Empress Game: The Empress Game Trilogy Book 1 (10 page)

She shook her head, using the motion to cover the stab of pain. “It’s all right.” But it wasn’t. And it would never be.

::Did you… feel anything? When you attacked her?:: His voice held a guarded hope.

She released the last of her worries and focused her full attention on Corinth. “I did. Did you reach out?”

::Yes! Just like we’d discussed. It was hard. And tiring. But, you felt it? I’ve been trying for so long.::

She needed to get him back to Wyrd Space. His telekinetic powers should have manifested long before this, and he should already be very comfortable with them, able to affect objects and even unsuspecting humans. His force should have stopped her, not just surprised her.

“Tell me about it.”

“
N
o Match Found
.”

The nil query results didn’t surprise Malkor. The criminal database on Altair Tri resembled mesh, with more holes than substance. He tapped his finger on his desk, considering his next query. A database search for “Blood Pit” this morning had turned up dozens of citations for violations on every health and safety concern imaginable, but only the owner was listed on the complaints. A search of the criminal activity logs for “Shadow Panthe” came back empty. The slum side was policed in such a desultory fashion it was amazing they kept a database at all.

Where to go from here? He’d snapped an image of Shadow earlier for her imperial ID and run facial recognition comparisons on it, trying to match anything in Altair Tri’s criminal or registered citizens databases—nothing. “Corinth” was such a common name as to be useless without anything beyond a rough age range to compare.

Time to expand the parameters.

His mobile comm chirped, reminding him he was late for a meeting with Isonde. He set up a search for Shadow throughout the entire registered imperial citizens database, in case Altair Tri hadn’t synched their list with central lately. That would take the better part of an hour—he would have to wait to sate his curiosity about her identity, especially if he had to gain clearance to search higher-level, restricted personal files.

One last glance at her picture provided only more questions.

Who are you?

* * *

Kayla stared unseeing at the pink-green blur of the hyperstream through space as she rested on the viewport sill in her chambers.
Blip-chirp
s from the complink were familiar and reassuring, and she didn’t have to worry about Corinth for once, knowing he was happily engaged raiding the ship’s system logs.

Their conversation yesterday came to mind. Apparently Rigger
had
truly come to keep Corinth company. She hadn’t minded that Corinth didn’t speak. She’d carried on a conversation for the two of them, talking aloud without expecting responses while she showed Corinth how to access the ship’s databanks. She’d been natural and friendly, and, from what Kayla could gather, Corinth actually
liked
her.

Liked. IDC.

She shook her head. Her
il’haar
would be on his own for a large portion of this escapade. More than just protection, he needed interaction. Mental stimulation. They’d lived like prisoners of war for the last five years despite having escaped the enemy, and being deprived of simple human company had hurt them both. Spending that time with Rigger, little though it was, had been novel and fascinating for Corinth. He wanted more. He had, in an unprecedented show of temper, demanded it. He needed someone other than Kayla for company. Someone who could challenge him in ways she couldn’t, who could teach him things she hadn’t the knowledge or the time for.

Damnit. Now she’d have to apologize to Rigger.

And, worse than that, allow the agent access to her
il’haar
, if indeed she even wanted to spend time with Corinth after Kayla’s reaction earlier. At least Rigger, as part of an IDC octet, was not completely useless as a bodyguard.

Their comm unit issued a high-pitched
beep
, making Kayla jump.

“Lady Evelyn?”

Octet leader and IDC Senior Agent Malkor Rua. Her new ally.

“Are you available to meet with me and Princess Isonde?”

::Go ahead:: Corinth smiled at her. ::I’m happy here.::

She nodded to indicate she’d heard, then crossed her chamber to the comm unit. “Sure. I need to have a word with Rigger first, though.”

Malkor and Kayla stopped at Rigger’s quarters where she scraped out an apology and offered an invitation for the agent to join them for dinner after her meeting. Kayla was as surprised that she agreed as Rigger clearly was that she’d asked. They could both thank Corinth for that bit of awkwardness.

