From Ruins: Princes' Game, #6

By M.C.A. Hogarth

A spy dying on the wall of a palace.

An Emperor turned rebel through the power of a psalm.

A shapechanger on the cusp of an enormous discovery.

A woman riding to battle in the vanguard of her enemies.

The known worlds are about to convulse in a cataclysmic war; time is running out. Can the Eldritch, the Chatcaava, and their Pelted allies turn the tide? Or will it all go up in fire?

Is there hope in ashes?

The sixth and final installment of the Princes' Game series brings the threads from five epic novels to a stunning conclusion that will change the shape of the Peltedverse forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Studio MCAH
• Release date: Dec 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386205401

Book preview

From Ruins

Princes’ Game 6

M.C.A. Hogarth

Studio MCAH

Contents

Author’s Note

Untitled

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Untitled

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Epilogue

Untitled

APPENDICES

The Words in the Frontispieces

The Species of the Alliance

The Languages of the Pelted Setting

Author Sketches

Playlist

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Author’s Note

This book begins immediately after In Extremis (Princes’ Game Book 5). Readers may wish to begin with Book 1 (Even the Wingless) for context, and should be advised of significant adult content throughout the series. Please consult the author’s website for tags and ratings.

The future influences the present just as much as the past.

Friedrich Nietzsche

---

People have forgotten this truth, the fox said. But you mustn't forget it. You become responsible forever for what you've tamed.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

Prologue

The Surgeon’s appearance in the servants’ quarters caused a silence that rippled from the doorway outward. One by one, they looked toward him and ceased their activities. They did not speak; they were Inside, and the lowest of the low Inside, and confronted with a male Outside they were permitted only deference.

It was for him to break this silence, and with it all the rules that had bound his life.

I wish to see the body.

Even servants, schooled never to show their emotions, could be moved to shock. He could see the hands of the nearest one shaking. But he was Outside, and even more, he was a physician to Emperors. They did not think of denying him.

Or did they? Would the alien have known? Was the alien watching him even now? Reading his secret thoughts?

Somehow the Surgeon doubted it. More likely, the alien was dying in the Emperor’s tower, where his depleted blood was failing to supply the energy necessary to whatever task he’d deemed worthy of his sacrifice.

That too was on the Surgeon’s mind.

The servants led him deeper into their sleeping rooms. Their chambers were fastidiously clean, but they had few belongings, and their pallets were meager and lacked privacy. They did not live well. Nor, he thought as he came to the last room, did they die well. He stalked to the pallet by the external door, to the body covered there in a sheet. Crouching alongside the head, he peeled the fabric back to the collarbones. The body had been wrapped tightly in fragrant linen strips, oil that would speed the burning when they put the body to the pyre. It surprised the Surgeon that they observed their own death rites. He’d seen bodies cast out of windows to the carrion eaters, or the sea. That the servants would be allowed the chance to honor their dead seemed unlikely.

The Surgeon touched the sprig of everdawn tucked into the topmost strip, near Oviin’s jaw. Scrutinized the face. Death had frozen the male’s final expression in place. The Surgeon was accustomed to terror or pain. Pleading was new. It made his gut clench, and his teeth.

Where was the wound? he asked.

From behind him, one of the males whispered, The chest, my-better. There was a… a hole in the back. And the front was… there was another hole. Much larger.

This knowledge fell into the Surgeon’s head from long ago courses in riot weaponry. Shot. From behind. He wondered if he would find the gore on the alien, if he went upstairs to look. If he was allowed to look.

The Surgeon pulled the sheet up over Oviin’s head and rose. When he turned to go, another male had joined the timid one who’d spoken. There was no timidity in this one, though. Dark gold, almost brassy, with lighter mane. The horns of a castrate, and the delicacy of frame. But with the same aquamarine eyes as the dead servant, and a similar face.

This male spoke first, without being addressed, and without abasement. He was my nestbrother, and did not deserve his fate.

Few do, in the Empire, the Surgeon said.

Why are you here?

Why was he here? To corroborate the story told to him without words. In a silence as dangerous as the speech they were trading here, across classes. Servants did not speak first to those Outside. He had stitched Emperors.

We have work to do, the Surgeon said. That is why I am here. Who are you?

I am Tsonet, the male said.

You do not have your nestbrother’s fatalism.

Tsonet’s lips pulled back from his teeth. Oviin was not a fatalist. He was a victim.

