There was a long confused time while I hung onto Vance and tried to not pass out. Vance smiled and accepted congratulations. I must have looked shy to most of them. People shook my hand and smiled. I saw the predatory looks in their eyes. I bit back my own pain. I'd have to find Tayvis, soon. I wanted to explain. I wanted him, not Vance. I was stuck with Vance, for now. The pain wouldn't have let me go far.
Iniuri watched us, his eyes seeing more clearly than most. He finally waved away the crowd pressing forward to offer congratulations, giving us the privacy of the dais. The Emperor had long since moved on. It was only the three of us.
"Is everything all right?" He directed the question at Vance, but his eyes were on me.
"No," I said through clenched teeth.
"Dace," Vance said, "some of my friends would like to meet you. You can sit down when we get there."
I shook my head. I wanted to strangle Vance. My fingers ached to squeeze his throat and beat his head on the floor. How dare he do this to me? The sight of Tayvis' betrayed look as he turned away would haunt me forever.
Vance tugged me. I gasped at the pain, unable to stifle it. Iniuri and Vance both caught me as I collapsed.
"Are you all right?" Iniuri repeated his question.
"No," I said again.
"It's nothing much," Vance said.
"Go away, Vance." I was acutely aware of Iniuri measuring every nuance of every word and gesture we made.
"I'm a bit tired myself," Iniuri said. "Perhaps I could escort you to your lodgings?"
"Fine." I hurt too much to worry about being polite.
"Where are you staying?"
That stumped me. Where was I staying? On the Emperor's private yacht, the same one Max had borrowed and Vance had used to kidnap me away from Besht?
"You were going to let her stay on the yacht with you?" Iniuri demanded of Vance. "And ignore the gossip about it? It won't do, Vance, there are certain proprieties that should be observed, whether you agree with them or not." He turned back to me. His hand on my arm was gentle, his manner solicitous. "I would be ungracious if I didn't offer to have you stay with me."
I nodded, not really caring. I needed to lie down. My side was on fire. And my heart was breaking all over again. I hoped Vance wasn't coming with us. I would be tempted to commit an act of unpardonable violence against him.
"Go visit your friends, Vance," Iniuri said. "I think there's a lot more here than appearances would suggest. This way, Admiral."
He led me through a door behind the dais into a private hallway. I gritted my teeth and managed to walk on my own until the door swung shut behind us. I couldn't pretend any longer. I leaned on him, barely able to keep from falling on the floor.
"Do you need a medic?" Iniuri asked.
"I just need to sleep for a while. It's healed, almost anyway."
He merely raised one eyebrow. "There's a price to my hospitality. I want you to tell me exactly what is going on. All of it."
"I'll be happy to, as soon as I know."
"Fair enough," he said and smiled. I could like Iniuri, despite what his son had just done to ruin my life.
He helped me to the end of the hall. It opened onto a private garage. A groundcar waited for us. The human driver opened the door and handed me in without once looking the least bit curious. Iniuri got in beside me. The driver shut the door.
I leaned back on the cushions, my hand pressed to my side. I concentrated on breathing slowly until the pain subsided. The motion of the groundcar was soothing, smooth and even. But the pain still burned. I could still feel the pressure of Vance's hand on my side. Something had torn.
I closed my eyes, leaning back, with my hand clamped over my side. Iniuri watched me. I wasn't in any shape to answer his questions. I almost didn't believe I was sitting here. I was with the second most powerful person in the Empire. And it didn't seem real, any of it, except for the pain.
"Doctor Himus, I have a situation that requires complete privacy." A pause. "I know I can trust your discretion. Will you meet me at my residence, in about ten minutes?" Another pause. "Half an hour, then. And yes, it does have to do with my son. No, not another duel. I think you'll find this situation intriguing."
I kept my eyes closed. The pain was intense. I almost welcomed it, though, it kept me from remembering the look of betrayal on Tayvis' face. Why had he kept his distance from me? Why the look of distrust in his eyes? To have Vance ruin everything with his stupid announcement was even more bitter. He told the Empire that I was going to marry him. And Tayvis believed him. That was what really hurt. I kept seeing him turn his back and walk out on me. He'd promised never to do it again, never to walk away again. He'd just broken that promise.
The groundcar glided to a stop. I opened my eyes. We were in a covered garage. A man in a black servant's uniform opened the door. He raised one eyebrow when he saw me.
"Are you collecting admirals now, sir?"
Iniuri chuckled. "Vance seems to be. There's something strange going on here, Olin. She's going to be our guest for a while until I find out what Vance is up to."
"Very good, sir." Olin held out his hand to me.
I gritted my teeth against the pain and let him help me out of the groundcar. I couldn't stand on my own. My knees buckled. Olin caught me. His arm was strong as steel. He looked too old to be so strong. His hair was white, his eyes faded blue. But the look on his face was kind as he lifted me.
"I think the jade suite," Iniuri said.
Olin carried me into a mansion, up a flight of stone steps then through a door of real carved wood. The room inside was a mix of pearly white and creamy greens.
