Empress Game 2

by Rhonda Mason

  Damn you, Bredard.

  Now that she knew where her brothers were, and that they weren’t on their way to the safety they’d been promised, it took every gram of self-control not to commandeer a ship and go after them. She couldn’t, though, not now. Not with politics crashing down so spectacularly around her.

  The TNV, IDC, imperial army, Sovereign Council…

  At least when she’d been in hiding things had been simple: keep Corinth hidden, keep Corinth fed, keep Corinth safe.

  She missed him, missed his mind voice, his face. His earnest excitement at the whirlwind their lives had become. Missed his hero-worship of the octet and his unwavering faith in her. Guilt rose when she realized she missed him more than Vayne. Vayne had been nothing more than a memory for so long. Corinth—Corinth was real. He was her family.

  I’m coming for you. All of you. Please be safe.

  She entered Isonde’s room, leaving Prince Ardin’s bodyguards behind on the threshold. Isonde was propped up in her medical pod. “Thank you,” she said, gratitude and solemn approval in her gaze. She must have watched Rawn’s ceremony on vid.

  “Of course,” Kayla replied. What else was there to say about Rawn’s death, when they both felt responsible?

  Kayla removed the heavy brocade overcoat she had worn for the occasion and tossed it on the sofa. If only she could shed her role as Isonde as easily, the politics and the struggle. How was she to choose between staying here to help her people, and going after her il’haars when they needed her?

  “We have to have the wedding,” Isonde said, wrenching Kayla from her internal conflict.

  “What?”

  “The wedding. The sooner the better.” Isonde’s tone didn’t allow for disagreement.

  Kayla walked over to her pod and took the seat Ardin usually occupied. “Not sure you’re going to fit your wedding gown in that thing.”

  Isonde batted the joke away with a wave of her hand. “I’ll be out of here in a day, maybe two.”

  Considering she was practically a corpse two days ago, Isonde was healing remarkably well, the medical pod working miracles. Soon Isonde would be up and about and the charade would finally be over.

  “The wedding will cement my win at the Empress Game and confirm my right to the throne.”

  Her win, eh? “I suppose you could have a small ceremony here, once you’re strong enough to stand, or at least sit in a chair. We could tell the officiant you’d taken ill.”

  Isonde shook her head. “It has to be a grand event, the more people the better. Everyone in the empire needs to see me claim my place as Empress-Apparent.”

  “Gee, how romantic.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. This whole thing is and always has been a power play, from day one. Everything we did was intended to put me on the Council of Seven with Ardin.”

  How like Isonde, to see her own wedding in terms of a political event. The kind of determination… Kayla was dedicated to protecting her il’haar, ruthless about it even, but never so cold.

  “Not cold,” Isonde said, making Kayla realize she had spoken aloud. “Practical. I… I care for Ardin.” She glanced down, awkward for a moment, almost unsure. “I do.” Her face set once more with conviction. “That can’t matter more than our goal of ridding the empire of the TNV. It just can’t.”

  Had Kayla become the same? Had her love for her family, her brothers—Malkor—been eclipsed by her need to see her people freed? What kind of person did that make her: self-sacrificing… or foolish?

  “We’ll have the Low Divine officiate,” Isonde said, her mind already moving past the moment and back to business.

  “What happened to having that guy from Piran that officiated your parents’ wedding?”

  Isonde shook her head. “Not big enough. Now more than ever, this wedding needs to make a statement. If we can get the Low Divine to officiate we’ll gain popular support. She holds the heart of the people.”

  Imperials and their “Unity.”

  “You’re not even religious, what if she won’t agree?”

  Isonde actually chuckled at that. It was perhaps the first time Kayla had ever heard the sound from her. “Who wouldn’t agree to officiate the most important wedding in a decade? She’ll be at the center of the most-watched event in the empire—her own popularity will go through the roof.”

  This kind of scheming, the manipulating of popular opinion through social events, was familiar enough to Kayla, being part and parcel of growing up in a royal family, even among Wyrds. Tech might become more sophisticated as a society advanced, but mob mentality could only evolve so far.