Kayla followed Malkor down the hall and let the reality that she’d just invited an IDC agent to dinner with her
il’haar
sink in, trying not to feel like she had bared him to enemy fire. Corinth had a “good feeling” about Rigger, he’d said. Though Vayne had said that many times and he’d always been right, Corinth’s assertion didn’t calm her nerves.

Vayne
she trusted. Vayne knew people. Vayne had been trained since birth to use his impressive psi powers.

But Corinth?

This was the IDC. The same IDC who had come to Ordoch with Dolan under the pretense of requesting aid. The IDC who had instead killed her parents when they refused to help. The IDC who had staged a coup, murdered her elder brother and sister, Corinth’s twin, her untwinned aunts and sisters, and ripped half of her soul from her when they executed Vayne.

A warm hand touched her arm and she jerked away.

“Are you all right?”

Malkor’s voice. She’d fallen into the past and forgotten where she was. Her face must have betrayed her emotions.

She took a deep breath, trying to expel the festering hurt, to shake loose the memories. Malkor hadn’t killed her family.
He is IDC
, part of her mind argued.
Were they all to blame?
she argued back.

“Sorry,” she said.

“No, my fault. I startled you.” He hesitated, then rested his hand gently on her arm again, watching her face for any warning sign. His touch centered her firmly in the present.

“I’m fine,” she said, as much to herself as to him.

“You’re not fine, Shadow.”

“You have to stop calling me that.”

“Tell me your name.”

“Evelyn. Lady Evelyn of Piran.”

He frowned, looking ready to push the issue. Instead his fingers slid down her arm as his hand fell aside. They regained their former distance. “My apologies,
Lady Evelyn
. We shouldn’t keep Isonde waiting.”

They walked in silence to the royal lounge and Kayla wrestled the past to the darkest corner of her mind, where it belonged. Her mission loomed in front of her: win the Empress Game.

Malkor nodded to the guards at the door who commed the room to announce them.

What passed for a royal lounge on Prince Ardin’s starcruiser was not what she expected. There were no fountains, menageries, VR platforms, draka tables or cliques of courtiers. It was deficient in opulence, aroma, atmosphere and decadence.

She found she liked it.

The rectangular room might have been as large as her bedchamber and Malkor’s combined. Soft cream walls, paired with a maroon cane-fiber carpet and helio light sconces, made for a warm, almost cozy, interior. A bank of couches lined one corner, fronted by a low table covered with datapads and the remainder of a meal. A cluster of hoverchairs sat together nearby, currently at rest, and a large meeting table dominated the other end of the room. Immense viewports showcasing the pink-green hyperstream lightened the wall opposite the door.

All of this she noted peripherally, her attention focused on the woman commanding Malkor’s attention in the center of the room.

Her doppelganger, Princess Isonde.

Isonde scanned her head to toe, seeming to look for anything out of place. Kayla gained satisfaction from knowing she looked immaculate. A garmenter had outfitted her this morning with clothes befitting her new station, and she’d dressed with more care today than she’d employed in the last five years combined. When Kayla arched a brow as if to say, “done?” Isonde looked away, tilting her face toward Malkor.

“So that’s where you’ve been,” she said.

“I thought now would be a good time to discuss some of the particulars with Lady Evelyn.”

Isonde gave him a flat look. “Planning our advances with the policy makers of the Sovereign Council is more important. I found the Caetcha files while you were on your errand, we should get back to it.”

“That’s better left to a time when Ardin can attend. You two know more of council politics.”

“Malkor—”

“Should I leave you two alone?” Kayla shifted her weight to one foot, putting her hand on her hip. “Because I have better things to do than listen to this bickering.”

Isonde’s attention snapped back to her. Malkor intervened before the princess recovered her voice.

“Evelyn’s right, the Sovereign Council can wait.” He gestured toward the table. “Shall we sit?”

Kayla took the seat closest to the door. Best get this started so they could get it over with. Malkor chose his seat next to her almost as quickly, leaving Isonde alone to further protest or join them. The princess sank gracefully into a chair across from Kayla.

