Impact Velocity (The Physics of Falling) Read online

  “Is it?”

  He grinned. “Of course. If she’s alive.”

  “Is she? Does he intend for her to be?” I hated the words even as they left my mouth, but I was proud of the way they did. Calm and steady as if I wasn’t discussing the murder of the imperial heir, a child.

  Lord Naganika may have felt the same, or at least he pretended he did, because he sobered. “We don’t know one way or the other, at present. But there’s been no immediate discussion of killing the princess.” I allowed myself to raise an eyebrow but I said nothing.

  My own ignorance frustrated me. If I knew anything more than any inmate on Dead End, it was information five years old or more. I tried to remember how long this man had held his position and I was appalled to realize I wasn’t sure. Not only that I hadn’t known already, even a guess from the first time he appeared on the broadcasts we were shown on Dead End, but also that I hadn’t thought to look it up yet. I was badly out of practice.

  I sat back, considering the man. The revelation that his loyalties hadn’t been with Rikhart was disconcerting. It wasn’t a question of virtue or duty so much as a reminder of my own failures. For all my lying, scheming, plotting, and acts of treason, I realized only later that I’d been terribly naive.

  I had one purpose: to eliminate the dangerous stain on the empire that was an unclass in the emperor’s bed, whispering in his ear. I’d been focused on that, and I hadn’t even considered playing a double game against my co-conspirators. I might have been the only one among us who hadn’t. I certainly felt the impact when I was caught, and discovered that some of the very people who worked at the emperor’s side to condemn me were the ones who had helped me work against him.

  Not that I’d betrayed any of them, or even felt they’d betrayed me. It had always been a part of the arrangement that we worked separately and if any of us were stupid or unlucky enough to get caught, we would go down alone and protect the others as much as possible. The extent of the others’ duplicity had surprised me, though, and I was ashamed of that now.

  “So where do I come in? Laudley clearly has plans for me.”

  Lord Naganika smiled. “Yes. Indeed. In fact, don’t tell him I said this, but much of his plan at this point depends on you. More than he intended it to, I think.”

  I raised a brow. “How is that?”

  “Well, he expected to have the children in his possession. Dawes being gone isn’t a terrible problem. Laudley intended for him to be dead, but that can be arranged easily enough. He will be found, eventually, and all his protections have been stripped away. He is of little concern. The fact that he has the children, and that we currently don’t know where they are, is the trouble. It’s what makes you more important than you were intended to be.”

  “What was I intended to be?”

  “The Regent,” he said, with enviable nonchalance. “Laudley intends to set Owen up as the next emperor.”

  My heart beat faster. “So he does intend to kill the princess?”

  Lord Naganika tilted his head. “I think he hopes that will not be necessary.”

  “Because she’ll already be dead?”

  “Yes,” he said, “that would be ideal. But there are ways around even that. Much can happen before she is old enough to rule alone.”

  “But he doesn’t intend for her to rule.”

  “She’s the child of an unclass.”

  So simple, so direct. I’d felt the same way. At least, before talk of murdering a child had come into the picture.

  “Does my status not present a problem for him? I’m not only a convicted traitor, I’m supposed to be dead.”

  Naganika cocked a grin. “But don’t you see? That’s the beauty of the situation. When the empire learns what Dawes did to you, a duke of your standing, behind the emperor’s back, they’ll be quite upset, don’t you think? And what better way to see justice done than to compensate you for the Prince Consort’s despicable and illegal treatment of you?”

  “It wasn’t behind the emperor’s back.”

  “With both of them gone, I think we can direct the story as we see fit. What we say is what is true, now. You’ll be hailed as a returning hero—you’re a symbol of all the things Dawes was doing to destroy the empire, now restored to your proper place in the grand scheme of things. And with your son still missing, your role as a grieving father will build sympathy and perhaps help us find Dawes—and Owen—as well.”

  “Do we have any idea where Dawes is?”

  “He went to the safehouse.”

  “And where is that?”

  “We have people working on finding it. I’m not optimistic that we will. Almost all of the information about it is emperor-level clearance only. We don’t even know which planet it’s on, if it’s even in the empire. But once you are certified as the legal Regent, you should have access to information that we do not have at present. If only more clues for our team to work with.”

  I put my elbow on the armrest of my chair, propping my chin in my hand, feeling transparently obvious, even though it was a gesture that had come naturally to me once. “Then I imagine we have some work to do, Minister. And not here.”

  He smiled slyly. “No, not here at all.” His grin broadened. “Would you like to return to the palace, Your Grace?”

  Stop by the lab before you go so I can give you a proper goodbye.

  The lab?

  I’ve got that new couch in here if you’re not up to anything more adventurous, old man.

  I’ll show you who’s old.

  I wish you weren’t going away again so soon.

  I know. Me too.

  iv20

  We spent the morning questing about the island, looking for the perfect branches, twigs, and leaves. The children and I built a small canoe and in the light of a brilliant sunset, three days after Pete’s murder, we stood on the beach and placed our offerings in it.

