Princess of the Void

The door to Sykora’s scarlet suite slides shut. As soon as they’re sealed in, Sykora’s in Grant’s face, close enough he can feel her breath. Her eyes flash. “Stand on your head.”

“No.”

Another flash. “Count backwards from twenty.”

“Nuh-uh.”

She tries one more. “Kiss me.”

“No, Princess.”

Flash. “Please.”

“No.”

Her gaze is wide and uncomprehending. “The compulsion doesn’t work on you. You’re maleborn, and it doesn’t work.”

“You’re talking about mind control,” he says. “You thought you were doing mind control on me.”

“Of course I did. I thought—” Her brow furrows. “But… I compelled you on Maekyon.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“You betrayed your species for me. You did everything I commanded you to do. You…” She trails off. She stares at him. “You freed me.”

“I wanted you to be free,” he says.

“Gods of the Firmament.” Sykora’s mouth hangs open. “You chose this.”

“I did.” He shakes his head. “You’ve given me cause to regret it. But I did.”

“I thought I was forcing you to do those things. Controlling your will. We call it compelling. It… you felt no compulsion? No force moving you beyond your will?”

“I guess I was thinking with my dick. But I doubt that’s what you mean. You just looked like you needed help. And it seemed evil not to give it to you.”

“But.” A tear beads at the edge of her eye. “I’ve been—” She catches herself.

She’s silent for a while. He folds his arms.

She runs a palm over her face and wipes the condensation from her tear duct. She clears her throat. “I have misjudged the sort of person you are, Grantyde. I have been cold to you. Far too cold.”

“That’s one way to put it.”

“I counted you my enemy,” she says. “I thought you were my willing jailer. And I was angry. Furious. I relished your fear of me. On Maekyon, I thought I was puppeteering you, and you were powerless to disobey.” She swallows. “But you weren’t. You—” A shiver runs along her, from her ears the tuft of her tail. “You risked everything for me. You lost everything for me.”

He feels the sting behind his eyes at it. All the things he’ll never see or do again. “That’s right.”

“And I’ve been…” She trails off once again. Her lip quivers.

“Are you working your way to a sorry?”

She snaps out of it. “The Princess of the Black Pike does not say sorry,” she hisses.

He grins ruefully. “All right.”

“But perhaps she does say, uh.” She shifts from foot to foot. “I’ve been a bit of an idiot.”

“A bit?”

“It’s unheard of, Grantyde.” Her tail straightens defensively. “You’re the first sapient species in the entire firmament who’s been unaffected. Why do you think all maleborn Taiikari go masked? The anticompel glass keeps any rogue compellers at bay.”

“You didn’t give me a mask.”

“You are not Taiikari. It’s, ah… the Consort traditionally goes unmasked. For the pleasure of their Princess.” Her explanation wilts. “If it’s any solace, I’m told by those who can receive it that the compulsion brings… pleasant feelings.”

“I wouldn’t know.”

“Grantyde.” She chews the nail on her thumb. “You called me cruel.”

He doesn’t speak. Just gives a shallow nod.

“I am cruel,” she says. “To those who wrong me, or threaten what I love, I’m unendingly cruel. I’m proud of that cruelty. I was proud when you said that to me. I’m not proud any longer. To my… my friends, and to my willing subjects, I’m kind.”

“I’ve seen that,” he says. “I’ve envied it.”

Her thumb rests on her lip. “I’d like to be kind to you.”

“Would you free me?”

“No,” she says.

His heart freezes. “But I saved you.”

“You did. And I wish I were a poet, so that I could come anywhere near the words I’d need to express my gratitude.”

“But I still can’t leave?”

She shakes her head.

“Why?”

“Because you’re my husband. You saved my life and I saved yours and now you’re my husband.” She takes a step toward him. “I won’t free you. But I’ll make you happy. I’ll reward you every day for what you did. I’ll make you glad you’re mine. You’ll see.”

He sighs. Take this win, Grant. Just don’t stop trying.

“If you want to start over,” he says, “I’d start over.”

