Alba, bless her, let me sleep for almost two hours before she knocked tentatively on my bedroom door. “Your Highness?”
“I’m up.” I rolled out of bed, rubbing at my face. “Give me a minute.”
“How’s your head?” she asked when I emerged from my room.
“Better, thank you. How are your quarters?”
“Just fine, Highness. Thank you.”
We stared at each other for a second and then I snorted a laugh. “Okay, enough of the awkward small talk, Alba, you’ll find I’m not a fan. I assume your position was activated in the palace system and your smati has probably blown up with incoming messages.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I smiled. “I have a request for you. Don’t be afraid to say no to me or anyone else. Okay? You are the gatekeeper and I trust you to organize my schedule in the best manner possible. Obviously I’d like some input on where I spend my time and with whom, but I will let you do your job as long as you prove to me you’re competent.”
Alba nodded. She hadn’t changed out of the dark suit she wore for the interview. The skirt hung down to the floor, and her jacket had sleeves that stopped at her elbows and flared out when she moved her arms.
“Okay, so what are we starting with?”
“I received a message from Chamberlain Tye. Your mother says to have your hair fixed immediately.”
I smothered the second laugh. “That took longer than I thought it would.”
Alba gave me a curious look but didn’t say anything. I waved a hand at Cas and grabbed for the dark red sari I’d tossed onto the back of the couch earlier. With Alba’s help I got it back on, straightened it, and fixed my hair in the mirror.
“Alba, make a note to get with Stasia about some improvements to my wardrobe.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Highness, Cas said you needed me?” Emmory asked as he came into the room.
“Mother wants me to fix my hair.” I tugged on a green curl with a depreciating smile. “I don’t think it’s possible, but we may as well go try.”
“Highness?” He frowned at me.
“The modifications are permanent. I’m stuck like this.”
Emmory’s mouth dropped open, and I couldn’t stop the giggle that bubbled up in my throat. Surprised my unflappable Ekam twice in one day. That was probably going on the record books.
“Anyway,” I continued through the giggles, “I’ll go make an appearance at the modification shop so some poor technician can tell Mother about the problem instead of me having to do it. She’ll probably still accuse me of doing it just to upset her, but at least I’ll have some witnesses.”
We left my chambers again and headed out of the royal wing toward the mod-center. There were more people out in the early afternoon than there had been during my arrival in the dark of night, but thankfully the grim-faced cadre of Guards around me stopped anyone from approaching for a chat.
Alba trotted along at my side and I shortened my stride a little. The poor girl was going to end up with blisters from those heels of hers if I made her run all over the palace. And it wasn’t like I was in a hurry to get this done.
Or not done. A tiny sliver of worry had burrowed into my brain. Sure there’d been places where underbelly tech was often just cobbled-together scraps, but on the whole, the kinds I’d had access to courtesy of Po-Sin were probably better than any top-of-the-line equipment from the SC. We were in the heart of Indrana and I doubt the palace spared any expense for their modification equipment; however, there was no way it was better than anything Po-Sin had.
What if they could change me back?
I didn’t want to go back. I didn’t want to blink and have Cressen Stone and all those years of my life vanish. I didn’t want to go back to being Princess Hailimi with all the confines that life entailed. I didn’t want to go back to being eighteen and fighting with my mother all the damn time. It was hard enough to remember who I was when I was in the same room with her—what if I went back to looking like my former self, too?
I could do this if I could hold on to my past—and to Portis.
Emmory stopped outside a pair of steel doors. “Stay here, please,” he said, and slipped inside without waiting for an answer.
Several white-coated techs filed out and I couldn’t help but notice the way Zin’s hand strayed to the gun at his hip each time.
“Easy,” I murmured, trying to stave off some of my panic with humor. “You’ll get gray hair if you keep jumping at everything.”
He flashed me a grin, the dimple in his cheek winking into existence. “Something tells me I’m going to get gray hair anyway, Highness.”
“That’s unkind,” I replied, reaching out to tweak one of the short dreadlocks on his head and mirth sparkled in his gray-green eyes. But before Zin could say anything, Emmory reappeared.
“Alba, if you’ll stay outside please. Jet, you and Cas stay with her. No one comes in.”
