“Slit my wrists. Better yet my throat. That works faster.”
“Ai, don’t say that, beautiful man.”
I can’t give you what you came for, he thought.
She nearly screamed. His thoughts rumbled in her mind, deep and resonant, without the torn quality of his voice. She scrambled off the cot and retreated to the far wall.
Althor sat up. Come back, he thought. That had a lonely edge to it, muffled from drugs and fatigue.
Cirrus knew the cell was monitored. What would the guards think of her huddling against the wall for no reason? Nothing good, of that she had no doubt. So she made herself walk back to Althor, three paces across the floor, metal under her bare feet. Hugging her robe tight around her body, she sat next to him and waited to see what he would do.
He brushed his hand over her hair, then nudged apart her arms and tugged on her sash. As it came undone, her robe fell open, revealing her body. In a husky voice he said, “You are so very beautiful, did you know that?”
“Emperor Qox said so.”
He cupped his palms around her face. “I would take you away from all this if I could, to a land where the sun always shines.” His voice drifted off and he dropped his arms. “I lived once in a place like that. Day for half the year. Because of the axial tilt … It was on … I don’t remember.”
“What would you like me to do for you?” Cirrus asked.
“Here…” He lay on his back, pulling her with him. She stretched out along his side and put her head on his shoulder, waiting for him to continue. But he just lay with his arms around her. So she closed her eyes. She picked up almost nothing from his mind, but that “nothing” came far more vividly than from any Highton. His mind was a place of gleams and columns, air and radiance, an open plaza framed by a circular building.
Locked doors showed in the building. She tried them all, with no success. Then she noticed a discreet door hidden in a recess behind a much heavier portal. Unlike the other barriers, this door had weakened under the onslaught of drugs and interrogation. It stayed hidden only because the larger portal shadowed it.
She opened it and walked inside. And there he was.
Jaibriol Qox.
He was sitting alone. Or was he alone? She couldn’t see the entire room. On her left, it blended into a haze that separated this chamber from whatever hid behind the larger door.
Why are you here? Cirrus asked him.
I’m not here, he said, in Althor’s voice.
Where are you?
I don’t know. In exile. On an Allied World.
Her pulse raced. You are alive?
Yes. His answer echoed. Yes.
Althor stirred at her side, oblivious to her spying. “You smell wonderful.” He nudged her onto her back, pushing aside her robe as he stroked her belly. “Tell me,” he murmured. “Tell me what you like.”
“Like?”
“How do you like to be touched?”
She hated to be touched. But she could never say that.
You can to me, Althor thought. He sighed, his hand stilling as his lashes drooped closed over his eyes.
That caught Cirrus by surprise. No one had ever cared what she wanted before. They took as they pleased. She knew what Vitrex wanted. If she uncovered useful secrets from Althor, it would elevate Vitrex among the Hightons. And now she owned a priceless secret. Jaibriol Qox was alive. Vitrex would reward her. If she told the empress, the reward could be even better. The empress might reunite Cirrus with her son Kai.
But what about Althor? She had seen his mental places, so much cleaner in spirit than a Highton mind. And it mattered to him what she wanted. Or didn’t want.
She tried an experiment. Althor?
Yes?
She blinked, startled at how easily it had worked. He looked like he was still asleep. I must tell them.
Tell what?
That Jaibriol Qox is alive.
His eyes snapped open. No! He’s dead.
It’s in your mind.
NO. You’re wrong.
I saw it.
He made a choked sound. You must never reveal it. You can’t begin to understand the damage it would do.
Saying nothing will do worse. To you. She touched his cheek, wishing the caress could heal him. You are dying inside your mind. You must tell. Then they will stop hurting you.
If you say anything, they’ll try that much harder with me, knowing they’re close to something big. Desperation edged his words. I’m barely holding on now. If they push any harder, I—I don’t think I can withstand it.
She felt as if walls were closing around her. As an empath, she knew he told the truth, as he saw it; besides which, he was too drugged to lie. I don’t want to be the cause of them hurting you more. But what of her son?
