"The power-link is collapsing," Lahaylia said. "It cannot take the power of our three minds. Yours and Jarac's are too alike. They interfere. They will cancel each other. You cannot both survive."

"No!" Kurj let go of the columns and stepped down from the corridor. He faced Lahaylia, the two of them locked in a connection neither could break. Her gaze never wavered. He walked on, past Roca, and her mind felt his pa.s.sing like the gales of a mental hurricane.

Eldrin cried out and burrowed his head against her shoulder.

The transparent bubble of the observation bay curved out from the Orbiter's hull. The glory of deep s.p.a.ce surrounded Jarac. He stood on a transparent platform staring at the cosmos, his hands resting on the rail of dichromesh gla.s.s.

Kurj crossed the bay like a mammoth walking in s.p.a.ce. When he neared Jarac, his grandfather turned, his motions slowed by his large size. Jarac's face was drawn, strained, his eyes reflecting the same agony Kurj felt ripping him apart. Their minds were trying to fit in the same place, two leviathans superimposed on each other in Kyle s.p.a.ce.

Two minds.

One s.p.a.ce.

Only one could survive.

Kurj's voice crackled. "Grandfather."

Jarac's inner lids lifted, revealing his eyes. Deep lines furrowed his drawn face. His mental power was crushing his grandson. Kurj had always believed himself the stronger of the two, but he knew now he had been wrong. Terribly wrong. Jarac's mind had more power, more strength, more will than his own. Kurj couldn't endure against him. Jarac would survive and he would die.

Suddenly Jarac's mind receded. Kurj didn't understand-and then realization hit him: his grandfather had relinquished his hold on life. He would let himself die so Kurj could live.

"No!" Kurj strode forward, knowing now, too late, that his grandfather meant more to him than the power of the Imperator. He wanted Jarac to live, wanted it with an intensity that burned.

Jarac sank to his knees, his great back bending as he lowered his head. Dropping next to him, Kurj grabbed his shoulders. "You must not give up! We will find a way to coexist."

"It is not possible." Jarac lifted his s.h.a.ggy-maned head. "We are too alike."

"No." Kurj felt as if a band were constricting across his chest. "You are a better man than I."

"Greatness is in you. You must find it now."

"You must live." Kurj would do anything, even beg the fates, to stop Jarac from dying. "You must."

"I am too old."

"But you don't know. I found files about my birth."

Jarac answered with infinite, agonizing gentleness. "I know. I see it in your mind."

The words wrenched out of Kurj. "You are my father."

Jarac took a deep, shuddering breath. "I cannot forgive what the a.s.sembly has done. But I am as proud to have you as a son as a grandson."

"You must live!" Kurj would say it a thousand times, until Jarac heard.

"Do you know their minds?" Jarac asked.

"Whose?" But Kurj felt it, what his grandfather meant. The minds of the Ruby Dynasty were linked, all of them. He, Jarac, and Lahaylia flared in a triangle of fire. Less intense, outside the Triad but still bright, the Ruby Dynasty burned: Dehya, intellect instead of force, sensitive, fragile, beautifully luminous; Roca, a blaze of vitality and health, with a love for her family that knew no bounds; young Eldrin, glowing within the circle of her light, unformed, full of promise, so very, very treasured.

And yes, Eldrinson was there, distant but full, a great swelling ocean of light. Kurj wanted to weep for the purity of that radiance, the untouched beauty of a mind that for all Eldrinson's physical suffering had remained unscathed.

Jarac clenched his forearm. "The baby. He has not our strength. Protect."

Kurj felt the wash of Eldrin's terrified impressions. The child was panicked, cowering from the inferno of the Triad, his mind huddled against his mother's, his thoughts instinctively fleeing toward love and warmth, desperate for the father Kurj had denied him. Eldrin was so enormously vulnerable. Jarac's dying, this agonizing pain, could devastate Eldrin the same way the deaths of Eldrinson's family had so traumatized Eldrinson in his infancy. Kurj reached out, swaddling Eldrin's mind in layers of protection, buffering him from the agony killing his elders.

"You feel them." Jarac struggled to speak. "They are yours now. You are the Fist of Skolia. The protector. Lahaylia and Dehya, they are the Mind. And know this, Kurj. Eldrinson and Roca are its Heart. You cannot deny them."

"Father-"

"You must care for them, betraying none." Jarac's voice rasped. "Promise you will do this."

"You are not going to die."

"Promise.You will never betray any of them."

Kurj took a shuddering breath. "I promise."

Jarac sagged forward, and Kurj grabbed his shoulders, trying to stop him. But like a great tree falling, Jarac settled onto his side, then on his back. Kurj knelt next to him on the transparent deck, bathed in starlight, moisture gathering in his eyes.

"I cannot heal the wounds that ravage your heart," Jarac whispered. "But I can give you a gift." His ma.s.sive chest rose and fell with his strained breaths. "Know the family we love...as I know them."

And then he opened his mind.

Jarac's thoughts, emotions, hopes, memories, fears, longings, knowledge, loves-it all rolled into Kurj's mind. His brain, so much like Jarac's, imprinted with the neural pathways that formed Jarac's personality.