“Sir.” The older Guard snapped a nod in acknowledgment. He and Cas slipped into position on either side of the steel doors as they closed behind me.
“Your Highness,” the young technician stammered out my title and tried to bow at the same time. He was pale-skinned with a shock of black hair that kept falling into his thin face. “Tech Samuel Parkins. If you’ll step this way, we’ll get you put back to rights—uh, fixed up right away.”
The poor man was already on the verge of panic and I mouthed a silent apology at the ceiling as I stepped into the mod-chamber. This wasn’t going to go at all well for him, but there was very little for me to do except play along.
I hoped. Bugger me, please don’t work. I don’t want to go back.
The doors closed around me, and the suffocating feeling was only somewhat mitigated by the fact that I could see through the polyflex surface. I fisted my hands and concentrated on looking through the clear partition at Emmory and Zin.
“If you’ll press your hands to the indicated spots and watch the screen in front of you.”
“I should warn you, Samuel. I had a kill switch installed in my smati. If my mother thought about trying to download any submission programming, it’s going to end badly.” I kept my tone pleasant as I uncurled my fingers and laid my hands on the smooth surface in front of me.
“No! Of course not, Your Highness.” The tech jerked as if I’d slapped him and craned his neck around to stare at Emmory. My BodyGuard hadn’t moved a muscle and kept his eyes on mine for a long moment before looking at the technician.
“Proceed, Samuel,” he said.
Samuel swallowed and began tapping buttons on the panel in front of him.
There was a flare of heat through my palms as the chips imbedded there began receiving a signal. I closed my eyes and exhaled slowly. When I opened them, the string of code flying across the space in front of me was faster than my eyes could track. My smati, however, suffered from no such limitation and processed the code as fast as it appeared.
I locked my knees to keep myself upright as the vertigo set in. I knew it would fade in a minute or two, but for the moment I clenched my teeth against the nausea and concentrated on the simple task of breathing.
“Highness?”
I refocused my eyes and found Zin standing just outside the chamber. Forcing out a smile, I said, “Dizzy.”
“Not surprising.” He nodded in understanding. “It should fade quickly.”
I glanced past his shoulder where Emmory stood next to the tech. “I’m fine. Bet you twenty ravga it doesn’t work, Emmy.”
“I don’t think I’ll take that bet, Highness,” he replied without looking up.
I grinned again and settled back against the far wall of the chamber as Samuel starting tapping in commands to return me to my “original” look.
Gene manipulation for cosmetic uses had been big since the early days of the SC. While governments and researchers were still wrestling with curing diseases and preventing defects, the private companies turned their focus toward more profitable applications.
Now women (or men for that matter) could change their hair color on a whim. Or their eye color, height, or body type. You name it, it was doable.
The process fell out of favor here during the empire’s break with the Conglomerate. After our split it became a point of pride to lay claim to “natural” features rather than some biosculpted façade you could find in the Conglomerate.
The modification I’d gotten after fleeing the palace had been anything but cosmetic. The gene-manip in a shady backroom in Delhi just before I’d met Portis had been more than skin deep. In fact, it had been so good that it had fooled all the thousands of DNA scanners I’d been through for the last twenty years.
Until I’d run afoul of one Tracker named Emmory Tresk.
The price for that kind of security had been a permanent modification. I hadn’t realized the extent of it until a few months later when Portis and I had tried to change our appearances for a job and nothing the mod-techs did would change my green hair and tall, rangy build.
Please don’t change back. The mantra repeated itself over and over in my head as the lights flickered through the chamber.
“Uh, Your Highness? It’s not—”
I couldn’t stop the grin from spreading over my face. “Working?” I supplied cheerfully when the tech stuttered to a halt. The stoic expression on Emmory’s face didn’t shift at all, while Zin looked vaguely impressed.
“I could have told you that. The modification was permanent. I could have told Mother that, too, but I didn’t think she’d listen. It’s easier to just have it on record.”
“Permanent? But, Your Highness, I—”
I choked back a laugh. It wasn’t all at Samuel’s panicked flailing. Part of it was pure joy, and my hands were shaking with relief. It wasn’t very nice to laugh at him, especially since I was sure he thought he’d get the short end of the stick for this snafu.
