Six Cycles Later

Grant looks out his window at the Imperial City. A horizon crowded with airlanes and towering buildings built upon buildings built upon more buildings. Great marble edifices and grand skybridges.

Somewhere in that building directly across from him, Sykora is giving an address to the rest of the Void Convocation. About her activity since their last meeting, and her imprisonment, and the annexation. Behind her on stage, he knows, is a group of Eqtoran High Councilors who have been pleaded with to look happy to be in front of an audience of Governesses and Void Princesses and noblewomen from across the frontier and the Imperial Core.

He should be there, too. By her side. But the men who took him from his delegation did not phrase it as a choice, and when Sykora tried to argue, they showed her a piece of paper that killed her protests in her throat.

He can only pray she’s doing a good job while worried sick about what’s happening to him. Whatever is about to happen to him.

They were optimistic; he knows that. About the Prince thing. If there are to be consequences, he’s prepared to make enough of a royal stink about it that they fall on his head and not hers.

He turns to the sound of the door opening. “I don’t know who I’m waiting for,” he says to the gold-and-ivory armored men who have been guarding him. “But if I’m still here by the time my wife is finished with her address, there will be problems.”

They step aside.

“Prince Grantyde,” the Empress says. “Hello. Never fear—this won’t take long.”

Grant’s body stops obeying his brain’s commands. Just as well—his brain’s been stun locked.

The Empress adjusts her glasses with one ring-encrusted hand. “Walk with me, won’t you.”

***

“I do believe you and your wife complement one another nicely.” The Empress leads Grant through high-ceilinged, echoing halls in stark white and sumptuous gold. “I’ve been watching you two. The latest annexation is going well, I hear.”

“Yes, High Majesty.” Grant is trying not to shuffle like a zombified space case. Trying to project any confidence.

“I’ve read the reports.” She chuckles. “Quite novel, your solution.”

“We had every confidence in it, High Majesty.” Is that too proud? “But we’re relived it worked,” he adds. He is far from prepared for this.

“The Eqtoran delegation seem—reserved,” the Empress says. “But that’s to be expected, hmm?”

“Yes, High Majesty.”

“That’s a mainly Eqtoran crew aboard the ZKV they arrived at, yes?”

“Yes, High Majesty. Under Taiikari naval supervision.”

“They’re learning quickly. That’s good. What’s the name of the vessel mean, do you know? In Taiikari.”

“Riven Land II, High Majesty.” Grant ducks an ornate crossbeam. “At its captain’s request.”

“Riven Land. Hm.” The Empress tilts her head. “Well, pass my felicitations to them.”

“We will, High Majesty.”

The Empress’s sandals go clack, clack across the tile.

“Ah. Something I meant to mention while I’ve got you.” She snaps her fingers. “The matter of the husbands-of-the-void. I’ve had a go-around with the peerage of the Void Princesses. I’m sympathetic to your case, cousin, but there were concerns from some of Sykora’s peers about operational security that I found rather convincing. The ZKZs are our most crucial military assets. Can’t just plonk a foreign entity in one without some safeguards.” She smirks. “Certain Void Princess pet projects aside, that is.”

A stab of disappointment lodges in Grant; but he decides the best thing is to give this one a humored smile. Lady Ipqen-mek-Taqa has been genially and politely confined aboard the Pike while a spirited debate over her future is conducted.

“So,” the Empress continues. “The system’s staying in place, but we’re ratifying a path to citizenship. Letter of recommendation from the wife after twenty cycles of good behavior, a panel interview, and if all checks out, they’re in. Your citizenship, of course, remains in place.” She smiles. “No interview required.”

She stops in her tracks. She turns and looks up at him with a probative expression, mouth thinned.

“Does that suit you, Prince Grantyde?”

“Uh—” Grant’s taken aback by the sudden, intense scrutiny. “Yes, High Maj—”

“No.” Her head tilts. “It doesn’t, does it?”

His pulse drums at his jugular. “High Majesty. I, uh, I beg your forgiveness—”

“You haven’t been in the Empire long. Or—” She chuckles dryly. “Not to your knowledge. As Imperial law would have it, you’ve been my subject since your birth.”

He bows as low as his skeletal structure allows. “As you say, High Majesty.”

When he comes up, she’s started walking again. “You don’t like it much.”

He hurries after her. “What, High Majesty?”

“The Empire.” She looks over her shoulder. “You don’t like it.”

“High Majesty, I’m—” He swallows to try and tend his dried throat. It doesn’t work. “I’ve been so grateful to you and to the Princess. I’ve never meant to offend.”

