“Roca!” He jumped out of bed and strode from the room in his nightshirt, pulling on his robe, headed for the shrine he had erected to the sun gods. In his mind, he entreated them: Please. Don’t let my wife and child die.
The shrine was a small room with a stand of polished granite in the center. Eldri had laid out dried bubbles and goldstone balls as offerings. He threw open the shutters, letting the gales of Windward tear over him. Their chill bit through the heavy cloth of his robe as he gazed at the stars.
“Take me, if you must,” he said. “But don’t hurt them.”
Roca reached the War Room before her mother. She held Eldrin close, shielding him with her mind. He was no longer crying, but he remained wide awake, his mind swirling with formless nightmares kept at bay only by his mother’s arms. Had she put him down now, he would have panicked. Her terror of losing him to forces beyond her control had grown the entire time she had ridden the magrail here. She couldn’t lose her son. Her sons. What had happened to Kurj?
Impossibly, the War Room was empty. Even this late at night, it should have hummed with activity. But no telops sat at the consoles; no pages hurried among the stations; no techs rode in the robot arms. The only light came from the Lock corridor, its columns blazing. Roca stopped several meters away, holding Eldrin with one arm while she raised the other to protect her eyes against the brilliance. The corridor seemed to stretch forever, diminishing into a point of perspective.
A man walked out of that point.
He was barely visible, a speck forming out of infinity. He seemed to grow as he came forward, until he reached his true size, a giant of gold. His boots rang on the floor as he strode that ageless corridor, his gait never faltering. White light coruscated around his body, and his face had a terrible radiance. Consoles all over the War Room were coming to life, screens activating, panels flashing, comms humming. In the dome far overhead, the Imperator’s throne pulsed with light.
Roca became aware someone else had entered the War Room. Lahaylia walked past her and stopped before the archway of the Lock corridor. Light haloed her body. Kurj reached the end of the corridor and stood in the arch, framed by its dazzling energy, its mechanisms glowing and spinning around him. The power of his mind surged, huge, tremendous, and chaotic.
“Go back.” His deep voice echoed unnaturally. “Both of you. Go back. Go home. Be safe.”
“Kurj.” Roca held Eldrin close. “What have you done?”
He lifted his hand, nearly blinding her with the light it emanated. “I cannot stop what is happening. You must go.”
Lahaylia didn’t move. “Where is my husband?”
Kurj answered harshly. “With my father.”
“Gods, no,” Roca said. Tokaba was dead.
Eldrin had gone still in her arms, but she felt his nascent mind focused on Kurj. He responded to his brother’s power. Like knew like. But he had no defenses. Roca shielded his mind with hers, lest the outpouring of mental energies overwhelm him.
Light radiated from Lahaylia’s body; whatever surged through Kurj already burned within her. They both called now on the same forces. The Dyad. No, Triad.
Lahaylia’s voice resonated throughout the War Room. “Your father, Tokaba Ryestar, is dead.”
“I speak not of Tokaba Ryestar,” Kurj said.
“Darr Hammerjackson is also dead.”
“I do not speak of Darr, either.”
Roca went rigid. He had only one other “father”: Eldri. Her anger and her fear blazed. “What have you done to my husband?”
Kurj turned his gaze on her, his inner lids glowing like molten shields. “Eldrinson Valdoria will never be my father.”
“Then who?” Roca asked.
His answer dropped into the air like a great weight.
“Jarac.”
He had to have gone mad. “You can’t mean what you are saying.” Roca felt as if she were shattering inside.
“Go.” Kurj braced his arms against the sides of the arch. His voice thundered, unreal in its eerily amplified power. “Go now, both of you, while you are safe.”
“Kurj, listen.” Lahaylia faced him with no sign of fear, though he towered over her, huge and solid, standing on the raised floor of the corridor. Her voice matched his in strength, drawing on the unleashed power of the Lock. She and Kurj were part of a triangle now, aware of space and time in a way Roca could perceive only from the edges of their Triad.
