‘Again,’ I said. I was sitting on the couch in the medical centre’s waiting room, studying Marque’s replay of what had happened.
The star produced the plasma, and Miko charged to Oliver and knocked him out of the way. She created a gate and she, the star, and the brilliantly bright plasma were sucked into it.
‘I can’t see how she could have survived that. She was incinerated. She’s . . .’ I wiped my hand over my eyes. ‘She’s dead.’
Haruka came in and stopped in front of me. He put his hands on his hips. ‘No, she isn’t. She’s a goddamn dragon, Jian, they can easily survive the heart of a star. We just need to wait for her to come back.’
‘Where’s Dafydd?’ I asked, panicking. ‘Is he okay? You were supposed to get him—’
‘I sent him to your mother,’ Haruka said. ‘Where’s Oliver? Why aren’t you with him?’
‘I’m working on the burns in a table, and I’ll let you know when he’s out,’ Marque said.
‘Again, Marque,’ I said, and watched the star destroy Miko as she was sucked through the gate.
‘She survived,’ Haruka said, waving one arm at the replay. ‘She’s a dragon. They’re practically indestructible.’
‘If she’s alive then why hasn’t she contacted us?’ I asked. ‘She had a scale. You even made her a necklace so she would never be without one! Why hasn’t she gated back? Where is she?’
‘There has to be a good reason,’ he said. ‘She may need to move far enough from that little bastard star to ensure that it can’t follow her home.’
‘Then why hasn’t she contacted us!’
He folded in on himself and flopped to sit on the couch. ‘I don’t know.’ He straightened. ‘She probably has a good reason for staying silent. She will come back.’
‘Again, Marque,’ I said, and once more watched her launch herself to save our son, then disappear in a flash of star matter. ‘I’ve seen many people die, and everything in my experience says there’s no way she could have survived that. If we don’t find her soulstone in forty-eight hours she’s gone for good.’
‘Impossible. She’s too smart. She’ll be fine,’ Haruka said. ‘What’s your opinion on this, Marque?’
‘I saw the effect that the plasma had on her before she disappeared into the gate,’ Marque said.
‘And?’
Marque’s voice was subdued. ‘That was hotter than the heart of a star. I think we need to find her stone.’
‘So let’s find it!’ Haruka said. ‘Where did she gate to?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You have no idea where she is? No way to recover her stone if she was incinerated?’
Marque hesitated, then said, ‘No.’
‘Extrapolate from the stars you can see on the surface of the gate,’ Haruka said. ‘You should be able to work out where it went based on that.’
‘I can’t see them; their image was burned out by the plasma burst. If I knew where she was, I’d already have sent a search party.’ It lowered its voice. ‘I’m sorry.’
I put my head in my hands. ‘She’s gone.’
‘No. Trust her,’ Haruka said, putting his arm around me. ‘Dragons are tougher than that. She’ll gate herself home before dinner. We’ll be fine.’
‘Oliver is out of the table,’ Marque said.
I rose. ‘Are you okay to mind Daf while I sit with Oliver? It will take him time to recover from this.’
‘Of course,’ Haruka said, and rose with me. ‘I’ll see you at home.’ He pulled me close and kissed me. ‘Don’t worry, Miko will be back with us before you know it.’
I didn’t reply. I nodded into his shoulder and followed the Marque sphere to my older son.
Haruka and I sat next to each other on the couch and studied the bright purple dragon scale on the coffee table in front of us. I reached over and tapped it.
Dafydd came out of his room and we shifted so he could sit between us.
‘Is that the connection to Dragonfather’s scale?’ he asked.
Haruka nodded.
‘Marque, are you sure the other one that Dragonfather was holding wasn’t burnt up by that thing?’ Dafydd asked.
‘Yes. Her comms scale would have survived it. Her soulstone would also have survived it. The rest of her . . .’ Its voice trailed off.
‘How long, Papa?’ Dafydd asked.
Haruka gestured towards the countdown on the table. ‘Three minutes.’
