First Echo
An invisible fist punched Soz. She had been jogging with Jazar in an easy, steady rhythm. Now, suddenly, her legs buckled and she collapsed on the mountain trail. She felt as if someone had socked her in the stomach, on her legs, even in her eyes. The world went dark.
“What the hell?” Jazar dropped down next to her. “Soz! Are you all right? What happened?”
Her sight slowly cleared. Bewildered, she sat up. Her legs hurt far more than they should have even if she had run for hours instead of just the thirty minutes she and Jazar had gone today. The pain receded, but she couldn’t rid herself of a terrible foreboding.
“Something is wrong.” She climbed to her feet and took off again, gritting her teeth against the ghosts of pain in her legs.
Jazar caught up with her. “Did you hurt yourself?”
Soz glowered at him. “Pah.” She was hardly likely to hurt herself with the easy physical regime here.
He blinked. “Pah?”
Relenting, Soz said, “I’m fine.” Now that she was getting the hang of running in this low gravity, it hardly strained her at all. So why had she fallen?
“Remind me never to make you angry,” Jazar said.
“Why not?”
“When you glare at me like that, I think you’ll flay me alive.” Mischief flashed in his eyes. “Might be fun.”
Soz smiled. “You’ll never know.” She wasn’t up to bantering with him,
though. Someone who mattered a great deal to her had just suffered. The strongest empath couldn’t pick up emotions farther than a few kilometers away, and even that was rare; the fields produced by the brain fell off too rapidly from the body to detect much beyond a few hundred meters, and then only if the sender was a strong psion. As far as she knew, that narrowed the candidates for what she had sensed to Althor. Had he been hurt?
As they jogged, Soz spoke into her wrist comm. “Althor Valdoria.” Jazar glanced at her, but said nothing.
After a few moments, the comm buzzed. Soz toggled receive.
Althor’s voice came out of the mesh. “Heya, Soz.”
“Heya. You okay?”
A pause. Then he said, “Sure. Why?”
She noticed his hesitation. “I just wondered.”
“You sound out of breath.”
“I am not,” she answered, indignant. Jazar laughed.
“You running?” Althor said.
“That’s right. Are you sure you didn’t hurt your legs?”
Another pause. “How did you know they were bothering me?”
“I felt it.”
“I guess I ran too hard yesterday. I had some muscle spasms.” His voice lightened. “You going to feel sympathetic pangs for all my aches and twinges, sister dear?”
“I hope not,” Soz grumbled. He sounded all right, tired certainly, but otherwise fine. “Take care of yourself.”
He laughed amiably. “I will. See you at dinner.”
“See you.” Soz toggled off receive.
“What was that all about?” Jazar asked.
Soz shook her head. “Nothing, I guess.” She didn’t feel reassured but she didn’t know why.
She and Jazar were running through the mountains above DMA, following a rocky trail packed hard from all the cadets who had run here. They came around a loop and headed down to the training fields. Other cadets were returning from their morning run and gathering on a quadrangle below. Soz and Jazar came down the last of the trail and sprinted across the fields to the quadrangle. They joined the other cadets, falling into formation,
four lines of eight each, a total of thirty-two novices. The spelling of their names in Iotic glyphs determined their place in the pattern. Soz thought it anachronistic that the academy used Iotic when everyone spoke Flag, but it had always been that way here and you never argued with tradition at DMA.
She took her place in the third line, next to Jazar. Grell stood a few places farther down, watching them. She winked and lifted her hand in greeting, then turned her attention forward before their instructors could catch them goofing off during formation.
So they waited, the entire incoming class, every one of them a psion, their group winnowed down to thirty-two out of several thousand applicants. No one spoke; being caught talking during roll call earned demerits, which could land you webtech duty or cleaning up spamoozala, the onerous holo-junk messages that flooded the meshes.
