Empress Game E-Book

Rhonda Mason

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Seitenzahl: 554

Beschreibung

The Empress Game, the tournament fought to decide the Empress Apparent, has been called and the females of the empire will stop at nothing to secure political domination for their homeworlds. The empire's elite gather to forge, strengthen or betray alliances in a dance that will determine the fate of the empire for a generation.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Coming Soon from Titan Books

Also Available from Titan Books

The Empress Game

Print edition ISBN: 9781783295241

E-book ISBN: 9781783295265

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

First edition: July 2015

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Names, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

© 2015 by Rhonda Mason

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

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To the best friends a girl could have, Jen Brooks and Diana Botsford, without whom I never would have finished this novel.

1

Shadow Panthe.

Power, grace, deadliness defined. Always cunning, never merciful, and endlessly, infinitely, victorious.

She, Kayla Reinumon, was Shadow Panthe.

And she was tired of it.

Tired of fighting, of hiding.

Perhaps her foe would end it. Kayla gripped a kris dagger in each hand and eyed the fellow occupant of the Blood Pit. This one would not kill her. Could not, had she a wish to, which she most likely did. Every woman who earned the dubious glamour of fighting in the Blood Pit wished to vanquish Shadow Panthe and claim her throne. Well, this one would not.

The girl—who possessed the ridiculous stage name Angelic Assassin—came at Kayla with knives flashing. She had technique, at least. Flawless footwork brought Angelic close, her blade descending at the perfect angle to slice a hamstring. It might have succeeded if Kayla hadn’t spent her twenty-five Ordochian years training for moments such as this.

She lashed out with her booted foot and sent one of the girl’s knives spinning, arcing toward the crowd that sat above the Blood Pit. It struck one of the spectators, judging by the scream that rang out, and was followed by a chorus of cheers. Kayla smiled. Hopefully the man had been killed, or at least seriously maimed.

She hated them, the men who came to this planet on the edge of Imperial Space to watch her fight. They fed off the violence, swore, sweated and screamed her name all night. She hated them, but not more than she hated herself for being Shadow Panthe. For giving them exactly what they wanted.

Angelic rolled and recovered quickly. Impressive. Kayla glanced at the wavy edge of her own kris daggers before tossing the left one away. It skittered to the limit of the pit, out of reach.

“You’ll wish you had that back,” Angelic called. A round of boos met her declaration—the crowd didn’t believe it any more than Kayla did.

“We’ll see.” Kayla twirled her remaining kris. “Come.”

Angelic lunged again, grabbing at Kayla’s knife hand even as she stabbed at her with her long, thin blade. Clever girl. Not a worthy opponent for Shadow Panthe, but clever nonetheless.

The fight ranged across the pit floor, as Lumar liked it to. Despite her disgust for the owner of the Blood Pit, she knew who paid her prize money and how he liked things done. Lumar wanted a show. If Kayla and her brother, Corinth, didn’t depend on the credits the Blood Pit fights brought in she would have ended the fight in a heartbeat, spat at the spectators and told Lumar exactly where to shove his “show.”

But they did need the credits, so Kayla ignored the self-loathing and toyed with the blonde girl. If inflicting half-a-dozen minor cuts and bruises could be considered toying. Kayla herself had almost as many injuries. The fight had to look good, after all. The crowd wanted their sport.

Kayla closed with the girl again. Her sleek, cat-like movements and micro-fine reflexes had earned Kayla the moniker Shadow Panthe long before her nights in the Blood Pit. It had taken fighting like a caged animal in front of a crowd to make her hate the title and all the skill it implied. They chanted it now, the syllables elongated, the sound drawn out. SHA-DOE-PANTH. SHA-DOE-PANTH.

The crowd’s mood turned. They’d seen enough sport, now they wanted blood—Angelic’s blood, never Shadow Panthe’s. Not their infamous champion wench.

Screw ’em.

She’d given them enough already, and she still had a final match tonight.

Kayla sidestepped, affecting a miscalculation that appeared to put her off balance. Angelic lunged to take advantage, as many fighters would have. Of course, a better fighter would have been more cautious. The best, like Kayla’s mentor, would simply have laughed at such an obvious move. Not Angelic. She dove right in.

Kayla shifted her weight, spun past the charging girl and brought the hilt of her kris down hard on Angelic’s temple. The girl crumpled without a sound to the stained organoplastic floor of the pit.

The crowd roared above them, and bile stung the back of Kayla’s throat. She glared at them, her adoring fans. She knew they sensed her enmity and cherished her all the more for it. What better champion had they ever seen? Who more flawless, more coldhearted than she?

None.

Nights like this made her almost thankful for her mentor’s murder. If she were ever to have seen Kayla thus, fighting for money, for the pleasure of men in a pit of filth on the slum side of Altair Tri…

An oddity in the crowd caught her eye. Had he moved, she would never have noticed him. That he didn’t stand wasn’t in and of itself strange. Many men couldn’t be bothered to rise for her, though they applauded and shouted as loud as any.

This man, though, didn’t clap. He didn’t wave his arms about, say something to his neighbor or point at the unconscious body of her latest victim. He held himself as rigid as the trinium decking and stared at her. She wanted to hate him, group him with the others. He sat in the arena, had paid to watch her fight another woman, hadn’t he? One look at him and her mind refused. Different.

In his eyes she saw none of the admiration, none of the lust or possessiveness that shone in the others’. What she saw instead disturbed her: calculation. As if he saw past the façade, past the paint that covered her, the stage-name that shielded her.

She touched her fingers to the black ashk that wound around the lower half of her face, afraid she’d been unmasked. The cloth was still in place, revealing only her eyes.

The whoosh of pressure locks releasing tore through the crowd noise, offering her an escape. A battered section of the pit wall opened toward her, all the invitation she needed. She scooped up the dagger she’d tossed aside and fled the pit.

* * *

“What the frutt do you think you’re doing, Shadow? They didn’t come to see you play footsies, they came to see you fight.”

Kayla didn’t bother to look at Lumar as he ranted behind her.

