The Diabolic

  A screen dropped down to show us the vessels once they disappeared from our view. The image switched frequently from one satellite to another spread throughout the six-star system.

  The race would last for hours, growing more exciting with time as the speed mounted and the racers skimmed nearer and nearer to the stars to gain more proximity points. Some racers would miscalculate and were pulled in by the gravity of the stars and destroyed. The six-star system was filled with chaotic gravitational forces, and even flying through it at standard speed was dangerous. Many of these racers would die today, but as long as they didn’t falter in the opening stretch of the event as the Emperor’s champion had last race, they wouldn’t bring disgrace upon themselves.

  Trays were passed through the crowd, with substances and foods and souvenirs. People had modified themselves to adopt the signature facial features of their favorite racers from their star systems, and they cheered whenever the screens flashed to the vessels of their champions.

  Tyrus didn’t speak much, his eyes fixed on the nearest screen, expectant, almost as though he was in wait. He still held my hand over the crook of his arm. His grip began to tighten on mine. I looked down at his muscled forearm. It wasn’t like Tyrus to reveal his anxiety so plainly. I followed his gaze to the screen. Dandras Tyronne’s vessel was closing in on the starship of a racer called Winton Travanis.

  And then it happened.

  There must have been a shift in gravity, some turbulence, it was hard to say. But Winton’s ship swerved and clipped Dandras’s, and immediately both vessels went spiraling off to the sides, disqualified.

  And at the very onset of the race too.

  A cry went out throughout the crowd, and everyone surged to their feet, and then Dandras’s ship was caught in a gravity field it could not overcome and ripped apart with a flowery blast of fire.

  Silence dropped over the crowd, and eyes moved to the Successor Primus. Everyone had seen the vast sum he’d sunk into his bet on Dandras. I searched his expression, wondering how he’d react to this.

  Tyrus sat in the seat with his arms folded now, staring straight ahead with a gaze of stone. This was virtually the same thing that had happened at the last Great Race. The imperial heir, like his uncle, had dedicated his money to the fortunes of one racer—who’d then been taken out by a blundering competitor before even reaching the first star. Everyone knew what happened next for the surviving racer responsible for this accident. Disgrace. Execution.

  “A pity.” The Emperor’s voice floated down, and Tyrus looked back at him. “I do hope you weren’t cleaned out by that.”

  “I bet more than I would have wished to lose,” Tyrus replied softly. But there was still a lethal calmness to his face, none of the dismay I’d have expected at this loss.

  “Pilot error.” Malice throbbed in the Emperor’s voice. Enjoyment shone in his eyes as he gazed down at Tyrus. “I’ll leave it to you to dispense consequences for this.”

  Tyrus sank back into his seat beside me, and I found myself watching him closely, his face a chiseled, unreadable mask, betraying no emotion.

  He’d told me not to bet on Dandras.

  The offending pilot, Winton, obviously knew what happened to those who dared obliterate the fortunes of a Domitrian. When the competing ships reached the next star, his vessel had already abandoned the star system. He was fleeing rather than risk punishment at the Chrysanthemum.

  He didn’t get far.

  Eager to win favor with the Successor Primus, some of the lesser Grandiloquy launched their own ships after him. Winton’s damaged ship could not escape. The mercenaries arrived in the last hour of the race, the offending pilot between them. Word spread quickly through the crowd. Tyrus stood and returned to the Valor Novus, and half the crowd abandoned watching the last stretch of the race. In any case, the excitement had wound down now that most of the racers were disqualified or destroyed. The winning racer had vastly outstripped his competition and had an easy journey to the finish line.

  Seeing the Successor Primus’s wrath toward a pilot would be vastly more entertaining for most everyone than the inevitable conclusion of the race.

  Tyrus kept my hand in his grip as we approached the Justice Hall of the Valor Novus, the crowds that had trailed us already scrambling eagerly into position against the walls, ringing us.

  “Do I need to urge you to exercise restraint?” I asked him, thinking of my usual part in our public performances.

