Winged: A Novella (Of Two Girls) (25 page)

Once in a while, her eyes would twitch or
show signs of flickering. Yet they still remained obdurately shut
and the Empress slumbered on in an unnatural sleep, oblivious to
the world around her.

Min Feng had arrived to an Imperial City
suddenly thick with security personnel, with the guards and
officers of the elite security squads barricading every access and
egress. While on the
Pueblo Star
, she had experienced two
more waves of pain, but not as bad as the first one. She had also
found her bed-sheets scorched. Her
nei huo
was surely
agitated. The captain of the Pueblo Star had informed her that a
small fleet-squad of warships had been assaulted by aggressive
energy beams from Artia and that – she had to sit down in shock
when Captain Martinez continued solemnly – the Empress had been the
object of a failed assassination and fallen gravely ill as a
result.

The moment she alighted from the merchant
vessel, she was immediately whisked away by grim-faced security
staff who escorted her to a black flitter-car no doubt armed to the
teeth. She only sat mutely as the spires and buildings of the
Imperial City rushed past, her mind dealing with the din of culture
shock. It had been two years or more. Her body was used to the
uncomplicated desert world of Mesa. Coming back home
startled
her. So much steel and plastic around, no more the
sandy plains with succulent cacti and the imposing mesas which gave
the planet its name.

Her grandmother, the Dowager, met her and
brought her to the Empress’s private bedchambers. The Dowager’s
face was lined with untold and unvoiced worry. “
Am-ma
,” Min
Feng could only say.

“Hush, child,” the Dowager replied, her
voice a pale shadow of her old one. “Go in.”

So, there she stood, gazing at the face of
the Empress with an odd mix of detachment, anger and frustration.
The physicians and their aides hovered nearby. She preferred the
heat of the anger and reached inwards, feeling its warmth, its
life
.

“The assassin is still within the Imperial
Grounds,” she heard herself saying with steel. The Dowager,
standing behind her, inhaled sharply.

“They have released the scent-hounds,” her
grandmother said, touching her shoulder gently.

Oh am-ma, I am no longer a child
. Min
Feng thought sadly.

“This assassin must have an adept in the
arts of hiding,” she smiled at her grandmother. It was a
lack-lustre smile, bereft of humor.

And dangerous by now, like a cornered
desert scorpion
.
Ready to sting when provoked
.

“Where are my siblings?” Min Feng asked,
turning away from the sight of the Empress lying down so
helpless.

“Under security’s protection,” the Dowager
stared at her intently and she realized that
am-ma
was
looking for the old Min Feng. She reached out and embraced her
grandmother
. I am here. I am still here
.
But I am
different now
.

***

Yrant lurked.

Fei
had done so countless times. When
fei
was a child. When
fei
grew up.

It was a second skin to
fei
. Already
present when
fei
watched two
fao
fight each other for
the favor of a wealthy client. Already existing when
fei
eave-dropped at the negotiations between a flesh-seller and a
fa
for the purchase of another
fai
.

The Imperial Grounds were artistically
intricate. Like a labyrinth, with secret corners, cul-de-sacs and
dead ends. There were dark places
fei
could secrete
fei
into. It appealed to
fei
heart for subterfuge.
True that they had released trained canines to flush
fei
out, but
fei
was going to lead them around in circles.

Yrant could hear girlish laughter.
Fei
must be directly under the quarters of the Imperial
children. Amazing. Even in a situation fraught of immense danger,
the girls were still laughing. An uncommon stab of
jealousy
lanced through
fei
heart.
Fei
had not laughed for a
long time. Not after
fei
had left the
fai
.

An older voice, an older woman’s voice. The
girls shrieked with apparent joy, their footfalls beating on the
floorboards above
fei
.

***

The girls surrounded her, embracing her
excitedly, especially little Min Xin who was by now seven. Min Feng
was awash with emotions, as she bent over to kiss her sisters and
hold them in her arms. It had been so long since she had seen
them.

The security personnel were as vigilant as
ever, guarding the door to the children’s bedchambers. Yet Min Feng
could not feel… did not feel safe. Something prickled at her, a
nagging sensation nibbling at the edge of her mind.
Not quite
right, not quite right, not quite right
. After spending nights
at the desert plains, one had learnt how to
listen
for any
oddity.

Her phoenix flame wavered, turned a shade of
red.

Min Feng gently pulled away the arms of Min
Le, one of the older girls, perplexed at the change in color. There
were only her sisters and herself in the bedchambers, save for the
coterie of security officers at the door. She began to stalk around
the room, while her sisters looked at her curiously. She raised a
finger to her lips and the girls immediately obeyed.

There was a particular spot
under
her
feet where her phoenix flame pulsed red once more. It was strange
and…

She signaled silently to Min Le who nodded
and left to call the guards.

***

There was a sudden drop in noise level.
Silence. No more laughter and giggling.
Fei
felt
fei
heart tighten,
fei
nerves about to react – fight or flight.
Even the footfalls had gotten softer.

Fei
crouched, ready to retaliate
back.

***

The security personnel fanned out from the
bedchambers, some of them edging towards the basement which was
technically empty… and a good place to hide…

Min Feng experienced the upward rush of
fire. The girls gathered together, holding onto each other, their
nannies trying to console them while looking as if they needed some
consoling of their own.