“I told you to punish that upstart, but no, you let her off easy. I swear …”

Even if this same scene didn’t play out after most of her fights, she still wouldn’t have listened just then. She waited on the airway, a catwalk of trinium alloy that ringed the top of the arena and led to the fighters’ dressing rooms. Lumar’s uneven tread rattled the plating behind her while she peered down at the pit. Against her will, her gaze sought out the single man.

He sat as still as ever. Was he enamored with the spectacle in the pit? She glanced at the current contest—Oriala versus some unknown. All of Lumar’s fighters wore skimpy costumes, and Oriala’s chest threatened to burst out of her top with every breath. Kayla snorted. The look in the man’s eyes must have been fanciful imagining on her part. He was just like all the rest.

Before she could decide if the revelation relieved or disappointed her, she noticed that the angle of his stare was off. His gaze was a touch high. He looked as though… he studied the ring of lights circling the pit. His posture indicated attentiveness, but she doubted he saw anything of what was going on in there.

Odd.

What sort of man came to the Blood Pit and didn’t watch the fights? Mercenaries, smugglers, slave runners and unsavories of all sorts came to the pit to do business, but they always confined it to the intermission between matches. No one ignored the violence on display.

Except this man.

A chill crept over her, raising the fine hairs on the back of her neck. Why, then, had he been staring at her after the match? What was he doing here?

“Are you listening to me? I have had it!” Lumar grabbed her upper arm, heedless of the damage to her body paint. “Do you want to lose tonight?”

She tore her gaze away from the mysterious man in the crowd and focused her coldest stare on the pit’s owner. “Shadow Panthe never loses.” Kayla bared her teeth in a feral smile. “That’s why they love me.”

“You’ll lose when I tell you to. I control every match here.”

She arched a brow.

“You’re a credit-whore for me, Shadow, I admit. You win because it pays for you to win, but you don’t show off enough. The people want drama.”

“Frutt the people. They want blood, I give them that.”

“Not enough. They won’t pay to watch you dance with the other bitches. Your match with Phoenix is the headliner. If you want to keep your status as golden girl of the Blood Pit I had better see some drama, I had better see some blood, and I had damn well better see Phoenix crippled before the night is over.” He leaned in close. “The Blood Pit brought customers in from across the Altair System before you ever arrived, Shadow Panthe. You’re not irreplaceable.”

He walked away and she let him go without a reply. She was irreplaceable and they both knew it. The Blood Pit could only claim patrons from all corners of this star system because of its location; the slum side of Altair Tri was a catch-all for human filth. People didn’t fly here to build a reputation. They didn’t come to make a profit, gain a name or find their destiny. They came for one reason: to hide. As she and her brother had. Now the Blood Pit was famous on worlds beyond Altair Tri, and people came to this voidhole of a planet for another reason: to see Shadow Panthe fight. They were still the lowest of the low: murderers, rapists, slavers, but she brought them in. Lumar would never get rid of her as long as she continued to win.

She had no intention of losing to Phoenix tonight. The promise of four hundred credits to the victor would ensure her full efforts. The potential of another hundred as a bonus from a pleased Lumar was worth stirring up some drama.

Below, the crowd roared, drawing her attention once more to the man who sat curiously still amid the raucous spectators.

Lumar wanted a little drama, hmm?

* * *

Senior Agent Malkor Rua of the Imperial Diplomatic Corps stood in the tunnel that ran behind the Blood Pit’s stands, taking a break from the violence for a moment. The place was revolting, pit to dome. The tunnel smelled like piss and ruinth smoke, ozone from the faulty lighting stung his throat and a vandalized beverage synthesizer oozed slime from a ruptured calorie pack. The stands themselves were worse, dotted with puddles of vomit and rank with body odor. The hint of the smell of semen coming from the man beside him after the last match had been enough to send him off on this momentary retreat.

He checked the feed on his mobile comm. One of his octet members, still on board Prince Ardin’s starcruiser in orbit, had sent a message.

“IDs confirmed on the men following you and Hekkar. Lower-level guards in Master Dolan’s employ, as suspected.”

Now that was odd. As Grand Advisor of Science and Technology to the emperor, Master Dolan wielded plenty of power in the Sakien Empire. Why would he be concerned enough with the seedy goings on of such an inconsequential Protectorate Planet to send men here? And why did Malkor get the sense they were after the same thing—Shadow Panthe?

As much as Malkor had to feign interest in the Blood Pit to keep his cover as nothing more than a spectator, he didn’t have to feign any of his interest in Shadow Panthe. Something about her…

It was in the way she moved, the defiant way she stared at the crowd, the flawless technique she wielded. She was in the Blood Pit but not of it, as so many of its denizens were. She’d been trained somewhere other than Altair Tri, and for a purpose grander than this. Where? And why?

Malkor shook off the questions. Where and why didn’t matter. Who didn’t matter. She was an asset, a means by which to secure Princess Isonde a win in the tournament for the crown. A fierce, feral means, and exactly what they needed. Or would be, once he convinced her to join them.

Two men lounging by the broken beverage synthesizer straightened when a third man ducked into the dark space. A glassy-eyed woman followed him, hands cuffed together in front of her, manacles connected to a metallic lead, the end of which was tucked into the man’s belt.

Malkor stiffened—a slaver.

In the close confines of the tunnel, he could catch bits of the trading going on:

“Why hire a whore for a night when you could buy one for years? This one’s prime blood, disease-free, brought her from Altair Prime myself.”

One of the other two men muttered something Malkor couldn’t catch.

“Any whore can steam up the sheets, but my girl—you can have her on her knees all night and she’ll still have your breakfast ready for you in the morning. She’ll spread her thighs on command, pleasure any of your other friends and still keep your house tidy.” The slaver flicked a finger and the woman stepped closer. He gripped her jaw and angled her face to show off the scar behind her ear. “Discipline chip already installed, no extra charge.”

Bile rose in Malkor’s throat. It wasn’t the first such transaction he’d overheard in the Blood Pit—more like the tenth. Though usually the “merchandise” wasn’t on display. His fingers itched to draw his ion pistol and bring a definitive end to the discussion with three quick shots. He could do it, too, no one would miss them, but then he’d be ejected from the Blood Pit for making a mess. As much as it sucked, he had a larger mission at stake, and freeing this woman from her miserable existence wouldn’t serve the greater good tonight.

