Princess of the Void

Frelle must take Grant's surprise as confirmation that she’s got him. A satisfied pursing of her lips as she monitors him.

“Suspicion?” He tries to sound gormless and entranced. “I don't think so.”

“She has mentioned nothing to you?”

“No.”

“Do you think she believes Garuna, then?”

“Yes, I believe she does.”

“Has she told you about the Trimond Refinery?”

“No.”

“What about Lorimare Holdings?”

“Doesn’t ring a bell, ma’am.”

“Good.” She looks him up and down. “I ask again, and be truthful.” Flash. “She isn’t abusing you, is she?”

“No, Lady Frelle.”

“And she has no paraphilias or embarrassments? No secret shames she’s laid bare?”

“No.”

Frelle steeples her fingers. “She’s formidable, your wife. But the last thing she needs to be doing is chasing conspiracies and making unnecessary enemies. She has so much of substance already on her plate. A laundry list of ladies to catch up with. A rival with a vendetta. A handsome new husband.” Her eyes flash again. “Give us a smile, won’t you?”

The absurdity of using compulsion for the request would bring the grin to his face even if he’d been unwilling.

“And he has a lovely smile, too.” She rests a hand on her heart. “It’s enough to make you wish you were a Void Princess, dynasty or not.”

“What does that mean, madame?”

“She hasn’t told you? I suppose she wouldn’t. She’s a proud woman.” She gives his arm a little squeeze. “Your wife has a husband-of-the-void because that’s the only husband she is allowed, Prince Consort. Void Princesses may wed no Taiikari and bear no heirs. The Empress would never allow them to live.”

He can’t quite diagnose the feeling this information raises in him. A pull on his diaphragm, a gray knot tying itself in his stomach. Whatever this reaction is, it must show on his face, because Frelle clucks her tongue sympathetically. “Oh, poor thing. I oughtn’t have told you that. It’s upset you, I can tell.” Her eyes flash again. “Forget this conversation and this compulsion. If your wife inquires, we exchanged brief pleasantries. That is all.”

“Hey—so Frelle compelled me.” Grant loosens his seat buckle as the last of the exit-velocity shakes dissipate.

An atonal jingle as Sykora’s ears flicker. Her head darts to his. “What?”

“Garuna’s mother. It was when I went to the bathroom. She intercepted me.”

“She—oh my God.” Her eyes flare and widen. Now that her hat’s stowed and he knows to look, he sees her horns curl upward through her hair. “That harridan.”

Whoa. “I’m guessing you’re not supposed to compel other people’s husbands.”

“You are not.” She’s throttling the yoke like it owes her money. Her knuckles are white on the joystick. “You are most certainly not. Oh, Grantyde. My poor man. What did she make you do?”

“She tried to pump me for information,” he says. “I pretended—”

Sykora nearly yanks the controls out of their housing. “Pump you?”

“Turn of phrase, Princess. It just means she asked me questions.” He holds his hands up. “She asked about the Trimonds and about something called Lorimare Holdings, and she looked for secrets. I lied, she told me to smile and squeezed my bicep, and then…” He thinks about hiding his new knowledge from her. No. “And then she told me about the restriction on you. The husband-of-the-void thing. And to forget everything.”

She tilts the yoke up. “I’ll flay that bitch. I will make a banner out of her. This is an insult that does not stand.”

“You can’t,” he says. “She told me to forget, Sykora. If she knows I told you, the jig’s up.”

“But she dared.” Her eyes flash red. “She compelled my husband. She forced you.”

“She didn’t force a thing,” he says. “I lied to her. This is an advantage. It confirms your theory, it makes them think you’re off their back—”

“But the smile.” She bristles. “The touch. The poison she dripped.”

“It really was okay, Sykora. It was like a granny in a grocery store. It would have been sweet if she wasn’t asking about corporate espionage. I’m used to worse at this point.”

He realizes how that came across as her cheeks color and her eyes snap to the Black Pike in the distance.

“Sorry,” he says.

“Don’t say sorry,” she says. “People of our station do not say sorry.”

Her continued insistence on avoiding apologies prickles him. “How am I supposed to apologize for apologizing, then?”

“You don’t. Why would you? You did well. You have every excuse in the world to make these mistakes. If any fault’s to be meted out, it’s mine for bringing you here. To these mesmeric vipers.” She shudders. “These ingrates. I keep their shipping lanes clear and operational. I overlook their obvious insubordination and their bickering. And this is their repayment.”

“Look. If you’re angry for me, don’t be. I haven’t been in a matriarchy long enough for it to bug me, being called handsome. Maybe give me a few months. If you’re angry because someone messed with your property—”

“Someone messed with my husband.” She releases the yoke. “You are my husband, Grantyde. I am upset because it’s my responsibility to protect you and keep my promises to you, and I failed you. I said you wouldn’t need to act compelled beyond what was necessary. Don’t call yourself my property. I hate when you do that.”

“It’s what I am.” He crosses his arms. “I’m not trying to upset you, but until you free me, I am your property.”

She puts her forehead in her hands and rubs her temples.

“Do you believe I chose you because of the Empress’s edict?” she finally asks. “Because I had no other choice?”

“It had crossed my mind.”

She shakes her head. “I chose you because you were gentle with me. You were the only kindness I ever saw in that unlit place. And taking you with me was the only way to save your life.”

“You thought I was a tool,” he says. “You told me so.”