Kurj remained himself, aware of the pain in his heart, but in that instant, he also became his grandfather.

Kurj's voice caught. "Forgive me."

"Yes." His father took a final breath. "I do love you."

Then Jarac Skolia, Imperator of the Skolian Imperialate, pa.s.sed from life into death.

26.

Ruby Heart.

Lahaylia Selei sat on the floor in her bedroom, against the wall, unmoving. After an age, or perhaps only a few moments, a man paused in the doorway. She made no move to look at him, speak to him, acknowledge him in any way.

Then he spoke. "Lahya."

"Ah, G.o.ds." Sheknewthat voice. She couldn't help herself; she turned-and saw her husband in the doorway, his posture, his expressions, even his mind so achingly familiar.

Except it wasn't him.

"Don't," she whispered. "I can't bear it."

Kurj came to her and knelt on one knee. He spoke in a low voice. "I thought I knew his love for you, but I had no idea, no hint of how deep it went." His voice cracked. "I am sorry."

Lahaylia wanted to hate him, to cast him out of her sight. But she couldn't. She saw Jarac in his every word and gesture.

"I cannot live with this," she said.

He started to reach for her, but when she stiffened, he dropped his hand. He spoke quietly. "In time, the part of me that is Jarac will recede, I think, and integrate with Kurj."

Her voice caught. "The a.s.sembly has much to answer for."

"Yes."

"You have made yourself the most powerful individual alive, Kurj. None can match what you have done." She regarded him steadily. "Now you must take responsibility for it."

Kurj took a deep breath. "If I can."

"You must." Her gaze darkened. "Otherwise you will destroy us all."

Roca cradled Eldrin.

He slept in her arms, nestled against her, his eyes closed, his face finally peaceful. She leaned back on the couch, too exhausted to move. The grief was too big. She had nowhere to put it. She wished she could be like Eldrin, able to sleep when the storm abated.

Her console chimed.

Roca lifted her head. "What is it?"

The house EI answered. "Imperator Skolia is at your door."

She froze. "Who?" Her father had justdied.

"Kurj Skolia."

She took a ragged breath. Of course. Bitter grief filled her. The son had killed the father and a.s.sumed his throne. By joining the Triad, Kurj had bypa.s.sed her in the line of succession, wresting the t.i.tle away from her. She hadn't held any great desire to lead the military, but never would she have wished for this. d.a.m.n the a.s.sembly. d.a.m.n the Traders for their relentless brutality that drove people to such desperate wrongs. d.a.m.n them all.

"Let him in." Roca sat up, shifting Eldrin carefully so he didn't wake up.

A man appeared in the shadowed entrance of the room. Roca drew in a sharp breath. It wasn't Kurj.

His walk, his posture, his face-it was Jarac. But he wore Kurj's clothes and had Kurj's hair.

Son, brother, father: to her, he was all three.

He sat on the other end of the sofa, his elbows on his knees. "How is Eldrin?"

"All right." Roca smoothed the baby's wispy hair.

"Did he suffer when-?"

Roca thought of her father's death. "No. He cried, but that was all." Kurj had protected his half brother, doing for Eldrin what no one had been able to do for Eldrin's father, protecting him against the ravages of his family's deaths. Eldrin would live without the torments Eldri had endured all his life. Roca wanted to reach toward Kurj, but she couldn't bring herself to do it, knowing the price they had all paid for his fury.

Kurj looked at his hands. "I have made a decision."

"Yes?"

"I will call another vote on the invasion." He raised his gaze to her. "As Imperator, I can do so."

She went very still. "And?"

"I will vote for the negotiations."

Hotness filled Roca's eyes. She had finally achieved what she had intended when she escaped her bodyguards and tried to reach the a.s.sembly so long ago. But the price was so terribly, terribly high. A tear ran down her face. "I am glad."

For a long time he said nothing. Then he broke his silence. "Mother-go to your husband."

Surely she had misheard. "To Eldri?"

"Yes." He spoke with difficulty. "I don't know if I can ever accept him. But Jarac was right. You must go."

Eldrin stirred in her arms, nestling closer, his face smoothing out in sleep.

"Thank you," Roca whispered.

"But you must come back." Now he sounded like Jarac. "We will see you in the a.s.sembly and on stage?"

"Certainly the a.s.sembly. I have much work to do." She bent her head over Eldrin. "But I think not the stage. I would like to have more children."

"Mother-"

She raised her head. "Yes?"

He struggled with his words. "I am sorry."

Roca knew then that no punishment any judicial body could mete out to him would equal the guilt tearing him apart. The a.s.sembly would fear to take action against him, lest it destabilize the web they all depended on with such desperation. And those who knew what had happened thirty-five years ago would be terrified to do anything that might anger him, lest he reveal their crimes.

But for the rest of his life, her son would live in the h.e.l.l of his own remorse.

Roca stood in the doorway, gazing at the darkening Valley long after Kurj had left. Eldrin continued to sleep in her arms. She didn't go back inside; she couldn't bear the solitude of her house, not now, not after all they had lost.

Gradually Roca realized someone was approaching. The figure took form out of the night, a woman with dark hair and a graceful walk.