Dafydd looked up. ‘If we want it hard enough, she’ll make a gate and step through it on the other side of the room. I know she will.’ He stared at the corner. ‘We can do it.’
‘I want that more than anything in the world as well,’ I said.
‘I’m sure she’s still alive, Daf-chan,’ Haruka said. ‘Dragons are tough. She’s okay, she’s just . . . taking a long time to return. Something happened that’s stopping her from coming home.’
‘Oliver requests entry,’ Marque said.
‘He may enter,’ I said.
Oliver came in through the front door. ‘Sorry it took me so long – the space elevator was held up. Half-a-dozen Republic species are seeking asylum and they were riding down to see the capital. One species has a thing about chemical assistance and tried to destroy a drugstore.’
‘Why would someone want to destroy a store?’ Haruka asked.
‘Drugs – in the sense of recreational substances – are illegal in the Republic,’ Oliver said. ‘There’s a great deal of social stigma against using them.’
‘Really?’ Haruka asked. ‘Why illegal? It makes no sense.’
‘When a regime is that brutal, drugs become an escape rather than a recreation,’ Marque said. ‘People’s lives are so grim that they withdraw into a drug-induced haze to remain sane. Addiction is common, and brutal retribution is the standard official response.’
‘Does that actually work?’ Haruka asked, now thoroughly confused.
‘No, of course not,’ Oliver said.
‘The clock’s on zero, Papa,’ Dafydd said.
We watched the purple scale intensely.
Marque’s voice was soft and sad. ‘I’m sorry, everyone.’
‘No, she’s alive,’ Haruka said firmly.
Dafydd screwed up his face, took a deep breath and let it out in a long wail. He turned and climbed into Haruka’s lap, and Haruka bent to hold him. Oliver put his arm around my shoulder and I leaned into him. I put my hand over my eyes and tried to control the emotion. She was alive, dammit, she wasn’t—
‘Dragonfather,’ Dafydd wailed into Haruka’s chest. Haruka sat rigid holding our son, then shook with a massive heaving silent sob. He tried to nail down his emotions, then released another shaking sob.
‘She’s alive!’ Haruka gasped, his voice strangled.
‘She is!’ I said.
‘Come home, please, Dragonfather, I love you,’ Dafydd said into Haruka’s chest.
The purple scale didn’t move.
We stepped through the gate into empty space. Rokuyoko raised her head and closed her eyes as she studied the space around us. I waited patiently as she checked it – ten light years in all directions was a lot of area to cover.
‘I think I see something,’ she said, and I felt a bolt of excitement. ‘It’s about the right size, shape and mass, just floating at the edge of a solar system five light years away.’
I tapped Miko’s comms scale and there was no reply.
Rokuyoko created another gate and we jetted through it together. We arrived at the edge of the system – the system’s sun was visible as a star brighter than the rest of the heavens from this distance – and I followed her as she jetted away.
‘Here,’ she said, and I nearly collapsed with disappointment.
It was just a rock. She was right – it was about the same size as Miko – but it was just a rock. I approached it and studied it carefully, and it wasn’t a petrified or frozen goldenscales dragon, it was just a rock.
‘I’m sorry, Jian,’ she said. ‘We will find our Zhanko-Queen. We love her as well.’
‘Zhanko. Whisper. You call her your “whisper queen” in dragon?’ I asked her.
‘Don’t tell Mother!’ she said, alarmed. ‘Miko kept saying she didn’t want to be our queen; the Empress is queen of all the dragons and Miko didn’t want the political fallout from us goldenscales claiming our own ruler.’
‘So you whispered to each other that she was your queen?’
‘Precisely. We will never have another leader as brilliant as her.’ She raised her head. ‘What are the boundaries for this area of space, Marque? Should I continue to look?’
‘No, Marque said. ‘Masako and Miko visited a planet at the far side of this search area sixty-five years ago, then left. If there isn’t anything else here that’s worth investigating, we can move to the next search area, which is from that same tour that Masako made.’
‘We will find her,’ I said. ‘Even if it means searching every location she’s been in her thousand-year life. She could only gate somewhere she’s already been. She has to be in one of these places.’