The announcer bot boomed out a five-minute warning until the next match. Time to get back in there. Hating himself as much as the slaver and buyers in that moment, Malkor turned his shoulder and walked away. He elbowed his way through the heat and noise of the crowd to take a seat beside Hekkar, his second-in-command and backup on the mission.

“Shadow Panthe’s the one, hmm?” Hekkar spoke just loud enough to be heard over the surrounding rabble.

“So it would seem.” Malkor drew his thoughts back to the mission. It had to take precedence, the fate of the empire depended upon it. He forced the image of the slave’s hopeless face out of his mind. “Of course we’d find Isonde’s body-double in the darkest, nastiest voidhole on Altair Tri.” If only Isonde knew how to fight, could win the hand-to-hand combat tournament without the need for subterfuge.

“This is a bad idea, Malk, and you know it. An IDC agent would be a better choice.”

“Any agent has an excellent chance of being recognized on Falanar, no matter how long she’s been undercover somewhere else. Besides, we need someone expendable if this whole thing goes to shit.” Which it very likely would. How had he let Isonde and Ardin talk him into this?

“Think Shadow Panthe’s good enough to win the Empress Game?” Hekkar’s gaze slowly traveled over the other occupants in the arena as he spoke, never resting in any one place.

“She’ll have to be. If we can’t put Isonde on the throne, the empire is in serious trouble.”

A bot announced the final match of the evening: Phoenix challenging Shadow Panthe. All the drug-dealing, slave-trading, gambling and bribing going on around them ground to a halt. Only one thing could hold the attention of so many disparate criminals at a time—the promise of violence. The pit drew Malkor’s gaze once more. Who was this Shadow Panthe that she could rule here, thrive in this environment? A section of the wall lining the pit swung open. Malkor unconsciously leaned forward, anticipating Shadow’s entrance. Every man in the room did the same.

Instead of her sleek and deadly form, flame burst forth, arcing from one end of the pit to the other. It vanished before Malkor could shield his eyes. In its place stood a voluptuous woman gowned in free-flowing fire silk. It slipped and shimmered with her every breath, giving the illusion that the woman was herself fire.

“Lady Phoenix!” the robotic voice announced, and the crowd hooted.

Phoenix raised her arms, the sleeves of her robe entwining her limbs like pyro-serpents.

“Not the most practical costume,” Hekkar commented over the crowd noise. Phoenix lifted a hand to the clasp at her shoulder. One deft movement swept the robe off, revealing scads of bare skin interrupted only briefly by two strips of red-orange cloth.

The cheering increased tenfold.

“Lady Phoenix, in whose honor do you fight this eve?” The words were tradition, asked of all who fought in the Blood Pit.

“I fight for the glory of Fierenzos!” The God of Fire, how original. They’d heard many similar claims tonight. Only Shadow Panthe’s answer stood out in his mind. It possessed a sincerity no one else came close to matching.

“Shadow Panthe, in whose honor do you fight this eve?”

“I fight only for myself.”

No doubt this had always been her only answer.

Phoenix postured and preened, enjoying her entrance, but began to lose the crowd. From what Malkor had gathered she was a visiting challenger, champion of a rival pit come to fight the Blood Pit’s reigning queen. Any woman of beauty—and scant clothing—could gain a man’s attention, but it took something special to hold it against one such as Shadow Panthe. Phoenix didn’t stand a chance.

The arena quieted to a hush.

A heartbeat passed.

Two.

Then she was there, standing in the doorway.

She needed no burst of flame, no flashy entrance. With only her presence, Shadow Panthe electrified the crowd. Malkor barely heard her name announced over the shouting.

“Stars be damned,” Hekkar said.

Malkor could only nod.

She was painted from eyelash to hair-line, head to toe in black body paint cut through with a maze of red slashes, a stylized version of a shadow panthe’s hide. The pattern continued in scarlet thread across the black halter-top and bikini bottoms she wore. The red lines scrawled across her face even, what little of it was visible above the black ashk she wore.

Completing the outfit were two kris daggers, one strapped to each thigh, and a gaze cold enough to burn. She strode across the pit, glaring at her admirers the whole way. They cheered her as if she were the Daughter of All.

When the gaze that raked the gathered men with such scorn turned on him, Malkor froze. Instead of contempt he read curiosity there. She weighed his appearance, judging him. Much as he had been judging her. Why had she picked him out of the crowd? Malkor cursed himself for not choosing a more shadowy spot to sit in, feeling more the hunted than the hunter as she continued to stare at him.

“Shadow Panthe,” came the robotic voice, “in whose honor do you fight this eve?”

Though they all knew her reply, the crowd quieted, listening for her arrogant dismissal.

She raised a black arm until her finger pointed straight at Malkor. “I fight for him.”

Frutt!

The crowd around him exploded—cheering, booing, grabbing, shouting. A dozen hands forced him from his seat and propelled him to the edge of the pit. He heard Hekkar cursing behind him, then Malkor was there, standing face to face with Shadow Panthe, who had ascended from the pit on a lift that had unfolded from the wall. A waist-high railing separated their bodies. She climbed on the barrier and crossed it slowly, one leg at a time, straddling it a moment while she checked her balance.

Around them men whistled and jeered. She didn’t spare them a glance. Her eyes, a blue as bright as a flame’s hottest crescent, locked on him.

Well, he had wanted to meet her. Somehow, though, he hadn’t imagined it going like this. He’d pictured himself with the upper hand, promising a desperate pit whore a fortune of credits to do his bidding, an offer she wouldn’t refuse. Instead he was caught up in the sway she held over the entire arena. Here she was not a woman to be forced or manipulated. Here, she ruled.

The noise died down again as she lowered her ashk, those nearest leaning in to hear what the infamous Shadow Panthe could possibly have to say to a mere mortal. Even under her ashk, paint obscured her features. A line of red, lurid against the black backdrop of her face, graced one cheek and cut across her lips, forcing Malkor’s attention there.

