“I will protect you,” she assured me. “I’ll annihilate any putrescent spawn of a toadstool that blinks.” Then she strode off to where her people were manacling the three Traders. Two more of her team emerged from the forest, dragging the Trader who had run. Given the damage to the armor, I doubted the person inside still lived.
Bile rose in my throat. My wrist throbbed. I didn’t want to show vulnerability in front of these warriors, but I couldn’t stop my response. I folded my arms around my stomach and leaned over. It felt as if all the shock would surge up and empty out of mç, along with my last meal. I struggled to hold back, to keep it all inside.
It took me several moments to regain control, but I managed. One of the Jagernauts was hovering next to me. He had removed his helmet, revealing a youth with light brown hair and blue eyes.
“Are you all right, Your Highness?” he asked.
“Yes, thank you.” My voice rasped.
Vazar was overseeing the cleanup on the beach. Her implacable anger felt like a tangible presence. I had seen her this way two years ago, when the Traders captured her co-spouse, Althor. Eldrin’s brother: my brother-in-law. She had changed completely from the vibrant extrovert who thrived on life, laughed with ease, and loved both Althor and their co-spouse Coop to distraction. Her fury had been ice.
Over the past two years, she had learned to cope with her anger and grief. I didn’t know what drove her now, but I dreaded the answer. Had something happened to Coop, or to his and Vazar’s son? Both Coop and the boy had been on the Orbiter when the Traders attacked. The raiders had come for my family, but they might have taken others as well.
Please, I thought. Don’t let any more be dead or captured.
My youthful bodyguard indicated one of the ISC commandos moving among the injured combatants. “I’ll call the medic over.”
“No.” I spoke numbly. “Don’t. I’m fine.” Vazar’s people needed him more.
My guard was clearly unhappy with my response. I could almost feel his urge to call the doctor anyway. As a Skolian civilian, I couldn’t give him orders, but for him to go against the wishes of even a titular Ruby Pharaoh was no small matter.
Seeing all these Jagernauts made me think of Soz, my niece, formerly a Jagernaut, now the Imperator. Except Soz was gone. I felt her absence. I knew all I had to do was ask. Just a simple, How fares Imperator Skolia? But I couldn’t bear to hear the answer. As long as no one verified her death, a part of me could go on believing she lived.
I walked over to J’chabi, accompanied by my hulking guards. Another of the commandos was keeping watch on J’chabi, but he seemed more concerned than hostile. I suspected he had heard me speak to Vazar about the role J’chabi played in my rescue.
I spoke to J’chabi in Iotic. “How are you?”
“I am fine, Your Highness.” He motioned at my arm. “You should have that tended.”
Startled, I looked down. What—? My wrist was bent at an odd angle. With a surge of vertigo, I remembered the crack I had heard when I lost my gun. Spots danced in my vision. Someone caught my uninjured arm and spoke, but a roaring had started and I couldn’t hear.
Suddenly Vazar was at my side. “Dehya, listen. You must let my medic tend you.” She guided me to the edge of the forest, where a large root buckled out of the gravel.
As I sat down on the root, the medic came over. Vazar hadn’t called him, and neither she nor the doctor wore a helmet now, but he obviously knew what she wanted. Like Vazar, he and the other commandos were Jagernauts, ISC’s elite fighting machines. That meant they were psions. They could form mental links, individually or as a group. They needed neural augmentation to do it, and the strength of the link faded with distance, but it still offered immense advantages when they worked as a team.
When the doctor examined my wrist, I gritted my teeth. My nanomeds could no longer dull the stabbing pain. Then he gave me medication, which made me feel better. I hadn’t realized how bad my nausea and pain had become until they went away. He set my wrist and injected me with temporary nanomeds to supplement those already in my body. My neural nodes monitored the invasion of these new meds. My own meds wanted to neutralize the intruders, but the injected meds produced chemicals that sent conciliatory messages, so they all settled down and worked together to repair my wrist.