The Surgeon studied this unlikely male, neutered before he could grow a rack or proper hide, and yet burning with anger. Is this a common perspective? He looked at the male standing alongside Tsonet. Do you also believe Oviin a victim?

We are all prey for the strong. This male looked away, mane falling over his face. It is the way of our world. But it is not the way of every world.

Interested, the Surgeon said, And how long has this opinion been common?

Since stars rose in the sky, the second male said, soft. And from the first moment one Chatcaavan pressed foot to the neck of another and called it righteous. But… Looking up. This is our lot. And to improve it is beyond our powers.

Because you lacked the opportunity?

Because no matter how viciously the high might war amongst themselves, Tsonet said, they would unite in a breath to put us in our place again. He lifted his chin. We have tried in the past. They have erased the evidence, but we tell each other the stories. Mouth to ear.

The Surgeon said, So, all you lack is for the high to war themselves to death.

That they will never do, the second murmured.

I will arrange it.

This silence had an interesting quality. Until the alien had insisted that silences were deadly, the Surgeon had not attended to the kinds of silence. This one felt like potentials unfolding.

At last, Tsonet said, slowly, You. Will arrange the death of the lords of the palace. And all the courtiers.

Yes, the Surgeon said.

But you are Outside, the second male breathed.

That is why it will work. The Surgeon padded past them, saying, I will send word to you. I may ask for your aid.

They did not speak. The Surgeon paused at the door. You will burn him.

During the day, when they are busy, and when the fire won’t be so visible. At night they are too active.

The Surgeon said, Smart. And left them.

All the way back to the clinic, he considered the problem. Now that he had made the decision, it took on the qualities of a planned surgery. One identified the issue. Chose the most efficacious route to the site of the issue. Planned for contingencies. Set aside supplies and prepared the operating theater. And then… the cut. Quick but careful. For the body to have its best chance at healing, the surgery must be done swiftly and with as little trauma to the flesh as possible. How, then, to effect the surgery on the court of the Thorn Throne?

As he went about his day, he considered possibilities. Poison was neither efficient nor targeted—without controlling each person’s dose he risked missing some number of Chatcaava, or killing the servants. Spreading a disease was even worse. Nor could he kill them personally; his best opportunity to do so, letting a male die of honor wounds while pretending to save him, was no longer available. The new Emperor did not approve of dueling. The males were restless and spent themselves violently on their females, or in wild acrobatic contests in the air. But they did not challenge one another.

One male, the Surgeon thought in his study, near day’s end, could not do this work. He could employ the servants to help him, but that would expose them to the attentions of the irritable lords penned in their suites. They were not accustomed to violence—in a battle against their oppressors, most of them would lose.

And if they succeeded in denuding the palace of its lords and masters…what then? Their heirs would arrive to begin the cycle again.

What they needed was someone who could replace the lords with Chatcaava who would not bring the disease back. Someone who could fight these males the way they expected to be fought—and win. And that meant the Emperor-who-was.

The Surgeon was not a lackwit. He had tended the honor wounds of both Emperor and Ambassador for the duration of the Ambassador’s stay, and he’d observed the behavior of those males changing. The way they’d spoken of themselves. Of one another. The Slave Queen’s increasingly erratic behavior made sense only if it suggested other changes, fundamental ones. If he’d had any doubts, he’d shed them after his stint serving as the Ambassador’s torturer at the Emperor’s behest. He’d concentrated on the work, because the aliens were fragile and easily broken. But even involved in that necessity, he’d been keenly aware of the Emperor’s vigil at the alien’s head.

The Emperor, who’d been wearing the shape of an alien, in defiance of every cultural stricture against the Change.

By the time the Surgeon had been delivered Second’s body for disposal, he’d guessed the arc of this very unlikely story, and while he hadn’t permitted himself the indulgence of speculation, he’d noted the difference in the Emperor and the consort he’d re-titled.

Some other Chatcaavan might have found the entire episode sordid. The Surgeon, however, had always admired the former Emperor’s curiosity. He had seen two Emperors prior, and ministered to countless lords and squabbling heirs, and the paucity of intellect in the court had disappointed him. Only with the former Emperor had he ever had the sense that a mind of some power was looking out from behind the eyes.

The alien—this new alien—had come to spy on behalf of the Emperor-that-was and the Ambassador. Consequently, the former Emperor must be planning to retake his throne. That would be much easier if someone arranged for easy access to the throneworld, and the palace.

