The Thrones of Kronos (88 page)

Still in his relaxed and expansive mood, Montrose sipped
again at the coffee and watched Sedry’s hands as they laid each item down,
smoothing, squaring corners, everything precise and orderly. Those short, plain
hands, which moved so gracefully at a console, and so tenderly at play . . .

Her face, which he had thought once so unprepossessing, was
angled slightly downward. Her gray hair, usually pulled back and now loose, hid
her expression. Not that he could read it—even now, when he knew her so well.
It was not Douloi training but nature that made her face a habitual mask, but
her hands did not hide her emotions.

Turning his attention to them, still idle, he observed their
ceaseless flow of movement: precise, deliberate, and tense.

Unconsciously he sat up straighter. Those smoothings and
squarings were not gestures of satisfaction. Tendons, white knuckles, mute
testimony to a compulsive attempt to order one’s environment . . .

Because of chaos in one’s life?

He drew in a deep breath. “Are you packing?”

“Yes,” she said.

His first reaction was disbelief. It simply seemed
impossible that tragedy could find him here, in this pleasant room at the
Mandala. “You’re bunking me out?” he said, knowing it was a joke—trying to make
her smile.

And she did. Slightly. With her lips, but not with her eyes.
“I see you haven’t read your messages.”

She nodded toward the corner desk, at the discreet console
there. A green light winked in a corner, but Montrose ignored it and crossed
the room in two steps.

He took her shoulders gently in his hands. “Tell me, Sedry.
What is it? Have I done something amiss?”

She shook her head. “Vi’ya’s orders.
Telvarna
is leaving.”

“What? Why?”

“I was going to talk to you,” she said, her voice the flat
tone she assumed when deeply disturbed. “Today. Later.”

“What is it? Has anyone said something? Done something—” He
reached toward her, and she ignored his hand.

“Montrose, there is no way to preface this: I am pregnant.”

Wild ideas had raced through his head, but not that. Never
that. His first reaction was deep, fierce joy. This surprised him so much he
was unable to speak for a long moment.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “It was not by my design.”

His emotions reeling, Montrose continued to stare at her.
But when he saw the sheen of moisture along the rims of her eyes, and her
compressed lips, he folded her in his arms. “Sedry, Sedry,” he murmured into
her gray hair with its clean-smelling scent. “There’s no need for sorrow. I’m
surprised—I’m happy.” He had thought that side of himself closed off forever,
buried with his wife and children on Timberwell. Could he face that possible
pain again?
I had forgotten the joy.

Then her second statement penetrated, and he turned to look
into her face. “You did not choose?”

She shook her head. “I did not ask for reversal of the
contraceptive implant,” she said evenly. “It must have been done on the
Suneater, probably through food or drink.” Her voice was still controlled,
flat.

“The Dol’jharians,” Montrose said, and cursed. “But why?”

“I have thought about that through nights, ever since I
first suspected. I tested myself,” she added hastily. “And it is true. The
contraceptive was reversed, against my will or knowledge.”

“But it makes no sense,” he said. “Why would they want you
pregnant?”

“Not me,” she whispered.

His mind sifted through the difficulties of making certain
Sedry’s food would carry the necessary chemicals, then the obvious occurred to
him: all the Rifters ate the same food, but only the women would be affected.

He looked up. Marim, of course, was beyond questioning: had
she died pregnant? Because if she had . . .

His heart tolled, a single sharp stroke, hammer on anvil.

“Vi’ya,” he said.

o0o

“No,” Sebastian Omilov said to his son, his relief
obvious. “I’ll not be attending either reception, nor any other.”

Fierin squeezed Osri’s hand, and he flushed, grateful for
her support.

“No,” his father continued, “the thought that cheers me most
is that, after the coronation, and after I finish the correlations with
Lysanter, who will be assuming my duties in whatever they’re calling the
Jupiter Project now, I will be able to go home.”

“To Charvann?” Osri asked, confused.