While the doctor did his magic, Vazar told me what had happened with our people. Even after many weeks, ISC still didn’t know why the web had collapsed. Although the initial furor of confusion and disbelief had calmed to a simmer, no one had answers yet. The messages I had sent had managed to reach several ISC telops, but only faintly. It had been hard for the telops to resolve the content, which was why it had taken ISC this long to respond. They had asked Vazar to accompany them in case I needed help as a psion. Although she wasn’t Rhon, she was a strong telepath, and she and I also had a close family link.
After we talked, she went to check on her team. They moved over the beach, all in black, their towering figures blurred by the mist. A shuttle landed, misty and dark, and took the three living Traders. Another came for the bodies. The Trader dead would be returned to their ships. That ISC let me stay here, sitting on a root, gave me a good idea how much firepower they had in orbit. They could probably monitor my position to within a millimeter.
Vazar eventually returned and sat next to me. My bodyguards stood like silent monoliths at our backs. We stayed that way for a while, staring at the lake. Layers of mist hovered above the water, which was utterly still, forming a dark surface, like a mirror.
Finally Vazar spoke in a low voice. “When I saw him fire at you—I swear, Dehya, I thought I would explode.”
“I told him to fire.” I released a long breath. “But I’m glad you all showed up.”
“I also.”
“Vaz…”
“Yes?”
I forced out the words. “My family?”
She turned to me, her face drawn. “The Traders have your husband.” Her voice rasped. “I am sorry. So sorry.”
I could barely answer. “I too.”
“As far as we know, they never caught your son.”
“Have you word of him?”
She paused. “Nothing.”
The doctor may have worked wonders on my wrist, but nothing could take away this pain. “And my niece? Soz?”
Her husky voice roughened. “The Traders killed her too.”
No. Somehow I found my voice. “How did it happen?”
“She went with the drop team that infiltrated the Trader capital. They rescued Althor and captured Jaibriol Qox.” Grief edged her voice. “Damn it, Dehya, they had him. The Trader emperor. But after the shuttle took off, it blew up.” Her voice caught. “Althor too.”
Ah, no. Not Althor. When would it stop? When the entire Ruby Dynasty was dead? No wonder Vazar had gone crazy. My voice caught like cloth on a rough edge. “At least the Traders can’t hurt him anymore.”
She spoke softly. “Yes.”
My grief snapped, feeling like anger. “What the hell was Soz doing with the drop team? The Imperator doesn’t go into combat.”
Her expression became guarded. “She went to avenge her brothers.”
Although I knew Soz had wanted vengeance, she was too smart to put the herself in danger that way. “That makes no sense.”
Vazar started to answer, then fell silent.
“What is it?” I asked.
At first I thought she wouldn’t answer, but then she spoke. “Her mind was apparently too much like yours. The Triad power link couldn’t survive it. She didn’t want to cause your death.”
Memories flooded me then, like water freed by an exploding dam. Soz and I had similar minds. It had never mattered until the Triad linked us. Then our minds had threatened to overload the Triad, like a massive short circuit drawing too much power through the same lines.
Only once before had the Triad overloaded. It happened with Kurj, the oldest son of my sister Roca. His father had been Roca’s first hus
band, before Eldrinson. Back then, only five Rhon psions had existed: my parents, Roca, myself, and Kurj. Although Roca’s husband hadn’t been Rhon, he had carried all of the recessive genes, most of them unpaired. He and Roca could father a Rhon son. Kurj.
Or so the doctors claimed.
In his thirty-fifth year of life, Kurj had uncovered the truth: the man he called father couldn’t have sired him. He didn’t have the genes. The Assembly had perpetrated a deception. Determined to create more of the Rhon, they had gone into the fertility clinic chosen by Roca and her first husband and switched the sperm used to impregnate Roca. In an unforgiving parody of the Greek myths that had always fascinated him, Kurj discovered that his grandfather was also his father.
Embittered, coldly furious, and hungry for the authority the Assembly sought to forbid him, Kurj forced his mind into the powerlink formed by his grandparents. My parents. He made their Dyad into a Triad. No one was prepared for the resulting explosion of power. The link couldn’t support both Kurj and my father. When it began to tear apart their minds, my father gave up his own life to save Kurj, who was both his son and grandson.
