Hyax is on her feet and sprinting the moment Kanori hits the desk. Before she can reach the console, Sykora has recovered from the crystallized moment of shock. As the voice on the other end of the connection continues its death chant, she slams the disconnect on the arm of her throne. One harsh, buzzing, whispered word: “Soapstone—”

The connection terminates. The glass hex reflects the firmament again, then sinks away.

“Chief Engineer.” Sykora springs from the throne like it’s scalding hot. “Lock down our communications. Nothing comes in. I want a sweep primed back to Black Pike within the hour.”

“On it.” Waian scurries to her workstation.

“Try to raise the Cloud Gate again, majordomo.” Sykora finds Grant’s reaching touch and cinches her tail tightly to it. “No audio. Text only.”

Vora has her tablet laid flat on the table. Her thin fingers dance across it. “Right away, Majesty.”

“Hyax. Hit the switch and bring us down.”

The scarred Brigadier gives a crisp salute. “Yes, Majesty.”

“From this point until we know more, no calls go directly to Sykora. No blind answers, no video or audio until it’s been screened.”

The Taiikari all turn their heads to the sound of Grant’s order. Sykora’s mouth was open for another command; it stays open. For a second his steel shakes. Then he puts it back on.

“Vora. You’re liaison. You answer all communications, bring the gist to Sykora, and she responds through you. Disable or reroute all incoming connections. Earpieces only. No PAs, no sound systems. Any shipwide announcements we do text-based communicator alerts. The Black Pike is a black box.”

Sykora’s hold on him cinches tighter. “Grant—”

He looks at her, and however his agitation has manifested on his face, it’s enough to widen her eyes when they meet his. Whatever argument she was preparing is tucked away into some potential future.

“If you would, Majordomo,” she says. “Get a headset and work with Waian to route all our calls through it. Let’s—ah.” Her eyes flutter. “Let’s adjourn for a few minutes. Shall we?”

Vora’s voice drops. “Are you all right, Majesty?”

“Quite. Quite all right. Yes.” Sykora attempts a smile; it elongates into a grimace. Her knees buckle as the adrenaline begins to wear off. She is distraught, Grant suddenly realizes. If he weren’t holding her up, she might have dropped to the deck.

“Easy,” he murmurs.

She tries to laugh him off, but it’s too brittle, and it snaps into shards. “I’m fine, dove.”

“Vora.” Grant leans into the Majordomo’s airspace. “Can you take over? Give me an hour with her.”

Vora nods vigorously enough that her glasses slip down her nose. “Get her out of here, Majesty. We’ll be fine. I’ll get our line set up and call you if there’s anything urgent.”

Sykora clings to him like a burr all the way to the lift. He feels her crumbling further with every step.

“I didn’t mean to bulldoze you back there,” he says, as the lift’s calming hum embraces them. “I was just freaking out about the, uh.”

“No. No, it’s all right. I happen to be freaking out as well.” She looks up at him. “Does it show?”

Her eye twitches.

“Cool as a cucumber,” Grant says.

“Oh. Good. Because I thought I felt my eye twitch.”

“I didn’t notice.”

Her swallow is hard enough that a little whimpering mmm follows it. “I have no idea what that was. That call. No clue. Your order was prudent. Most prudent. It’s the least we should do right now. I have never felt quite so, uh. Such a strange thing.” Sykora laughs unsteadily. Her posture is stiff and unsteady. “I—uh. I—”

Her mouth stays open but no words manage an escape. Just a faint little haah, halfway between a laugh and an exhalation. He can see her chest heaving. He tucks an arm behind her knees and scoops her up bridal-style, holding her close to him. Her pulse is galloping; her breathing is shallow.

She quivers in his arms. “The sound it made.” A violent shiver of her tail, like she’s trying to dislodge it, and she begins to come undone. “The fucking sound. The pop.”

“I know.” He cradles her. “I know, Batty. You’re okay.” One hand laces into the hair on the back of her head, where her own detonator rests. The other nudges the turbo on the lift. Nobody but him should see her like this.

