Margu checked the chronometer on his arm, and sighed. “I’m surprised we haven’t heard yet. That may be good news for you; if this went bad, about all the option I’ve got is to request an early launch and get the frak out of here.”

Liss looked over to the control panel, largely dark save for a few screens and a single blinking light. “Margu, for old time’s sake, I’m giving you the chance to surrender, with me vouching for you. This isn’t like you. You don’t care if humans are people or not, you’ve never cared about politics.”

Margu smiled. “It’s been a while, Liss. Some things change.”

“And some things stay the same,” Liss said.

The dashboard suddenly lit up with warning lights, signals that the gangplank aft was opening. “What the frak?” Margu said, turning his chair to look at the controls.

That was a mistake. Liss leaped up and grabbed him around the neck. “You know, Margu, beating you twice in the same exact way? That’s fun.”

The door to the cabin opened, and two heavily armed peacekeepers shouted, “Hands up, hands up!”

Liss backed away from Margu, holding her hands up. “The person who called in the kidnapping is going to be exiting the control panel in a moment,” she said with a grin.

Margu turned, and his jaw dropped, as the same human who’d brought him down back on Avalon pulled himself up and out. “This man kidnapped my girlfriend,” he said. “Fortunately, he didn’t know I was with her. He threatened to kill her, and he’s involved in a plot to assassinate the heir to the Jotnar throne.”

The two officers looked at each other; while they did, a third entered the room, a young imperator. Liss smiled wider. “Hi, Vic! What are you doing on Jotnarherath?”

“Here with Crash Team Two,” Imperator Victor Archer-Pria said. “You say he’s involved in the assassination?”

“Yeah,” Liss said. “He…wait. Assassinationt? It…it happened?”

Victor looked at Liss, and his look caused the smile to run away from her face. She looked at Margu, and said, “He brought the assassins here. He can tell you exactly who they are, and who they’re working for. Did…were Rixie or Alex….”

“I’m under orders,” Victor said. “All I can tell you is that they transported two humans and a Titan to the hospital. Two of them had life-threatening injuries.”

Liss felt like she was going to throw up. She turned to Margu, and stared at him in fury. “Well,” she said, “I hope you’re proud of yourself.”

“I might just be,” Margu said, with a crooked grin. “I might just be.”

* * *

Vanser concluded his call and turned to the others in the room. “Report from Jutuneim Kaleva station – they’ve caught a conspirator. His ID shows him to be Krys Ganeg, but Imperators report his real identity is Margu Peten, a criminal who did a turn on Penthe about twenty ago. He was last known to be in deep trouble with the Overseer, back when they were still a thing; kind of surprised he turned up alive.”

“Quite a shame that he did,” Tiernan said, drumming his fingers. “Praetor-Imperator Nix…what do you think of this plan?”

Vanser leaned back in his chair, and sighed. “Your Majesty, given what we know about Alex – Senator Carey, I should say….”

“Alex would want to be called Alex,” Rhionne said.

Vanser smiled, just a bit. “Yes, your highness. He would. Anyhow…knowing Alex’s condition, I know exactly how angry Rixie is, and her anger could power half the Empire right now. She is trying to come up with a plan to inflict maximum damage on the saboteurs, to open them up to the greatest possible damage. She is trying to set things up to ensure that happens. This could get very out of control, depending on how much she’s determined to burn down.”

Tiernan nodded, and leaned back. “Having spoken to Raja about this…she agrees with Rixie, I think. Raja will not let Rixie risk Jotnarherath…but that does not mean that she will coddle traitors to keep it unblemished. It is her people, her province. I defer to her.”

“And you, Madam Floor Leader?” Vanser asked.

Loona sighed. “I am…not being very successful in divorcing my friendship with Alex from my feelings on this. Ultimately, Rajenlif is Dronung of Jotnarherath. This is an internal Jotnar matter. I trust that she will not do anything to harm the relationship between the Jotnar and the rest of the Empire. As long as she does not…as the Emperor said, these are her people and province.”

“Very well,” Vanser said. He pushed a button on his pad. “Bring her in,” he said.

The door to the room was opened, and two people entered, one carrying the other. Siru was not sure why she’d been awakened by two imperators in the middle of the night, and she was very afraid of the possible reasons. That she was being brought before the Emperor, again….

She was very grateful that Aleks had demanded to come along. Her knees felt like they were bound to give out at any moment.

“Your Imperial Majesty,” she forced herself to say. “Madam Floor Leader. Uh….”

“Please be seated,” Tiernan said. He looked at Vanser, who looked down at his pad.

