The Empress

  Pasus turned his gaze to me. “And when can the Emperor expect the coordinates of the scepter?” Pasus said.

  Tyrus’s eyes were now locked on my face, waiting for the answer too.

  “Is there now support from the vicars?” I said, looking between them.

  “I have been making many inroads in hopes you would return,” Pasus said.

  “I will do my part if he does,” I said to Tyrus. Then, to Pasus, “And do not ask me questions on his behalf ever again or speak to me if it’s unnecessary. I will hate you with all my heart until the day I die.”

  “As will I,” agreed Pasus, “until the day you die.”

  Tyrus smothered a laugh, and drew another great breath of Venalox. “You see? Bickering and thinly veiled death threats. Add in some attempts on each other’s lives, and we’ll be a proper Domitrian family at last.”

  • • •

  I chose Gladdic as my escort for the wedding ceremony, for he was the single person here I had any interest in seeing.

  As soon as I walked onto his ship, I saw it resting there on a pedestal.

  The bronze bust of the Grandeé Cygna.

  I stared at her sightless eyes, perched above me. What would compel a son to display the instrument of his father’s murder like a prized possession? When Gladdic appeared in the doorway, he came to a stop.

  “Nemesis! It’s you. I’m so happy to—”

  I waved off the courtesies and nodded toward the statue. “Why do you have this?”

  He drew a jagged breath. “The Emperor gave it to me.”

  I looked at him, really looked at him. There was a hunted, nervous strain to him, like an animal pursued too long by a predator. His eyes looked too large for his face now.

  “He . . . he gave it to me in exchange for this ship,” Gladdic said.

  “What?”

  “I sold him the Atlas for that bust. He immediately sold the Atlas to someone else. He gambles extravagantly when he gets the chance, so he’s probably already squandered it all. . . . He’s told me how kind he’s being to let me stay onboard until its new owner collects it.” Gladdic’s face twisted. “I didn’t exactly secure a bargain,” he admitted.

  “Why would you agree to that?” I exclaimed. Then I recalled him also agreeing to stick his hand into the gravity ring. “You’re that afraid of him now.”

  “I’m one of his favorite amusements lately,” Gladdic said bitterly. “He took to making me use Venalox with him, since it’s not an enjoyable drug and no one else wants to try it. It was after you left. Daily for a while. Then he grew bored . . . until the day after the news reached everyone that you were alive. . . . He wanted to celebrate. He made me use it, then convinced me to sell him my ship. This ship. For the price of that bust.”

  I was speechless.

  “Venalox really does something to your mind,” muttered Gladdic, rubbing his head. “It honestly seemed like such a great bargain when he suggested it.”

  “Yes, I recall how that works.”

  “It’s a bit of a bind,” Gladdic said, voice shaky. “This is what he used to kill my father. I . . . So you know how I feel looking at it. But it’s also the bust of a Domitrian. I can’t not display it. Not without insulting the Emperor. So I have to see it every single day. Every single one.”

  I recalled Gladdic sticking his hand in the gravity ring. Tyrus ordered it, and then laughed it off as a joke afterward. It was a cruelty. Very deliberately inflicted. A fraction of the cruelty he’d received himself, but a very clear indication of the damage wrought by the Venalox. The real Tyrus never would have done this sort of thing.

  “I can’t change anything that has already come to pass,” I told him, looking into Cygna’s sightless eyes, “but I can promise you, I’ll intervene in such things in the future.”

  “Nemesis, you already saved my life once. With the Tigris. I would never ask you to risk yourself over anything so minor. . . .”

  “Small things become great ones,” I snapped back. “So I’ll stop the minor offenses, too. And you needn’t thank me for not murdering you.”

  He seemed to muster his courage, and then he met my eyes like it was difficult for him to hold them. “I . . . I consider myself . . . I like to think I am a friend to you. So please, listen to me. Things are not the same. He’s not the person you think he is.”