Her lips moved. “A token?”

2

“For luck,” Kayla forced out, when the man continued to stare at her.

Around them the crowd roared their approval. Though Lumar would no doubt be pleased, Kayla already regretted her plan to stir up drama. The man didn’t have a pin or trade patch on his black duster that she could grab, or a scarf or something to tie on her arm. She couldn’t go through his pockets to find a suitable token to keep up the charade.

Do something so I can get down from here, she silently urged him. Play along.

A red-haired man struggled through the crowd to reach his side. Despite being caught off-guard, her supposed muse looked in control and far more sober than the rest of the spectators. Choosing him from the crowd had been a mistake.

Kayla was suddenly desperate to escape. When the man simply stood there, studying her, she knew the move was hers to make. Lumar had better give me a bonus for this. She threaded her fingers through his hair, pulled his lips down to hers and kissed him.

It was like kissing a rock. A warm rock, maybe, but a rock nonetheless. She hadn’t been kissed in five years, unless she counted attempted sexual assaults on Altair Tri, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t supposed to feel like that. She released him quickly and backed away. His hand flashed out and he grabbed her wrist when she turned to flee.

“I need to speak to you. Privately.” Calculation lurked in his intent gaze, and if he was shocked by her actions it didn’t show. “As soon as you can manage it.”

He wanted something from her, something he wouldn’t leave without, and that could only mean trouble. Kayla had hidden her brother from trouble on this backwater planet for five years, she wasn’t about to get caught now.

“The southeast gate. Under the launch dock, after the show.” She glanced at the red-haired man who had finally reached his side. “Come alone or not at all.”

Before he could answer she twisted her wrist free of his grasp and stepped away.

“Now, wish me luck.” Kayla ignored the waiting lift, too anxious to endure its slow descent. She gripped the railing at her back with both hands and spun over. The instant her toes touched the ledge on the other side she jumped again, flipping backward to land in a crouch on the pit’s floor.

The need to check on her brother surged through her veins. She still had the match with Phoenix ahead of her, and she’d have to wait for Lumar to settle up at the end of the evening. Now she had this stranger to evade on her way out. At least she knew where he’d be waiting and what door to avoid.

Kayla drew her kris daggers, eyeing Phoenix as the woman did the same. Despite her earlier show for the crowd Phoenix seemed to have tuned them out entirely and now focused laser-like on Kayla. No bit of fluff, this fighter, she had the potential to be a worthy opponent.

Kayla pushed her worry for Corinth to the back of her mind. There was no room for him in the pit.

* * *

Kayla strode down the airway, anxious to get her makeup off and return home. It was late, later than she usually finished, and the Blood Pit was empty. Normally she preferred the pit this way, with the lights down and filled with quiet shadows. She felt safer, more concealed. Tonight, though, the stranger in the crowd wouldn’t leave her mind, setting her on edge.

It was possible he was only interested in Shadow Panthe, not Kayla Reinumon and the younger brother she kept hidden kilometers outside of the pit district. Any hint of trouble had her fearing for Corinth, though. She couldn’t help it, it was in her genes, in her blood. She was Corinth’s ro’haar, now that both of their twins were dead, and he was her il’haar. Her responsibility, her life’s purpose, was to protect her il’haar. And protect him she would.

She clenched then shook her hands, trying to rid them of the numbness caused by a medstick’s ministrations. With quickness and skill Phoenix had landed several cuts on Kayla, mostly on her hands and arms, though one stung across her face. They’d needed healing and Kayla had no time to wait for her body to regenerate naturally. Still, she resented the numbness that could take up to a day to fade as it made her much less effective with her knives, which she couldn’t afford. A sonic shower would help with the numbness as well as flake the stage-paint from her body. The sooner she got home to Corinth, the better.

She had the shower on her mind and a hand on her kris when she entered her dressing room. The lights didn’t come on with her first step in the room, which wasn’t unusual. Lumar was too cheap to replace faulty motion sensors. When they didn’t come on after a second step, the hair on the back of her neck rose. She tapped the pad by the door, bringing the lights up.

A shadow uncurled itself from the corner.

She had her kris out of its sheath before she recognized the man she’d kissed in the stands.

“A word of advice, Shadow. Next time you intend to stand a man up, don’t agree to the meeting so easily. Makes a naturally cautious person like myself suspicious.”

Kayla shrugged a shoulder in a careless gesture but didn’t sheath her knife. “You seemed pleased enough with my answer.”

“The famously reclusive Shadow Panthe, who doesn’t even acknowledge her admirers—let alone speak to them—agrees to meet with me simply because I asked? If I seemed pleased it was only because I’d eliminated one exit from my search for you tonight. I knew you wouldn’t be where you’d said.”

“Where’s your friend?”

“Checking the most likely exits, in case I missed you here.”

She tried to play it light. “You’ve gone to quite a lot of effort for one little Shadow Panthe.” Not that she qualified as “little” at her height, just shy of two meters. Did he have just the one man with him? Were they aware of Corinth, or was this truly about her pit whore persona? Could she make it home without being followed, or would she lead trouble right to her il’haar?

He watched her, seeming to evaluate whether or not she intended to use the kris she held on him. Kayla considered it, fingering the hilt of her second dagger as she studied him. Unlike the men of her homeworld in Wyrd Space he was impressively tall, at least two meters, and built to be a threat. He stood with his weight balanced primarily on the balls of his feet and his hands loose at his sides, alert, prepared for anything.

When he did nothing more than watch her, Kayla relaxed a fraction. If he’d meant to attack her he’d lost his best opportunity by not ambushing her when she entered her room. He looked like a man who understood that, so he must have something else in mind. She flipped her kris into its sheath and leaned against the wall beside the door, hands resting on the pommels of her daggers. The room was close quarters for a fight, should it come to that, and such a location favored the more agile fighter. She was safe enough, for the moment.

“What do you want?”

He hooked a booted foot under the single chair in the room and dragged it toward him. He flipped it around and straddled it, facing her. The hand he draped casually over the chair’s back didn’t fool her. She was sure that he could stand and lift the chair like a weapon in an instant, should he need to.

