Empress Game: The Empress Game Trilogy Book 1 (34 page)

“Princess Isonde of Piran, for whom do you fight this eve?”

Kayla took her place in the ring, separated from Tia’tan by a few paces of synthetic flooring and an unaccepted offer of alliance. She held her gaze, willing Tia’tan to listen to her.

“I fight for
our
people.” Her words drew a thunder of ignorant cheers from the arena.

Finally the others quit the sparring circle, leaving Kayla alone with Tia’tan and the official who would distribute their weapons.

Tia’tan, with the better record, had chosen the weapon.

Double daggers.

Kayla wanted her own wavy-edged kris daggers back, but accepted the standard-issue ones from the official. They were useless to her—she had only one way to win this fight.

“We found them,” she said, not caring that the official looked at her funny. There was no time left for secrecy. Tia’tan halted in reaching for her daggers. “We know where they’re being held.” Kayla willed the urgency of her voice to convince Tia’tan.

Tia’tan shook her off, grabbing her blades and stepping away to begin the match.

Frutt. How to convince her?

The official left the ring and Kayla settled into a crouch, daggers ready. Tia’tan looked as tense as she felt, muscles rippling up her bare arms as she flexed her fingers around the handles of her daggers. Neither moved when the chime sounded to begin the match.

She expected Tia’tan to shift to her right, begin the slow circling dance she had employed in her other fights. It was the style the princess favored for her opening. Instead she held her ground, daggers ready, waiting. Tia’tan’s gaze burned into her, suspicion and wariness paired with determination.

Kayla advanced, raising her weapons. “I will fight for this. You know Isonde will make the better empress.”
Even if I have to play her part.

“I disagree.” Even as Tia’tan spat the words, her head cocked to the left as if someone demanded her attention. She frowned, eyes flashing away from Kayla for just an instant. “But the others do not.” She took a step toward Kayla, then another.

Kayla crouched lower, ready to spring. Maybe if she went for an immediate injury to her leg, hampered her mobility…

Tia’tan took one last step, within striking distance, then raised her arms, hands out to the side, palms facing Kayla. She knelt and laid her daggers on the ground at Kayla’s feet.

She rose, squaring herself off. “Your princess had better be every bit as noble as you say she is, or you have doomed us all.”

Cheering broke through the stunned silence in the arena. The sound gathered strength as one after the other of the spectators realized that Tia’tan had forfeited the series. The roar drowned out the furious beat of Kayla’s pulse, the rasp of her breath, the bleed off of her adrenaline. She grabbed Tia’tan’s arm before the woman could step away.

Kayla knew the heart of the woman she pretended to be. The woman she
would
be, if necessary. Her voice was steel when she said, “We will not fail.”

* * *

Isonde had been so confident in her plan—or so unwilling to accept any other outcome—that she’d had her engagement dress made already. Kayla felt as though she slipped into Isonde’s skin as she pulled on the opulent bronze gown.

She stepped in front of her mirror, trying to ignore the way the neckline of the gown choked, and the fabric twisted as if to say, “you are not my body.” She didn’t belong here. She belonged with her family in whatever holding cell Dolan had locked them in for all these years. She belonged with people who knew her for herself. Instead, she wore another’s skin and prepared for her engagement feast with that woman’s soon-to-be husband.

Kayla hadn’t fully disappeared yet. Her face looked back at her from the mirror, the hologram’s biostrip on the desk waiting for her like a collar. Her lightless black hair coiled around her head in a series of braids designed to mimic a crown. Her blue eyes blazed from their place in the mirror.

I am Princess Kayla Reinumon, of Ordoch
, she reminded herself.

But for how long?

She should have been free. She’d delivered on her end of the bargain, she should be going home now. She and Corinth should be packing their things, stopping only long enough to rescue their family from Dolan—killing him in the process.

She shouldn’t be worrying what would happen to the people of the empire with her absence, thinking about the logistics of manufacturing and distributing a cure for the TNV. She shouldn’t feel responsible for the fate of her entire people, or have to worry about crafting the political agenda that would lead to their freedom. Most assuredly, she should not be wondering where Malkor would go from here. She should be home, in Wyrd Space, trying to build a life with just her
il’haar
’s safety to worry about.