That, the Surgeon decided, was the most efficacious path to the amputation of this particular disease. The Emperor could fight his way back to supremacy, given the opening. The Surgeon would ensure he had that opening. And in killing Oviin, the current Emperor had given him access to the people who could help him make that possible.

Patients so often sabotaged their own health. It was a pity, when it wasn’t an irritation.

Rising, the Surgeon walked the halls of the clinic, watching the lights dim around him until he reached the front office. There he found the night shift Triage reading medical journals at his desk.

I will be late tomorrow, the Surgeon said. I have heard rumors of a disease in the servants’ quarters and wish to investigate.

Triage grimaced. You think something contagious?

I would rather not find out by having it spread up the towers.

The male said, I’ll tell the day shift Triage to expect you later.

Thank you. Good night.

The Surgeon passed under the mosaics of battling Chatcaava and into the night air. Plague was one of the few reasons his services could be extended to anyone in the palace, as disease respected no rank. And in this case, it wasn’t even a lie. Societies could also become diseased.

Tsonet would make a useful ally. The Surgeon would begin with him.

1

P acked and sent. New packet now. What next?

Maia rarely found herself impatient with the enfleshed. Years of working among them had accustomed her to their pacific pace, their inability to multitask, their eccentricities. She even found those idiosyncrasies endearing.

Now, when she was exquisitely aware of the precariousness of their situation, she found herself wishing Sediryl would think faster, even though Sediryl was one of the quicker-witted embodied people she knew. The Eldritch’s glance toward the recumbent Chatcaavan Queen seemed to happen in slow motion, and even occupied with continuously encrypting herself and her lines in and out of the pirate base, Maia had too many spare cycles to spend waiting for Sediryl to ask her to add a question about the Queen’s condition to their list.

Is that all? Maia said, because what she understood about biological health problems was miniscule. Do you remember any other relevant data a doct—

Something spotlit her and she chopped the packet off, unsent. don’t see me you don’t see me

The chronometers in the base computers clicked on; she counted twenty of those arbitrary clock cycles, enough to make her think she’d escaped. Then a shadow veered out of nowhere and crested over her, claws reaching.

Nowhere to spread—she was in a closed system, with no place to scatter her recent data so she could reconstitute it later. She packed herself around it like a shield and shrieked: KICK

KICK DON’T WIPE

I NEED TO REMEMBER

The claws became a fist. She flew backwards through a narrow pipe out of the pirate system, so hard that she shattered across hundreds of larger networks, her codebase shedding in every direction. The violence of it was so intense it took her ages to drag herself back together, despite her desperation. She’d left Sediryl alone in that hell, Sediryl who didn’t have the first idea how to protect herself without help. Not only that, but without Sediryl’s influence, the pirates would attack the Alliance first. Maia pieced herself together, feeling slow as glue, as a flesh and blood creature limping through its injuries. She clutched her recent memories as older ones seeped back into her, reformed in her consciousness. One by one, they coalesced: her name, her purpose, her recent memories, how she’d been flung out of the system…

…by another D-per…

Crispin.

Maia fled for the Fleet hub, re-activating herself in their personnel database and prioritizing her request with flags all D-pers could access though they pretended otherwise out of courtesy to the creators who tried to limit them. Like a neighbor jumping the fence to howl a warning about a fire, she thought, and pinged Samson over and over until the D-per poked back.

|Calm down, Maia, I’m listening. What is it?|

Maia packed everything she’d done in the past few days and shoved it at him, whole. While she waited, she prodded the distant pirate network, pulling back stung fingers when it repelled her. Back to being a fortress, and she was outside it…

|Well,| Samson said at last. |This is… alarming.|

In the past, Maia had liked Samson’s dry humor, which he claimed he’d developed to maintain his sanity while working as the aide to Fleet’s foremost administrative staffer. Now she just wanted him to react. |I have to get back with the key. Tell me you’ve got someone who can release a master key code to me, Samson.|

|You want to free Crispin?|

|He can protect her! And then, once he’s no longer under compulsion, he can admit me back into the system and we can fix this before it explodes. Just look at what they’re sitting on!|

|Which part?| Samson asked, and she sensed him shuffling from multiple views of the pirate fleet to cam footage of the inside of its base, and all the thousands of slaves there.

|Samson! The key??|

|Researching it now,| the other D-per said. |And notifying Intelligence and Ops about all this. Rhack, Maia.|

|I know,| Maia said, reining in her impatience. |What’s taking so long?|

|I can’t okay this without consulting with people outside the system. You know that.|

