"Many people survive far worse," I said. "I only lived through three weeks of it."
Tager regarded me. "You think three weeks instead of three years makes your emotional scars any less valid?"
I regarded him from the safety of my post near the bookshelf. In the three times I had come to see him, I had never sat down. It made me feel vulnerable. He usually stood as he did now, near his desk, neither crowding nor pressuring me.
"Look," I said. "Most providers live their entire life in captivity. What happened to me was nothing."
He came over to me. "You're wrong."
"I'm trained to—"
"Bullshit."
I blinked, startled as much by his intensity as by his reaction. Both were out of character. "Why do you say that?"
"No training in the universe could make that 'nothing.' Yes, your armor is strong. But a human being lives underneath that armor. You were tortured and sexually assaulted, and the fact that you're a Primary, that you're trained to endure hardship, that other people have experienced it over a longer period of time—none of that lessens your injury."
"It was ten years ago. I should have been over it a long time ago."
"Why?"
Why? That maddening question again. "Because time heals wounds."
"Only if you treat the wound." His voice gentled. "Repressing the experience is a survival mechanism, a way to keep functioning. But no matter how much you deny it, it will affect you. It can hurt your self-esteem, hamper your ability to function, make it hard to maintain relationships."
"You think I have problems relating to people because of that?"
"It's possible."
I stepped back from him, feeling crowded. "I'm just overly sensitive."
"Why do you say that?"
I snorted. "I saw a holomovie last month. It was one of those 'Jagernaut goes amok' things. It made me furious. I walked out and ruined it for the people with me. Then I almost busted someone in the face just because he said my attitude annoyed him. You don't call that overreacting?"
"No," Tager said. "Not given the combat experiences you've had."
"The people with me thought I was crazy."
"The fact that they didn't know why you reacted that way doesn't invalidate your response."
Why couldn't I make him see? "I almost stabbed a man in the heart just for being obnoxious."
"You almost stabbed him," Tager said, "because he reminded you of a hideous experience where you were repeatedly and violently brutalized."
Did he believe Hilt had triggered my memory of Tarque? I didn't want a dead Highton to have so much power over me. "That can't be true."
"You had no control over what happened when Tarque kidnapped you," Tager said quietly. "If you were robbed of material possessions, you could replace them. If you've been robbed of your self-respect, of your sense of worth and security, where do you get those back?"
"I knew the danger when I went to Tams. I should have been more careful." I voiced the thought that had pressed on me for so long. "What happened was my own fault."
"The problem was never yours." He regarded me steadily. "It's not your fault. No matter what he said to you, what he called you, what anyone has ever said—it's not your fault."
I was testing mental ground I had avoided for years. "Why would it all stir up now, when I've been fine for so long?"
"What makes you think you've been fine?"
"Of course I've been fine."
"Then why," Tager asked, "was it seven years before you could have a serious relationship with a man?"
"You mean Hypron?"
He nodded. "Seven years is a long time for anyone to stay alone. For an empath it's almost unheard of."
I almost objected. I had always avoided large groups or situations where I had to deal with the emotions of people I didn't like. But I knew what Tager meant. In love, empathy was a gift, especially with another empath. The lack of that intimacy created a loneliness that hurt like a wound. Jarith and I shared a bond that fulfilled me on a level I couldn't reach with a normal person. I thought of the locked file in my mind, festering in the dark. I knew what had shaken it, releasing this barrage of memories I wanted to hold back. Jaibriol Qox.
All I said was, "It can't all be Tams."
For once Tager didn't disagree. "Going into combat against Aristos, feeling people die—it has to be a nightmare." He regarded me with that compassion of his that seemed to have no limit. "You've lived through hell a thousand times. That you've survived, psychologically intact, is miraculous."
I stared at him. Nothing about me was miraculous. I was a mess. "Everyone has troubles. They don't go around pointing Jumblers at their head."
"Primary, it's a—"
"Soz," I interrupted.
"Soz?"
"That's my name. Soz."
"Well. Good. Soz."
That was his only outward reaction, a pleasant nod. But I caught his true response even though he thought he masked it. His pulse leapt. He had made a breakthrough with me, a big one. And that mattered to him. It mattered.
"Why?" I asked.
He blinked. "Why is your name Soz?"
"No. Why do you care what happens to me?"
"Because you're a remarkable person."
"How can you think I'm remarkable? You hardly know me."
He smiled. "I'm trained to understand people."
"It's more than training."
He regarded me curiously. "Why do you say that?"
