Carnelians (3 page)

Barthol gritted his teeth. “Deranged” indeed. It was an abomination. What he hated far more than the treaty itself was his signature on the document. His aunt, Tarquine Iquar, matriarch of the Iquar line and Empress of Eube, had outmaneuvered him. She had named him as her heir, granting him the title of Iquar Line; when she died, he would become the head of their line in place of her firstborn child. The title should have been his to start with, given his innate superiority, but she had demanded an abhorrent price for it, his signature on that godforsaken treaty. For that, he would never forgive her.

Barthol said only, “The emperor claims that by opening trade relations with the Skolians, the treaty will make us wealthy beyond imagining.”

Kryx snorted. “We’re already wealthy beyond imagining.”

“Not that I would object to more,” Barthol said. “But nothing is worth trading with Skolians. Better we buy and sell
them.
” The idea of treating them as equals greatly troubled him. Skolians showed their inferiority in everything they did, from their inept attempts at warfare to their sloppy “democratic” government that shared the rule of Sholia with the royal family. Hell, the fools couldn’t even figure out if they lived in a democracy or a dynastic empire.

Kryx tapped the ivory table that separated them. A display of holicons came up, tiny holo menus, in this case a mosaic of gold and green squares floating above the table. He flicked one, and it morphed into an image about one handspan high showing a man with a massive physique and metallic skin, eyes, and hair.

“Kelric Garlin Valdoria Skolia,” the mesh-table said. “Imperator of Skolia.”

Barthol raised his eyebrow at Kryx. “Does your table always announce people?”

Kryx smiled slightly. “I’m training it to anticipate my wishes.”

A worthy goal. Barthol studied the Imperator. Kelric’s hair had greyed at the temples. Barthol loathed flawed people. If they didn’t make their appearance to his liking, he had no desire to acknowledge their existence. That he had to do so anyway with Kelric Skolia grated.

“Show the rest of the Ruby Dynasty,” Kryx told the table.

The mosaic morphed into a collection of extraordinarily pretty people. That irritated Barthol even more than the grey in Kelric’s hair, that even with all their flaws, the Ruby Dynasty were more beautiful than they deserved. They looked like expensive sex slaves, not interstellar potentates. Supposedly they were descended from a Eubian experiment designed to create gorgeous slaves who were also powerful psions, but of course that couldn’t be true, because if they had been created in a Eubian lab, they never could have escaped and set up their own empire.

“What’s that for?” Barthol asked irritably.

“I’m putting together dossiers on the Ruby Dynasty,” Kryx said.

“We all have dossiers on them,” Barthol said. “If you figure out how to have
them
instead of their dossiers, let me know.” As a commander of ESComm, or Eubian Space Command, Barthol was always looking for ways to acquire a Ruby. Unfortunately, they were prodigiously well protected.

“Look at this one.” Kryx flicked his thumb through the holo of a man with red curls streaked by gold. A full holo appeared, two handspans high, of the man standing with his thumbs hooked into his belt. He had on a sleeveless black shirt, black leather pants with silver studs, and a chain belt. His hair spilled down his neck, unruly and luxuriant. He had large eyes and a sneer, giving him an intensely sexualized look. That was certainly his most commercial asset, a blatant eroticism that could bring a high price on the pleasure slave markets.

“Who is that?” Barthol asked. “Some thug out of a porn holovid?”

Kryx smiled ever so slightly. “That, my dear Uncle, is the Ruby Dynasty’s greatest weakness.”

“What, their association with surly youths of questionable character?” Barthol gave a deliberately crude laugh. “And here I thought Kelric Skolia preferred women.”

“You know this fellow.” Kryx’s mouth quirked upward, which from a Highton was an expression of immense glee. “He’s a Ruby prince. Also something called a ‘holo-rock singer.’ ”

“Holo-what?” Honestly, what absurdity would the Ruby Dynasty come up with next? Someone ought to put them in slave restraints and save their people from their misery.

“Holo-rock,” Kryx said. “He makes noise and calls it singing. An embarrassment to the dynasty, I’m sure. He’s one of the top-earning artists in the genre.”

“Never heard of it.”

“Yes, well, His Thugliness lives on Earth.”