Not that I’d let that happen. It wasn’t his fault, after all. Letting him run through the process a handful of times so that it was on record seemed the kindest thing to do. So I did, until my claustrophobia got the better of me. Feigning a yawn to hide my panic, I shouldered the door open and caught a glimpse of my green hair in the reflective surface of the metal band around the glass. I was still me.
“Your Highness—” the tech protested, but I waved him off.
“That was seven times, Samuel. I think even my mother will realize that it’s not your fault.” I crossed the room and patted him on the cheek, hoping he’d been so distracted by my stubborn appearance that he hadn’t run a full scan.
The last thing I needed right now was someone finding out about my problem.
“I’ll be sure to tell her you tried everything.” I smiled again. “Come on, Emmory. Let’s go.”
“I’ll be right behind you, Highness.” Emmory gave Zin a look and I raised an eyebrow as I was ushered from the room.
“What’s that about?” I asked Zin, who merely shrugged in reply.
The hallway juncture at the mod-center widened and split off into several different corridors. Opposite the steel doors was a bank of rounded windows with the same view of the ocean as my rooms. I grabbed my heavy skirts in my hands and padded over across the open space. The slate tiles were cool under my feet.
The tech hadn’t said a word, but I didn’t know if that was a good or a bad thing. Right now I reveled in the fact that I got to stay me and that I wasn’t going to lose the ties to my past. I’d worry about the rest of it later.
“Cousin!” The unpleasant voice, high-pitched and nasal, hit me just seconds before the tiny blond whirlwind did. Twenty years gone, and my spine still tried to crawl up out of the top of my head at the sound.
“You’re home! They said you were but I needed to see you with my own eyes. I was on the other side of the planet at a function when you arrived and missed your homecoming.”
I wiggled free, choking back the snarl in my throat. My cousin smoothed her blond hair down as she babbled at me. “I’m so sorry about your sisters, Haili. It was simply awful.” She moved to hug me again and this time Zin blessedly intervened.
“Ma’am, I’m sorry. You need to back away from the princess.”
“Oh? Oh! Sorry. We’re family. I wouldn’t ever hurt her.” Ganda waved her hands in apology, giving Zin a bright smile. “BodyGuards, right. Male BodyGuards.” She made it sound like the insult it was supposed to be and I struggled to keep my face blank.
For a nanosecond I’d started to wonder if Ganda had finally grown up and if the severity of the situation had changed her. But when she’d said “hurt,” I saw the flicker of malice in her gemstone bright eyes and knew that nothing had changed at all.
“Well, they’re attractive at least. You’ll have to let me borrow them.”
“I haven’t gotten any better at sharing, I’m afraid.” I almost choked on the words and Ganda’s delighted snicker made my skin crawl.
Ganda’s Guards were all women—of course—and they eyed my Guards with a wary distaste that made me want to grab Zin’s gun and start shooting.
Temper, Hail.
I wondered if Zin had seen the look in Ganda’s eyes, too, or if I’d once again be alone in my battle against my cousin. The good news was that I’d learned some tricks and some self-control in the last twenty years.
Now would be the time to show it.
“It’s all right, Zin. She’s right, we’re family. You look good, Ganda.”
“So do you.” She reached out and tugged on a curl. “Luckily the Crown Princess gets to set fashions. We’ll be seeing green hair all over soon.”
“I think a nice blue would suit you better. Something icy and frigid.”
Her hand fisted briefly on her skirt, but her smile never wavered. “I’ll have to try that. It was lovely to see you. I really must go. It’s been frightfully busy around here helping out the empress.”
“We’ll get you a break here soon. Don’t worry.” I patted her on the arm.
“It’s a pleasure to serve the empire.” She beamed at me. “We should have lunch, Haili, get caught up. Have your chamberlain buzz mine. I have to go; I’m going to be late.”
“Of course.”
Ganda gathered up her emerald-green skirts and hurried off.
“Well, that was interesting.” I rolled my eyes, and offered up a smile to Zin, who watched me carefully.
“Highness?”
“Let me enlighten you. Beware of my cousin. She will smile and flatter you until the moment she drives a knife into your back. Please tell me you are all smart enough to recognize that.”