“An assassin attacked Rixie and Alex Carey earlier this evening,” Vanser said.

Siru put her hands over her face for a moment. Just a moment. Then she pounded the table with a fist. “Vwofas Audara! Frak her!” she shouted.

The room was dead silent, and she looked down near where her fist had landed; she had not been close to hitting Aleks (she looked before she struck the table; she wasn’t reckless), but even so, he had been knocked to his behind by the shockwave.

“I…apologize for my outburst,” she said, looking at her boyfriend.

“No, it is quite an appropriate outburst,” Tiernan replied. “And tells me quite a bit. I believe that deception is not necessary, Vanser.”

Vanser sighed. The Emperor was probably right to not subject Siru Aljansen to doubt, even for a few hours. But it would mean they had to rely on her acting, and he had no idea if she was any good or not.

“Ms. Aljansen, the attacker was caught. But not before grievously wounding Senator Carey, who put himself between the attacker and Imperator Carey. We don’t know if Alex will survive, it doesn’t look good. But Rixie will.”

“He saved her from a Titan?” Siru said. “How?”

“The attacker was a human,” Loona said. “He was grievously injured, too, and we don’t know if he will survive.”

“Kind of hope he doesn’t,” Siru said.

“Oh, I hope he does,” Aleks replied. “I hope he does, and the Imperators are able to ask a lot of questions of him.”

“My offer stands, Mr. Odusi,” Vanser said. “Doctors will try to save both men. But whether or not Sen. Carey survives – we know that he accurately ascertained that this was not an attack directed at him. We know this because another assassin took a shot at Rixie while she was beginning to look into the matter; Rixie was saved by a guard who successfully blocked the shot at the cost of his arm. This is almost certainly related to the ongoing succession dispute.”

“Ms. Aljansen,” Tiernan said, “very few people in the Empire know whether or not this attack succeeded. As of right now, the only thing that the Imperators have released is that two humans and a Titan have been taken to hospital. This is true – the guard who defended Rixie also went for treatment.”

Siru leaned back, and nodded. “You want to bait my grandmother, and Aud, and anyone else involved in this. You want them to think they pulled it off.”

“Based on all the evidence that’s been collected, we strongly believe they were involved in this,” Vanser said. “But we’d like to nail them down. And Rixie thinks the best way is for them to walk into the Conclave of Ten believing that Audara Aljansen is in fact the first heir.”

“It is,” Siru said. “If they think they’ve won – even knowing that you might suspect them – they’d probably try to move quickly to shore things up. They might even try to suspend Rajenlif. The Council can send a petition to the Jotnardiggi – it gets complicated, but if they do…Aud could claim to be Dronung Regent.”

“That is how Rixie and Raja see it,” Tiernan said. “We want them to try it.”

“But they’d have to think they won, they’d have to have intelligence that they trusted….”

Siru stopped. “You want me to tell them.”

“You don’t have to,” Vanser said. “And I should add, if you do…we need it to be convincing.”

She shook her head, and looked at Aleks.

Hers was a family of murderers and criminals.

They had plotted their course. She just needed to help them reach their destination. But they were right, she couldn’t just text her grandma and say that Rixie was dead, that would be suspicious. She’d have to call…but how would she know, when nobody else did? An idea occurred to her, one that could work, maybe….

“My dad knows that I’m friends with Ulysses,” she said. “What if Ulysses found out from the Dronung?”

Rhionne grinned. “You should consider recruiting her, Vanser. She might be as smart as her boyfriend.”

“That is the plan,” Vanser said. “Would your grandmother trust you to report this?”

“I don’t call my grandmother unless I have to. But I guarantee she’d trust my dad. I just have to sell him. But I’d have to make it look organic, like I just found out.“

She nodded and smiled. “Can you wake Naleu up? And Ulysses? I have an idea.”

* * *

There was a mist in the air, but the sun of Jutuneim still broke through the gray clouds. It was ironic; it was deep in the night, but by the rotation of the world, it was just reaching sunset. The Conclave, which was set for first thing in the morning, would be starting about an hour after solar midnight. Like most Titans who didn’t live on Archavia, this was simply normal for Rixie, but still…it felt like there should be nothing but darkness, now and forever.

The military shuttle was waved through to the palace, and Rixie checked her pad. She was not sure if her plan was brilliant of foolish, but having a plan was keeping her from falling apart. A plan meant that she just needed to put one foot in front of the other, take each step as it came. If she didn’t have a plan, she would start to think about Alex more than she already was, which was only every instant that she wasn’t focused on the plan.