  My eyes were on the bust. I had no illusion about Tyrus after four years on that toxin. I knew cruelty when I saw it. I knew there was no possibility the Tyrus I’d left could accept Pasus as a friend. As family. Not without something very essential within him being destroyed first, and the Venalox had certainly done that.

  “Please be careful around him.”

  “I think,” I told him, feeling a faint amusement, “that you’ve forgotten the sharpness of my teeth.”

  “I wish . . .” His voice grew wistful. “I truly wish you would escape while you can. We could go together. We could steal away, on this ship, another, somehow. . . .”

  I scowled. “Gladdic, are you in love with me still?”

  “I . . . I . . . no. No, I’m not.”

  “Good. Because if you were, I’d tell you to stop that. At once.”

  He fell silent, and then a reluctant smile broke over his lips. His eyes were still sad, like he was witness to a tragedy in motion. “I am glad to see you again.”

  “I came because I need an escort for tomorrow. You are the only person here I don’t despise. Will you do it?”

  “Of course I will.”

  I stepped away from him, then turned back. “And as your future Empress, I demand a wedding present from you. A bust of the late Grandeé Cygna would do.”

  I could take this torment from him at least.

  The tears that brightened his eyes made me escape his presence as quickly as possible, for fear that he’d soon need a hug.

  I’d made up my mind, and my course was clear: wed Tyrus. Get him alone. Gauge the truth of the situation I’d returned to, and then inspire him to seek revenge with me. And if I could not . . . if he was truly so loyal to Pasus . . .

  Then I would devise something new. There had to be some way to salvage this. I would find it if it killed me.

  41

  THE COLONNADE was one of the largest pylons of the Chrysanthemum. The wedding was delayed twelve hours due to the unexpected time it took to repressurize this entire chamber. The Colonnade ate up so much power that even when there was a functioning scepter unifying the system and the superstructure was at peak functioning, it was used only for ceremonial occasions.

  I stepped into the Colonnade and found myself in a long corridor that appeared to be a platform jutting straight out into space. There were force fields on all sides, protection from the void. A strange moment of disorientation gripped me, for I’d been here once before. Not in person, but . . . but as an avatar. I saw the platforms rising up about us, holding onlookers now; they appeared to be standing among the stars, though I knew otherwise.

  I’d first encountered Tyrus in a virtual forum set in this very place. Using Sidonia’s avatar, as he stood there naked, feigning disbelief when his lack of clothing was pointed out to him.

  The rush of grief paralyzed me.

  Stop it. Don’t think of it now.

  A gentle touch, and I looked back at Gladdic, who was decked in gleaming gold for the occasion. Distant Harmonid voices carried over the air, and the onlookers stirred, and I knew it was time to begin.

  Walk. And bury the pain.

  I crossed the last meters between us through a gauntlet of sound crystals, those gems resonating with the voices of the Harmonids, seeming to vibrate the very air about my skin. I passed the final one, the chamber stretching out on all sides of us, all six stars visible from here.

  Tyrus held out a hand. He was facing away from me, as per custom, his hand extended at his side. Here a bride could choose not to take it, and he would never turn, would never see he had been refused. That was the thinking, at least.

&nbs
p; His garments were gleaming crystal and ivory-white liquisilk, as mine were, and the light reflected off him into my eyes as I drew toward him and placed my hand on his. The Harmonid voices swelled in the air, and I trained my eyes straight ahead, as did Tyrus. The Vicar Fustian orbited us like a satellite, gently dousing us with the essence of starlight.

  Then Tyrus and I stepped away from each other and the Harmonids fell silent, the onlookers who’d stood on the sides of the Colonnade—viewing us with eyes or with screens—hushed as well.

  My steps brought me in a circle about the perimeter of the solarium, and it seemed endless and over too quickly, when Gladdic awaited me—and I knew Pasus was awaiting Tyrus.

  Gladdic raised his palm, coated with the reactant. I raised my own and touched his, smearing my palm with it. Tyrus and I completed our orbit, and our eyes at last met.

