true, but he had doubts about the king. On second thought, however, promiscuity by a man whose wife was a sorceress of the caliber of the ParaPrime seemed like playing with fire. Tal shivered as visions of a limp cock and withered balls rose up before him. More likely, Veranelle had been built by one of Ryal’s ancestors, more with the idea of accommodating the proclivities of guests than easing the path of the royal wandering eye.

  Ha! If he believed that . . .Tal sat up abruptly, planted his feet flat on the floor, and glared at the stack of reports on the antique desk. No good. Kass’s body, fully naked, blotted out the work that lay before him. Kass’s long sinuous flow of black hair. Rosy lips. Flushed cheeks. Breasts just the right size to fit his hands. Mallick! He was growing hard just thinking about her.

  A shout. Banging doors. K’kadi burst into the room. Tal, grateful for the interruption, waved his guards away. Nothing dire, he concluded. K’kadi was grinning from ear to ear. The teen lifted his hands high above his head, and a cascade of pink and white roses fell from his fingertips, gradually forming into an oval of whirling blossoms . . . expanding, expanding until the air around Tal was filled with flowers. He could almost swear . . . yes, he was certain he could smell them.

  The roses suddenly coalesced into images. Tal and Kass, dressed for some grand occasion. He in a uniform he didn’t recognize and Kass in an elaborate white something—a wedding gown?—sparkling with brilliants and pearls, with a train six feet long. And on her head—Tal sucked in a sharp breath—on her flowing mass of black hair, she wore an elaborate diamond tiara. The instantly recognizable symbol of a princess of a royal house.

  The images changed. He and Kass were standing on a balcony, waving to a wildly enthusiastic crowd below. This time Kass wore a crown.

  Another image. Kass holding a baby. A baby with a circlet of gold on its head. A crown prince or princess. The message was shockingly clear.

  A gasp. The image winked out. K’kadi, suddenly looking horrified, backed away. When he encountered the far wall, he slid down to the floor, hugged his knees, and dropped his head. The epitome of remorse.

  Tal’s first attempt to speak failed completely, words of comfort dying unborn. Fyd! He thought back to that long-ago summer. He’d just graduated from the Academy and was visiting his family on Psyclid, where his father was the Regulon ambassador. There had been two Psyclid princesses, mere children whose names he could not remember. The younger was a red-head; the elder might have had black hair, but she’d been a solemn little thing, of no interest whatsoever to a bran new ensign ten years her senior.

  Kass, a Psyclid princess? That would certainly account for her tendency to forget who was boss. Pok, dimi, and fyd! Now he was the one who needed comfort. But, as always, there was no time to deal with his own problems. K’kadi had to come first. He was S’sorrokan, K’kadi one of his own. Not that it wasn’t disconcerting to realize K’kadi’s exuberance must have come from knowing Tal and Kass had reconciled. Which meant that while thinking themselves totally isolated in the Round Tower, he and Kass might as well have been making love in a goldfish bowl. He was going to have to have a long talk with the kid about boundaries. But not right now.

  Tal knelt down before the stricken young man. “It’s all right, K’kadi. I was a fool not to have guessed sooner.” Admiral Vander Rigel create a velvet prison for some little nobody just because his son asked him to? Dimi, he should have known better.

  “I met Kass on Psyclid a long time ago,” Tal said. “I should have recognized her. I suppose I didn’t want to,” he added, more to himself than to K’kadi. “Kass is an asset to the rebellion, but a princess has to be protected, kept from all danger. Including me.”

  K’kadi raised his head, shaking it violently.

  “You don’t think she needs protection from me?” Tal asked, managing a rueful smile. K’kadi nodded a vigorous yes. “Well, thank you for that, but I’m afraid I’ve strayed so far off the path of righteous rebel leader that I’m not sure I can find my way back.”

  K’kadi’s chin firmed, azure eyes flashed. Once again, the wedding image hovered in the air in front of them.

  “Wishful thinking, K’kadi, but I’m afraid you don’t know much about how royalty does things.” Pok! What had he said? K’kadi’s handsome face had screwed up like a gargoyle.

  More images. King Ryal. A beautiful woman Tal recognized from security reports on K’kadi Amund. The teen’s mother. A third image. A baby. K’kadi pointed to the baby, then to himself.

  “King Ryal is your father!” A big smile transformed K’kadi’s earnest expression. He nodded.

  Tal lowered himself to the floor next t
o K’kadi, leaned his head back against the wall. For months now, he’d been using their talents, risking the lives of two royal children. Fyd!