The shuttle touched down. “Magister-Imperator,” the young pilot said, “it was an honor to transport you. I hope…I hope the senator is okay. He’s a hero.”

“Thank you, Imperator-Disciplus Pasi,” she said. “Now, standing orders….”

“I understand, ma’am. We transported a senior member of Crash One to meet with the Dronung about the events. If anyone asks, we will heavily imply that it is to break the terrible news about her niece’s death.”

Rixie nodded. “Imperator-Disciplus, I’m glad we have you as part of the corps. I am ready to disembark.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The door of the shuttle opened, and Rixie stepped out. She had brought several different outfits with her, as she was undecided on which to wear to this session, how best to present herself as a princess. She didn’t doubt it anymore. She was wearing her Jotnar Variant Dress Uniform, with the Imperial Clade, Order of the Emperor, and Praetor-Imperator medals pinned on her chest. (She could have pinned them all, but Jotnar Variant etiquette held that more than the top three medals was boastful – and as she held three of the four highest honors an officer could earn, including the two highest, well…that was enough of a boast.)

Strictly speaking, she did not need to wear the sword that was slung on her right hip. Bearers of the Sword of Savarna did not need to advertise it, and though they always could wear their sword while in Jotnarherath, it was typically worn in a fashion that suggested it would not be drawn.

Rixie’s was in perfect position for her to unsheathe it using her dominant hand; it was worn as a threat.

Her cape, with simulated carba fur on the shoulders, billowed behind her as she walked toward the woman who met her. She was wearing a simple sweater and slacks. Still, Rixie came to attention, and saluted. “Your Imperial Majesty, High-dronung Rajenlif.”

Rajenlif nodded, and said, “Rixie Carey.” She put her hand on she shoulder of her niece; even in the dim misty twilight, Rixie could see that Rajenlif’s eyes were red with tears, and Rajenlif could see the same of Rixie’s.

“No title,” Rajenlif said, “is more honorable than the last name you bear. I…I have instructed the hospital to let me know any change of Alex’s status. And if you need to go to him…nothing is more important than the ties that bind you to him. Not me, not Jotnarherath, not the Empire itself, and certainly not your half-sister.”

Rixie took a deep breath, and let it out. “All I ask are two things. That no matter what…Alex’s heroism should be remembered. I hope with a big ceremony that embarrasses him and makes him complain about it and act humble even as he’s really proud of it. But if not….”

“Come,” Rajenlif said, “let’s go into the palace.”

They walked in, and through the dimly-lit hallways. “There have been many great parts to my getting to know you as my niece, Rixie, but one of my favorites has been getting the chance to know Alex. I think, perhaps, it is fortunate he was born a human; a personality that big would be overwhelming inside a Titan’s frame.”

“I think it’s partly because he has to be bigger than life to live in our world,” Rixie said.

“Perhaps so. But there’s another thing I know about Alex, and that is that he had already received the most important honors he could, and those were honors singularly belonging to him. He was father to your children, and husband to you. Believe me, no matter what, I will honor what Alex did to protect you – but no matter what, I know that Alex is happiest simply knowing that he was successful in protecting you.”

“Only because I failed to protect him,” Rixie said. She stopped, and rubbed her eyes. “I took two sleeping pills, so I’d get enough rest. If I’d taken one….”

Rajenlif pulled her niece in close, and held her tight, letting Rixie cry for a moment, just a moment, before she recomposed herself.

“Aunt Raja,” she said, softly, “the other thing…I don’t know how much pain I’m capable of inflicting on Aud, and Lady Aljansen, and all of them. But it’s…it’s a lot, that’s with the hope that Alex is going to be okay. If he dies…please rein me in if I need to be.”

“Rixie,” Rajenlif said, “if you gut Luviisa in the Chamber of Ten, it will be what the slag deserves. And if Alex dies, I will exercise my right to declare her a traitor to the Jotnar, sentence her to death, and give you the honor of executing her in whatever manner that you think will cause her the greatest pain.”

Rixie sighed. “I was supposed to protect him. I’m a Titan. What…what good am I?”

“You’re good enough that Alex Carey bled to protect you,” Rajenlif said. “And that is very good indeed.”

* * *

After arresting Vasha Zakrov, Phaega Aeus had been happy to rotate into lead on an open-issue crash team; it was a ten-month billet that you could serve on Archavia, occasionally going out to stand by at a sporting event or visit by the Emperor, there primarily in case something blew up badly. It would give her a chance to show off her new silver comet to a few old friends, and more important, it would give her a chance to work with her junior partner outside of a high-stakes mission. Not that the kid hadn’t handled it fine, he had – Vic was smart, strong, and determined. But more training was never a bad thing.