‘We will,’ Rokuyoko said. ‘We need our Zhanko-Queen back.’
‘Message from Haruka,’ Marque said, and changed to Haruka’s voice. ‘Dafydd will be out from socialisation in thirty minutes, can you look after him? I’ll take over on the search.’
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Are you able to help us for a while longer, Rokuyoko?’
‘No, I have duties to perform,’ she said. ‘But one of my sisters is ready to continue the search.’
She created a gate back to our apartment. Haruka was waiting for us, already in his space armour, with a different goldenscales next to him.
‘This is Naoko, she’ll take the next shift,’ Haruka said.
I bowed to Naoko. ‘Thank you, Princess.’ I turned to Rokuyoko. ‘Thanks, Rokuyoko.’
‘Absolutely my pleasure,’ she said. ‘I’m rostered to help you again tomorrow morning. I’ll see you then.’ She gated herself away.
I hugged Haruka in his black armour, difficult because I was still in mine. He pulled me in and hugged me back anyway.
‘Good luck,’ I said.
‘There are half-a-dozen messages in the console from the Empress and parliament, asking us to return to duty,’ Haruka said. ‘Feel free to ignore them, I already did.’
Naoko created a gate. Haruka touched his face plate with his hand to salute me and stepped through it. She went through behind him and the gate closed.
I shook myself out. ‘Remove my armour so I can collect Dafydd.’
The armour floated off me and into the storage in the wall. I went to the kitchen and checked the fridge. ‘Quick chicken salad sandwich and chocolate milk, before I go.’
‘Two new messages from the Empress—’ Marque said.
‘Mute that,’ I said, grabbed the sandwich’s plate as it floated out of the kitchen wall, and sat to eat.
Marque made the search list appear in front of me as glowing text against the backdrop of the stars. This part of the Empire wasn’t far from the homeworld at the centre of the galaxy, and the stars blazed around us. I’d dimmed my visor but I could easily feel the heat from the glowing gas of birthing stars even through my thick suit.
‘We’re halfway there, Jian,’ it said.
‘Don’t give up, Captain,’ Naoko said. ‘She can only gate to a place she’s already been. She must be in one of these locations.’
‘I know, we’ll find her,’ I said. ‘And I’m not Captain anything, Naoko.’
‘I have a message from the Emp—’ Marque began.
‘Mute that,’ I said.
Naoko raised her head and listened to comms. ‘This one you may want to hear. It’s the cats.’
‘Then I doubly don’t want to hear it.’
‘The cats are sending a delegation to the Empress to demand the return of their power source,’ Marque said.
‘The star that killed – I mean attacked – Miko,’ Naoko said.
‘Does the delegation include one of the stars?’ I asked. ‘They always know where their kind are throughout the Universe, right? We’ll finally get an answer from them.’
‘Yes,’ Marque said. ‘But the fact they’re approaching us suggests that even they don’t know where it is.’
‘Or they’re just too proud to admit that Miko and the star are inside Empire space and out of their reach,’ I said, excited. ‘Put me through to the Empress.’
An image of the Empress appeared floating in front of me.
‘Jian, finally,’ she said.
‘Where are you meeting the cats and the energy beings?’ I asked.
‘The meeting is being held at the edge of Empire space, but I’m not going in person, it’s too dangerous. Marque is providing us with remote avatars to speak to them; we fully expect them to try to kill us again.’
‘Where are you transmitting from?’ I asked, trying to hold down the excitement. ‘Notify Haruka. Tell him to find someone to mind Dafydd—’
‘I’m on my way,’ Marque said in Haruka’s voice. ‘Citadel, Jian, it’s secure enough to protect Marque from the nanos.’
‘Naoko?’ I asked, but she’d already created a gate.
I stepped through the gate to see Haruka step through another gate at the other side of the room. It was a standard meeting room in the citadel, with mats and cushions on the floor, and a number of display screens of various types as well as a holographic stage at one end.
‘Daf?’ I asked Oliver.