Just breathing was agony. I tried not to think, especially about Tayvis. He was alive. I kept coming back to that thought. But why the hurt in his eyes? Why had he walked out on me? I had to contact him. I had to let him know Vance was lying when he said we were engaged. I was going to hurt Vance in any way I could next time I saw him.
They put me on a bed bigger than my entire cabin on the Phoenix. Olin asked me something. My ears buzzed. My side burned. Something sticky oozed across my belly. I blinked and tried to focus on Olin.
It didn't work. I floated away again.
I saw Vance in my mind, not the way he was now but the way he'd been on Serrimonia. He'd fought one of the Sessimoniss warriors with a spear and won. Vance had hidden talents. I couldn't afford to forget that.
The pain brought me back with a sharp jolt. Someone was tugging on my uniform. I gasped and grabbed for the hands causing me so much pain.
"Just calm down," an unfamiliar man told me. "I've got something for the pain right here."
"No," I protested. "Not pain patches."
He stopped pulling my uniform. He watched me as if I were not quite sane. Maybe I wasn't anymore.
"They make me sick." At least I think those were the words I said.
He went back to pulling my uniform off. It was glued to my side. He peeled it off carefully. It still burned. He clucked his tongue as he prodded at the messy scar.
"You should have been in the tank another week, at least," he said.
"It would have killed me." My voice was weak, breathy. I didn't have any strength left. I certainly didn't have the energy to argue with the man, whoever he was.
He started doing something that felt like he was peeling skin off. I bit my lip to keep from screaming. I watched Iniuri Shiropi instead, to distract me from the new pain. Iniuri stood in front of a giant wallscreen. He tapped a hidden control and the screen glowed clear blue.
"Admiral Dace," he said to it. He glanced at me while he spoke.
The blue flickered. A single line of text appeared. Iniuri read it and frowned. He looked back at me again.
"Voice override authorization, code on file," he said.
I knew why he couldn't access my records. I hoped he didn't ask me to explain. Lowell kept my information under top security. I couldn't even access my own files.
Iniuri had high enough clearance. The screen filled with text. He scanned through it, his face betraying nothing. If he was surprised by what he found, I couldn't tell.
"Her physiology reports are here, Guerin," Iniuri said to the man prodding me.
Guerin quit poking me to go read the report scrolling across the screen. I used the brief respite to try to breathe normally. It didn't work. The pain was worse than before. Guerin came back before I was ready.
"Definitely no pain patches," he said. "I have a new drug, though, that should work without the side effects. It may make you a bit sleepy, but considering the shape you're in, sleep is a good thing."
He and Olin stripped me the rest of the way out of my uniform. Guerin coated my scar with a foam that thinned and hardened to a flexible coating. The pain lessened. They helped me into a nightgown. Guerin stuck a patch on my arm. I reached to peel it off. My side cramped. It was all I could do not to curl up on the bed and scream.
"Leave it on," Guerin said. "It will help."
I lay on the bed and gave in to the inevitable. I started to feel fuzzy, disconnected from everything. The pain faded to a background twitch.
"So who is she?" Guerin asked. "You called me out in the middle of the night, the least you can do is explain why."
"Vance brought her to the party," Iniuri said. "He surprised us all by announcing they were engaged."
"Make sure she drinks plenty of water," Guerin said to Olin.
"She's one of Lowell's," Iniuri said. His voice was mellow, just deep enough to be pleasant. It buzzed in my head. "Although I don't know if I can believe his reports or not."
"She doesn't look capable of swatting a fly on her own," Guerin said.
"According to the record, she's the one who took out the entire Targon Syndicate and the Blackthorne Conglomeration."
"Her? You have to be joking."
"She's also the one who established contact with the Sessimoniss and the Trythians."
"Are you certain you opened the correct file?"
"Positive. Lowell mentioned her a time or two. He never answered questions, though. He squirmed out of them, as he usually does."
"So why is she here?"
"You'll have to ask Vance that." There was silence for a long moment. I almost drifted to sleep. "I think his announcement tonight was as much a surprise to her as the rest of us. He's up to something, but I can't figure out what."
"Intrigue runs in the family."
"True enough. Perhaps I'll corner Maximillius and ask him what game my son is playing. The two of them smuggled her out of a Patrol hospital."
"Which explains her condition. I can only imagine the gossip that will fly about this."
"Oh, it should be rich. Especially considering she was on the yacht Max borrowed."
"Alone and unchaperoned? Yes, they'll have a party with this. No one in the Empire will talk of anything else for quite some time."
I wanted to tell him he was wrong. No one beyond the Inner Planets would have cared. They had bigger problems. I was too far asleep by then.
The rest of their conversation faded as I slipped under, lured by the drug into sleep.
My dreams were haunting. I searched for something I'd lost, but I couldn't remember what or where. Tayvis was there, forever turning his back and walking away. I woke myself more than once. Olin was waiting each time, with a glass of water or juice and a soothing word. We both pretended the moisture on my face didn't exist.