One

ARTHELION ORBIT

Soft music played in the Suite Royal of the glittership Luxochronus. The immense monocrystal viewport that made up one wall of the suite’s richly-appointed parlor displayed a spectacular view of cloud-swirled Arthelion. The planet curved away vast beneath the ship; above, the Highdwellings in synchronous orbit marked a golden arc vanishing over the terminator into the planet’s shadow.

Eleris vlith-Chandreseki consciously ignored the panorama. As a girl, born a Highdweller and raised on a vast inside-out world where the emptiness of space was unseen and underfoot, she’d found such views threatening in a way that her Downsider cousins couldn’t understand. By the time she’d returned home after her schooling and Grand Tour, she’d seen its like too many times to be impressed.

To Eleris the glory of space existed merely as a backdrop for the slim figure standing in front of the viewport, his hands loose, his head a little to one side as he gazed out at the planet below—from which his family had ruled the Thousand Suns for nearly a millennium.

Eleris shook her tumble of curls to spill across her naked back, and smiled as she padded barefoot across the floor of living mosses, remembering a party in this same room seven years ago, when she turned twenty. “Life is too short to waste on men who are not rich, pretty, and powerful,” she’d said to her cousin. “And the Arkad boys are the best of the best.”

“You’ll never get near them,” Leda had retorted.

Brandon nyr-Arkad had proved Leda wrong. Or was going to prove her wrong. He was easily the handsomest of the three royal sons, and his name evoked wealth and prestige enough for the most discriminating taste. Together they could lead Douloi society, which the rest of the Panarchy emulated.

If only he had the wit to cooperate!

She closed the distance between them, her bracelets tinkling sweetly as she reached up to run her fingers through the black, silken waves of his hair. How could Brandon be so beautiful and yet so oblivious?

“What,” she whispered into his ear before nipping it, “are you thinking about so passionately?”

She might as well have saved her breath.

“That last game,” he admitted. “There was an interesting tactical tradeoff that I might have handled better, if…”

“Brandon.”

“Eleris?”

He turned, his blue-gray eyes as guileless as a child’s.

Exasperation tightened in her chest, and she forced a smile. “Brandon, Phalanx is a game for children.”

“Not Level Three.” He turned out his hands, smiling ruefully. “I thought you enjoyed betting on me.”

The exasperation intensified to irritation. She breathed in slowly, and consciously dismissed it. He was never haughty or tiresome about the deference due his rank, unlike (for instance) Krysarchei Phaelia Inesset, whom he was expected to marry, and he never sneered dismissively at anyone outside of the Navy, or the Council, like his oldest brother, the Aerenarch Semion.

She leaned up to kiss Brandon. He tasted of blue-wine. Pay attention, she wanted to say, but she’d learned that you had to give a lover something to pay attention to.

He was always somewhat cloud-minded, but today he was worse than usual. Why? He’d only had that single glass of wine since their arrival back. Maybe he was more like the very cloud-minded middle brother than she’d assumed. Everyone said that Galen was kind, and gentle, but the only thoughts in his head were art and music.

“Brandon, we need to…” Not ‘talk.’ That was too serious. Brandon was never serious, and she had no intention of lecturing him on his duty, as she had overheard the Krysarchei Phaelia (who never let anyone forget her title) and her horrible mother doing once. “What fun can we share?”

He grinned, his eyelids lifting—now he was seeing her. She wore only her body art of climbing roses, a gem embedded in the center of each blossom, and an elegant chime bracelet on each wrist.

She stepped back and struck a pose, tossed her hair back again, and reveled in his appreciative gaze. “Afterward.”

But his answering grin began fading to distraction. She knew very well the effect she had on her lovers, which meant his distraction had an external cause. She dropped the pose and closed the distance between them. “Brandon, is something wrong?”

His head tipped. “We haven’t sampled all the delights of the old Luxo yet. Ship layover is only three more days. We could stay on for the next leg. What are you in the mood for? Winter or summer? Grav-skiing in the Gargantua Range on Thisselion? Delph-tag in the Bhopal Archipelago on Hanuman?”

She caught his hands, and began sliding her fingers up his arms. “Brandon, your Enkainion is only a month off, right here on Arthelion.”

He seemed genuinely surprised. “And so? We can’t get in some more fun before the harness slips on me for life?”

Eleris laughed. She’d been trained to laugh beautifully. It hid her exasperation. “Brandon, you sound as if you’d have to report to that Naval academy again, or something equally dreary. You know very well what you will be doing after your Enkainion: exactly what you do now.”

His breath hitched, so slight a break in the fremitus of his breathing that she would not have caught it had she not had her arms twined around him. She looked up, startled—there had been nothing in what she said to trigger such a reaction—but his smile was the same rueful grin. “Contrary. There will be no more asking if you like summer or winter.”

Ah. Was it the prospect of having every day scheduled that he resented? Why, when it would be nothing but parties, galas, celebrations, and maybe some formal rituals at which he’d preside as the Arkad representative, so that his older brother and his father would be free for their boring politicking?

“Is it spontaneity you wish for? Surely you cannot resent the necessity for schedules. Think of how long it takes to plan the very best parties!”

