Primary Inversion (Saga of the Skolian Empire) Paperback (33 page)

Alone in my rooms earlier today I had been sure of what I
wanted. Now, faced with Jaibriol, my certainties crumbled. Like knew like. I
turned away, back to my controls, unable to look at him. The flier was doing
fine on autopilot, its routines for maneuvering in traffic kicking in as we
approached the city. A few more minutes and we would be at the starport.

“Sauscony?”

I continued to study the display panels. “I can’t go into
exile. I have other plans.”

He didn’t say any more. Instead he made a picture in his
mind, the two of us making love in a field of waving grasses.

“Stop it!” I swung around to him. “We can never have that.”

“Why not?”

“You know why!”

He gave me an incredulous look. “You never asked to be an
Imperial Heir. You don’t have to martyr your sanity to it.”

“Don’t make it out to be some kind of high-minded sacrifice.
There’s nothing noble in my intentions. I want to be Imperator. I want the
power.”

“Maybe.”

I scowled at him. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“You think you have a responsibility. That you can’t run
away from it.”

“What I think is my business.”

“People aren’t made to carry that much weight, Sauscony. If
you try to make yourself responsible for every Skolian alive, the pressure is
going to kill you.”

My anger flared. “So you want me to run off and fuck in the
flowers for the rest of my life?”

He didn’t back down. “Belittling what you want won’t change
how much you want it.”

“I want more than that.”

The flier’s computer spoke. “We are receiving a signal.”

I glanced at the controls. A light was flashing that I had
prayed would remain dark.

“What’s the matter?” Jaibriol asked.

“I’m not sure.” I switched on the neutrino com, cycling
through the ISC channels. Kurj’s voice cut into the air.

“... south of the city in a class 4B or 4C flier. Stop all
craft fitting that description. I repeat, stop
all
craft that fit that
description.”

No! Not now. But only a few seconds of listening to Kurj’s
transmission told it all. He knew Jaibriol had escaped. A planet-wide cordon
was snapping into place around Diesha; every flight was grounded, every
passenger suspect. As Kurj reeled off commands, I yanked on the flystick and
veered to the east, away from the starport.

We had almost made it. But almost hadn’t been enough. What
gave us away? One of my aunt’s watchers on the Net, like the one that had
recorded my entrance into EM16? Or maybe a guard decided to do an extra check
on Jaibriol, or I had missed a security system, or tripped an alarm I hadn’t
known about. Whatever had happened, my plans were shot to hell now.

Kurj’s transmission continued, coordinating search units. At
least they were looking for Trader commandos instead of me. We were over the
suburbs now, immersed in air traffic, just one among hundreds of fliers that
fit the description of the one Kurj wanted. But I knew the efficiency of ISC.
Once Kurj set his machine into motion, even I couldn’t escape it. There was
nowhere we could go to evade his inexorable grip.

Almost nowhere.

I brought the flier around in a tight circle, the city
pivoting below until we were headed north. Within moments the buildings were
thinning out, giving way first to suburbs, then to desert.

An ISC flyer appeared on my holomap, matching our course and
speed. A voice crackled on the com. “Identify yourself.”

“Read your monitor, mister,” I said.

He paused. “Sorry, Primary Valdoria. Identification verified.
Go on through, ma’am.”

“Are you on the city cordon?” I asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Any luck finding them?”

“We think they’re headed for the starport.”

“All right. Carry on. Over and out.”

“Will do. Over and out.”

We were hailed twice more before we reached the mountains.
Even after we flew into the foothills, a flier intercepted us. I hadn’t
expected Kurj to waste craft out here, given the extensive systems that already
guarded this range. They protected the Imperial estate, the only dwelling
within thousands of square kilometers. Right now hundreds of installations were
monitoring us from peaks and valleys. Satellites sailed in low orbits overhead,
one after another, in a pattern designed to cover the area at all times.

All of this, just to guard one empty palace.

As the upper mountains closed around us in protective folds,
my com crackled again, this time with a gentle voice I would have taken for
human if I hadn’t known better. “Please identify yourself.”

“Transmitting ID file,” I said.

“Greetings, Sauscony,” the computer said. “Welcome home.”

