Princess of the Void-2.17. The Best Prize

“Thror!” Paxea shoves through the thinning huddle, skidding to her knees next to her husband. “Birdy. Who did this to you?”

“I can’t—” Thror’s feathers have flattened across his head. “I can’t—there’s nothing. I was coming back with—” His jaw snaps open. “The spritzes. I didn’t bring back the drinks.”

Paxea scoffs through her cascade of tears. “You goof. I don’t care about the drinks.”

“Grantyde.” Sykora’s hand is on his shoulder. “I need you, love. Your height.” She’s snapping the backing off a thick adhesive tile. “Can you reach the hole in the ceiling? We’re venting.”

Grant inhales. The air is thin and sulfurous and colder by the moment. He takes the tile from Sykora and stands on tiptoes, pressing it against the bullet hole in the ceiling with his outstretched fingertips.

Sykora gawks. “My God, you’re tall.” She turns as the skybox entrance fills with armored and anticomped men, their boxy rifles raised.

“Majesty.” A guard in the back thumps a quick salute. “Have you apprehended the shooter?”

“Apprehended.” Sykora scoffs. “Lower your goddamn weapons. The man was compelled. Who’s the captain here?”

The line sheepishly breaks and a tall Taiikari steps forward, a chevron of red stripes on one shoulderpad. “Majesty.”

“Task a section to keep Azkaii of Trimond secure until I send for her. We need to ensure her safety. This was not a bullet, do you understand?” Sykora’s eyes narrow. “It was a stray firework set off by overenthusiastic revelers. God knows the refiners have enough of those on their tugs. Find the bullet, patch the glass, reveal this to nobody. That is a command from your sector’s Princess.”

“Immediately, Majesty.” The man falls into a murmured conference with his soldiers.

“I wasn’t finished, soldier.” Sykora’s words snap the entire squad back to attention. “I need to speak with Governess Garuna and Baroness Trimond. Locate them and find me a space where we won’t be disturbed.” She gives them an icy look. “Now you’re dismissed.”

The patches meld into the skybox glass and go translucent, leaving a lumpy minor defect that he wouldn’t have noticed if it wasn’t a spiderwebbing bullet hole a moment ago. And just like that, the shooting didn’t happen.

Sykora’s sitting with Paxea and her trembling husband, speaking in a low, comforting tone to them. Grant stands nearby, watching the race and trying to focus on something other than his racing pulse.

“Poor Thror.” Tikani leans on the balustrade next to him and takes a drink of expensive wine, right from a bottle’s slim, gilded neck. “Owes you his life now, you know. Amadari don’t take that lightly.”

Grant sighs. “I hope he’ll make an exception for me.”

Tikani laughs wanly. “He’s never been properly paranoid about it. The compulsion. It’s lucky that it happened this way, in the end. Could have been a much ruder awakening. He grew up around it, in privilege, and that has a way of blinding you to it, making you careless. You and I have an advantage there.”

He passes Grant the bottle of wine. The Prince Consort pours himself a glass. “Where did you grow up?”

“Born and raised on Kovik.” Tikani wipes his mouth. “Never thought I’d leave. I lived in a sleepy little suburb, and the city it fed into was hosting some kind of conference on lighter-than-air vessels. There were Taiikari there, but you don’t get them outside the big cities, really. We certainly didn’t see any on my street. And then one day, out of the blue, this Taiikari girl walked into my cafe—and God, I was terrified. I didn’t own a pair of anticomps. Never needed them before. And there she was.”

“What’d she do?”

“She bought a mudslide cookie and a vola-foam latte, tipped me 60% on top, and left,” Tikani says. “And then the next day she was back and I’d bought some anticomps, and she laughed and told me I looked like a weird bug. And she was back again the next day. And the day after that. And on the fifth day, she told me the conference was over and she was leaving, but she’d decided she wanted my coffee every morning. And she said: my name’s Wenzai and I’m a Countess, and I’m taking you home with me. She had a shuttle parked outside. And I said okay.”

“Just like that?”

“The only thing that scared me more than saying yes was saying no,” Tikani says. “There aren’t many ways off of a vassal world. I had this feeling—it was the huge tips, I suppose, and the appreciation for coffee. Not a lot of Taiikari ladies have the taste. I had this feeling she was one of the good ones. The kind of woman who’d protect me. And I wanted to be protected.”

“And were you right?”

Tikani smiles. “So far. I make her coffee, and she keeps me safe, and we write each other embarrassing poetry and raise our kids. And I live a happy life.” He taps his anticomps. “But I’ve never forgotten what’s up here. What they can do to us. And now I suppose Thror won’t either.”

The air’s warming back up, now that the holes are patched. But Grant can’t stop his shiver.

Tikani offers the wine. “You want the rest of this, Prince Consort?”

“I’m all right.” Grant nudges the sloshing bottle away. “Think I’ve had enough for the day.”

“All right. Smart.” Tikani looks over his shoulder, and bows at the waist to the approaching Princess. “Majesty.”

“Count Tikani. Good evening.” Sykora inclines her head. “Thank you for keeping my husband company. Attend, Grantyde.”

Grant gives his brief goodbyes and shadows Sykora. She pauses by the Marquess and her pallid husband for an encouraging embrace. She straightens and gestures a guard over. “Get the Marquis Consort a flash scan. See if we can lift an optic shadow.”

“Does that work?” Grant bends below the doorway as they depart the box. “The flash scan? Is that a way to tell who did it?”