‘I’m okay,’ Daf said to me on comms. ‘Talk to them, Mum.’
‘He’s with Annie,’ Oliver said. ‘But he’s mature enough to look after himself. When I was twelve years old, I was capable of staying occupied and out of trouble.’
‘You were in the Imperial household and never left by yourself.’ I switched to comms to speak privately to him. ‘He’s almost pubescent, which means he’ll need to be doubly supervised. We’ve talked about the possibilities of him being a male dragonscales with so many girls around—’
The Empress came into the room, sat on the mat in the middle of the floor, and nodded to me. ‘There you are, Captain. The meeting starts soon. May I speak to you in the meantime?’
‘No,’ I said.
‘Marque tells me that you are halfway complete in your search for your dragonspouse,’ she said. ‘We all admire your tenacity and your love for her.’
‘Leave it, Silver,’ I said.
‘I support your search,’ she said. ‘I’m not asking you to come back.’
‘That’s good because I won’t,’ I said.
‘But know this, dear Captain—’
‘Not your Captain,’ I said.
‘If your search proves unsuccessful, and you need something to distract you from your justifiable distress, the position is always open to you.’ She swung her head to see Haruka. ‘You as well, Ambassador. The best thing for you, should you not succeed, will be to throw yourself into your work.’
‘Miss our skills?’ he asked.
‘I am trying to help you,’ she said with dignity.
‘Go to hell,’ I said, and turned away.
‘I am not responsible for Miko’s fate,’ she said. ‘If anyone is, it’s Marque, for failing to protect her.’
Haruka’s voice was a low growl. ‘Both of us are aware of that.’ He waved one hand at the holographic stage. ‘Let’s see what these bastards have to say. The only thing we want to know is where are Miko and their assassin.’
‘I’m here as well, Captain,’ Six said to me on comms. ‘I feel partially responsible for this; I knew what these things are capable of and I should have given you more warning.’
I responded on comms. ‘Marque is one hundred per cent responsible. It either overestimated its ability to protect us, or it allowed the star’s attack to go too far for the sake of drama.’
‘I won’t explain myself again, Jian,’ Marque said. ‘Please, I did my best to protect her. I’m very fond of all of you and devastated that this has happened.’
I didn’t reply as the cats and a couple of stars appeared in the holographic projection on the other side of the room. We gathered in a group so that we could be projected to them, with the Empress and Marque at the front.
‘We expected you in person,’ the head cat negotiator said without preamble.
‘You would—’ the Empress began, but Haruka spoke over her.
‘We’re not stupid,’ he said. ‘Just tell us where your assassin is, so we can leave.’
‘You tell us,’ the star in the projection said.
‘You don’t know?’ he asked.
‘Ambassador, please,’ the Empress said.
‘If you know, tell us,’ Haruka said. ‘Otherwise, don’t waste our time.’
‘Where did your servant take it?’ the star asked.
‘Not servant, spouse, and we don’t know,’ I said. ‘Where is it now? We want to find them as much as you do.’
‘We want our brother back!’ the star said, glowing whiter.
‘We want our spouse back,’ Haruka said.
‘I’m sure if we just talk about this—’ the Empress said.
‘This is an act of war,’ the cat said. ‘Our retribution will be—’
‘Oh, not this bullshit again,’ Haruka said, sounding tired. ‘Your posturing is meaningless and irrelevant. Even your walkers are talking to us about leaving the Republic and joining the Empire; they’ve heard about our contests of martial prowess and are dying to compete against Empire species in an honourable match of skills. Without them you don’t even have a disposable army.’ His voice filled with menace. ‘Bring it. We will end you.’
‘Ambassador!’ the Empress said.
‘Otherwise tell us where we can find our spouse,’ Haruka said.
‘Where did she take my brother?’ the star demanded.
‘Can’t you locate your brother?’ the Empress asked. ‘Can’t it jump from star to star and go home? Why didn’t it go home?’
‘We have never had this happen before,’ the star said. ‘We are superior and indestructible. We always know the location of our brothers. It is gone, we cannot sense it. This is the first time this has happened to one of us. What did you do to it?’