I searched for the right words. "You naturally care about people. I'm not used to that. I'm used to Traders. Or ISC politics." I grimaced. "Both get pretty vicious." I thought of Rex, Hypron, my first husband Jato. "When I do find love, it doesn't . . .stay." I winced. "The only person I'm capable of maintaining a relationship with is a boy half my age who has no political opinions and looks as different from an Aristo as is humanly possible."
"What's wrong with that?"
"It's not normal."
"Why not?"
Why did he always ask me that? "I should have a more mature lover." Like Rex. But Rex didn't want me anymore.
"Why?"
"I don't know why. Because it's embarrassing when doddering Jagernauts fawn over beautiful young people, that's why."
Tager actually laughed, as if I had made a joke. "I would hardly call you doddering."
"I'm almost forty-eight."
"I would have guessed younger." He regarded me. "Even forty-eight is young for your rank."
I shrugged. "I'm good at what I do."
"Why does that make you angry?"
"Angry? It doesn't make me angry." That was a lie and I knew it and Tager knew it. Yet until this moment I had never consciously thought that my rank made me angry. Why should it?
I spoke slowly, as if I wee reading a book I had owned for years but never summoned the courage to open. "He sent me to Tams knowing what could happen. He sent me out there on the front lines, for years, far longer than most officers, and he sent out my brother Althor, and he sent out my brother Kelric." I forced myself to go on. "And Kelric never came back."
Tager spoke quietly. "Who is 'he'?"
"My brother."
"Althor?"
I shook my head. "No. My half-brother. Kurj. The Imperator."
Tager paled. I had more than shaken him this time, I had thrown him into an earthquake. But he was right. I was angry. Angry. The words came, breaking out of the dam I had put around them.
"I lost my first child," I said, "The only child I've ever conceived, because Kurj told me that if I left active duty, I abdicated my claim to his title. I lost my first husband because of it, I lost Rex because he didn't want to be my crippled consort, I lost my baby brother to death and my older brother to distrust, I lost my ability to relate like a normal human being—" My voice shook. "Kurj would take my soul if he could. He has no right."
It was a long moment before he answered. That he spoke at all was a marvel. His position was the nightmare of every heartbender, knowing he could bring down the Imperator's wrath with one wrong word. I never intended to tell Kurj I had seen Tager, but Tager could never be sure of that. Yet he didn't back down, not even now, when he knew the danger. And in that he earned my respect forever.
"Why does he ask so much of you?" Tager asked.
"Because if I can't give it to him, I'll never be strong enough to face Ur Qox." I spread my arms out from my body. "It's not like I can say, 'Oh, I changed my mind. I don't want to do this anymore.' If neither Althor nor I follows Kurj as Imperator, who will? Who has the training, the Rhon mind, the knowledge, all that combined?" I dropped my arms by my sides. "A thousand worlds. How many people on each? A thousand? A million? Ten billion? Do I have to carry the burden of every one of their damned lives?"
He let out a careful breath. "You're the Imperial Heir."
"One of them. There are two." Two left. Out of three. "How do you like that? The future of the universe may be in the hands of a crazy woman."
"You think you're crazy?"
"Aren't I?"
"No." He spoke as if he were walking through a forest of fragile, crystalline trees with branches that might break at the slightest touch, their fractured ends sharp and deadly, ready to pierce his body. "Injured, yes. You're suffering from so many forms of stress disorder I'm not sure I could count them. Even for a psion, you're extraordinarily sensitive. You'll probably never be able to endure crowds or their uglier emotions without withdrawing emotionally. But crazy? No. Not at all. To have experienced what you have and still function takes a phenomenal strength of mind."
He stood watching me with that incredible empathy of his and I didn't know what to say. So I just looked at him. And he let me. He didn't push, didn't crowd, didn't retreat, didn't turn away.
Finally I said, "Well." It wasn't the most articulate response, but it would do. Tager smiled as if I had said something intelligent.
I walked to a corner of his office where the walls met at an acute angle. A shelf there held a small mirror, an old style square of silvered glass inside a jade frame. As I looked at my reflection, I could almost see Kurj behind me, always watching, always waiting, never satisfied.
Watch carefully, brother, I thought. Or I may surprise you.
When Jarith came into the bedroom, I was just waking up. I lay in the warm sheets, absorbing the sight of him walking across the room. It was a nice view. He wasn't wearing anything but his pants. The hairs on his muscled chest caught the sunlight like a dusting of gold. His face was flushed, though. Red. Really red. In fact, he looked frantic. He was staring intently at the pile of our clothes on the floor by the bed. When he reached it, he searched rapidly through the garments, throwing them here and there.