“Oh, that one.” Barthol had put him out of his mind long ago. “He was there when our last war with the Skolians ended. His family didn’t want him back. Hell, it’s been eleven years.” This all spoke to Barthol’s conviction that human civilization was decaying. “I’ll tell you, Kryx, this claim the Earthers make that they were neutral in the war—it’s fucking bullcrap. If they were neutral, why were they protecting the Ruby Dynasty? I didn’t see them offering to protect us.”

Kryx cocked his eyebrow. “Would you have wanted their protection?”

“Of course not. That isn’t the point. They didn’t offer.” Barthol had little interest in the singer. This Ruby princeling would be as well protected on Earth as anywhere else. Hell, if he was making some conglomerate wealthy, they would go out of their way to ensure nothing happened to him.

Then again, maybe he should take another look. Who knew what the boy was up to out there on Earth? If any vulnerability existed in the web of security surrounding the Ruby Dynasty, it just might be for this loud singer on Earth.

“What makes you consider this one in particular?” Barthol asked.

“He’s the renegade.” A glint came into Kryx’s eyes. “And renegades are always a weakness.”

III: Gem Child

III
Gem Child

“You want a job?” Harindor looked Aliana up and down, his dark eyes assessing. “I dunno, sweets. Some men like their sugar tall, I guess.”

“I’m not interested in being one of your sugar girls,” Aliana told him shortly.

Harindor shifted his bulk on his overstuffed recliner. The light from the orb spinning in a corner of the red-curtained booth gave his face a reddish cast. “Well, you won’t be getting no jobs as a diplomat.”

“I can be a bouncer in one of your bars,” Aliana said.

He gave a snort of laughter. “Since when do I need underage girls as bouncers?”

As nervous as Aliana felt, behind her false bravado, she was still sure she could manage the job. Since that life-changing moment ten days ago when she’d fought her stepfather, she had begun to realize what she could do. She had grown tall, and all those years of heavy labor had given her plenty of muscles. Her unknown father may have left her in this cesspool of a life, but he had also given her an incredible strength.

“Put me on a shift at one of your bars,” she said. “You’ll see. I can do it.”

Harindor laughed rudely. “You’ll make more trouble than you stop. I’ll need another bouncer just to take care of the bastards who come on to you.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“Tell you what.” He leaned back in his chair, his smile oozing across his puffy face. “I’ll give you that shift. If you fail, sweets, you give me a sweet-shift.”

“I won’t whore for you, Harin.”

“Whatever.” Reaching forward, he took a holofile from the battered table he used as a desk.

“Fine.” Aliana had to make a conscious effort not to grit her teeth. “If I get knocked out on my shift working as your bouncer, I’ll give you a sweet-shift.”

He looked up, smirking. “Lot easier work, you know. You jus’ lie on your back—”

“Shut the hell up,” she said.

“Not good to talk to me like that.” Harin looked more amused than offended. “Go on. Git. Sak outside will set you up for a shift at Capjack’s Bar.”

“Good.” Aliana turned and headed for the door. Over her shoulder, she said, “I won’t be seeing you again, not unless you come to Capjack’s.”

He laughed behind her. “At least not for a day.”

Just wait,
she thought. She’d start as a bouncer for his bar. Someday she’d own the damn place. She didn’t know how, but she was going to be more than this.

Jaibriol Qox, Emperor of Eube, had a headache. He rubbed his temples, trying to ease the pain so he could concentrate on the jeweled Quis dice on his glossy black desk. The pressure from the minds of the Aristos he encountered every day, all day, were an unseen but never-ending weight on his empath’s mind. Retreating to play Quis calmed him.

His Ruby Dynasty uncle had given him the dice.

With Quis, Kelric had offered Jaibriol a gift of unimaginable proportions, a way to survive this life when he thought his mind would crack under the immense powers coursing through it. His greatest enemy was also his savior.

“You need to stop working,” a silken voice said behind him.

He lifted his head and stared straight ahead at his apparently empty office. The hint of a smile touched his face. “And do what instead?”

His wife Tarquine came around his chair and leaned against his desk, facing him. Her hair fell in a black curtain around her face, and she watched him with her upslanted eyes. “Not sleep,” she murmured.

Jaibriol leaned back in his chair, outwardly cool, resisting the urge to throw his empress across that huge desk of his and do something more entertaining than a dice game. “You want me to stop working in exchange for what?”

She arched a dark eyebrow in her perfectly sculpted face. “I need ulterior motives to enjoy my husband’s presence?”

He reached out and traced his finger across the back of her hand, barely touching her. “You always have ulterior motives.”