A shake of her head clatters the earrings that festoon her. “You’ve made no social error, Cousin. I’m merely observing. And noting with interest how you’ve intervened in Cousin Sykora’s affairs.”

“I’m doing my best to be a loyal—”

“Since returning to her post, the Princess has ably governed through two potentially disastrous events. And she has clung to you the entire time. That’s what caught my eye in the first place. That’s why I am paying close attention to you. The Sykora I knew, before her imprisonment, shared her sister’s aloofness when it came to the tamer sex. I conclude you are what’s changed.”

Grant’s hands are coated with sweat. “Thank you, High Majesty.”

She favors him with a small, tight smile. “You are a looker, aren’t you. I imagine the firmament could easily see you as a fancy bauble the Void Princess bats around. Some simple stress relief. But you have given me cause to look closer.”

The strident clacks space out as she slows down.

“I see a man slowly coming into his power,” the Empress says. “Pressing against the bars, seeking the places they’ll bend and the places they won’t. Would I caution him? I would.” She gives him a sharp look over her glasses. “Especially during his time on Taiikar.”

He nearly faints.

“Would I punish him?” The Empress pushes her glasses back up her face. “Mmm. Not yet, I think. But recall, Cousin, that you remain a probational citizen for another three cycles. You and the Princess are moving in haste. An uncharitable interpretation of your actions might conclude that you are too disruptive to be given the freedom that you’re test driving. An uncharitable monarch might strip that freedom, and the attendant Princely title, away from you.”

“Majesty—” His voice is a tight whisper.

“But I am charitable, Grantyde. Wouldn’t you say?”

“Yes, Majesty. Of course.”

“Good. Ah—and here we are.”

She takes hold of a plain, unadorned knob, and opens a door designed to blend unobtrusively into its marble wall. She holds it for Grant. Beyond is a small, ornately appointed sitting room, like something out of a Vatican City drama. “Go on, Cousin.”

Grant steps through the threshold, and the door shuts. He turns around. Empress Zithra XIX has a compact, stubby gun in her hand, pointed right at his chest.

“I hope you’ll pardon the conversation piece,” she says. “This won’t take long.”

Grant’s feet are lead.

“Remove your anticompel glasses, Cousin Grantyde.”

He does.

Her eyes flash. She gestures with the gun to a hardwood chair with a small red cushion on it. “Sit.”

His mind is racing. He sits.

She steps in front of him. Flash. “Clap your hands.”

He claps his hands.

Flash. “Say my name backward.”

“XIX arhtiZ.”

Flash. “Tell me what you really think of me.”

“You’re a principled monster.”

“A principled monster. Those language pathways are quite baked.” She chuckles and lowers the gun. “I do wonder how much of you is Maekyon and how much of you is uniquely you. I suppose we’ll find out some day.”

Grant’s fingers tighten on his armrest.

Flash. “Take this gun.” She holds it out.

He takes it. It’s not like a Navy piece; there’s no print key on this. If it’s loaded, it’s live in his hands.

Flash. “Shoot yourself in the head.”

Grant stares at the Empress. Then he stares at the gun.

He keeps staring, and the world beyond it, the life he’s built for himself within it, splinter and crack, and fall away.

The Empress of Taiikar makes a satisfied little hum like she’s just figured out a difficult sudoku. “There you are.”

Grant’s throat has thickened to the point of speechlessness.

The Empress gently pries the gun from his limp hand. “Kindly remain here, Prince. I’ll return presently.”

She pauses in the doorway. “I don’t mean to imply any doubts about your allegiance, Cousin, but if you’re not here when I’m back, I’ll execute your wife. And I’d really hate to do that. Back in a tick.”

Grant doesn’t know how much time passes as he sits in gut-somersaulting torment. He should have done it. He should have shot himself. He should have shot the Empress. Surely the gun wasn’t loaded. Was it? Would she have loaded it? It felt heavy.

An unobtrusive click as the door opens. The Empress has returned, with a lady in a dark violet cloak, its hood up. Grant watches her stride in front of him again. “How did you know?” he asks. His voice is hollow and ringy in his ears.

He remembers this. This is how it was when Drake told him the jig was up.

“I am Zithra XIX,” the Empress says. “When I wish to know, I know.”

She strolls behind the desk and takes a seat. “So. Now that we are better acquainted, let’s get to the gist of why you are here, yes?”

He nods dumbly.

“Do you know why I hate compulsion, Cousin Grantyde?”

He feels drunk. Or stoned. He feels like he’s moving in a dream. “Why?” he asks.

“Because it’s a weapon that I cannot regulate. I think of my enemies with this weapon. I think of my friends, vulnerable to it. It enrages me so profoundly that it closes my throat. I can’t control it.” She leans forward. Her hands press flat on the desk. “And I hate what I cannot control, Cousin Grantyde.”