‘We want to find them too!’ Haruka said.
Six chuckled in my ear. ‘So good to hear them scared for a change.’ Its voice saddened. ‘You didn’t ask me if I’m in uniform. I miss that.’
I didn’t reply.
‘Can we work with you to find them both?’ the Empress asked. ‘Let’s work together as equals.’
The cats and stars turned and flew away from the holographic meeting area without saying another word.
‘That answers that question,’ she said. ‘They really have no idea what happened to either of them.’
‘I was sure they’d finally relent and tell us where the star is.’ I wiped my eyes. ‘I can’t believe they have no idea; they always know the locations of their kind. How did she do this? Both of them seem to have left the Universe completely.’
‘Can you do that?’ Haruka asked the Empress. ‘Go to a different Universe?’
‘The multiverse is an abstract concept and not a physical entity,’ the Empress said. ‘It really is as if they disappeared completely.’
‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘She can only gate to a place she’s already been. We will find her. Bring up the search list, Marque. Are you ready to head out again, Naoko?’
‘I’m with you, Captain,’ she said.
‘So you’ll be Captain to the goldenscales, but not to me?’ the Empress asked.
‘Get us the hell out of here, my friend,’ I said. ‘See you at home, Haruka. I love you.’
‘Jian,’ he said as I stepped through the gate into empty space.
‘She must be here,’ I said. ‘This is the last place. She has to be here.’
‘She’s not here, Captain,’ Ikumi said. ‘We’ve searched everywhere.’ She lowered her voice. ‘I think it’s time to face the fact that she’s gone.’
My heart fell out. My only source of hope was gone. My soul deflated, leaving a black, shrivelled thing in its place at my core.
‘All right. Take me home,’ I said.
‘I am sorry, Captain,’ she said. ‘We looked. We searched. Her stone is no longer attuned, and her body is probably gone.’
‘I know,’ I said, hearing the exhaustion in my voice. ‘Thanks for your assistance, Ikumi. I appreciate all you’ve done.’
‘We will always help the family of our beloved Zhanko-Queen,’ she said. ‘I am honoured to assist you, any time you need me.’
‘I need to talk to my remaining spouse.’
Haruka was waiting for us in the apartment when we returned. Ikumi nodded to me, created a gate and stepped through it.
‘We need to talk, Jian,’ Haruka said, gesturing for me to join him in the living room.
I sat on the couch and looked around. ‘We’ve been searching for ten years and it seems like only yesterday that she disappeared. I think the passage of time changes when you become effectively immortal.’
‘I feel the same way, until I see Dafydd and the fine young man he’s become. Before you ask, he’s at Christopher’s again.’
‘Those two are becoming inseparable.’ My heart ached. ‘We’ve neglected him to search for his dragonfather. We should have been here more for him.’
‘We’ve been terrific parents to him, and you know it.’ He put his elbows on his knees. ‘But things have changed. We’ll never find her; she’s gone. The only thing keeping me here was hope, Jian. This apartment is full of her presence.’
‘I feel the same way. I don’t think I can live here any more,’ I said.
He put his head in his hands. ‘We’ll have to give in to everybody and hold a funeral.’
I leaned back and my heart ached even more. ‘No.’
Dafydd entered with Christopher. He was sixteen now, filling out to taller and more mature-looking than a full-blood human. His mid-brown skin was striking against his black hair and golden scales. He saw us sitting on the couches and turned back to his friend. ‘I think we should catch up later, Chris.’
‘No problem, Daf,’ Chris said. They shared an embrace and Daf closed the door and joined us on the couches. ‘You didn’t find her? That’s it?’
‘She’s gone, darling,’ I said.
He leaned into me. ‘Can we move somewhere else? Even after ten years, I still turn around and expect to see her. You’ll never return to being Captain of the Guard, and we might as well free up this space for Shudo.’ He put his arm around me. ‘It’s time to move on, Mum.’