“Spontaneity?” He set his hands on her shoulders, his gaze steady, and wide with question. “I thought you wanted to run away with me.”

Eleris stared back, trying to get past his obtuseness. Did he want to be alone with her for even longer? They’d been as good as alone for weeks. She hadn’t even known how many guards he had, they were so unobtrusive, until her staff had contacted her about all the supplies they ordered; she’d only noticed them sweeping the area when they arrived or departed ports. And once, at one of those exclusive clubs where high stakes Phalanx was played—and they were certainly not alone then—Brandon had dived into the crowd and pulled forward a huge man, insisting on him joining the game. Together they’d taken on all comers until Brandon, laughing, said he was forced to drop out, after which he’d lingered, watching his guardsman win game after game, until he, too, was defeated, by some old woman from somewhere out-octant. Some fun!

Being alone with Brandon was plenty of fun, but the truly irresistible seduction was the image of herself presiding over the Mandala’s social stage, the focus of the Thousand Suns. With Brandon’s pretty face at her side, she would become the greatest social leader in at least three centuries.

Which meant she had to be at his side at his Enkainion.

“We’ve been glitter-skipping for the past, um.” She glanced at her boswell, its tiny face set in her bracelet. It showed Arthelion time. “Two months. And I have loved every moment,” she said quickly. “But your Enkainion…”

He shrugged. “So? It’s all planned out. There’s nothing for me to do except show up and trot through the ritual like a trained dog.”

Steward Halkyn, who had charge of the Palace Major and Minor, was famous for being the most perfect of a long line of Halkyn stewards. He would see to it that the Enkainion was exactly as it should be, though why Brandon didn’t want to oversee it, she didn’t know. She’d loved overseeing every aspect of her own Enkainion, when she was twenty-five. The party had been on the newsfeeds for weeks afterward.

She tucked herself against him. One of his hands caressed her shoulder and stroked through her hair down her back, but the gesture was more absent than insistent; he might have been petting one of those dogs the Arkad family favored. She tipped her head, and yes, his gaze had wandered to the viewport again.

Was he annoyed about her reminder of his approaching Enkainion? No, there was no anger in the curve of his lips, just absence. He didn’t seem to care at all. Maybe it was his age. The Arkads traditionally held their ‘coming of age’ ceremonials late. Historically, after the last royal child went through his or her Enkainion, the Panarch or Kyriarch usually announced which child would be heir. But that would be no surprise. Everyone knew that the oldest son, Aerenarch Semion, would be heir, in spite of the fact that he’d not been in court for five years. He was effectively running the Navy already.

Politics! Eleris shrugged. She didn’t care about politics. Brandon had to make a political marriage—word was, it had been arranged by Semion himself, in order to bind the Vandraska shipyards tighter to the Arkads through the Inesset family. But Brandon would never be involved in politics. He was to be the center of Arthelion’s social life.

A new thought occurred: maybe he wasn’t lost in thought, but in communication. Did he have neural induction on his boswell? His throat wasn’t bobbing in that horrible awkward way that most people subvocalized.

She shifted her stance and stood squarely in front of him. “Brandon,” She sighed his name.

“Eleris?” Brandon asked, then his forehead puckered, and finally he really seemed to see her. “Have I done something wrong?” His smile twisted, mocking, but she sensed regret. “Or is my joke about running away together that terrifying?”

In answer she began untabbing his tunic. Then she paused, and ventured a small gamble, since her main game hung unresolved. “It’s just that when I proposed this journey, I was thinking ahead to the future, and…”

Brandon’s head tipped in quick concern. “Is it money?” he asked bluntly, without any insinuations whatsoever. He winced. “Eleris, I never think about those things. You should have brought it up.”

She couldn’t prevent a retort, though she kept her tone light: “You don’t have to think about those things.”

“I know.” Another, more rueful wince. “Does that sound intolerable? My…someone I knew ten years ago once…but then people who go on about a third party are always bores.”

True enough! Eleris cared nothing for anyone he’d played with ten years ago. But she couldn’t say that.

She forced a smile. “Even you must be aware that many deem it vulgar to make any reference to resources. ‘The life of art requires art to appear effortless.’”

Brandon lifted a shoulder. “Galen, the art expert, says that that rule is more posturing on the part of the wealthy, and for an example of resource and effort being part of art, we have only to look at the mystery of the Ur. But I’ll cover all.”

Eleris thanked him prettily, then fluttered her fingers, dismissing his cloud-minded brother and that long-dead race and their immense ‘art’ projects involving entire suns and planets. She’d won a small victory. Her credit would survive this venture. And she had no intention of giving up her campaign, which meant shifting the subject right back to what she wanted to talk about. Meanwhile, she’d succeeded in removing his tunic and shirt, her hands running over his smooth skin, enjoying the taut musculature, by habit avoiding the ugly pucker of the scar on his back. Why didn’t he have it removed? It would cost a fraction of what she spent on her body art.

She’d asked him once, but all he’d said was, “I don’t have to see it.” Which really wasn’t an answer at all.