  “Not this time,” Tyrus said. “Let them all see my response.”

  We strode up to the man on his knees, a frightened-looking Excess with the imperfect skin of a planet dweller. Dread was written on his face, as he knew what had happened to the last person to cross a Domitrian in exactly this manner.

  Tyrus gazed down at him for a long moment, then raised his hand for silence from all the onlookers, who’d begun murmuring excitedly, speculating over just how many people would end up executed this time.

  “You were in that most grievous accident I witnessed earlier. Why did you flee?” Tyrus demanded. He loomed over the kneeling man, looking every bit a fearsome Imperial Emperor.

  “I was afraid, Your Eminence. It was an accident. My navigation malfunctioned. Please.” Winton flung himself down to the ground. “I know Your Eminence must have my life, but please spare my family. Spare my flight crew. They are guiltless.”

  Tyrus said nothing, letting the plea hang there a moment overlong, allowing the suspense to build. I could picture the Emperor himself tuning into this on a screen rather than watching the rest of the race.

  “Get up, man,” Tyrus said.

  Winton raised his head, his eyes great and fearful. “Your . . . Your Eminence?”

  “I said get up. I have no intention of executing an honest sportsman like yourself over what was clearly an accident. That would simply be barbaric.”

  Whispers and murmurs of disbelief rippled about the hall.

  “There will be an investigation of this incident, and if anyone is deemed to be at fault, they’ll be banned from operating in this sport again,” Tyrus said. “As for you, you will pay a visit to the dead man’s family and personally bring them a sum I will donate to them for their loss. Can I trust this duty to you?”

  Winton swayed to his knees again, his hands clutched together. “Yes, yes, Your Eminence! Yes, you can!”

  Tyrus raised his hands and allowed the man to reverently pull his knuckles to his cheek. “And of course, I intend to hold a service in the Great Heliosphere for those lost to this valiant endeavor. I expect you’ll attend before you depart?”

  “Yes, gladly. Gladly, Your Eminence!” And he pulled Tyrus’s knuckle from one cheek to another in his exuberance. “You are merciful and great and just . . .”

  “Take your rest.” Tyrus stepped away from him. Then, to the mercenaries who captured him, “Thank you for locating our wayward friend before he could do anything rash. You’ll be well compensated for your services.”

  As Tyrus spun around to stride out of the Justice Hall, I heard the swelling of voices, the amazement, as people beheld the mercy of a Domitrian. This Domitrian. It was such a stark contrast to his uncle that I could see the possibilities lighting across people’s faces, the hope about what our Empire could become under such a younger, fairer ruler.

  I caught up to him, understanding exactly what he’d done. He’d undercut the Emperor again, in another of those subtle ways that could not be directly attributed to hostility, yet served to undermine him all the same. He intended to lose that fortune just to exhibit his graciousness in defeat. I breathed very softly, “Well done.”

  Tyrus’s gaze flickered over to me, and for a second that inscrutability of his wavered, revealing something I’d seen in his face when Elantra tossed Unity into the ring. “I don’t deserve praise, Nemesis. I’ve done something quite monstrous. The vessel was supposed to be dis
abled, not destroyed.”

  I hadn’t given any thought to the man who’d been killed in the accident. The ends had always justified the means in my mind, but Tyrus’s eyes were clouded.

  “I’m not a gentle soul by any means. I long ago accepted that there would be blood on my hands if I followed the course I’ve chosen. But I hadn’t expected to murder an innocent man today.”

  “Tyrus, if I allowed myself to be troubled over the innocent blood on my hands, I wouldn’t be able to function. At least you can make amends for what you’ve done.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Yes. His family will be well compensated. I’ll see to them as best I can.” He drew a jagged breath. “I must live with this, Nemesis, so I will. I will live with it.”

  We lapsed into a thick silence as Tyrus pondered the man whose death he’d unwittingly caused, and I pondered Tyrus’s maneuver. Between this display and the vote earlier today, his subtle provocations of the Emperor could not be ignored much longer.

  Randevald von Domitrian would take his vengeance for this. It was only a matter of time.

