Empress Game: The Empress Game Trilogy Book 1 (14 page)

How could Isonde stand there like a fossil on display?

Kayla hadn’t approached the glass despite being in the small room for hours. Instead she had pulled a chair into the farthest corner and sat with her back against the wall.

It didn’t help.

She had felt less exposed standing in the center of the Blood Pit in her skimpy fighting outfit. Thousands of people could see her. Without her body paint. Without her
ashk
. Everywhere she looked, every time she glanced through the glass, jade and indigo uniforms passed. Imperial uniforms. She was surrounded by the official imperial security force.

Her dress might as well be on fire, as conspicuous as she felt.

“Start fidgeting,” Isonde said, as she turned away from the glass.

“Excuse me?”

“Patience is one thing, it adds grace. You look like an ice sculpture ready to shatter. Have you even blinked?” She strolled to one of the empty chairs, her ivory skirts swirling in an elegant twist from her waist to her toes as she walked. She brushed her auburn hair back over her shoulder and light danced up one arm, the shimmersilk of her tight then loose double sleeve flowing with the movement. The dress, with its gold-accented neckline and subtle crystal matrix hemming, looked natural on Isonde despite probably costing a fortune of credits.

Kayla, wearing a complementary gown of the same style in black with platinum accents, made a show of just barely moving a hand to twitch the fabric of her skirts a micron. “That better?”

“Oh, much.” Isonde folded herself neatly into a chair. “I realize you’ve probably never even worn a gown before, but at least try to look like it’s not made of glass.”

The condescending tone had to go, but Isonde was right. Kayla took a deep breath, trying to forget that she was in her enemy’s house, and relaxed back into her chair. The action felt unnatural.

No one knows who you are.

She ignored the threat the myriad security officers, guards and IDC agents posed to her life and focused on mimicking ease. Black satin slippers peeked from beneath the crystal matrix as she crossed her feet at the ankles. She leaned casually on the arm of her chair and began to beat a staccato rhythm on the metal frame with two fingernails.

“Now you only look slightly more uptight than Joss and Rawn.” Isonde nodded to her two guards.

“We never look that uptight, my lady,” the one named Rawn said.

“Enough. I get it.” Kayla pushed out of her chair. If she couldn’t pace, she could at least stretch muscles stiff from tension. “Why are we still here and not down by the arena yet? The officer who led us here said we’d be scanned ‘soon.’”

“The bureaucracy of Falanar has its own standard units of time, and none of them equal ‘soon.’ For a gathering as large as the Empress Game, our wait has been nothing.”

Kayla forced herself to take a few steps toward the glass front of the room. She tucked against the wall as if an opaque barrier on one side offered any real concealment. She didn’t look into any of the rooms across, that felt too voyeuristic. Instead she watched people walking the corridor far below. The only people-watching Kayla had ever been interested in was the threat assessment kind, ranking everyone into a scale based on the threat they presented to Vayne. It was as natural as breathing to her, but today her scale was skewed.

Everyone presented a threat to her
il’haar
. How could she protect Corinth from so many unknowns? A stream of people wound along the floor of the depot, slower groups eddying here, more determined citizens surging there. Most ranged in groups led by imperial officers in jade and indigo uniforms, being shuffled to and from the waiting pens like livestock. Some pairs and trios strode along, clearly on business, and some collected at the edges to talk.

The predictable flow swirled with disturbance at the far end of the corridor.

People startled and parted, proving that someone unique was making their way down the corridor. Kayla couldn’t pinpoint the source from seven levels up, but conversation seemed to stop and heads turned, either to stare or look away. A group of guards in matching lavender uniforms passed directly below her, revealing who was causing that level of disturbance among such a cosmopolitan group.

“
Kin’shaa
,” she whispered, her fingers curling into talons at her side.