Pale blue sky arched overhead and hot wind blew across them. The spacious grounds extended all around, training fields with synthetic surfaces that mimicked various types of terrain, and obstacle courses that went on for kilometers. Here in the center, they stood in a plaza tiled with large squares of white stone and the ubiquitous insignia of the J-Force. Two of their instructors, Jagernaut Secondary Foxer and Lieutenant Colonel Stone, were at the front of the formation, but Soz couldn’t tell what they were doing. It looked as if they were waiting for someone. She tried not to gawk. The moods of the novices washed over her like an ocean, their minds too well guarded for her to pick up anything specific, just a general sense of anticipation and intelligence.
They remained that way for a while, longer than usual, enough that Soz grew restless. Why the holdup? She looked to the side and saw the anomaly: someone was going down the first line, hands clasped behind his back, his tan uniform bright in the sunlight. A gold someone. A gold giant. The blood drained from Soz’s face. Hell. It was Kurj. He had come to see the new crop of novices.
He went along each line, pausing often to speak with cadets. When he reached the third line, he walked slowly along it, nodding to the novices as he passed. He towered over them, seven feet tall, a massive figure with metallic skin, hair, and eyes. He had lowered his inner eyelids, shielding his
eyes with a gold barrier that appeared opaque, but which he could apparently see through just fine.
He stopped in front of Jazar. “Name?”
Jazar stood up straighter. “Jazar Orand, sir!”
“Where are you from, Cadet Orand?”
“Humberland Space Station, sir.”
Kurj considered him. “How do you find living on a planet?”
“I like it, sir.” Sweat ran down Jazar’s face.
“Good.” Kurj inclined his head. “Carry on, Cadet.”
“Sir! Yes, sir.” Relief flickered on Jazar’s face that his first interaction with Skolia’s mighty Imperator had been benign.
Kurj stepped over to Soz. She stood as tense as a board, her jaw clenched, her gaze directed forward. Kurj stood in front of her, his mind guarded much the way he guarded his eyes, with an opaque shield that revealed nothing.
“Name?” he asked.
“Sauscony Valdoria, sir.” She didn’t add the last name they shared. Skolia.
“So, Sauscony Valdoria.” His face was unreadable. “You think you have what it takes to be a Jagernaut?”
“I’ve no doubt, sir.” She felt strained with him, but at least this was better than their usual conversations. This one was supposed to be strained, whereas usually they were trying to behave like brother and sister.
“You have no doubt?” He looked her up and down as if he were measuring her worth. “Quite a boast.”
Why all these questions? He was the one who had sent Tahota to fetch her.
“What makes you so sure?” Kurj asked.
Soz frowned at him. He hadn’t done this with any other novices. “I did well on my tests, sir.”
“Did you now?”
“Yes, sir.” He knew that.
He took his hands from behind his back and crossed his massive arms, straining the gold cloth of his uniform with his gigantic biceps. “You think tests make one damn bit of difference when your life is on the line? The Traders don’t give a whistle in hell how fast you can solve math problems.”
Soz looked straight ahead. When she realized he was waiting for a response, she said, “Yes, sir.”
Everyone had gone eerily quiet. Their instructors, Foxer and Stone, were standing back. They exchanged glances and Foxer shook her head slightly, her forehead furrowed, making Soz wonder just how far off this was for typical behavior when Kurj viewed the novices.
Kurj was still watching her with that that grueling intensity. “You think you’re ready to fight Traders?”
Soz didn’t bristle. “No, sir.”
“You think you’re ready to be a Jagernaut.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Today?”
“No, sir.”
“Why not?”
“I need to train.” Soz wondered what he was after.
“That’s right.” He stood there, massive and uncompromising. “You aren’t ready, Cadet Valdoria. Get cocky out in space and you die. You understand me?”
“Sir! Yes, sir.” Perhaps he came down hard on her to toughen up his heir. It wasn’t necessary. She knew she had a lot to learn. She had never doubted that. She looked forward to proving herself.
Kurj finally went on to the next cadet. Soz remained still until he had gone a ways down the line. Then she let out a breath. She glanced at Jazar, and he mouthed gods almighty.
No kidding, Soz thought. She wondered if Kurj had greeted Althor that way when her brother first showed up at the academy.
