Gradually Aliana became aware of the room again. Kelric, the pharaoh, and the woman named Roca were a few paces away, talking to a man with grey-streaked hair. Although they weren’t overtly watching her or otherwise intruding, she felt their awareness of her in their minds.
Aliana spoke in a ragged voice. “If you’re my family, why did you leave me in that scum hole with no one but a half-Aristo bastard to take care of me?”
They turned to her then, the pharaoh, imperator, and golden queen. Aliana felt as if she would burn up with the fierce anger that swept across her. “You aren’t my family.” She got up and went over to them, these great people of Skolia. “My family would never have left me stranded in that garbage heap. My family would never have let my stepfather beat the crap out of me every time he felt like it. My family would never have let my mother take her own life because it had become such hell.”
“Aliana—” Roca’s voice caught. “I’m sorry.”
Aliana dropped out of Highton into the dialect of Eubic that she knew best. “Yeah, cry. Weep for your misfortune, that you’re stuck with me.”
Kelric answered her—in Eubic. It wasn’t the dialect she spoke, but it was close enough that she understood. “We didn’t know about you. ESComm broke your father’s cover. He had to leave before they captured him. If he had gone back for your mother, they would have captured her, too.”
“You’re lying.” Aliana felt how much Red wanted her to stop. But she couldn’t. The words poured out. “You say my father was a prince? That’s so full of—of—of drilling dross.” Her voice broke as she backed away from them. “So, what are you going to do? Make me a princess? Even if I wanted—even if I—if I could—I can’t—you would never acknowledge dreck like me.”
She felt how the words shot into them like barbed weapons. Part of her wanted to take them back, but another part knew she spoke the truth.
“What dreck mean?” Red asked.
She swung around to him, incredulous, and he blinked at her, looking innocent, which he wasn’t, because he knew perfectly well what it meant. And then she couldn’t help but laugh, shaky and uneven, because it was such an absurd question. Her voice caught with tears.
Kelric spoke. “I’m more sorry than I can ever say for what you’ve been through. I’m sorry we weren’t there when you needed us.”
She wiped the tears off her cheeks with the heel of her hand. “It’s not—I didn’t mean . . .”
“Give us time.” Roca’s voice filled with warmth. “Give yourself time.”
“Time to do what?” Aliana meant to sound strong, but her voice trembled.
“Time to know us,” the pharaoh said.
“Why would you want to know me?”
Red made an exasperated noise. “Zina, do you need someone to hit you on the head to put some sense in there?”
She glared at him. “Stop interfering with my emotional moment here.”
“The only emotion is you growling at everyone,” he told her.
She wanted to growl at him, but her anger was trickling away. He stood there, so handsome and appealing, with those arms that held her so close, saying such random things, that she couldn’t stay upset. It ran out of her like sand between her fingers.
She glanced back at Kelric. “I just—I don’t know how to act.”
“It’s all right,” he said. “Half the time I don’t know how to act around them, either. But they put up with me anyway.”
Now he was doing it as well, being absurd. Her smile curved.
“It will get better,” Roca said in a voice that reminded Aliana of her mother. “You can live with one of our families while you adjust. Go to school. Figure out what you would like to do with your life.”
“Can Red come, too?” Aliana asked.
“Yes, of course,” Roca said. To Red, she added, “We can help you . . . heal.”
“I’m not provider anymore,” he said.
Aliana wondered if any of them realized how huge that was, what he had just said. I’m not a provider anymore. With that one sentence, he defied a lifetime of conditioning.
“Neither of you are slaves,” the pharaoh said. “Never again.”
Aliana didn’t know where to put that knowledge. Their lives made so little sense to her. She couldn’t imagine these people as her family. They were too removed from any reality she understood.
But maybe, just maybe, she and Red could find a life here better than what they left behind.
When Kelric walked into the Observation Bay on the Pharaoh’s Shield, he found his mother standing at the view-wall gazing at Delos, which hung in space before them, swirled with clouds, a world of beauty and pain and hope.
