“Nemesis.” Her soft voice called me around to face her. She had crossed her arms, hugging herself. I saw her chest rise and fall on a deep breath. “You . . . you care about Tyrus, don’t you?”
For the second time today, I felt my face burn. Suddenly I could not hold her gaze. “I didn’t say that.”
Footsteps padded over the carpet. Then her cool hand stole over mine, squeezing. “I’m glad.”
Her words only aggravated me further. There was no cause for gladness in my feelings for Tyrus. They were an inconvenience—and by all rights, they should also have been impossible. The only human who I should care for stood in front of me now, holding my hand! And yet now I was fraught with irritation even at her, and it was over him, and I felt so foolish for this.
I took a hard breath through my nose before speaking again. “Are you truly glad? Don’t you think it’s a betrayal?”
“A betrayal?”
“Because I—I feel this for someone else.”
Her face clouded, and her smile was small and shaky. “I’m just glad you’re feeling things. More importantly, you’re letting yourself feel things. It’s all I could have hoped for you.” She looked away quickly, her frail collarbone standing out against her skin. “I’ve only ever wanted you to be happy.”
I swallowed. I did not deserve such compassion. “I live for you, Donia. Not Tyrus.”
“Maybe I just want you to live for yourself,” she said softly.
Donia believed it was an unquestionably good thing that I’d come to care for Tyrus. I didn’t agree with her, especially when I appeared for the next Domitrian family dinner. I came as Tyrus’s guest, while Cygna invited . . .
Elantra.
“Sit beside Tyrus, my dear heart.” Cygna spoke more sweetly to Elantra than she had ever done with her own blood. Elantra glowed with the attention, and delicately took the seat on the other side of Tyrus.
Tyrus did not seem displeased. “An unexpected pleasure to see you, Grandeé Pasus,” he said to her.
The only secret I had kept from Tyrus was Donia’s restoration. I was simply waiting for the right moment to reveal it. Certainly I had wasted no time, in the wake of Cygna’s visit, to go to the Alexandria and inform him of our conversation.
He had joined me that day in the great study off his library, beneath the vast window that looked over the underside of Berneval Stretch.
“So my grandmother likes the effect you’ve had on me,” he’d remarked, examining the starscape thoughtfully, his fingers steepled beneath his chin. “But she dislikes you.”
With Sidonia’s remarks fresh in my mind, I’d felt the need to apologize. “I should have cooperated with her. It was foolish of me to openly scorn her.”
His eyes jumped to mine then, his expression intent. “Why did you refuse her?”
The question sliced more deeply than he could have known. I felt the knot tighten in my throat again—the weight of my concern for him and the impossibility of admitting I was indignant on his behalf. “I don’t know.”
Tyrus studied me a piercing moment. Then a smile pulled at his lips. “This is actually good news, you know.”
I knew nothing. I felt sore and miserable, as though I had battered my body in hours of intense exercise. “How so?”
He rose and turned away from me, folding his arms as he gazed out at this small corner of the universe that he stood to inherit. “If my grandmother wishes to influence me, it means she’s decided I’m worthy of being influenced. It means I’ve elevated myself in her eyes sufficiently that she wishes to invest some effort in me. That, or my uncle has diminished in her eyes.”
Alarm sharpened my voice. “Even if her favor is shifting, you can’t trust her.”
His laughter was husky. “I’d never trust any of my own blood, Nemesis. It’s the Domitrian nature to lie and betray, but Grandmother is the most powerful woman in this Empire. With her on my side, there’s little my uncle can do to me—openly, at least.” He threw a hooded glance over his shoulder. “If she wishes to place a new companion at my side, she’s attempting a reconciliation with me. On her terms, naturally.”
“She did tell me she’s only ever wanted the most powerful person in your family on the throne,” I said reluctantly. I hated the very thought of helping sway Tyrus toward cooperating with Cygna.
