Epilogue

Carann, Royal Palace

Shiran stood on one of the palace balconies that overlooked the capital city as twilight turned the violet sky vivid shades of red. He pulled his dark coat more tightly around himself as a cool breeze blew past him, lightly playing with his hair and cloak. Artakane had realized who she was and had taken her throne and the crown he had prepared for her. But his labors were far from over – not yet. He had much he still had to do.

“Hello, old man,” a lightly mocking voice said from beside him, and he turned to see Midaia there, her face shadowed by her hood. “Enjoying the view?”

He shook his head. “Thinking about the future,” he said. “And the past.”

“The future and the past,” Midaia said, unable to keep the barb from her tone. “And that’s what everything comes down for to you, isn’t it? Your past sins, and your grand plans. And what, pray tell, is dear Arta’s role to be in all of this? What is she to you, Shiran? Your redemption, perhaps?”

“Perhaps,” Shiran said. “For too long I’ve carried the weight of my sins; perhaps at last I can put them to rest, and then rest myself. If all goes well, Arta may be the key to that. But don’t make the mistake of thinking that I don’t care for her.”

Midaia scoffed. “You’ve used her,” she said. “You’ve planned out her whole life to suit your own agenda, and you care for her? Don’t make me laugh, Shiran.”

“I do care!” Shiran snapped, surprised at the level of anger that burst out of him. “I care for her, and for you, and your mother, and the regent, and everyone in this Kingdom! Do you think I have used people, as you say, because I enjoy it? No! I do it because I see no other way forward, and for every person whom I have used I have wept anguished tears for! But what would you know about it? You never cared for anyone but yourself and acquiring knowledge for no other reason than to know it. What is your interest in Arta, really? Sisterly affection, after all this time?”

Midaia was silent, staring out over the city, and when she spoke, her voice was a whisper. “There is a woman of flesh and blood under these robes, Shiran,” she said, “as hard as that might be to believe. Mother didn’t want us to be apart forever, did you know that? She sent me a message, to be opened in the event of her death, telling me that I had a sister, and her name, though it was still some time before I was able to actually track her down. But I’ve found her now. And when I look at Arta, I’m reminded of another girl who should have made better choices. Did you think I wanted to live vicariously through her? No. I just wanted to know her, and for her to become a better person than I’ve been.” She sighed. “Of course, you probably figured that out long ago, and never said anything because it didn’t suit your purposes. You’re a manipulative, cruel old man,” she said.

“I can’t deny it,” the Professor replied. “And you are an arrogant, self-absorbed young woman.”

Midaia smiled thinly. “Also true,” she said. “I suppose all either of us can do is try to rise above not, not that we’re very good at succeeding at that. And what a pair we are, perhaps the two greatest Adepts in the history of the Kingdom. Pity the Kingdom.” She watched the sunset for a long silent moment before speaking again. “War is coming, you know,” she said. “I’ve seen the signs. So have you.”

“Yes,” Shiran said. “The dukes have bowed to Arta, for now, but there are those among them who will chafe at her reign. Naudar, Respen, perhaps others. They will find an excuse to declare her an illegitimate heir, and then they will launch their rebellion against her. They’ve come too far to back out now.”

“And there’s more,” Midaia said. “The assassins are dead, the pirate threat destroyed, but we both know that there was someone else involved in this game. Cyborg assassins and well-equipped pirate fleets don’t just emerge from the ether, but these seemingly did so. Someone created them, Shiran, and they went to great lengths to cover their tracks. And I would swear by all the names of the Lord and the Evil One both that whoever it is will try again. This isn’t over. It’s barely begun.”

“It has,” Shiran agreed.

“And my half-sister is in the middle of it all.”

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“She is,” Shiran said. “She may save us all, in the end. Until then, I will protect her.”

Midaia’s eyes flashed. “As will I,” she said. “You watch out for her in your way, old man, and I’ll do it in mine. You think you know everything, but I’ve spent years stalking the darkness between the stars. I’ll wager I’ve learned things there that even you have no idea of. The time may come when you need my help.”

“It very well may,” Shiran said. “And I won’t deny that scares me.”

