Shadow Run

by Michael Miller

  “Prince Nevarian and Princess Solara shall now dance ‘Flight of the Dracortes’ in a brother-sister dance,” an entirely too-breathless announcer nearly squealed. Sure enough, the beginning solo notes began to lilt, filling the air with electricity.

  Great Collapse, is there no end to the hoops I have to jump through? I grabbed her hand, all but snarling. “Very well, then, I’ll show you what I’m capable of.”

  Solara smiled. “That’s what the dance is for, my brother.”

  Some dances were difficult not because they were fast, but because they were slow. The measured pace of the movements was critical, and flaws could arise in the steps, hand gestures, and fluidity that were not nearly as visible in high-energy dancing. “Flight of the Dracortes,” at one time, had been this kind of dance. It had become faster and faster over the centuries, until it now encompassed the worst of both worlds. Requiring dizzying speed and complete accuracy, it would have been hellish if it weren’t a joy to learn.

  I had mastered it at a young age. Every hook, every heel pull, every step I had learned with the same precision as fencing or sparring—which was exactly what Solara and I were doing.

  Without faltering, she matched me step for step. She responded to my lead with complete assurance. She wasn’t backing down, and that served only to make me angrier. I raised her hand and spun her into me, then framed her as she went through a staccato burst of footwork to the beat that infiltrated the piano and strings.

  “Have you no shame?” I seethed through my smile. “How could you treat our guest that way? She’s lost enough as it is, and her cooperation is crucial to our research.”

  Solara finished in a free spin, two steps away, as all music except for the rumble of the bass line faded away. She smiled, an expression that didn’t match her serious tone as she murmured so only I could hear, “Father commanded me to make Qole leave.”

  The music resumed. We moved without touching, in perfect sync with head and hands, a motion that rolled down our bodies to our feet. With a snap and a step, we were back together.

  “What?” I covered myself with a laugh that to my ears sounded ridiculously hollow.

  “I don’t know, but Nev, it seemed really strange. He was very clear.” Solara’s expression didn’t waver; it remained happy and carefree, even as I felt like I’d been gutted.

  What was going on? Why would Father order Solara to do such a thing? For a split second, a terrifying thought flitted through my head, but I dismissed it immediately. My family would never…

  My foot faltered a step. I recovered almost instantly, but had we been judged in this dance, Solara would have won. And yet, as the song ended to thunderous applause from the audience, I couldn’t have cared less who’d won or lost. I bowed to my sister, my thoughts already racing ahead. I needed to find Father; I needed answers.

  But the king was nowhere in sight.

  “Marsius! Have you seen Father?”

  Marsius evidently knew of the same secret passageway out of the ballroom that I did, for which I had to give him credit—I had been at least two years older when I’d discovered that one of the curtained alcoves accessed a hallway leading to other parts of the palace.

  He looked up and blinked from the deep concentration he had been bestowing on approximately half a cake. “No. How did you find me? Hey, do you want to play Assassins and Kings?”

  I smiled hollowly. “Not right now, I’m afraid. I have something I must take care of. Soon, all right?” Guilt nagged at me, and I called over my shoulder as I passed, “I’m sorry that I haven’t spent much time with you lately.”

  “It’s okay.” Marsius shrugged and went back to devouring his cake. “I had a great time with Arjan. He knew some really fun games. And he showed me some tricks with knives!”

  That stopped me short. “Marsius, do you know where Arjan is?” Perhaps Qole was with him.

  Marsius looked up at me and rolled his eyes. “How could I? He’s not here. But he got invited to the party so that’s probably where he is.” He shook his head in a very adult manner. “I don’t like this kind of party all that much.”

  I hadn’t seen Arjan anywhere at the ball, but then, I had been entirely focused on Qole. I hoped he was at least having a better evening than she, and that Father hadn’t given any particular orders to embarrass him as well.

  What in the systems was the matter with my family? It was time they started living up to the standards we’d long been spouting in our rhetoric and using to judge others. It was time I had a serious discussion with the king.

  The delay it took to find Father in his private office had distilled my confusion, guilt, and misery into a towering rage. The room was as elegant and functional as he was, with a great semicircle of a desk, tall-backed leather chairs, and most importantly, network access to anything he might need. He stood at his desk rather than sat, still wearing his gray suit and no doubt expecting to return to the ball shortly. Disappearing to deal with a matter of urgency was not unusual for him, but right now, I didn’t care what it might be.

  “Where is Qole?”

  Father looked up from the series of images projected along one wall of the study. Everything from news feeds to security cameras was playing within the dizzying array before him. I had always been impressed with how he seemed able to parse all the information in seconds. For a moment, I felt reassured to see him standing there, the straight lines of his posture always making me think of the strength and confidence I had relied on so many times over the years. But then that was supplanted by the anger that had been building all evening.

  “Hello, Nev. I see you decided to leave your ball.” There was a touch of disapproval in his voice.

  “Never mind the ball,” I snapped. “Where. Is. Qole? No one knows, not security, nor even Devrak. I’ve looked in her room and checked in with her ship. She’s vanished, and you and the rest of the family are directly responsible for driving her off.” I was starting to hit critical mass. “Do you know how dangerous it could be for her? This place is practically crawling with Treznor lackeys.”