After Kurj finished meeting the novices, he moved off to one side with Foxer and Stone. Soz had looked up the bios of all their instructors. Foxer was a former Jagernaut pilot. She had graduated from DMA thirty-eight years ago, taking her commission as a Jagernaut Quaternary, the same rank Althor and his classmates would have when they graduated this year. After ten years, Foxer had advanced to Tertiary. Twelve years later she received her promotion to Secondary, among the highest ranks in ISC. Most Jagernauts retired as Quaternaries or Tertiaries—those who survived. Only a few stuck it out to become Secondaries. Almost no Jagernaut Primaries existed, a rank
roughly equivalent to an admiral in the Imperial Fleet or a general in the Pharaoh’s Army.
Kurj had been a Primary before he became Imperator.
Dayamar Stone wasn’t a J-Force officer, but a lieutenant colonel in the Advance Services Corps. The ASC had begun on the world Raylicon as naval units that went ashore as advance scouts or foot soldiers. When the people of Raylicon regained air and space travel, roughly four centuries ago, the ASC became an independent interstellar force, the advance scouts for planetary landings. DMA commissioned Jagernauts, but it drew its faculty from all the ISC services, including the Pharaoh’s Army, Fleet, and ASC. Jagernauts often acted as defenders, escorts, or commandos for the other branches of ISC and were expected to develop familiarity with all of them. Kurj, Stone, and Foxer stood a distance away from the novices, conferring about gods only knew what. Finally they came back, and Kurj went to stand before the front line of cadets. Soz wondered what was up. A trickle of sweat ran down her neck and soaked into the collar of her jumpsuit, which lacked climate controls and any other comforts that might have made life easier.
Kurj stood in front of Obsidian and spoke. Obsidian answered with what sounded like “Sir! Yes, sir!” Soz couldn’t tell for certain what he said from so far away, but given that they spent all day long responding with those words, it was a good guess. When Obsidian set off jogging toward one of the training courses, Soz understood; they were to do demonstrations for the Imperator.
Obsidian ran hard around the oval track and jumped the various gates, bars, barrels, and other obstacles set along the way. He tended to slow down between the gates, but he made reasonably good time. When he finished, he jogged back to his place in line. Kurj spoke to him a moment and Obsidian drew himself up straighter, pride on his chiseled face. Soz would have to ask him tonight what Kurj had said. From Obsidian’s response, she gathered it had been positive.
It went that way over the next half an hour or so, Foxer or Stone walking with Kurj down the lines. The Imperator stopped often, sometimes at their suggestion, other times on his own, and called on cadets to demonstrate
their abilities on the training fields. Finally he reached the third line. Soz stared straight ahead, but she could see him in her side vision. He was headed toward either her or Jazar. Closer. Closer, now—and he passed Jazar. Damn.
Kurj stopped in front of her, with Stone on one side of him and Foxer on the other. The opaque shields of his inner lids covered his eyes.
“So,” he said. “The cocky cadet.”
For flaming sakes. She waited for him to ask a question.
Kurj motioned toward an obstacle course about half a kilometer away on a southern edge of the DMA grounds. “Think you can run that one? The Echo?”
Soz peered across the fields. She hadn’t tried the Echo, but she knew about it, having read everything she could find on these fields during her minuscule free time when she wasn’t studying or training. It was a difficult course, one that required skills her class hadn’t tackled yet. To do it well, she needed the physical augmentation that cadets received their third year at DMA. She wasn’t sure if she could finish the course, but she didn’t want to lose face in front of Kurj or her classmates.
“I can give it a good try, sir,” she said.
“A good try.” His voice had an edge. “Is that what you will do in combat, Cadet Valdoria? Give it a good try?”
Soz tried not to stiffen. “I’ll do my best in all situations, sir.”
“Good. Go.” Kurj motioned toward the course. “Show me.”
“Sir! Yes, sir.” Soz took off, jogging toward the course.
“Cadet.” Kurj’s voice rumbled behind her.
Soz swung around, wondering if she had violated some rule. She didn’t think so. Every other cadet had responded in the same way when Kurj sent them to run a course.
Her brother was watching her with a closed expression.
“Yes, sir?” Soz asked.