Many people will be hurt if you tell. Maybe killed.
Cirrus stiffened. If she caused suffering or death, that made her like a Highton. But still she resisted, thinking of Kai.
He watched her face. Cirrus, please.
Again he caught her off guard. Hightons never said “please” to a slave. They gave orders. Althor needed something more important from her than any Aristo had ever wanted and he asked.
Cirrus, don’t tell anyone. It could destroy my people.
She swallowed. I will keep your secret.
He thought, simply, Thank you, but the gratitude he projected almost overwhelmed her.
She thought of Cayson, the provider she sent information to at the palace. But how do I hide what I know?
They don’t train you to block your telepathic responses, do they?
If they think I’m trying to hide, they punish me.
Cirrus, I truly am sorry. If I could take away what you know, I would. He watched her face. Imagine the secret is locked behind a door. The better you lock it up, the harder it is to find.
I will try. She lay with her head on his shoulder and remembered the good times with her son Kai, how he had run laughing to her, or learned a new game, or given a flower to old Azzi in the house across from theirs. She tried to forget that she may have just given up her only chance ever to see him again.
And she tried to forget Kai’s brother, the man who could rule an empire.
18
Viquara stood in the hospital room staring at Doctor Tecozil, a gaunt Diamond Aristo with sharp features. “You are mistaken,” the empress said. Mistaken. It had to be a mistake.
Tecozil offered her a holograph. “This shows it, Your Highness.”
“No.” Viquara took the graph and set it on the bed next to her. “It must be wrong.” The words echoed in her mind. “The child lives.”
Softly Tecozil said, “I am truly, deeply sorry.”
How could it be? How could both clones of Jaibriol be unviable, not only the one she carried but also the second stored in reserve?
“I gave you many cells to work with.” Viquara heard the chill in her voice. “How is it that you couldn’t make one clone? Not one? You expect me to believe that?”
Tecozil spoke carefully. “Someone tampered with the cells.”
Viquara didn’t believe it. She had been too careful. “Indeed. And just how did they ‘tamper’?”
“Those aren’t Highton cells,” Tecozil said. “They read that way in the tests, but when I realized even the last two clones failed, I did much more intensive exams.” She took a breath. “Someone replaced your samples with contaminated specimens, ma’am. Cells from a provider. From a psion. The genetic mutations that create a psion are notoriously sensitive to manipulation. The more of the genes a person carries, the harder it is to clone them.” She indicated the holograph on the bed. “He’s a telepath, Your Highness. It’s all there.”
Viquara picked up the graph. She knew how to read it, having recently gone over a similar profile proving Vitrex’s son was a slave. This one was even more damning.
Tecozil shook her head, in both denial and wonderment. “The rating suggested by that profile is so high I can’t quantif
y it. I’ve never seen one like it.”
Viquara had seen one very much like it. The profile was in her office right now, part of the genetic workup on Althor Valdoria. This one had the same signature. It belonged to a Rhon psion.
It was all becoming clear. Yes, now she saw. Tecozil was right. There had been a betrayal. But its magnitude went far beyond the doctor’s imagining. Her late husband’s protective attitude toward his son, the way he had hidden him—oh yes, it all suddenly made horrible, sick sense.
Jaibriol II had been Rhon.
A Rhon Highton Heir. It was brilliant. It also violated every standard of Highton decency. And that could only be the tip of the betrayal. Jaibriol’s Rhon genes had to come from both parents. Both. Either Ur Qox hadn’t been his father, which meant the Highton Heir had no Qox blood, a true abomination—
Or else Ur had been a slave.
Her husband, the man who had sat on the Carnelian Throne, who shared her bed, who even now she mourned beyond all Highton custom and expectation—he, a slave?
Viquara saw the fear in Tecozil’s face. She modulated her voice to indicate an approval she didn’t feel. “You have done well.”
The doctor’s shoulders relaxed. “It is my great honor to serve the Carnelian Throne.”