  “Fortunately, I can assure you that she won’t be appropriated by them. And it’s safe to say that the rest of the family has had nothing to do with her disappearance…nor Devrak. Not even he is privy to this.” Father sighed and flicked a finger at one of the security feeds. It dimmed and vanished. Before it did, I caught a glimpse of an unadorned hallway. It was one of a hundred like it, and could have been anywhere.

  Questions piled on top of one another, and it was almost impossible to pick one out of the mix. “What—what do you mean?”

  “The Alaxan had to be taken for examination and testing. Something came up, and we could no longer wait.”

  I gaped. “Testing? Tonight? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Father considered me. “You’re so focused on her that you won’t even ask what came up? But I’ll indulge you. It’s quite obvious you are smitten with her, and so I didn’t tell you because your reaction wouldn’t have been any more constructive then than it is now. I didn’t want to distress you—you need to at least look the part of the triumphant Dracorte heir for our guests, if you’re not going to behave like it. Which is perhaps more reason for us to move forward with the Alaxan tonight. The earlier you are separated, the better.”

  Smitten? A little voice in my head questioned such an unceremonious term, whether or not it was apt. And how could it have been so obvious to him when I wasn’t even entirely sure? Right now, all I felt was sickening worry.

  “Father…” I paused before asking the question that had formed first, but I had been most afraid to ask. “You’re not hurting her, right?”

  “Not so far as I’m aware, but I’ve had more important things to do than memorize the specifics of what is to come for her. Does it matter?”

  “Yes, it matters!” I almost yelled. I collected myself while he stared at me as if I were Marsius throwing a tantrum. “Is she comfortable? Did she consent to being there?”


  “With this new turn of events, not likely. And no.”

  I struggled to pick just one emotion to feel out of every one crashing into me. “What new turn of events?” I finally asked.

  “She tried to leave, and we couldn’t allow that.”

  The bottom dropped out of my stomach. She’d stormed away, not just to leave the ball…but to leave Luvos. Because of me. And now she was being held against her will—not by me, but I was the reason she was here in the first place.

  It was all because of me. Not that I couldn’t be enraged at those who had helped.

  “You drove her off !” Father’s eyes narrowed, but I didn’t let him interject. “And Uncle is fine with this? He knew all along that there was a possibility he might forcibly study whomever I brought back?”

  “Since he was far less surprised than I that you brought anyone back at all, then I’d guess yes, of course he knew. I’m not sure what purpose this mental exercise is serving, Nevarian.”

  Rubion. My uncle was far more insidious than I’d ever imagined, and he’d taken full advantage of my naïveté. But I would have to deal with him later. “How can you be so calm about this? This is…horrible. This is the exact way the Treznor-Nirmanas would behave.” I felt the same disgust that I had that day on their destroyer, except now I stood in Father’s office and felt it for him.

  For us.

  “No, it’s not,” Father replied sharply. “They were ready to kill her on the spot for convenience. We are running tests, and nothing unnecessary will be done. This is a critical part of the research, I’m afraid—research that you were eager to have us conduct.”

  “No, I was not,” I snarled at him, stepping closer, angrier than I’d ever dared to be with him. “Not like this. I was taught that people should be treated with respect and dignity. I was told that we should honor our word. I told her that we were different from the rest of the scum in the galaxy.”

  The king remained impassive. “I was afraid you would feel this way. Nevarian, at some point you will have to learn that being a leader is a question of sacrifices. I would rather not hurt anybody. I would rather live in peace and harmony with our neighbors. But there are times and situations where that is simply impossible, and the more dire the times, the more dire the choices that need to be made in order to protect all that we hold dear.”

  “Our times are so dire that we need to conduct experiments on unwilling subjects we kidnap?” I laughed bitterly. “Then aren’t we the ones creating the dire times? What happened to the teachings of the Unifier, that we only exist to serve others?” I had heard these mantras so many times over the years, they were part of the fabric of who I was. Anger grabbed a hold of my tone again. “Our right to rule is based on helping people, not hurting them!”

  For the first time, something sparked in Father’s eyes, and his voice became hard. “Do you take me for one of your Academy fellows to fall to such amateur debating tactics? Your reasoning skills disappoint me, my son. Morality is not a zero-sum game. The same choices in different situations can be good or ill—it is intent and results that matter, or else we are all nothing but murderers and thieves. My intent, as you so helpfully noted, is to follow the commandments of the Unifier, to not fail the mandate of the Dracorte family, and to be a beacon of hope to the galaxy. Tell me, Nevarian, how much of a beacon do you think we would be under the boot of another family?”

  I didn’t back down, staring back at him defiantly. “Unless you mean Belarius, I’m certain it’s the other royal families who are more likely to be under our boot. And yes, thank you, I am aware that we are in dangerous times. But unless you can tell me that everything is about to come crashing down, your actions tonight are categorically wrong.”

  “Well then, allow me to enlighten you to just how dire the situation is.” Father’s voice became harder yet, and he snapped to the room, “Systems analysis, previous quarter.”