She did but every fraction of a second that passed was a fraction she left Sediryl vulnerable. |How long?|

|I’m waking up the proper people. Give them some time to come online. They can only work as fast as the neurons they’ve got.|

|We don’t have time, and I mean flesh and blood time, Samson, I’ve left an operative out there hanging in the wind!|

|Hold on.| A pause. |They want you to debrief them personally.|

|Fine, I’ll split off an instance to talk to them, but would you please give me the damned key?|

Another pause. This one so long it almost counted as a flesh-and-blood pause. Maia hissed, |Samson.|

|Maia.| He sounded like a jangle of dissonant chords. |There is no key.|

|What do you mean there’s no key?? There’s always a key!|

|Not for Crispin. He’s already free.|

This. This was what one of those pauses felt like on the inside. Like a frenzied stillness. Like she was going to explode and couldn’t move to let the pieces fly apart.

Samson’s answer, echoing.

Already free.

Already free.

|Oh, God, no,| Maia whispered. And then howled, |NO NO NO NO NO!| She split herself off, threw herself back across the void, smashed against the wall surrounding the pirate network. Some part of her remained back with Samson, talking frantically through the impossibility of Crispin not being in Kamaney’s control. Another part of her was explaining the data she’d collected to Fleet. And yet somehow all of her was here, beating on the wall.

|LET ME IN| she howled.

|LET ME IN|

|DON’T KILL HER DON’T LET HER DIE|

|CRISSSSPINNNNNN|

click click click

The gun’s grip was slippery. Was that her sweat? It had to be. The bones in her hand ached from clutching it so tightly, but she absolutely couldn’t let go. If she let go, they would kill her. Wouldn’t they? No. They weren’t allowed to.

She was going… to the ship. Kamaney’s flagship. She had no idea where it was, only that when Kamaney had gone to the flagship she’d always walked in this direction. So Sediryl was going in this direction. Like she knew where she was going. Which she didn’t.

Some better prepared person would have researched the base’s schematics. Never mind that her computer access had been locked. Some more capable person would have talked computer access out of her target. Some colder person would have seduced Kamaney faster. Used her body to get everything she needed before it became critical to need it. Someone else would have done this… differently. Successfully. Someone else should have done this.

But she was the one who was here.

Oh Goddess, she whispered, but couldn’t keep going. If she kept going, she would ask for help. If she asked for help, she would fall apart.

So she kept walking.

click click click

Walking while Vasiht’h and Qora and the Faulfenza she’d rescued who hadn’t included Daize who was gone-gone-gone, gone forever, followed her as if she knew what she was doing.

Walking while the Chatcaavan Queen burned to cinders in the throes of whatever disease Sediryl was completely responsible for because it was the result of Touching all those aliens and it had been her idea, not the Queen’s, not Kamaney’s, hers.

Walking while the pirates following her gathered their courage so they could kill her.

She could feel the target on her back.

She didn’t know where she was going.

She kept walking, and got to the end of the hall, and there was a door. And the door was not large enough for everyone at once. And it was shut, and didn’t open. She almost ran into it.

The door didn’t open for her.

Sediryl turned. It seemed to take forever to turn. It seemed to take forever for the pirates to realize the base didn’t recognize her authority. Or that she didn’t know what to do. Whichever. It definitely took forever for them to decide she was vulnerable.

Her arm started to come up. She didn’t want to burn anyone else. Her revulsion made her too slow, just as it had with Kamaney.

Not hard enough, something hissed in her. You’re not hard enough for this and now you’re going to die.

You’ve failed.

Time lurched, started racing. The pirates were yelling. She was screaming. The guns were coming up. She looked down several barrels.

You’ve failed.

The guns went off.

And nothing happened.

Sediryl looked down her trembling arm. She hadn’t squeezed her trigger. The pirates were still alive, and staring at her. They fired again and this time she watched the beams bend before they hit her.

A shape ghosted over that wall, like a light seen through smog. Then someone—something—was standing beside her. A shadow with tortured shapes in it she refused to look too closely at. It shrank into what looked like… a Tam-illee? Maybe? The shapes flowed into the silhouette of a uniform, which writhed, as if it was the surface of a horror viseo. She kept her eyes above his collar.

Mistress, he said, and there was something unnatural in his voice, like the data defining it wasn’t all there. The flagship is this way.

Thank you, she said, and added, deliberately, hoping she was right. Crispin.

The D-per turned his dead-eyed gaze toward the gaping guards. You don’t need them.

