Princess of the Void-2.9. Glory Banner

The Princess of the Glory Banner’s eyes bore into them as Grant traces Sykora's steps toward the blackwood table.

“Did that feral woman maul you?” Sykora whispers.

He shakes his head. “You came just in time.” He hands her their gift-wrapped excuse. Pressed on the bottom of it is the leech chip. He lays it on her palm. “I got it.”

“What did I tell you? I knew you would.” She slips the chip into her purse as she tucks the gift under her arm. “You are a marvel.”

As they move to the table, Marquess Paxea falls in with Sykora. The two exchange low whispers. Grant tries not to be obvious as he leans lower, trying to listen in.

“Konia invited her directly,” Paxea murmurs. “It’s an open secret by now, her designs on Ptolek.”

“She hasn’t been so bold as to approach Garuna, surely,” Sykora says.

“No. But proxies are speaking with proxies. If a protestation is brought, she’s not solid. I wish I had better news.”

“It hasn’t happened yet.” Sykora pats Paxea’s shoulder. “Thank you, Marquess.”

Paxea breaks from Sykora’s side with a shallow bow. Grant replaces her. Sykora’s tail tickles his knuckle. “I saw you trying to snoop there, my lofty lover. Are you curious?”

“I admit it.”

Sykora’s eyes flash. “Duck into this alcove with me, dove. And kneel.” She says it loud enough to be overheard. Grant obeys, tugging Sykora by the waist into one of the great chamber’s amber-lit pockets.

“I don’t want anyone overhearing me telling you this,” she whispers. “Pretend we’ve ducked in here to make out.”

He sticks his lip out. “We haven’t?”

She giggles. “One thing at a time.” She slides Grant’s hand up along her hip. As he kisses her neck, she murmurs into his ear:

“Ptolek is on the border between my sector’s and Narika’s. That makes a protestation quite easy to lodge. She could bring a case to the Core and steal the system from me. She’s done it before.”

He takes a deep breath of her hair. “How often?”

“Five times,” Sykora says. “Four unsuccessful, but she scooped a phlogiston system from me. A planet called Sotham. And I’ve taken one from her. We’re tied.”

“What did you take from her?”

“Ptolek, dove.” Sykora casts a dim glance back out to the party, where her sister circles, vulture-style. “I took Ptolek.”

“It’s all rabble-rousing,” Garuna says. “The refiners were perfectly happy with their generous benefits, and then the unionists rolled in and told them no, you’re actually discontent. Vociferously enough that they’ve gotten several sites to actually believe it.” She scoots her finely carved chair further into the table. “It’s such a turnaround every time you let them slip into the production line. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were using compulsion.”

“If only we could employ compulsion again.” This from the dark blue viscountess by her arm, whose name Grant hasn’t caught. “It would be better for everyone. The workers would have that nice, fuzzy feeling, reapplied on the hour, and we’d save so much on compliance enforcement. And it would be safer for everyone.”

“I think you overestimate the duration and pleasantness of the warmth, Viscountess.” Duke Morek pipes up. “It fizzles out long before the order wears off.”

“Morek’s got the right of it. But there is, I have to say, a clarity-of-focus that must come in handy when handling hazardous machinery.” Count Tikani the Kovikan is all joviality. He’s subsumed his solemnity from the gallery as though it was never there. He gestures across the table to his wife, the sleepy-looking goth Grant saw earlier, who’s tucked her napkin into her unapologetically low neckline as the collective waits for the first course. “If Wenzai didn’t compel a half hour of writing out of me every day, I don’t know how I wouldn’t fall behind on publication.”

Wenzai winks a shadowed eyelid at her husband. “Not to mention all the hazardous machinery I got you handling.”

Tikani covers his laugh with the back of his hand.

“There, you see?” Garuna replaces her wine glass and wipes her mouth. “Look at the accident reports before and after. We’re putting our men at risk.”

“Why don’t we just include it in their contracts?” says a glamorously sequined woman. Marquess Reka, if Grant remembers right. “Then it’s voluntary. You consent to compulsion when you consent to the job.”

“That’s not voluntary. That’s coercion.”

The table turns as one to Grant. He suddenly wishes he weren’t quite so tall.

Easy, Grantyde. You’re here as Prince Consort. You have power. Knock over enough little dominoes...

“On Maekyon,” he says. “That’s what we’d call it. Coercion. If your livelihood depends on it, you’re not in a position to refuse, and it’s not a choice. That’s just replicating compulsion without the flash.”

Reka puts on an artificial smile. “Negotiation isn’t compulsion, Prince Consort.”

“I haven’t been a subject of the Empress long,” he says. “But I think you should consider her intent. And it seems clear to me in this case. Looking for loopholes might be legal, but it hardly seems loyal.”

Reka’s pupils dilate. Grant realizes that he may have hit a little harder than he intended.

The dark blue countess gives Sykora, who’s sitting across from him, a pointed look. “Majesty?”

Sykora glances over with feigned inattention. “Yes, Viscountess Lorimare?”

So that’s the woman whose shuttle he broke into. “Do you agree with the Prince Consort?” she prompts.

“Are you suggesting my husband has overstepped?” Sykora’s an icy lake. Her tail settles protectively over Grant’s thigh under the table.

“Well, no, not as such. I mean, of course not.” Lorimare blanches. “Not if you don’t think so.”

“I don’t.” Sykora’s mien melts into a warm smile. “Never fear, dear cousin. I’d hate to see you upset on my account.”

