The Empress

  And the flames sprouted with a great furnace of heat before the atmosphere blew up, roaring out of the Tigris and into space, carrying with it those screaming, flailing Grandiloquy. Senator von Wallstrom met my eyes for a brief moment of shocked horror before she was carried up into the endless void.

  I held to the railing as the atmosphere buffeted me on its way into space, and I knew then that Tyrus had been right, we could not have done this tied together. My muscles, my fingers, my very shoulders were being torn, and any normal person would be dead. If we’d tied ourselves together, he’d be a weight jerking at me, and my whole body strained to fight the outward force right now. . . . I squinted against the ripping wind as the Tigris kept emptying out, and soon the force wasn’t so overpowering, but that meant the air would diminish quickly. . . . Where was the hatch? Where was it?

  Then . . . a small circlet of light glowed against the stony exterior of the Hera. There!

  Already I was exhaling without intending to, my breath being forced out of my lungs, which meant the clock had begun ticking before I lost consciousness, so I couldn’t wait. I squinted at the air currents, gauged their direction, aimed my legs—and released my grip. Then I careened up, sailing helplessly on the current, and slammed into the stone edifice of the starship. The escaping atmosphere, littered with fragments and flames, buffeted past me, dragged at me. My fingers dug into the rocky surface, but slipped, and then I was sliding across the starship. I groped outward frantically, clawing desperately for something, anything, any small handhold to seize. Then I snared one. The entire force of my body jerked against the tips of my fingers, but I held on.

  I wasn’t alone. Through the currents of debris pounding out of the Tigris, I saw Anguish clinging to the Hera’s rocky wall, and then Hazard hit the vessel next and clung on to it as well.

  Then one of the arena’s benches hurtled out, plowing into Hazard and breaking his hold.

  In an instant, he was gone.

  I saw him sailing off into the black.

  Move. Move! My lungs were exhaling with my volition, oxygen driven from my blood to the nearest escape from my body. Darkness crept into the edges of my vision, and I clawed my way across the rock toward that elusive circlet of light. I had to reach it before I passed out, I had to!

  The weakness of my limbs crept in, and still the gases from the Tigris were hitting at me. . . . And my suddenly feeble handhold loosened without my meaning it to. . . .

  The air lock jostled past me. . . .

  A clamp of a hand on my leg, tearing me back into the cave of light. I rebounded off the far wall, and then the door to the air lock slammed shut just before I collided with it. Chugging in the air of repressurization . . .

  Then . . . then I was gasping in greedy breaths, and I craned my head to the side to see Anguish collapsed against the wall, gasping as well. . . .

  Then he twisted up his face and screamed with frustration, rage. . . .

  The thought of Hazard flickered through my mind.

  He was dead. A full-strength Diabolic, and he’d been lost to this plan. None of the people still in the Tigris upon impact had escaped with us. . . .

  Tyrus had made it out in time.

  With Pasus.

  Pasus. Pasus—PASUS! Who had lived! I rammed my fist into the wall at the very thought of it and the pain gave me no relief. He was alive, and he had Tyrus, and if I simply could have killed him . . .

  I ripped to my feet. Tyrus should have made it clear from the start he expected to die. He should have made it totally clear and then I could have . . . could have . . .

  With a growl, I forced myself to move. I slapped open the doors to charge into the main body of the Hera. My legs carried me through the starship as it rocked about me. The impact of the Hera against the Tigris had jostled this vessel, though it remained powerful and intact. When I tore into the command nexus, I saw Neveni sitting on the floor, her hand clamped over her head.

  “Sorry. Hit it. Just need to . . . ,” she said blearily, blood trickling through her fingers.

  “It’s fine,” I rasped.

  The Hera awaited my command to set up a course out of this system. My eyes fixed on the remains of the Tigris outside the window . . . and the ship nestled beyond it.

  We had to escape, but first I wanted to do something.

  I used the autonavigation—and the Hera plowed right into the proud Colossus.

