"Princess Sykora. Prince Grantyde." Inadama stands in the cool light that filters in from the Imperial Palace's high polygonal windows. "Greetings to you both."

"Marquess Palatine." Sykora inclines her head. Grant dutifully follows suit.

Inadama nods at the wooden statuette in Sykora's hand. "You've brought the daemon."

Sykora's face is as inexpressive and remote as a cliffside. "I have."

"I have heard something of your experience in retrieving this," Inadama says.

Sykora raises a brow.

"I have heard that you went from the Core to Tamion before returning to me," Inadama says.

"Yes," Sykora says. "I did."

"And what did you find?"

"What should I have?"

Inadama folds her arms and just looks at her.

"There is a Gravitas daemon on this platform," Sykora says. "A stock K-77. Is that some kind of issue, Marquess Palatine Inadama?"

Inadama doesn't so much as blink. "Why would it be?"

"Why indeed." Sykora gestures down the hall, past rows of ensconced statues, Empresses past portrayed in stark and swooping stone geometries. "Shall we?"

Inadama sets off with the Prince and Princess. "You've demanded the handoff be done before the Empress. At the moment of your ratification. That is shockingly bold, Sykora."

"The Empress agreed," Sykora says.

Inadama purses her lips. "She did."

"I think it only appropriate that we perform the exchange with her present," Sykora says. "This has been at her behest, after all. Beginning to end."

They walk in silence. Inadama looks stubbornly ahead.

"Hasn't it, Marquess Palatine?" Sykora's probing gaze slides across Inadama's icy face. "From the moment this started. You told her of your intention. And she professed no preference. That's what you said. I am the end of a line of delegation."

"I know better than to quibble with your conclusions, Majesty," Inadama says. She pauses before a diamond-latticed set of double doors. "I've only just kicked the limp from last time."

She raises a fist and knocks.

"Enter," comes the muffled command from the other side.

They enter. The mother, the daughter, the Maekyonite, and the daemon gather into a marble-and-mahogany chamber. A trio of clawfooted seats huddle before a cluttered desk. One oversized.

Behind the desk sits Zithra XIX in a linen tunic and turban, reading glasses on, signing papers.

"Hello, cousins." She gestures absently to the seats. "I understand you've brought the result of some agreement you made, to exchange in front of me."

Sykora performs a deep and ritualistic genuflection. "I have, High Majesty."

The Empress nods and exhales. She sets her pen down and slides it, as well as the lengthy spiral-bound packet she's marking up, to one side. "Let's get that done then, and then we can get Cousin Sykora's commission signed. Yes?"

"Yes, Majesty," Inadama says.

The women take their seats. Grant sits between them, in the oversized chair obviously set for him. Sykora removes the daemon from her satchel and places it on the desk. "There," she says.

"With the terms of my condition fulfilled, I am entirely subordinate to your victory." Inadama speaks as if she's heavily rehearsed this. Likely she has. "I release all claims upon you and endorse your ratification as Princess Margrave Sykora of the Black Pike."

"I accept," Sykora says.

The Empress sits back. "Splendid. That was simple."

"If only it had been, High Majesty," Sykora says. "I'm afraid the thief of that daemon remains at large in the firmament. There are larger rebellions brewing on the frontier."

The Empress cocks a brow. "There are rebellions brewing everywhere, Cousin. Constantly. Hence: you."

"It was Void Princess Yniai, High Majesty," Sykora says. "She has turned from her covenant and convent, and now seeks your overthrow."

"Then you know what's to be done." The Empress slides a drawer open on her desk. "Bring her down."

Sykora blinks. "Yes, High Majesty. Of course."

"Good. Now, let's see…" The Empress rummages through her drawer.

"One more thing." Sykora removes a datawafer from her satchel and places it on the desk.

The Empress pauses. "What's that?"

"That is footage," Sykora says. "Undoctored footage, anonymously sent to me. Of a servant of Marquess Palatine Inadama, making herself culpable in my kidnapping approximately a decacycle and a half ago. I accuse Inadama of my waylaying and marooning on Maekyon, and request a full investigation be launched into her conduct immediately."

"Anonymously sent? Undoctored?" Inadama quirks a brow. "Really, Sykora."

"Really, Inadama." Sykora's wildfire gaze bores into her mother. "Do you deny it?"

"Deny what?" Inadama shrugs. "I don't even know what's on that."

"We can play it right now." Sykora casts about the office. "Find a terminal."

"You're already wasting enough of the Empress's time without—"

"Enough." The Empress slaps her desk drawer shut. "Such foolishness. I feel like I'm in family court. Comport yourselves according to your stations." She slaps a roll of vellum onto her desk and unfurls it. A spiral of glyphs is patterned across it; Grant recognizes Princess Margrave Sykora's name. "Inadama is not responsible for your confinement, Princess."

"Then who—"

And Sykora freezes.

The Empress folds her arms. Inadama finds a fascinating spot to examine on the carpet.

Sykora can't speak. Grant does for her. "Why?"