Only, she didn’t have just one
il’haar
, not if Vayne lived. And she didn’t have a home, not without her people’s freedom.

And she did care what Malkor decided to do next.

Kayla fussed with the seams leading down the front of her bodice, tweaking the slippery fabric a nanometer to the right. She had to meet Prince Ardin soon. As was proper, he would escort her to the celebratory engagement banquet where he would name her as his future wife.

The thought made her ill.

Malkor had finally told Ardin the truth about Isonde’s condition, and even though Ardin knew she wasn’t Isonde, he sent enough adoring glances her way to make her wonder how often he forgot. Was she even a person to him, or just a placeholder Isonde? He never saw her out of hologram; maybe Kayla had ceased to exist for him.

Not for Malkor, though.

He saw her. He looked through the hologram and never forgot for an instant. She was real to him.

She was real, and she was doing the right thing.

Kayla applied the hologram and studied herself in her Isonde costume.

This
was
right, she told herself.

* * *

Déjà vu hit Malkor when he entered the banquet hall. He’d done this dance before.

His best friend, Prince Ardin, strode about the throng with the gravity of a star, pulling admirers along behind him as he made the rounds of the room. On his arm, sparkling and smiling and breaking hearts all at once, was Isonde. Just like always, they made a striking pair, and just like always, a wave of bitterness washed over him at the sight.

But this wasn’t the same Isonde.

And it wasn’t the same jealousy—it was worse.

He banished the irrational thought. He hadn’t lost Kayla to Ardin, she had never been his to begin with. The only reason she was even at the engagement banquet with Ardin was because he had forced her into it.

He should spend the night observing the guests at the engagement dinner. With the Game settled, nascent alliances would crystallize and a new political landscape would arise. Every available IDC agent would be circulating through the multitude of parties happening across the planet tonight. The IDC counted on him for his report on the latest shifts in diplomacy.

The IDC would have to wait.

He had a meeting with an informant regarding Janeen’s whereabouts in a half-hour. Finding Janeen, and extracting the exact formula for the toxin she’d used, took precedence. Only by healing Isonde could he give Kayla her freedom.

And if a back-alley meeting with a criminal got him away from watching Kayla become engaged to Ardin, he’d welcome it.

What, though, would save him from the wedding in three days’ time?

* * *

A half-hour later found Malkor deep in the heart of Falanar’s Pleasure District. He skulked down the narrow alley separating the Velvet Whip from Sex By Design. He couldn’t say the Pleasure District was a favorite meeting spot of his, but it was dark and anonymous.

He slowed as he neared the end of the alley and sidled up to a half-hidden door. A series of knocks met with a sliver of light as the door cracked open.

A guard sized him up. “We’re at capacity. Try Rookie’s across the street.”

“Ramjet’s is all right, if you like that sort of thing.” Malkor pulled a quad-credit from the fold of his watchcap. “Me, I’m more of a program ’n’ play kinda guy.”

The guard’s gaze flicked to the credit chip. “You like bots, eh?”

Malkor pulled out a second quad-cred and idly slid the chips along each other in a circle between thumb and fingertip. “They do what they’re told and they don’t talk back.”

“Ain’t that the truth.” The guard hesitated, no doubt debating Malkor’s ability to pay for services and likelihood to cause trouble. “We have room for one more.”

Malkor grinned. “Thought you might.”

The door widened just enough to admit him. Malkor slipped the bribe to the guard who accepted it without acknowledgement. “See Mandy, up front. They’ll get you settled.”

The hallway he entered was barely brighter than the alley. A diffuse indigo glow shimmered across the ceiling, providing just enough light to avoid walking into the wall. It drew him farther into the establishment. A bass beat thrummed through the walls. A sharp slap, followed by cackling, sounded from a door he passed.

This had better be some usable intel.

He reached the inner lounge. The lighting was vaguely brighter here, so he kept his eyes strictly on the proprietor of the house and avoided the patrons getting cozy on the couches, in the booths and on the bar.

“I’m looking for love,” he told Mandy, when he reached the androgynous owner of the brothel.

S/he looked him over head to toe, black duster to watchcap, boots to vest to… pistol. “Aren’t we all, hon.” His/her white painted lips smiled, eerie in the violet dark of the room. “But what speed are you? Hot and heavy, slow and easy, yes ma’am no ma’am, or something in between?”