“The power-link is collapsing,” Lahaylia said. “It cannot take the power of our three minds. Yours and Jarac’s are too alike. They interfere. They will cancel each other. You cannot both survive.”
“No!” Kurj let go of the columns and stepped down from the corridor. He faced Lahaylia, the two of them locked in a connection neither could break. Her gaze never wavered. He walked on, past Roca, and her mind felt his passing like the gales of a mental hurricane.
Eldrin cried out and burrowed his head against her shoulder.
The transparent bubble of the observation bay curved out from the Orbiter’s hull. The glory of deep space surrounded Jarac. He stood on a transparent platform staring at the cosmos, his hands resting on the rail of dichromesh glass.
Kurj crossed the bay like a mammoth walking in space. When he neared Jarac, his grandfather turned, his motions slowed by his large size. Jarac’s face was drawn, strained, his eyes reflecting the same agony Kurj felt ripping him apart. Their minds were trying to fit in the same place, two leviathans superimposed on each other in Kyle space.
Two minds.
One space.
Only one could survive.
Kurj’s voice crackled. “Grandfather.”
Jarac’s inner lids lifted, revealing his eyes. Deep lines furrowed his drawn face. His mental power was crushing his grandson. Kurj had always believed himself the stronger of the two, but he knew now he had been wrong. Terribly wrong. Jarac’s mind had more power, more strength, more will than his own. Kurj couldn’t endure against him. Jarac would survive and he would die.
Suddenly Jarac’s mind receded. Kurj didn’t understand—and then realization hit him: his grandfather had relinquished his hold on life. He would let himself die so Kurj could live.
“No!” Kurj strode forward, knowing now, too late, that his grandfather meant more to him than the power of the Imperator. He wanted Jarac to live, wanted it with an intensity that burned.
Jarac sank to his knees, his great back bending as he lowered his head. Dropping next to him, Kurj grabbed his shoulders. “You must not give up! We will find a way to coexist.”
“It is not possible.” Jarac lifted his shaggy-maned head. “We are too alike.”
“No.” Kurj felt as if a band were constricting across his chest. “You are a better man than I.”
“Greatness is in you. You must find it now.”
“You must live.” Kurj would do anything, even beg the fates, to stop Jarac from dying. “You must.”
“I am too old.”
“But you don’t know. I found files about my birth.”
Jarac answered with infinite, agonizing gentleness. “I know. I see it in your mind.”
The words wrenched out of Kurj. “You are my father.”
Jarac took a deep, shuddering breath. “I cannot forgive what the Assembly has done. But I am as proud to have you as a son as a grandson.”
“You must live!” Kurj would say it a thousand times, until Jarac heard.
“Do you know their minds?” Jarac asked.
“Whose?” But Kurj felt it, what his grandfather meant. The minds of the Ruby Dynasty were linked, all of them. He, Jarac, and Lahaylia flared in a triangle of fire. Less intense, outside the Triad but still bright, the Ruby Dynasty burned: Dehya, intellect instead of force, sensitive, fragile, beautifully luminous; Roca, a blaze of vitality and health, with a love for her family that knew no bounds; young Eldrin, glowing within the circle of her light, unformed, full of promise, so very, very treasured.
And yes, Eldrinson was there, dista
nt but full, a great swelling ocean of light. Kurj wanted to weep for the purity of that radiance, the untouched beauty of a mind that for all Eldrinson’s physical suffering had remained unscathed.
Jarac clenched his forearm. “The baby. He has not our strength. Protect.”
Kurj felt the wash of Eldrin’s terrified impressions. The child was panicked, cowering from the inferno of the Triad, his mind huddled against his mother’s, his thoughts instinctively fleeing toward love and warmth, desperate for the father Kurj had denied him. Eldrin was so enormously vulnerable. Jarac’s dying, this agonizing pain, could devastate Eldrin the same way the deaths of Eldrinson’s family had so traumatized Eldrinson in his infancy. Kurj reached out, swaddling Eldrin’s mind in layers of protection, buffering him from the agony killing his elders.