  “We’ll have it on the front steps of the Basilica of the Dawn, in the center of the city. The grounds are huge; we’ll open the ceremony to everyone, citizens and royals alike.”

  “That sounds like a good way to get yourself assassinated.” It was a ro’haar’s nightmare. Surely Ardin wouldn’t allow her to take such a risk, no matter how powerful the event would be.

  One look at Isonde’s determined face, though, and Kayla knew he would. The man couldn’t deny Isonde a thing. Was anyone powerful enough to withstand a force of nature like Isonde?

  “You can make your plans,” Kayla said, “but we’ve only got three days, four, including today, until Bredard’s ultimatum. Unless you’ve got a magic plan to put an end to his threats, the Low Divine will be presiding over our executions.”

  Talk about a heavily attended event.

  Isonde scooted herself a little higher in the medical pod. Kayla didn’t help—Isonde wouldn’t welcome an acknowledgement of her weakness, no matter what she’d been through.

  The medical pod beeped annoyingly, unhappy with something it found in its scans of Isonde. The pitch of its hum deepened, and the low light that glowed within brightened considerably, until some of the tension left Isonde’s body.

  “Now,” Isonde said, when the machine quieted down, “the councils will reconvene tomorrow. Security has cleared everyone remaining on the staff at both locations and everyone’s adamant that we won’t allow Rawn’s death to shut down the government. We need to revise that speech you are about to give.”

  * * *

  That afternoon, Malkor nodded to the guards outside of Isonde’s room and swept through the doors. “I’m on my way to see Rigger. I wanted to know if you needed—” He stopped short. “What the—” Isonde’s medical pod was empty.

  Instead, she sat at her vanity, staring at herself in mirror. “These aren’t my teeth,” she said, without turning around.

  “What?”

  “Oh, I know they’re technically my teeth, regrown with a laser from stem cells and all that.” She ran her tongue over her teeth. “They’re not my teeth. They feel wrong.”

  An image popped into Malkor’s mind of Isonde lying rigid on the floor where she’d fallen after Janeen had injected her with the toxin, her nose broken and bloody, her teeth smashed in. “I’m sorry for what you’ve been through.”

  “Teeth are a small price to pay.” She met his gaze in the mirror. “I hope it’s the only price?”

  Her pod started beeping. Quietly at first, then with more insistence.

  “Should you be out of that thing?”

  She sighed. “Toble said I could be out for an hour at a time. Guess my hour’s up.”

  “Let me help you back in.”

  Isonde shot him a look that would have killed a lesser man. New teeth, same old Isonde. She climbed in with visible effort, but not his assistance.

  “Any progress on Bredard?”

  It was Malkor’s turn to sigh. “Not yet. Parrel has people on it, though.”

  “Then you’ll have to give Bredard the data.” Isonde said it like it was a foregone conclusion. Problem solved, in her mind.

  “Not happening.” Dolan’s technical files held an insane wealth of knowledge. Beyond his work on psi powers and mind control, he had specs in there for advanced weaponry, spaceship design, galactic communication systems—all courtesy of h
is Wyrd origins. Commonplace tech for Wyrds was pure gold for the less advanced empire. Dolan had dispensed bits and pieces as he went, gaining himself near-limitless power in the empire, and the priceless resources he’d needed for his experiments.

  “If it’s our only bargaining chip—”

  “Do you think for one second that Kayla would agree to give someone else the chance to do what was done to her family? To her mother, her twin?”

  Isonde frowned. “So we don’t tell her. Not until afterward, at least. She’ll be thankful enough to be spared execution.”

  “You have no frutting idea what you’re talking about. Kayla would die before giving someone the specs to build another of Dolan’s mind-control machines.” With what had been done to her family…

  Dolan had warped the minds and personalities of his Wyrd prisoners at whim, until they were unrecognizable even to themselves. He broke them down to their most base impulses, forcing them to act against their innate natures and do, well, whatever Dolan wanted them to.