Smart man.

“I have a proposition for you,” he said.

“Not interested.”

“I assure you it is well worth it.”

His boots were scuffed and well-worn, but not cheap. His clothes were a higher-quality synth fabric than typically seen in pit row. He wore a vest that could conceal any manner of weapon and a floor-length duster as black as the vacuum of space. The style favored slavers and illegal merch-runners but he was cleaner than either and more alert.

The owner of a rival pit, come to lure her away? They were rarely ballsy enough to court her at the Blood Pit after hours, and typically came with more pomp.

“Still not interested.” She nodded to the door. “Now go find your friend and save him some trouble. I guarantee he hasn’t located all of the exits.”

“Look,” he said, “I’ll pay you ten times what you make for a headlining match.”

“Why would you pay me that much for a single fight?” Any pit whore should clutch the chance to earn that many credits, no matter the risk, but Kayla had other things to worry about. True, she and Corinth needed the credits badly. It would put them much closer to bribing a runner to risk the unlawful journey to the Wyrd Worlds.

“It’s a tournament. You’d be facing some of the top fighters in the empire.”

If that was all there was to it she might have been interested. A tournament she could win, especially against imperials. The Sakien Empire had nothing on the Wyrd Worlds when it came to training their women to fight. “It’s not here on Altair Tri or I would have heard of it.”

His gaze flicked away. “We’d have to travel.”

When he left it at that Kayla’s unease grew. There was something here, something unusual about this tournament.

“Not interested.”

“Can you afford not to be interested?”

“I’m a pit whore, not a slave. I fight when I want or not at all.” Pride she’d locked down tight leaked past her control. “I don’t need your credits.” Damned if she couldn’t use them, though.

“Phoenix gave you something of a challenge tonight.”

Kayla tried not to think about it, about what she’d been forced to do. Phoenix wouldn’t have stopped with anything short of Kayla’s dead body if Kayla hadn’t disabled her. So Phoenix’s prize for the honor of fighting Shadow Panthe had been broken tarsals and metatarsals, a fractured collarbone, broken nose, a puncture wound above her hip—she had tried to keep it shallow—a dozen lacerations and a severed tendon in her wrist. It would be months before Phoenix could fight again, and she’d probably never be as dexterous with a weapon as she’d been, if she could even grip one. That assumed she found top-quality treatment for the injury, which she certainly wouldn’t at the Blood Pit.

She would have done it to me, Kayla reminded herself. The thought didn’t ease her guilt.

“Someday you’re going to be off or someone’s going to get lucky,” the man said. “Either way the outcome would be the same. It’s only a matter of time.” His words echoed her own fears. None of the pit whores she encountered were her equal in the ring. One off-day, though, one random slip and Corinth would be completely alone without a ro’haar to protect him.

“I’ll give you twenty times what you make. Enough to start over, leave all of this behind.” His voice dropped to something more persuasive. “I’m offering you the chance at a new life.”

His words provoked the faintest tug, an unconscious pull that made her want to agree. She pressed back into the wall, raising her chin against the unwanted feeling. “There’s no new life waiting for me, no matter how many credits are in my pocket.” Just the same broken life, somewhere else. Her home was destroyed, her psi powers gone and no amount of credits could ever buy her life back.

They could, however, buy her and Corinth passage to Wyrd Space, where he could get the psionic training he desperately needed among their own kind. They could stop hiding, stop living in fear of being discovered.

“Where is the tournament to be held?” she asked.

“For that many credits, where wouldn’t you go?”

Any other planet in the Sakien Empire. At least Altair Tri sat on the edge of Wyrd Space.

“I could find someone else—” he started.

“Then do it, and stop wasting my time.” Kayla toed the door open, leaving her hands on her daggers. “If you don’t mind, this paint’s starting to itch.”

“Falanar. The tournament’s on Falanar.”

The word fell like a stalled hoverlift. Falanar, the Royal Seat of the Sakien Empire. The Imperial Homeworld itself. All the pieces clicked into place: elite imperial fighters, the outrageous payday… “An Empress Game has been called?”

He nodded.

“You want me to impersonate one of the princesses and win her the crown?” Kayla laughed, a short, harsh sound that echoed in the room. “You’ve got spacesickness if you think anyone would agree to that, no matter what price you’re offering. The IDC would eat you alive.”

That brought a smile to his lips. Anyone who could smile at the mention of the IDC was more trouble than she needed. She kicked the door open fully. “I heard your offer and I’m not interested. Get out.”

The chair scraped across the floor when he rose and pushed it out of the way. “If you change your mind—”

“I won’t.”

He came toward her, his height eating up the available space in the room. Even five years on Altair Tri hadn’t accustomed her to men who towered over her, not at her height. Among her people, the males tended to be the shorter of the gender.

This close, she caught the scent of his skin: old-fashioned imperial soap. A scent sadly lacking on Altair Tri.

He held his hands up—away from his sides, fingers spread—keeping a careful eye on her daggers.

“I mean to make you an offer you can’t refuse, Shadow.”

“And I mean to sheathe my kris in something soft if you don’t back the frutt up and get out of my room. Now.”

“We’ll finish this later.” He slipped out before she could reply.

3

Kayla was halfway home when Corinth’s psionic voice sounded in her head.

::Kayla? Where are you?::

He usually waited for her to contact him on fight nights for fear of distracting her.

::Kayla?::

She fished through her bag, searching for the mobile comm she kept with her whenever separated from Corinth. Her fingers brushed several familiar items but the mobile comm was not among them.

“Damnit.” She stopped walking long enough to glance inside the bag. It wasn’t there. How could she have left it behind? She pictured where she’d last seen it, on her table in her dressing room before her last match. Before, but not after. “That frutter!”

::Please, Kayla.::

She growled low in her throat like a wounded cat, aching with the fear she heard in his mental voice. She couldn’t answer him, not without a comm device of some sort. The familiar frustration of losing the psionic powers necessary to communicate with him at a distance rose up to choke her.

She broke into a run, still kilometers from home.