  Molly went first. Hers was a sheet of real paper, which I didn’t even bother to wonder how or why Jonathan had laying around. “Papa,” she had written, in her careful, blocky handwriting, “I promise I’ll take care of the empire as good as you did.” I looked away, my throat tight.

  Owen’s was on paper too, but his was folded and sealed. He hadn’t shown anyone what was on it, and I hadn’t asked. That was between him and Pete.

  It wasn’t until my turn that I realized I was twisting the ring on my finger so hard it had left a mark. It was a simple ring with only one black stone in the setting. For the first three years we were together, up until the day of my sentencing and exile, I’d never seen Pete without the ring on his littlest finger. That last horrible day, he’d put it on mine.

  It was an heirloom belonging to the rulers of the empire. He’d had no business giving it to me especially since, at the time, we both believed I was never coming back. I’d protested but he said, “It’s fitting it should go with you. Another thing I thought I’d never part with.”

  It was almost painful to pull the ring from my finger, as if I were tearing away a piece of myself. I looked down at it, cupped in my palm, fighting the urge to close my hand around it and keep it. But it wasn’t really mine. He’d sent it away with me when he believed I was never coming back. Now it was my turn. He was never coming back.

  I laid it in the little boat with the other things.

  I looked back at Jonathan. He met my gaze and held it for a long time, waiting, until realization began to dawn on his face, his brows rising as the carefully controlled body language dissolved into something closer to shock, and defeat.

  “I don’t think it’s appropriate—” he started.

  “Shut up, Jonathan,” I rasped past the pain in my throat, “and put yours in there. I know you have one.”

  He stared at the boat, conflict warring in his features. Temptation battled his everlasting stubbornness and a guil
t I understood far too well. Finally he reached into his shirt and pulled from around his neck a simple chain from which hung an odd-shaped pendant. When he laid it reverently in the boat I realized it was a lock of dark brown hair. I sighed, my eyes closing against the understanding.

  “It’s your daughter’s, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “You don’t have to do that. Pete wouldn’t have wanted you to—”

  “Shut up, Jake,” he said gently. I froze. The times in my life when he’d called me by name were less than a handful, and some of those I wasn’t sure I hadn’t imagined. The only one I knew was real was the time in his cell in the palace prison. He’d turned his back on me, razor edged contempt in his voice that I now understood had been for himself not me. “Go away, Jacob.” But, no matter what I’d said all those years ago or on arriving here, he had never, ever called me Jake.

  I shivered.

  Ignoring the reaction he no doubt meant to provoke, Jonathan crouched and laid the lock of hair in the boat with the other offerings. He stepped back and I took a deep breath.

  “Is that everything?”

  Molly rushed forward. “No, wait.” She placed a bright green feather in the boat. Looking up at me she said, “I wanted to show it to him.”

  My eyes burned with tears I was saving for a better time. And then I realized there was no better time. I let them fall as I took two vials from my pocket and crouched by the boat. I snapped the vials together and placed them in the tinder at the bottom. The acid would eat through the membrane between them in minutes and ignite the kindling. I pushed the boat into the water, out past the low, rolling breakers, until it bobbed alone on gentle waves, waiting.

  I held Molly’s and Owen’s hands as we watched in silence.

  The first lick of flame appeared above the hull, growing until it was a full blaze that consumed the boat, the offerings, and finally doused with a sizzle as the boat broke apart, whatever was left of the items in it sinking into the ocean. I imagined the ring, all that I had in the way of my husband’s remains to release into the universe, dropping slowly through the clear blue water, coming to rest on the ocean floor. Would anyone ever find it? Or would it lay there until the sun died and the earth was consumed in its funeral pyre?

  I supposed it didn’t matter. He was gone either way.

  ***

  We returned to the house, dragging and wrung out. I carried Molly directly to her room and put her to sleep, trying to soothe away her little sniffles but not trying too hard. She should be allowed to cry because her father was dead. I sat with Owen for a long time after I’d tucked him under the covers. We talked quietly about Pete. I don’t remember what we said, but I don’t think the particulars mattered.

  My return to the palace was as furtive, illegal, and inconceivable as my departure had been.

  iv21

  Naganika had with him a suit of clothes, new and cut in the current style. I no longer had anything appropriate. I examined the cut on my forehead in the mirror. A servant had tended it for me, bandaged and sealed it, but there was still a visible scar, ragged and ugly, the newer scar cutting through the old one.

  “I hope you will not take offense,” Naganika said, as he’d overseen a man handing over the new clothes to my own servant, “but Grand Duke Laudley believes it would be beneficial to leave the scar as it is and make no attempt to eliminate or disguise it.”

  My jaw tightened. He noticed and dropped his eyes.

  “I understand that you might find it undesirable, and I would certainly expect you would deal with it in time, but for now it gives credence to your story and is a powerful symbol of what you suffered at the hands of the real traitors.”

  I studied him, wondering if I was impressed or disgusted that he managed the lie so easily and so consistently.