He joined her at the curving window. “Soz met him there. On Delos.”
“It so hard to believe.” She turned ot him. How long have you known about Jaibriol?
For certain? Since he and I met on Earth and signed the treaty.
That was why you met with him. Why you risked being convicted of treason.
Kelric nodded, the memories still painfully fresh less than a year later. He wouldn’t mindspeak with me then. He couldn’t. He had protected himself for so long, he couldn’t stop.
Roca shuddered. His life must be misery.
He has Tarquine. And Corbal. They don’t transcend.
And Tarquine Iquar will be the mother of my great-grandson.
There was that. They had found a way, with Jaibriol’s help, to free Aliana, but the Highton Heir would always be bound by his legacy. You can never reveal what you know, Kelric thought. Never. Protect him.
I will, always. Her thought caught with a sense of tears. Jaibriol is a miracle.
And he has no idea. Kelric gazed out at Delos. “We have to make this summit work.”
Roca turned around, leaning with her back against the rail. “It won’t be easy, not after this. Everyone insists we leave Delos.”
“You, Dehya, Tikal, me, yes, we’ll have to leave.” Kelric regarded her steadily. “But the delegates can stay and continue their work. We’ll meet with the emperor’s party in virtual simulations, the way we had originally planned.”
“Yes.” She lifted her chin. “We won’t let those who would destroy the treaty succeed.”
“That includes our own people.” When she gave him a questioning look, he said, “Those commandos who attacked the Eubian merchants weren’t Traders. They were Skolian.” Kelric hadn’t expected what the ISC investigation found, that a Skolian vigilante group had carried out the attack. In the past, the group had retaliated against the Traders for kidnapping Skolian citizens, but they had escalated to first strike attacks this time.
“Have you any leads on finding them?” Roca asked.
“Not yet,” Kelric said. “But we will.” When he did, their sentence would be stiff. Executing them would be political suicide; he had given that vow to convince ESComm that ISC hadn’t authorized the attack. Now, Jaibriol had given him an out: Eube didn’t expect an execution. That had been an unexpected and inspired move from the emperor. Jaibriol had given away nothing, yet he made an offer that Kelric valued because it protected the Imperator politically. Clever.
“Is it true,” Roca asked, “that two of the agents we turned over to the Eubians were actually Allied citizens who agreed to work with ESComm because they opposed the treaty?”
Kelric grimaced. “Unfortunately, yes.”
She shook her head. “What a species we humans are. I wonder how we survive at all.”
He rested his hands on the rail and looked out at the nebulae glittering beyond Delos. “Yet somehow we do. We renew ourselves.”
“As with Aliana.”
Kelric glanced at her. “Yes, I suppose in a way, she is our renewal.”
Roca smiled. “She reminds me of you. Except she has Soz’s sass.”
“What,” he laughed, “I have no sass?”
“You’re much too stoic to be sassy.” Her face gentled. “Her mind is like a sun. Like you.”
Untrained, though, Kelric thought. She didn’t catch what went on between Jaibriol and the three of us.
Someday, Roca thought, we must find a way to bring Jaibriol home to us.
“Aye,” he murmured. “Someday.” He doubted it would ever happen, but it was a hope they could hold on to, like a treasure locked within a puzzle box that perhaps someday they could learn to open.
Kelric met Del at the docking bay.
“You’re sure?” Kelric asked. They were standing next to the military transport that would soon take Del back to Earth. “You could stay for a while and visit.”
“I need to get back to Ricki,” Del said. “She’s worried crazy.” He spoke awkwardly. “My life is on Earth now.”
“I understand.” Kelric hesitated. “It’s just that we’ve hardly had any time together.”
Del gave him a wry smile. “Well, you know, it’s not like we ever hung out.”
Kelric wasn’t exactly sure what Del had just said, but he got the idea. “We can change that.”
