The Empress

  I had them keep quiet about my return until we were within the star system of Eurydice, and then I broadcast it on a general frequency to the planet. It was too late now for any Grandiloquy foes to descend and attack.

  As we soared in to land in the capital, I found myself gazing down at the heaving . . . What was it? Water? What was I looking at, clogging those streets, in the square?

  My stomach seemed to open up as the answer struck me: people.

  Masses and masses of people had gathered to watch my arrival, even on this short notice. I’d passed the sterile days alone in the Sacred City furious with myself for never forming a power base, but it seemed one had spawned without me, and my lips pulled into a giddy smile as we touched down and the thunderous cheers from outside were piped into the vessel with us.

  The Grandiloquy could not contend with this.

  There would be no quiet assassination, no stealthy death. There was only one thing they could do now that I’d come here, now that I stepped out of the vessel and presented myself before people who vastly outnumbered the entirety of the Grandiloquy.

  All the Grandiloquy could do—all they would dare to do—was cheer my deliverance.

  39

  I DID NOT WAIT long on Eurydice. When my summons came, along with an honor guard of starships, I boarded without fear. The public welcome had guaranteed my survival. Now I had to use it.

  Those escorting me worked for Pasus. That, or they were on his payroll. Their eyes followed me everywhere, they questioned relentlessly but answered nothing in turn. So I stopped speaking to them.

  By the time the eighteen day voyage ended and we jostled out of hyperspace, the Grandiloquy had all heard the news. I could tell, because we began passing docked vessels much farther out from the core of the Chrysanthemum than usual. There had to be another thousand here, converging upon the already massive superstructure.

  The closer we drew, the more detail I picked out. The windows of several pylons had gone totally dim. Either they’d been rendered inactive to preserve power, or they’d fallen into disrepair without a centralized system.

  Thousands of messages crowded for my attention, the standard, perfunctory greetings.

  Then one came in that superseded all the others, and they blinked out of the system to allow it first priority.

  My heart began to thud.

  Tyrus.

  Sweat pricked all over my body. Genuine terror began to gnaw at my gut. My hand shook when I activated the transmission.

  Senator von Pasus appeared before me in holographic form. My heart hardened. I did not give him the pleasure of glimpsing my disappointment.

  “Senator.”

  “Nemesis.”

  For a moment, he looked at me, and I at him.

  “You are back at last,” he said.

  “I’ve been most welcomed,” I said icily.

  “Did you bring anything?”

  “Anything?”

  “A scepter.” He leaned closer. “An Interdict.”

  “Your spies surely told you I did not.” Of course he’d have heard by now that we meant to bring the Interdict back. He couldn’t know what happened to the Interdict, though. . . . Unless Neveni had told people.

  She’d had a head start on me.

  “Have you lost the scepter?” Pasus said.

  “No,” I said.

  He seemed to clench his teeth. “Do you intend to hand it over?”

  “You will have to wait and see.”

  “Very well played, the public entrance. Tyrus and I were most impressed.”

  His casual use of his name, his first name, oh . . . And I slipped. “Is he all right?”

  I’d lost the game.

  Pasus smiled coolly and blinked away. I would have to learn for myself.

  • • •

  The Chrysanthemum looked much as it had when I’d left it. The interior was missing the Hera, the Tigris, the Colossus, but other ships crowded in their places. Windows were more consistently lit this close to the center, but Berneval Stretch had a great, gaping hole where something had collided with it and repair bots had not arrived to fix it in time. Three more years of malfunctions ill-repaired. The very formation of the ships looked clumsy, like a chaotic glob rather than a precise Chrysanthemum.

  When I stepped out into the Valor Novus, silence met me. After the thunderous reception on Eurydice, the stark hush was deafening, but not surprising. A pair of Domitrian servants had been waiting.

  “The Emperor requests your presence.”

  “Lead the way.”

  Despite what they’d said, when I arrived in the presence chamber through the main doors, it wasn’t to an awaiting crowd. All in sight were crowded about some other diversion, and I waved the servants away. I could take it from here.

  My heart began to jerk in my chest, though I had yet to spot Tyrus. Raucous voices met my ears.