  Neveni gave a choked laugh as Pasus’s prized starship busted apart around us, and my heart rejoiced with the malicious pleasure of knowing I’d taken something—something—from him. Since most every master of the starships about me had been on the Tigris, only a few starships managed to take potshots at us as we navigated the gravity corridor to the edge of the star system.

  Then . . .

  Then I needed only touch one button. Just one.

  My hands went cold. I stared down at the panel.

  I was leaving Tyrus. I wasn’t just leaving him behind, at the mercy of his enemies. . . . I’d also killed many of those enemies in the process.

  What am I doing? WHAT AM I DOING? I thought, horror rocking me.

  Then Neveni pressed up behind me, and one strike of her hand sent us hurtling into the starless void of hyperspace, the Chrysanthemum disappearing far behind us.

  My legs sank out from under me, and now I sat on the floor.

  It was done.

  I’d left Tyrus behind with our enemies.

  35

  FORTY-SIX DAYS. At a minimum. Forty-six days.

  As the adrenaline of escape seeped out of me, I clutched my temples in my hands and just sat there on the floor of the command nexus. It took me several minutes to notice the press of the scepter digging into me. I untied it from my waist and stared at it, my vision blurred out of focus.

  What would two more months of Venalox do to him?

  Then a much worse thought occurred to me.

  “Black hole take me, what if he was on the Colossus?” I cried, jolting to my feet, horrified to the depths of my soul.

  A med bot tending to Neveni’s head. “What?” she said.

  “Tyrus.” My lips felt numb. “I sent him out. I sent him with Pasus. If they went to the Colossus . . .”

  “Wait. Wait . . . ,” Neveni said.

  “I told Pasus to take him and what if Pasus took him . . . No. No, there was no time for that. . . .”

  “Wait, what are you saying?” Neveni demanded.

  I blinked at her, as though a swamp filled my skull ear to ear.

  “You cannot seriously be telling me you let. Pasus. Live.”

  “I did.”

  “Are you kidding? Are you serious?”

  “I had no choice, Neveni. Tyrus would have died, and he was the only one I knew would get him out—”

  “WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU?” screamed Neveni. “You let him LIVE? The entire point of this was to KILL HIM!”

  “Not at cost to Tyrus—”

  “Tyrus isn’t an idiot!” bellowed Neveni. “Do you really think he went into the plan without realizing he was going to die?”

  I stared at her, my mouth dry. “You knew he’d perish.”

  “Yes.” Her face was wild. “I knew. No one could survive that! I wasn’t sure if you could survive it! And Pasus shouldn’t have survived it! Why do you think I told you to explain it all to him beforehand? It was so he would know! HE KNEW! He knew it was death, he chose it, and you threw that away?”

  “How dare you hide this from me,” I breathed.

  “You wouldn’t have done it if you’d known! And obviously Tyrus hid it from you too!” Venom made her voice shake. Her black eyes sparkled with tears. “Tyrus got the choice. Unlike everyone on my planet who was murdered by the man whose life you spared, he got to choose his fate! And now… Now what was the point of it? How could you?”

  She let out a scream and whipped away from me, hands clutching her head.

  “I didn’t get a choice,” I snarled at her. “I won’t apolog
ize for saving Tyrus.”

  Vibrating with malice, Neveni turned back to me. “I’m glad you’re happy. You know who won’t be? Tyrus. What do you think is going to happen to him, stuck there without you? All you care about is life and death. It’s all that simple to you. You know Pasus will watch him now. Tyrus played a part in this and meant to die, and he’s too useful to them for that to happen. Now they’ll be on guard. They’ll watch him. They won’t let him escape them however awful it gets.”

  “Good! I don’t want him dead.”

  “Thank God you never fell in love with me,” Neveni snarled.

  At that moment, Anguish stalked into the command nexus with us, and Neveni gave a startled cry . . . then made a choked noise when she realized something.

  He was still totally naked.

  “H-hi,” said Neveni.