He’d known Rixie Carey growing up – his parents were friends with her – so it didn’t surprise Phaega that he had a good idea of what being an Imperator meant; still, it wasn’t all hunting down heiresses. A lot of being a good Imperator was using your relative down time productively, searching out leads on open projects while you waited for something to blow up. And she’d had fun showing him how you could make a name for yourself just as well by following up on something that the Praetor-Imperator hadn’t had time to tackle as you could by playing hero.

When she’d gotten the world that Praetor-Imperator Nix wanted a second crash team in Naesavarna, she’d sighed and been mildly annoyed; one crash team was generally overkill, two just meant they’d be doing nothing, but away from home. But soldiers don’t choose where they go, they go where they’re told.

When they’d been woken up in the middle of the night, she’d assumed it was a drill. And as she prepared to interrogate the person being brought in, she really wished it had been.

The door opened, and Vic guided the man to a chair. Outside the door, a woman was saying, “Offer still stands, Vic, if you need any more information….”

“It’s appreciated, Liss,” Victor said. “If you and Nest would do me a favor, go back to the White Shaar, get some rest. And don’t bother Karral…he’s okay, but we’re asking all comms to go through us right now.”

“Lady Tarsuss will expect me to contact her,” Liss said.

“Lady Tarsuss was contacted almost immediately,” Victor replied.

“I suppose she was,” Liss said. “As long as Lady Tarsuss has approved…you don’t have to guard us. We’ll stay put.”

“We’ll station a guard, but for your protection,” Victor said. “And Liss…we’ll talk more later. We’ll give you actual details when we’re cleared to. But I can tell you, from what we know…you and Karral and your team did everything you could.”

“Doesn’t sound like it was enough,” Liss said, “so no, we didn’t.”

Vic nodded, and entered the room, closing the door. Margu had taken a seat, and Phaega leaned back in hers. “So, Mr. Peten, who hired you?”

Margu shook his head. “First off, the name is Krys Ganeg. I will answer no questions and I would like an attorney.”

“Vic,” Phaega said, “your parents work for Lady Tarsuss, yes?”

“All of them,” Vic said. “And my sister’s dating her son.”

“Look, threats are great, they are,” Margu said, “but you have to know that if I tell you who hired me, I am not going to survive very long. You can send me to prison, maybe even execute me in a humane fashion; they can do much worse.”

“You do know,” Vic said, “that we’ll be poring over your bank records. We’ll find out where the money came from.”

“No, you won’t, not unless they were incompetents, and they aren’t. I am not going to give you any further information until my attorney gets here, so you may as well put me in holding.”

Phaega sighed. “All right, Vic, get him in holding. I’ll let Tuaut know. I hope things are going better for Crash One.”

* * *

“What do you have for me?” Krator-Imperator Saseu Gotegre asked, approaching a crewmate who’d been working on analyzing the injector.

“It’s quite ingenious,” the man said. “It’s a blend of some extremely powerful vasodilators, mixed in with a chemical soup that I’m still getting my head around.”

“Can you put that in either Archavian or Jotnar?”

“Yes ma’am…basically, this would cause arteries, veins, and capillaries to stretch and expand until they broke. This tiny dose would have a limited range, but if you got it upstream of an organ, you could cause a cascade of broken blood vessels, and that could cause severe tissue damage.”

“What if you got it upstream from the brain?” Karral asked; he had been deputized by Rixie, and Gotegre had seen no reason to change that.

“Well…it would depend on if it crossed the blood-brain barrier, but if it did…you could potentially cause a serious stroke with this. You’d have to be precise, though, and we still need more testing to know if it would hold together that long….”

“It would,” Gotegre said. “It has. Several times.”

“Ma’am?”

“I need to call the Praetor-Imperator,” she said. “This is how they’ve done it. Imperator Dqq’ufrnz,” she said, passing a young Ler man, “make sure the guards at the hospital know – the assailant is a probable mass murderer.”

* * *

Skor was up in his father’s loft; he and his dad were playing an old Jotnar board game, one that had survived to become Hnefatafl in Scandinavia. Skor was playing the Jofur and His Court, trying to escape the Aementi Guard. (They had originally been simply “Dark” and “Light,” but just as the Sami would eventually rename them Muscovites and Swedes, politics could not help but infect the game.)

They were both busy trying to pretend that their wives were not two floors down, pacing and swearing as they waited for some sort of confirmation that they had either succeeded in their plan (which he knew was murder…he hated that he knew it, but he knew it), in which case they would be in good shape in the morning, or if they’d failed, in which case…in which case things might get very bad indeed.