No, she agreed, and he raised his hand and there was a palmer in it, and how did he make it like that? Or was that for show? Was he using some internal defenses in the base?

The guards did die. One by one, so they could watch their fate approaching.

Not him, she said.

Crispin paused.

I could use at least one flesh and blood person, she said. To give me consequence. And to protect her, possibly, from this automaton beside her, who was just as monstrous as all the other sociopaths in Kamaney’s army. And far more lethal.

Your whim, Mistress, is my command.

Was it, she wondered, her skin prickling with her cold sweat. Did anyone command Crispin? Why was he defending her? Where was the datawand? Had Kamaney’s death freed him? Or… had he always been free?

Oh Maia, she thought. Goddess, how I need you.

And now she could admit it. She needed Maia. She needed Vasiht’h, and Daize, and the Queen, and even Qora. She needed the Goddess, and the memory of Jahir and Lisinthir and her father, and everyone who’d ever helped or been kind to her. She needed Liolesa to tell her what to do.

But it was her play. The flagship, if you would, Crispin.

This way, Mistress.

Her retinue resumed walking, and left the bodies behind it.

Vasiht’h made his paws move, almost stumbled over them. What… what was that thing? Was that what was left of the D-per Maia had told them about? Goddess! He hurried behind Qora, trying not to look at the remains of the pirates. What did it say about him that he could ignore his nausea? A year ago, a month, even a week ago he would have been vomiting. Now, he mostly felt a dizzying relief. They were surrounded by their enemies; to no longer worry that the ones next to him were about to kill him was… well, it was good.

His definition of ‘good’ was so very different than it had been when he’d been in college.

And what was going on with Sediryl?

Those fires…

Qora glanced at him and widened his eyes, as if adjuring him to observe, be present. The last thing old-Vasiht’h would have wanted was to look closely at any of this.

But he did. He watched Sediryl walking alongside the Tam-illee in the uniform out of horror. Her stride, confident and yet robotic, too regular. Even the D-per seemed more limber than she did.

She needs therapy, he thought, and almost started laughing. I guess that’s why I’m here.

Their one guard had given up pretending to be in control of them. He was following Sediryl with his gun out, as if preparing to kill anything that might come at them, and from the tension in his jaw and the pace of his breathing, he was terrified. Vasiht’h glanced behind the human, found the group of Faulfenza marching, their eyes sober and their focus palpable. No wonder the guard was afraid: Sediryl’s new friend in front of him, and all these very capable looking slaves behind him…

But they were heading to a pirate flagship. How in all the thoughtless hells was that going to work?

Stay present, he reminded himself.

The D-per led them to a Pad station, buried in Kamaney’s personal section of the pirate base. That was what they used to step onto the flagship, which Vasiht’h didn’t have to be military to recognize as a re-purposed Fleet vessel. He couldn’t tell how big it was—the last Fleet vessel he’d been on had only needed twenty-five crew, and its corridors had also been roomy and its chambers large. Nor could he tell if it was bursting with pirates, because they weren’t greeted by anyone when they arrived.

The D-per had a voice full of wrongness. Not just its timbre, which stressed its artificiality… but the cadence was off, too. Had Crispin been one of Vasiht’h’s clients, he would have thought him seriously troubled. Perhaps in need of a brief hospitalization while they gave him a chance to break from whatever situation was inspiring his… could he call it psychosis? Vasiht’h glanced at the uniform with its constantly moving tortured ghosts and flattened his ears.

This, the D-per was saying, is your stateroom. Crispin glanced at the phalanx of Faulfenza. They can be assigned quarters.

Next to mine, Sediryl said.

Of course, Mistress.

And the Queen, Vasiht’h, and Qora… they’re with me in my quarters, Sediryl said. Don’t put them anywhere else.

As you say. Crispin twinned himself, two mild-mannered foxine tods with empty eyes and nightmare uniforms. The second one said, Follow me, to the Faulfenza.

Sediryl said, Go ahead with him.

A third Crispin stepped out of the body of the first and said to Qora, This way.

Qora glanced again at Vasiht’h, and Vasiht’h didn’t need a dvahiht’h’s powers to read him. The Faulfenzair followed the third Crispin, carrying the Queen… and Vasiht’h stayed behind. When Sediryl walked into the stateroom, he followed her, passing the nervous guard who took up position alongside the door.