“Yes, that’s the way she is. She favors those sprigs that are fully formed. She’s not a gardener who looks to cultivate; rather, she hacks freely at any new growths. Were Devineé still of full mind, Grandmother would strike me down for my recent presumptions. Instead she sees no choice but to favor me over them.” He shrugged. “If she plans to entice my interest with another woman, then I will see who it is she thrusts my way and consider whether to accept the gesture. After all, our own association ends as soon as I’m in power. That was our agreement, right? So I’ll stand in need of an Empress.”
I looked away from him. “Yes. You’ll need someone capable of forming an attachment to you.” Someone other than me.
And now I knew which someone his grandmother had in mind.
As we all sat in the presence chamber, my disquiet mounted into a low roar as Elantra reached over to casually touch Tyrus’s arm in conversation. Grandeé Cygna’s sharp gaze was fixed on them, and I felt a rush of hot anger like poison, an urge to crush all their skulls, to tear Elantra from her seat and bash her head into Cygna’s.
I fixed my eyes on my wine goblet, trying to fight it down. I might be a Diabolic, but I was not an animal.
Still my heart pounded like a drum, and my cheeks felt like they were burning with hot blood. I felt at war with myself—furious with Tyrus for his evident comfort with the situation, and furious with myself for the temptation to keep his attention solely fixed on me. I wanted to slap away that smile he gave Elantra.
People spoke so reverently of affection. For me, it seemed a torment. I couldn’t believe people enjoyed these feelings. How could someone relish this excruciating need to secure a claim on another human?
I could feel Grandeé Cygna watching me. She was watching to discover the effect of her machinations. I could vividly imagine vaulting over the table to break her neck. What a glorious crackle her dry old bones would make!
I contented myself with baring my teeth in a smile. Then I redirected my attention to the Emperor.
He’d altered the usual seating arrangement to draw Devineé to his side.
She still had a vacant gaze, and occasionally a Servitor swept forward to dab at stray food on her chin or drool on her lips, but none of this seemed to disturb the Emperor. He drew her into a one-sided conversation, occasionally draping his arm about her like some parasitic root. My survival instincts began to kick in again, began to focus. As I thought over the last few days at court, I realized that the Emperor had positioned Devineé beside him at services in the Great Heliosphere. He’d also called down to her gaily from his position on his great throne, and roused vacant smiles from her.
I looked at Tyrus, still engaged with Elantra. My mind raced with sudden suspicions. Tyrus had been subtly moving to undermine his uncle, and had therefore lost his favor. He’d also been shirking his madman image in order to project more strength of mind.
The Emperor had made Tyrus his heir only because he believed him weak—mad and useless. Tyrus was weak no longer. The Emperor believed Tyrus to be out of favor with Cygna. Tyrus might no longer be her foe. Now the Emperor had a potential alternative, a genuinely weak heir due to the brain damage I’d given her: Devineé. He could slide her into Tyrus’s place.
Tyrus was aware of this—but did he appreciate his peril too? I saw him casually reach out to caress Elantra’s wrist.
I had to look away.
After all, there was little point protecting Tyrus from the Emperor only to end up murdering him myself.
39
DONIA came upon
me in the villa pounding my fists into a column of carving stone. I’d bought it for her because it was structured to crumble easily with tools, and I believed that occupying herself with artwork between books might please her. Instead I was breaking it apart while imagining Tyrus and Elantra cavorting, and taking grim pleasure in my own pain.
“This will amuse you,” I told Donia flatly. “I believe Tyrus intends to take Elantra as his Empress.”
“Not Elantra Pasus!”
“Yes, her. The Grandeé Cygna has chosen her as his future wife and Tyrus isn’t objecting. He believes cooperation will make his grandmother inclined to support his ascendance.”
“He’s told you this?”
I turned, my heart galloping in my chest, my knuckles stinging and bloody. Images flashed through my head of the vapor room after dinner. I hadn’t felt the phial of intoxicant I’d inhaled, and the Grandeé Cygna had abstained, but Tyrus and Elantra had felt it. So had the Emperor, who’d inhaled three and then climbed up one of his platinum statues to feign riding it like a horse.