Skor was distracted, and playing poorly; his king had almost been cornered. He was relieved when his pad chimed, and he saw that his daughter was calling. Even if she was calling to express her own doubts…at least she was calling.

He stepped away a bit, and said, “Hi, Siru, how are you?”

Siru looked nervous; she appeared to be in the corner of a side room in a campus apartment; the furniture was shabby and worn, and the décor was the kind of jejune highbrow that people who are almost old enough to be adults are fond of.

“Hi Dad,” she said, looking both ways, as if hoping not to be overheard. “I…uh…I may have to go quick. I’m at a party, but…uh…look, are you somewhere that you can talk?”

“Of course,” Skor said. “I’m with your Grandpa Ranu. He was beating me at Adafla, so I’m okay with being interrupted. What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know if it’s wrong, but…Ulysses is at the party. We were talking. He was drinking a lot, he seemed upset. Anyhow, he said…uh….”

Siru looked around again, and looked back. “He said that Rixie and Alex Carey were killed,” she whispered.

“What?” Skor said.

“I guess they’re covering it up until they figure out…the palace doesn’t know what they’re going to do…she was the heir, the one ahead of…of Aud.”

Skor’s eyes went wide. “Otna preserve us,” he said.

“He said the person who shot them was a guard, she was basically like…a Jotnar Titan Party fan, hated species-mixing. He sobered up a little, and said I needed to keep it quiet, but….”

“Hey, Siru, you in there?”

“Oh, shaka.”

The pad’s display was shut off, but the line stayed on, as did the camera; Ulysses Throden-ColVanos staggered a bit at the doorway of the room. “You…were you talking to someone?”

“No, just talking to myself,” Siru said. “Just…that was….”

“Hey, if you can please…do me a favor. Please don’t tell anyone. Nobody’s supposed to know. If anyone found out Rixie was dead before…well, I’ve told you too much, is all. And your grandma and stepmother….”

“I’m not going to tell anyone,” Siru said. “Certainly not them.”

“Okay, okay. Thanks. You’re okay,” he muttered, walking away.

Siru pulled the pad back out, and said, softly, “I have to go.”

“I love you, Siru, and I’m sorry,” Skor said. He terminated the call.

He walked down several flights of stairs to the sitting room, where Luviisa and Aud were still pacing, Luviisa saying, “Well, how much money do I have to give them? Because I will!”

Skor looked at both of them. He loved them both. He was disgusted by them both. And he was disgusted with himself, because he knew that they would both be very impressed with him, and he wanted them to be.

“I have confirmation,” he said, “Rixie Carey is dead.”

Luviisa and Aud both looked at him. “I’ll call you back,” Luviisa said. “What do you mean, you have confirmation?”

“Prince Ulysses and Siru were at a party together, he was drunk and let it slip.”

Aud looked at Luviisa, and smiled, cautiously. Luviisa said, “While I want to believe that…is there any chance that Siru could be misreporting?”

“She went to a side room to call me. He came in…I overheard him asking her not to tell anyone. He said something like, ‘if anyone found out Rixie was dead before…’ but didn’t finish the sentence. He sounded drunk.”

“Did they…did they have the killer in custody?”

“They said the shooter was a member of the guard, anti-species-mixing.”

“Wait…a member of the guard? A shooter?” Aud asked. “That’s what he said?”

“There was another…there was someone else,” Luviisa said. “Otna love the Jotnar people, Princess Audara, you will be Dronung. And you, my son…you will be Jofur.”

Skor forced a smile. “Well. That is…that is very good news, indeed.”

* * *

Thurl Niebal walked into the room where Tuva Errisdat sat, an expression of contempt and rage etched upon his face.

“Who hired you, Tuva? Who convinced you to turn traitor?” he asked.

“I am injured. I ask for transport to the hospital, and an attorney,” Tuva replied. Thurl bared his teeth.

“You are lucky that I don’t saw your other limbs off with a rusty knife, vwofas traitor,” he said. “You befouled my team. My team. I’ve half a notion to undo that tourniquet, let you bleed out like Senator Carey. Of course, his blood was spilled in defense of Jotnarherath. You’re a frakking Aemet.”

“You won’t bait me,” Tuva said. “I demand treatment and an attorney.”

“You tell me who hired you,” Thurl said, “and I’ll get you to the hospital. We’ll get you a shiny new arm for your trial on charges of attempted assassination. It’ll come in handy in whatever prison you’re sent to, I’m sure.”

