Encounter

Gossamé stared out the window of the ground jet as it sped along the dirt track that led from the forest barricading Ruler’s Departure and its sapphire pool from the rest of the kingdom, chin in hand, her rings pressed into her skin.

High above, out of sight in the clouds, Apolonique soared, its sensors active for threats as far as eighty kilos away. But there would be none, Gossamé knew. All the commonfolk would see would be a vehicle of the royal palace traveling by, and any others that knew who it had contained when it left would merely dismiss it as a faithful executioner returning from his duty of dispatching an inconvenient princess.

And what could a princess who, among other things, ended wars before they were supposed to end without anyone knowing how, be called but that—inconvenient?

“It is not about simply following orders,” she remembered her father saying, his seven most-favored consorts seated on either side of him around the oblong table that showed the map of the world. In the wings, advisers and generals and ministers and delegates and more looked on. “You must think about what best serves the country. Your loyalty must be, at all times, to the nation itself.”

“It is so simple,” Tenacetta’s mother said. “And yet, she appears where she is not told to go, and does things she has not been asked to do. One might even ask whether the princess loves making waves more than she loves the kingdom.”

When she said it like that, even Gossamé wondered if the stately voice, its tones firm like amber, was right. The woman believed the words she uttered, Gossamé knew. She admired conviction like that, and the ability to infuse words with it. Even if they happened to be used against her.

“Initiative is one of the greatest traits for any ruler to possess,” Gossamé’s own mother said, her voice a near-whisper, shivering in the so-called disgrace of Gossamé’s efforts on the northern border. “All our research points to this.”

“What I ask, princesscia, is for you to love your country,” the king had said, ending the discussion. “Do that, and the country will love you, too.”

He surveyed her, expectant, before dismissing her. But Gossamé had not understood what he meant. Not at all.

Gossamé looked at the circlet on the cushioned seat next to her in the ground jet. The executioner had removed it from her head before he had helped her out of the vehicle on the outskirts of Ruler’s Departure. It was a simple band of gold she always felt stood out far too much when it sat on top of her snowy hair, with a parade of thin loops representing each of the kingdom’s provinces spaced evenly around it. In between each loop, rectangular depressions sank into the metal, placeholders that might one day each hold a sync screen for a Magisterial worthy of a monarch.

A brightening of her rings caught Gossamé’s attention from her reflections, the blue sparkling on the screens becoming rapid.

“Urazari? Here?”

She clicked her tongue, although, really, she’d known a simple, subtle return to the capital had never been likely. The law, probably, had very little to say about how to handle a princess who had spurned her sacred duty to go into death to prepare the way for those who were to follow. In fact, Gossamé had a hard time believing anyone even really believed that the royals sent to Ruler’s Departure were accomplishing anything besides doing the king and his councils a favor by quietly going to their deaths. They knew the euphemism for taking out the trash for what it was—a handy façade of religious language. But none of that meant her reappearance would be much appreciated.

All that to say, trouble had been in her near future no matter how she sliced it.

She just hadn’t expected the Magisterial of the Crown Prince to manifest in the midcountry without warning. It was within Apolonique’s detection zone and, therefore, Apolonique was in Urazari’s detection zone, too.

No more secrets, then.

Gossamé stopped the ground jet, opening the door. For a moment, she looked at her circlet where it lay next to the handcuffs. She wanted to leave it behind in defiance, but she doubted Immaylin would recognize her without it, and her half-brother was liable to attack her on the spot if she had no sign of her status as fellow royal to compel him to listen to her. 

A crisp late-summer wind was blowing across the evening plains when she excited, the sky having darkened into a deep greenish-grey as the sun sank toward the horizon where Ruler’s Departure lay. Already the peach-colored twin moons rose in the north, high enough to be fully visible over the hulking figure of Immaylin’s Majesterial striding toward her on cushions of air that protected the wheat fields from its weight. Behind it, the trading town of Macator looked fragile, like a construct of dolls.

Another gust blew into Gossamé as Apolonique streaked down from the clouds to join her, making her glad she’d chosen to wear tights underneath the knee-length dress. The Magisterial floated just behind her, one armored hand resting gently on her left shoulder. Her rings shone.

“He’s not a zealous attendee at the cathedral,” Gossamé said. “And I don’t think my father would have widely announced my execution while my mother is still among the High Seven. But…”

She looked up at the metallic face with its expressionless visage, a humorless smile on her lips.

“It doesn’t really matter either way, does it?”

If she wished it, the two of them could with ease turn the Crown Prince’s Magisterial into the scrap metal that sank into the earth like blood into a sponge. That again, though, was the kind of grimy talk that led to her failing to win many allies at court.

