Two days later, Pryvani was ushered into the Col I Retiring Room in the Palace of the Rising Sun. She was grateful that Tiernan had not redirected her to his office; her message had been terse, but clear in what she needed to discuss. She was not risking their friendship to ask; she knew Tiernan well enough to know that. But she feared she was denting it, and she would not have held it against him if he had shown displeasure in that. The question she was about to ask was simply not asked, not ever.

She was not surprised to see the Empress had joined the Emperor. Indeed, she had rather expected it. Rajenlif looked tired, and for once, as old as she was. She and Tiernan remained sitting as Zhalem Ro announced Pryvani.

“Welcome, Senator,” Tiernan said. Then, turning to Zhalem, he said, “Seal the door. Nobody is to come into this room until I signal them to.”

“Of…course, Your Imperial Majesty,” Zhalem said, though she raised an eyebrow; this was damned unusual. But she did her duty, closing and mag-locking the door, and passing the Emperor’s message to the guards who stood outside.

Inside the room, Tiernan stood, and walked over to the counter. “Kapskrasi? Or would you prefer hustain?”

“I should probably be fixing the drinks, Your Imperial Majesty,” Pryvani said.

“Nonsense. An emperor who is not able to fill a glass with liquid is a poor Emperor. Besides,” he said, handing Pryvani a glowberry schnapps, “you have kept family secrets for us, for decades. You have earned our trust and friendship. To family secrets,” he said, raising his own glass, drawing a mirthless laugh from Pryvani.

“I had thought I had worded my message in a way that did not come right out and say it,” she said, raising hers.

“You did,” Rajenlif said. “You allowed us to tell you to not to pursue this, and to do so in a way that we could all pretend that it never happened. But of course, it did.” She took her glass of akvjat and downed it in a gulp, and looked up. “Tiernan, you do not have to stay for this. It is not your burden.”

“Nor was it yours, my wife,” Tiernan said, settling beside her. “You had to take it on when you assumed the throne, and now that I am primate of our families, it is my burden as much as it is yours. We bear it all together,” he said, grasping her hand.

Pryvani sat down, and waited for the Empress to speak.

“She is my brother’s daughter,” the Empress said.

Pryvani nodded. “First, I will not share that with anyone, not even Rixie, unless you tell me that I can. Second, any further question I ask, you both may tell me that it will not be answered, and I will accept that. That said…Allat-rygado Rajenlif, may I ask why Rixie was placed with the Hoplites, and not simply kept off to the side, as Aud Bjalki was?”

Rajenlif gave Pryvani the slightest of sardonic smiles. “Because as well as I covered my tracks, it was possible for someone like you to make the connection.”

“It is not well-known,” Pryvani said. “But it can be inferred, if one is careful and curious enough about a woman who was rude to one’s sister, and who wonders enough about why someone as smart as you would keep such an obnoxious person around in an important family position. You were doing so as a kindness, then?”

“I was doing so because I would not repeat my mother’s mistake,” Rajenlif said.

* * *

“It was an accident.”

“Don’t you give me that,” Rajenlif barked.

44 Imperial years before, in a modest apartment in Aelfheim, the High Dronung of Jotnarherath and Empress Consort of the Titan Empire had laid into her younger brother with all the fury she had been holding in since before she had ascended to the throne. He was a drunk and a layabout, an embarrassment to the family. He had dishonored her mother and father by wasting two years of his life “mourning” them by partying in the hottest night clubs of Jutunheim. When she had found a way to force him back to school, found him a job, he had reacted with ingratitude and laziness.

And all of this, she might have forgiven, if not for the crying babe in the next room.

“What? You think I wanted a kid? Her implant failed. I was gonna tell you, but you were on Archavia and I mean, if you’d let me be regent here like I said….”

Rajenlif slapped her brother across the face, as hard as he could. “Regent?! Do you think you are in any condition to lead our people? A drunk who cannot even remember to get his gorram birth control implant recharged? Oh, yes, brother, I did pull your medical records, I did check to see when you were last in to have your implant checked. You were a month beyond recommendations, and you know that – it’s another thing you wouldn’t tell me.”

“Look, I didn’t want you to pressure Vikdasa to terminate the pregnancy,” Kullervo said, rubbing his cheek. Rajenlif laughed bitterly.

“Don’t pretend you’re motivated by your love for this woman, when you aren’t even living with her, aren’t even helping her to raise your daughter. You are only here because I summoned you here from your quite lovely house, in which you live for free through the grace of the Jotnar people. You have plenty of room for Audara and Vikdasa to live there. If you had brought them there, and then told me that you had impregnated a Jotnar commoner, and wished to do the honorable thing by them both, I would have briefly chastised you for carelessness and then we would have planned the wedding. Hells, if you’d said you simply wanted to do right by them, but not marry Vikdasa, we would have worked it out. But you couldn’t be arsed. You’re defending yourself, and meanwhile, your child cries in the next room over. You sicken me.”