Surrounded by guards, the diminutive Master Dolan swept along the corridor at a clip. Formerly a top-level neuroengineer on the Wyrd World Ilmena who was caught experimenting on his own people, Master Dolan was now
kin’shaa
—a Wyrd whose psi powers had been stripped from him using the Kalichma Ritual. The practice had been outlawed on Ordoch, but some of the more rigid Wyrd Worlds still used it in extreme cases as a form of punishment. His physical appearance gave him away. A web of scars started at his right temple and spidered out across the right side of his face. They ran straight through his eye, and that orb was now a blank, angry red, with no visible iris. The lines crossed his nose and cheekbone and warped the corner of his mouth ever so slightly, giving him a hint of a smirk at all times. Each
kin’shaa
had the same scarring, those few who survived the procedure.

Dolan had been there during the coup on Ordoch. He had come with the empire, claiming to be an emissary of both sides wanting to bridge the distance between the planets. He had been there the night her family was murdered. He would recognize her.

She stepped back sharply from the glass wall, bumping into an accent table.

Was he coming for her? Had he already found Corinth, is that how he knew to look for her? She hadn’t even been scanned yet, how could he know? Kayla turned to dash for the door, but it opened before she could take one step.

“There you are.”

M
alkor’s trouble radar shot to hyperdrive at the sight of Shadow’s hunted look.

“What is it?” he asked from the doorway of their waiting room.

Her chest rose with rapid breath and she stared at him uncomprehendingly. Beside her, Isonde looked calm, unconcerned, and her guards were at ease. Still, Malkor’s hand went to his ion pistol.

“Lady Evelyn?”

“I… it’s nothing. I’m fine.”

She was decidedly not fine.

He glanced over his shoulder into the hallway. Aides bustled back and forth, admitting or escorting people to and from the various rooms. No one paid him the slightest attention. No one hustled furtively down the hallway, and none of the people he saw presented a threat. When he looked back at Shadow she had regained her calm, but fear lurked in her eyes. She studied him as if assuring herself he was real. What had she seen?

“Have you come to rescue us?” Isonde asked.

“Something like that. Have you been waiting this whole time, or…” He wouldn’t put his concern into words, not in such a public place.

Isonde gave a slight shake of her head. “Just waiting.”

He looked at Shadow one last time. If her past had caught up to them, he needed to know. A full-on inquisition would have to wait, though.

“Let’s get you ladies out of here.”

* * *

Kayla did her best to slow her breathing as Malkor led them along the airway.

His gaze swept over their surroundings, touching on people, landings and hiding spots before returning to her. He slowed his step a fraction so they walked in sync, their long legs matching their gaits.

“Do I need to be worried?” he asked in a low voice.

She shook her head, eyes darting to inspect the other visitors.

“You’re not doing a very good job of convincing me,” he said.

Kayla breathed. In. Out. No shouting. No guards. No one she knew. No one to recognize her.

In.

Out.

“I’m fine. Just… nervous.” She tried on a faint smile.

“Hmm.” There were questions building in him, she could tell. If they had more privacy, she didn’t doubt he’d press for a more believable answer.

The
kin’shaa
would have passed on by now, they wouldn’t run into him. Millions of people congregated for the Game, an endless sea she could sink into like a drop of water. Dolan wouldn’t recognize her unless they came face to face, and she would make sure that never, ever happened.

Kayla sensed Malkor’s strength of purpose as they strode along together, his focus on the mission. It was a focus she was becoming accustomed to. He had changed into his formal IDC uniform, with a knee-length indigo tunic over tailored slacks of dark jade. Jade piping followed the two vertical side seams and accented the short stand-up collar of the tunic. Matching thread picked out a pattern near his left collarbone and the outlines of eight hollow rectangles fanned to form a ninety degree arc, the symbol of his rank as an octet leader. The simplicity suited him, even if the uniform left her chilled.

They rode the maglift to the floor of the depot, then skirted groups of people to enter an empty identification room. The room was nondescript, the walls’ synthetic stone matrix rendered unidentifiable by layers of taupe paint. A counter, atop which sat several palm scanners, a retinal scanner, a stack of datapads and two interlink terminals, dominated the room. Two techs argued about something on one of the terminals. Behind them the seal of the Sakien Empire covered the wall in brilliant jade and indigo—a ship jumping to hyperspace, surrounded by a ring of stars. A padded bench ran along two of the walls, completing the room’s furnishings.