  “Try a watermelon next.”

  “What about a glass?”

  “. . . can have gravital crushing anywhere, Your Supremacy. No need for the Justice Hall. Don’t you see how much potential this opens for entertainment?”

  “There is a great deal of potential,” agreed that voice I’d know anywhere.

  Tyrus.

  His voice. His voice . . . I stopped where I was, knowing it, and none in the crowd seemed aware of me.

  “I’ve never seen one so portable before. It’s the size of an imaging ring. Same weight? Impressive. What level is it at now?” Tyrus said.

  I saw him.

  He was Tyrus, but he looked subtly altered. His hair was lighter, a reddish gold, and the last hint of childish roundness had fled his face. The broad bones, the sharply angled brows, the light blue eyes all contrived to render him simultaneously harsher in appearance, and more classically handsome. In fact, there was a touch of vanity in the alteration, as though he’d lost some of that distaste for beauty bots and began using them.

  His natural musculature had faded before my eyes under Pasus’s regime, since the Venalox had not lent itself to rigorous exertion, even had Pasus allowed him to undertake it. Now, the artificial symmetry of beauty-bot-crafted muscles had taken their place, stretching the shoulders of the sweeping coat favored by fashionable Grandes.

  Tyrus had yet to notice me, though those nearest me had. They had gone silent.

  “I’d like to see what it can do at eight atmospheres,” Tyrus noted.

  A humming as the mechanism increased in power. I could see now it was a metal ring of sorts. “And now, let’s see . . .” Tyrus cast his gaze about at the faces nearest him, searching for someone. Smiling like a jackal when he locked on target. “Gladdic. Put your hand in there.”

  Gladdic. I hadn’t recognized him immediately, with the alterations he’d made to his hair—a platinum shade now to contrast with his light brown skin. I recognized only his signature feature, those unnaturally spring-green eyes.

  “Your Supremacy, I think that might not be safe.”

  “That’s the point. Put your hand in. You skulk about and ruin a good time. Do something to entertain us. Reach in,” Tyrus said.

  Gladdic cringed, stepped toward the ring—and raised his hand. He yowled out when a crackling sounded through the chamber, blood bursting from his skin, skin peeling from bone. . . . He yanked his hand back to the resounding laughter of the watching Grandiloquy, tears on his face, whimpering. Med bots soared in to tend to him, and Tyrus began to laugh.

  The Grandiloquy all about Tyrus did exactly as the Grandiloquy do: they took their cue from Tyrus and began laughing as well.

  “Look at your hand. Ah. That’s disgusting. Why would anyone do that to himself? Helios devoured, Gladdic, surely you realized I was joking.” He was still laughing as he turned away, called, “All right, kick it up to max and let’s throw in a spare Servitor. . . .” Then he laid eyes on me.

  “Your Supremacy,” I managed, my mouth bone dry.

  Tyrus grew very still. His face suddenly went blank. “Nemesis .
. . You are come back, then.”

  I used to be attuned to the slightest ripple of feeling under that blank expression. Now it just seemed—blank.

  “Yes.” My voice sounded hollow.

  “You took your time returning.”

  “Not by choice.”

  “Of course.” Tyrus tilted his head. He studied me closely as I searched him for any slight trace of feeling—even just a memory of what he’d once felt.

  None.

  I was only half-aware of the Grandiloquy who’d been enjoying the spectacle. Some had already gripped a Servitor to offer up for the gravity ring. Tyrus had quite forgotten his request.

  “Well. Only one thing to do.” He turned to address the company. “Kick it up to twenty atm, and a delightful intoxicant to the one who chucks her into the gravity ring. Let’s see it work!”

  What?

  Bodies swarmed toward me, hands hooking under my arms, and I was so shocked I did not react for a moment. . . . Then I was steered toward the gravity ring, which would crush me in an instant, and my survival instincts raged forth. I wrenched myself from the grasping hands and drove my fist into the nearest face, my legs into ribs. I snared a collar and hurled a Grande who’d manhandled me into the gravity ring so he might enjoy it, and he gave an abbreviated scream as he passed the metal barrier, then his lungs and skull flattened—

  “ENOUGH.”