Thurl walked over, and got right in Tuva’s face. “Your parents are going to be so disappointed, Tuva. Your family is going to be disgraced. Your actions probably cost your mother and father their business and pensions and clearances. At least, not unless you clear their names. Not unless you tell me who hired you, so we can prove they knew nothing of it.”

Tuva’s eyes widened. Thurl wasn’t wrong. Niebal had already told Rixie Carey that he expected he would be fired; he accepted his failure. But he was also right that it wouldn’t just be he and Tuva going down. Anyone connected to her would, too.

Her mother had led Team Seven for five years, and she and Tuva’s father had been part of the guard for twenty. They ran a lucrative security firm, one that would collapse overnight once this came out, and their clearance was pulled, and everyone who had hired them was investigated.

“You didn’t think about that, did you?” Thurl said. “Stupid, stupid traitor. You’ve cost your family their livelihood. It’ll be ruin. I hope the money you got made it worth it.”

“It wasn’t about the money,” Tuva said. “It was about stopping those freaks. Those mutts. You want hybrids running loose? Jotnar blood perverted? A frakking monster on the throne when this next ‘Dronung’ leaves?”

Niebal nodded. “Who were you working with?”

“I was asked to help by Algeaðu,” Tuva said. “At least, that’s where the orders originated. I will not burn my contact, not for anything. And no, I don’t know who Algeaðu is, nobody does. But I do know they’re a gorram hero of Jotnarherath. And so am I. It’s you who’s the traitor. You, and the Dronung, and definitely that vwofas Hoplite pretender.”

Niebal stood up slowly, and nodded again. “So you were to sabotage comms, and when that went bad, you decided to shoot on your own?”

“I was going to prison anyhow,” Tuva said. “Accessory to assassination. Fifty year penalty. Taking the shot didn’t add much more.”

“All right,” Niebal said. “Your confession is noted. Senkeir! Get her transport to Northwest Naesavarna Hospital.”

“That’s the worst hospital in Naesavarna,” Tuva said.

“I know,” Niebal replied.

* * *

Zhan had finished getting dressed; he needed to go meet the tram pretty soon, he wanted to get things in order before asking permission to accompany his wife to Jutuneim. He hadn’t bothered to ask Pryvani if she was going to Jutuneim, of course she was. And he knew he’d be cleared to accompany her; Vanser had once told him, point blank, that part of the reason that Zhan had been made an Imperator was that management of Lady Tarsuss (and other nobles, but mostly Pryvani) fell under the purview of the Imperators Corps. Not that they mistrusted Pryvani, or that they thought her disloyal. They simply viewed her like one would view Superman – a generally good but extremely powerful weapon that could cause a lot of problems if people stopped paying attention to it.

Pryvani wasn’t saying much, and was affecting an air of calm. But Zhan knew his wife better than anyone, including, he suspected, his wife. (He was wrong about this; Pryvani knew herself very well. But Zhan knew her as well as she knew herself, and that was one of the great accomplishments of the modern era.) And Zhan knew that his wife was as far from calm as she could possibly be.

“Stop beating yourself up,” he said.

“I am not beating myself up,” Pryvani said. “I am simply frustrated that I failed to identify a potential threat to a friend.”

“Rixie missed that threat,” Zhan said. “You are very good at a lot of things, my goddess, but you are not a better tactical mind than Rixie. If you were you wouldn’t have hired her.”

“Even so,” Pryvani said, “Alex is fighting for his life, and it was my job to protect him.”

“How do you figure?” Zhan asked. “Rixie came up with a solid plan, it had a blind spot. This is not the first time anyone, even someone as good as her, has missed something. It won’t be the last. The lucky thing is that Alex was there to protect her.”

“He shouldn’t have to protect her. That’s….”

Pryvani stopped herself, because she had looked up, and realized that her husband was trying very hard not to blow a gasket.

“Why did you stop?” Zhan said. “Weren’t you going to explain that it’s Rixie’s job to protect him? Your job to protect me?”

“I…was,” Pryvani said. “And I know that sounds….”

“Pryvani Tarsuss, don’t you dare,” Zhan said. “Don’t you dare take this away from Alex.”

Pryvani stopped, her eyebrows shot up. “What?”

Zhan rubbed his temples. “You don’t know – you can’t know – what it’s like to be human. And I don’t fault you for that, I don’t know what it is like to be a Titan, and I never will. But please, for a moment, try to put yourself in our shoes. You, Rixie, Taron – all of you – you want to protect us. And I get that, and it’s laudable, but don’t you realize that we would also like to be able to protect you? To keep you safe from harm, as much as we can?”