Her path brought her west out of the slums and into the polluted no-man’s-land of Fengar Swamp. When they’d initially escaped to Altair Tri they’d rented rooms in the city, close to the Blood Pit. Kayla hadn’t wanted to be any farther away from Corinth than necessary. With the number of break-ins and murders, though, it would only have been a matter of time before something happened to her il’haar if she left him alone in the slums at night. They’d moved to the swamp, constructing a home bit by bit from materials she scavenged, stole, or occasionally purchased. The place had a nauseating stench and more pitfalls than Ilmena’s royal court—perfect for hiding out.

She reached the edge of the copse that sheltered their makeshift house and paused, alert for any anomaly. The shack looked as it always did, depressing and inadequate. The motion sensors she had surrounded it with were silent—potentially a good sign—but Kayla drew a dagger anyway and crept around the exterior.

No strange footprints bruised the muck and the tufts of grass appeared undamaged. She circled to the door. The pressure locks were still sealed. She punched in her access code and the locks released with a hiss of hydraulics.

“Corinth?”

::I’m here.::

“Are you all right?” Their shack consisted of three rooms. She crossed the common area and glanced in his room—nothing. Not that she’d expected to find him there. When scared, spooked or lonely on fight nights, Corinth went to the same place. His head peeked out from beneath her bed when she entered her room. It was so low to the ground that even with his small size, he still barely fit under there.

::I’m all right. You were gone so long.::

She scanned the room, searching for anything out of place. “Lumar kept me.” No need for Corinth to learn about her strange conversation with an even stranger man. “The nightmares again?”

Kayla sheathed her dagger. She stripped off her ashk before taking a seat on the floor. “Come on out and tell me about it. I’ll synth us some soup.”

He might eat, but he wouldn’t discuss his nightmares.

Neither would she.

They both knew what haunted the other. Memories of the day the rest of their family had been murdered, the day their twins had died and left them half-whole.

Corinth reached out to her with his mind, a whisper-light brush against her mental shields. He wanted the mind-to-mind connection only Wyrds shared. He wanted to feel her essence close and convince himself he wasn’t alone. She couldn’t handle it tonight.

::Speak with me.:: He didn’t mean with her physical voice. Corinth hadn’t spoken aloud since the attack on their homeworld. Nothing seemed to be physically wrong with him, but he just couldn’t. Or wouldn’t. She never knew which.

Corinth could still speak to her through her mental shields with his psi voice, but Kayla, who had lost the use of her psi powers in the attack on their family, couldn’t reply. With her shields down, though, Corinth—or any well-trained psionic—could actually occupy her mind at close range. He would feel what she felt, see what she saw and hear her active thoughts. If she relinquished enough control he could even animate her body and speak for her. Kayla had never allowed anyone that much access.

Normally she would lower her mental shields and let Corinth partially into her mind so they could speak. Tonight she had too many troubles to hide from him and too little energy to try. She pulled her shields tighter together.

“It was a tough night at the pit, Corinth, you don’t need to see that.”

::I hate what you do there.::

“I know you do.”

::You’re so much better than that. You’re a ro’haar and an Ordochian princess.::

“And you are a prince, but tonight we both live in a hovel and need to eat. Come out from there and sit with me a while.”

She offered him her hand. Even if it was the middle of the night and she was exhausted, a ro’haar lived to protect her il’haar, and right now Corinth needed protection from his dreams. He finally edged out from under the bed, using her hand to pull himself up.

Night above, he’s so small. He had barely grown at all in the five years since they’d escaped the overthrow on Ordoch. At thirteen years he looked more like ten. His head came no higher than her last rib, and his build was slender even for a male Wyrd.

“You need two bowls of soup, I think. Don’t you eat when I’m away? I purchased the food synthesizer for a reason, you know.”

Corinth wrapped both arms around her hips in a tight hug. ::I’m glad you’re home.::

Kayla ruffled his dye-blackened hair and soaked in the love. Though kin, they’d spent little time together growing up. She’d mostly been psi training with her twin or learning to fight under the guidance of her untwinned aunts. Corinth had been busy with his own twin and psi training. He and Kayla had practically been strangers when they escaped the Ordoch massacre together.

Now he was more precious to her than anything, and even if he looked so much like a younger version of her twin, Vayne, that it hurt to even glance at him, well, she could take it.

She synthesized two bowls of broth that provided more comfort than sustenance and wouldn’t tax their calorie pack reserves overmuch. They synthesized all their food from the matrix in the calorie packs, so even low-quality ones like these had to be rationed in their straitened circumstances.

::Did you win many credits tonight?::

“I did, it was a big night.”

He sipped the broth, his huge blue eyes on her. ::Why were you so late, honestly?::

“I told you—”

::Lumar never keeps you this late. Why didn’t you answer when I called?::

“I lost my comm.”

::You never lose anything.:: She’d known he wouldn’t buy it. ::Did something happen?::

“It was nothing. A man came to see me at the pit, wanted me to fight for him somewhere else.”

::He was looking for you specifically?:: His features remained blank but Kayla knew how to read the energies inherent in a mental voice. Corinth sounded tense, his question laced with trepidation.

“Only as Shadow Panthe. Why, what happened?” She set her soup bowl down.

::Probably nothing. When I woke in the middle of the night and you weren’t home, I thought I heard something. Outside.::

“Starfire, Corinth!”

::It could have been anything! The motion sensors hadn’t even tripped.::

“What are you supposed to do if you think you hear something—anything at all? Damnit Corinth, damnit.” Fear washed through her, making her furious. First the men at the Blood Pit, now this. What the void was going on? Had their true identities been discovered?

::I’m supposed to hide in the shielded hole and call for you until you come:: he recited.

“What did it sound like?” Her thoughts turned over almost too quickly to follow. The look in the stranger’s eye when he saw her in the pit, his ridiculous offer, his missing partner, someone all the way out here in the swamp, Corinth home alone, unprotected except for a ring of motion sensors and an antiquated pressure lock on the door. Frutt.

