“I am here seeking my sister, the grand princess Elysium Ollvana, first daughter of the illustrious Emperor Hekvatta.”
Evander’s voice rang through the wide stone halls, filtering to Ella in amplified echoes as she raced up the staircase. Alone, she was dwarfed by the building’s immensity. Everyone, it seemed, had gathered in the audience hall at the arrival of the royal star cruiser.
Even while she cursed the distance, her mind automatically read what the grand prince’s words did not say. The tone was haughty, boredom dripping in the lingering vowels. He is frightened, she thought. Ella ran faster.
“I did not realize her royal grace was not at residence on Paloma,” King Farnon replied, his voice deep and commanding as always. Ella had always liked that about Farnon. Confronted by his superior, even if it was a rich and spoiled boy, yet Farnon’s voice dwarfed the grand prince.
Not boy, Ella corrected. He’d be twenty-three, no twenty-four now. Ella couldn’t adjust the image in her head.
“It is not common knowledge,” Evander continued. “But she is not and has not been for some time. She is here.”
Ella could picture Farnon’s frown, drawing more weight between his russet brows than on his lips. “I had not heard. She is not here in Jadore, but please accept my—”
“Oh, but she is.” Evander cut him off as Ella reached the last step.
Hot and breathless, she leaned against the cool stone of the first column of the open air platform that served as King Farnon’s audience hall. Behind her and below spread out the rolling hills of the Kingdom of Jadore. Above, visible beyond the edge of the chamber’s roof, the gilt tail fin of the royal star cruiser dwarfed the Capitol of the provincial kingdom located on a planet along a spiraling arm at the edge of the empire.
“Though I do understand your ignorance. She most likely did not tell you who she was,” Evander sneered. Ella could almost smell the cold sweat oozing from Evander, leaking under the cruel tone. Even if she were the only one to recognize it.
Farnon sat down without his usual grace, plopping onto the plain throne very much like the sack of wheat the citizens of Paloma would laughingly refer to him as, King or not. But it was Reveth’s dark eyes that darted beyond Evander to land on her that trapped Ella. At that moment she would have taken the empire back just to be able to command a moment alone with her betrothed and tell him the truth she had so carefully hidden. If he’d speak to her again. She needed the stone column for more than coolness.
Evander followed Reveth’s sharp gaze. The shock of recognizing her played differently on her brother’s face. Compared to Reveth, who had stiffened and gained composure, Evander’s indifference melted. Joy warred with worry in his aqua eyes as he dashed across the floor. Ella met him halfway.
“Elysium,” her name on his lips fell in a breath of relief. “You are well?” He asked, pulling away. His long fingers gently touched her cheek. “I heard a week back that you had been killed and… ” he didn’t finish, didn’t look able to.
“I’m well. It was a wound. We made it… never mind. Later,” she said, changing her mind at the darkening concern in his gaze. Pausing, her brother’s words snapped into clarity. “You knew I was here?” she whispered.
Evander grinned. “For the last year and a half!”
Relief rocked Ella back on her heels, washing over her with warmth and love. “You didn’t tell.” The light in his eyes dimmed. A rush of cold stiffened her spine and left her stomach light. “A week ago… you were already on your way here.”
Evander broke away, pulling fingers shaking with agitation through his hair. “I had no choice!” he said as he paced two steps before turning back to her.
“Father knows…” Ella said, trying to shake the truth unraveling her new life from her mind.
“He asked me to come.”
“I doubt that,” Ella snapped.
“You don’t know him. It has been three years. He’s changed.”
“I knew him for the previous eighteen and never noted a change before.”
Ella’s goading shifted her brother’s apologetic soothing to anger. “You do not know what has happened! You left!”
His tone accused her of more than having walked away from Paloma and the empire. She’d left him alone to deal with the chaos of their family. Ella looked away, her glance sliding across a nearly empty hall. Farnon’s guards were persuading the last of the gawkers out the high doors leaving only the nobles powerful enough not to be bothered by mere guards or the ire of risking displeasure at not following Farnon’s orders. Ella’s back itched with her desire to turn and see if Reveth had stayed. She balled a fist and dealt with her immediate problem.