“I want you to run the course in eight minutes.”
What? Soz stared at him. The record time for that course was over nine minutes, and that by a senior who had spent four years training on it. No way could she come close to that record, let alone beat it by more than a minute, especially given her unfamiliarity with the gravity on this
planet. Yes, she could run now without mistiming her steps or stumbling, but jogging a mountain trail and executing the Echo were two very different matters.
Secondary Foxer started to speak, but Kurj held up his hand, stopping her. His posture, body language, facial expression—nothing showed any sign of his relenting. “Well, Cadet?” he asked Soz.
Ah, hell. What could she say? “I’ll do my best, sir.”
“See that you do.” His voice brooked no excuses. “I hope your best is good enough.”
“Sir! Yes, sir.” Soz waited a moment, but he said no more. So she set off toward the Echo. Eight minutes. Hell, maybe he wanted her to create a few new universes, too. And she had feared he would show her special consideration. Right.
At least she felt good now, her muscles warm from her workout this morning, her body healthy and fit. She veered toward the entrance to the Echo, a simple dirt path. As she reached it, she started her wrist timer. From her research, she knew the path hid numerous sensors that would evaluate her stride, weight, pulse, brain waves, and any other data it could glean as she ran along its length.
Soz didn’t run down the path. Instead she went along the narrow bar that bordered it, moving fast to keep her balance on the precariously curved surface. The less the Echo knew about her, the less effective its obstacles. It could still glean information with her running along the bar, but it wouldn’t be as accurate. Every small advantage she gained would help.
A vaulting horse blocked the end of the path. Soz jumped back onto the path and ran hard. She leapt into a vault, her palms hitting the horse as she flipped over it like a gymnast. It was an awkward flip. She hit the edge of the path when she landed and tripped, losing time. Then she caught her balance and sprinted for the scaffolding, a multistory structure of metal struts that resembled the climbing gyms her father had built for her when she had been a small girl.
At the thought of her father, Soz felt dizzy. Her sight clouded over until she couldn’t see. She had tried these past days to push away thoughts about her exile; now, it hit hard.
As her sight cleared, she ran harder, hit with a drive more intense even
than her usual determination. She had to master this course, every course at DMA, every demand they threw at her, so she could go out and defend her family against the Traders. Why it hit her so hard now, she didn’t know, but it pushed her to sprint faster than she would normally have done this early in a course.
Soz reached the scaffolding and jumped up, grabbing a bar. It immediately bent, trying to throw her off, the mesh components in its structure acting with rudimentary intelligence. She compensated, grabbing new bars as the ones she held sagged, vibrated, and jerked. She made it to the top, but when she tried to cross the scaffolding, the bars shook until she lost her balance and slid down among them, into the lively center of the structure. They bent and rebounded like kinetic echoes, throwing her this way and that. Soz swore, grasping at the chaotic pipes. The harder she tried to regain her grip, the more entangled she became.
Pah. She tried the opposite approach and let her body go limp. The scaffolding quieted a bit, but she fell faster, hitting crossbars on the way down. She managed to grab one, wrenching her arm as she jerked to a stop. Instead of climbing the scaffolding, she went through it, scrambling as fast as possible, trying to outrun the echo. The bars hummed and vibrated all around her like crazed tuning forks. She barely kept her grip.
In desperation, lest she lose her hold, she slowed down. The echoes eased. Finally she reached the end and threw herself out of the cursed thing. She hit the ground hard and set off running. The path bucked under her, trying to throw her off balance, but it had trouble judging her stride, probably because she had evaded its sensors at the beginning. She lost more time but she managed to stay on her feet.
She was approaching the lake, a pool with oil covering its surface so it resembled a mirror. If she hadn’t looked up this course, she would have plowed through the water, covering herself with oil. Instead, she tried running around the edge of the pool, staying on the stone lip. She could see herself in the water, a sort of visual echo. Keeping her balance on the uneven edge proved almost impossible, though. Her foot slipped and hit the water, sending out an oily ripple. She started to fall, but she was going fast enough that she reached the other side of the pool before she lost control. As she
toppled sideways, she tucked and rolled, but her arm still hit the rim of the pool. She grunted as pain stabbed through her elbow.