  Whatever they said to each other, I ignored it. I just walked away with the scepter I’d salvaged and retreated into the cold depths of my starship.

  I spent hours just gazing at this symbol of power. In my hand, it felt cold and worthless.

  • • •

  Neveni’s irritation with me mounted when I dropped us out of hyperspace solely to collect news transmissions that might indicate whether or not Tyrus had survived. Just as before, the news made things seem murkier, and my hours were consumed with sifting through it trying to find some small grain of truth.

  She nearly pounced on me the third time I ordered us to stop.

  “No, we are not stopping again,” she cried.

  “My ship, and I am deciding this,” I returned.

  She charged toward me, and Anguish abruptly swept forward, caught her in his arms.

  “Do not attack those who are stronger than you,” he counseled her, steering her firmly but gently away from me.

  She screamed at me, “Do you want to get to the Sacred City or NOT?”

  But I just collected every transmission I could, then launched us back into hyperspace. This third time, I found what I sought amid the news broadcasts.

  Every one of them had the same thing: woeful news from the Chrysanthemum. There’d been a dreadful tragedy, a blow directly at the heart of the Empire. Excess radicals had murdered many of the Grandiloquy, along with the bride of the Emperor on the morning of their wedding.

  Fustian nan Domitrian gave a long speech with a heavy heart, and then the image focused upon the figure behind him, sprawled in a chair like he was boneless, face drawn, eyes empty. His faithful adviser, Senator von Pasus, hovered at his side, and the bereft young Emperor “understandably” was too grief stricken to do more than appear in public.

  He’d survived.

  And I knew it was Tyrus. I knew it, because they wouldn’t make him look that defeated and hollowed out if they were faking it. They’d present a robust young Emperor, as they’d done those months we were absent.

  My heart flooded with the sweet relief of the realization, even though watching the transmission over and over made me notice new details. The heaviness to his lids . . . The slump to his shoulders . . . He’d been injected with Venalox again. He must have been. Pasus couldn’t risk any unpredictable actions from Tyrus on a live broadcast.

  I was rewatching it yet again, and my thoughts spiraled away as the news report carried onward discussing the culprits: the Luminar radicals who weren’t content with destroying their own planet with their hubris. . . . They had gone on and murdered the Emperor’s bride. . . .

  Usually I flipped off the transmission before now, but today Neveni happened into the command nexus while it was replaying, and snapped at me when I tried to stop it.

  “I know that guy,” she said, narrowing her eyes when the so-called radicals behind the attack appeared on the screen. “Is he being charged with a crime?”

  I drew a bracing breath. “For the Tigris.” I was too wrung dry, too raw, to sit here while she learned her people were being blamed again. I didn’t want to see the pain on her face when she realized those names were familiar because they were Luminars who’d been on the Chrysanthemum as employees. They’d been executed for the Tigris, taking the blame for it.

  “You knew they’d lie about this . . . ,” I said, turning to her.

  But as she stared at the screen, a grin suddenly flashed over her lips. Startled, I peered back at the segment I’d never reached, watching this on my own.

  “. . . ringleader. Her parents had radical leanings, and it’s believed . . .”

  It was Neveni.

  Whether Pasus forced the information from Tyrus, or whether my doings had been retraced, they’d discovered her role in it all. It seemed she was the Luminar villain to take all the blame for the deaths on the Tigris. For my death.

  Neveni broke into peals of cackling laughter. And for some reason, learning she was the new most wanted terrorist in the galaxy cheered her up as nothing else could have done.

  • • •

  After we dropped out of hyperspace, Neveni and Anguish joined me in the command nexus to watch the approach to the Sacred City.

  That’s when it began to dawn on me that I was traveling with two people who’d lost everything they loved. We’d reached the Transaturnine System during a gravital window—but waiting two days would have been safer. The currents were stronger than the last time. The gravital currents that made me tense up, wince, seemed to entertain Neveni. Anguish just sprawled on his back, hands linked behind his head, observing the burning currents of hydrogen whipping toward us as though he saw them from a great distance.