“I mean, I don’t have a nanny….”

“I hold Antero when he cries, you monster!” Rajenlif shouted. “I feed Rhionne when she is hungry. I do not farm parenthood out to a nanny. You did not even comment on the fact that this affair has brought me here from Naesavarna, where your niece is due to be received by the court in three days’ time. Who is watching her, and Antero, while I deal with you? Their father, Tiernan, who loves and cares for them no less than I. We have found time to be their parents, with far more responsibilities than you. And yes, we have had help, but then, do you not think I would have found a caregiver to assist Vikdasa if you had but asked for help with my niece?”

Rajenlif stepped forward, right into Antero’s face. “And no, you ungrateful worm, I would not have asked her to terminate her pregnancy. I would have presented it as an option, and offered to help if she needed help, but that was her decision and hers alone, and not even the sovereign has the right to pressure her.”

She softened, just a bit, for just a moment. “I know,” she said, “that was not the case the last time. But I was not sovereign then.”

Kullervo finally met her eyes. “I wasn’t…I didn’t mean for this to happen again. But it wasn’t…I don’t love Vikdasa, I didn’t want this to happen, but it wasn’t….”

“My brother, I love you, even as you vex me. But you must get yourself under control. You still feel guilt from what happened with Vwokhu, and you should.”

Kullervo looked down, and for the first time, his face changed, from the defensive, drunken mask he’d been affecting to a miserable, shattered visage, full of regret and remorse.

“Wait here,” Rajenlif said. “Do nothing foolish.”

She crossed into the neighboring room, where a young woman held an infant, one who was finally calming.

“High-born Rajenlif,” the woman said, bowing as much as she could.

“You need not bow. You care for my flesh and blood,” Rajenlif said. “No higher honor can be shown to me. Ms. Bjelki, you are the best parent for your daughter, and I believe you want to do what is best for her. If what you want is to have her announced as a princess royal…my brother will not marry you, and I misdoubt you would not have him if he would. But she is of his bloodline, and that is true whether or not you are his wife; you are her mother, and that is enough. I will stand behind you if that is your will, and my family will endure what embarrassment we must.”

“I hope I do not offend you when I say I do not, high-born. Your brother…has not been well-served by being a prince, I think. I believe you are a good Dronung, but I know that given the rules of succession, my daughter will not be Dronung. And…well….”

“…She will be her father’s daughter, whether he behaves like a father or not. Better to deny her the temptations that have harmed him. Very well. I will ask that you sit with this decision for a few days, as shall I. There are reasons why it may still be easier for her to be a princess, even an illegitimate one, than to hide her parentage. I will have to consider that carefully – as I want what is best for her, and for you. But even should I come to believe differently…I shall still leave the final decision to you. You are her mother.”

“I am grateful for that, high-born.”

Rajenlif sighed. “You should not have to be. Furthermore, no matter what, know that you and your daughter will be supported financially, even if it is kept quiet. It will not be an infinite amount, but neither of you will want for anything important. She is a Throden, even if she never is to know that name. And you know, if she is not to be a princess…that she cannot know her father.”

“I do, high-born,” Vikdasa said.

“My brother was fortunate that if he was to be foolish, he was foolish with a wise woman. I will contact you within the week; we will come to an arrangement that we both can accept. In the meantime, you will find a transfer of ten thousand credits in your account tomorrow morning. This is not a part of whatever financial plan we will agree to. This is simply a gift from me to you on the birth of your daughter, my niece.”

Rajelnief ran a finger down the baby’s cheek, and gave a soft smile. “No matter the circumstances…they are wonderful. It is an honor to be a parent. Congratulations, she is beautiful.”

Rajenlif returned to her brother, who was sitting on a chair, head in his hands.

“You will come with me, Kullervo,” Rajenlif said. “Now.”

“But…where are we going?”

“That is not your concern. Your concern is that your sovereign commands you to go with her.”

“I have…I have my job in the morning, and I was going to see friends this weekend….”

“Brother,” Rajenlif said, “if you do not come with me now, you will wake up tomorrow to find you have been formally discommended from the House of Throden. Your bank accounts will be frozen, and you will be evicted from your house. I will not have you fired from your job – but you will not keep it on your own merits for more than a few days. Now, get up and come with me.”

Kullervo got up, and went with her.

* * *

If Pryvani thought it odd that Rajenlif had started with the story of Audara Bjalki, and not Rixie Carey, she did not show it. She simply waited for Rajenlif to finish recounting the tale; she knew this was leading somewhere.