Tired now, Soz climbed to her feet. She wanted to walk and probably would have, except Kurj was watching. For all she knew he wanted to prove that the heir the Assembly had forced him to choose, the daughter of a man he hated, wasn’t up to the title. Soz had no idea what he thought, given how well he guarded his mind, but it killed her to know that her estrangement from her father came as a direct result of her new status. She would be damned if she let Kurj add insult to that injury by humiliating her on the Echo.
So she kept on, too proud to falter before her indomitable brother. She approached the aural labyrinth in a stumbling run. It rose up before her, an enclosed maze of tunnels and passages that echoed, making it hard to judge direction. It didn’t matter. This was an old configuration, one posted for cadets to study. Soz had memorized the maze for the heck of it. She kept running, pushing herself hard, gasping in the thin air. It took only moments to clear the maze, but she came out staggering.
The rebounders crashed and bounced ahead of her, a series of gates that operated in complex patterns, snapping open and slamming closed again. She had a vague idea of the timing that would let her traverse the rebounders without hitting the gates, but her body wasn’t responding well now. Only sheer orneriness kept her going. She was too damn stubborn to drop.
Soz dodged and feinted as she reeled through the clanging gates, but they caught her anyway, over and over, slamming closed on her body. The only reason she didn’t fall over was because they hit her from both sides, holding her up. She gritted her teeth and kept going, the endless gates bouncing, snapping, bouncing, snapping. After an eternity she found herself before the last one, her chest heaving, her body aching. Twice her height and as thick as her body, the black portal thundered open and smashed closed. She recalled the key to this one; it opened and closed five times, rapid fire, then paused for a few seconds before repeating the pattern. When the pause came, she stumbled through and out into the sunlit stretch of sand beyond.
As Soz collapsed onto the sand, she hit the stop panel on her timer.
Sweat was running into her face. She lay sprawled, gasping for breath. After several moments, she rolled onto her back and saw Stone standing above her, his face creased with concern. He offered her a hand.
Soz took his hand and pulled herself up, acutely aware that Kurj was waiting at the edge of the sand trap, watching, always watching. She dropped Stone’s hand and squinted at her timer. Gods. Fourteen minutes and forty-three seconds. That was truly appalling.
“Cadet Valdoria.” Stone spoke quietly. “You may return to the formation.”
“Sir.” Soz heard how tired she sounded. “Yes, sir.” She couldn’t read him well; like most officers who worked with Jagernauts, he knew how to guard his emotions. At least he didn’t seem dismissive of her paltry effort here.
Soz turned to Kurj and saluted tiredly, raising her arms straight out from her body, her fists clenched, her wrists crossed. He nodded, his eyes hidden behind their gold shields. Dismissed, Soz set off at a walk, skirting the edges of the Echo.
It took her ten minutes to trudge back to the quadrangle where the rest of the cadets waited. Everyone was staring at her. Well, how the blazes was she supposed to break an academy record on a course she had never done before? She glared at the first cadet she passed and the girl averted her eyes. When Soz reached Jazar, she glowered at him for good measure. To her surprise, he smiled.
“What are you smirking about?” she muttered. She knew Stone and Kurj were coming back, but she didn’t think they would hear her from so far away and she doubted they bothered to monitor cadets in the quadrangle. “I didn’t break the damn record.”
“No. But you completed the course.”
“So what?”
“After you left, Foxer told Imperator Skolia that no cadet in the last ten years has ever finished the Echo on their first try.”
Whoa. That hadn’t been in the specs. Damn Kurj. He had set her an impossible task, knowing she would fail. It served him right that she had finished the course.
Stone and Kurj were crossing the quadrangle now. Foxer called an
order and the cadets fell into a new formation, shifting their four lines into two columns. Then they marched across the plaza to a wing of the academy building. Although Soz was recovering her wind now, her legs ached. Despite the pain, she refused to limp.