“You feel them.” Jarac struggled to speak. “They are yours now. You are the Fist of Skolia. The protector. Lahaylia and Dehya, they are the Mind. And know this, Kurj. Eldrinson and Roca are its Heart. You cannot deny them.”
“Father—”
“You must care for them, betraying none.” Jarac’s voice rasped. “Promise you will do this.”
“You are not going to die.”
“Promise. You will never betray any of them.”
Kurj took a shuddering breath. “I promise.”
Jarac sagged forward, and Kurj grabbed his shoulders, trying to stop him. But like a great tree falling, Jarac settled onto his side, then on his back. Kurj knelt next to him on the transparent deck, bathed in starlight, moisture gathering in his eyes.
“I cannot heal the wounds that ravage your heart,” Jarac whispered. “But I can give you a gift.” His massive chest rose and fell with his strained breaths. “Know the family we love…as I know them.”
And then he opened his mind.
Jarac’s thoughts, emotions, hopes, memories, fears, longings, knowledge, loves—it all rolled into Kurj’s mind. His brain, so much like Jarac’s, imprinted with the neural pathways that formed Jarac’s personality. Kurj remained himself, aware of the pain in his heart, but in that instant, he also became his grandfather.
Kurj’s voice caught. “Forgive me.”
“Yes.” His father took a final breath. “I do love you.”
Then Jarac Skolia, Imperator of the Skolian Imperialate, passed from life into death.
26
Ruby Heart
Lahaylia Selei sat on the floor in her bedroom, against the wall, unmoving. After an age, or perhaps only a few moments, a man paused in the doorway. She made no move to look at him, speak to him, acknowledge him in any way.
Then he spoke. “Lahya.”
“Ah, gods.” She knew that voice. She couldn’t help herself; she turned—and saw her husband in the doorway, his posture, his expressions, even his mind so achingly familiar.
Except it wasn’t him.
“Don’t,” she whispered. “I can’t bear it.”
Kurj came to her and knelt on one knee. He spoke in a low voice. “I thought I knew his love for you, but I had no idea, no hint of how deep it went.” His voice cracked. “I am sorry.”
Lahaylia wanted to hate him, to cast him out of her sight. But she couldn’t. She saw Jarac in his every word and gesture.
“I cannot live with this,” she said.
He started to reach for her, but when she stiffened, he dropped his hand. He spoke quietly. “In time, the part of me that is Jarac will recede, I think, and integrate with Kurj.”
Her voice caught. “The Assembly has much to answer for.”
“Yes.”
“You have made yourself the most powerful individual alive, Kurj. None can match what you have done.” She regarded him steadily. “Now you must take responsibility for it.”
Kurj took a deep breath. “If I can.”
“You must.” Her gaze darkened. “Otherwise you will destroy us all.”
Roca cradled Eldrin.
He slept in her arms, nestled against her, his eyes closed, his face finally peaceful. She leaned back on the couch, too exhausted to move. The grief was too big. She had nowhere to put it. She wished she could be like Eldrin, able to sleep when the storm abated.
Her console chimed.
Roca lifted her head. “What is it?”
The house EI answered. “Imperator Skolia is at your door.”
She froze. “Who?” Her father had just died.
“Kurj Skolia.”
She took a ragged breath. Of course. Bitter grief filled her. The son had killed the father and assumed his throne. By joining the Triad, Kurj had bypassed her in the line of succession, wresting the title away from her. She hadn’t held any great desire to lead the military, but never would she have wished for this. Damn the Assembly. Damn the Traders for their relentless brutality that drove people to such desperate wrongs. Damn them all.
“Let him in.” Roca sat up, shifting Eldrin carefully so he didn’t wake up.
A man appeared in the shadowed entrance of the room. Roca drew in a sharp breath. It wasn’t Kurj. His walk, his posture, his face—it was Jarac. But he wore Kurj’s clothes and had Kurj’s hair.
Son, brother, father: to her, he was all three.
He sat on the other end of the sofa, his elbows on his knees. “How is Eldrin?”
“All right.” Roca smoothed the baby’s wispy hair.
“Did he suffer when—?”