She dismissed the mysteries, and the exasperations. Time for yet another art, one in which she was especially adept and inventive, and which insured his attention would remain solely on her, and Brandon surrendered gratefully to Eleris’s insistent lips and fingers, aware that the respite was just that.

White heat flared for them both, then faded to languor in him when Eleris got up to bathe and oversee the last arrangements for her imminent party.

Brandon lay back on the soft moss, breathing in the astringent scent of the crushed greenery as the somnolence gave way to a sense of regret, and even guilt. “Politics is boring,” Eleris had said when they met. “I live for pleasure.” It was that which had prompted him to accept her invitation for a protracted pleasure cruise, just the two of them, leaving the universe behind.

But one can’t leave the universe behind. One can only choose which aspects of it to engage with. She had been straightforward about her love for pleasure; it was his error in assuming that that meant the pleasure of his company, instead of the pleasure of social prominence that his name would bring her. In other words, she wanted him not as a partner, but as a decoration. Salutary!

Bringing him right back to—

The Luxochronus had been realtime on the DataNet since it settled into Arthelion orbit, its cryptobanks discharging and taking on the data that every ship carried between the stars. And among the floods of data being exchanged there had been one simple message, relayed by neural induction to his inner ear, in a voice he’d not heard for ten years: [Markham sent me. Meet?]

Just four words, and a confirming signature and time-stamp in machine-neutral cadence—[Lenic Deralze]—but coming now, only a month before his Enkainion, that brief reference to Markham vlith-L’Ranja was enough to blast all Brandon’s calculations.

Between one heartbeat and the next, memory seized Brandon, shifting him from Eleris’s scattered cushions to the cold, austere hallway outside the Academy cadets’ brig after Markham’s arrest: Brandon was again twenty-three, too shocked to speak as Deralze crossed the invisible line dividing an Arkad from those who served, shoved Brandon up against the wall, and shouted in his face. “You’ll walk away from this like you Tetrad nicks always do, knowing that however you chatz up, the fallout always lands on someone else. Your”—He’d used a phrase from Rifter argot meaning literally “braided members” to refer to Markham. “—and you said nothing. Nothing!”

Even more searing was the memory of Deralze’s disgust and loathing as he tore off his blason and threw it at Brandon’s feet. “You can keep your worthless life, and my Oath with it.” And in three fast steps he was gone.

Why was Deralze contacting him now? The time-stamp indicated the message had been waiting mere hours. That meant Deralze was already on Arthelion. Was this com an attempt at revenge, further entrapment, or an avenue of escape? The voice and signature suggested the first, though perhaps entrapment was a better explanation. How else would such a message have gotten through the rings and layers of security placed around him by Semion?

Brandon rolled to his feet and bent to pick up his clothes as he considered his oldest brother. It had been five years since they’d seen one another last, but Semion still monitored every aspect of Brandon’s life. “Our father ordered me to safeguard you, and so I shall,” Semion had said not long after Galen’s Enkainion.

Brandon retrieved his shoes and padded across the moss to the bath, which was designed to look like a woodland stream. Semion had to know that any mention of Markham would get his attention.

The question was, why? And why now? It was ten years since Markham had been cashiered, and his family ruined. Ten years since Brandon’s own naval career was summarily ended.

Brandon threw his clothes into the cleaner, then tabbed the control to raise the temperature of the water in the artfully decorated stream. What irony! His Enkainion, everybody agreed, was to be so brilliant that it would be broadcast throughout the reaches of the Thousand Suns, to Downsiders, Highdwellers and lawless Rifters alike. To him it was another link in the chain Semion bound around him.

He turned the boswell around and around in his hands, fingering the stylized band of interlocked links. Most people would give anything to be born an Arkad—to live in the Mandalic Palace on Arthelion, the central jewel of the Panarchy’s countless planets and Highdwellings—to possess his limitless wealth, his position at the peak of the Douloi social circle.

Brandon snorted at the overly dramatic imagery: chains, strangulation.

He tossed the boswell down onto the silky blades of grass beside the stream. What if the message really was from Markham? He’d escaped. Vanished. Word was, he’d taken the Riftskip, fleeing his Douloi roots into the chaos outside Panarchic law. Why would he contact Brandon now? It made no more sense than Semion concocting some elaborate trap, when he already controlled nearly every aspect of Brandon’s life.

Brandon shook his head, and stepped into the hot water. He could endlessly consider all the possible implications of this message, but three were certain.

One: he couldn’t trust that the message was from Deralze. The former bodyguard might know how to get around the Palace codes, but Semion wouldn’t have to.

Two: he couldn’t trust the goals of whoever had sent the message. If it wasn’t one of Semion’s moves, the fact that it had reached him at all indicated deeply-compromised security. If Brandon responded, he could be made to disappear altogether.

Three: none of that mattered, for his disappearance was foreordained. If he went through with the Enkainion, and the plans so carefully laid for a life of social brilliance, he would symbolically disappear forever, effectively replaced by a simulacrum engineered by Semion.

Brandon smiled bitterly, savoring the irony. Two lives removed from ultimate power, but here and now, virtually no choice.

He reached for his boswell, and began to compose his reply.