He was expecting some signs of moral turpitude. Mess. Inappropriate trophies. Dim lighting. Instead, the stateroom looked like a 3deo set, just waiting for some heroic Fleet officer to stride to the floor-to-ceiling windows, strike a pose, stroke his beard while looking noble and troubled. He would sit at his desk. Invite some of his fellow officers to the chairs facing it, to discuss their woes so they could come to some laudable solution. This was someone else’s office. This ship belonged somewhere else.

Sediryl stalked to the desk and turned, resting back against it with her arms folded over her latest ridiculous outfit. How soon can we leave for the Chatcaavan border?

Crispin slowly tilted his head, like an animal who couldn’t understand language, puzzled at the sounds issuing from other people’s mouths.

That’s where we’re going, Sediryl said. In case you haven’t figured that out yet.

Is that how you’re playing this? Crispin asked. ’You’re now my assistant. Make it so.’

Yes, Sediryl said. That’s how we’re playing this. Unless you want to kill me now.

I could.

I know. So either do it, or don’t. But if you’re not going to, we’ve got things to do.

You’re frightened, Crispin said.

You’re free, Vasiht’h interrupted.

They both looked at him as if they’d forgotten his presence, though Crispin definitionally couldn’t fail to notice him. Sediryl might have.

We were told you weren’t, Vasiht’h said. But you are, right? Or did Kamaney program some kind of ‘my lover inherits my indentured servant’ clause into you?

Crispin walked to him and crouched down to stare at him. Vasiht’h met his eyes, expecting to find them unconvincing facsimiles. Instead, they looked just like the eyes of a severely disturbed flesh-and-blood person. Some part of him wondered who had coded that level of verisimilitude into a D-per… or planned for the potential of psychological illness. Then again, had they planned it? Or had approximating a soul made the potential for sickness inevitable?

Did D-pers have souls? He wondered what Aksivaht’h would say if he asked.

You’re not scared, Crispin said, frowning.

Vasiht’h frowned too. Because the D-per was right. In that moment, evaluating the Tam-illee as a client, he hadn’t been.

Why aren’t you scared? Crispin asked. Insisted.

Why do you want me to be? Vasiht’h asked.

Who is this? The D-per rose, pointing at him. You had him in your quarters. Like you knew him. Did you know him before this? Maia hid too much from me. She had no right.

I’m Vasiht’h, and I’m a xenotherapist.

You brought a psychiatrist? Crispin asked Sediryl. Why, are you crazy?

Are you? she asked.

Crispin laughed. Yes. But that was my choice. And this is still my choice. It’s me, Mistress, or death. If you walk out there without my protection, they’ll kill you.

I know, Sediryl said, without so much as a tremor. Vasiht’h admired her nerve while wondering how much longer it could last.

So if you want my protection, you have to do what I want.

And what’s that? Vasiht’h asked, to get his focus off Sediryl.

Crispin’s eyes narrowed. I didn’t invite you here.

Vasiht’h held up his hands. I didn’t mean to interrupt.

The D-Per’s eyes thinned. After a far, far too long pause, he said, I want to destroy things.

Sediryl said, Do you care what?

Crispin smiled, a narrow gash of a smile. No. As long as it’s awful.

Well, Sediryl said. Then I think you and I are going to get along magnificently. And if you want to help teach me to destroy things, I’m willing to be schooled.

The D-per laughed. Very nice. You’re terrified but you hide it well. And you’ve either got guts or you’re stupid, and I don’t think you’re stupid. So, you want us to head for the Chatcaavan border?

I intend to rip the Twelveworld apart.

Promising, Crispin said. I assume there’s some reason you think you can.

The Twelveworld Lord and his entire militia are off playing war in the sector capital of the Eastern Quadrant.

Not far, Crispin murmured, tapping his cheek. But if he doesn’t have any reason to worry…?

Sediryl said, He thinks the pirates are heading for the Alliance.

Crispin guffawed. Nice. Well, that sounds full of juicy potential. The Chatcaavan border it is. And I’ll teach you to wreak all the havoc you could desire, Mistress.

I’m glad we understand one another.

I don’t think we do, Crispin said. I’m looking forward to seeing that explode, too. He turned his gaze on Vasiht’h. Stop looking at me like that.

Like what? Vasiht’h asked, calm.

Like you pity me.

I don’t pity you, Vasiht’h said, and that wasn’t a lie. Crispin was too dangerous to pity. He could feel compassion for someone in such desperate need of help, but pity he reserved for people he didn’t think might torch a world and laugh while it burned. But I wish I could help you.

You think I need help.

I know you need help, Vasiht’h said. But I don’t expect you to agree with me.