  And was about to do it again. Because neither his protests, the threat of Regulon might, or common sense was going to keep Kass from the mission to Crystalia.

  There was, however, one thing he could do to show respect for the House of Orlondami. He could stay out of her bed.

  Mallick! What had the girl been thinking? Rejecting her fiancé, applying to the Academy, an affair with her captain. Princesses didn’t do things like that. Especially dainty little princesses like the child he remembered from so long ago. Not that he’d ever given her more than a passing admiring glance, like the appreciation of a finely done portrait hanging on a wall.

  But the why of a Psyclid princess turning Regulon space cadet escaped him. And that wasn’t the only puzzle. Softly, Tal pounded a clenched fist on his desk. What in the nine hells had brought K’kadi to his office today? Why now, when he must have known about his sister’s affair for weeks?

  Last night’s reunion with Kass must have been even more powerful than he’d thought. Enough to ring wedding bells in K’kadi’s head? Making him so happy the joy simply burst out of him and he had to show his captain his approval?

  Tal shook his head. Omni bless the boy. He meant well, but . . .

  Kass should have told him. Long ago—

  Fyd! What about Mondragon? Was K’kadi’s empathy with Kass unique to their blood line, or did the sorcerer know when . . .

  Tal’s breath caught. He dropped his head into his hands. Mondragon. Shock had kept him from seeing it until now. When he and Kass conducted their private dissolution ceremony, Jagan Mondragon, Sorcerer Prime, had lost more than a wife. He had lost a kingdom.

  Kass leaned back against the latticed side of the g’zebo, eyes closed. Unlike yesterday, she sought the privacy of her childhood haunt to revel in the memories of last night’s reconciliation with Tal. Love! Her heart was singing more merrily than the birds. The colorful flitterflies swooped through the air around her, their iridescent wings of blue, green, and gold adding a frosting of shining color to her bubbling mood. A smile teased her lips as she thought about last night, about the wonder of Tal Rigel, the sheer joy of returning home to Mama, Papa, and M’lani with this very special man at her side.

  She needed to tell him, apologize for her deception. Yet how could she be sorry when there had been no other way to be near the dashing Talryn, son of Vander Rigel?

  She would tell him tonight.

  Perhaps not. One more night . . . was that too much to ask? Then she’d tell him.

  Coward!

  Be quiet! I am L’ira, and I shall do as I please! The willful princess coming back to life.

  The willful princess whose hero-worship of the dashing young ensign Talryn Rigel had sparked her determination to become the only Psyclid in the Regulon Fleet Academy. Which meant that because of Tal Rigel she had endured four bleak years in the Archives.

  At his orders, she had killed.

  And now he was hers, and she simply could not risk—

  A shadow fell across the g’zebo’s wood floor. Kass knew, even before she looked up, that her bubble had burst. Tal Rigel, as cold and angry as she’d ever seen him. Dimi. She’d left it too late. He knew.

  He paced toward her until he towered over her. He folded his arms. Glared. She’d swear the temperature dropped twenty degrees. Her brain must be frozen because the words she was hearing were so far from anything she was expecting him to say.

  “I am seriously considering sending Mondragon to Psyclid to organize the resistance, and now I discover I’ve deprived him of a kingdom.” Not cold. Beneath the ice Kass felt a white-hot fury that rivaled the sun. “Just what’s to keep him from organizing the planet to suit himself? Tal pressed. “Just a tiny switch in momentum, perhaps a whisper or two in Reg ears, and Ryal and Jalaine are out, Jagan Mondragon in. Vive le roi!”

  Tal’s sarcasm might be cutting, but the truth of his words hurt. Why else had she proposed a mission to consult Ryal and Jalaine? It would likely take the power of the entire Orlondami clan to keep the Sorcerer Prime in check.

  “This is why we’re going to Crystalia,” Kass returned with as much dignity as she could muster with the menacing presence of S’sorrokan hovering over her. “Ryal and Jalaine must decide if Jagan can be controlled.”

  “I notice a significant absence of the word trust.”

  “You do,” Kass agreed, her royal mask firmly in place. And, as usual, they were talking all around the real problem, which she could no longer ignore. “I knew I had to tell you before the mission,” she said, the words tumbling over themselves as she tried to make amends, “but obviously I left it too long. Please”—she patted the bench beside her—“sit down and tell me how you found out.”