“I have a suspicion as to who exchanged this specimen with the authentic sample,” Viquara said. “I will send another sample later today. I want to know if the father is the same as the father of—” She lifted the graph. “Of this abomination.”
“I will give it my utmost attention, Your Highness.”
You had better, Viquara thought.
Viquara’s bodyguards were waiting outside, as were a number of advisers wishing to talk to her. She sent them all back to the palace, even the guard captain who dared protest. Then she went to the well-guarded parks behind the palace, the living area for the late emperor’s favored providers. She found the boy Kai studying in the house he shared with the old woman who took care of him now. He glanced up as Viquara entered, then scrambled to his feet and dropped on his knees before her with his head bowed.
She stared down at the tousled head. Black hair. The boy had red eyes too. Were they real? Cirrus had yellow hair and blue eyes. But Viquara had no doubt this child belonged to her late husband. Otherwise Ur would never have let him live at the palace. Now came time to see what genes Ur had contributed to him.
She took a lock of Kai’s hair, a scrape of skin, and clippings from his nails. Then she locked the frightened child in a suite within the palace and delivered the samples to Tecozil herself, in secret.
Viquara was meeting in her office with several ESComm officers, going over their reports on the quelling of the civil unrest in Sapphire Sector, when Tecozil sent a slave to request an audience. Within the hour, Viquara had arranged to meet the doctor in a garden she knew was unmonitored.
“The father is the same,” Tecozil said. “A different mother, though, one with a lower psi rating, about eight on the Kyle scale. The child is probably a nine, perhaps even ten. The father matched every Rhon gene the mother carried, including some she had unpaired.”
“I see,” Viquara murmured. She wanted to scream. “You have done well.”
After Tecozil left, Viquara contemplated suicide. That impulse lasted all of a second. She had never had patience with this “Highton honor above life” business. She walked back to the palace, knowing only her anger. Ur Qox had been half Rhon. She had nowhere to turn her rage. He and the people who had created him were all dead, safe from repercussions.
Lieutenant Xirson and her bodyguards waited at her office. After the usual honorifics, which she barely noticed, Xirson said, “The provider Cayson humbly requests the honor of an audience.”
“Bring him up,” the empress said. This was the time Cayson picked up messages from Cirrus. Viquara gritted her teeth. Cirrus, who had given birth to an emperor’s child, something the empress would never do.
She understood now why no record existed of Kai’s parentage. She had assumed Ur considered the boy too inconsequential to acknowledge. But he had been protecting his son. And himself. If she had any sense, she would rid herself of that scrap of genetic evidence. But she hesitated to kill Kai, who was all she had left of her husband. Damn Ur Qox to a Skolian hell. She still cared about him, even now.
The matter of Tecozil was more serious. The doctor knew far too much. Viquara called in another contingent of Razers. Her orders were concise: make it look like an accident.
As the Razers were leaving, Xirson returned with Cayson. Viquara watched Cayson kneel to her with his familiar athletic grace. She sent her guards outside and closed the door, then stood considering Cayson. He was her favorite provider, a beautiful youth with curly hair, huge brown eyes fringed by lashes so long she would have envied him, had she cared about such things, and a body sculpted to masculine perfection. He was kneeling on one knee, his head bowed and his elbow resting on his other knee.
“You may rise,” she said. It surprised her how calm she sounded.
Cayson stood. “I being honored by your lovely presence, Empress Viquara.”
That was rather flowery for Cayson, who had a less than overwhelming grasp of language. Literacy had never been a trait she bothered with in providers.
“You have a message for me?” she asked.
Excitement flushed his face. “Cirrus has news of your son.”
Her son. A fist of pain tightened inside her. She had looked forward to motherhood, an experience denied her for decades, one that should have been hers now, as well as her insurance for the throne. “I see nothing Cirrus can tell me I don’t already know.” Such as: Your son is dead in your womb. How did she make the hurt stop?
“Not the baby.” For Cayson, he was positively enthusing. “Your first! Jaibriol II.”
