Eldrin’s appearance on the battle cruiser sent spirits soaring. In just a matter of days, two of Skolia’s lost symbols had returned. The mood throughout the ship lightened. The long road to renewal had begun.
Then the Traders slammed us again.
An unknown starship hurtled out of inversion with no warning, a Skolian craft, civilian, a small scout vessel. It was broadcasting even as it burst into normal space, blasting its message to any ship within receiving distance. Bound straight for the history texts, its recording came from the Trader capital world.
Eldrin and I stood with Jon Casestar on the observation deck above the spacious bay where I had first greeted the crew. The holo played out on the far wall, its giant figures dominating the room, larger than life. Like the broadcast about Eldrin’s capture, this one had been recorded in the Hall of Circles in the Qox palace. Again Corbal Xir stood on the glittering dais surrounded by glittering Aristos, all with perfect bloodless skin, their clothes like woven black crystal, their red eyes the only color in the snow-marble Hall, except for the Carnelian Throne.
At first we didn’t understand why the ship had hurled its news so frantically at us. It showed only the memorial service for Jaibriol H, his mother Viquara, and her consort Kryx Quaelen. But after it finished, Xir’s voice rumbled through the hall. “Many of you have heard rumors of negotiations between my office and the Allieds.” He gave a dramatic pause in the Aristo’s overly theatrical style. Then he said, “Those rumors are true.”
The Aristos brushed their finger cymbals together, a custom our peoples had once shared, long ago when we and the Traders had been one. Only they had kept the custom. After the susurrations quieted, Xir continued. “The Allieds had in their custody a man. A Highton man. A trade was arranged, this man for a prisoner in my possession.” As the cymbals whispered again, he held up his hand. “Eube had triumphed.”
Next to me, Eldrin had gone as rigid as steel. He was clenching the rail that bordered the deck so hard, the veins stood out in the back of his hand. The diamond wrist guards Xir had put on him glittered below Eldrin’s shirt cuffs. He stared at Xir as if mesmerized by a monster he thought he had conquered, only to find it grown larger than ever. His jagged emotions surged: fear, aversion, anger, shame, self-disgust, echoes of pain, and—
Gratitude?
Yes. Gratitude.
Xir continued. “And so it was agreed between the Allied Worlds and Eube. Our Skolian captive for their Highton captive.” His gaze raked the assembled Aristos. “That Skolian was Eldrin Valdoria.”
“We know that,” Eldrin muttered. “Who is the Highton?”
An angry discord of cymbals filled the Aristo hall. Xir remained silent until the tumult quieted. The Aristos watched him with icy faces, waiting to hear what he could possibly offer to atone for his unthinkable misdeed—giving away the Key to their newly gained Lock. Tall and powerfully built, Xir raised his arm to the great arched entrance of the Hall of Circles. He spoke in a deep, rolling voice. “I present to you His Honor, Jaibriol Qox the Third, Emperor of Eube.”
Damn.
Jaibriol HI entered the Hall. Jay Rockworth. He radiated energy. Even by the Aristo’s narcissistic standards, he was handsome. He strode down the aisle with a confidence remarkable in one so young. He was the image of his father, but he stood even taller, with none of the brooding darkness that had accompanied his father’s rare broadcasts. If Jaibriol in had been any more radiant, he would have caused a fire.
“For saints’ sake,” Eldrin said. “Not another Jaibriol Qox. Don’t they ever die off?”
“Maybe they cloned Jaibriol Two,” Jon Casestar said.
I kept my mind shielded, even from Eldrin. This secret I would hold for as long as it took to unravel Jaibriol Ill’s intentions. I needed to talk with Eldrinson, my father-in-law, to uncover the secrets he had carried all these years. Gods forbid he should take that knowledge to his grave, which was what would happen if the Allieds kept him and Roca in permanent custody.
Jaibriol in spoke with extraordinary self-possession. Seventeen years old. He should have been in school instead of conquering empires. He had a magnificent voice, the kind that could sway hearts with its resonant beauty. The cosmos should have had a law that forbade one human being from possessing so many advantages. Was he enemy or Mend? My head throbbed with the many possible conflicting futures.