  The images on the wall faded out, and then one large display appeared. Bar charts and graphs surrounded a large map of the explored galaxy. Father stabbed a finger at the wispy blue lines in between the systems. “You see those, Nev? Those represent the drone networks. Dracorte Industries hasn’t had a major success in synthetics or alloys in years. Newer products on the markets from competing families haven’t supplanted ours yet, but they are better, frankly, and we are losing market share hand over foot. Right now, the only business that is steady is our mining ventures, thanks to the drone network.”

  He swiped across one portion of the screen, and a line graph showing a precipitous drop appeared. “But the yields from those are diminishing rapidly, not to mention that it seems some drones are finally starting to malfunction now, after centuries without maintenance. None of that is anything, however, compared to the fact that our enemies have been poisoning the ear of Belarius the Elder. The other families are pushing to share in the fruits of the mining operations, claiming it is only reasonable since the drones mine in their systems.”

  I stepped back. “But that would never happen. Belarius won’t let them; that’s always been the agreement. They gave us the drive, we gave them access to the drone security functions and any resources they wanted.”

  “Nevarian, you are not listening. That’s the agreement now, but if we fall out of favor with the Belarius family, then why wouldn’t they support something else that benefits them? All they’d have to do is stand aside while another family simply seizes the mining yields from the network in their system. We are one disgrace away from that happening. Xiaolan is courting an alliance with them, trying to encroach on our favor. And Treznor-Nirmana has us exactly where they want us with their investment in our operations.” He paused and rubbed his brow, worry lines creasing it.

  I felt like clutching my own head. I had thought myself well informed of the political forces affecting our family. None of these facts were new, but I hadn’t fully grasped the severity of them, the full scope—I doubted anyone had, other than Father and his closest advisors. A future without mining or material production would mean that, really, truly, all we had left to pin our hopes on was…Shadow.

  Qole.

  It was either that, or to continue allowing the Treznor-Nirmanas to invest in us to stay afloat. They would own us in short order. “We just need to pay the investment back in time,” I said without conviction.

  “Do you know how aggressive the timeline on our repayment is? If we can’t generate enough revenue, their terms are punishing. Our holdings will become theirs. The markets are unstable already; all it would take for our investors to lose faith in us would be to fail to impress the systems in the next few days, or worse yet, disgrace ourselves. Which I will not allow you to do.” He took a step toward me, and a new anger crept into his voice—not the anger of a father, but of a king. He’d directed this at me very rarely, and only after a massive personal failure.

  “I still don’t see how you can justify coercing Qole,” I said, though my own voice sounded weaker. “You could have given her a choice.”

  “I am not sorry for the choices I have made. If you think I’m going to let the fate of our family, of the system, ride on the selfishness of a single girl and boy with adolescent feelings for each other, you do not yet understand the role of a king.”

  The anger burned in Father’s steel-gray eyes now, and he turned off the image on the wall with a grip of his fist. “For you, I am sorry. I failed you—failed to teach you soon enough that difficult decisions are not those made in comfortable moral exercises. The choice a leader must make isn’t whether to hurt someone, but whom to hurt, and how much.” I stared at him in shock, but he didn’t seem to notice, or care. “We are going to hurt the Alaxan as little as possible and help billions of people stay safe and prosperous in the process…a trade I would make over and over as long as I live, and one that I hope you someday possess the fortitude to make as well.”

  I found myself with my back to the door. I hadn’t even noticed his advance until I had nowhere to run.
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br />   “Now, your fascination with the Alaxan has gotten quite out of hand,” he said finally. “Go to your quarters, talk to no one, and stay there until I tell you otherwise. That is an order.”

  I opened the door and stood in it for a moment, shaken. I wasn’t sure how to respond, but there was only one thing that kept coming to mind.

  “Her name,” I said quietly, “is Qole.”

  At first, the light was so blinding I couldn’t see what was happening. But I’d reached…and found what I was looking for. There, lying in wait in a massive containment center even deeper in the citadel than where I was trapped in the laboratory, was more Shadow than I could have ever fit into the Kaitan’s hold. Only one of many such caches. They must have been storing it for a purpose.

  But now it was mine. Deep or not, it hadn’t been too far for me to touch. To seize, even, and drag toward me. It had all happened so fast: darkness as deep as a void, followed by the brightest white from the core of a star.

  I still couldn’t see. I only felt the strange intensity somewhere between hot and cold—yet somehow an extreme, all-consuming sensation.

  And then I heard the screams.

  Sight returned to me with sound, and I blinked to find the room crawling in liquid black flame. It flowed in seductive waves, like fire in zero gravity. Burning white glowed within the center, giving the blackness a purplish cast.

  Like my dress was my first delirious thought.

  Except when this flame touched flesh, it didn’t flutter around it like a party trick. It devoured it.

  The screams rose from the half-dozen or so guards lining the table I was on. Some of them tried to run, but the flames leapt at them the fastest, unwinding like a sinuous predator to bring them down. Their blackened bodies fell to ash before they hit the ground. But even those who didn’t run and simply shielded their faces died like that, frozen in dark silhouettes lit by fire. And then they crumbled like pillars of sand.