‘I was planning to ask Jian this privately, but you are part of this as well,’ Haruka said. ‘You are my son and I love you.’
‘Please don’t do anything rash, Papa,’ Daf said.
‘Jian, I’m sorry,’ Haruka said, and his voice was thick with misery. ‘But Miko was the heart of our relationship and without her – I can’t stay. I can’t live like this. I’d like to find a place where I can be by myself for a while. I don’t think I can come back from this, and when you’re an adult, Daf I’ll probably decide to—’
‘I love you, Papa, don’t leave me,’ Daf said, miserable.
‘I will never leave you. We can arrange custody arrangements, I am happy to have you half the time. I’ll stay here on the dragon homeworld as long as you and Oliver are here – but I need to be away from all of this and work through my grief.’
‘I was going to ask you for the same thing, Haruka,’ I said, the misery as thick in my voice as it was in his. ‘This place is too full of her. Being with you – is too full of her. It hurts too much.’
‘Am I too full of her?’ Dafydd asked.
‘No,’ both of us said in unison.
‘You are what’s keeping me here,’ I said, holding him close. ‘I will always be here for you.’
‘But when I’m an adult, Papa? I turn eighteen in a couple of years. What then? Finish what you were saying.’
Haruka lowered his head and mumbled. ‘I’ll probably take my stone out. It hurts too much.’
‘Mum?’
‘I’m sorry, Daf, the pain is deep and sharp and unending. I won’t seek the Real Death, and as long as you’re here, I’ll be here for you. But one day you’ll have a life of your own and I’ll do the same thing your Nan did – take my stone out, and let nature take its course. Remember that your Nan’s still here, even without her stone, and probably will be for many more years. She’s just decided to not artificially prolong her life.’
Dafydd threw himself up off the couch and ran into his room.
‘Where will you go?’ Haruka asked me.
‘I’ve been thinking about it for a while,’ I said. ‘Everywhere I thought of was places that I’ve been with her – and you – and the pain is real and immediate. But Daf needs me here, and Oliver is here, so I’ll just move to an apartment in the human sector of Sky City.’
‘We’ve been having parallel thoughts for a while, then,’ he said. ‘I’ve already asked for a house on the surface below Sky City to be allocated to me. It’ll be far enough from here, but still close enough to care for our sons.’
‘We need to start arrangements for the funeral, Marque,’ I said, and Haruka moaned softly.
‘They’re all in place. Just name the time and I’ll send out the notifications,’ Marque said.
‘You knew this was coming?’ Haruka asked, glancing at the ceiling.
‘There were only two possible outcomes,’ Marque said. ‘I prepared for either of them. I thought you’d go to Wales, Jian, so I’ll release the house near your mothers’ that I’d reserved for you. Your place on the surface is ready for you, Haruka.’
‘I find it deeply disturbing that we’re so predictable,’ I said.
‘Gratifying that it couldn’t predict your behaviour, though,’ Haruka said, rising. ‘We need to sit with Daf and reassure him that we’re not going to leave immediately, though if he wasn’t in the equation I’d probably take my soulstone out today.’
I took his arm and leaned into him. ‘Me too. I love you dearly, Haruka, but without Miko it just hurts too much.’
He put his arm around me. ‘I’m sorry it ended like this, Jian, we had something wonderful together but its core is gone.’
I embraced him. ‘We have a great son and the rest of our lives to make up for the past ten years. Let’s do our best.’
‘I intend to.’ He went wistful. ‘Miko and I were ready to try for a second child, and it never happened. I would love to see what the first dragon child of a dragonscales with a golden dragon looked like. Her sisters were waiting to see what she and I produced together before they had their own.’
‘They’ll just have to be brave and take the step themselves,’ I said. ‘Are we cowards for taking this route?’
‘We haven’t done anything yet, and we don’t need to make the decision for years. We may change our minds.’
‘I don’t think so,’ I said as we arrived at Daf’s room to hear him crying inside. ‘Without Miko, life is just a pale shadow. Even with Daf and Oliver – the pain is too much.’
‘I feel the same way,’ he said and opened the door.