  The chamber went deathly still about me, and I whirled around to face Tyrus, furious, bewildered, yet there was something new on his face. His eyes seemed aglow with an electric intensity, belying the careful, cautious set of his polished features.

  “It is you.”

  “Yes. As I said!” I roared at him.

  “Now I’m certain of it.” He pointed to the unfortunate Grande with the crushed head. “Someone clean up the Grande Falcaunt.”

  “It’s Rutherfain.”

  Tyrus shook his head. He did not care.

  Then a woman was before me, a young girl. “What of the Sacred City? We’ve heard dreadful rumors.”

  And all eyes were suddenly on me.

  “Quiet.”

  It was one word, softly spoken, but Tyrus’s voice made all those crowding about me step back, lowering their eyes.

  “This is state business. I will discuss it with my . . . beloved in private.”

  I searched his face hopefully.

  Tyrus nodded for me to accompany him to the privy chambers, then raised his palladium glove to his mouth and said, “Alectar, are you about?”

  Alectar, I thought darkly.

  “I’m in my chamber,” answered Pasus.

  “Excellent,” said Tyrus.

  Then, as we stepped into the privy chambers, Pasus emerged from one of the rooms, and shock rooted me in place.

  He’d been in his chamber.

  Here.

  Inside the royal privy chambers.

  Pasus should not be staying there. He had no right to it. How audacious of him, to force his way in. My jaw clenched.

  There was new furniture. . . . Hangings and sculptures that were distinctly not Tyrus’s style. A singed spot on a table told me these might’ve been salvaged remnants of the Colossus. So Pasus had gathered them up, then glommed onto Tyrus like a persistent parasite and installed himself here.

  Now it fell to me to remove him for good.

  40

  WHEN I recounted what became of the Sacred City, Tyrus met the news with laughter. Pasus went gray.

  “I fail to see humor,” Pasus said. “This will lead to chaos.”

  “You have long abandoned piety. Don’t pretend to be the aggrieved believer,” Tyrus said disparagingly. “Chaos will only ensue if people learn of this. We won’t let them.”

  “There have been rumors,” Pasus said.

  Neveni, I thought. It had to be.

  “There are always rumors. There will be no official confirmation, Alectar. The Interdict lives, the Sacred City is intact, and if anyone doubts—let them seek the Interdict for themselves and ask him.”

  It disturbed me, seeing them discuss it, planning a course together like true allies. Now Tyrus turned his attention to me. Looked me over. “So I sent you to bring back the Interdict. Instead he is dead and the Sacred City is destroyed.”

  “Yes.”

  Tyrus began laughing again. “How do you not find this funny?” he said to Pasus. Then he raised his hand, and light glinted off a ring he wore. A flick of his finger popped open a gem atop it. “My mistake sending a Diabolic.”

  Tyrus nodded as he huffed in the Venalox from within the gem.

  “Ask her,” prompted Pasus in a low voice.

  “My love, do you or do you not still have the scepter?” Tyrus said.

  My eyes narrowed. It made me grind my teeth together, the way Tyrus just obeyed him.

  “As I told the Senator, I have it. I’ve sent it into space with a transponder frequency only I know.” It was a lie, but I was certain Pasus was having my ship ransacked, searching for that familiar casing Neveni had stolen. They wouldn’t find it in the book—or so I hoped. “If anything happens to me, it will be lost forever. I’d rather have a reason to give it to you. I want my conditions met.”

  Tyrus grinned broadly. “Listen to her,” he said to Pasus. “You’d think she was the one who’d had several years to sharpen her wits. Do tell me the conditions, Nemesis.”

  I looked between them. Was Pasus’s power over him still total? I tested it: “I want him gone.”

  Tyrus arched his brows, pointed a questioning thumb toward Pasus.

  “Yes. Him.”

  “It seems absence has not made the heart grow fonder,” Tyrus remarked.

  “Not for either of us,” Pasus said. “It seems she imagines we’ve been in stasis while she has.”