“You protected me,” Pryvani said. “When you killed Trell.”

“Yeah, and if I’d died, would you have lamented that? Because I wouldn’t. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I lived, and I’m hoping and praying that Alex pulls through. But if I’d died, I would have died with no regrets. I saved Atlantis and you from a murderer. If it had been at the cost of my life, it’s a fair trade.”

“Yes, but….”

“But nothing. Alex Carey saw a threat to his wife. Knowing full well that he may die, he took on that threat, and using his wits, he defeated it. He saved Rixie’s life. And I know that there was no point in that defense of Rixie that he doubted his actions, no point at which he felt sorry for himself, and gorram sure there was no point at which he wished Rixie was defending him. He stood in front of the monster, and he defeated it. Bless him, he has earned every plaudit that is coming his way, and if he dies and Rixie lives…then when I meet him in whatever comes after this world, I’m gonna shake his hand, and let him tell me the story, because he’ll tell it well. He always has been able to tell a story. And he’ll be proud of every second of it, proud that in the moment of truth, at the moment that mattered – he protected Rixie. Because she deserved his protection every bit as much as he deserved hers, and he wanted to protect her every bit as much as she had protected him. And he did.”

Pryvani waited for Zhan to finish, and took a deep breath. “I…am sorry,” she said. “Perhaps it is because…I know that Rixie would have much rather have taken the attack.”

“Of course she would have,” Zhan said. “But that’s my point – it goes both ways. If Alex survives, maybe some day, Rixie saves him at the cost of her life, and that will be awful and Alex will be furious and Rixie will be happy to make the sacrifice. They are equal partners. That’s…look, I know….”

“Zhan,” Pryvani said, softly, “you are an equal partner in this marriage.”

Zhan snorted.

“You are,” Pryvani said. “And the reason you are is because you have never been afraid to tell me when I am being wrong. And you have. Often. More than anyone outside the two of us will ever know. You have made me a better person. And you have protected me from danger – not just by killing Trell. You have, on occasion, protected me from myself. And nobody is more capable of damaging me than I am.”

Zhan sighed. “Look, I…I know I’m not a fully-equal partner. Nobody could be.”

“You are almost correct,” Pryvani said. “I can count on one hand the people strong enough to put up with me, to demand that I treat them as my equal. I fell in love with you because you were one of them. And whenever I have done something foolish, like forget that you and Alex and all the other humans are as protective as we are, you correct me. You hold me to account. You keep me from taking this away from Alex, who, being Alex, risked everything for Rixie. Because he loves her more than he loves his own life. And that if I spend my time wishing I had been able to foresee the danger…I forget to honor the courage of one of my best friends.”

Pryvani crossed the room, bent down, and kissed Zhan on the head. “I love you. And I’m sorry.”

Zhan sighed. “Look…I got upset, and it’s…I’m worried about Alex too. And Rixie. She’s running silent, that means she thinks there’s still danger. I’m sorry for blowing my top.”

“Don’t be,” Pryvani said. “Don’t ever be. You are my partner, Zhan. Nobody has more right to be angry with me. Not even me.”

* * *

“You really were great,” Ulysses said. “Have you ever considered acting?”

“Absolutely not,” Siru said. “I get nervous on stage. I tried it in secondary school. But still, you did pretty well too. And of course, Naleu’s holos were spot on.”

“It wisna ony problem, aw A dae wis uise an auld rickmatic,” Naleu replied.

“You all did great,” Rhionne said. “You all did. And Ms. Aljansen…I don’t know what’s coming next. But if your family’s going to survive in any fashion, it will be thanks to your willingness to stand up for the Empress, the Empire, and Jotnarherath. And if it doesn’t, well…you have a bright future ahead of yourself, no matter what. My family knows you’re no traitor, and we do not hold you responsible for your family’s actions.”

“Besides, you can always come to the Imperators Corps job fair with me,” Aleks offered.

“I insist that she does!” Vanser replied. “I….”

He paused, and looked at his pad, and shrugged. “Well, that doesn’t tell us much. The guard who took the shot said she was hired by Keystone. Which is true, I suppose, but it’s like me saying I’m paid by the Emperor.”

“Who’s Keystone?” Ulysses asked.

Vanser looked around the room. “Actually, I should probably brief your grandfather. With due respect to all of you…pretend you didn’t hear that. It’s been a long night and my OpSec is inexcusably shaky.”

“We didn’t hear a word of what you said,” Ulysses replied.

“Except for your invitation to maybe look into the Imperators Corps, and…I don’t know, we’ll see who in my family is under arrest in a few hours,” Siru added.