They entered into one of the large common rooms, with tables where cadets could sit and socialize in their nonexistent free time. The paneling on the walls was genuine wood accented with holo-panels of landscapes that showed scenes of Diesha and the academy. Very attractive. Too bad none of them ever had time to enjoy the place.
Kurj was standing behind a console on one side of the room, speaking with each cadet as he or she filed by him. Soz had never realized he took such an interest in the incoming class, but she supposed it made sense. The Jagernauts would be his elite pilots, officers with rare talents, crucial to ISC operations, the empaths who melded their minds with their ships to become human weapons. He would want to meet the novices, see who was who. He took the time to talk to each person. As she drew nearer, she heard him asking about their homes, families, simple facts that transformed a stranger into an acquaintance. A known quantity.
When Soz reached his console, she stood stiffly, aware of the mess she presented compared to the other cadets, her face sweaty, tendrils of her hair hanging out of her braid and curling wildly about her face, her foot covered in oil, her clothes torn and crusted with sand.
Kurj’s inner lids came up for some reason, so she could see his eyes, with their gold irises and black pupils. He spoke quietly. “Still think you’re ready for the academy, Valdoria?”
She met his gaze defiantly. “Yes, sir.”
“You failed in the mission I set you.”
Screw him. “Yes, sir.”
“Why then, should I let you stay at this academy?”
Foxer was staring at Kurj with undisguised shock. It gave Soz a modicum of satisfaction. She spoke evenly. “Because I’m the first novice in ten damn years to complete the Echo on my first try.”
One of his eyebrows quirked. “So you are.”
Soz waited, wondering what the bloody binges he wanted.
“How is your father?” he asked.
So. They came down to the chase. “I don’t know, sir.”
“Why not?”
She spoke flatly. “He disowned me.”
That clearly caught him by surprise. “Good gods, why?”
Why do you think? She was painfully conscious of everyone listening. “For coming here.”
He let out a long breath. Then, incredibly, he said, “Soz, I’m sorry.” She didn’t know what she had expected, but that wasn’t it. Her voice almost cracked. Almost. But she held it steady. “So am I.” That barely touched what she felt.
He spoke in an unexpectedly gentle voice. “Dismissed, Cadet.”
Soz saluted and went on, out of the common room. The other novices watched her with curiosity. She hid her turmoil. Bad enough she had failed Kurj’s test in front of everyone; now she had admitted her exile as well. The Echo didn’t matter compared to the scab Kurj had picked off her emotions by asking about her father. His sympathetic response confused her. Apparently the mighty Imperator wasn’t as much of an impassive machine as he would have people believe.
They had time for lunch now, but Soz had no desire to go to the canteen with her classmates. Instead she went to the dorm. In her room, she dropped into her bunk and lay on her back, too exhausted even to change her clothes. She stared at the bottom of the bunk bed above her.
“What the holy hazoo was that all about?” a voice said.
Soz turned her head to see Grell sitting on her bunk across the room, her newly cropped red hair sticking up the way it did after she had exercised, making her look like an urchin.
“Hazoo?” Soz blinked. “What is that?”
“I dunno,” Grell admitted. “Everyone says it back home. And you’re avoiding the subject. What happened with Imperator Skolia?”
Soz mentally shuttered her mood. “It’s nothing.”
Jazar appeared in the doorway. “Nothing?” He came inside and touched the wall panel, closing the door. “I’ve never heard of him going after a cadet that way.”
Soz wondered what her father would do if he knew she was bunking in the same room as two men. Probably have heart failure. He would never
believe the truth, that they never violated the ban against fraternization. As if cadets had either the time or the energy even to look cross-eyed at each other, let alone misbehave.
“It’s a long story,” Soz said.
Grell leaned forward. “He acted like he knew you.”
“Unfortunately,” Soz muttered.
“You mean he does?” Jazar looked alarmed.
Soz wished she could hide somewhere. “Yes.”
“How?” Grell asked.
Soz didn’t want to go into it, so she said nothing.
They weren’t letting her off that easy. “Why did he bring up your father?” Jazar asked.
“They don’t like each other.”
Grell watched her with concern. “Do you think Imperator Skolia means to force you out of the academy?”