  “Then some catch-up must needs be done,” Tyrus said. He snatched a handkerchief from one of the Servitors, wiped away the Venalox residue from his nose, and let it drop to the floor. I stared at it. It was the sort of decadent, wasteful, Grandiloquy gesture Tyrus never used to do. “My darling, we have passed a long while and you have not. The time of ugliness is far behind us. Alectar and I are reconciled.”

  “He has won the right to the first room?” I said.

  Tyrus rolled his eyes. “Alectar, move to another chamber. Go get started. Now.”

  Pasus stirred. “Immediately? Perhaps I should . . .”

  “Immediately.”

  The two men exchanged a long, silent glance. Then, “Of course.” He dipped his head and left us.

  Tyrus snared my limp hand, but made no move to draw me in closer. “I know this is difficult for you to understand. My existence became profoundly uncomfortable in the wake of the Tigris. There were still dozens of dead and it was known I had a role in it. Some Grandiloquy wished to have me lobotomized. There were proposals to remove my sex organs for the creation of new Domitrians so I might be executed.” And though his lips twisted into a smile, a shadow passed over his face. “At the time, I was . . . I was far beyond caring. In fact, I may even have cultivated a small rumor that Alectar himself was responsible for the Tigris massacre. His reputation has never recovered from that suspicion. Yet still, he was my shield. He prevented anything too dire from happening.”

  That Excess girl’s conspiracy theory . . . Tyrus had crafted it. I just had to shake my head. “There was no mercy in what he did, Tyrus. He needs you alive and in his power. And now he dwells in the first room, like a consort or . . .”

  “A member of my family.”

  “Family.” Family meant something very different to Tyrus than to most people. I wasn’t sure if he intended to tell me they were close, or that Pasus was still his dread enemy, using that word. Maybe I was seeing a cold war between them, one masked in civility, the sort I had never mastered. He slung himself back onto a chair, legs wide. “He needed me alive. There are many states of existence, Nemesis, and I could have endured much more miserable ones.”

  “Than a life of involuntar
y addiction? Of constant humiliation?”

  His eyes grew hard. “You made the decision for me. You decided I would remain here. So yes, that was a preferable alternative. I learned the value of having a single person I could rely upon in that situation, even him. . . . It was better than no one. Once I told him that you were a given in a marriage union, and now I must tell you that exact same thing about him. Do you still love me, Nemesis? If so, then that’s grand. We should just go ahead and get married as we meant to. You do wish to make an exchange for the scepter, do you not? I find the idea most agreeable.”

  Agreeable. The word stung me.

  “You’re very sure Alectar approves?” I muttered.

  “Wholeheartedly. He is your earnest champion now as well as mine.”

  I scoffed. No. Pasus knew I was exactly the wife he’d want for Tyrus. The unthreatening wife who would never detract from his power, and now—now that the Venalox had been in use for four years—one Tyrus could look at after three years apart with this detachment. There was no love for me in his gaze. Not now.

  And I’d known it. I’d braced for it. I’d hardened myself against this possibility in advance. It still threatened to hurt me.

  Dwelling upon my loss would split me apart.

  “When?” I said.

  “Alectar!” called Tyrus.

  And then Pasus returned so abruptly, I knew he’d been listening, waiting for this. I shuddered with hatred to see him. This whole thing bewildered me. I’d known I’d return to a Tyrus who did not look at me the same way. There was an uncharacteristic detachment to him even when he smiled at me. I had never imagined he’d be a friend to Pasus, much less regard him fondly like a trusted friend.

  “What about tomorrow?” Tyrus said.

  “The wedding?” I blurted. “Tomorrow?”

  “So soon?” Pasus said, startled as well.

  Tyrus flashed a grin. “Why not? No one can argue we haven’t covered the blood sacrifice. Let’s jump right into it.”

  Pasus folded his arms. “And the arrangements . . . Still as we discussed?”

  “Exactly as we discussed.” Tyrus drew a huff of Venalox and used his sleeve this time to wipe his face. “It’s over three years since we were engaged. No one can say it’s sudden.” Then with a laugh, he pointed to the window. “Look at all these ships gathered. Shouldn’t we eagerly exhibit ourselves for so vast an audience?”