Malkor waited until she settled to begin. “Playing the role of Lady Evelyn at the Empress Game will require more than fighting as Isonde. As her principal companion you’ll go everywhere with her, attend every function, meeting, dinner, party and so on. There’s much more to the Empress Game than the tournament for the crown. At no other time do so many of the empire’s sovereigns, leading families, councilors, trade magnates and elite gather in one location. The amount of business being transacted, the number of alliances formed—and broken—at a game is staggering. As Lady Evelyn, you’ll represent Princess Isonde’s and Piran’s political position. It’s vital you have a strong grasp of what we’re trying to accomplish at the Game, and do your best to support that.”

“Politics?” Kayla sighed. She’d expected to dress up, speak politely when spoken to and blend into the background. She could accomplish that in her sleep while keeping an eye on her
il’haar
, thanks to years at her family’s court. This, though, was becoming more involved than she liked.

“We have dozens of alliances with different members of both the Sovereign and Protectorate Councils, and a dozen more tentative friendships in the works,” Isonde said. “Beyond winning the Game, we need to secure each of these potential alliances and strengthen our standing in the councils if we want to achieve our ends.”

“And those ends would be…?” Kayla’s interest piqued. A senior IDC agent, the princess of Piran and the heir to the Sakien Empire working together, all for… what?

“An end to the Ordochian occupation and an alliance with the Wyrds.”

Isonde’s words hit her square in the chest. “What?”

“With enough support in the two lesser councils, we can influence the Council of Seven to vote for a withdrawal from Wyrd Space. That is,” Isonde added, “if the Wyrds will agree to create the counter-nanovirus we’ve been asking for.”

Kayla thought she must have hallucinated. Did a leader of one of the empire’s most powerful planets suggest freeing Ordoch?

“Wait. Wasn’t Piran involved in the original attack?” Kayla reached back in her memory to the weeks leading up to the coup. Emissaries from the empire had come, a contingent made up largely of IDC agents and diplomats from several of the Sovereign Planets. There had been meetings. Talks. Hours upon hours of talk over a nanoplague that the empire had accidentally unleashed on itself and the technology they demanded the Wyrds provide them with to stop it. Dangerous technology. Technology forbidden in Wyrd Space for its insidiousness and unpredictability. Technology that, in the hands of the aggressive empire, could just as easily be used as a weapon against the Wyrds, rather than as a cure.

“We were under pressure to approve the use of more… persuasive measures with the Wyrds, if talks did not go as hoped.”

“Assassinating the ruling family was your idea of ‘persuasive measures?’”

“Not initially, no,” Isonde said, with a coolness that made Kayla want to slap her. “But it became necessary.

“The current situation on Ordoch is tenuous at best,” Isonde continued. “It’s only a matter of time before the other Wyrd Worlds refit their ancient battleships and mount an offensive. We’ve only held the planet this long because interplanetary warfare between the Wyrds ended generations ago and their armadas had fallen into disrepair.

“We can’t afford the manpower and resources it would take to hold Ordoch against the combined might of the Wyrds, not when the Tetratock Nanovirus plague is still advancing.”

The TNV. Kayla thought the same thing about the plague now as she did back then—serves them right. But news that it raged on unabated surprised her.

“Still?”

Isonde nodded. “Our designers are useless. All they’ve managed to do is speed up the destruction in the Tanaki sector.”

“The Ordochians can’t deactivate it?”

“Won’t. We captured their major tech installations with minimal casualties, but many of the brightest scientists and designers slipped our net. They’ve been in hiding since.

“It comes down to simple numbers,” Isonde said. “We can hold the capital city, control most of the power grid and tech centers and keep the highest ranking Wyrds hostage, but we can’t do a door-to-door search of the planet. What scientists we did manage to capture have been uncooperative, despite… pressure being applied.”

“We never should have gone there,” Malkor murmured.

Kayla struggled to rein in her anger, to sound as disinterested as a pit whore would be about something so far beyond her sphere of influence. “And now you—what? Want to do the right thing? After five years?”

Malkor looked pained. “We want the same thing as always: to deactivate the TNV before it spreads farther among the planets of the empire.”

“And you think that if you return control of Ordoch to the Wyrds, they’ll be so thankful that they’ll agree to help you neutralize your super weapon gone awry?”