“With just one incident?” She shakes her head. “Optic shadows take dozens of compulsions to build up enough for a usable print. But it’ll be a minor comfort for them. That’s something, at least. We’re going to have to find out who compelled Thror in some other way. Whoever it was, they did it on this skyship.” She tugs his collar in the way she does when it’s time to share a secret. He lowers his head.

“It’s ugly and selfish of me, dove,” she whispers, “but all I can focus on is how grateful I am that something like this will never happen to you.”

He clasps her hand tight and tries not to think about what he saw today with Azkaii. “I feel like a bit of an idiot, picking you up and throwing you behind me like that. I wasn’t thinking. The gun wasn’t even pointed at you.”

“Prince Consort Grantyde.” She plants her hands on either side of his head. “Never call yourself an idiot. My safety was your first thought. That takes my breath away. You acted before anyone else. Before I did, even. You saved the life of Paxea’s husband. You probably saved Waian. You have been my hero today, twice now. And I will express my admiration in an unspeakably explicit manner as soon as we’re alone.” She kisses his forehead. “Call that an IOU. I’ll do the rest once we get this rendezvous finished.”

“Where are we going?”

“I’ve isolated a break room in the guts of this place for a private chat with the Trimond matriarch and the Governess of Ptolek,” Sykora says. “Trimond’s been giving me the runaround. Garuna’s been giving me excuses and deceptions. Both scrambling to ensure the eyes of the Empress don’t fall upon whatever conspiratorial killings are happening here. But there is no more hiding.” She scowls. “I am feeling far from charitable with these Ptolek noblewomen, Grantyde. I warn you in advance. Your presence would give me strength, but I won’t demand it of you.”

His palm nests between her shoulder blades. “It’s yours, Majesty.”

She sighs. “You’re affecting me, you know. Before, I’d be so full of anticipation to rip someone’s head off. I’d relish a chance like this. Now I just want to go home and seal us into our cabin and climb around on you like a little cliff monkey.”

“I’m sure you’ll recapture the feeling when you’re chewing the Governess out.”

She giggles. “Let’s hope so.” He feels her spine straighten under his hand. “Lady Lakai and Baroness Konia. Coming from the right. Big smiles, nothing’s wrong. Yes?”

He kisses the top of her head. “Yes.”

“Hi, gals.” Lakai gives them a big, shiny grin on her approach, the leather of her flight suit squeaking. “Guess who got in third?”

By the frilly bouquet couched in an ornate cloud-etched trophy, Grant guesses Lakai.

“Majesty.” The Lady bows. “Such a lovely surprise to see you here. Not a fan of the race, I thought.”

“I’m not so stubborn as to deny the thrill of it,” Sykora says. “And I hear we had just one fatality this decacycle, yes?”

“Yep. Just the one in the first heat.” Lakai shrugs. “And it was that dickbreath Torina Rinnok. Good riddance.”

Baroness Konia chuckles. “So flinty of you, Lady. Of course, any loss is regrettable.”

“It was a good straightaway this year,” Lakai says. “Low therm. And they redesigned the drydock bit, so you’re not flying between the struts anymore. The refiners will be pissed. Their favorite part is when some cocky noblewoman blows herself up.”

Konia’s tail prods Lakai’s back, hard. “Our competitors, of course, take their lives into their own hands when they begin the sprint. But we’ll take every pain to see that number brought down to nil by the next decacycle. Which I do so hope we’ll see you and your husband at again.”

“Perhaps you will.” Sykora gives a short bow. “With any luck, the swarm of sycophants will have gotten it out of their system.”

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Konia’s laugh is loud and artificial.

“Well raced, Lady Lakai,” Grant says. “Have you gotten onto the podium before?”

“Nope. This is my first time. The cup and the bouquet are nice.” Lakai clicks her tongue. “But your wife didn’t even race, and she has the best prize in the place.”

At some point, Grant’s sure he’ll recalibrate, and tire of this species of pint-sized beauties drooling over him. But it hasn’t happened yet. “Very charitable of you to say, Lady.”

“Ohmigod, his little blush is so pink.” Lakai sighs. “I wish I had a Maekyonite.”

They take as gracious a leave as the Princess will provide, and depart the main skyship floor, into its unadorned service depths where another set of armed guards wait to take them further in.

“All right. Now I’m ready to get vicious.” Sykora mutters to Grant. “Kudos to the lecherous Lady for that.”

Grant tousles her hair. “None of them compare to you. You know that.”

She gives him an affectionate little bump with her hip.

They follow the guards past a line of shining food service carts and folded umber table settings, into a piercingly fluorescent chamber with a sputtering holoprojector and a threadbare pink couch, occupied by a woman in a swaddling sea of taupe silk dress, and the Governess Garuna, dressed to the nines and in a level-ten fury. She surges to her feet as the guards enter. “I am your planetary Governess,” she snaps. “And I require an explanation immediately for this detainment. Who the hell do you think—”

“Hello, Governess.” Sykora steps from behind the carapaced curtain of her escort and Garuna’s mouth snaps shut like a bear trap.

“So funny you should mention an explanation, Garuna.” The Princess folds her arms. “It appears we’re all here for the same thing.” She smiles past Garuna’s frilly-gowned shoulder. “Baroness. Thank you for finally putting aside time to see me.”

“Where is Azkaii?” Baroness Trimond is quaking with barely-contained emotion—rage? fear? Grant’s not sure. “What is this, Majesty?”

“This is the meeting,” Sykora says, perching on a kitchen stool and crossing her legs, “where I tell you how to get your daughter back.”