  Neither of them were over concerned with survival.

  They even carried on idle conversation.

  “. . . two different moons. One was larger, and it had an atmosphere, and it was a nature preserve. The other had a habitat dome because it was settled before Lumina was terraformed. I guess they’re both still there”—Neveni’s voice grew very quiet—“orbiting a dead world.”

  “I dislike planets,” Anguish said. “There are always insects.”

  The Hera gave a great jolt that made me suck in a breath. How could they think about insects?

  Neveni caught her balance and said, “You’re a big, scary Diabolic and you’re afraid of bugs?”

  “I do not fear them,” said Anguish. “I dislike them. They are too numerous and they are everywhere. If they attacked in great numbers, there is no defense I could employ to hold them at bay.”

  “Can you two stop talking?” I said, staring out the window. We were within the gravital window, weren’t we? I was sure I’d had the dates memorized.

  “Nemesis, he’s afraid of an insect uprising,” Neveni said.

  “He is joking,” I snapped. “And why are you in such a good mood? Are you drunk?”

  “That’s a good idea. I could use some booze.”

  “I do not joke,” said Anguish belatedly.

  “Nemesis never jokes, either,” Neveni said. “Don’t worry, Anguish. I’ll smash your spiders for you. Especially if you know where I can find a drink here while we ride this out.”

  Then they mercifully left me to stumble through the jostling ship, in search of the alcohol Neveni wanted. They’d both gone utterly insane.

  She smelled of a brewery when we arrived at the Sacred City, since she’d clearly spilled whatever she’d found all over herself. Yet there was that eerie good humor about her as the pathogen ring scanned us. I waved away the startled vicars who had seen me off a short while ago.

  The Interdict secluded himself with the feed from Lumina. We’d smuggled out images of the Revolvent Mist being deployed. I’d seen Neveni watching them over and over again.

  Neveni sobered up quickly from whatever had made it down her gullet rather than spilling in the turbulence. “This place . . . They are completely on their own here.” She paced in circles, looking about us.

  “The Interdict is meant to be immortal and infallible,” said Anguish.

  “Oh, very infallible. We see how well his decrees have worked out. Can you imagine the egotism
of existing in this coddled little shelter removed from the rest of us, and telling everyone what they should think, how they should live?”

  “Speak more softly,” I urged her, though we seemed to be alone.

  “He’s surrounded by people who worship him here. The only insights he gets come from people he teaches to parrot his own words back to him. It’s unbelievable. He should hear this,” she said.

  “Not from you,” I snapped. “And not right now.”

  When Orthanion at last emerged, he was ashen, more shaken even than when he’d realized Tyrus’s ignorance of black holes.

  “This was done in my name,” he said hollowly. “They meant to enforce my decree.”

  “They destroyed the new one. Most Ascendant One, we can’t wait three years for you to train vicars to deploy. You are needed. You are the only one who can fix this,” I said.

  “My child, I will do whatever I must.” He drew toward me, took my hands. “What is it you wish me to do?”

  “I need you to leave with us.” I leaned closer to him and stared intently into those stunned, sorrowful eyes, knowing this was the only path, the only salvation, and it all depended on winning his support. “We need to save . . .” Save Tyrus. My love. My heart.

  This is bigger than us, I knew. It was so much greater than two people.

  “Join us,” I said, “and we’ll go save the galaxy.”

  36

  THE INTERDICT’S body shook, and I didn’t know if it was anxiety or anticipation at the prospect of leaving, of following his calling and rescuing the galaxy of his faithful. I didn’t hear his argument with his vicars, but I did see their distrusting, worried looks as they regarded me. They probably recalled all too well that I’d kidnapped the Interdict the last time I was here.

  Of course, after they looked at me, they looked at Anguish—and one glance at him dissuaded them from saying another word of objection.

  The Interdict beckoned me to follow him. I stayed by the Interdict’s side as Neveni and Anguish trailed us.