More to the point, it wasn’t as if she wanted to cause that level of drama. Despite what people suspected, she actually didn’t revel in exercising her power for its own sake.

“Who goes?”

The call came from the hand of the mechanical colossus, now close enough for Immaylin’s voice to carry across the remaining distance. He stood, arms crossed, the sync screens of his circlet sparkling green, the wind whipping his white hair, with its pretty tan streaks, into his face.

A neutral hail, as far as things went. Better than Gossamé could have expected in response to the appearance of an unnamed Magisterial. A good sign.

She waited to respond, though, adopting a dignified, relaxed position with her right hand held with fingers slightly curled just in front of her chest, making sure he would see the sync screens of her rings.

Her half-brother leaped down from Urazari’s hand while it was still well above the ground, landing with perfect balance on both feet and making his way toward her with a commanding stride Gossamé noted with amusement mirrored the way his Magisterial had crossed the plains. He squinted at her as he came up, eyes darting between her face, her hand, and the circlet on her head.

“Greetings, sister,” he said, head inclining in a courtly manner. “I, uh…”

His formality broke instantly at what, to him, must have been an impossibly strange situation: a princess of the kingdom, whose name he didn’t remember, traveling in a royal ground jet without attendants, accompanied by Magisterial he didn’t know, manifesting it not through her circlet, but through strange rings. All that, and the shoulder of her dress strained with a splotch of dried blood.

“Greetings, brother,” Gossamé said, inclining her head in kind. “You sister, Gossamé, hopes you are well.”

It was awkward to give her name like that, but it was the best she could do. To his credit, Immaylin recovered quickly.

“Gossamé!” he said, a grin breaking out on his face. He stepped forward, kissing both her cheeks, back on familiar ground. “This is a rare sight!”

“We do frequent different parts of the kingdom,” she said, allowing herself to smile in return at the boyish relief on his face. “I can’t remember the last time you were in the midcountry.”

“Ah, well, it’s important to be known by the people and all that,” he shrugged, then colored. “Not that I don’t enjoy it! I know well how important it is for us to connect with the people. They are the soul of the kingdom, the sunlight of our sky.”

“And yet you spend all your time at the borders,” she teased, although something in his words was settling in the recesses of her mind.

“If the people are its soul, then the land is its body. But I am striving to attend to both.”

“I like that way of saying it.”

“It’s a saying of my own devising,” he said, looking pleased. “And you, sister? What brings you to these parts?”

In Gossamé’s opinion, the Crown Prince could have stood to be more suspicious, more guarded. Even if he knew her name, as all the fifteen princes and thirty-three princesses of the kingdom did of their siblings, the way he had relaxed in the presence of all her other irregularities, making himself vulnerable, hardly befit a seasoned soldier. But he had been at the western border, and she always at the north. Maybe things were different there. Or, more likely, he was simply secure in the presence of Urazari.

She couldn’t begrudge him that, not when she felt the same with Apolonique’s hand on her shoulder. Besides, his geniality had always been something she’d appreciated about Immaylin, a refreshing contrast against the scheming coldness of so many of their brothers and sisters.

All the more reason to hope that he could be talked into continuing his business of becoming known to the people without further thought to her.

“I’m returning from a trip to the east,” Gossamé answered. “A journey of self-reflection, you might call it.”

Even if she’d been compelled to go against her will, it wasn’t exactly a lie. She’d done at least a little bit of considering her life at the end of the executioner’s spear. Immaylin didn’t need to know her pondering had provided no answers.

“An ever-fruitful endeavor for those of us who may one day rule.” Gossamé saw his eyes dart up toward Apolonique. “I had not heard that you had synced, Gossamé. Will you do me the honor of introducing your companion?”

Although the request came in a calm voice, that he made clear he had not heard news of her syncing told Gossamé he was not oblivious to the unusualness of the situation. Perhaps he had not relaxed quite as much as it had seemed. It lifted the Crown Prince further in Gossamé’s estimation, although she regretted that it also raised the chances of their encounter spiraling into violence.

“Apolonique accompanies me,” she said. In the corner of her vision, she saw Apolonique lift a hand to its chest plate as it bowed from the waist, although the one on her shoulder never left. “Our syncing came under unusual circumstances.”

“I suppose you would not be the first,” Immaylin said wryly. “May I ask your intentions?”

A broad question, leaving the subject up to her interpretation. Her intentions regarding the crown that they both, as possessors of sync bonds, now shared a right to request a claim? Her intentions upon returning to the capital? Her intentions of whether she would reveal Apolonique’s existence? Perhaps even her intentions in this moment—to depart, to fight, to seek an alliance? He would draw out from her choice of topic more than what she offered in her answer.