No one said a word. Cas looked at me with nervous confusion, darting glances back to his fellow BodyGuards. The two older men were watching me, not a hint of their feelings showing on their faces. Alba’s frown might have signaled confusion or consideration.
“Highness, time to go.” Emmory interrupted the lesson and I couldn’t stop myself from snarling at him.
“Let’s go back to my cage, boys.” Grabbing my skirts, I started down the hallway, leaving my Guards to catch up with me.
Back to your cage, the voice in my head hissed the words. Back to being the powerless, useless princess.
Bugger me.
I wasn’t going back to that. I’d spent too long building my life, my reputation from the ground up into something that meant more than all this fluff and nonsense. If they wanted me as the damn heir, they were going to have to take the gunrunner.
Zin and Cas checked out my rooms. Emmory was already looking at me strangely, so I waited until his back was turned before I slipped the knife out of Jet’s belt and stashed it in my sleeve.
“Okay, everyone in,” I said, shooing Jet’s bulk ahead of me. “We need to have a conversation.” Perching on the arm of the rose-colored couch, I folded my hands in my lap as Emmory closed the door.
“Highness?”
“I realize we’re all just getting to know each other here, but if we’re going to make this work, I need some help. First thing is that I need to trust you. Second is that I need actual living people around me who are willing to offer up their opinions when I ask for it. Emmory and Zin can tell you that when I ask for your opinion on something, it means I want it. Whatever experience you’ve had with royalty, I’m not them. I don’t want you to blow smoke up my ass.”
Cas’s eyes flew open and I had to smother a grin. That poor kid was in for an education.
My Ekam didn’t blink. “Highness, perhaps—”
“No, we’ll do this now, Emmory. You picked these two to be on my primary team for a reason. I’m not going to settle for the status quo here when my life is on the line. My cousin might seem sweet and empty-headed, but she is not.” I pointed at Zin. “So here’s your first lesson. I want honesty from you. Opinions on my cousin. Zin, you’re first.”
Zin sighed audibly. “Highness, you’re asking us to talk about a member of the royal family. It would take me all day to list the number of reasons this is improper.”
“Thank you for restating the obvious. Zin’s taken a pass, which means Caspian Yuri Kreskin, you’re up.” My smati gave me Cas’s full name. That and his blond hair marked him as part of the influx of Saxon refugees the empire had seen over the last sixty years.
“Emmory, why did you put a Saxon on my primary BodyGuard team?”
“Your Highness?” Cas’s voice cracked and he gave me a nervous smile. “My family has been members of the empire for more than five hundred years. We actually came from the Conglomerate. Kraskey-Ploha was settled primarily by people from Russia and Eastern Europe in the Great Flight.” He had pretty eyes, which shifted in the light to a deep blue.
“Everyone is calling you Cas. Do you prefer that or Caspian?”
Surprise made his eyes widen and a blush appeared high on his cheekbones at my question. “Cas is fine, Your Highness.”
“All right then, Cas. What did you think of my cousin?”
“She seemed nice, Highness.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Throwing a hand in the air, I turned to the last of my BodyGuards. Jet was watching me, his face as blank as Emmory’s.
“Ojayit Uli Gaiden,” I said, using Jet’s full name from the label that flashed over him courtesy of my smati. “You’re up.”
“Your pardon, Your Highness,” he replied with a bow that was surprisingly elegant given his blocky frame. “But our job is to keep you alive, not to give you advice.”
“Your job is what I say it is. Besides, it makes me happy.”
“That’s not our job either, Highness,” Jet said with a trace of amusement in his accented voice.
I slid off the couch with a smile and crossed the room. “Jet, if you’re not going to keep me happy, you’re going to want to keep a closer eye on your weapons.”
Confusion flashed through his eyes and was quickly overtaken by surprise. I gave him a broader smile and flipped his knife over my fingers.
He studied me for a moment, tilting his head to the side as he spoke. “Her greeting was strained, Highness. Too high-pitched to be genuine. She was surprised by your controlled reaction to her insult and confused by how calm you were. I take it you weren’t always so cool around her.
“She could be dangerous given how her influence has grown in the short time since Princess Cire’s death. But she’s worried by your return, which means she hasn’t consolidated enough power yet to challenge you outright for position as Heir Apparent.”