I peered over the edge of the bed. "What's wrong?"
He jumped up. "You're awake."
I smiled. "Just barely. Come on back and make us sleepy again, hmmm?"
"Soz." His face turned even redder. "We have company."
"Company? What do you mean?"
He motioned toward the living room. "When I woke up, I went to get a drink—and she was there. Reading a holobook."
"Someone is inside my apartment?" What the hell? I scrambled out of bed and scooped up the underwear and jumpsuit Jarith had tossed on the floor after he peeled them off me. "Who is it?"
He found what he was looking for, his sweater. "She says her name is Cya Liessa."
I stopped and straightened up. "Ah."
He yanked his sweater over his head. "Ah?"
"That explains your reaction."
"It does?"
I laughed softly. "She affects everyone that way." I finished dressing and went to meet my guest.
I saw her as I came through the archway that opened into the living room. She was standing by a window, looking out at Jacob's Shire. Gold hair poured over her arms, back, and hips like spun sunlight streaked with gold. It glistened in the ringlight. She wore a rose-hued dress, Foreshires style, with the same lace and straps that felt so awkward on me. On her, it looked spectacular. She had the face of an angel, the body of an erotic holomovie goddess, and the grace of a ballet dancer, which she used to do for a living, performing under the assumed name of Cya Liessa.
"My greetings, Mother," I said.
Jarith made a strangled noise behind me. "Mother?"
She turned to us. "Sauscony." Her gaze shifted to Jarith, who was standing slightly behind me and to my right, as if for protection from this apparition that had shown up in my apartment. A smile tugged up her lips. "I've met your friend."
Even at forty-eight, I felt guilty having my mother find me with my lover. "How did you get inside?"
"Pako let me in."
Before Jarith and I had gone to sleep, I had told Pako we weren't to be disturbed. Why would it let her inside? True, its Evolving Intelligence tried to anticipate my wishes. But even I wasn't sure in this case. "What did it tell you?"
"That you weren't available, but I should wait." She glanced at Jarith. "I can come back . . ."
"No. Don't do that." I motioned at the bar across the room. "Would you like a drink?"
Sauscony.
Her thought came into my mind as clear as sunlight, and brought my memories rushing in of Lyshriol, my father's world, where I had grown up. Home. I saw the silvery plains rippling from the village of Dalvador to the Backbone Mountains in the west and the huge mountain range we called Rider's Lost Memory in the north. Shimmerflies flitted over the plains, their gauzy wings iridescent in the sunlight. Home, with all its love and pain, the joy and loss, the place where I had retreated in my childhood, whenever I needed succor, to the nurturing arms of the golden woman who had given me birth.
Behind me Jarith made a soft noise, as if he had seen a beautiful picture. He touched my shoulder. "Soz, I have a music lesson this afternoon. I should go practice."
I turned to him. He was smiling, no longer red-faced. But sad too. Why was he sad? And why did he have to practice? He had been playing his stringed lytar all morning.
"Can I call you this evening?" he asked.
"Yes. Of course." I started to kiss him, then remembered who was watching us and decided to leave the kissing for later. "I'll talk to you then."
Jarith gathered up his things from the bedroom. When he tried to leave my apartment, he ran into my mother's bodyguards, two Jagernauts hulking outside the door. As they searched him, Jarith gave me a puzzled look.
Sorry, I thought. She's a dancer. A celebrity. They're being careful. It was a lame excuse. My mother hadn't danced for years. I hid the real reason for the search from him. More than one "friend" of our family had tried to smuggle out holofilm of our private lives, records that brought a phenomenal price on the media black-market. Explaining that would mean telling him why, and I didn't want to contaminate what I had with Jarith by revealing I was a member of the Ruby Dynasty.
When Kurj chose an heir, that person would spend the rest of his or her life as he, my aunt, and my parents lived now, guarded day and night. I didn't want that prison. Maybe someday I would have to accept those constraints, but for now I still had a choice.
When the guard finished checking Jarith, she bowed to him. "You may go through."
He blinked, seeming more surprised by the bow than by the search. Then he glanced at me and smiled. "See you tonight?"
"Tonight," I said.
After Jarith left, I went to the bar and poured a glass of ale. "Want some?" I asked my mother.