His father shook his head, for a moment looking grim.
“Apparently the Hollows was destroyed, the servants killed. I am going home to
Chernakov, to my mother’s house, which is where I grew up. When you see it,
you’ll understand why it is a perfect place to retire.” He smiled at each of
them. “But you two haven’t much time, so I’ll leave you to your social duties.”

Osri held out his hands to his father, and was surprised
when the older man pulled him forward into an embrace. Then Sebastian bent and
kissed Fierin’s cheek. He left without another word.

Osri watched, his emotions roiling.

Fierin squeezed Osri’s arm gently. “I’ll bet his biggest
sense of relief is because he won’t be here when your mother shows up.” Her
mouth curved down into an alarmingly accurate evocation of Risiena’s ferocious
temper, while her voice scaled up into a horribly familiar whine. “I just don’t
understand why you couldn’t get me a better position at the coronation. Why,
the Panarch will never notice me if—”

Osri was surprised into laughter. He had never suspected
Fierin’s talent for mimicry, which had emerged only recently as she gradually
flowered into the person that Torigan, and then Srivashti, had deliberately
suppressed.

Then her expression softened to wistfulness. “I wish I could
go with you. I would love to meet Granny Chang. But the Vakianos reception is
something I can’t avoid.”

“They want to make up to you for years of neglect.”

“Well, of course.” She laughed. “That’s why I have to be
there.” Her brows went up in an ironic twist. “They weren’t on Ares when I
needed them. They seem to have a lot to make up for!”

“I’ll present you to Granny later,” Osri promised, and they
parted reluctantly.

As he made his way through the labyrinth of the Palace Major
to the room where the reception was being held, he reflected on how much had
changed for him. The Panarch had expressly invited him, but few others to
perhaps the most exclusive soiree of the many being held tonight. And most of
the other invitees were Rifters.

He grinned. The very thought would have thrown him into a
helpless rage not very long ago. Now he looked forward to seeing the crew of
the
Telvarna
again. He wondered what
the future held for them. Would they attempt to fit into the Panarchy, or
return to the freedom of the Riftskip?
But
neither the Panarchy nor the Riftskip will be what it was.

When he reached the reception, he scanned the slowly
circulating crowd, many dressed in splendidly bright colors. He recognized
Lokri right away, entertaining with extravagant gesture and laughing voice a
circle of handsome young Douloi. Jaim was deep in conversation with Admiral Ng,
and not far away Vannis moved gracefully from group to group.

Montrose was on the other side of the room, and Osri
recognized Lucan Miph and two or three other captains from the alliance. Though
the Rifters seemed to make little attempt to observe the careful positional
preference of Douloi society, most of the Douloi were skilled enough to make
the party cohere—though Osri saw some of them watching Brandon for cues.

It was amazing, he thought. Before the war, the Rifters
would have been the ones at loose ends, but now it was the Douloi who seemed
uneasy.

He made his way toward Granny Chang’s gee-bubble to pay his
respects, then stopped when he saw her talking to Vi’ya, the Douloi around them
standing carefully back.

“You have grown, daughter,” said the ancient nuller, her
dark eyes gleaming.

And reaching through the gee-bubble, she pressed a little
jade lion into Vi’ya’s hands. Osri recognized it as one of the treasures that
the Rifters had looted from the Ivory Antechamber what seemed a thousand years
ago. Now—he would have thought it impossible at one time—it was returning home.
“Given freely to me as a gift, now given freely back. It is you who must return
it to its rightful place among its ancestors, for in you we see the symbol we
never thought to see: the possible meeting between the chaos of the Rift and
the order of the Panarchy. Perhaps there can be a new life, a better life, for
both peoples, with strengths and wisdom taken from each.”

Osri watched Vi’ya bow to the old nuller. The jade lion had
not just returned but had accrued new meaning.

As Vi’ya walked away and Granny Chang turned to another
guest, Osri contemplated how he would be a part of that new meaning. Once upon
a time his future had been utterly predictable, to the date of his retirement
and his taking up of residence at the Hollows on Charvann. But now, like
everyone else here, his future was unknown, and completely open.