  His shoulders still stiff and unyielding, Tal lowered himself to the long bench a good meter and a half from where she was sitting. He sat, silent and scowling, as the flitterflies, evidently sensing his mood, disappeared into the woods. When he finally spoke, it was a toneless recitation of his morning’s encounter with K’kadi. He might as well have been delivering a report to an admiral. But Kass’s eyes misted as he described K’kadi’s air paintings. Dear goddess, who knew what powers her brother had? Did he actually foresee the scenes he showed Tal, or was his imagination as lively as her own?

  With almost no change in his cool, impersonal tone, Tal added, “Dorn has informed me that if we make full use of K’kadi’s and Jagan’s talents, the mission to Crystalia is feasible. Be at the planning session tonight. It would appear you are about to enjoy a joyous reunion with your family.” He stood, executed a stiff bow, then exited the g’zebo, his booted feet echoing as he stomped across the wood floor and down the steps.

  Kass’s lips curled as she watched his retreating back. She’d taken a lot of blows over the last few years. She would bounce back from this one as well. Because . . . because something important lurked just out of reach of her scrambled brain. Something that should have hit her in the face ten minutes ago.

  Tal. Furious. Tal, hurt. He hadn’t shown it, but she’d felt his pain.

  Tal. Who hadn’t known she was L’ira.

  Tal. Who had not used her for his personal advancement.

  Tal. Who should have been told the truth before he ever touched her.

  So now she was abandoned again, and this time she had no one to blame but herself.

  Chapter 35

  When working for the rebellion, you will remain Kass. My people don’t need any added distractions. I’ll inform Stagg and Quint. No one else need know. Tal’s order, delivered in a handwritten note the day after K’kadi’s revelation, echoed through Kass’s mind as she pressed her nose to the shuttle’s small porthole and watched the graceful, gleaming towers of Crystal City flash by a few marks out, vague blurs of color becoming houses, streets, lawns, parks, and forest. Psyclid. Home. Almost there.

  And he was right, of course. Princesses were sacrosanct, precious beings to be sheltered and protected at all times. But Kass Kiolani was allowed to risk her life for the rebellion. And the rebellion, of course, was all-important.

  Kass lifted her head away from the window long enough to note that K’kadi, handling the shuttle’s cloak with typical insouciance, also had his nose pressed to the viewport. Bless him. It was his first glimpse of Psyclid. To the best of her knowledge, he had never been off Blue Moon until the rebellion grabbed him up and threw him into the maelstrom of war. Oddly, he seemed to thrive on it.

  “Down in one,” the pilot intoned.

  Kass’s breath caught in her throat. Her heart raced. It wasn’t even dark yet, the sun’s last rays still casting a rosy glow in the sky behind the trees. If K’kadi lost the concentration he seemed to take so lightly . . . If he became so absorbed in observing the land of his father that he forgot why he was here . . .

  Pok! That way lay insanity. K’kadi was a warrior now. This
wasn’t at all like forgetting he wasn’t supposed to reveal his sister was a princess. This time, their lives depended on him.

  She worried too much. After disappearing a huntership in the face of a Fleet battlegroup, cloaking a shuttle wasn’t much of a challenge. And yet . . .

  A slight bump and they were down, the abrupt silence as the engines cut off leaving them all whispering. But K’kadi’s cloak must have successfully muffled noise as well as sight, because a group of young men playing veriball about fifty meters away never lost their concentration on the game. Just another rumble in the city.

  Kass unfastened her seat belt and maneuvered into a seat next to her brother. Gently, she turned his face toward her. “I know you want to go with us, K’kadi. You want to see the palace, see our father, but this isn’t the right time. It will happen, I promise. Sometime when things aren’t quite so scary. But right now”—Kass emphasized each word—“right now we need you to keep the shuttle hidden every single moment. Promise?”

  K’kadi gave her a look any brother would give an older sister after that little speech. “My apologies,” Kass murmured. “Coming home has turned my wits to mush.” She squeezed his shoulder, brushed a kiss to his cheek. “I know you’ll be fine.”

  From now on, Kass thought, as she responded to an imperative wave of Tal’s hand, the group going to the palace had to rely on Jagan, not K’kadi. Five people whose only worry was not if Jagan could sustain the illusion of invisibility, but would he? Did he really want to become a rebel organizer on the planet he had fled just before the invasion? Or did he have some less benevolent plan in mind? Was he perhaps so annoyed by losing his chance to become king that he would drop the cloak at a strategic moment, revealing Ryal and Jalaine consorting with their rebel daughter and wiping out the royal family in one great swoop? And, not incidentally, beheading the rebellion with the capture of S’sorrokan?