Empress Game: The Empress Game Trilogy Book 1 (19 page)

Kayla watched the combatants, absently rubbing a sore spot on her forearm. She hissed as she brushed over a deep bruise. Her fingertips came back with a smear of blood. Little Frolova had had a wicked side-piercing kick, and apparently the force of one had split the skin on Kayla’s forearm. She wasn’t the only one sporting such bruises. While the medical staff had been kept busy this morning, most of the contestants chose to bear their minor—or even major—wounds rather than suffer the numbness that accompanied a medstick’s ministrations.

She wiped her forearm on the side of her black tank-top and turned her attention to the contestants. It was easy to tell them apart from their attendants. All of the contestants wore officially issued outfits in black, a tight-fitting tank-top tunic paired with leggings and bare feet. Attendants were also issued official outfits, a loose-fitting combination of pants and a tunic in white.

“I’m surprised to see you here.”

The words came in a child-high voice from a spitfire-looking thing beside Kayla. The woman’s head reached her shoulder, if that, but she had a stare that made her twice as tall.

“Oh?” Kayla couldn’t place her.

The diminutive thing turned to study Kayla full on, her hazel eyes smug. “After the Councils had rejected your proposal to marry the prince without a Game being held—what, three separate times?—I figured you would be back on Piran, sulking.”

She would have a suitably scathing retort if she actually knew who the woman was.

“Perhaps you didn’t get the hint that you weren’t wanted as empress.”

Isonde cut in. “This from the woman who failed to secure the council seat that was all but hereditary for her family.” Kayla didn’t recognize herself with that superior expression, or that tone of disdain.

The woman turned her attention to the princess. “I’m sorry, but who are you again?”

“Lady Evelyn Broch, of the Ishimi province, Piran.”

“Never heard of it. Though who can keep track of the minuscule provinces Piran insists on recognizing as sovereign nations.”

Isonde nodded as if she agreed with her. “And you must be just absolutely overcome with work as the assistant junior undersecretary for the Protectorate Council, I imagine.” She managed to make the position sound as though it ranked below being a sanitation bot. “No time to study such things as politics.”

Color stained the woman’s cheekbones, but a mix of groans and cheers saved her from answering. The series had ended, the taller contestant’s decision to choose staves paying off. The short woman slunk away without another word.

“The Domina Ridea,” Isonde said once she’d left. “You and I need to do more studying this afternoon.”

Great. “I doubt she’ll come near us again.”

“Probably not, but only fools rely on chance. Preparation separates the successful from the failures.”

Kayla inclined her head in agreement as she had seen Isonde do. “You’re right.” She liked the look in her own eyes just then: implacable determination. She and the princess were on the same page. “For now, I’m going to win another fight.”

* * *

What Kayla wanted when she finished fighting for the day was a full-body soak in Varaguda effervescent simmer salts. What she got was a hurried sonic shower and an invitation to a caucus on today’s tournament data.

Now she sat, or rather half-lay, on the couch next to Malkor in Trinan and Vid’s room, studying the notable matches of the day. Both forearms were numb in a variety of spots, as were her forehead and left knee. She had cooling skins adhered to each to reduce swelling and her leg was elevated to try to speed her knee’s recovery from the medstick treatment. Her hands throbbed but she refused to risk the numbness there. Pain she could handle—losing, she could not. It had taken Malkor fifteen minutes to convince her to let a medical technician he trusted with their ruse treat her knee. She would have refused that as well but he made a good point that the inflamed ligaments would only get worse with each match if she didn’t mend them now.

Through it all Janeen sat with a look on her face that said, “
I
wouldn’t have gotten injured if
I’d
been the one doing the fighting.”

Kayla sank into a more comfortable position on the couch, wincing when her knee tweaked with pain. Malkor held himself stiffly beside her. What did he think of her, knowing who she was?

She felt an odd connection to him now that she’d shared her secret—as if it had bonded them somehow, tied their futures together. It was an awkward push-pull. With the truth out, was he her fellow conspirator or the man who would bring her down? Had she gained an ally or sealed her fate?