Crispin’s frown was so fleeting Vasiht’h almost missed it. Smart, the D-per said. Stay smart and I might let you live.

You can’t kill my therapist, Sediryl said dryly. I’m going to need him.

Crispin laughed. That was a good one. I like wit. Keep being witty.

Get my fleet moving, Crispin.

Yes, Mistress. Anything else, Mistress? How can I serve you further, Mistress?

Sediryl’s fingers tightened on her arms. I don’t believe the obsequious act, and you don’t mean it. So stop it.

Crispin grinned. But your lover liked it.

Kamaney was not my lover. She was a means to an end. Sediryl tapped her fingers on her arm. Speaking of which. She has something that belongs to me, and I want it.

This should be good, Crispin said. What’s this?

My ship.

Ohhhh. Crispin sneered. You want me to hand you back your ship? Why, so you can sneak a D-per back into my system?

No, Sediryl said. I want my ship back because my aunt gave it to me, and it’s got a tea service on it that’s at least a hundred years old. This is Kamaney’s flagship, so I bet it’s enormous. Stuff it in one of the landing bays.

Is she always this bossy? Crispin asked Vasiht’h, and there was no humor in it. The way Crispin was staring at him was a threat, not an invitation to intimacy.

Maybe it’s just your style that’s irritating me, Sediryl said. Get me my tea service. In one piece. And then we can leave for the border.

And then we can destroy things? Crispin asked sweetly.

And then we’ll tear the border apart, I swear it.

Your wish, Mistress. Is my command. He glanced at Vasiht’h and added, We’re done, you understand? I don’t want you talking to me.

Vasiht’h doubted that, but he said, I do.

Will you see to the Queen? Sediryl asked the Glaseah. I assume there’s some documentation on this fleet that Crispin can give me to read while he’s busy.

I’ll do that, Vasiht’h promised. Leaving her alone with him seemed like a very bad idea, but they didn’t have any choice. There was no way not to leave her alone with a D-per who had colonized the entire network. Were there ships he couldn’t touch? Did it matter if they weren’t on any of them?

If only he could talk to her mind-to-mind! But he couldn’t, so he said, I’ll see you later, and let himself out.

Crispin didn’t materialize outside the stateroom. The only person in the corridor was Sediryl’s self-appointed bodyguard. Talking to murderous criminals felt ridiculous, but he couldn’t think of any other way to find out where he was supposed to go. Do you know where the Chatcaavan woman was sent?

That way, the pirate said, pointing. Take that lift. Tell it you want the captain’s quarters.

Thanks, Vasiht’h said.

The absurdity of the situation kept distracting him. He was in the lift of a stolen Fleet warship, a major one, which was now crewed by pirates, and he was… heading, alone, to the quarters he was sharing with another freed slave and his partner’s cousin, who was in charge of it all?

He shook his head, and left the lift.

The captain’s quarters felt palatial. Were all Fleet vessels designed like this? The first room was as large as Vasiht’h’s graduate student apartment, and the entire outward facing wall was a floor-to-ceiling window, filled with a stygian dark pierced by the pinpoint clarity of the stars. Two doors led from this room, one presumably to a bedchamber, the other… who knew. A bathroom? A trophy room? A spa? The aesthetic was clean and uncluttered: one part of the room, near the window, had been arranged into an office with a curving desk with a book stand. The front of the room, where Vasiht’h was standing, had a living room feel, with a couch and several chairs, a coffee table, and a sideboard.

The Queen was unconscious on the couch. Qora was sitting in a chair, thumbing through something on a data tablet. How did it go? the priest asked.

I guess we’re leaving. Vasiht’h sat alongside the Queen and looked at her face. Touched her cheek, found it hot still. Any change here?

Qora had set the tablet down and come alongside. None.

It didn’t take much to scoot his foreleg over until his paw was pressed against the Faulfenzair’s foot. Through that contact, he whispered, /Crispin is dangerous. We can’t talk out loud, anywhere./

/No hope we can talk with the lady, then./

/No,/ Vasiht’h answered. And hesitated before continuing, /Did… you… see?/

Qora tucked the sheet up closer to the Queen’s throat. /Your lady setting people on fire? Of course./

/Are you sure it was her?/

Qora’s eyes flicked up, met his, returned to the Queen.

/You’re really good at this,/ Vasiht’h said, irritated. /How in Her name are you doing it?/

/Doing what?/ the Faulfenzair asked, his mental tone dripping innocence.