The lift opens and their feet plant back on the ground. He carries his petrified Princess into their cabin, shoulders through the tapestry that divides her trophies from their bed, and tips with her into their pillow-lined nest.

“Was that the Empress? Why would she do that? The Empress is the only one who knows these codes.” Sykora talks while Grant unzips her little boots and underhands them into a corner. “Perhaps she has them written down, and they were taken from her somehow? Perhaps—but—”

“Just be here with me for a second.” He strokes her velvety ear. “Breathe with me. We’re safe in here.”

“I know I’m—disposable. I was all right with it.”

He tugs her all the way into his embrace and rests his chin on top of her head. “Batty.”

“I was,” she insists. “I knew that my life was on loan. But now. Now with you and with everything, with, with our family…”

The rest of her breath comes out in a jagged stab. Her eyes are welling.

“I can’t just belong to her,” she whispers. “I can’t. I can’t leave you alone.”

He folds her up against his chest, as much of her in contact with him as possible. The storm arrives and breaks her down, sweeping what’s left into a fit of body-shaking sobs.

“What if it was her?” Sykora recovers her voice just enough to weep the words. “What if she’s throwing me away? What if it was her?”

“It wasn’t.” He strokes her hair. “It can’t have been.”

Something shifts in him as the Princess in his lap weeps, terrified and helpless. The obedience he’s been studiously building toward Zithra XIX falters. He redirects his dedication to its proper place.

He has always hated it, the detonator. But he’s accepted it as the cost of an Imperial wife. Now he’s seen her fate, should it explode. Now he knows what it looks like, how it sounds. How quickly and easily she can be taken from him.

Fuck that. He is no longer accepting this like a good little husband. He’s getting that fucking bomb out of Sykora’s head. He doesn’t know how, yet, what to say to Zithra to force her hand. But he will.

She tugs desperately on his shoulders. “Cave. I need my cave.”

He lays her down on the bed and eases his full weight on top of her. A shaky groan rises from her and trails off into an exhalation. Her limbs splay out.

“Will you let me and the command group be the talkers on this?” he asks. “Until I know you’re safe?”

She nods. Her legs slip around his waist. “You are so good to me. I’m making a holiday for you.”

“All right. Sure. Grant day.” He chuckles. “What’s the biggest Taiikari holiday, anyway? We’re coming up on a decacycle. That’s sort of like a Taiikari year, right?”

“Sort of.” Her tail thumps. “Newtide. That’s the big one.” She gasps and opens her eyes. “Oh my God. Grant. Your first Newtide’s in a cycle and a half.”

“How do you celebrate Newtide?”

“I am going to celebrate Newtide by getting my husband drunk as hell,” Sykora says. “While I watch and drink zaikem juice.”

He takes a moment to realize what she’s saying. His thumbs rub the lines of her obliques where they bracket her stomach. “I drink for two, you eat for four?”

She kisses his chest. “That’s right.”

They lie together, talking about nothing in particular between lapses of comfortable silence. She tells him about the kindek Waian used to own, an ornery old carpet named Mokka who bit everyone. He tells her about his brother’s cat, a tabby improbably called Hrothgar. Her breathing deepens as he relates a story about the time Joey dropped in on him unannounced in college, viking cat in tow, and a night both cat and owner puked on his floor. “In Hroth’s defense, he only did it once.”

Her laugh is muted and drowsy.

“Are you sleepy, Batty?”

“No,” she says, sleepily.

“Yes, you are.”

“Nuh-uh.”

“You can sleep. It’s okay.”

“Not tired.”

“Okay,” he says. “Let’s get up, then.”

“Okay,” she mumbles.

He waits. Less than a minute and she’s snoring beneath him.

He eases himself up and off her as unobtrusively as he can, lifting her tail from his waist. She mumbles something and turns over onto her side. Seeing the Princess alone in their big bed, he’s struck by how small she is. When she’s awake, the sharpened gravity of her command outsizes her, he supposes. Tucked in and curled up among the pillows, she’s like a little stuffed animal.