Roca thought of her father’s death. “No. He cried, but that was all.” Kurj had protected his half brother, doing for Eldrin what no one had been able to do for Eldrin’s father, protecting him against the ravages of his family’s deaths. Eldrin would live without the torments Eldri had endured all his life. Roca wanted to reach toward Kurj, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it, knowing the price they had all paid for his fury.
Kurj looked at his hands. “I have made a decision.”
“Yes?”
“I will call another vote on the invasion.” He raised his gaze to her. “As Imperator, I can do so.”
She went very still. “And?”
“I will vote for the negotiations.”
Hotness filled Roca’s eyes. She had finally achieved what she had intended when she escaped her bodyguards and tried to reach the Assembly so long ago. But the price was so terribly, terribly high. A tear ran down her face. “I am glad.”
For a long time he said nothing. Then he broke his silence. “Mother—go to your husband.”
Surely she had misheard. “To Eldri?”
“Yes.” He spoke with difficulty. “I don’t know if I can ever accept him. But Jarac was right. You must go.”
Eldrin stirred in her arms, nestling closer, his face smoothing out in sleep.
“Thank you,” Roca whispered.
“But you must come back.” Now he sounded like Jarac. “We will see you in the Assembly and on stage?”
“Certainly the Assembly. I have much work to do.” She bent her head over Eldrin. “But I think not the stage. I would like to have more children.”
“Mother—”
She raised her head. “Yes?”
He struggled with his words. “I am sorry.”
Roca knew then that no punishment any judicial body could mete out to him would equal the guilt tearing him apart. The Assembly would fear to take action against him, lest it destabilize the web they all depended on with such desperation. And those who knew what had happened thirty-five years ago would be terrified to do anything that might anger him, lest he reveal their crimes.
But for the rest of his life, her son would live in the hell of his own remorse.
Roca stood in the doorway, gazing at the darkening Valley long after Kurj had left. Eldrin continued to sleep in her arms. She didn’t go back inside; she couldn’t bear the solitude of her house, not now, not after all they had lost.
Gradually Roca realized someone was approaching. The figure took form out of the night, a woman with dark hair and a graceful walk.
Roca waited until the woman reached
her. “Mother.”
Lahaylia nodded. “My greetings.”
“I am glad you came.”
Her mother spoke with a softness she rarely showed. “I thought, if you would allow—I would visit with my grandson.”
Roca’s voice caught. “Yes. I would like that.” She moved aside. “Please come in.”
So the Ruby Pharaoh acknowledged her second grandson.
27
Lyshriol
Eldri walked through the rubble piled around the edges of the courtyard. The work crews had said they would move it, but now they were gone and it was still here. He would have to enlist some people to help him carry it out.
He raised his head, inhaling the crisp air. Ever since his nightmare fifteen days ago, he had been in a daze, certain that Roca and Eldrin had died. He had sent riders to ask Brad if he knew anything, but they had yet to return.
Garlin was walking toward him from the rebuilt castle. It looked exactly like Windward, reproduced from “satellite images,” whatever that meant. But it had lost an indefinable essence, a sense of age and history he had always loved, though he had never realized it until that elusive quality was gone.
Garlin’s smile quirked. “Why do you scowl at me?”
“My apology.” Eldri grimaced. “I am contemplating carrying rocks.”
“An excellent reason to frown.”
“Yes, indeed.” A dark speck in the sky caught Eldri’s attention. “What is that?”
Garlin squinted. “I believe it is Brad’s flyer.”
“Maybe he has news of Roca!”
His cousin laid a hand on his arm. “Don’t put your hopes too high.”
Eldri turned away, unable to bear Garlin’s compassion. It felt like pity. He had put his hopes too high over and over, every time one of the offworlders visited. And every time they dashed his hopes. No one would give him news of Roca and Eldrin.
The flyer came on, soaring through the sky, visible now as a silver craft. Eldri walked with Garlin out under the portcullis. As they crossed the bridge, he looked into the chasm that surrounded Windward. He couldn’t see far enough down to locate the remains of the battering ram that he and his men had pushed off this arch of stone.