She’d lain awake last night, horrified by what she’d revealed, but at the same time knowing there could have been no other way. She’d waited to be taken into custody, waited to be delivered to Malkor’s superiors at the IDC, to someone in the military, to the emperor himself. To Dolan. Waited, but it hadn’t happened. Malkor hadn’t revealed her identity to anyone and she’d lain safe through the night.

Safe, but for how long?

Malkor needed her right now. He couldn’t risk her being taken away before she won the Game. After that? Would he keep her identity a secret, knowing she had her own bargaining chip about his cheating the Game? Would he honor their deal and return her to Wyrd Space? Or would she and Corinth be fleeing for their lives once again?

Around her, Vid, Trinan, Janeen, Malkor and Hekkar sorted through a galaxy’s worth of tournament reports on everything from scores and weapon choices to techniques and injuries from the morning’s matches. They adjusted their initial assessment of who the major players were, and updated reconnaissance on each contestant’s strengths and weaknesses. Kayla focused on reading screen after screen of hard stats and scanning vids of her top opponents’ matches. Gio and Isonde were there too, gathering intelligence from every news source possible about the political fallout of today’s wins and losses.

Amid it all sat Corinth, alight with interest in the activity. He drank in the details as datapads passed back and forth and the octet called out things of note to each other. Despite her repeated warnings to stay out of their heads, he still dabbled on the edge of Trinan’s and Vid’s minds. As much as it scared her, it was useful. When they brought an opponent to her attention for a closer look, Corinth helped her identify which opponents they thought
could
beat her and which they thought
would
beat her.

Kayla watched tournament footage from this morning on one of her strongest opponents, the Ordinal Divinya. The woman flowed like smoke through the air, subtle, fluid, with positional shifts you couldn’t anticipate. The opponent that Divinya fought couldn’t have looked more flat-footed had she been fighting on mud. The series ended before Kayla could learn much of Divinya’s technique. She passed the footage to Malkor. He kept their “priority targets to watch” list, but more than that, she wanted his analysis of the Ordinal’s style. They hadn’t expected her and Kayla had no background on her. Several unexpected quality opponents had surfaced. It was tricky to judge on day one—the mediocre could be paired with the terrible and come out looking brilliant. Divinya, however, was clearly a genuine threat.

She scanned the woman’s specs while Malkor watched the series.

“Wow.” Malkor whistled. “How did we miss her?”

She caught him replaying in half-time the end that had surprised her as well. Kayla read the brief bio. “She’s from the Protectorate Planet Ged, southern hemisphere, a low population city on what looks to be a minor continent.”

“Ged?” Malkor’s gaze went to Janeen. “That’s your homeworld and you haven’t heard of her?”

“Who, the Ordinal Divinya?” Janeen shrugged, her gaze sliding away from his. “Most of the people across the Southern Belt have heard of her, but beyond that she’s not famous. I don’t remember her being all that impressive.” Her tone was a little too blithe for Kayla’s liking.

“Well she certainly upped her game for the tournament.”

“Who hasn’t?” Janeen answered. She held out a datapad to Malkor. “Looks like the Wyrd princess is making a name for herself.”

Kayla resisted the urge to grab for the pad. She’d been avoiding the report on Princess Tia’tan of Ilmena as if ignoring her might change the fact that a Wyrd had come to win the Empress Game as an ally of Dolan. Her curiosity ate at her, though. Had her kinswoman made a respectable showing? Kayla leaned in close to Malkor, reading over his shoulder.

Her pride rose at the sight of Tia’tan’s record. Flawless. She’d not only won every series without it going to a third match, she’d won every match without it going to a third point. Better than Kayla herself had done. She couldn’t deny her satisfaction that Wyrd training had proved itself superior today.

::You’re discomfiting him.:: Corinth’s voice was much too amused for her taste. She pretended to study the datapad Malkor held as she schooled her thoughts into separate compartments before lowering first her outer shields, then with more effort, her median shields. Corinth rushed inside her head like a puppy bounding onto a bed.

Too much.

Corinth withdrew slightly. His presence still filled her brain, but at least her head didn’t threaten to split apart.

::Better?::

Some. We talked about controlling the rush, remember?

::I know, we just don’t practice enough.::

She felt him split his focus, easing the compression on her brain.