Even now, seventy-three years later, those wounds had yet to heal fully. The Assembly continued to fight for control over us, keeping the pain raw beneath the emotional scar tissue. Yes, I understood what had driven Soz, but our interaction hadn’t been as dramatic as what Kurj had experienced with my father. She should have waited, damn it, she should have given me a chance to find a solution.
I pushed my hand through my hair. “The people I loved have sacrificed too much. I would give my life to have them back.”
“You must Uve,” Vazar said. “We need you.”
“We need Soz. Althor. Kurj. Kelric. My parents.” My voice cracked. “Eldrin and Taquinil.”
Vazar put her hand on my shoulder. Incredibly, tears showed on her face—Vazar, who never cried. We leaned together, her head resting against mine.
And we wept.
___________
We gathered at the starport: Hajune and Skyhold, J’chabi Na, and myself. Natil and Zinc came too. Jagernauts surrounded me, with Vazar at my side. We stood near an ISC shuttle on the only stretch of tarmac still in one piece. A rare breeze tugged our hair and cleared the mist. We had one of the few long lines of sight on Opalite, several hundred meters in every direction. Debris littered the shattered tarmacs like bits of a porcelain city smashed by a vengeful giant. Ruined buildings showed in the distance, evoking the jagged bones of giant skeletal fingers extended to the sky.
Hajune’s emotions roiled. He rejoiced that he had Sky-hold, and that ISC would protect Opalite. But remorse saturated his thoughts.
I drew him to one side, away from the others. “It never happened.”
He touched his temple. “Know I that it did”
“Hajune Tailor.” I tugged down his arm. “Grief can wring a good heart into hatred. Do not castigate yourself.”
Although his strain didn’t fade, he spoke kindly. “Go you well, Pharaoh Dyhianna. Go with grace.”
My voice softened. “And you.”
We rejoined the others then, and I said my good-byes. Then I boarded the shuttle with Vazar and the Jagernauts.
The time had come to learn what the Radiance War had cost my people.
BOOK TWO
Night of Strings
11
Nomads
Havyrl’s Valor, a Firestorm battle cruiser, had been named for one of my many nephews, Havyrl Valdoria, another child of Eldrinson and my sister Roca. Eldrin had been their firstborn, Althor second, Havyrl fifth, Soz sixth, and Kelric tenth. Gods only knew what it had done to my sister and brother-in-law to lose so many of the children they loved above all else.
As our shuttle approached the cruiser, my memories continued to return and my anger to grow. The Assembly had gone to appalling lengths in making Eldrin become the Ruby consort. First they had drugged us. When that failed, they invoked an ancient law that required Ruby pharaohs to wed their kin. Still we refused. So they used other threats. Eldrin’s parents became so incensed by the situation, they withdrew their support of the psiberweb.
The Assembly had negotiated but never relented. They finally imprisoned Eldrin, leaving him one choice: do what they wanted or live in solitude. It would have destroyed him. I could have kept fighting, but Eldrin would have suffered. And by then I had begun to love him. Like knew like. In the end their methods worked, because Eldrin and I cared more about what happened to each other than about wrestling with Assembly politics.
But their desperation still backfired. Yes, we soon had the first of the children they wanted. Taquinil. It was he who paid the harshest price.
The minds of Rhon psions differ greatly. My father-in-law had a deep, nuanced power, but also a subtlety that blunter minds within the Rhon lacked. That subtlety manifested in some of his children, including Eldrin. My own mind was delicacy rather than force, taken to the limit psions can tolerate before they become so sensitive they can no longer function. Or at least, we had thought my mind defined that limit.
Until Taquinil.