His stomach tightens with a wave of fierce, protective love for his tiny wife. The terrifying vulnerability her Empress built into her has punched a hole into her unassailable confidence. She needs him. It’s time for him to show up for work.

He writes a note and leaves it half-open on the nightstand, by Sykora’s communicator.

hey hon—

Going to the command deck to check in with vora and see where we’re at with the Cloud Gate. Promise not to make any big decisions without you. If one comes up I’ll come wake you. Take time and get rest.

Let’s stay off communicators or calls just in case, OK? Just come down to the deck when you wake up. Thank you for indulging your doofus husband’s paranoia.

Love you,

your insufferable Maekyonite

He rides the lift by himself. Is the hum always this loud?

The doors open back onto the bridge and he nearly flinches at the universal salute thrown his way. He puts fist to chest and joins the command group, who are huddled around Vora’s workstation.

“We’ve raised Cloud Gate, Majesty.” Vora taps her tablet. “It should come as no surprise that the prevailing mood is chaos and panic. They’re going to bring the ZKZ into orbital dock over the closest metropole and wait there for an investigation. Unfortunately, I doubt we’ll be privy to its results.”

“Had to expect as much.” Grant scoots his humble Maekyonite-sized swivel chair up next to Sykora’s empty throne and slumps into it. “Okay. Waian. Can you trace the kill phrase connection? Is there a way?”

Waian nods. “We tore out quick, but there’ll be a log.”

“Whoever made that call did it from an empty office,” Grant says. “If you get us a location, if you can tell us whose, we can turn this into an opportunity to move another step closer.”

Waian bows. “On it, boss.”

“Vora.” Grant gestures to her. “Over here.”

The majordomo approaches his chair and stands on tiptoes to reach his ear.

“What’s the word?” he asks.

“Fraught,” she whispers. “The word is fraught. We need to tell the bridge what happened. They’re putting two and two together, many of them. The Cloud Gate transmissions are frantic. I don’t think I’d do a full ship-wide address, but they wouldn’t be on the bridge if they weren’t trustworthy.”

“Are you saying I don’t think like you’re the one doing the address?” He tugs at a loose thread on the stitching of his armrest. “Or am I doing the address?”

Vora pulls her glasses off and rubs them on the hem of her uniform tunic. “They’re wondering, Majesty. None of them would vocalize this but they are wondering.”

“Wondering what?”

“They’re wondering if it was the Empress. Wondering if we’re steering them out of the proper place. If we’re doing something heretical.” Without her glasses, Vora looks older and sterner. “You’re wearing anticomps; you’re their alien Prince. You are an exception on an exception on an exception. And they love you. Of course they do. But they’re wondering. What’s happening? And I can try to tell them.”

She puts her glasses back on.

“But I’m not their Prince,” she says.

Grant stands up and steps to the command deck’s balustrade. He has to lean down to close his hands on it; the solid crimson wood anchors him. This is your ship, too. Grant. Your Pike.

“All right,” he calls. “Bridge crew. Listen up.”

The tasks and conversations whisper to a halt. Twoscore or more pairs of eyes look up at him, through crimson pupils or amber lenses.

“There has been an incident with Cloud Gate resulting in the death of Void Princess Kanori by cranial detonation,” Grant says, and watches the group inhalation that brings. “We’re tightening access to the Princess until we can verify how this happened and understand the situation we’re in. I know this is an uncertain moment. I’m—”

I’m uncertain, too, he’s about to say. But where a Maekyonite might find comfort in that emotional camaraderie with their commander, would a Taiikari?

“I’m here representing Sykora in her stead and by her command,” he says. “And Sykora is as faithful a servant of the Empress as was ever born.” He detaches from the balustrade and straightens, lacing his hands behind his back. “Faithful enough to turn a Maekyonite rebel like me into a proud subject of the Empire. Faithful enough to be entrusted with the deadliest weapon of the Empire and the Empire’s finest crew. If, for some reason, this act was the Empress’s doing…”

His fingers flex into a tight fist. Careful, Prince Grantyde.