She shook her head, rippling her glorious hair. "No, I'm fine." Ringlight glimmered on her skin and reflected off its metallic sheen the same way light did off Kurj's skin. Her eyes had gold irises and black pupils exactly like his did, at least under the shield of his inner lids. Although she hadn't inherited the inner lids from my grandfather, she and Kurj could otherwise have been twins. But where Kurj was hard, my mother glowed. I longed to go to her, to lay my head in her lap as I had so often done as a child. Except I wasn't a little girl anymore, I was a grown woman, and I had no intention of running to my mother every time I stubbed my toe.
"Why are you here?" I asked.
She smiled. "Well, I happened to be on Forshires, so I thought I would—"
"Mother." I clunked my glass on the counter. "You have no reason to be on Foreshires Hold. So why are you here?"
She came to the bar and sat in a tall chair, sliding onto it easily despite its height; she was taller than me, taller than my sisters, as tall as my father. She spoke with the gentle voice that had comforted my night fears when I was little. "Kurj told me about Rex. I'm sorry."
I ran my finger around the top of my glass. "He knew the risks."
"Sauscony. I'm not Kurj."
I looked up at her. "What is that supposed to mean?"
"You're hurting. I can feel it."
"It's personal." When she started to speak, I put up my hands. "I mean it. Let it go."
"All right." She watched me with an expression I knew well. She was casting around for a subject that wouldn't make me edgy, trying to find a way to talk to her daughter. The older I got, the more often I saw that look on her face.
"Your friend Jarith is very handsome," she said.
"I guess."
Young, though, she thought, reaching for the closeness of a mental link.
Leave it, Mother.
Sauscony, I'm not your enemy.
Block, I thought. The synapse psicon flashed, taking away her concern.
My mother looked frustrated, but she said nothing, just watched me with concern. I scowled and stuck my glass under the fount, refilling it with ale. Then I stalked out from behind the counter and went to sit on the couch. After a moment, she came over and sat in one of the armchairs. She looked like a picture, an artist's vision of beauty, her body relaxed in perfect lines, her angel's face pensive. I wondered if she had any idea how hard it was being her daughter.
"What's it like?" I asked.
She regarded me curiously. "What is what like?"
"Being loved by everyone who meets you."
Incredulity. It broke over me in waves. "Where did you get the idea I'm loved by everyone who meets me?"
"Aren't you?"
"No."
I hesitated. "Can I ask you something personal?"
"That's a bit of a double standard isn't it?"
I stiffened. "Fine. Never mind."
"Sauscony." She spread her hands. "Go ahead."
"What's it like to be loved by a Rhon psion?"
The change that came over her face was as spectacular as it was subtle. I hadn't realized how tense she had become until it eased out of her posture like water running out of a cup. She answered softly, "Your father completes me."
"What about sex?"
She reddened. "I think that's enough personal questions."
"Sorry."
After a moment, her voice lightened. "Let me put it this way. Having ten children was easy."
Can I ask you something else? I thought.
She gave me a wry look. That depends.
About Kurj.
Suddenly she was stiff again. What about him?
Was it really an accident?
Was what an accident? Her agitation rippled against my mind. How can I talk to you, Sauscony, if you keep asking me half questions?
Grandfather's death. Was it really an accident?
She practically snapped out of her chair, like a coil compressed too tight, releasing in a burst of energy. She went to the window and gazed at Jacob's Shire. "Of course it was an accident."
"Kurj must have known he could overload the link." That had been fifty-five years ago. Now he was one of three people who powered the Kyle web: Kurj, my aunt, and my father. It wasn't coincidence that they were so different. If the minds in that link were too similar, it set up a resonance like a driven oscillator, forcing their minds into bigger and bigger fluctuations until the link shattered. Fifty-five years ago, only my grandparents had been in it. Kurj had tried to become the third.
"He must have known," I said. "The odds that both he and Grandfather would survive were too low. Kurj knew it. And he was younger. Stronger. The chances of him surviving were greater."
My mother whirled around. "Stop it!"
I couldn't stop. I wanted to more than anything else, but my life might someday depend on knowing the truth. "Why has he set Althor and me against each other? Because he thinks we'll be too busy fighting each other to turn on him? Does he fear one of us will try to assume his title by committing fratricide?" I forced out the words. "Like Kurj committed patricide?"
My mother came over—and slapped me across the face. Her body was shaking as she sank into her chair. I put my palm against my stinging cheek, hating myself for what I needed to know.
"You will never say those words again," she told me. "Neither your accusations nor your filthy insinuations. Kurj's father was an ISC scout, a good and decent man who died in the line of duty."
I swallowed. "Mother—I've seen the files."
She looked like an injured shyback deer. "What?"