  Dolan was fascinated by how far he could push a person to go beyond their own morals and decency. Perhaps the worst part about it? Once Dolan turned off the machine the mind control faded and each test subject returned to normal. But the memories of what they’d done, what had been done to them—those never faded.

  Thankfully Kayla didn’t know the extent of what her family had suffered. Malkor had read some of Dolan’s files, enough to be physically ill for days over what Dolan’s “experiments” entailed. Kayla hadn’t asked to see the files and he hadn’t offered.

  “Well,” Isonde said, “I refuse to die for the sake of data Bredard and his IDC cohorts may or may not be able to make use of. I did not survive paralysis and weeks in a coma, I did not put you at risk by asking you to fix the Game, to give in now. The only way this story ends is with me in a seat on the Council of Seven.”

  “You can’t take the chair if you’re dead.”

  She shot him an annoyed look. “The TNV is eating the empire alive. Our people are dying, suffering horribly in the process, and we’ve made zero progress in the last five years. We all agreed that Ardin and I sitting on the Council of Seven, working together, is the best way to redirect the course of non-action the empire has fallen into.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest, as immovable as a battle cruiser with an empty fuel tank. “I will not let anything stand in the way of saving our people from the TNV. If you don’t want to hand over the data, find another way. Find a way, Malkor, or I will.”

  * * *

  Malkor slumped in his chair in his office at IDC headquarters, rubbing his stinging eyes with the heels of his palms. A stack of datapads mocked him, loaded with the endless collection of files the traitor in his octet, Janeen, had gathered on seemingly everyone. He could stare at this shit all day and it wouldn’t matter—the dirt he needed on Bredard wasn’t in Janeen’s files.

  “Frutt it.” He pushed the nearest datapad away in disgust. He was considering dinner when his mobile comm beeped. Isonde.

  “Hey,” she said. “It’s me.” All of a sudden he wasn’t sure who it was. Isonde’s voice and ID signature, which Kayla had been using for weeks.

  “Isonde?”

  She chuckled. “Only when I have to be.”

  Kayla, then. Thankfully. He’d had enough of Isonde for one day.

  “I know you’re crazy busy,” she said. “Any way I can convince you to take a sparring break?” She blew out a breath that held a world of frustration. “I’ve got meetings with Raorin in the morning, then council’s in session all day, so no doubt Isonde will wake me at dawn to strategize. If I don’t beat the shit out of someone before then I’m probably going to explode mid-council meeting.”

  That brought a smile to his face. “Sure.”

  “Thank the stars. Vid offered, but Trinan would be the one kicking my ass if I let Vid spar while he’s still healing. Besides,” she said, and he heard the smile in her voice, “you’re my favorite victim.”

  He changed and met her out front of IDC headquarters when she arrived with Ardin’s bodyguards. “You guys can hang in the lobby,” he told them as they all entered the building. “The princess couldn’t be safer here.” Plus, he didn’t want two more pairs of eyes on Kayla while she worked out. She was hotter than a sun when she fought and he wanted her all to himself.

  He escorted her to one of the smaller gyms the building held, knowing it would be empty. It always was at this hour. Kayla radiated energy as they walked, and it was infectious. The anticipation he’d felt since she had commed kicked a notch higher. She tapped her thigh as she walked, two fingers beating a rhythm against the pommel of a kris she had hidden beneath an overcoat. Two fingers beating a tempo that his body synced to.

  How long since he’d been alone with her?

  Too damned long.

  She shot him a glance as they entered the gym and it was eerie to see the glint of bloodlust in Isonde’s eyes. “We have to get rid of that thing.” He made a gesture to his throat, then entered in the code that overrode the locking mechanism on the door, sealing them alone inside.

  She arched an auburn brow. Malkor closed the distance and stripped the hologram from her. Kayla’s gaze shot to the upper corners of the room, switching from one to the other.

  “No surveillance in here,” he said, without looking away from her face. “All it would catch is shit-talking, slacking, and the occasional brawl when things got too heated between rival octets.”