“It’s surely by error of one of her intermediaries, or the result of some treasonous lie being told to her. Whatever the case, whatever the perceived blemish, we’ll correct it. We’ll wash away any stain on our honor and drown out any voice that questions our loyalty.”

The wound-up tension among the bridge crew loosens by a few turns.

Emboldened, Grant continues. “And in the much more likely event that it wasn’t, we’ll find whoever has taken the power that belongs solely to our Empress, whoever has dared to steal it and attempt its use against the Princess of the Black Pike, and we’ll blast their atoms across the firmament.”

The promise of selectively applied violence. That gets some enthusiasm from his audience.

“In either case, my dedication to Sykora of the Black Pike is as strong as it’s ever been. I have every confidence that you will remain as steadfast in her defense as she is in yours. Whoever launched this attack at us did it because we are closing in on them. And they erred gravely, because in their failure to end Sykora’s life they left a trail right to them. Now let’s do our jobs and make her proud.” Grant gets a quarter of the way turned around before he remembers, and faces them again. “Glory to the Pike.”

“Glory to the Pike,” they chorus.

He licks his lips. “Glory to the Empress.”

“Glory to the Empress.”

“Right.” He steps away and tries to imitate Sykora’s easy slouch in his seat. He doesn’t feel easy, that’s for sure.

Waian approaches and leans on his armrest. “Good shit, boss. Wish I’d have recorded it. Sykora is gonna be proud as hell.”

“My armpits are swimming right now,” he says.

She chuckles. “How’s our girl?”

“She’s doing okay. I think she had a bit of an attack about the, uh—” He taps the back of his skull.

“I never heard of another Void Princess that happened to in the Zithran era,” Waian says. “It’s always been a symbolic thing, in her head. Now it’s, well, a bomb. In her head.”

“Waian.” He bends down face-to-face with her. “Maybe this is treason to say but I want that fucking thing out of her.”

“Fucking A, Majesty.” Waian’s lavender tail corkscrews in agitation. “If that connection wasn’t the Empress, then this is our call-for-action to her. She’s a goddamn Princess Margrave now. I can’t get it out myself. Nobody on the Pike can. It blows if it detects tinkering by anyone besides the Empress’s handpicked medtechs.”

“You don’t think it was the Empress, do you?” Grant’s chewing at his mustache hairs. He used to do this on Maekyon around the end of the month, when money was tight. He thought he kicked this habit. “What have we even done?”

“What did Kanori do, is the question,” Waian says. “Like, do we know Sykora was next?”

“Soapstone.” Hyax paces over to their conference, footfalls heavy in her HAK suit. “That was the beginning of a kill phrase. We have to operate assuming Sykora was next. Excellent speech, Majesty. Incidentally.”

“Thank you, Brigadier.”

“So either the Empress wants Sykora dead,” Hyax continues, “or the kill phrases have been compromised.”

“Shit sandwich either way,” Waian says.

Hyax nods. “Shit sandwich.”

“Perhaps we contact the Empress?” Vora offers, sounding less certain than Grant has ever heard her. “Clear this up? It might be some sort of deception against her, or a misunderstanding.”

Grant clears his throat and looks around at the command group. Near the back, Hyax makes eye contact with him and gives a subtle shake of her head.

Soapstone. The first of four unknown words that will end every dream Grant has, the moment they’re spoken.

“Not yet,” he says. “Not until Sykora’s back in this seat. She makes that call.”

“Majesty.” Vora holds up a finger. “We’re being hailed.” Her ear twitches as a message comes through her headset. Whoever it is twists the corners of her mouth downwards. She adjusts her thick glasses. “Another garnish for our shit sandwich, I’m afraid.”

Grant braces himself and wishes very badly that his wife were here. “Who’s in your ear?”

Vora tugs distractedly at one of her platinum locs. “Void Princess Narika of the Glory Banner, Majesty. Calling for her sister.”