Mindful of Grandeé Cygna’s watchful gaze, I’d attempted to make a fool of myself, too, spinning in place and forcing mock-giddy laughter to my lips. Meanwhile, Tyrus had twirled Elantra around the floor, dancing to some imaginary music that only he heard. The sight had riveted me. They made a pretty picture together—he so fair, tall and broad-shouldered; she, vibrant with her tumbling dark hair. Emperor and Empress, yes: the Grandiloquy would approve of this pairing. Elantra and Tyrus looked designed for each other.
Suddenly I could bear no more. I left them like that, Cygna’s gaze on my back as I departed the chamber.
Now, thinking on it, the bile surged up in my throat again. I turned back to the slab of stone, smashing my fists into it, taking satisfaction in how it crumbled.
“Elantra is the Pasus heir. That means she’s a direct threat to you . . . to us,” Donia noted, watching me brutalize the slab. “Are we in danger if she becomes his Empress?”
“No.” The question surprised me. I turned back to her, feeling foolish for not having seen that possibility—foolish and then ashamed. I was Donia’s protector. Why hadn’t this been my first thought?
I took in the sight of her, totally alone in this universe but for me. My rage and dismay evaporated. I had no right feeling so miserable when I’d already been granted a miracle, the greatest one any Diabolic could hope for.
“No, Donia, there will be no danger. Tyrus is strong. He’ll control the Helionics, not the other way around. I’ll help him survive to that point, and this will be the reward I’ll ask of him: your restoration. Your safety . . . and a pardon, of course, for the deception.”
Her brow knit, and she stepped toward me. “What about you? What will you get?”
“Your safety, as I said.”
“Nemesis, there must be something you’ll want for yourself.”
“I don’t want to stay here at court,” I blurted. Yes, escaping this place was all I required. The sooner the better—but certainly before Tyrus took the throne. The prospect of watching the Emperor Tyrus and the Empress Elantra, ruling together, scoured through me like poison. I couldn’t bear it. It would suffocate me.
I was jealous.
The realization dawned on me like a shock. That was the ugly emotion tormenting me.
Donia’s face softened. “Senators have never needed to live at the Chrysanthemum before, and I can’t imagine we will have to remain here once Randevald von Domitrian has perished.” She took my hands in hers, making a tender inspection of my bleeding knuckles. “You and I will go back and oversee the restoration of the Impyrean fortress. It will be like it was before.”
I nodded. Longing filled me for that time when life was simpler, when my days were occupied by tending to Donia and exercising and dreaming of nothing beyond what I already had.
“You and me,” she continued softly. “Will you like that, Nemesis?” She raised her eyes to mine, a great vulnerability on her face that I did not understand. Could she truly imagine I would ever refuse her?
“Yes. I would like that.” I stepped back from her to survey the damage I’d wrought on the stone. “I meant to give this to you so you could chisel it. There’s plenty left.”
Donia stepped past me to inspect the stone and reached up to touch the indentations I’d left. “I don’t want to.” She smiled at me. “I like it this way, the way you’ve marked it.”
I looked at the stone, fragmented and cratered by my rage and jealousy. So this was a visual representation of a Diabolic’s affection, then: an ugly, broken, blood-spattered stone.
40
THERE WAS a Senate meeting the morning of the Great Race. I knew how the Emperor wished me to vote: I was to approve the resolution to raise taxes on the Excess on frontier planets. According to Donia, those Excess traditionally enjoyed lower taxes as an incentive to live on the perilous fringes of imperial territory.
But as everyone now knew, the Emperor’s coffers were running dry. He needed money to make up for the wealth generations of Domitrian Emperors had squandered—the wealth he had virtually hemorrhaged. Even those protected from his taxes would now face the burden of supporting the royals.
But Tyrus’s Servitor had brought me a discreet-sheet with his own set of instructions.
Vote against the resolution.