  None of the detached, eerie amusement on his face now. He was gazing at me with an odd mixture of pain and tenderness that fooled me for a terrible moment. Our hands touched our hearts.

  The reactant on our palms set the starlight essence aglow over our bodies.

  I could barely see as we both grew brighter, radiating light as a star might, but that glimpse of him scorched me from within and abruptly I felt as though I would fall open, as though I would combust, as though I would disintegrate. . . .

  Because he was gone and this was not him and it should have been him. Him.

  I couldn’t do this. I could not.

  He stepped forward, gleaming, and his hand took mine and I obeyed but could not seem to make myself stir of my own will. Hands clasped, he drew me into an orbit about him, or was he the one orbiting me? Two binary stars and then he closed the distance to meet me. We grew so blindingly bright I could only see him and he could only see me and his hands clasped my hips, and his lips claimed my own, hot and insistent, demanding, scorching me as the painless shroud of fire dissolved all about us.

  We were no longer a glowing star but a pair of humans, and there was applause that seemed to float to my ears from another world. I just stared at this man who was now my husband, stricken because this should have been so joyous, and he lifted our joined hands together before them all. Now, the final act of this ceremony: the electrical bond. A dart of pain in my palm as Fustian penetrated our hands with the twin electrodes. I could feel the prickling where our palms met. My heart raced.

  Then Fustian announced, “From the fusion within stars arises every trace of this Living Cosmos, and today two young lovers unite into one.” He pulled our hands apart to reveal the electricity spiking between our palms.

  Painless, as long as we remained close, and soon to dissipate—once we consummated this union. We strode together to the end of the solarium, which led into the starlight oubliette.

  The thunder of applause and searing of so many eyes followed us until the door sealed behind us. Then the starlight oubliette detached, and I turned to see those faces watching us shrink away.

  Silence fell between us.

  Then it was just me, just Tyrus. Husband and wife, enclosed and alone amid the stars.

  I looked at him and found him watching me, caressing me with his eyes, and a shiver passed through me at the realization we were here at last.

  Tyrus regarded me in the dimness as the painless lightning flickered between our hands. Then he stepped away from me. The current between our palms sharpened, still not painful yet, as the distance between us grew.

  “I’ve a gift for you,” he said.

  I traced my hand along the window. . . . Not a true window. I reminded myself of that. It was a screen that provided the illusion that we were encircled by a starscape so we might have a view, but now that we were away from the crowds, it would shift to full opacity if any voyeurs tried to glance in our direction with magnifiers.

  Tyrus touched the wall, and out slid the platform holding the groom’s offering. He lifted it gently, and the sharp edges of the rubies and sapphires caught my gaze. A jeweled hair clip.

  But not just any hair clip.

  My heart caught. I stared at it as he watched my face.

  “You remember this,” he said, watching me closely.

  Of course I did. It was the very first gift he’d given me, back when our relationship was but a ruse between a Diabolic and an ambitious Successor Primus.

  “How is it possible?” I wondered.

  He’d torn it out of my hair and tossed into the nitrogen fountain on the Hera back when Elantra lived, and we were pretending not to love each other.

  “I retrieved it.”

  “What? How? When?”

  “As soon as no one was looking.”

  “Didn’t it burn your hand?”

  “It was worth it,” he said.

  Tyrus crooked his finger for me to tilt my head. I did so, and he gathered my long locks into his fingers, smoothing them back in a way that was almost reverent, before weaving the clip into my hair, pulling just enough back from my face. He straightened, his rough palm caressing my skin, his eyes tracing over me, soft, curious.

  I shuddered and stepped back. How easily—how very easily—I could forget myself. And the pain of that felt like it bore straight into my heart.

  “I have yours.” My voice jerked out of me, stony, businesslike. A swipe of my hand, and I’d opened the other compartment.

  To reveal the book. Tyrus’s face transformed with surprise. “Hamlet,” he breathed.

  “So that’s how you say it.”

  “Nemesis, where . . . ?”