::You’ve got him all mixed up.::

Who?

::Malkor. He thinks you can read his mind.::

I thought you said he was shielding now?

::Eh. Mostly. He’s actually pretty effective, for an imperial. But he’s so nervous about this it’s shouting from him.::

Corinth, do NOT try to read him.

::I don’t even have to, I swear. It’s right on the surface, I’m barely probing.::

She knew better, but…
what is he saying?

::It’s a loop between “Can she read my thoughts? Is she doing it right now?” and “Shit! Don’t think that! What if she heard it?”:: She felt his humor. ::You’re so messing with him.::

I’m not doing anything
.

::He doesn’t know that. He thinks you— Oh. Oh, wow.:: Corinth’s amusement turned awkward. ::He definitely doesn’t want you to hear that.::

Now she really didn’t want to ask.

::I’m not sharing that one.::

I don’t want—

::Yeah you do.::

Damn psi powers. She glanced up at Corinth to see his face flushing red.

::Um… maybe you should give him a little space.::

She jerked away from Malkor like he’d shocked her with two hundred volts.

Malkor gave an awkward cough and shifted in his seat without looking at her. The others quirked brows at her weird behavior.

::Now he definitely thinks you can hear him.::

Stars burn it, Corinth. Get out of his head.
From the look on Corinth’s face, and the fascinated but horrified-at-his-reaction embarrassment she felt emanating from him, she’d guess that he’d already retreated from Malkor.

Do NOT do that to the others. Just because Malkor knows who we are—

::He’s not going to tell them.::

That doesn’t mean they won’t guess if you keep messing with them.

She felt him pause, gathering courage to say something he feared she wouldn’t like. A better trained psionic could have shielded his thoughts while still inside her mind. Corinth would be able to, once she got him back to Wyrd Space.

::Would that be so bad? They like us, Kay.::

They might like you, and they might keep us safe for now because it suits them, but they are IDC. They could turn us over in a microsecond. They are
not
your friends, Corinth.

She felt the hurt she’d dealt him but there was no shelter from that truth. He pushed away from her, withdrawing in silence.

* * *

With a morning spent fighting and an afternoon spent researching both opponents and diplomats, the evening already felt long by the time Kayla and Isonde arrived for the dinner banquet. She let Isonde carry the conversation with two junior members of the Protectorate Council—who clearly had more interest in Isonde herself than her political agenda. Isonde played the two smoothly, knowing that some alliances were won with trade agreements, some with charm.

Kayla spent the majority of the meal speaking with the Director of the Interplanetary Alliance of Croppers. He had no official standing on either council, but as head of the organization that unified the farmers and corporations that provided much of the empire’s food supplies, he had a position of great influence. Piran was a powerful member of the organization, and Kayla knew Isonde hoped to leverage that position to get the Croppers to take at least a leaning stance toward withdrawing from Wyrd Space.

They discussed the possible introduction of a non-native wheat variety into the Croppers’ Alliance shared fields. The bioengineered species showed excellent production capability, but a full scale roll-out was beyond the means of the Croppers alone. It was easy to turn the conversation to a discussion of how withdrawing from Ordoch would leave imperial assets free to perhaps subsidize such a project, considering its potential benefit to the population of the empire. Another member of their table, a colonel in the imperial army, joined in when the subject of withdrawing from Wyrd Space came up. He went so far as to hint at the futility of the military’s actions in Ordoch, and that the army itself might consider the funds better spent elsewhere.

“Even from a tactical perspective,” the colonel commented, “it’s time for a change. Our actions did not produce the desired result, and continuing this course, pouring more resources into it, is poor field management.” The conversation returned to less contentious topics, but Kayla marked the conversation as a win. Seeds had been planted. She’d be sure to touch base with the two of them throughout the tournament to cultivate their opinions.

* * *

Kayla was still riding high off her dinner conversation when, a few hours later, she spotted Prince Trebulan. The tables had been cleared away and guests divided their time between strolling, dancing and drinking. Isonde set aside her powerhouse agenda to enjoy a turn about the floor with Prince Ardin, and Kayla enjoyed a rare moment alone. She couldn’t, however, pass up the chance to meet Prince Trebulan.