Del looked startled, then pleased. “I’d like to.”
“I also.” Kelric had never really thought Del wanted to spend any time with his militaristic brother. “And, Del.”
His brother cocked his head. “Yes?”
“What you did, in the Kyle.” He searched for the right words. “I am in your debt. All of us are. If not for you, Security might not have found those leaks, certainly not as fast, maybe not until it was too late. If you hadn’t figured out what was going on with Aliana, she would have died. You saved her life.” He nodded to his brother. “You did well.”
“Hey.” Del reddened. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
Del suddenly grinned. “Look at us! We’ve talked for five minutes, we’ve stayed civil, and you told me I did well, on a military operation, no less. Peace summits should be easy after this.”
Kelric laughed. “I guess so.” He pulled off the pouch he had tied to his belt earlier. “I have something for you.” He offered Del the bag, which was stuffed full and bulky.
“Hey, ultra.” Del took the pouch curiously. “What is it?”
“They’re dice,” Kelric said.
Del unfastened the bag and rolled out several lustrous pieces, a blue heptahedron, a crystal orb, and a red triangle. “Pretty.” He looked up at Kelric. “What do you do with them?”
“Play Quis. It’s a strategy game.” Kelric hoped Del liked it; he was never sure with his brother, but it seemed the sort of thing that might amuse him. “Or you can gamble with it. At the highest levels, you can use it to make predictions.” He indicated the bag. “I put a chip in there with the rules and scoring explanations.”
“Cool.” Del tucked the dice back into the bag and fastened its string, then tossed it into the air and caught it. He smiled at Kelric, that disarming look that had always come so easily to him. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”
“Teach it to Ricki.” He thought of Del’s blond bombshell of a wife. “She’d be a killer at it.”
Del gave him a dry look. “Ricki is a killer at everything. She’s terrifying.” He looked more satisfied than terrified, though.
After an awkward pause, Kelric said, “It was good to see you.”
“Yeah. It really was.” Del gave him a mock salute. “I’d better get going before this détente is over and we start arguing again.”
Laughing, Kelric said, “Take care of yourself.”
“You, too.” Del swung up into the open hatchway and waved, then disappeared inside.
Within moments, his brother was on his way to Earth with a military escort. Kelric stood in the docking bay, watching the ships on a view screen as they dwindled in size, until they were gone.
City was like a cloud come to the ground. Aliana couldn’t believe people actually lived here. The buildings were luminous in pale colors: blue, white, lavender, and silver-grey. She didn’t understand why Kelric said they were inside a space station. It was a world. A strange one, though, where the land curved up like a bowl on all sides until it met the distant sky, which formed a huge blue dome with a sun in the middle. City’s ethereal towers rose in the center of rolling parklands with cloud grasses rippling in a breeze.
Aliana wasn’t sure if the sunlight was real or not, but it felt wonderful. It shone on Kelric’s golden skin, so like hers now that they had undone her disguise.
“Do you live here?” she asked as they followed a path tiled in blue stones. “It’s pretty.”
“Not in the city.” Kelric motioned toward the mountains. “My home is in a valley up there. A big stone house.”
Ahead of them, Red was kneeling on the ledge that circled a fountain sculpted like a graceful woman holding an orb. He glanced back at them, his handsome face suffused with happiness. Then he went back to exploring, wandering through the city. Watching him, Aliana felt good. Until they had come here, she had rarely seen Red smile. She hadn’t realized he could do it so easily. The traumatized, desperate boy she had met on Muze’s Helios was changing, becoming a man.
“Will Red and I live here?” she asked.
Kelric cleared his throat. “About that.”
She slanted him a wary look. “What?”
“If you mean, ‘live together here,’ ” he said. “Then no.”
“Why?” She instinctively tensed to fight. “Are you taking him away?”
“Aliana, no, we won’t split the two of you up.” His expression became stern. “But you can’t live together. Legally, you’re children. And children don’t act like they’re married.”