“I don’t understand,” Eldrin said. “Why did he set me free?”
“The Allieds claim they set up the trade to rescue you,” Jon said.
I spoke dryly. “They could hardly tell the universe, ‘So sorry, we had Jaibriol Three all along and we didn’t know.’”
Jon shot me a glance. “He was one of those children you wanted to get from Earth, wasn’t he?”
“Yes. Seth’s foster son.” No point existed in hiding that any longer; it was public record. I doubted the Allied authorities were happy with Seth right now.
Jon studied me. “‘Seth’ as in Admiral William Seth Rock-worth, your former consort?”
Eldrin stiffened.
“Yes.” I shifted my weight, uncomfortable. Although Seth had left me years before Eldrin and I married, the Iceland Treaty remained in effect, so neither Seth’s government nor mine recognized the divorce. It was awkward.
Jon gave me an incredulous look. “Why would Admiral Rockworth harbor the future Trader emperor?”
“He probably had no idea.” I almost meant it; even if Seth knew the truth, I doubt he had expected this. Eldrin continued to stare at the holoscreen, for all appearances not listening to us. But I knew he heard.
Jon was scrutinizing me. “You knew Jay Rockworth’s identity. That’s why you wanted to get him off Earth.”
“I didn’t know for certain. But I suspected.”
“How? None of us had even an inkling.”
Eldrin sighed, turning to us. “Don’t ask how, Admiral. She can never explain.”
That surprised me. “I talk about my models all the time.”
“You talk in equations.” Eldrin smiled slightly. “No one understands what you’re saying but you. The rest of us only know that it works.”
“It didn’t with Kelric,” I grumbled.
A shadow of old grief crossed Eldrin’s face. “You mean my brother?”
“She thinks he is still alive,” Jon said.
I hesitated. “Eldrin, I expected to meet Kelric in the embassy.”
A surge of hope came from his mind, one he quickly damped. I understood why. It was dangerous to hope. You could be torn apart when fate crushed that dream. But not always; I had feared to hope I would see Eldrin again, yet he had, incredibly, come home.
“You think Kelric has been a Trader prisoner?” Eldrin asked.
“It’s possible.” But whoever had touched my mind in Kyle space hadn’t spent eighteen agonizing years as a provider. His mind had been strong, healthy, vibrant.
Like Eldrin.
My insight came softly, like the wary step of a deer in an open forest clearing. Eldrin was in shock, yes. His time with the Traders had hurt him. But it could have been far worse. Incredibly, he had come back to us whole. Months of providing for an Aristo could have torn him apart, even made him catatonic. If Xir had protected him from the worst of that, I too felt gratitude.
But why would Xir make such a choice? The Aristos had never hidden their conviction that they had an exalted right to take pleasure by hurting their providers. They considered empaths a lower form of life, one that supposedly could achieve “elevation” only by providing for Aristos. To them, showing compassion toward a provider was the sign of an abnormal personality.
In the holo, Jaibriol Hi was turning toward the camera, obviously aware that recordings of his speech would be seen in far more than the Hall of Circles. He spoke with strength. “We have suffered the ravages of our conflicts. Let us now seek to heal. To the people of the Skolian Imperialate and the Allied Worlds, I say this: Meet me at the peace table. Let us lay to rest the hatreds tha
t have sundered our common humanity”
All right, Jaibriol the Third, I thought. You keep that promise and I will keep your secret
I slept alone. Each night Eldrin withdrew into his own suite with no more than the brush of his lips across mine. I caught traces of his emotions: he didn’t want me to see him in slave restraints, didn’t want to be touched, didn’t want to touch. Our nights passed in lonely solitude …
Dyhianna Selei
Eldrinson Valdoria
Kelricson Valdoria
_______________________
Dyhianna Selei
Kelricson Valdoria
I bolted upright in the night. Sweat soaked the billowy airquilts on my bed. The images from my nightmare remained vivid.
A triangle. Three Triad names.
A line. Two names.
“Stop it,” I whispered.
“Dehya?”