"It was her initiation," the Empress says. "Every woman selected must surmount a severe trial."

Grant's fists clutch tight to his armrests. "Selected for what?"

"You would be the twentieth prospect, Sykora," the Empress says, as though Grant hadn't even spoken. "Twenty trials, twenty successes. I do not select unless I am sure."

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She lays the scroll flat and turns it around on the table.

Sykora's eyes are full-moon wide. "Kanori told me about a game. That playing it wasn't worth it."

"For her, it wasn't," the Empress says. "She passed her initiation, but it seems the terrain beyond it was too treacherous." She taps the vellum. "Both of you sign that and pass it back to me."

Sykora mutely signs the paper and pushes it across the desk to Inadama.

"It took you longer than I thought it would." The Empress drums her pen against the desk. "But knowing what we now know about Maekyon, I see why. And now that you've completed this daemon task, I suppose it's only fair to let you know you're in the running."

"The running," repeats Sykora, in a throaty breath.

The Empress takes the countersigned page from Inadama. "Yes."

"For what?"

"For what." The Empress tsks and signs the paper. "Really, Sykora."

"Sykora," Inadama says, with jarring softness. "Is it not clear to you by now that your birth was neither a mistake nor a deception?"

Sykora looks from the Marquess to the Empress, on the verge of panic.

"You were not created outside of the Empress's remit." Inadama leans across her seat. "You were born with a purpose. And it is a purpose you have risen to. And you have further to rise." Her scarlet focus gleams. "Much further."

"Narika?" Sykora asks, tightly pinched. "And Tymar?"

Inadama nods. "Tymar, of course, isn't eligible. And Narika hasn't undergone her entrance exam yet. But I will continue making my case to the Empress."

"I'll continue listening," the Empress adds evenly.

Sykora's brows lower. "And Kiar?"

"Kiar…" Inadama's voice falls away momentarily. "There isn't a day that goes by that I do not think of Kiar. Kiar's fate is the greatest regret of a life that is full of them."

"I don't mean to interrupt these familial revelations." The Empress taps the paper on her desk. "But I really must get back to it. And with these signatures, our business concludes. Stand, Sykora."

Sykora rises stupefied to her feet.

"By my power and will, you are remade," the Empress intones. "Depart this place as Princess Margrave Sykora of the Black Pike." She glances at Grant. "And you're still a Prince, by the by. Off you go now."

"She said to stop being such hardhorned fools." Sykora murmurs it monotone. "Both of you."

The Empress scoffs. "She being?"

"She said to tell you she was unafraid," Sykora says. "And that death is not as terrifying as its absence. And she said to remember what Astrama told you on the beach."

The air departs the room for a few heartbeats.

"Indeed?" The Empress looks away. "All right." She retrieves the packet she had been working on when they came in. The scratching of her pen resumes. "Thank you, cousins. You may go."

Inadama bows low and departs the office.

"Not yet." Grant stands up. "One more thing."

"A second more thing." The Empress keeps scribbling as his shadow falls across her. Her red-inked signature has a dramatic loop at its conclusion. "And what would that thing be?"

"I want you to take the bomb out of my wife's head," Grant says.

Sykora clings to his pant leg. But she doesn't stare at him like he just grew another head, and she doesn't look outraged. Not this time. She looks fearful and hopeful.

The Empress shoots a pointed look up from her documents. "You have wanted a great deal of late, Prince Grantyde. I think you have gotten too used to getting it."

"If she's a Princess Margrave, if she's in the running, then it's an unacceptable liability," Grant says. "It killed Kanori, and it shouldn't have. You're supposed to be the only one who knows these codes, and you weren't. You made a mistake."

Okay, now Sykora is looking at him like he's grown another head.

"Our children are key to your grand plans," Grant says. "I refuse to let you keep a bomb inside their mother's head."

The Empress stiffens. She removes her glasses. The full glacial force of her visage meets him. "You refuse."

Grant does not look away. "I do."

They stare at one another for fifteen rigid seconds. Sykora looks on the verge of speaking. She bites her tongue.

The Empress lets out an annoyed stab of breath and slips her glasses back on. She picks her pen back up. "You ask the impossible."

"I don't believe that," Grant says. "She's loyal. She's more loyal than any of your servants. This is meaningless cruelty, to—"

"You ask the impossible, Prince Grantyde," the Empress says. "There is no bomb in your wife's head."

Grant's righteous fury is slammed out of his chest like air from a sucker punch. "What?"

"There's an inert little lump of deception on her brainstem." The Empress continues leafing through the packet on her desk, signing every page. "There is a farce. There's no kill phrase that could detonate it, because there's no explosive inside it. And for appearances, it's staying in."

"Why did—Why do I not have—" Sykora opens and closes her mouth. She's malfunctioning. "Why?"

"Because." The Empress looks up. "You're Inadama's daughter."

Sykora has the look of a woman trying to put something impossibly broken back together.

"Incidentally, if anyone ever says Fissure Peach Octet Pacify to you, they think they're killing you." The Empress returns to her documents. She raises her pen to the door. "Now get the red fuck out of my office."