“I’m just curious as to your thoughts. Being the Princess of our sector.”

“My thoughts.” Sykora rests her chin on her knuckles as she considers her words. Grant has put her on the back heel, he realizes. “I think my husband understands the way to be a loyal subject. I speak from firsthand experience.” She winks at Grant.

The table laughs at that. He joins in.

“He has us when it comes to the loopholes, though, doesn’t he?” Sykora pats Grant’s hand. “Considering her intent is such a crucial task, after all. Second only to enforcement. We ought to take care that in our dealings with the unionists we don’t grasp for advantages that our Empress doesn’t intend us to have.”

Garuna’s eyes narrow. “Is this a mandate from my Princess, or just a friendly suggestion?”

“Now, Garuna.” Sykora laughs as if the Governess had told a witty joke. “I couldn’t possibly mandate any sort of planetside stewardship. On Ptolek, your word carries. I’m only speaking as your fond cousin, whose fortunes are bound up with yours.” She sips her wine. “We have to remember, cousins, that from menial to Marquess, we’re servants of the same mistress. Best to take good care of our tools. Our lofty titles are contingent on the work we accomplish with them.”

A sniffing chuckle from across the table.

Sykora’s head snaps toward the sound. “I’m glad to amuse you, Marquess Reka, intentionally or otherwise, though I wonder if you might explain the humor.”

“It’s a lovely sentiment, Majesty, but I wonder at how you express it. So often I hear this sort of refrain from the civically minded noblewoman, as though the wellspring of your power were different, somehow.” Reka’s dress scintillates as she props her elbow by her empty plate. “But we don’t have to pretend here. Our blood gives us our titles, not our works. It isn’t pretty, but it’s true. Your ship, your sector. These are gifts you were given by the right of your birth. I mean no offense.”

Sykora smiles beneficently. “Gifts we were given, Marquess. Such is our good fortune, that every gift our Empress gives one of us may be made, by scrupulous duty, a gift for all of us. The Black Pike was a handsome gift to me. And in happy concordance it has passed forward to you. I keep your ships safe in the firmament, and your business prosperous on Tamion. It’s twenty cycles now, isn’t it, since I drove the Shacklemare clan from your border, as you implored of me with such commendable humility. Perhaps I’ll do so again next time they come knocking, since you so courteously mentioned you mean no offense.”

The Marquess’s knuckles are white where her hands fold.

Sykora’s smile has morphed into the same one he saw on her sister’s face. The shark one. “You, for your part, have brought this delicious ice wine to our good cousin’s party, if I remember right. How lovely, the extent to which our joys can be redoubled by sharing them among the peerage.” She holds up her glass in salutation. “As best as each of us is able.”

She takes another sip.

“It’s just so lovely, this wine. Don’t you think so, darling?”

Grant tries the wine. It tastes like wine. “Delicious. Thank you, Marquess.”

“You are most welcome,” Marquess Reka mutters.

“It seems rather unorthodox, doesn’t it. How eager our dear cousin is to air the opinions of her property.” Narika has her hands folded in her lap. “If I didn’t know better, Kora, I’d say you were boy-crazy.”

“What a delight to hear you know better.” Sykora returns Narika’s razor stare. “I’ve lived seven hectocycles comfortably unattached, dear sister. Without the use of Kabira’s wort. If I thought Grantyde was nothing more than a pretty face, I never would have taken him.”

The ginger who waved at him giggles. “Although it is such a pretty face.”

Narika does not relent. “It’s new from you, Sykora. This workers’ rights angle.”

“My angle is the dominion of my Empress. As always. That’s how I run the sector that’s so graciously hosting you. I should hope it’s how you run yours.”

“Really?” Narika dabs a bead of wine from the edge of her lip. It’s like a bloodstain on the napkin. “I hear there’s another matriarch carving out space in the Black Pike sector these days.”

“Scavengers always circle the greatest prizes,” Sykora says. “A little tip for you, dear sister, should you ever acquire one. But they circle wide, if you keep control.”

Narika smirks. “Perhaps you should ensure you can control the prize, first.”

“Control is what we are for, Narika.” Sykora turns her face to Grant. Her hand finds his under the table. Squeeze. Wiggle. Her eyes flash. She holds up her glass. “A little more wine.”

He stands and circles the table, plucking a cruet of wine from the place setting as he goes. He leans low as he fills her glass—low enough he feels the leash he’s been trying to ignore, on his neck.

“They’re testing us,” she whispers. “Forgive me, dove.”

He kisses her temple as he withdraws.

Their display has luckily coincided with the first course, and steered the table’s attention and conversation elsewhere.

Grant picks at the appetizer, a verdant seedpod salad, while Marquess Paxea holds forth about the fussy, labor-intensive particulars of growing something called stekkai. Thror nods and interjects at times; apparently its native to his home world. It’s that breakfast fruit he had, Grant realizes, the one that smeared like brie. He didn’t realize just how difficult and luxurious it was. Was giving it to him part of Sykora’s apology?

His wife has picked her fork up and put it down a few times, now. She’s standing it on its tongs at the edge of her napkin. But she hasn’t eaten yet. She keeps glancing over at him.

She catches his eye, and her vision darts to her plate, then back to his face. He realizes what she’s asking for and his throat goes dry.

He gives the Princess of the Black Pike a tiny nod of permission.

Instantly she takes a forkful and pops it into her mouth. A grateful little mmm as she chews. But her eyes, when they meet his again, are still full of hunger.