Vanser left the room, and Siru said, “Well, Aleks, do you want to go try to sleep and fail? I’m so tired I feel like I could fall over and so nervous that I might never sleep again.”

Aleks was quiet for long enough that Siru felt the need to add, “Aleks?”

“Keystone,” he muttered.

“We’re forgetting that,” Ulysses said, but Aleks shook his head.

“Keystone. That’s…the same thing as a capstone, right?”

“Basically,” Ulysses said. “There are subtle differences, but I don’t remember them exactly. Why?”

“Is there a difference in the words in Jotnar?”

Siru shook her head. “They actually all translate as algeaðu. Cornerstone too, for that matter. Though that….”

She stopped. “Otna protect me. Algeaðu.”

Aleks nodded. “Aud called your grandmother that.”

Siru knew what this meant. But she had already accepted the treachery of her grandmother. This was the last piece of the puzzle.

She looked at Aleks, and offered her hand. As soon as she had him secured, they rushed from the room, shouting, “Imperator Nix! Princess! Wait!”

* * *

Dr. Melysu Pesti took a step back from Alex Carey, and wiped her brow. Six hours of surgery, and they had done remarkably well. She’d put his odds at one-in-five when he’d come in, and they were still maybe 40-50 percent now, but this was…well, it was Alex Carey. He was one of the founders of Avalon, a hero of the province. And from the times she had met him, a very nice guy. She wouldn’t have stopped working until his brain was completely inert.

They had sealed his wounds, run a hundred cubic milliunits of blood into him (a typical human only has 67 mu³ of blood; a great deal had immediately run out of him), and she had approved a dose of cortexifan three times that recommended for his weight – judging based on sheer instinct that between blood loss and damage, anything else would be insufficient to repair him.

And even this might not be enough. His heart had come back, his lungs – his brainstem was working, but that was resilient. A brainstem is not a person.

A brain is.

The brain was showing flickers of activity, but disorganized and chaotic. This was not a bad thing, necessarily, but it was not ideal, either. If the brain was going to come back on its own, it was usually showing some organized patterns at this point.

That didn’t mean you couldn’t coax it into some.

She paused, before she moved on to the last step they’d take before releasing him from surgery. The people in the room with her were humans, most of whom had grown up as pets in Jotnarherath. They had all shown aptitude for biology when they’d been tested by the Interior Ministry; they had all asked to become healers. She and a small team of Avalonians, with help from Jotnar doctors, had in less than an Imperial year transformed them into people who she’d be happy to recommend for nursing licensure, and they were still learning, every day. Some of them would end up doctors; some would end up teaching the next generation. She was incredibly proud of them, and never more so than at this moment.

“I don’t know if this will be enough,” she said. “But whether it is, or isn’t…everyone in this room did an amazing job today. Either you have saved Senator Carey’s life – or you have ensured that in his last hours, he was cared for by humans who did everything they could to save him, and did as well as any team on Avalon or in the Empire could.”

The team looked on expectantly. She nodded to one trainee, who had placed neural stabilizers as per protocol. “Generate a standard standing three-hertz wave. On mark three…two…one.”

The man pressed the buttons on his control panel, and the device beeped, a steady three times per second. Pesti waited a full minute, before she said, “Halt stimulation.”

The man pressed a button, and Pesti watched the brain imaging. It had shown a steady wave under neural stimulation, but so would a steak; the question was whether it could hold and maintain the signal.

The brain patterns flickered, held, and dimmed, and for a second, she feared that the damage had been too great to repair.

But only for a second; a second later, the pattern gained coherence, a slow, one-point-six-hertz standing Delta wave, rolling through the brain of Alex Carey.

“Okay,” she said. “We have baseline neural firing.”

A few members of the team pumped their fists, but none of them did much more; this was a long way from recovery, and quite a bit could still go wrong. All this meant was that there was still a brain architecture, that the patterns of Alex’s mind had not degraded so badly that he was irrevocably lost. It did not guarantee that there was enough of him left that he could be found.

“All right, take Senator Carey to ICU-13. Standard reinforcement at six and twelve hours, then at fifteen hours, we’ll initiate an eight-hertz wave in the posterior region. Point-five cortexifan at that time. If that holds…well, let’s hope it holds.”

She didn’t add that if that held, it was still not enough. It would be at least two Imperial days before they even tried to wake Alex up. If all the stimulation worked. If everything held together, and went as well as it possibly could.

But at least, for now, Alex Carey was still technically alive. And so, exhausted, she nodded to staffers, and sat down heavily.