Viquara stiffened. “My firstborn is dead. Do you speak ill of his name?”
“Your Highness, no!” Fear subdued his voice. “Never.”
“Then what can you tell me of a man fifteen years dead?”
“Althor Valdoria is knowing something about his death,” Cayson said. “Minister Vitrex sent Cirrus to spy on the prince. She’s hiding something. Something important. It upsets her. That came through most strongest. The prince knows something important and Cirrus hides it for him.”
Had the Skolians discovered the truth? The magnitude of it went beyond imagining. If they made such news public—no, it was unthinkable. She ought to just commit suicide now and get it over with.
Pah. If the Skolians knew about Jaibriol, they would have already shouted it to the stars. They had no reason to hide the secret when they had so much to gain by revealing it. Still, she had better find out if Valdoria knew anything useful.
“Thank you, Cayson.” Her thoughts moved to other matters. “I’m having a guest dine at the palace tonight. You will serve us.” She smiled. “I will have new clothes sent over for you. Green velvet.” It was her favorite color and cloth.
“Yes, ma’am.” He knelt to her again, waiting for her to call his escort.
Absently laying her hand on his head, Viquara stood lost in thought. She would miscarry soon. It meant she had to fortify her defenses even more now. She had surveillance on Vitrex, via Cirrus and Cayson, and other operatives working on Corbal Xir and Kryx Quaelen. Now came time to consider High Judge Calope Muze.
She looked down at Cayson. His pants caressed his long legs, the dark velvet clinging to his muscles. His shirt was white velvet with belled sleeves, unlaced, open to reveal his muscled chest. Inside his beautiful body, he had a biomech web and hydraulics. They conferred neither strength nor speed; rather, they ensured his actions remained appropriate toward whoever owned him, particularly if that person had less physical strength than Cayson. His body also carried specialized nanomeds that spurred intimate responses, according to various stimuli, as set out in the specifications that came with him.
Viquara smiled, stroking his hair while he stared at the floor. He would
serve well when she dined with the aging judge tonight. Indeed. Hospitality to one’s guest was always important.
“Tell me something, Caysi,” she said.
“Yes, Your Highness?”
“Have you ever done spy work?”
“I don’t think so.” He sounded confused. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s all right,” she said. “I will explain it to you.”
* * *
High in the Jaizire Mountains, the Wilderness Palace retreat stood alone, shrouded with mist. Tonight Viquara walked its obsidian underground tunnels, shadowed by her Razers in their midnight blue uniforms. When they opened the dungeon, blackness greeted her. She activated her light, revealing a new framework that occupied the cell, this one heavier than the previous, a necessary precaution given the large size of the slave chained to it, on his back with his arms pulled over his head.
Viquara walked to Althor. She wasted no words. “You know something about my son. Jaibriol II.” When he shook his head, she said, “Listen to me well, Ruby prince. My expert is going to work on you. He is a Razer now, but he used to be an ESComm major. Interrogation was his specialty. Once every ten minutes I will, in my great benevolence, allow you a respite. You will have one minute then to give me information. If you do, I will reward you. If you don’t, my expert goes back to work.”
His voice rasped. “I don’t know anything about your son.”
“Forty-seven seconds,” she said.
“How can I tell you what I don’t know?”
“Thirty-eight.”
Desperation flashed on his face. “Jaibriol Qox died escaping from Diesha.”
“I am aware of that. Twenty-three seconds.”
“My sister died trying to catch him.”
“Tell me what I don’t already know. Eight seconds.”
“That’s all I know.”
Viquara motioned forward a gaunt Razer waiting in the shadows.
She expected Althor to break right away. He was obviously pushed to his limits. Yet as the night progressed, despite the best work of her interrogator, Althor told her nothing. More and more she doubted Cayson’s information. Telepathic transmission was tricky at best, more so over distance. Althor couldn’t have held out this long if he actually knew something, No one was that strong, not even a Highton, certainly not a Ruby prince.