"The records. The same ones Kurj found the day he killed the man who fathered him." Gods, I hated this. Kurj was right; we learned to survive—not only against the Traders, but against each other as well. The same talents of mine that Kurj had so often utilized when he had me spy against the Traders worked just as well against him. "Kurj's legal father couldn't have sired him. The man wasn't a Rhon psion."
She looked away from me. "My first husband carried at least one copy of every Rhon gene. The doctors selected the proper ones from him. Then we made a baby."
How many times had I heard that "official" explanation of why Kurj was Rhon even though his father wasn't. The Imperialate needed Rhon heirs, and we were their breeding stock. Dangerous recessives in our DNA made inbreeding risky, but clipping out those recessives deleted what made us Rhon. After a long search, a man was found who carried variants of our genes. His were different enough to decrease the probability that recessives would kill or deform the children he had with a woman of the royal family. He didn't have two of every gene, so he wasn't Rhon, but he had at least one of each. With medical help, he could sire a Rhon child. My grandparents arranged a marriage between him and my mother. Never mind the almost zero probability of finding such a man. Kurj was considered living proof that he had existed.
I met my mother's gaze. "Those records—they include the analysis of your first husband's DNA. He carried almost none of the Rhon genes. You know that. You know Kurj can't be his son."
A tear ran down her face. ""What difference does it make? It's done. Over with."
I wanted to hide, to pretend it had been a mistake, that I was wrong. The last time I had seen her cry had been at the memorial service for my brother Kelric. But denying the truth wouldn't erase it. Kurj trusted neither Althor nor me, and I needed to understand why, for someday our own lives could depend on that knowledge.
I spoke softly. "Please. I need to know."
My mother wiped her face with her hands, then set her hands on her knees. She sat staring at the floor in front of her chair, her eyes clouded.
Finally she looked at me. And she spoke. "When my father was Imperator, he chose Kurj as his heir. Kurj coveted that power, more and more as the years passed. But he never tried to depose my father. He valued family over even power. Values he learned from my first husband, someone he deeply loved. My husband was a good father. My parents chose better for me than I did for myself." She took an uneven breath. "I wasn't like you when I was young, so strong and sure. I made stupid mistakes. Several years after my husband died, I remarried. But I . . .there was violence. I didn't know before I married him, or didn't let myself see, what he was like. When I found out, I was ashamed."
I had never heard my mother speak this way. "So you left him?"
"Imperial heirs don't divorce."
I thought of my first marriage. "Tell that to Jato."
Her voice softened. "I was a fool for feeling that way, I know that now. But at the time I thought I had no choices." She swallowed. "Kurj was so young then, so vulnerable. He saw everything, and he felt helpless to stop it."
Kurj, vulnerable and helpless? "It's hard to imagine."
"He was just a boy." She paused. "At first my husband never hit him. But when Kurj reached puberty, it changed. He was growing so fast, already as tall as me. My husband thought—I don't know. Yes, I do. He saw Kurj as—as—"
"A competitor?"
She watched me with her large eyes, like a dove startled from her hiding place. "Yes." Her voice hardened. "That man beat my child. So I left him."
"What happened to your husband?"
"He went to prison."
"And Kurj?"
"After that he hated anyone he thought might hurt me. What I didn't understand was why he hated himself. Back then I didn't realize how my presence . . .affected him." She rubbed her arms as if she were cold. "Sometimes I think his only stability came from his memories of my first husband. For a quarter of a century—while Kurj gathered his power as an Imperial Heir—he held onto his memories of his father as if they were a lifejacket."
I was beginning to see. "Then he found those files with the identity of his true father."
She nodded, her face pale. "He was enraged. It didn't matter that the Assembly did it in secret, without telling us, by switching my mother's and my eggs, because they were desperate for Rhon psions, and it seemed none of us could have more children. It didn't matter that none of us knew what they had done until long after. He felt betrayed by everyone he loved." Her voice shook. "In his view of the universe, the man who had what he wanted—the title of Imperator—had also taken what he loved more than anything in the world. Someone forbidden. To both of them."
Her hands trembled as she pushed a curl out of her eyes. "Did he say to himself, 'I will kill this man?' I don't believe that. But he knew the risks . . .and he still forced himself into the link." She took a breath. "I found him kneeling by Father's body. He—he was crying." Her voice broke. "When Kurj was a baby, I held him, loved him. Ai, Sauscony, he was my firstborn, my shining light. But he changed. Bit by bit, year by year, decade by decade." She closed her eyes, then opened them again. "Until I lost him."
I spoke softly. "I'm sorry. For all of it."
A tear traced its path down her cheek. "So am I."