The Assembly claimed they chose Eldrin as the Ruby consort, rather than Kurj, because Kurj’s blunt mental power would have harmed an empath of my sensitivity. Given that Kurj and I had worked together fine for decades, their reasoning was about as credible as saying people couldn’t travel in spaceships because starship drives were dangerous. The concept of Kurj and I united had probably terrified the Assembly. The two of us already had influence; the Assembly didn’t want it further concentrated in a marriage. In contrast, Eldrin was young and inexperienced, a farm boy lost in the intrigues of Imperialate politics. They thought it made him malleable.
Perhaps it did. But none of that mattered after Taquinil’s birth. Our son inherited a heightened empathie capacity from both of us, with disastrous results. His ability ran so deep, he had no capability to block emotions. They poured into his young mind from a complex, often painful universe. Eldrin and I shielded him in his youth, but we couldn’t protect him forever. When he left home, his shields shattered—and his mind splintered into many personalities.
Although it took years, Taquinil did reintegrate his mind. The doctors finally discovered a way to put a biomech web in his body that provided chemicals his brain lacked, the specialized neurotransmitters that let a normal empath “block” emotions. He eventually became an economics professor. People marveled at his genius and accomplishments, but few truly knew the magnitude of what he had achieved.
For years I had hated the Assembly for the hell my son suffered. But Taquinil has always been one of the great joys in my life. He and his father. Despite the anguish, I would never have given up the love we shared.
And now I had lost them both.
Havyrl’s Valor rotated in space, majestic. The giant spoked cylinder resembled a space habitat. Seeing it, knowing that it symbolized my return to my people, home, and family, I wanted to jump up with anticipation. I couldn’t of course; I had to act with the proper decorum. But joy spread through me like warmth from the sun.
After our shuttle docked in the central tube, we went through the usual decontamination chamber, floating in microgravity. Then Vazar and my bodyguards escorted me through a docking ring of the ship. It had a luminous quality, from the subtly glowing white walls of its corridor to the blue light-bars that ran along at waist height. I inhaled fresh, pure air. It had no scent I could discern, but it filled my lungs like a benediction.
We went to an elevator car that would carry us “down” a spoke to the main body of the cruiser. A group waited for us at the car. At first I saw only a cluster of officers in. Then we floated closer and I recognized the man in the blue admiral’s uniform. He was average height for a Skolian, about six feet tall, with a shock of graying hair. His face had regular, chiseled features. I knew that visage well, so very well. Admiral Jon Casestar. A lump seemed to form in my throat and I wondered if I could speak.
As we came up to his
group, the drawn lines of his face transformed into a subdued elation that caught me by surprise. Jon had never been one to show emotion, yet now he watched us with open welcome.
Holding a handgrip, Jon bowed from the waist. “I am at your service, Pharaoh Dyhianna.” His voice was roughened with that rare, unexpected emotion.
I barely restrained my undignified urge to throw my arms around him. “It pleases me greatly to see you, Admiral.” What an understatement.
He indicated the elevator. “Will you do me the honor of boarding my ship, Pharaoh?”
I smiled. “It would be my pleasure.”
The elevator was large, which was good, because we had accumulated many people. As the car descended, our weight increased and a Coriolis force nudged us to the side. By the time we reached the “bottom” of the spoke, the gravity was almost human standard. After so long on Opalite, I felt heavy. Disoriented. I had to recalibrate the way I moved. When the elevator door slid open, I paused, readjusting. Everyone waited.
Painfully aware of them all watching, I walked forward. It unsettled me to have an audience. On the Orbiter I tended to stay isolated. With virtual reality, psiber communications, and holo-projections so common now, it was possible even to attend Assembly sessions on the planet Parthonia without ever leaving the Orbiter. My Evolving Intelligence computer programs dealt with the flood of web messages I received. I spent days at a time in the web and had gone for months without seeing anyone in person except my husband.
The Evolving Intelligences, or Els, were descendants of AIs, also called McCarthy machines for the genius who coined the term artificial intelligence in Earth’s twentieth century. Kurj had once told me that some Assembly councilors wondered if I had died and my El personas just kept simulating me. The rumor tickled my fancy. In part, I avoided people because my mind was too sensitized to emotions. But the main reason I evaded the Assembly was because I was tired of them trying to control my life.