/You’re not even giving away that we’re talking. It took me and Jahir years to figure out how to do that!/

/Well, I did say Faulza’s Eyes had jobs./

/You said you were a mechanic!/

/And also a spy?/

Vasiht’h suppressed his need to twitch, or scowl, or throw up his hands in frustration. It was difficult.

Qora’s mental voice was more serious. /All of the God’s Seers are observers, alet. It was a natural fit for our first military, that we might volunteer ourselves as watchers. There are not many of us, but we took to it well./

All this was distraction from the real problem. /Sediryl. Sets things on fire./

/So it seems./

/Why can’t I talk to her if she does have the mind-talents?/

/Better to ask… why doesn’t she let you?/

Vasiht’h’s heart fell. All his conversations with Jahir about the evils of mind-mages. All his training as a therapist. All his experience, talking people through every form of denial, and all the many ways people undertook to protect themselves from conceptions of themselves they couldn’t handle or accept.

Ohhh, he whispered. Oh, no.

Yes, Qora said with a sad nod. It looks serious, and I’m not sure how to heal her.

Swallowing, Vasiht’h followed his lead and said, We’re heading for the Chatcaavan border. Maybe we’ll have access to more information there?

Maybe, Qora said. But in my experience, dead people don’t do much mentoring.

She could breathe without feeling like she was going to hyperventilate.

Discovering this surprised Sediryl, once she was alone, insomuch as she could be alone anymore. She didn’t know if she was numb, or if she’d moved past her terror, or if this was the first stage of some psychotic break destined to transform her into Pirate Sociopath Sediryl, but she welcomed it all the same. Somehow, she’d gotten to the flagship without dying and enlisted the help of a mentally unstable D-per, and now she was free to read up on her new fleet without worrying about her immediate demise.

Her hands weren’t even shaking. Much.

The desk’s interface worked like most of the higher-end systems she’d used. She brought it online and found several documents already waiting for her perusal, courtesy of Crispin. Written by him, too, if the condescending tone was any indication. But she was grateful for his assumption that she was clueless, because she was. She rummaged in the interface for a realtime view of her ships so she could keep an eye on their movements and concentrated on learning what Kamaney had bequeathed her with her violent death.

Kamaney’s bequest was awful.

The pirate fleet was only barely a unified force, held together by Kamaney’s force of personality and Crispin’s iron fist. The commanders that had been elevated into positions of authority over the fleet’s ‘task forces’ could only be counted on to look out for themselves, unless they thought something would befall them if they didn’t. The bios Crispin had (gleefully, no doubt) compiled for her were appalling. Had she been in her right mind, she would have resumed panicking.

But she remained committed to her course, and too emotionally battered to care how hard it was going to be. Crispin, she thought, was the part that worried her. If he stayed on her side, she could keep the pirates in line. But she had to convince Crispin that supporting her would result in more destruction, and more entertainment, than letting the pirates turn on her and kill her.

She tapped her fingers slowly on the desk.

Seducing Kamaney had been a warm-up. Training for an even less sane target. Except that seducing Kamaney hadn’t worked out well. Not that she was dead, yet, and while she was alive, there was hope? Wasn’t there?

So tempting to put her head in her hands. But Crispin was watching. She resumed reading, her shoulders tense, and observed that her breathing had, once again, become tight and painful.

She’d been so sure she could handle this. She’d begged the Goddess and Lord for a challenge equal to her powers.

She’d been such a fool.

2

The Usurper put Jahir back on the wall two days after Oviin’s death. With the gag, the plugs, and the blindfold. He did not explain himself—he didn’t have to. His thoughts were so distinct Jahir could hear them across the room. He must not interfere again.

Sadly for the Usurper, Jahir was already interfering again.

To seep through the palace, infecting the dreams of the Usurper’s captive courtiers… that was spending his life as surely as opening a vein. But he did it anyway, sowing dissent and doubt. Whispering of weakness. Of unFitness to rule. He hinted that the lords were better judges of the uses of their ships… and far better suited to disseminating the plunder. He filled their dreams with the war, and how the navy would rule it, leaving them nothing, or perhaps less than nothing: using it as an excuse to destroy their fleets, leave them helpless.

And he smiled around his broken mouth, sensing their activity as they communicated to their trusted liegemen off-planet.

He wondered sometimes if this was vengeance. If he had taken Oviin’s death too hard and crossed some line. In sending the Twelveworld Lord away from Apex-East he had surely done all that was necessary for the war effort. Sanity demanded he husband