Impact Velocity (The Physics of Falling) Read online

  “She played well?” he whispered.

  “She played very well.”

  I turned and extended the palate and brush to him. “Would you like to try?”

  He shook his head. “But can I watch?”

  I released a long breath, what felt like the first I’d taken since he’d arrived.

  “Yes, of course. I’d be very happy if you would.”

  I think I’ve decided what I’m going to wear to Owen’s costume party.

  Oh?

  Yeah, I’m going to go as the Prince Consort.

  Funny.

  What? I’m good at playing that character.

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  It was all very messy, in the end. I was used to the brutally efficient operation of the imperial government machine, but Laudley had been right about one thing: there were a lot of frightened and disillusioned nobles who saw me as a threat to their way of life. There weren’t enough of them to stop the inevitable, but enough to make it a long few months. Laudley’s wasn’t the only head that rolled.

  There were long weeks of negotiations, none of which mattered to me so much as the late night talks with Jonathan, sipping fine whiskey in the library, talking until the sun came up. I moved back into the emperor’s rooms for a time. They asked me to. A powerful symbol, they said, with my daughter and almost-empress just down the hall. It was lonely without Pete.

  The end result of all our public shows and private wrangling was that Molly was crowned empress, at the ripe old age of five, and engaged to be married to Owen. Blaine served as her regent.

  Owen officially returned to being Blaine’s son but he kept his old bedroom. He and Molly still shared a playroom. I wondered how long that would be allowed to last. Naganika returned to his home planet of Carolis. I never could decide which side he truly supported, but he’d done enough for our efforts to escape the block. He wasn’t exiled formally, but he was largely ignored, which is its own exile, I suppose.

  Blaine and I coexisted, though I don’t think he was ever a friend. That was Jonathan. He kept his servant’s room off of mine. I argued myself hoarse trying to convince and eventually force him to take a room of his own. I even made him a minor noble. He just ignored me. We had never been better friends.

  Molly grew up under my inexpert parenting. I spent those years in fear of getting it wrong. I didn’t know how to raise an empress. That was Pete’s job. Jonathan suggested I simply raise a daughter instead.

  When Blaine stepped aside for eighteen-year-old Molly to assume the throne alone, I cried, and I wasn’t sure if it was joy or despair. Pete would have been proud of her. She was so beautiful and strong.

  After that I slowly transitioned back to the IIC. Jonathan came with me. I’d been many things in my life. Impoverished and hungry in the slums, a scientist at the empire’s own center for study and research, a convicted traitor and prisoner in a hard labor camp. I was also husband to an emperor and father to an empress.

  But a scientist, and the IIC—this is what I always was, and where I always belonged.

  Pete would have understood.

  Transcript of the speech given by Empress Marquilla I at the funeral breakfast for Prince Jacob Dawes-Killearn.

  ivE

  We’re gathered here to remember my father, Prince Jacob Dawes-Killearn. And yet, first I’m going to share with you a story of my other father, Emperor Rikhart IV. I know Daddy wouldn’t mind. In fact, if he were here, he’d tell me to stop after that.

  Audience laughs.

  Daddy never did learn to like the spotlight.

  I have few memories of the emperor, my Papa, and many of them are no doubt created by stories I was told of him. But there is one I’m sure is my own. I was probably four and I had a bad dream, something about monsters. Papa took me—both of us in our nightclothes—to the throne room. He left most of the lights off and if there were even guards with us I couldn’t see them. In my memory we’re alone. He sat down on the throne, and put me on his lap, and proceeded to hold court. He called all the monsters to answer for their crimes and then banished them from the Empire forever.

  As I contemplated the story I wanted to share, of the father I’ve recently lost, I was reminded of that night. You see, the first and only memory I considered sharing with you today also happened on a sleepless night.

  I was sixteen or so. I must have been worrying about some problem or another too much to sleep. Daddy knew somehow, and he came to my room and invited me to walk the halls with him.

  We walked for hours. He took me to parts of the palace I didn’t even know existed. He had spent many years wandering the palace this way and he showed me places that he associated with one memory or another. “This is where I used to come when I first moved in with Pete.” “This is the room I often sat in during the riots on Carolis.”

  As we walked, he told me stories of his life, stories I’d never heard before. He told me of his mother, his father, his sister, moments of his life in Abenez or at the IIC. The trivial, unimportant bits of life that we so easily discard. I’d only ever known him as a prince, an emperor’s consort, the empress’ father; and Daddy rarely talked of his past. But that night he relived his life for me. His triumphs and losses, his fears and joys. It was as if his whole life could be mapped out on a schematic of the palace. Sometimes his stories made me cry, sometimes we both cried, but there were beautiful moments too.

  It occurred to me later that was one of the reasons my fathers were drawn to each other. Daddy was the one who could find all the monsters in the dark, and it was Papa who could vanquish them. But Daddy also found all the magical things in the hidden places where the emperor never would have gone without him.

  I have often been called The People’s Empress. If I have been so, it is because of my Daddy, perhaps even because of that night. He is why there are people of every class in this room, why every year we remember the day the people rose up and took back the empire as a triumph and not a rebellion, and why the lives of the lower classes in the empire have been substantially improved in ways we can measure and ways we never could.

  The empire has truly lost something great, now that both of my fathers are dead. But if I live up to what they expected of me, then I will have succeeded as a person and as your empress. May they never be forgotten.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2014 by Leah Petersen

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission from the publisher. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, contact Dragon Moon Press:

  www.dragonmoonpress.com.

  Acknowledgments:

  I suppose someday I’ll get to the point where writing is easy. Since I haven’t yet, I have to thank all the people who have helped me get to this point, the third book in my first trilogy.

  Many and much thanks to Adam Shaftoe who coached me through the beta read on this one. No, you may not have him. I found him first.

  I must thank J.M. Frey, who preserves my sanity and keeps me grounded.

  Thanks go to Gwen, who quietly and without fanfare makes it all happen.

  Thank you too to all my faithful readers, who remind me why I’m doing this.

  Thank you to my husband, Shane, for all his patience in brainstorming with me, and to my kids for keeping me humble by not being the least bit impressed.

  Finally, thanks must go to Gabrielle who has not only been an incredible editor, but who has been my mentor, friend
, and partner in crime since the beginning.

  Dedicated to Gabrielle.

  Her contributions to this series, my writing career, and my life are far too numerous for me to ever adequately thank her for.

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