“Oh.” Married? She couldn’t imagine such a thing. “Red can’t marry. He’s a provider.” Except they weren’t Eubian anymore. “Are you saying neither of us can marry here?”
“No, not at all.” He motioned to a bench under the overhang of trees with white trunks and translucent green leaves. As they sat together, Kelric said, “You’re both free citizens. You can be whatever you each want.” He smiled, his strong features relaxing. “As long as you don’t break laws.”
This was confusing. “I don’t know the laws.”
“Don’t worry. You’ll learn them in school. And you’ll have guardians to take care of you.”
She scowled at him. “I don’t want to go to ‘school.’ It sounds horrible.”
“It’s not so bad. You might like some of the subjects.”
She wanted to glare and stalk away, but that never got her anywhere with Kelric, especially if she forgot herself and cursed, too. So instead she said, “Oh, all right. I’ll try.”
Her uncle laughed softly. “I seem to recall saying that a few times when I was young.”
“It’s hard to imagine you ever being young.”
“It’s been a while.”
“Did you grow up here?”
“Not here. On a planet called Lyshriol. It’s much more rural.” He looked around the city. “I’ve always liked it here. It’s so peaceful. So unlike what I deal with every day.”
She couldn’t begin to picture his life. “It must be hard being an Imperator.”
“I suppose. But I trained for it since childhood.” He had a distant look, as if he were seeing memories. “If I’d had a choice, I would have liked to be a mathematician. But this will do.”
This will do. What a thing to say about his title. “Do you have any kids?”
He nodded, his smile fading. “Two. But I hardly know them.”
“Why not?” A terrible thought came to her, what she had seen on Muze’s Helios when an Aristo wanted part of a family, but not all of them. “Did someone take them away?” But no, that wasn’t right. He was the one who would do the taking, and he wasn’t like that.
And yet, incredibly, he said, “Yes, they did.” He spoke slowly, as if the words were hard. “I was a prisoner for nearly twenty years on a planet called Coba. I wasn’t allowed to see my children.”
She stared at him, dismayed. “I’m sorry.”
“Ai,” he murmured.
“So was I.”
“But you could see them now.”
“Yes, I can.” His expression warmed. “And I have. They came here.”
A strange emotion hit her, the painful tug of envy. “Do they live with you?”
“By the time I was free and established as Imperator, they had their own lives. They visited. But then they went home.” With difficulty, he said, “For them, this will never be home.”
“Oh.” Personally Aliana thought they were crazy, to leave a place like this.
They sat for a while, watching Red appear and disappear among statues while he explored. Beyond him, a pale walkway arched between two towers. It detached from one and floated to the ground, carrying several people. After they stepped off its end, the walkway rose like a cloud back to its original position.
“I like this place.” Aliana tried to find the courage to ask what was inside her, but the words wouldn’t come.
“Are you hungry?” Kelric stretched his arms. “We can collect Red and go to one of the cafés.” With an apologetic look, he added, “Then I have to go back to work. But Doctor Sashia is putting together a team of people to help settle you here. I’ll leave you and Red with her.”
“That sounds good.” Ask, she told herself, but the words stayed hidden in her mind.
“Aliana?” Kelric asked. “What’s wrong?”
“I want to ask you something. But I’m afraid.”
“Don’t be afraid.”
She wondered how a man who terrified so many people, who looked so imposing, could have such kind expressions. It was time to ask. If she didn’t do it now, later would be too late. Maybe he would say no. Probably he would. But if she never asked, it was a definite no. At least this way, she would find out for certain.
“Would you be my guardian?” she asked.
Kelric blinked, and confusion came from his mind. “You want me to take care of you?”
“I mean, I know you’re busy, ruling the universe and all. But, I—I—” She stuttered to a stop, at a loss for where to go from there.
“No one has ever asked me such a thing before.”