And to his amazement, he found he very much liked the idea.

o0o

Vannis stood under a shade tree and watched the westering
sun touch the fountain, the gold refracting like liquid flame.

Her restoration labors were, in a sense, finished. The new
Mace had arrived from Karelais that morning, and symbolic objects from every capital
of each octant waited in the hands of the stewards for the commencement of the
new reign. The vast logistical tapestry was now complete—or nearly. She could
congratulate herself for the almost miraculous smoothness with which it had
been woven.

Nearly complete. The
coronation is tomorrow . . .

Looked at from another perspective, her duties were just
beginning.

She had not decided which point of view to embrace, and this
inability to make a decision indicated a withdrawal for a time of
contemplation.

Certainly the personal interactions were neither finished
nor beginning. Against all the odds, Vi’ya had lived through the Suneater battle.
She had lived, and apparently had proved whatever she had needed to prove to
Brandon—and he had done the same by her.

Vannis had been working with him extensively of late, not
once but often several times a day, and had seen him in a range of moods, from
severe to hilarious, but always, when Vi’ya entered or left the room, there was
a subtle change in his demeanor. Vannis knew that if Vi’ya had not come back
alive, there would have been no change in his devotion, save that of the living
for memory. At least for the present; in her experience, lifelong commitment to
a single individual was too much a rarity to rely on. So she would involve
herself indispensably in the first circles of power and wait.

Unbidden woke a vivid image of a tall figure dressed in
gray, with long braids down his back. Inevitably a shadow at Brandon’s
shoulder, Jaim had watched her at least as often as her own gaze strayed toward
Brandon. His expression was no easier to interpret than the Panarch’s when he
wished to be impervious, but for all that she felt a strong tug of attraction.

Easy enough to resist, of course. There were plenty of
candidates for her own bed, and she did not have to resort to a Rifter
bodyguard with obscure background and even more obscure future, for now that
the coronation was nigh, he had made it clear his wardship over the Panarch’s
life had ended. He had chosen—not Brandon.

Obscure Jaim might be, but not powerless, it seemed.

She shook her head, dismissing the image.

It was time indeed for her to withdraw for a more protracted
period. After the extensive coronation celebrations, she would board her yacht
for a journey to Desrien. The irony of her action had not escaped her, nor
would it any of her detractors.
But my
mother left to abjure the world, and I do not.
When I return, I will know who I am and what place I want.

The sun, a glorious red ball, dropped beyond the line of
distant trees, and its light faded out of the fountain, leaving the water a
cool blue-white.

The air was chilly, and a breeze kicked at her skirts,
sending skittering leaves dancing across the terrace in front of her. Vannis
breathed deeply, enjoying the inconvenience of weather again.

She backed away and chose a path at random, one mysterious
with merging blue-green shadows. She had an hour before she had to get ready
for the state dinner for the Privy Councilors.

The seating had been arranged between Brandon and her days
ago: Vannis would sit across from the Panarch, making a circle. At his right
would be Vi’ya.

Vannis had dispatched a message to Vi’ya earlier in the day
with an explanation of the difference between a formal dinner en circle
(meaning no hierarchy) and one en table (which meant strict hierarchy would be
observed). She’d listed some of the customs the Douloi observed and offered to
explain further if the Rifter captain had questions.

There had been no answer.

Vannis slowed her steps, breathing deeply of the interlaced
subtle scents. The shadows enfolded her as her sensed came to a conclusion: it
smelled like night, and impending rain.

As sophisticated as
our tianqi technology is, we have never been able to more than approximate an
ordinary garden on a late spring day.
Was that a metaphor for human
understanding?

Irony nipped at her soul with the tang of aloe. No doubt
there was a poem—an essay—a clever dialogue in that thought, but her interest
in its pursuit had passed, evanescent as the fading light.

Then she heard the soft rhythm of footfalls and the crunch
of a twig.

Palming her jac, she whirled, pointed—

And her hand dropped as a tall black-haired silhouette
emerged from the shadows. It was Vi’ya, walking with tread heavy enough to be
heard.