So I voted as Tyrus asked.
I wasn’t the only Senator to do so. I wondered as I looked around the chamber just how many of these people had voted against the resolution on Tyrus’s instruction. It was a daring move after the recent purge, so they could only have taken the risk of doing this with a sense someone would be protecting them from the consequences of defying the Emperor.
This would be a mighty blow to Randevald von Domitrian, indeed.
I couldn’t help but wonder how many blows Tyrus would inflict before the Emperor finally struck back.
After the vote, I took the magnetized tram down Cartier Stretch, the pylon opposite Berneval Stretch. This one was less run-down, designed more for wandering adventurers, with beautiful gardens, artificial streams, and frequent sky domes. At the very end was the largest of its sky domes, with vast windows overlooking the stretch of space where the racecourse was charted.
Around me, the other Senators heading to the race quietly discussed the story Tyrus had told me of the race five years ago—the pilots and their crews and their families who were all executed after the Emperor lost his bet. No one envied the pilot favored by the Emperor this year.
Apparently, the Great Race took place whenever the six stars of the system drew into close enough proximity to be reached by a single ship. The vessels competed to loop each of the stars at the fastest speed possible, drawing as close to the stars as they dared. The sixty racers—mostly hailing from the Excess and sponsored by Grandiloquy—spent years prepping their ships and honing their skills. They came from all over the Empire to compete for the great pot, a financial reward large enough to purchase a small moon.
In years past, the Emperor had sponsored the event. This time around, Tyrus had done so. His generosity must have seemed far more benign to the Emperor when he had initially offered it a year ago, before he had roused any suspicions, much less announced the Emperor’s dire financial straits. Now the gesture had to strike the Emperor as a deliberate and public taunt, for it suggested that Tyrus had more liquidity than he did.
I sat with Tyrus on the levitating platform reserved for imperial royals. Tyrus’s fingers were steepled, his muscular arms propped on the arms of the chair. Elantra was banished down with her family on the lower platform for greater Grandiloquy. She threw Tyrus several bright smiles, one of which he returned, but he seemed too preoccupied to notice her continued flirtation from below.
The crowd about us thrummed with excitement. Tyrus had sunk funds into providing the chemical entertainments and the doctors neces
sary to treat overdoses. A tray was presented to us by a Servitor. I made a show of inspecting it for something of interest; it would be expected of me to partake.
No alcohol. No opiates. Nothing that could possibly sedate. Only amphetamines and euphorics that enhanced alertness.
I cast a veiled glance at Tyrus, wondering if there was a reason he’d selectively forbidden some substances.
Tyrus’s smile reminded me of a lazy cat. He leaned closer to me and dropped his voice. “I want people to remember this day. Nothing that clouds the mind.”
He had something planned, then. “Did you lay money on anyone?” I asked.
“A virtual fortune on Dandras Tyronne,” Tyrus said agreeably. “And you?”
It surprised me that Tyrus had spent so liberally, despite knowing how much his uncle had lost the last time these races took place. It seemed very unlike him. Perhaps he knew something I didn’t. I contemplated the betting screen at the foot of our chairs. “I’ll bet on Dandras as well.”
Tyrus grabbed my wrist before I could put in my bet. “Your money would be more wisely spent elsewhere.”
I threw him a confused look. He wasn’t very certain Dandras was a winner, then? I couldn’t figure out his intentions.
So I placed a small bet on another pilot, one chosen at random.
The Emperor arrived with his pair of Diabolics. The holographics began to burst about us as the cheering and roar of the crowd throbbed in the air. The Emperor was escorted to his seat above ours. A sea of arms waved as people pressed their hands to their hearts in salute. He looked about the crowd with lines of anger on his face, because he clearly had just heard about the Senate vote he’d lost. He gave an irritable thrust of his hand to signal the launch.
Like that, the ships docked near the station propelled themselves off into the black void toward the first of the six stars, a red dwarf they’d slingshot around to gain momentum.