Princess of the Void

Grant’s spine straightens in shock. He sees the resemblance now, at the corners of the mouth and in the dark, full eyebrows. This is not how he expected to meet his mother-in-law.

What’s Sykora being punished for?

Being born, sire.

“I hope my repeated calls didn’t disturb you,” Inadama continues. “Sykora sometimes requires some prompting to answer hails.”

“It was no trouble, Marquess.” Grant says. “The Princess will return your call soon.”

“I’ll wait for her here. With you.” Inadama’s grin doesn’t reach her eyes. “I have plenty of time. It’s no trouble.”

“Are you sure, Marquess?”

“Quite sure,” she says. “I have some embroidery I can get done.”

Grant glances at the console. He’s not sure how to hang up, anyway. “If you’re content, I am.”

Inadama busies herself with her craftwork. Grant occasionally sees her needle rise into the frame, gilded by a metallic thread. Her downcast eyelids are heavy with deep mahogany shadow. “How are you finding the Black Pike, Prince Consort Grantyde?”

“I’m adjusting.”

Inadama nods, satisfied, perhaps, by his discretion. “And the Princess? She’s to your liking?”

“She’s a superlative woman.”

“Are you making her happy?”

“As happy as I can, ma’am.”

“Good.”

They lapse into silence again.

“She was quite vexed before her disappearance,” says the Marquess. “Distraught, I think, over her sister. Has she mentioned her? Narika?”

“The name rings a bell, Marquess.”

Inadama’s brow furrows. “It what?”

Oh, right. “It’s an expression of my species. The name’s familiar, but only faintly.”

“Ah. An artful little metaphor.” Inadama draws her thread tight. “Narika is Princess of the Glory Banner. They have never gotten along, I’m afraid. Perhaps it’s good news Sykora hasn’t brought it up to you. Perhaps the feud is done. Such a shame when a voidship’s resources are wasted on petty intersector squabbles.”

A tranquil two-tone chime from the door. “Grantyde?” Sykora’s voice calls over the intercom. “Are you decent?”

“Yes, Majesty.”

“Aww. Shame.” The door slides open. Sykora and Vora enter, volleying a giggle between them. “I was counting on—”

She sees Inadama. She stops in her tracks. Her majordomo nearly collides with her.

“Princess.” Inadama inclines her head. “So thrilled to hear news of your safe return.”

“Marquess Palatine.” A curtain of ice slams shut over Sykora’s face and tone. She becomes as inexpressive as a marine’s anticomp face plate. “I appreciate your concern. Why have you called?”

“To welcome you home and speak on business. But my priorities shifted when I met your charming husband.” Inadama’s smile doesn’t meet her eyes. “Now I’d say item one on the agenda is congratulations. He’s a handsome and prudent-seeming young man.”

“Thank you.” Sykora mirrors Inadama’s armor-plated smile. “I don’t mean to cut your agenda short, but I am, as you surely guess, quite busy. Much to catch up on. Must get back to it.”

“I’ll only need a moment, Princess.” Inadama affects a breezy tone. “Lady Frelle of Ptolek dropped me a line that you had visited her and the Governess. I wonder whether you’ve gotten over that fantastical assassination theory. Frelle seemed to think you were cured of it.”

“It’s premature, I think, to dismiss any possibility.” Sykora takes a seat on one of her nook’s overstuffed swivel stools. She crosses her legs tight. “Have you come across some reason I should?”

Vora makes eye contact with Grant. She’s got a wooden box clutched to her chest and a look of restrained anxiety across her face.

“I’d thought your unplanned retreat might have lent you clarity,” Inadama says. “Your time away from the rigors of the office. A chance to ponder, and reset.”

“If only it had been that relaxing, Marquess.” Sykora puts forth a humorless laugh. “If Frelle inquires, you may inform her I am, as always, committed exclusively to the stability and security of my sector.”

“Exclusively.” Inadama meets the laugh with her own. “Well, I should hope you have commitment to spare for your new husband.”

“A timely reminder.” Sykora stands. “Will that be all, Marquess?”

“Almost.” Inadama holds up a thimbled finger. “I wanted to let you know in advance. Another Void Convocation is going to be announced in a few cycles. I’m not sure, yet, when it’s to be held. But you’ll want to make ready.”

Sykora’s tail twitches. “I am always prepared for a Convocation, Marquess. But thank you for the notice.”

“Have you spoken with the Princess of the Glory Banner since your return?”

“No.” Sykora crosses to the console. “And now I must bid you good afternoon.”

“You ought to, Sykora.”

“I’ll take your advice with the same charitable spirit it was given. Now I really am quite busy, Marquess.”

“I would remind you of your obligations toward your blood, Princess.”