  I pondered the scar. On the one hand, I couldn’t be rid of it fast enough. It was a reminder of things I hoped to forget as quickly as I could. It was a reminder of the man I had to become to survive, of a set of priorities and beliefs that had been so foreign to me five years ago. I bore scars now—not just that one, and not all of them visible—because at Dead End, unless you were at risk of infection or too injured to work, the medic didn’t want to bother with you. Bandages could be obtained with the other supplies we were allowed access to, like soap and toothpaste.

  But inmates didn’t use them. A bandage carried connotations that were dangerous, and made impressions you couldn’t afford to make. On Dead End, you suffered and bled in silence or you suffered and bled more. There was more shame in patching up than in needing to.

  I had a feeling it was a lesson I needed to carry with me into whatever happened now.

  ***

  The ocean was bigger than I remembered. I caught my breath when it came into view, a great expanse of life and endless shades of color whooshing past the great windows of the transport, the strip of sand like the threshold leading into the great throne room at the palace.

  “Surely it can’t be this easy,” I said. Naganika gave me his full attention with an air of respect that looked genuine, even if I didn’t trust it.

  “I beg your pardon, Your Grace?”

  “My return. I am still a convicted traitor, the last time I checked. And I am dead, too. I’m simply going to walk into the palace and no one will object?”

  Naganika smiled as if at a joke. “I do wish I could be there to see their faces when you arrive.” But he sobered quickly. “You are not expected, but the Grand Duke has secured the cooperation of the palace security forces. I don’t believe they know who they’re expecting, but they will obey Laudley.”

  “Just like that? The same men and women who would have given their lives for Rikhart only days ago?”

  Naganika’s nod was slower, considered. “The ones who wouldn’t cooperate have already been…weeded out. Most remembered that their oaths were given to the empire, not to a specific emperor.”

  At some point I realized Lord Naganika had left me alone. Perhaps it was only because he had work to do, but I had the strangest feeling it was because he was trying to respect my privacy. I was glad that I was alone when the palace came into view. I wasn’t able to stifle a gasp at the sight. It wasn’t as precious or dear to me as my own estate, but it was monumentally more important, and more meaningful. This place at the center of the empire, the seat of everything that was great and powerful and wondrous and dangerous. It was a place to make or destroy a man, and it had done both to me already.

  The transport gliding to a stop at a private arrival platform felt like a rebirth, and I was afraid I was just as prepared for and capable of managing this world as any other newborn.

  Laudley was waiting for us on the platform, dressed formally. He’d always dressed as a man of his station, importance and rank written into every stitch, but there was something about him now that exuded power as well, and I knew Naganika was correct. Grand Duke Laudley was running things at the palace now.

  He gave me a superficial embrace and a smile.

  “This must be quite the day for you,” he said. “It has been a long time since you have seen this place, has it not?”

  As if the truly important thing to me right now was being in the palace. I didn’t bother to answer such an obvious question, and it annoyed me more than I wanted him to see. Laudley wasn’t the only one who understood the importance of appearances.

  Laudley may have been the architect of this little charade—from which I would benefit immensely—but whatever gratitude I had toward Laudley was a weakness, and wasn’t even terribly grateful. What he’d done hadn’t been for me.

  I looked around and froze as I locked eyes with the guard captain. My mind raced, immediately cataloguing how big he was, how he vibrated with barely checked violence. Cold sweat broke out on my back and palms.

  And then I remembered. This wasn’t Dea
d End. This man answered to me now. A rush of anger filled me and I clung to it, taking a deep breath, stoking it. It felt strong and vital. I needed this; I needed to be angry.

  I held his gaze, the hard, hot acknowledgement between us that he had been the one to load me onto a transport to Dead End as the rest of the empire watched my “execution.” Fury set my shoulders and locked my spine. He looked away first.

  When I looked at Laudley he was watching me with an eyebrow cocked, assessment and even amusement in the set of his mouth. I wiped all expression from my face, choking off the mantra that had reflexively started its auto-play in my head. No. Not that. I didn’t need that anymore. I was strong. I was powerful.

  Never again.

  Laudley turned to the guard captain. “As you can see, Duke Blaine is not only alive and well, but is to be treated with all due respect and deference. I trust that your men not only know this and will act accordingly, but that there will be no unpleasant reactions among the civilians at the palace.”

  The captain—Sam—answered slowly. “Yes, Your Grace.”

  He nodded to one of his guards and she accepted the order, bowing briefly before departing, though she didn’t look at me.

  “But wouldn’t it be better, Your Grace,” Sam continued, “to make an announcement to inform the occupants of the palace of this…change? It would make for much less disruption and help prevent unfortunate surprises.”

  Laudley looked entertained. “No. I think I can trust your people to maintain order. I don’t wish to make announcements yet.”

  I looked away from Laudley in disgust, holding on to my anger. Standing behind Laudley were two servants I didn’t recognize, and another off to the side that I did.

  “Sabria?”

  The woman who had been my wife’s head servant dropped into a perfect bow. “Your Grace.”

  I studied her face. It was hard to discern what she was thinking. I felt the weight of Laudley’s gaze on us and I turned to him. He wore an enigmatic smile.