Corinth shrugged. ::It was a low hum, constant and steady. It seemed to pass close but not too near the house.::

He was right, it could be anything. A swarm of marsh insects, energy feedback in the sensor lines, even the residuals of his nightmare fading away when he woke. It could be anything, but she knew it was trouble. She saw again the determination of the stranger waiting for her in her dressing room.

Trouble.

“I’ll check it out in the morning, once the sun’s up.” She wanted to grip him by the shoulders and shake him. “You need to promise me that if you hear something again you’ll dive right for the hidey-hole.”

She studied his features, so pale, and looking tired despite the conversation. “Promise me.”

::I promise. I’m sorry, Kayla, I just don’t like it down there.::

“It could save you if anyone comes looking for us.”

::No one has in five years.::

“And hopefully they never will.” Or they might be on Altair Tri right now. “Come on, I’m tired and you look ready to drop. Finish that soup and we’ll go to bed.”

::Can I sleep with you tonight?::

She wanted to sprawl on her cot and rest her bones, not cling to the edge of it while Corinth hogged the rest. But she didn’t even hesitate.

“Of course you can.”

* * *

“Shadow Panthe.”

Kayla’s eyes flashed open. She lay in the darkness of her room, holding her breath, senses alert for the tiniest input. The voice came again, dragging her attention to the comm unit in the next room.

“Shadow?”

That bastard. Even if she didn’t recognize his voice, with her mobile comm swiped earlier in the evening she knew exactly who was ballsy enough to comm her now.

“Corinth.” She shook him awake.

::What’s going on?::

“The hidey-hole. Now.” Kayla pulled the antiquated blaster from under her pillow and lifted Corinth from the bed by one arm. “Quickly.” She hustled him into his room and stripped the blanket from his bed as he slid back a panel in the corner of his floor. He dropped into the hole and she tossed the blanket in with him. “Stay here until I come to get you. Do not think of climbing out on your own, understand?”

He nodded.

She clicked on the small electro-torch they left in the hole, then slid the panel into place. It snapped shut and the seam melted away, hidden by a minor holographic field.

“Shadow, I know you can hear me.” The comm buzzed, still switched on as if he considered his next words while leaving the channel open. “I’m sorry about swiping your comm, but… We need you. Let me make you another offer.”

Kayla checked the charge on her blaster—low. She cursed herself for not splurging on another ion cell.

“Meet with me. Any place of your choosing,” he said.

She waited in her night-darkened common room, gripping her pistol, listening to the stranger’s voice.

“Meet with me or I’m coming to you. Right now.”

Too late she realized her mistake. She slammed a hand on the comm system, deactivating it, but the damage had already been done. With the right equipment he could triangulate her position.

“Frutt!”

The lights on the sensor grid panel winked on and off at her, green all the way. Maybe he’d been bluffing. And maybe he was already on his way here.

Kayla activated the light strip beside the door, leaving the rest of the room dark. She hunkered down in the deepest well of shadow, eyes on the sensor grid, and hoped the stranger decided she was more trouble than he could handle.

One hour later, she’d almost convinced herself the stranger’s threat had been a bluff when the first sensor went dark. She’d been drifting closer to sleep by the minute, but that single light switching from green to orange woke her like an electric shock.

SENSOR 7—OFFLINE, her console flashed.

Shit.

In rapid succession, the remaining lights turned orange, all without a single alarm going off. They hadn’t been tripped, they were simply offline. Who in space is this guy?

She rose, blaster ready.

She’d built their home like a bunker with only the front door for access, so she didn’t have to worry about other entrances or windows to guard. With nothing more than twenty centimeters of organoplastic between her and whoever stood outside, that thought didn’t give her much comfort.

Kayla flicked off her blaster’s safety and the pistol hummed, drawing full charge.

Let’s see what you’ve got.

* * *

Malkor studied Shadow Panthe’s misshapen shanty. The woman provided surprise, he’d give her that. Fengar Swamp was the last place he would have looked if Hekkar hadn’t tailed her to its edge. Even then he might have assumed she ran clandestine errands to this wretched place if Rigger, his octet’s tech specialist, hadn’t tracked her comm unit to this copse.

What a dismal place.

He tried not to inhale the swamp gases too deeply while his people finished deactivating the sensors. So… she was more than a pit whore, but he’d known that already. No one in her situation should have rejected his offer. What was she hiding? Only mortal fear of discovery or irreconcilable xenophobia would compel a person to live here.

Hekkar approached him. “Trinan and Vid are finishing the last two sensors now, then it looks like there’s just the door to worry about. No other defenses.” He glanced back at the pressure lock on the door. “Who the void is this girl, Malk?”

“No idea. It’s too late to find someone else, though.” Hopefully her secrets wouldn’t catch up to her until after the Empress Game was won. “Ardin got confirmation an hour ago—someone ‘officially’ called the Game since we’ve been away. The first princesses have already arrived on Falanar to compete. We would have known sooner if news didn’t take an eternity to reach this voidhole.”

“Ardin himself didn’t call it, though.”

“The whole empire thinks he did. Someone crafted the speech from old holovids and it has been playing on every Sovereign and Protectorate Planet for three weeks. We need a fighter now and Shadow Panthe’s it, shady background or not.”

Preferably not, but he didn’t hold out hope.

Trinan and Vid came around the corner of the home, each giving Malkor a nod—the sensor grid was down. He motioned for them to spread out, flanking the door. He’d initially felt silly bringing four of his team to hunt down one woman, and had only let Trinan and Vid come because they needed some exercise. Now, staring at a makeshift bunker in the middle of Fengar Swamp, surrounded by motion sensor lines and staring dead-on at a pressure lock strong enough to keep out an angry bull, he wondered if it would have been smarter to bring his whole octet.

“Rigger, can you handle this?” Malkor pointed at the lock. His tech specialist, datapad in hand, was already approaching the door. She pulled a knife and pried the cover off of the control before interfacing directly with the system.

The lock hissed open, the sound loud in the pre-dawn air.

Malkor drew his ion pistol. “Let’s see what sort of trouble we’re in for.” He crept up to the door and Hekkar did the same on the hinge side. When they were in position, Hekkar gave the door a slight pull.