“Since the day Apolonique and I synced, I have only striven to serve our country in the ways I have seen best fit. All I intend to do is to continue in that fashion.”

“I meant–” Immaylin began, preparing to show his hand, but Gossamé continued over top of him.

“Should we someday contend over the crown, brother, I will remember the kindness with which you have treated me today.”

In other words: as far as you are concerned, my intentions are peaceful—assuming this encounter ends pleasantly.

And also: I have enough power of my own to bargain.

Gossamé lifted her ringed hand to brush a strand of hair behind her ear. She saw Immaylin tense almost imperceptibly as the jewelry that was also her bond with Apolonique moved. He really hadn’t been as incautious as she’d thought. She liked him even more now. If the first of the royal children to sync with a Magisterial had such good instincts, perhaps she would eventually find that other of her half-siblings, at least those who had not constrained themselves only to court, had more to them than petty political machinations.

As she brought her hand down from her ear, her rings shone, the sync screens of Immaylin’s circlet brightening almost in unison.

“Your companion thinks highly of you,” Immaylin said with a laugh. “Urazari believes we may one day be allies.”

Gossamé kept herself from looking suspiciously up at the Magisterial at her side. The only message she had received was that the two mechs had reached “an accord,” but Immaylin’s mirth made her suspect that Apolonique had shared more than just a straightforward account of her virtues with Immaylin’s huge companion.

But all she said was, “A crown is only as good as the health of the country it serves,” echoing one of her father’s favorite platitudes. Whatever Apolonique had said, it wasn’t worth extending the conversation any longer to protest. “And surely our kingdom is healthier the more of us get along.”

“None of the rumors I have heard of you seem to be founded in anything other than jealousy, sister. It is good to know you a little better after today.”

“Then I wish you well in endearing yourself to our people, brother.”

As Immaylin strode back through the ankle-high, pale green grass toward Urazari, Gossamé imagined how proud her father would have been at the diplomatic, productive way she’d handled the encounter. Although the king was used to, even expected, conflict between the princes and princesses who might one day inherit his throne, he was forever preaching the merits of compromise and consolidation over stubbornness and splintering. To Gossamé, the fact that she remembered and attempted to exercise the principles of these kinds of lectures placed her on a completely different level from most of her siblings.

Still, if her father had truly wanted less division, he might have restrained his desires better. Not that, as the twenty-fourth princess (a number which didn’t even account for the eleven princes born before her), she didn’t recognize that a king with less of a passion for producing heirs might have meant her own existence never coming to pass.

Immaylin jumped into the towering Magisterial’s outstretched palm, and turned as the mech rose to its full height. He waved a hand in farewell, and then the pair turned and began making their way back toward Macator.

“Well,” Gossamé said. “I suppose I should thank you for your assistance, assuming you didn’t slander me too badly to the Crown Prince’s companion.”

Her rings brightened as she re-entered the ground jet, and she groaned.

“Of all the stories to share…!”

Embarrassment wasn’t exactly the right word to describe how she felt knowing that Immaylin now knew of the time she’d stolen and changed the access code to the wine cellar to ensure Tenacetta wouldn’t be able to host a certain rebellious duke, but it was close enough. Even if the Crown Prince and Crown Princess were at odds, it seemed too petty to bring up.

But it had worked.

And Gossamé didn’t argue with results.

As the ground jet sped toward the capital, she resumed her vigil of the midcountry landscape, returning her chin to her hand as the automated systems followed the dirt track home. Night had fully come, the twin moons high in the charcoal sky. 

Home. That was what she considered the place where her father and mother resided, and yet… 

She touched the circlet still on her brow, feeling how the gold had warmed from contact with her body. It was a firm, tangible reminder that she still had little idea what she was going to do at the end of this journey. She had survived her execution, negotiated with her half-brother, both easy distractions from the uncomfortable reality that she had been determined unwanted and would yet be reappearing, like a ghost destined to only be despised. Now, with only the road to consider and Apolonique soon to depart from this plane of existence in order not to draw the attention of Tenacetta once they reached the detection zone of Dimantu, the Crown Princess’ Magesterial, she could avoid planning no longer.

She thought again of Immaylin’s words. Of people, land, sunlight, sky. They had reminded her of the days just before Apolonique had come to her. The young maid who kept Gossamé’s bed in the palace clean and fresh and clear of hidden knives had told her with a smile that her father, a midcountry candlemaker, referred to his treasured daughter as the future sunlight of the kingdom.

It had been the first time Gossamé had ever felt a stirring in her soul when she considered the thing to which she was expected to assign her loyalty and love, and Immaylin had dropped a stone into that same puddle.

When her rings shone, she smiled.

“I know, my friend,” she said. “Surely we must be part of the sunlight of this land, too.”