“There is one small thing.” Her voice was like dark whiskey. “You remember my nephew Barthol? Your Joint Commander. General of your army.”

Unfortunately. “Of course.”

“Perhaps you recall how I convinced him to sign your ill-conceived peace treaty. I gave up a little something.”

A “little” something. What she had done could change empires. He had known she would bring this to him, eventually. She had named Barthol as the Iquar Heir. If she and Jaibriol ever had children, their firstborn would be heir to the Carnelian Throne, but not to the Iquar title; Tarquine’s legacy would pass to her nephew instead. She had given up her title to the most powerful Highton Line after the Qox dynasty, doing it for Jaibriol’s deluded and probably hopeless attempt to make peace with their enemies.

“Our son will still be the Carnelian Emperor,” Jaibriol said. “He will rule the largest empire in human history.”

“At the moment, it’s all moot.” Her words were smooth but unrelenting. “The Minister of Trade spoke to me today. Yet another member of our benighted Highton caste bringing to my attention, ever so subtly, that I have yet to produce an heir.”

He had no answer, none that either of them could accept. Tarquine was a full Aristo. So was he, supposedly, though she knew the truth, that he was only one-eighth. But that was enough. Aristo genes were dominant. Any child he and Tarquine created together would be an Aristo. That child would grow up like every other Aristo, a predator who hungered for the pain of psions, a sadist who believed it was his exalted right to brutalize empaths and telepaths. It was already agonizing for Jaibriol to hide his nature every day of his life, every moment. How could he bear it with his own heir, knowing the child he loved would be driven, if he ever discovered the truth, to see his own father enslaved and tortured? He couldn’t, and so he had kept himself from siring his own heir.

However, Tarquine no longer ruled the Iquar Line. Unless she bore a child to Jaibriol, her legacy would die with her. Nor did Jaibriol want to leave his throne to Corbal or his descendants.

He stood up and extended his hand to her. “Come. Let us give our empire the Highton Heir it so desperately wants.”

She took his hand. “Never regret it, Jaibriol.” Her gaze smoldered. “Our son will be an emperor like none other that humanity has ever seen.”

Kelric didn’t know how to say goodbye. He stood in the docking bay with his wife and struggled with the words trapped inside of him. He couldn’t say what he felt, that without her, he would starve in loneliness. He didn’t know how to give voice to such intense emotions.

Ixpar stood at nearly his height, her red hair falling in a thick braid down her back, her long, long legs sheathed in knee boots, her russet tunic fitted snugly to her leanly curved body. She had the face of a queen, elegant and keen-eyed, but with the ferocity of her warrior ancestors simmering below her civilized exterior.

Her leaving made him acutely aware of his age. In his youth, he had felt as if he would live forever, that time always existed to do tomorrow what he had to miss today. No longer. Every day apart from her made him aware of his time with her trickling away. Even with nanomeds that delayed his aging, making him look thirty years younger, he felt every one of his seventy years as if he had lived them twice.

“I wish you could stay,” he said.

“I too.” Her deep voice flowed over him.

“I’ll miss you.” Inside, he thought,
Don’t go. I don’t want to be without you.

Ixpar cupped her hand around his cheek, her skin smooth against his face. “And I you, Kelric.” As she lowered her arm, she smiled, but the expression seemed more sad than anything else. “This summit for the peace treaty will keep you busy, though.”

He took her hand. “I swear, sometimes I think no one in the universe wants the treaty to happen but Jaibriol Qox and me.”

“Are you sure
you
do?” she asked. “After all they’ve done?”

“I’m sure.” Gods knew, he had little reason for his certainty. The Traders enslaved trillions of people and wiped out any who resisted. They wanted nothing more than to conquer Skolia and destroy his family. For five centuries his people had battled them in crushing, bitter wars.

“We have to stop fighting,” Kelric said. “Or we’ll wipe out the human race.”

“I don’t trust this emperor of theirs.”

“I doubt most any Skolian does.” Kelric pulled her into his arms and held her close, unable to say anything more. He couldn’t tell her that he trusted Jaibriol because the Eubian emperor was his own nephew. His family was always at risk for capture by the Trader Aristos, and methods of interrogation existed that could pry information from anyone, no matter how well protected their minds. For all that he would miss Ixpar and his children, he was glad they would be on Coba, which was better protected than most any other world in the Imperialate. The family he loved was safer there than with him.