  “In the Sacred City. It survived. I knew . . . I knew it had to be yours. I couldn’t understand it, though.” I watched him intently, and that hideous part of me that insisted on hoping was desperate for any slight emotion, any reaction.

  Tyrus brushed his palm over the cover, turned the book over, and opened its pages.

  “It was yours,” I said, sure of it now.

  “It was . . .” Emotion shadowed his face, as though the memory of who he’d been when he last held this reared up within him. His voice caught. “It was a very important book when I was younger.”

  “I couldn’t read it.”

  “It’s an old language. It’s complicated, but . . .” He looked at me, his eyes misty. “This is one part:

  “ ‘Doubt thou the stars are fire

  Doubt that the sun doth move,

  Doubt truth to be a liar

  But never doubt I love.’ ”

  Abruptly, something strong, something bracing, seemed to buckle under the weight of what I was doing. My eyes closed, and the emotion brimming in my chest swelled to the point of overflow. I sat on the floor, with the cold and distant stars below me.

  I squeezed my fists until my fingers throbbed, until my nails cut into my skin, and then I felt Tyrus before me, his hands sliding up my arms.

  “Are you hurt?”

  I managed to look at him, where he sat gripping my arms, the current tingling down my forearm to join us. “It’s nothing you can heal. I just . . . It’s just that a short time ago, I had you. I had your love, and your heart, and for you, I’m a memory.”

  Tyrus leaned forward and removed the clip from my hair. For a moment, I stared at him, befuddled, certain he was taking it back, that he’d grown irritated.

  Instead, his steady blue eyes on mine, he flicked his finger at the end, and the clip began to flash. My brow furrowed. He extracted a small device from amid the jewels, then wove the clip back into my hair.

  “I smuggled this in with us,” he said, showing the jamming node to me. “There is absolutely no privacy on the Chrysanthemum, but here is the one place I can ensure that we have it. I have just blocked any means that might be used to eavesdrop. Now there’s no more need to lie.”

  I stared at him. “Lie?”

  “Surely you knew back when I spoke to you before that I don’t utter a private word. I know I was cold, but I had to be. Do you imagine for a moment the man who has been my captor for these last years would have agree
d to this if he believed I was anything but indifferent to you?”

  It couldn’t be.

  It was impossible.

  I stumbled over my words: “The Venalox . . . four years of it . . . it’s not possible . . . Don’t do this. Please don’t deceive me. Tyrus, don’t say this if it’s not true. I can’t bear to hope. . . .”

  The words escaped me, and I hated myself for speaking them . . . for putting them out there, for offering my neck to a blade. He reached out, and his fingers slid through my hair, his hand clutched the back of my neck, drew me closer, his breath playing over my lips.

  “Look at me, Nemesis. Really look.”

  My eyes rose to his, and how warm they looked—but it was a lie. It had to be.

  “You think I am indifferent to you? What about this?” And with that, his lips captured mine in an insistent kiss that I felt like a jolt of electricity down my back, like a flare of starlight in my heart. I gasped against his mouth and then his tongue met mine, and I couldn’t understand this wonderful, glorious, impossible moment. . . . I ripped back.

  “This can’t be.”

  “It is. Nemesis, I had to be careful, measured, when I spoke to you. Only a show of indifference could win me this moment with you. And now here you are.” He gazed at my face as though I were a miracle. “I am afraid if I close my eyes, you will disappear.”

  “You . . .” I breathed. It was impossible. I was terrified by the hope that reeled through me, terrified it would be a mistake. . . . “You mean all that you say?”

  “Everything I say,” he told me, “everything I could never put into words. Sometimes, I almost believed I’d imagined you. No one could burn so brightly as you did in my memories, in my dreams. Then I would awaken and you were gone and all that remained was emptiness. Even the best days seem these hollow echoes of what I once had with you, and how much easier it might have been, had I forgotten you.”

  “How can this be possible? Tyrus, you’ve been poisoned for four years. I saw how it was changing you in so short a time. . . . How . . . how can . . .” I was desperate to believe him, desperate for it, yet I couldn’t.