“I would remind you that blood does not bind a Void Princess.” Sykora’s eyes flare and Grant is back in the room with the gory, wrathful woman who stole him from his home. “Take care you do not overstep, Marquess. These aren’t Imperial Core matters.”

The two women stare at one another.

“Well. I suppose I ought to let you get back to it, if you are truly so pressed for time.” Inadama’s shoulders rise in an blithe shrug. “Once you’re less overwhelmed, we can meet and speak longer.”

“Perhaps. Goodbye.” Sykora mashes the button to drop the call hard enough that Grant’s surprised it isn’t shoved through the wall. “Grant me the fucking patience, Gods of the Firmament,” she hisses, “to deal with these Imperial Core harpies.”

Grant steps back into the center of the room. “Not a fan of the Marquess?”

“You want to talk about ass holes. When they add it to our encyclopedia, they can put her picture next to it.”

“Is she a minder that the Core’s assigned you?”

“No. No, the way I run my sector should not be her concern. She only thinks she has a say in it because I slid out of her, and she has enough power to meddle where she doesn’t belong.”

“She’s your mother?” Grant tries to pretend like he doesn’t already know.

“Inadama is not,” Sykora snarls, “my mother.” A stormcloud passes over her eyes. “Void princesses do nothave mothers, Grantyde. My family is my crew. My lineage begins and ends with me and the Black Pike.”

He averts his eyes. “My mistake.”

“Oh, darling.” Sykora clicks her tongue and gives his hand a light touch. “No, it’s mine. I can’t expect you to just know these things automatically.” She rubs her temples. “The Marquess calls and suddenly I’m biting my poor husband’s head off for a simple question. I was in such a good mood, too. Hellfire.”

“We could delay our game.” Vora’s fingers drum on the box in her hands.

“No, no. It’ll help. Please.” Sykora pulls her stool back to the nook. “I could use the ego boost of kicking your twilight posterior all over this cabin.”

Vora snickers. “Big talk.”

“You’ll see. I’ve been running our past games in my head during my internment. I’ll have you.” Sykora taps the release on the tunic she’s wearing. It slides down her shoulders. Grant’s heart lurches as she steps from the cascading silk—in front of Vora?—but her skin ripples even as it’s revealed, and by the time her scarf’s hit the ground, she is entirely invisible.

A phantom tail gives his shoulder a little tap. When he looks, an invisible laugh sounds from the other side. “You went pale for a moment there, husband. Did you think I was about to flash my majordomo?”

“I have no idea, your standards for nudity,” he says. “For all I know Taiikari are all streakers.”

“Vora’s certainly seen my ta-tas a few times when I’ve sneezed, or something.” An embroidered linen blouse emerges from Sykora’s voluminous closet.

Vora coughs. “Entirely inadvertently, Prince Consort. I assure you.”

The blouse lifts into the air and is given curvaceous dimension by the invisible chest it’s pulled over. A pair of slouchy maroon drop-crotch pants follows. Sykora coruscates back into visibility, cinching a braided golden belt around her waist. “Would you play some music for us, Grantyde? I don’t mean to impose. But it always helped me get my mind off things, on Maekyon.”

“Of course.” Grant fetches his guitar.

“You really must hear this, Vor.” Sykora’s beaming. Her shoulders loosen as he takes his seat by the nook. “It’s this acoustic Maekyonite instrument called a gee-dar, and Grantyde is just a marvel with it.”

“I really am just okay at best. You should listen to the folks whose music I’m covering.”

Sykora shakes her head as Vora flips the latch on the box. “I don’t want to listen to them. I happen to be married to the best gee-dar player in the Taiikari Empire.”

Grant plays. Vora pauses her setup. Her oversized ears flutter. “Oh, Prince Consort. That’s so lovely.”

Sykora looks smug. She’s showing me off, Grant thinks. Showing her fancy new Maekyonite to her friends. Why doesn’t he feel that righteous outrage about it, anymore? The Princess’s tail is wagging back and forth to the music, and she’s looking at him with such unvarnished admiration. A noblewoman with a mile-long warship, and an army at her fingertips. And he’s her most prized possession.

He’s still determined to get himself free before he takes her to bed. Of course he is. But he can’t lie to himself about the warmth spreading through his chest.

“How was the meeting with the chancellor?” he asks.

“As existentially numbing as ever.” Sykora sits across from her majordomo. “But a positive outcome.”

“He can talk and do that at the same time?” Vora murmurs. Sykora’s grin grows. She nods.

Grant hits a brief hammer-on lick. “What outcome was that?”

“Just some light corruption. I offered favorable rates on an import lane she’s invested in, and she agreed to get my actual Imperial Core minders off my back for another season. While I convalesce. That was Vora’s word.” Sykora’s tail swishes and baps Vora’s. “Like I’m a fainting prioress.”