Blaster fire shot through the opening, singeing the air half a meter from Malkor’s head.

Looks like Little Miss Twin Kris has more than one trick in her bag.

Malkor pulled a stunner grenade from his vest pocket. No way would he risk entry with her conscious. He depressed the trip and knelt, nodding at Hekkar to crack the door again. He rolled the grenade through the nanosecond the opening was wide enough, then snatched his hand back as blaster fire answered his delivery.

A three-second count and the familiar hum of a sonic burst resonated through the walls. A thud, a noise that sounded like a boneless body crumpling to the floor, followed.

Hekkar grinned. “She is not going to be happy when she wakes up.”

* * *

The shanty was only slightly more inviting on the inside than on the exterior. The three small rooms could have easily fit into Malkor’s cabin aboard Ardin’s starcruiser. An outdated food synthesizer and a battered table furnished one corner of the common room, and an amalgam of electronic equipment was amassed in the other corner, probably the source of the sensor grid.

Two equally sparse bedrooms completed the place. Shadow shared the space with a child, judging by the size of the clothes in one dresser. She struck him as a solitary hunter—it never occurred to him that the female fighter he’d seen in the ring would have a child in her life. A complication he didn’t need.

The woman in question lay unconscious on her bed where he’d placed her, looking nothing like he’d remembered. Without her costume and body paint he couldn’t be certain it was her. The kris strapped to her thighs convinced him, though, as did the lean muscles of her arms and the way she curled her hands, as if gripping a dagger even in sleep. She was younger than he’d anticipated, mid-twenties by imperial standards.

“Are you sure that’s her?” Hekkar asked.

Rigger spoke up from the other room. “Are you questioning my tracking abilities? You told me to pinpoint her comm signal and this is where it ended.”

Malkor drew her kris from their sheaths, setting the daggers on the nearby dresser. “It’s her.” He called to his teammates in the other bedroom. “Vid, Trinan, set up outside. I don’t want to be surprised when the child arrives.” He reentered the common room in time to see Rigger smack the complink console. “Anything?”

“She hasn’t set up more defenses beyond the sensor grid. This piece of shit can barely maintain an open comm link from here to the Blood Pit, and does little else. It is generating some sort of EM field, though, in that room.” She pointed to the room Shadow didn’t occupy. “Not sure what it is, it barely registers on my scans. Designed to read as background sensor trash. I’ll let you know what I find.”

A scuffle sounded in the next room. “She’s awake,” Hekkar called, sounding muffled.

Malkor left Rigger abusing the ancient console and returned to the bedroom. He paused in the doorway, taking in the scene.

Shadow sat cross-legged on the bed, hands on her empty sheaths and a furious gleam in her eyes. Hekkar stood an arm’s distance away, hand clamped to his bleeding nose, ion pistol trained on her.

Malkor looked to Hekkar, who nodded that he was all right. “Go see if Rigger needs any help. And take those,” he motioned to Shadow’s daggers, “with you.” He waited until Hekkar had cleared out before taking up position in the doorway.

“Sleep well?” he asked.

She glared at him.

“I thought we’d finish that conversation we started earlier.”

“Believe me, we’re finished.”

“Let’s start off again, then. I’m Malkor.” He offered her an opening that she ignored. “And you are…?”

“Shadow Panthe.”

“That’s somewhat unwieldy. Stage names aside, what does the kid who shares this fort call you?”

“What kid?”

“The kid who sleeps in the other bedroom. Unless those are your tiny clothes.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He let it slide. It didn’t matter who the kid was, as long as she was willing to ditch him for the trip to Falanar.

“Regardless, what should I call you?”

“Shadow Panthe. Now leave.”

“Not until you hear my latest offer.”

She cocked her head, unnaturally black hair sliding past her shoulder. “How did you deactivate my sensor grid?”

“What’s your real name?”

“How did you do it?”

“I have my ways.”

“In other words, you have no idea. That woman hunched over my complink in the next room did it?”

“Sure.” Malkor left it at that. No need for her to know how many team members he had at his disposal.

“Who the void are you guys?”

“Specialists.” He refused to out himself as IDC yet. He needed Shadow’s goodwill, needed her to trust him. The Imperial Diplomatic Corps met with everything from respect to fear to hatred on their missions, but rarely with any warm feelings. They had near-limitless jurisdiction and the authority to do, well, whatever they wanted. The IDC got its way but it rarely made friends. Malkor didn’t tolerate misuse of power within his octet, but the tarnished reputation other IDC teams had earned for the whole agency had hurt him on more than one legitimately diplomatic mission.

“Look. I know coming here like this wasn’t exactly sporting. I’m under something of a time constraint, and unless I missed my guess back in the Blood Pit, you’re under pressure, too.”

Her face became more guarded.

“You’re hiding out here, I get it. You should know I’m not the only man looking for you, though.” That got her attention. And it was the truth. Dolan’s men had been busy. “There are others asking around, interested in things like where you stay when you aren’t at the Blood Pit, who you run with, what sort of weapon you seem to favor. Details a girl like you likes to keep to herself.”

Her eyes darted to the doorway beyond him. “Who were they?”

The change was minute, but Malkor noted it. He was just a nuisance to her, someone she intended to brush off until he lost interest. Whoever she feared might be after her was a different matter entirely. This was of real concern to her.

“I don’t personally know the men involved, but I know who they work for.”

“Who?” She didn’t bother to pretend it didn’t matter to her. Her honesty surprised him and made him answer with the same, even though he’d originally intended to barter the information.

“An exiled Wyrd known as Master Dolan. Technology Advisor to the Emperor.”

His words flipped a switch in her. She rose from the bed, suddenly in motion. He rested a hand on his pistol grip but all she did was slide a bag out from under the bed. “You’re certain?”

“We’ve encountered his men before. I’m certain.”

She grabbed her ashk from the dresser and tied it on before pulling clothes out and stuffing them haphazardly into the bag.

“Does this mean—”

“You can get us off this planet?” she interrupted. “You can get us away from them?”

“Yes, but—”

“Then I’ve decided to accept your offer—with conditions.”