The techs had been expecting someone else and took a few minutes to pull up files, change the calibration on the scanners and sort through a series of datapads. Corinth had assured her he had every faith in Rigger’s technical expertise, he didn’t doubt that the ID Rigger had designed for her—“Lady Evelyn”—would hold up. Nonetheless, Kayla hesitated when they called her for a palm scan.

Malkor gave her a discreet nod and she pressed her palm to the slick aeroglass surface, plunging into her role as Lady Evelyn.

The rest of the process went smoothly, Isonde and her two guards being as easily confirmed as Kayla. The women were given credential bands to be worn at all times. The guards were then relieved of duty and sent to join the rest of Isonde’s people at the townhouse she owned in Falanar’s crown district. The safety of every Game entrant would be assured by the imperial security officers while they remained on the tournament grounds. A necessity. The Game complex couldn’t support the amount of security and attendants each combatant would bring if a limit hadn’t been set.

The techs then discharged them into the spacious welcome port. Kayla adjusted the fit of her ID bracelet as she took in the bustle of the port. Light spectrums danced across the curved walls of the enormous building, the suns casting the last of their light through what looked to be birefringent skylights. Porters, guides and shuttle drivers, both of the living and android variety, lined the walls waiting for customers. Interspersed with them were welcome kiosks where visitors could take virtual tours of the capital city and reserve accommodations, if there were any left to be had. Hundreds of temporary bots supplemented the traditional bank of translator ones. A staggering line of visitors waited at each to receive an aural implant calibrated to the exact dialect of their native language. The bots required a series of verbal examples of the wearer’s speech, then adjusted generic implants to precise translation devices that would translate every known spoken language into the listener’s native tongue. Visitors were on their own for the non-verbal languages.

Thank space Rigger had attuned one for her when she was still on board the ship. She spoke the five dominant languages on Ordoch, but her knowledge of empire linguistics was limited to Imperial Standard Common, the only language broad enough to serve the eclectic mix of unsavories on Altair Tri’s slum side.

It took some time but they managed to wade through the port to the doors at the far end and exit into the maglev terminal. Nearly a hundred gleaming maglev trains waited in their bays, their silver ends stretching farther than Kayla could see. Passengers swarmed the arriving trains, each impatient to claim their own place. Trains filled in minutes and shot down rails, launched from reversed polarity buffers at the end of each bay.

Malkor led them past several trains toward the less crowded reaches of the platform. The near constant
whoosh
of air stirred strands of her hair and she brushed an impatient hand against them as she followed in Isonde’s wake. It wasn’t until they’d chosen seats on a half-empty train and the doors locked into place that the reality hit her. She was grounded on the imperial homeworld with no way off, out or away except through a horde of the empire’s top fighters.

Let the Game begin.

* * *

The magrails had been diverted to run right to the Game pavilion, and it wasn’t long before Kayla, Malkor and Isonde arrived at the huge housing complex designated for Empress Game participants. The credentials embedded in the lithodisc bracelet they each wore allowed them access to the floor their shared apartment was on and the suite itself. Kayla examined the room. Adequate, if not elegant. Larger than her shack on Altair Tri had been and more secure. There was the lithodisc reader and a print scan-dependent door lock, vid-recorder surveillance in the corridor and an impressive alarm system with an estimated ten-minute response time. Five if you expected the IDC agents to come from the adjoining wing in the place of guards. If the walls were thinner than she liked and the recorders too accessible—and thus too easy to manipulate—she could deal.

“He’s close?” she asked Malkor, as soon as she’d finished her assessment of her bedroom off of the apartment’s common area.

He followed her thinking immediately. “Corinth’s staying with Trinan and Vid. The opposite end of your corridor intersects the main corridor separating contestant quarters and IDC quarters. Rigger’s already tuned your creds to give you access to the IDC dorms on that level, and the print scanner on Trinan and Vid’s door has been keyed to admit you. You might want to knock before you enter, though, just in case.” The datapad in his hand beeped and he glanced at it impatiently. “I have to get back. Before I go, do you want me to show you where he is?”