Sykora turns around with the rigid, rapid action of an automaton. Her eyes are wide and darting as she moves toward the exit.

Grant tarries. "But what did you mean—"

"Leave, Prince," the Empress snaps. "Or I'll execute you for that astonishing insubordination of yours. My patience is depleted." She flaps a hand toward the exit. "Go get your wife pregnant."

Grant follows Sykora out. He shuts the door behind him.

Inadama is waiting a few paces beyond the doorway, her posture inelastic, her hands behind her back. "Congratulations, Princess Margrave Sykora."

"Thank you." Sykora murmurs it like she's sleepwalking.

"I understand that you have insisted upon your own patent," Inadama says, carefully. She's letting a piece of herself out, just a sliver, lighting across her face. "But I want to offer it to you one last time. A place in Clan Taiikar."

Sykora breaks halfway out of her fugue. "No, Marquess Palatine. No. I don't want that. My mind is unchanged."

Inadama's expression slams back shut. "Very well."

"Who did you have me with, Inadama?" Sykora steps into the Marquess Palatine's face. "I have always thought you found some anonymous, unimportant courtier. Who's my father? A man? A woman? Did you zygomatically encode?"

"You have made it clear to me I am not your mother, Princess Margrave. You have informed me quite confidently that you have no mother." An enigmatic grin draws the corners of Inadama's mouth up. "Surely it follows you have no father, yes?"

"None of what I have learned today has changed the way I feel about you." Sykora is recovering by the second. "Never doubt that. If you think these revelations have won you a daughter, you are sadly mistaken. That I wasn't a mistake, that you had these high intentions of my birth. None of that excuses your absences or abuses. None of it wipes away the indenturements and deceptions. None of it buys back the time you spent ignoring me as I grew up away from you, on the Pike. And none of it brings back Kiar. I have my explanations, and they do not absolve you."

"I have never asked that of you," Inadama says. "Wash your hands of me how you will. Disclaim your blood as loud as you wish. Spread stories of my wickedness. Sink me if you can. I don't care if you do your great deeds in spite of me or in honor of me. As long as they are done."

"I will do my great deeds for myself and for my Empress," Sykora says. "And for my children. And I will not think of you at all anymore." Her tail lashes around Grant's forearm and hugs it tight. "Will there be anything else?"

"No," Inadama says. "Get out of my sight, Princess Margrave Sykora."

"With relish," Sykora says, and turns on her heel. She strides away at an uncompromising pace that pulls a power walk from Grant even at the height difference.

"Done," she whispers, as they leave the austere hallway and its austere occupants behind. "We're done. Gods of the Firmament, Grant. The daemon is gone. We're through with it."

Grant looks ahead at the upcoming corner. And the woman skulking there. He sucks air through his teeth. "We're almost through with it."

Specialist-Gefreiter Axyna detaches herself from the wall. "Hello, ladies."

"Specialist-Gefreiter." Sykora makes a noise in the back of her throat. "I am in no mood."

"You'd better get in one. That's where babies come from." Axyna raises a pair of metallic cylinders and rattles them. "His and hers. Think fast."

She under-hands both of the cylinders. A shitty throw. Grant catches his on fingertips; Sykora snags hers with her tail.

"A full tenday ought to do it," Axyna says. "I've put a cycle's worth in, just in case." She gives a jerky bow to Sykora. "Some seasoning for your eggs, milady. And a swim coach for your swimmers, milord, to teach them the Taiikari breaststroke. Not that I suppose their progenitor requires instructions. Two girls and a boy. Just as you demanded."

"Thank you. Good bye." Sykora takes a step. Axyna leers and takes the same step, mirrored.

"My condition has made me quite infertile, you know," she says. "But the Gods of the Firmament know the number of re-encodings I've torn from biological sanity's jaws. Enough bundles of joy to crash a space station."

Tension coils Sykora's tail. "What are you trying to tell me, Specialist-Gefreiter?"

"I'm trying to tell you that this." Axyna points at the cylinder. "This means a great deal more to me." Her smile crinkles the skin at the edges of her anticomps. "A whole clade of freaks. Just like me. Auntie Axy's greatest work yet."

"If they are anything like you," Sykora says, "I will consider myself an absolute failure."

Grant runs a thumb along the seam on the canister. He thumbs it open. Inside are twenty little green pills, the size of his thumbnail. He flicks it shut again.

"Thank you, Axyna," he says. "Really. Thank you."

Axyna tilts on her heel to Sykora and gives her an expectant look.

"Thank you for getting out of the way, Axyna," Sykora says.

Axyna snickers. She lifts her anticomps and winks at Grant. "Try not to break her when you're breeding her, big man. I'll get started on your Eqtorans. I imagine they're coming soon. If you'll pardon the pun."

She steps aside and lets the lovers pass.

"You're welcome," she calls to Sykora. "You and your husband are welcome. And your son and your daughter and your daughter. Welcome. Welcome, Princelings!" Her laugh's echo follows them out of the hall. "Welcome to the Empire!"

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