“It worked, Majesty.” Vora’s tail baps back as she clacks the wooden case onto the nook table. She unfolds its intricate spiral cover into a hexagonal grid. “And if they looked at the books as they stand right now, there would be repercussions. In your absence I’ve had to supplant your noble title with a steady stream of bribery.” Her eyes are still on Grant’s hands as they spider up the fretboard.

“We’ll call it another of life’s necessary indignities, then,” Sykora says. “And the Marquess, of course. She didn’t scratch you, did she, Grantyde?”

“Your rescue was just in time, Princess.”

“Thank God. Of all the hazards of the occupation, that woman’s the most aggravating.”

Grant thinks of mentioning that the Marquess called Sykora her daughter before their arrival, and spilled the beans about Narika’s sisterly connection while she was at it. He decides not to. He gets it. Family can go bad.

Grant fills the cabin with his silvery tones as Vora and Sykora play a game with a superficial similarity to chess. The board is hexagonal, and its pieces are ivory carved ships. If there’s some marker of whose piece is whose, Grant can’t identify what it is. The Taiikari women stare pensively at the board for thirty seconds, and then move seemingly at random. Occasionally Vora will hum or Sykora will hiss dissatisfaction at a move. But mostly they talk, in low, melodic voices, and giggle now and then, and Grant plays for them, going at random between songs and noodling improvisation. And it’s comfortable. It’s nice. It’s a nicer afternoon than Grant has had in a long time.

“He did this for me when I was being held captive,” Sykora says. “Every night. I’d become such a feral thing. I barely felt like a woman anymore. Just a penned animal. And then he came out of his little guard post with his geed… I know I’m saying it wrong, Grantyde.”

“Guitar.” Grant has to focus on the syllables himself.

“Guidar,” Sykora tries.

“Closer, Majesty.”

“Thank you, dear. Anyway.” She moves a piece. “Grantyde came to me. And brought this music with him. And I returned to myself.”

“That is just breathlessly romantic.” Vora scoots an interceptor-shaped piece onto an elevated hex. “Zone control.”

“Shit.” Sykora surveys the board. “I’m losing, Grantyde.”

“My sympathies, Majesty.”

“You’re distracting me.”

“You requested the distraction.” He affects a flamenco strum. “Tactical error.”

Sykora’s situation deteriorates from there. “You are playing viciously today,” she observes.

Vora shrugs. “You’re just rusty, Majesty. We’ll have you back in trim in no time. We’ve done it before.”

“How long have the two of you been working together?” Grant switches to a lilting minor key ballad.

“Vora’s been my majordomo since my commission,” Sykora says. “Since we were children. Nobody else would ever tolerate me that long.”

Grant wonders how old Sykora is. Her mother looked…sharp, but she didn’t look old. He could have mistaken her for an older sister.

“Your wife is exaggerating, Prince Consort.” Vora shifts a piece. “The Black Pike sector is the jewel of the frontier.”

“I have you to thank for that, always, but especially now.” Sykora examines the board. “Oh my God. My flotilla. Is that your carrier?”

A suppressed laugh twitches Vora’s ears. “It is, Majesty.”

Sykora places her hand on her forehead. “I take it all back. You are an evil backstabber and I’m going to have you poisoned.”

Vora wears an expression of innocent gentility. “Would you like to drag this out, Majesty, or do you care to resign?”

“You are a snake. I resign.” Sykora flicks the piece off its pedestal and stands up. “Let’s move to part two.”

Vora hesitates, halfway to standing. “You don’t have anywhere else to be? Perhaps you’d like to skip this one and stay with Grantyde?”

“Trying to weasel out?” Sykora tips the pieces into a drawer on the gameboard’s side and swirls its lid shut again. “Not going to happen, Vorakaia. And Grantyde’s invited. I need to save face.” She passes the box to her reluctant majordomo. “Would you like to watch Vora and I try to stab one another, darling?”

Grant slides his palm across his strings and kills the chord. “Like, actually stab?”

“This is your wife’s harebrained idea of a good time,” Vora says. “She says it’s the ultimate test of the noble disciplines. A game of Gravitas and then a spear duel.”

“A spear duel?” Grant slips his guitar back into its velvety case. “I have to see this.”

Sykora's tail gestures to him. “You hear that, majordomo? I can’t go disappointing my husband.”

Vora sighs heavily. “Fine. But only because your charming husband wants to watch. And you’re one-handed.”

“Of course I am. I remember the rules. Chin up, Vor. It’s been fifteen cycles since I’ve handled a spear. You’ll win easily.” Sykora smirks. “If you’ve kept in practice.”

Vora’s tail wilts. The look she casts Grant clarifies she has not kept in practice.

“All right then, gals.” Sykora rolls her shoulders. “Let’s get sharp.”