“I’m an all night, low light, take it fight or flight kind of guy,” he said in response, hoping Mandy knew the code.

S/he nodded once, almost too quickly to notice. “If you’re looking for love, I can point you in a direction. Follow me.” S/he glided past with a gait too smooth to be biologic in origin and led him to the upper levels. S/he stopped outside a door and flashed a lithodisc bracelet across the panel to open it. “Payment’s been arranged,” was all s/he said, before s/he turned and walked away.

“You’re late,” said a male voice inside the room.

“Lights,” Malkor ordered, still standing in the hallway.

He heard a raspy chuckle, then a lightstrip on the back wall illuminated the room’s one occupant. “Happy now?” Rutcker looked surprisingly refined for the environment. His blond hair was pulled into a smooth ponytail. His goatee, a shade darker, was trimmed with razor precision, and emeralds glinted at each earlobe. His overcoat hid most of his outfit but the shoes said, “I’ve got credits to melt,” as loudly as his metallic incisor did.

Malkor strode into the room and closed the door with his heel. “What have you got for me?” His eyes scanned the saferoom but nothing seemed out of place. There was no space to fit anyone else and his informant didn’t look armed. Of course, appearances could be deceiving. The ion pistol Malkor had on his hip was only one of three weapons he carried with him this evening.

“Did you bring it?” Rutcker asked. A big-time extortionist with more enemies than Malkor had friends, he lounged in his chair. He eased his weight back, tipping the base of the seat off the floor.

Malkor withdrew an iden chip from his vest pocket. He pulled a reader from his other pocket and plugged the disc into the slot. Credentials came up on the display, a complete suite that Rutcker could use to access a million places currently off-limits to him.

Malkor flashed the screen Rutcker’s way for five seconds. “That’s all you get until I have my information.”

Rutcker balanced the chair in its off-kilter position. “I’ve seen your missing agent.”

“Where?”

He shrugged. “Here and there, running missions for some higher-up, but she’s in town.”

“Rutcker, these credentials could practically get you into the palace. Either you have something useable for me, or…” Malkor ejected the iden chip and made as if to drop it on the floor. The sensitive trinium circuitry wouldn’t last a nanosecond beneath his boot.

“Okay. Okay. I know where she’s been staying. Mostly. Some days.”

Malkor slid the reader back into his pocket and held up the chip. “Either you want it or you don’t.”

“She’s got friends. Better friends than you. She’s keeping low in Shimville but someone’s supplying her.”

Shimville, a neighborhood in the Mercantile District where the illegal import/export business was real lucrative. “Where in Shimville?”

“That’s all I’ve got.” Rutcker grinned. “Hey, it’s more than you had.”

“That’s not worth a new chip, Rut.” Malkor pinched the iden chip between his thumb and forefinger, ready to snap it into uselessness. He applied the slightest pressure to the chip and Rutcker’s chair landed with a thud. He stared at the chip as if it was his salvation. Who knew? In his line of crime, it might be.

“Fine. She’s topside. Left leg. The shop by the Nadarians.”

“What else can you tell me?”

“What am I, one of your junior agents?” Rutcker rose slowly. He adjusted the fit of his coat, straightening his lapels and aligning the zip-up. “She’s there alone, my guy says. No backup, but heavy tech.”

“Low or high?” Malkor asked.

“We’re talking tip-top. Whoever’s spotting her, they don’t scrimp.” Rutcker pointed to the iden chip Malkor still held for ransom. “Speaking of, that piece isn’t going to get me flagged for a bad forgery, is it?”

Malkor gave him a flat stare. “Maybe, maybe not. Depends if your intel checks out.”

“You know my drop’s always good.”

True, but he wasn’t usually tipping on something so heavy, and Malkor knew he recognized that. Malkor took the chip’s protective sleeve out of his pocket and slid the thing home before holding it out to the extortionist. “All yours.”

The instant Rutcker took possession of the chip it disappeared, flitted away in a sleight-of-hand technique Malkor couldn’t follow. If he wanted it back, he’d have to roll the man’s body for it.

Malkor turned to go, thoughts already churning on a plan to check out Shimville without spooking Janeen. Rutcker’s voice stopped him at the door.