The cloaked woman shuffles to the Empress’s side.

“I have regulated it,” The Empress says. “I have reformed it. I have reversed it onto the compellers, thanks to Compound Seventy. Still, it stubbornly resists total mastery. Still, a full half of my servants are vulnerable. Still, I cannot reward their loyalty with protection. Complete protection. Goggles are cumbersome and removable. Corneal replacements are crude and obvious. But you.”

The Empress taps her finger against her chin.

“You hid from me. You and your wife. You hid quite well. Well done, you. You are unorthodox. And you have made Sykora unorthodox. You’ve taken one of my most dependable tools, and remade her into a woman for which I have no precedent. An unpredictable Void Princess. I suppose you could call that treason if you were feeling uncharitable. But… well.” She sighs. “It’s my fault, too, isn’t it? I gave you your citizenship.”

“Please,” Grant whispers. “Please, High Majesty. Mercy. For Sykora, at least.”

“Kindly be silent, cousin.” There’s no trace of impatience or anger in the Empress’s voice. “Until I have finished.”

Grant’s mouth shuts.

“When you have diverted from my bylaws, it has been in obedience of my goals,” the Empress says. “I value loyalty from all my subjects. But the rest of them were born into it. Were raised to love me. Come from worlds plastered with my face. Can be compelled. Your loyalty, in contrast, is unsurprisingly imperfect. But I find myself strangely satisfied by how you struggle, regardless. Stand up.”

Grant stands.

“I won’t execute you. And I won’t take your planet, Cousin Grantyde. Not yet.” The Empress’s brow quirks. “It has my rapt attention now. But I have been—and continue to be—a patient woman. I have waited a very longtime for a man like you, for instance.”

She sits back.

“In fact, Cousin Grantyde,” she says, “I intend to keep your secret.”

His mouth gapes. “You do?”

“I don’t have the time to protect it, of course, so you’d be well-served by a little more caution. But this is not the day the Maekyonite secret is revealed to the Empire.” She smiles wide enough to show her age-blunted fangs. “Not if you do me a favor, in turn.”

The woman in the cloak steps forward. “That’s my cue, yes?”

The Empress nods.

The stranger comes to the front of the desk and lowers her hood.

She’s wearing anticomps.

She raises them to her forehead. Her eyes are the red of a Taiikari woman’s, but—off, somehow. Curious. There’s a ring of white around the pupil.

“From one freak to another,” she says. “Good afternoon, my big weird bastard.”

“This is Specialist-Gefreiter Axyna of Taiikar,” the Empress says. “The creator—and the wellspring—of Compound Seventy.”

“And the unluckiest bitch by birth in the Empire,” Axyna says. “A genuine genetic marvel. You like the eyes?” She bats her lashes.

He sees his confused reflection in them. “What do they mean?”

“They mean I’m screwed,” Axyna says. “My parents meddled, you see. But they didn’t have pockets deep enough to do it proper. I am the result of black-market genome fuckery. A miracle-fetus that should never have been viable. But born I was. And now I meddle, too. By the good grace of my Empress, I meddle quite a lot.”

“Can you not compel?”

“Oh, I can.” Her eyes flash. “Stick out your tongue.”

Grant sticks his out on reflex. Axyna sticks hers out too.

“You thee my thituation,” she says. “I can compel. But every time I do the fucking thing, I compel mythelf, too.” She pushes her tongue back into her mouth. “I compel and am compelled. How’s that for a shit sandwich?”

“I thought that was impossible.”

“It is,” she says, brightly. “As are you. We synthesized Compound Seventy from my blood. Mad little mistake that I am. You are the key to Compound Seventy-One.”

“Compound Seventy-one.” Grant looks helplessly between the Empress and the geneticist. “You don’t mean—”

“Yes, cousin.” The Empress’s eyes are wider than Grant’s ever seen them. “Invisible, flawless protection. The ultimate defense for my species’ ultimate weapon. The maleborn curse, finally brought to heel beneath the might of the Imperial boot.”

“You think my blood is going to do that?”

“No, no.” Axyna cackles. “No, dummy. We need the Maekyonite and the Taiikari genome combined.” She laces her fingers together. “That takes a great deal of delicate work. But!” She brings her palms clapping together. “There’s a shortcut. A way we’re better at, because we’ve done it with every vassal species we’ve come across. A way to let nature do the heavy lifting. A way that needs your fluids, yes. But not your blood.”

Her fangs gleam in her wide smile.

“I don’t need your blood, Majesty,” she says. “I need your son’s.”

END OF VOLUME III