“Aud’s mother was reasonable. Incredibly so. Aud is whip-smart and meticulous, and she gets it from her mother. She is also, at times, rash and headstrong – and in that, she is her father’s daughter.” Rajenlif smiled. “To be fair, she is also very strong at making connections, mental leaps from concept to concept – and that too is her father’s gift. Kullervo is, now, a decent man. But he was not when Aud was born. And when Rixie was born…he was not yet a man.”

Rajenlif studied her hands. “Rixie’s mother was the daughter of one of the groundskeepers at the Palace of the Three Shaars. When she was in her teens, she began helping her mother, who was charged with upkeep of the lakefront. I am told that she was quite interested in the wilderness, that she loved the area because it was as close to an unspoiled area as there is near Naesavarna. So on weekends, and when she wasn’t in school, she would come by to help clear the beach and tend to the wild animals, and see how the groundskeepers kept them in an artificial balance. I know you have been to the Palace of the Three Shaars more than once, Pryvani, you know how spectacular it is.”

“There are some places in developing colonies that compete, or on Avalon; some lands that are true wilderness,” Pryvani said, “but there’s nowhere on a developed planet that feels more like you’re on a virgin colony.”

“Indeed. It has been so since Kaleva the Founder settled our encampment there in the fifth century. Jotnar legend holds that as long as that part of the palace grounds is wild, our people remain untamed.”

“It is, of course, only a legend,” Tiernan said. “There is no force in this world or the next that could ever tame the Jotnar people.”

Rajenlif shook her head. “Husband, should I fetch my axe?”

“You see?” Tiernan said. “And my wife, know that I am blessed to be married to an untamed woman.”

“Sentients are not meant to be tame,” Pryvani agreed. “So Rixie’s mother was working with her mom on the grounds of the palace. Is that where Kullervo met her?”

“Yes,” Rajenlif said. She paused, for a moment. “I do want to preface this…I was not there for most of this. Tiernan and I had been married for less than six months when Empress Lorihar died, and I was on Archavia, helping him as he began his reign. We had both expected to have some time, to figure out how we would divide our responsibilities. There was grumbling, I know, that I was not in Jotnarherath more, in those early days…I was Princess of Jotanrherath, but I was Empress-Consort to all the Empire, and I saw my responsibility as helping my husband, their Emperor, to take his throne under difficult circumstances.”

Tiernan grasped his wife’s hand. “Pryvani, if not for Rajenlif…I would have been an Emperor, because they’d given me the crown and pointed me to the throne. But I would not have been a good Emperor. I would have been middling at best, and perhaps downright bad. History has justified her decision, and I am grateful for it.”

Rajenlif gave her husband a warm smile, and squeezed his hand. “You would always have been a good Emperor, Tiernan. I just helped you to know it. At any rate, as I was trying to get my footing here, my brother was in the interim before he would leave for college, and my parents were barely paying attention to him, as was their way. You, Tiernan, I – we, all of us, know that raising children is worth the cost of time, because our children continue our lives as much as our works. But my mother and father believed that children were a part of life, but far from the most important part. I was able to make it through my childhood without issue, but my brother needed more love than my parents could give.

“He was a good-looking young man, seventeen and strong, he had played knadlegr all through school, and had the scars to prove it. And he was a prince. The stories are unclear on whether he set out to seduce Vwokhu Skamøld, or whether she sought him out; my mother was of the opinion that she was at fault, but Kullervo, he told me he was dealing poorly with a break-up, and that he felt certain that he was the one who pursued her. More than that….”

Rajenlif wrung her fingers. “Vwokhu was tall for her age, but she would not turn fifteen until after she had conceived. That is why she had no contraceptive implant.”

Pryvani leaned back. “Jotnar age laws…that would have been statutory assault, wouldn’t it?”

Rajenlif nodded. “Now you see why my mother was so desperate to hide this. If it had been four months earlier, they would have both been below the age of majority and it would not have been a crime; if it had been four months later, she would have been fifteen, and been old enough to legally consent to a seventeen-year-old; it would have been a poor decision, perhaps, but it would not have been a crime. But while I doubt any judicator in Jotnarherath would have convicted, he was the prince. We are held to higher standards than a normal citizen. Had word of this gotten out, there would have been calls for him to be jailed for the maximum five years. And to be honest, Pryvani…had I been Dronung back then, I think he would have been at least sanctioned. I would not have been able to cover that up, not when I was younger, and full of surety of right and wrong.”

“I’m not sure he shouldn’t have been even now,” Pryvani said. “It may not have been rape, but….”

“…but sexual acts between fourteen-year-olds and seventeen-year-olds are illegal for good reason. If bright lines are not drawn, it becomes too easy for predators to hide in the gray areas. Yes, I agree,” Rajenlif said. “And the thing is…Kullervo also agreed. And it broke him.”