I almost gasped. The voice came out of the darkness somewhere near the bed. Inside the ship, with no light-bars active, the darkness was total. No stray luminance let me see the man who spoke. But it had to be Eldrin; the El wouldn’t let anyone else inside my room without asking me first.
“Dryni? Is that you.”
“I had a dream.” He sounded strained.
“Laplace, give me night-level lûmes,” I said.
The room lightened enough so I could see Eldrin standing by the bed, his arms folded around his torso. He had on blue sleep trousers and a loose shirt. The slave collar glinted around his neck, as did the cuffs on his wrists. His ankle cuffs glittered against blue cloth, half covered by his trousers. It gave me an idea of just how much the nightmare had unsettled him, that he came here even though I would see the indications of Corbal Xir’s ownership on him.
Doctors had been mapping out the biothreads extended by the restraints into Eldrin’s body. They were preparing to untangle the threads from his neural system. Eldrin loathed the restraints, but he hated even more the idea that these reminders of his Trader captivity might leave him with neural damage if they weren’t removed properly. So he schooled himself in patience while the doctors worked, day after day, tracing the intruding threads that networked his body, carefully preparing a map of connections that the surgeons could then use to free his body from the web of restraint.
I laid my hand on the bed. “Would you like to sit?”
Eldrin nodded stiffly. He settled on the mattress edge and stared across the dimly lit room at the opposite wall.
After a while he spoke. “My father is ninety-one now.”
My heart grew heavy. “I dreamed about your father too.”
His voice caught “Mine was a simple dream, really. He was sitting in his favorite armchair in our home on Lyshriol. Mother was with him. So were my brothers and sisters.” A tear ran down his cheek, catching a spark of light. “My father was saying good-bye to them. And to me. He sent a message to me, I don’t know how.”
Moisture gathered in my eyes. “He had a good life, Dryni. A family he loved. It made him happy.”
“Makes,” Eldrin whispered. “Not made.”
“Fm sorry,” I murmured. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s just a bad dream.”
“Yes. Just a dream.” I started to reach for him. Then I stopped, fearing a rebuff, unsure what he needed now.
“Ah, Dehya.” He pulled me into his arms, resting my head against his shoulder. With relief, I embraced him. His sleep shirt felt soft against my skin, and his hair brushed my forehead, smelling of the astringent shampoo he favored.
He hinged his hand, cupping it around my cheek, his four fingers firm against my skin. “I wish we could bring Taquinil back.” The pain of loss ached in his words.
“He’s still alive.” I willed it to be true. If only I had the use of a Triad Chair, so I could search better.
Eldrin brushed his hand over my hair, from my head all the way down my back. “My father didn’t receive any life-extension treatments until he met my mother. He was already eighteen. And the treatments were less advanced then. But he always said he had a full life, more than he ever expected. Gods know, he loved my mother. And she him.”
I splayed my hands on his back, feeling the familiar strength of his muscles. “We need to go to Earth. We have to get him and Roca out of there.”
“Yes.”
We sat for a while, holding each other, neither saying what we feared, that it would be his father’s body we brought home.
After a while Eldrin said, “He’s a strange man.”
I knew he didn’t mean his father. “Jon Casestar?”
“Corbal Xir.”
My hands tightened on his back. “Strange how?”
“He could be kind.”
Kind? I couldn’t believe the word.
Eldrin answered my unspoken protest. “He almost never asked me to provide. Only when the Razers interrogated me—” He took a ragged breath. “Even then, I don’t think my pain made him transcend. The Razers did, but not Corbal.”
I wasn’t sure I had heard right. “You mean Xir left you alone?”
“No. He… paid attention. But he tried to control his cruelty.” His voice grated. “He didn’t always succeed. And he liked having slaves. He used to make me kneel just to see a Ruby prince prostrate before him.” His hand clenched my hair. “Nor did the word ‘consent’ mean anything to him.”
My body went rigid in his arms. I ll strangle him.
I didn’t realize I was gritting my teeth until Eldrin rubbed my jaw. His voice lightened a bit “Strangulation? Did that come from my gentle wife?”
“I’ll put him in the exhaust nozzle of a starship antimatter drive and blast off.”