“A decision had to be made,” Ella said. “You know that.”
“So you took the option you preferred?”
Her cheek sparking heat, Ella pulled in a lungful of air. “Father had made it apparent he preferred you. You are first born. You should be the heir. I merely acquiesced to desires he did not act on.”
“The Guardians chose you, not me!” Evander argued back. It was an old fight between them, between her parents. Three years had not given Ella any new fuel. She turned away.
“Do you know what happened when you left?” Evander asked from behind her. Ella shook her head. “The Guardian’s light went out.”
Ella’s stare was shocked. “They should have chosen you!”
“They didn’t,” he said, walking forward to take her hand. “Don’t you see without you six hundred years of peace will end? Our stewardship of the Empire will be over.”
“You can’t know that.”
“Huh, but I do,” Evander said. “When you first left, father was so angry that I prayed to the stars he wouldn’t find you unless it were the dungeon of an enemy. Then six months went by. Not a trace, I could not even find word of you. When his anger died… something else took its place. Sadness?
“After a year and nothing, he began to give me the duties he’d split between us.” The expression on Evander’s face held back the casual dismissal on Ella’s tongue. That had been what she had expected. Evander would have finally been given the role that should have been his at birth: he would be heir to the empire.
“Rimall approached me first, whispering he’d support my claim to the throne.”
Ella laughed. “Is this what this is all about? Political games of the different systems?”
“It is more,” Evander shouted.
“Tell me,” Ella pushed when pacing replaced words.
“It is different. When you were there… you know Kaptha is still afraid of you?”
“I didn’t mean to break his arm. It was an accident!”
A snort from behind her told Ella that Draggo had joined the small group remaining in the audience chamber. It braced her as few other things could have right then. Evander’s eyes slid to the sound. He paused with a look at Ella’s trusted servant, who had helped her sneak from the royal palace and then stolen away with her three years before, so similar to one her father would wear, Ella wanted to smack him for it.
“He told me how happy he was that you’d left, how you had always been a poor choice. Which is why father never made it, of course. Kaptha offered to help in any way, anything, to get me officially named the heir. And Gather too. Nemna. Balone. Saider.”
Ella listened as her brother named off every powerful planet and system. All had vied at one time to rule the empire, threatening to tear the peace to stardust in a desire to be the greatest. It chilled her, the thought of all those whispered dreams floating in the vast dark.
Evander was staring at her. “You see?”
But she didn’t want to. “E…”
“No! For the stars’ sake, Elly, you’ve been to war! What Ollvana could say that over the last handful of centuries? I’m not as strong as you. They will set me on the throne and then pull it to rubble to see who controls my strings. Trust me, I’ve been tested these last two years, and I’ve been found wanting.”
“That,” Ella had to clear a dry throat. “That is why you are here now?”
“No. A month ago father came and said he would name me the heir. So I told him I knew how to find you.”
“And he sent you to drag me back,” Ella said, arms crossed. A spark of her anger returned.
“No again. He wanted me to bring you this.” Evander pulled a packet of papers from the flowing sleeve of his robe and held them out to her. She didn’t reach for it.
“What does it say?”
“I don’t know. It is coded to only open to the heir.”
Her brother’s weighted gaze sat like rocks in her belly. “Are you sure it is for me then?” she teased, though her voice was thin. Evander raised a brow, not commenting. He had never been steady before, and Ella cursed he’d managed the skill now.
It took control for hand not to shake, her time at war serving her well to hide nerves. The seal fell away at her touch. Loose pages of heavy paper shifted in her hand. Tears blurred her vision at the sight of her father’s scrawl.
Wanting privacy more than needing the light, Ella walked to one of the soaring windows, remembering this sun was not the one shining on Paloma. The view beyond the cool glass was of fields, vineyards, woods, and distant mountains not the icy sea and rocks of the seat of the empire. It didn’t matter though. Dark ink on cream pages pulled her mind home as if she had never left.