“No, I don’t think so.” Soz put her forearm over her eyes, wishing she could disappear. “He just doesn’t want me to think I’ll have an easy time of it.”
“Why would you think that?” Jazar asked.
“It doesn’t matter,” Soz said.
“Soz, come on,” Grell demanded. “Give.”
“Nothing to give.”
“I’ve never met anyone who knew members of the Ruby Dynasty,” Grell said. “Don’t they intimidate you?”
Soz couldn’t help but laugh. She lowered her arm and sat up, taking care with her bruised torso where the rebounders had pummeled her body. “They exasperate, drive me crazy, and fill my life with light, but no, they don’t intimidate me.”
Both Grell and Jazar looked at her, waiting.
Ah, hell. “Imperator Skolia’s father knew my mother.”
“Really?” Grell’s eyes danced with excitement. “How?”
Dryly Soz said, “They were married.”
It took them a while to absorb that. Finally Jazar said, “Gods almighty.”
Soz glared at him. “You start treating me like I’m some sort of something, I’ll toss you into the Echo.”
“Some sort of something?” He smiled. “Soz, ever the poet.”
Grell spoke slowly. “If you have the same mother as the Imperator, that would be Roca Skolia. Unless she has another life the public has never heard about, that means your father is the King of Skyfall.”
Soz groaned. “The planet is not called Skyfall. It’s called Lyshriol. Skyfall is the name some sleezy resort planners gave it. And my father is not the king of an entire planet. He’s not even the king of part of a planet. He’s a singer.”
“Oh, gods,” Grell said. “Holy hazooing gods. You’re a member of the Ruby Dynasty.”
Soz couldn’t help but laugh. “Hazooing? Where do you get these words?”
“I can’t believe it.” Grell didn’t look as if she knew whether to be horrified or thrilled. “My roommate is a Ruby heir.”
“Grell, enough.” Jazar was watching Soz closely, his smile gone. He spoke quietly to Soz. “Your father disowned you for coming here?”
Soz just shook her head. She couldn’t talk about it. “Don’t tell anyone who I am, all right. Swear. Both of you.”
Jazar didn’t hesitate. “Sworn.”
“No one?” Grell asked. “Not even Obsidian?”
“No one,” Soz said. “I’ll tell him if it comes up.”
“All right.” Grell sighed. “I swear.”
Jazar grinned, his handsome face lighting with the flash of his teeth. “Heya, Soz, you’re a princess.”
“I’ll princess you.” Soz gave him her most formidable scowl, the one that made the youths in Dalvador blanch and avoid her. Either that, or they tried to kiss her, like Ari at the lake, which had never made a lot of sense to Soz, but had been fun. It would have been a lot better if he hadn’t immediately hopped off to kiss some other girl. If she ever saw him again, she would be tempted to heft him over her back like the last time.
Jazar didn’t look the least bit intimidated. He came over and sat next to her on the bunk. “Can’t, Soz. You have to be female to be a princess.”
“Go sit on your own bunk,” she growled.
“I can’t,” he said sensibly. “It’s above yours. If I went up there, how
would we have this wonderful discussion, with you grousing and glowering at us so mightily?”
“Grousing!” Soz reached back on her bed, grabbed the regulation pancake that DMA claimed was a pillow, and whacked him over the head with it. Grell laughed and threw her own pillow across the room. Within moments, pancake pillows were flying through the room amid laughter.
It lasted about two minutes before the clarion for afternoon classes blared, cutting through their tumult. Grell stood in the middle of the room, her arms full of pillows, including Obsidian’s, the only one of them who had been sensible enough to eat lunch.
Grell sighed. “Time to get back to work.”
“I guess so,” Soz said. She enjoyed their company despite their having spent the last two minutes hitting her with pillows. These two people shared her dreams in a way no one at home ever had, except perhaps a few of her brothers, but they had been constrained by the differing expectations for men and women there. Besides, they were, well, her brothers. She loved them even at their most exasperating, but it wasn’t the same. She had never had friends like this. It eased the ache inside, the knowledge that she had given up a part of her family to come here, a part of herself.
But the loss could never be replaced.