Although he laughed softly, it sounded strained. He bent his head over mine. “It’s over now.”
“Thank the saints,” I murmured.
But I feared the difficulties had only begun.
17
Bloodmark
Over the next few months, two thousand ships joined us at Delos. Many came from the Onyx evacuation. Their crews had delivered the evacuees to freedom, then refitted and set out to find the remains of Skolia’s once mighty fleet. Their appearance at Delos didn’t reassure the Allied forces.
Then the largest battle cruiser from Onyx arrived, Pharaoh’s Shield, rumbling through the Delos star system, a star-faring giant attended by ships that weçe large in their own right, yet dwarfed by the rugged cruiser.
An old friend commanded Pharaoh’s Shield: Admiral Ragnar Bloodmark. Tall and lean, with long muscles and a rangy frame, he projected a sense of barely controlled power, as if he might uncoil in vehemence without warning. Although his self-assurance, strong features, and dark coloring evoked a lord of the Skolian noble Houses, he had been born in poverty. He wasn’t a full Skolian; his grandfather had come from a place called Scandinavia on Earth. But Ragnar was a Skolian citizen and had deeply resented the prejudice he encountered in his youth because of his mixed heritage. Given the high status he had attained in ISC, few dared belittle his lineage now.
We met in the Tactics Room of Havyrl’s Valor, Ragnar, Jon Casestar, Eldrin, Vazar, Jinn Opsister, and I sat at a table near the luminous white curve of the spherical room. My bodyguards were stationed around the chamber, Ragnar and Jem had brought aides, and Ragnar also had two bodyguards. The sphere seemed too full of uniformed people, like moths clustered within a white flame yet somehow never consumed by its fire.
Ragnar continued his report to Jon. “We lost every space habitat at Onyx. We didn’t lose the Orbiter space habitat, but it took serious damage during the Trader raid.” He glanced at me, lines creasing his rugged features. “All your bodyguards were killed, Dehya. I’m sorry.”
I struggled with that memory. I could still see their crumpled bodies in the coruscating hall that led to the Lock. Here in the Tactics Room, Eldrin was sitting next to me with his palm lying on the transparent table. His hand gripped the surface, his fingertips turning white.
“We must see to thei
r families,” I said. “And a memorial service.”
“I have people on it.” Ragnar watched me with his familiar, dark-eyed gaze. I knew him far better than Jon Casestar. Although Ragnar wasn’t always easy to deal with, I valued his loyalty.
“Let us know how it proceeds,” Eldrin said.
“Of course, Your Highness,” Ragnar answered smoothly. As always, he somehow managed to make his courtesies to Eldrin sound like insults. At best he and Eldrin had a strained relationship; at its worst, their mutual dislike descended into open hostility.
Undaunted by the choppy emotional undercurrents, Vazar spoke to Ragnar. “A man lives on the Orbiter, an artist. He’s called Coop.”
Ragnar answered curtly. “Your husband is fine, Primary Majda.” He had never hidden his distaste for their three-way marriage.
Vazar left it at that, but relief washed out from her mind, swirling over us like warm water from a sun-touched lake. Eldrin’s gaze gentled as he watched his sister-in-law. Neither Ragnar nor Jon showed any indication they caught her reaction. The same was true of the woman standing behind Ragnar, one of his aides. Even after so many decades, it bemused me that most people didn’t experience the rich tumult of emotions humans produced. Often that tumult became too much and I had to retreat from human contact, except with Eldrin. His mind flowed in strong and deep waves, forming a steady envelope for the faster, entangled oscillations of my own thoughts.
Eldrin had a similar effect on Taquinil, who had a mind much like mine. It was one reason Taquinil and I had such a good relationship; his thoughts, his moods, the way he solved problems and viewed the universe—they all made sense to me. Eldrin sheltered us both from the emotional storms of humanity that raged outside the haven of his love. Even when he was exasperated or annoyed with us, his mind still soothed ours. I’m not sure he understood it, any more than Taquinil and I understood our effect on him. With his songwriter’s lyricism, Eldrin called us “spangled life, like dazzling sunlight reflected off waves of the sea, the sparkle that makes me feel alive.”