There was a shout and the sounds of gun
safeties being uncapped. Another shout, this time a fierce scream
and a thump!

***

Fei
knocked down the first security
officer who tried to manhandle
fei
with a cry and made to
sprint forward. The guards had
fei
encircled and
fei
snarled, truly a trapped beast now.

One of them, a stocky man built like a
soldier, raised his gun and fired a laser beam at
fei.

Fei
froze,
fei
limbs and
nerves immobilized. Only
fei
eyes burned with hatred as the
security personnel closed in with handcuffs and wrap-netting. If
fei
could reach into the pockets and retrieve that one final
syringe…
What irony!

***

Princess Min Feng saw the assassin the
moment the security personnel led
him/her
out of
his/her
hiding place. She felt instant revulsion and pity.
Androgynous, feminine but also oddly masculine at the same time. An
angular jaw, such defiant eyes. Slender, dancer’s frame and build.
Clad in a workman’s uniform, obviously a little too large for the
wearer who looked like walking hate.

“A
fai
,” the head of the security
stated brusquely, his eyes steely-cold. “Courtesan caste, from the
planet
Onn
.”

A hermaphrodite race of humans
. She
had only seen
fai
in educational text-pads.

“Who sent you?” She said. The jaws remained
shut. The eyes raged with hateful fire. “
Who
sent you?” Min
Feng’s phoenix flame sparked once, twice, and became a burning
inferno within her.

Silence. The
fai
glared at her when
she approached. The men around the
fai
closed ranks.

“Who employed you to assassinate the
Empress?” Min Feng felt the heat wave permeate out and through her
skin. And welcomed it.

There was a subtle movement, a flick of an
elegant finger. Min Feng caught it and slammed the finger down with
uncommon ferocity. A syringe clattered onto the floor.

“A syringe, your Highness. Filled with a
liquid.” Another security officer picked it with a gloved hand.

The heat turned wild fire. Min Feng grabbed
the fai’s arm, not knowing the security officers had backed away,
and that she herself was surrounded by an aura of flickering white
like incandescent aurora borealis.

“Who sent you?” Min Feng bit out and her
fingers left blisters on the
fai
’s pale skin. And still the
fai
refused to speak, though the pain must have been
terrible.

The blisters soon became burn marks as the
fire grew and the woman holding Yrant turned into a glowing figure,
wreathed with tongues of white fire. There was a smell of scorched
wood and plastic. And the fire continued growing, larger,
hotter.

Yrant the
fei
began to scream as
fei
body caught fire and bits of fei flesh began to cook and
fall off in charred bits. A voice came from this fiery being,
straight out from some nightmare world. It had wings. It bore the
voice of the princess.

“Who sent you?”

Charred flesh turned to black ash. Yrant
could not even struggle, held in helpless thrall by the terrible
beauty before
fei.

Then Yrant’s only response was to scream and
fei
screams filled the surroundings with a haunting
poignancy.

***

Min Feng came to in the arms of her father,
Duke Zhang.

“The
fai
confessed,” he said in a
soothing voice. She found herself still in the same place where
they had caught the assassin. “We now know who sent the
fai
.”

She could see security and medical staff
scouring the surroundings clean of debris.

“The
fai
expired,” Duke Zhang said
simply and left it at that.

“Hopefully, with the contents of the
syringe, we can find some sort of antidote,” he continued as Min
Feng wrestled with what she had done.
I killed the fai. I killed
the fai
. “The Imperial Physician is confident that he can
reverse the effects of the poison. It is apparently traced back to
the planet Artia. A rare poison, distilled from a plant.”

“Artia…” Min Feng whispered and started to
tremble.

“You did well, daughter.” Duke Zhang hugged
her comfortingly.

No, father, I killed the fai. I killed a
person.

It has been said that when the Phoenix Court
sent another armada to the planet Artia, the inhabitants of the
mining planet quickly surrendered and adhered to the terms laid out
by the Glorious Phoenix Court, the bulwark of the Alliance
Planets.

The arrival of the armada at Artia was true.
However, the doughty Artians did not immediately surrender to the
Phoenix Court. The fleet had other plans. First, it was the arrest
of a certain prominent member of the Stern-Aus family. When the
security personnel burst into his bedchambers, he resisted arrest
for two hours, shouting that he was innocent and that he was being
framed. However, after the pleas of his mother, Lady Stern-Aus, he
unwillingly gave himself up and was led into the warship designated
the “prison barge”. As a precaution, the entire Stern-Aus family
was similarly arrested and placed on a separate ship, to be further
investigated for their part in the perfidy that had brought down
the Empress. The two partisan families of the Stern-Auses were also
questioned and sent to the same ship. They were now awaiting
judgment in their role as supporters of Artia’s most influential
family.

After seeing entire clans arrested for the
treacherous crime, the other families convened and allowed the
Phoenix Court delegation in, for a round of negotiations. They
themselves had suffered during the first encounter with the
fleet-squadron, having their vital equipment blown apart by the
energy beams. They were apparently shocked to find that the
Stern-Auses had built defensive armaments and strenuously rejected
the assertions that they had a role to play in the construction as
well.

The envoy who was sent to negotiate with
Duke Garius de Channey was a partisan of the Stern-Aus family. When
the security personnel demanded entry into his underground house,
the man killed himself by hanging from the rafters. He was defiant,
until the end.