It took six more minutes to reach the palace. We passed
through the best safeguards the Imperialate had to offer without being stopped
once. Why should they stop us? I was one of the people they were supposed to
protect.

But even here we wouldn’t be able to hide long. Sooner or
later, Skolia’s mighty Imperator was going to come home.

My bedroom in the palace made my apartment on Forshires look
plain. The doorknob was solid gold, like the key that unlocked it, an old-fashioned
key, the kind that went into the lock and turned, releasing a bolt. The room
was blue: ceiling, walls, carpets, even the bed on the raised dais. Gold
filigree scrolled around the windows. Tall vases stood against the walls,
priceless works of art from some ancient civilization on a planet with a name I
couldn’t remember. The closet was as big as a living room. Dresses hung there,
soft sexy things I had ordered and never worn.

At times I suspected it was more my idea of what I was supposed
to like than what actually made me comfortable. It wasn’t that I didn’t
appreciate its beauty. It pleased me as much today as the first day I had seen
it finished. But it had never felt as if it were mine.

Jaibriol limped across the room and climbed the steps of the
dais. As he lay down on the bed, its silk coverings rustled under his weight.

I went up and sat next to him, my Jumbler dangling in my
hand. The weapon was useless here. All of my training, my years of
experience—what good was it now? Yes, the last place anyone would think to look
for Jaibriol Qox was the Imperator’s empty palace. But even the last place
would eventually get searched.

I glanced at Jaibriol. “I’m sorry. All I’ve done is delay
the inevitable.”

He reached out and touched the Jumbler. “At least this way I
don’t have to die slowly.”

“I’m not going to
shoot
you.”

“Even if my only other choice is to be recaptured by your
brother? Neither of us can escape now, Sauscony. He’ll execute us both.”

I looked at the gun. Then I dropped it on the floor. We had
come so close. So
close.
Just a little more time and we would have made
it offplanet. But close wasn’t good enough.

I lay down on my stomach next to Jaibriol. The silk
bedspread felt cool against my cheek. He spoke in a softer voice. “When I saw
you in my cell, I thought I was having another one of my dreams.”

“Dreams?”

“After that night on Delos, when I met you—whenever I was
lonely I used to dream you would come to me.”

So I wasn’t the only one who had struggled with the memory
of that night. It helped somehow, knowing that.

I pushed up on my elbows so that I could look at his face. I
had forgotten just how extraordinarily handsome he was, especially by Highton
standards. It wouldn’t have surprised me if Ur Qox had ordered cosmetic surgery
done on him when Jaibriol was a boy. Anything to further enhance his son’s
image as a hero of the Traders. Anything to draw attention away from Jaibriol’s
inability to function as a true Highton.

Dark circles rimmed his eyes and his hair was rumpled. Shimmering
hair, black and glistening. Highton black. It was so odd to see it on someone
so unlike a Highton. I touched his lips, running my fingertip over the top one,
then the bottom one. They felt chapped. Dry and cracked. Also warm. So warm.
Rhon lips, warm and full. I lowered my head, pressing my lips against his—

Jaibriol pushed me away.

I flushed. What was wrong with me, trying to seduce a man
who had just spent days subjected to a brutal interrogation supervised by my
own brother? “I’m sorry.”

He watched me, silent. Across the room, the old spire-clock
ticked softly, tick-tick, marking off the seconds.

Then he slid his arm around my neck and pulled my head back
down to his. I could smell him, a musky scent like a prod, heady and masculine.
I closed my eyes as we kissed, letting my lips linger on his mouth. It felt as
full as it had looked, as warm, as inviting. But he lay tense under me, more
like a plank of wood than a man with a woman he desired.

I lifted my head. “What’s wrong?”

He pushed up on his elbows, bringing his eyes level with
mine. “It’s not you. It’s anyone.”

“Any lover?”

“Yes. No. No lovers.”

“You mean you’ve never had one?”

His voice hardened. “That’s right.”

“But why? I would have thought every eligible woman among
the Hightons would have thrown herself at you.”

“I didn’t want a Highton lover.” Jaibriol grimaced. “Would
you?”