The knots in my stomach released themselves so abruptly, I almost collapsed in relief, but I hid it and handed Jet’s knife to him with a wink.
“I’m terrified to hear it, ma’am.”
I punched him in the shoulder. Everyone froze. “Uff,” I muttered, seeing no graceful way to move on from my decidedly gunrunner behavior. “Alba, your thoughts?”
“With apologies, Highness.” My heart sank at my chamberlain’s reply. “But Ojayit has stolen my answer.”
Jet raised an eyebrow in her direction, and Alba only allowed a tiny smile to peek through in return as she dipped her head in his direction.
“That’s my girl.” I clapped my hands and grinned at her. “Okay, Alba, you stay. I’m sure we have things to go over. BodyGuards can go now.” I winced at the awkward dismissal. My BodyGuards weren’t the only ones who needed to get used to things apparently.
No one seemed to mind. Emmory merely gave me a look as he headed for the door. As soon as we were alone, Alba jumped right into my schedule.
“Matriarch Desai sent me a message, ma’am, saying they’d keep Ganda on the schedule for the week and give you a chance to get your feet under you. She would like to meet with you when it’s convenient.”
I nodded. Clara had copied me on that message as well as attaching a file summarizing the current political climate. “Who’s the head of the Ancillary Council right now?”
“Juna Saito has held the spot for several years now.”
The AC was made up of the daughters of the matriarchs as well as daughters of several other noble houses, and the head was elected by majority vote. I remembered Juna; she was several years older than me and had been a friend of Cire’s. She was a tiny thing with curly black hair and pale skin. I wondered if she was still quiet and serious or if time had changed her.
Alba’s eyes unfocused as she checked her calendar. “Right now, I’m afraid, ma’am. Just their normal weekly meeting, though I suspect things aren’t the least bit normal given recent events. There’s nothing else scheduled until next week.”
“Make a note that we should stop in and say hi if we have time.” Cire wouldn’t have had much to do with the AC. Her duties as heir would have kept her too busy, but they were her social peers, and Pace probably had sat on the council. It would be important for me to get to know these women as many of them would end up in the Matriarch Council during my reign.
Look at you, Hail, settling right into this.
“I also have a message from Admiral Hassan requesting a meeting as soon as possible.” Alba had moved on to the next item without realizing my distraction and her announcement pulled me out of my self-pity.
I pulled up the files Alba sent to my smati. Inana Hassan was Mother’s age, a graduate of the Naval Academy who’d worked her way up through the ranks until her appointment as Admiral of Home Fleet five years ago. Her elevation also garnered her control of the Raksha—the military council for Indrana.
This woman had power, and the fact that she wanted to talk to me was a good sign. I knew my priorities. Hao used to go on and on about how there were three things a gunrunner needed to pay attention to before entering into a deal with anyone: their politics, the cost of the deal—not just financially but everything else—and the mood of the locals.
It wasn’t much of a stretch for me to translate that into my situation here. The top three pressing issues were politics, the economy, and the state of my people.
I wasn’t even close to being caught up on everything that had happened in the last few months, but what little information I’d scraped together in the hectic hours since my return was all bad news.
Economics wasn’t my strong suit, and I was reluctant to involve myself and potentially make the mess worse. But the political situation—specifically the mounting troubles with the Saxon Kingdom—and the growing popular unrest? Those I could handle.
I remembered Hao’s favorite saying: Concentrate on what you know. The rest will sort itself out, or it’ll kill you. It had always been delivered with a grin and a wink, typical of Hao’s easygoing attitude.
“Make her a priority, Alba. If she can’t make a meeting today, schedule something for tomorrow. I’ll meet with Matriarch Desai tomorrow morning if that works for her.
“I’d also like to talk with Fenna Britlen. Emmory may have already sent her a message.”
“Fenna retired last year, Highness. Caspel Ganej is the new head of Galactic Imperial Security.”
“Interesting. Is Fenna still in the capital?”
“No, ma’am.”
“I’ll compose something myself then, if you’ll get me her contact information. No one else gets audiences, but if you aren’t sure about someone, feel free to double-check with me. I want to spend the next two days getting up to speed on the situation here.”
And start figuring out who killed my sisters, but I wasn’t going to share that with Alba just yet.