  41

  AN OMINOUS lull followed in the days after the Great Race. The Emperor made no remarks publicly about Tyrus going behind his back to turn the Senate vote against him, nor did he raise an eyebrow when Tyrus—of his own initiative—sold several of his own colonies and then gave surprise Advent gifts to all veterans of Imperial wars.

  Advent gifts were a long-outdated tradition in the Empire, one the Domitrians hadn’t bothered with for hundreds of years. They were secure enough in their power that they didn’t require the loyalty of those Grandiloquy who controlled the most powerful starships and war machines that waged violent conflict on the frontiers.

  It was the most openly hostile move Tyrus had made against the Emperor, and he called me to his side virtually full-time. We sat together in his solarium on the Alexandria. It was a sky dome with a verdant garden he’d recently had seeded with some foliage he’d admired on Lumina, and an artificial river powerful enough to drown an unwary swimmer.

  “I’d planned to eventually install you in a chamber on the Alexandria,” Tyrus told me, gazing down into the rushing water, “but as circumstances are, it wouldn’t do.”

  “I wouldn’t want to sleep on the Alexandria, anyway,” I said bluntly. I was thinking of Sidonia, hidden in my villa, and how I didn’t want to abandon her for so long a stretch.

  Tyrus looked at me with an unreadable expression for a moment. “It’s so unpleasant in my company?”

  “No,” I answered, too quickly.

  “In any case,” he said, “Grandmother might take it amiss. She’s intent on the alliance between me and Elantra.”

  “She wishes you to wed a snake.”

  “A Helionic,” Tyrus said with a smile. “At least Elantra will fit in well with my family. All true politicians are vipers.”

  I felt an unpleasant churning at the thought of Elantra Pasus as Empress. Or rather, Elantra Domitrian. People tended to take the name of the more powerful family in a marital union. It was how Salivar Fordyce became Salivar Domitrian.

  “How long will we stay side by side?” I asked Tyrus. “Eventually you’ll have to publicly renounce me if you wish to cleave to her. It’s not like I can masquerade as Sidonia von Impyrean forever.”

  “But you must. No one can ever know what you’ve done.”

  “Or what? You’ll face questions for concealing me?”

  He turned to me abruptly. “Or you will be in danger,” he bit out. “It’s high treason to impersonate a Senator.”

  “So?”

  “I’d have Grandiloquy clamoring for your execution. As a new Emperor, I’ll face a struggle building a base of power as things are. I can’t guarantee your protection if my own allies stand against you.”

  My shrug seemed to spark his temper. His eyes narrowed; he stepped toward me menacingly, then seemed to think better of it, withdrawing a pace and taking a long breath. “I won’t allow you to face that,” he said hoarsely. “You may have no concern for yourself, but I do.”

  Our gazes locked. Only two paces separated us. The air between us, the silence around us, felt suddenly heavy, fraught with some strange electricity.

  It felt the same way as when we’d left Lumina, in those moments when we rose from the purple clouds into the great expanse of space, and he had kissed me.

  I swallowed and looked away.

  He didn’t realize the truth: one way or another, my deception would be known once Sidonia was restored.

  I pushed to my feet, miserable at the weight of this secret. Until I had met Tyrus, my duty to Donia had been my only joy. He had come between us, somehow. As much as I longed for him, I resented him, too, for the guilt he made me feel, all unknowing.

  “I’ll be in worse danger if I’m Sidonia Impyrean when Elantra becomes your Empress.”

  His hand caught my arm, pulled me back when I would have left. “I would never let Elantra threaten you,” he said in a soft, dangerous voice. “Never.” His expression was iron hard, and I believed him.

  A shadow passed over the sunlit solarium, and Tyrus and I both looked up. The sky dome contained atmosphere, and beyond it was open space, mostly blotted out by the starlit blue sky. Yet there was something else drawing into view now. . . .

  What appeared to be a large scrap of debris sailed toward us. It grew larger and larger as it neared and took on a distinct form: long and cylindrical.