Midaia looked at him carefully, and then she burst out into laughter that was half-bitter and half-genuine. Shiran regarded her strangely and shook his head, but there was a half-smile hidden behind his beard. Teacher and former student, whose paths had long ago diverged but who had much in common still nonetheless, they waited together on the balcony until the sun went down behind the horizon and darkness fell across Carann.

///

Publius Vedrans Quarinis watched the same sunset from his office window, hands clasped behind his back, and contemplated the past few days’ events. A new queen on the throne, a girl of whom he knew nothing, the tournament reduced to a bloody shamble, an attack by assassins who were now dead. Yes, it was a time of upheaval indeed.

It also marked the end of many of his plans, but far from all. Quarinis always had his contingencies.

He hadn’t lied when he’d told Duke Mardoban that it didn’t serve the political interests of the Empire to set its sights on the Dozen Stars, not with the Alaelam War still underway on the other side of the galaxy. But what he’d failed to mention was that there were other concerns beyond the merely material which guided the Empire’s actions. He’d told the girl-queen when he’d danced with her that the Empire valued Adepts, and that, too was true. But a secret which Quarinis was one of the few to be privy to, one of the greatest state secrets of the Empire, was that the Emperor himself, Verus Licinius, was an Adept as well – perhaps the greatest in the galaxy.

And like all Adepts, the Emperor dreamed true dreams. Almost two decades ago, he had awoken repeatedly in terror, night after night, tormented by the same vision – himself, broken and powerless, lying on the ground while above him stood a silhouetted woman, a sword in her hand and twelve stars forming a crown upon her brow. The meaning was clear. Quarinis, already ambassador to the Dozen Stars, had been hastily summoned in secret to a private audience where Licinius had made his will clear – a queen of the Dozen Stars had the power to bring ruin to him and all he had built, and so such a queen must not be allowed to live.

Recruiting particularly sociopathic soldiers from the Imperial legions, equipping them with experimental cybernetics that couldn’t be traced, and sending them to the Dozen Stars as assassins, all while keeping his own identity a secret, hadn’t been difficult for Quarinis. It had taken several attempts before they were able to complete their mission, but in the end, it had been a success – Aestera ast Carann, Queen of the Dozen Stars, had perished, and her only daughter had renounced her claim to the throne to be trained as a nun. There would be no queen, and Quarinis had assured the Emperor that the Dozen Stars, never the most stable of polities, would fracture without centralized leadership. Then the threat would be ended forever.

For one of the few times in his life, Quarinis had been wrong. The regent, Duke Mardoban, had managed to pull a semblance of order out of the chaos, and the Dozen Stars had limped on past what should have been its deserved fate. And when the crown created by the enigmatic Adept known as the Professor had appeared, he knew that action remained to be taken. And so Quarinis had called his long-disused tools into service again – and this time, they had failed him. The Commander and his assassins were dead, and a new Queen now sat on the Dozen Stars’ throne – a queen whose very existence threatened all that Quarinis had dedicated his life to. In the end, the very qualities that had made the Commander a ready tool in Quarinis’s hand, his arrogance and bloodlust, had proven his undoing. True, Quarinis had earned the goodwill of the Dozen Stars by ordering his praetorians to protect civilians – and sacrificed some of his own pawns in doing so – and that would be useful in the future, but it was still a paltry gain compared to what he had lost.

The ambassador sighed. He’d been putting this off, he had to admit, but it had to be done soon. A patrician of the Empire took any task in service to Emperor and Senate with stoic dignity and resolve, no matter how unpleasant. Turning away from the window, he walked over to one of his office’s walls and carefully pressed a series of concealed buttons – a door slid open, and he stepped into a small, dark room.

There were no windows here, nor furniture, nor decorations – merely glossy black walls, lined with technology that would jam any attempt to spy on what went on within, and a large holoprojector in the center of the floor. The door slid shut behind Quarinis as he approached the holoprojector, and he went down on one knee as it flared to life before him.

Publius Vedrans Quarinis bowed his head at the powerful, commanding figure who appeared before him and now regarded him from half a galaxy away and saluted, in the Imperial fashion, with a fist over his heart. “My lord Emperor,” he said. “I’m sorry to disturb you, but I’m afraid I have troubling news…”

HERE ENDS

REALM OF THE STARS VOLUME I:

THE UNCLAIMED CROWN

THE STORY WILL CONTINUE IN VOLUME II:

THE ENDANGERED CROWN