  “Trinan and Vid talking trash?” she said in a mock-surprised tone. “Never.” She didn’t step back from him, didn’t move except to breathe, and he drank her in. Eyes bluer than an arc of electricity, rounded cheeks and a snub nose that seemed to contradict the harshness in her. Beautiful.

  “You should hear Rigger,” he said.

  This time she laughed, a throaty sound, a rusty sound, so unlike Isonde’s refined trill. His Kayla.

  “So, are we gonna fight or are you just going to stare?” she asked.

  He could look at her for hours. Well, maybe not without making love to her first. Then he’d take all the time in the world to enjoy her, to study every line and curve of her before she was smothered beneath the hologram once more.

  “We can fight,” he said, then gestured to her kris, “if you take those off.”

  Both of her ebony brows arched, and her smile faded into something much more intent. He reached out, slowly, so slowly, waiting for her to pull back. He pushed aside the edge of her overcoat and touched his fingers to her hip, his eyes on her face the whole while. She said nothing, the breath still in her throat as he slid his hand down her thigh until he reached her kris. He started to withdraw one from the sheath and her hand closed over his, automatically protecting herself from being disarmed, even by him.

  He waited, neither moving nor releasing the weapon, watching her. She took a deep breath. Another. Her hand slipped from his, a caress of fingers across skin, and she nodded the barest fraction. He withdrew the kris slowly, then the second one. Holding them, one in each hand, he felt as though he held her power, her soul. She had given him her strength, willingly.

  A sigh shuddered from her and her shoulders relaxed. He wanted to drop the blades to the floor and pull her to him, but the moment was too precious for that. Instead he laid the daggers gently on a nearby bench while she watched.

  He returned to her, loving the way her gaze followed his every move. He slid his hands inside the collar of her overcoat, fingertips grazing each side of her neck as he moved, thumbs tracing her collarbones through her tank top, then palms on her bare shoulders as he spread the coat wider and coaxed it down her arms. It puddled behind her and her breath picked up, matching his own.

  His hands were on her thigh, untying the bindings of her empty sheaths, when she said, “I really did want to spar.”

  He forced his hands to still. “We still can.” Yeah, right. If he didn’t make love to her in the next five minutes he was going to lose his mind. �
��If you want.”

  “I do want.” Her voice was almost a whisper. “So, so much.” Then she rose on her toes and kissed him, tentatively, as if he might pull away at any moment, and it was more than he could take. He wrapped his arms around her, spun, and pressed her against the wall beside the door. There was almost a purr on her lips when he claimed her mouth again.

  Damn her willingness to leave him behind before, and damn the future when she’d leave him behind again. He had her here, now, and that’s all he wanted.

  Kayla.

  12

  The next morning, Kayla stared out the hover car window as the city streaked past, her thoughts on Malkor instead of the political labyrinth she planned to enter. He had been tender and rough, dominant and surrendering, and everything that was perfect in her world. The two of them, together in the space of that shared heartbeat, were perfect.

  Sadly, life was not.

  She’d ached to kiss him goodbye when he returned her to Ardin’s guards, to kiss him and never stop. To pretend nothing else existed or mattered. Instead she had walked away, wearing Isonde’s face, and slept alone with only dreams of him to comfort her.

  It had been worse in the morning as she stared at her own face in the mirror, at the face he called beautiful. Her face. She wanted it back. She never wanted to be Isonde around him again. It was as if a stranger stood between them.

  That stolen moment in the gym was bliss. That’s exactly what it was, though—stolen. They couldn’t have what they wanted, not while she was still Isonde.

  Maybe, after…

  Kayla shook her head, dismissing the thought. There was no after. There was now, as Isonde, and then there was later, as ro’haar to her brothers, and no room existed for anything in between. No matter that she loved Malkor, no matter that her heart found refuge and peace with him.

  That peace, too, was stolen, for she had another life to live.

  The hover car she rode in arrived at the Sovereign Council seat, ending the few moments she had to herself.

  Time to play the game.