I shuddered. “No.” I could feel him now. His barriers were
dropping much more slowly than they had on Delos, but it was still happening. I
recognized that same sense of aloneness I had felt the night I met him on the
docks, in the dark cover of the sea-lapping night. Lonely. He was lonely,
bruisingly, achingly
lonely.
The wound was even deeper now, scarred
around the edges, raw in the center.

“Couldn’t you take a provider?” I asked.

“No.”

“You didn’t have to hurt her.”

“I didn’t want one.” He pressed his palm against my chest, between
my breasts, as if he were keeping me at bay. “Let someone that close and you
become vulnerable.”

“How could a provider hurt you?”

“By recognizing me.”

“Everyone alive knows who you are.”

“Not that way, Sauscony. By recognizing themselves in me.”

Then I understood. “That you are like them.”

“Yes.”

“You had no friends at all?”

His face twisted. “There was Quaelen, my ‘beloved’ mentor.”

“You mean Kryx Quaelen? The Highton Trade Minister?”

“He didn’t like my showing attention to anyone.” Hatred
sparked in his voice. “If I did, he found a reason to punish me.”

I swallowed. “Couldn’t you get rid of him?”

“He’s a master at Highton intrigue, even better than my
father.” Jaibriol’s voice cracked. “Quaelen is empty, like a hole waiting to
swallow me up. They’re all that way—my father, my so-called mother the Empress,
all of them.”

“I’m sorry.” Gods, that sounded trite.

He watched me, concentrating, as if he could somehow absorb
me into himself. Then, with no warning, he pulled me hard against his body and
down onto the bed, wrapping his arms around me, bringing my mouth against his.
My lips parted and his tongue came inside my mouth, first questing and then
probing with more force.

But still something was wrong. Not with him, but with
me.
I wanted to jerk away from him. What was the matter with me?

He made a noise, a soft, aroused sound. Then he stopped kissing
me and slid his lips to my ear. “Sauscony. Sweet Sauscony.” His voice murmured
in a familiar cadence, a soft rhythm I recognized ...

Then I heard it again, the way I had so often heard it in my
mind during combat, thoughts like acid that poured over me from the Aristo
pilots I was fighting:
Die, sweet Jagernaut. Die.

I sat up so fast that my fingernails gouged the scabbed cuts
on his arms. He sat up too, a wild chase of emotions flying across his face:
surprise, embarrassment, confusion, and desire all mixed in together. “What’s
the matter?”

“No ...” Highton. Highton.
Highton.

“Sauscony?” He laid his hands on my shoulders. “What is it?”

“I—it—” I took a breath. Of course he moved and sounded like
a Highton. He
was
a Highton. But it was cultural. Only cultural.
Only
cultural. “I don’t ... It’s—nothing.”

“Why did you get so upset?”

“Nothing. It was nothing. I’m just wound up.” Across the
room, the spire-clock ticked loudly.

Jaibriol nudged my shoulder. “Let’s try this.”

“Try what?”

“Lie down.” He nudged me again. “I’ll show you.”

Warily, I lay on my stomach. He straddled my hips so that he
was sitting on my bottom with his knees on either side of my waist. Then he
started to rub my back.

There was a time when I would have loved being rubbed, when
it would have had just the result he hoped. But no more. Tarque had often
rolled me over this way, exactly as Jaibriol had done it, right down to the
smallest mannerisms.

Calm, I thought. Stay calm. He isn’t Tarque.

I laid my head down on the pillows and tried to relax. It
did feel good. But then he quit.

I looked back over my shoulder. “Why did you stop?”

“I’m just looking.”

“At my backside? What’s so interesting about that?”

Jaibriol grinned. “Well, maybe it’s not interesting to you.”
He started to rub my hips. “That’s because you can see it anytime you want.”

Ai. Such a beautiful smile. I had forgotten about that, the
way it lit up his face. When he smiled, he wasn’t the embittered heir to an
empire. Instead, he looked like what he should have been if his heritage hadn’t
ruined his life, a healthy young man enjoying his first experience with a
woman. I sighed, and put my head back down on the pillows.

Jaibriol kept massaging, rubbing me everywhere, his hands
moving in firm, sensual circles. Gradually, despite everything, my muscles
loosened up. I let my eyes close, basking in the pressure of his hands, soaking
in his musky, tantalizing scent that made me want him to rub more private
places ...