  It wasn’t debris, I realized with shock.

  It was a missile. And it would rupture this dome.

  Tyrus and I both had the realization at the same time.

  “Run,” Tyrus said, but I was already on my feet, and we vaulted across the tranquil garden toward the door to the secure corridor beyond. . . .

  A thunderous explosion jolted the entire world around us. As a jagged hole opened in the crystalline windows, the blue atmosphere roared about us, and the dome decompressed. The great wind snatched my feet out from under me. I felt myself lift off the ground—

  A hand clamped on my arm, dragging me back down. Streams of blue gases ripped about me in a vicious whirlwind, stinging my eyes. I looked back and saw the blue sky draining out into the void of space around the flaming, jagged gash where the missile had struck.

  “Exhale!” Tyrus shouted at me, his voice carrying on the ripping wind. “Exhale everything!”

  I frantically blew out all the breath in my lungs. Tyrus’s grip on me grew less sure as he strained to hold on to the tree trunk he’d grabbed, so I seized his clothing and hoisted myself up his body, seizing the tree trunk myself. Then I secured him with my free hand and hoped desperately the tree was securely rooted enough to resist the outward pressure.

  It was.

  The wind died away as the last of the atmosphere blew out, leaving Tyrus and me in the sudden absence of pressure.

  Horror jolted through me as I registered it: we were surrounded by cold, bare space.

  My heart began to beat frantically as the pressure pulsed under my skin, beneath my eyes, an ominous tingling racing under my skin. The gases in my body strained outward, and if we hadn’t exhaled, our lungs would be exploding. We had only moments to escape now before we died. Tyrus’s face was twisted in pain, but he tugged at the tree to propel us toward a door, pointing to it so I’d know the destination too.

  Relief washed over me. Like every outward-facing room, there was a decompression closet, and the loss of pressure in the dome would have primed it to open.

  We floated at a maddeningly slow pace as the tingling sensation crept up all my limbs, my ears and eyes throbbing and my skin blistering. Beside me Tyrus stopped moving and I knew he’d passed out, so I held on to him and fought the encroaching darkness of unconsciousness as my head grew light and the saliva on my tongue sizzled and began to boil along with the liquid in my eyes. The burning
in my chest mounted as I tugged at everything I could find, fighting for both our lives, my ears pounding frantically with the pressure and my heartbeat, and then I was at the decompression closet.

  I tore it open and thrust Tyrus inside, then pulled myself in and locked the door behind us, and with a hiss the small closet began to pressurize around us. But the atmosphere wasn’t growing breathable. There was no oxygen rushing in with us. Tyrus began turning blue in the dim light, and I fumbled with hands I could only see, not feel, and tore out the oxygen mask in the wall.

  Just one.

  One.

  I thrust it onto Tyrus’s face, and then the darkness closed in and swallowed me.

  42

  COOL AIR rushing in. Rushing in.

  Then nothing. I gasped and choked.

  “Open your eyes!” Tyrus’s distorted voice.

  Something pressing against my face, and I could breathe again, but then, as my head began to clear, it was gone and I was choking.

  I forced my eyes open and found Tyrus’s face so close to mine, the long, muscular expanse of his body pressed up against me. He thrust the oxygen mask back onto my face.

  “What’s—what—” I murmured, my voice distorted by the mask, trying to understand this.

  He pulled the mask away, and I had to hold my breath as he drew deep inhales.

  “Closet . . . no air . . . take turns.”

  He pressed the mask to my face again and I drew in several deep, grateful breaths, and all too soon the mask was gone again as Tyrus breathed.

  “Sabotage,” he said, and then, “No more talk,” then passed the mask back to me.

  And like that, we took turns breathing in a most agonizing manner. I knew this couldn’t continue forever. We could be trapped in here for hours, maybe days, before someone thought to check on us. We were lucky this closet had returned to normal pressure and temperature, but it was only a stopgap. The atmosphere was supposed to return in here so we could await rescue. If that mechanism had been disabled remotely, likely the alarm to alert others to this situation had been sabotaged as well.