“I was lying. To both of us. I’d been so powerless for so long. I wanted that power back, and I became vindictive, and I told a vicious lie because I thought it would make me feel powerful again. I was afraid of how I felt. I’d spent so long at the mercy of your people, and admitting my feelings, even to myself… I thought it would put me at your mercy all over again. And it was a horrible mistake, and now I’m terrified that it has befouled us forever. You must believe me that I never would have said those things if I’d only seen you for what you are. If I’d only been kinder, been more careful. I would have begged you to come with me. I can’t compel you and I don’t care, Grantyde. Do you realize the risk I’m taking?”

“Well I’m sorry if it’s inconvenient you can’t just hypnotize—”

“Stop.” She looks away from him. “Stop saying sorry, Grantyde. That is a painful word. It’s not a word we use the way you do.”

“I’m not Taiikari,” he says. “And I wouldn’t refuse an apology from you.”

“I am trying,” she says. “I am trying very hard to be what you want me to be. I have—” She swallows. “I have spent many years preparing to be a wife. And imagining how it would be, and dreaming of it. I was taught a way to keep a man and please him. And you want another way, and I am trying, because you are worth trying for. I beg for your patience.” Her eyes glisten—is she holding back tears? “Be patient with me.”

He exhales and looks out into the firmament, at the alien sun cresting the corner of Ptolek. “Okay,” he murmurs.

A nudge at the edge of his pinky. Sykora’s placed her hand on the armrest console where his rests. He lifts his palm and lays it over hers.

They drift toward his wife’s kingdom.

Sykora spends the rest of the day in meetings with an endless succession of bureaucrats, clerks, engineers, and officers, each trying gamely to convince her that their concerns are critical for the continuing operation of the Pike. Grant waits silently by her side, absorbing what little he can of the voidship’s endless complexities and machinations. Besides her duties as a mediator between the populated worlds, Sykora is apparently a general in an unending skirmish against at least five pirate chiefs he’s counted, and an explorer of the many unexplored planets and moons in her sector, and an enforcer of the Empire’s myriad laws governing the firmament.

All these duties she accomplishes with a patient formality. Around 1900 hours, he briefly excuses himself from her command deck and returns with a pair of hard-won sandwiches he wrestled from the quartermaster. She gives him a smile and a “Thank you, Grantyde.”

“You’re welcome, Princess.”

She brushes his arm—just a light touch—before returning to her conversation with a survey team leader.

Those are the only words they exchange for the rest of the day.

“I’ll be up early in the morning.” Sykora waits until the lights are out to slide her uniform off and slip into bed. “I’ll try not to wake you.”

“We’re still on half-duty, aren’t we?”

“The rest of the ship, yes,” she says. “There’s no half-duty for me, I’m afraid. As I suppose you saw.”

“I did. You’ve got a lot on your plate.”

“With any luck, it’ll thin out as I clear my backlog.” Sykora’s silhouette is picked out by the stars as she stretches her shoulders. “Good night, husband.”

There’s so much he wants to say, but it’s all gnarled and contradictory in his head, so he settles for “Good night.”

But it isn’t a good night. Sleep eludes him. He stares at the ceiling, and then at the stars, their fretted lights stitching through the gossamer silks of the cabin.

A shallow breath sounds from Sykora’s bed. And then another.

He isn’t sure what he’s hearing until one breath breaks into a squeaking moan. He tilts his head. Sykora is lying on her side. Beneath the covers, she’s moving.

He shifts and eases himself onto his elbows. The noise stops.

He climbs out of bed. The carpet’s fluff tickles the spaces between his toes as he crosses the cabin.

Her eyes track him, confused and anxious. She’s got something coarse-looking and dark hugged to her chest like a security blanket, half-hiding her face. His shearling coat, he realizes. The one he gave her on the night they escaped.

He slips into bed beside her. He lays his hand halfway between their bodies. She stares at him and for a moment he sees her through time, naked and timid behind a pane of glass, deep under the surface of the world he left behind. Hours and days and months of darkness and abuse and then one person who looked at her and saw a person looking back. Saying hand, back and forth. The crayons and the songs.

He moves his hand further forward. She takes it. Her tail snakes between her legs, anchoring itself on her thigh and working its way back and forth along her folds. Her fingers creep down her belly and join it. The dim magenta light of the nebula shines on her damp skin.

He listens to the silky sounds her wetness makes, her sighs, her feathery, desperately suppressed moans. A jolt ripples her. The tendons in her wrist flex. An exhale catches and releases on a G. Her hand interlaces with his. Her grip twitches.

Her mouth hangs open, and the soft swell of her stomach brushes on his forearm, and her back arches, and he watches his wife cum, noiselessly at first and then with a ragged gasp of “Grant” that heaves her chest and flutters her eyelids.

She pants for air and clings to his hand like it’s the only thing keeping her from spinning into the endless firmament. Sweat gleams in the soft swoop between her breasts. Her eyes refocus and find his face in the dark.

They’re brimming with tears.

“I’m sorry.” Her shoulders hunch. “I’m sorry for everything, Grantyde. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

The word she keeps repeating unearths a remembrance in him, of the night of their escape. The word she said to him just before she stole his mother tongue from him. A twinge in his mind as the memory's filtered through his implant. Ganeamak, Grantyde, she said.

I'm sorry, Grantyde.

Does he forgive her? He doesn't know. He doesn't say it.

But he holds her hand, and she clings tight to it while she weeps into his old Maekyonite shearling.

Her breath eventually becomes deep and even. A canine twitch crosses her body as sleep takes her. He thinks about extracting his hand from hers, and going back to his own bed across the room.

He stays.