“Very well.” She sticks her hand out. “Sykora, Princess of the Black Pike.”

He shakes it. “Grant Hyde.”

A tentative smile crosses her face. “Grantyde. That’s not changing either.”

Batty called him Grantyde too. He nods.

“You can’t be compelled,” she says. “That means you must be guarded much more closely. Compulsion is how I’d presumed to keep you obedient. You’ll need supervision.”

“Are you giving me a babysitter?”

“I am your wife, Grantyde.” She takes a slow breath. “I’ll oversee you myself. No more cell. You’ll have a berth in my cabin. You don’t need to sleep in my bed, but I will not risk any crewmate to guard someone with the ability to ignore our strongest security measure.” Her spine straightens. “If you intend to flee, you go through me.”

He chuckles, and realizes as it leaves him and Sykora’s face lights up that this is the first time he’s really laughed since he was abducted.

Grant’s cot is relocated to the cabin. Fion has brought the forest poster. “You want this put up anywhere?”

Sykora very promptly snaps “No, thank you,” with a guilty glance to Grant.

“It was funny,” he says, as they settle in for bed.

“It wasn’t.” Sykora sits at the edge of her bed across the cabin from him. “It was awful and undeserved. I’ll find recompense. Perhaps allow some limited redecoration to the cabin on your part. And no more wiling away the day in your cell. From now on, you’re by my side.”

“Or by myself, maybe, if you trust me?”

She shakes her head. “I do trust you, Grantyde. But you’re staying by me. I have—for the second time—a new husband. A new context to see him through. And he has a new wife.”

He lays his head back. He recalls a question. “When I first arrived, you did something to me. Something with my brain. Now I can’t read my old books or speak my old language. And my words come to me now, sometimes, in a strange rhythm I can dance to without understanding how. An innate poetry. Like just now. That’s not the type of flowery shit I used to say.”

“Yes,” she says. “You were reprogrammed. You are speaking Taiikari. And understanding Taiikari. Your cadence is adapting. It is a heightened language, quite useful to know. Most of the settled firmament speaks it, even beyond the Empire.”

“What about—”

He pauses. He tries to remember. What was the word for the language he used to speak? There was a word. England. It started in a place called England. It’s English.

“What about English?”

“We overwrote it in you,” she says. “It’s the most expedient way. To take the existing pathways and retrofit them. If you returned home, they would no longer understand you, nor you them.”

He shuts his eyes. He figured as much, but hearing it still hurts.

“Grant.”

He looks up. That’s the first time she’s called him that.

“My appetite isn’t a game I’m playing. Or a way I’m trying to hurt you. It’s real. I thought I wanted to break you, but I don’t. I want…”

Her hands form little fists.

“I want you to fall in love with me.”

He sighs. “I can’t. Not the way you want me to. Not when I’m your possession.” He pulls the covers up over his chest. “The choice you’re giving me isn’t a choice at all, until I’m free.”

“I can’t free you. It’s not the way of the Taiikari.” Her red eyes disappear momentarily behind her lids. “I claimed you as a husband. Such things aren’t easily reversed. And it’s the only way an alien is allowed on a Taiikari voidship.”

“Then I’m no use to you.”

She sighs. “You’re asking too much of me.”

“I’m asking…? You kidnapped me and now you’re trying to make me your sex slave.”

“That’s not—” She takes a stabilizing breath. “That’s our way.”

“Our way is doing our jobs and not freeing the aliens we’re supposed to be guarding. I broke mine for you.”

This hits home. He can tell. “I can’t put you back,” she says. “There’s nothing for you there any longer. Your mother tongue is gone. Your kings want you dead.”

“Is there another place for me? Are there other humans out there?”

“None I know of,” she says. “And if there were…”

She hesitates. He waits.

“If there were, I wouldn’t let you go.”

He stares at the ceiling.

“You are mine, Grantyde. I am grateful to you without end, but my body’s hunger for yours has grown, not abated.” Her sleepy voice sharpens. “I counted myself lucky when I thought the firmament had sent me a handsome, pliable plaything for a husband. And now I have your true value. Now I know your courage and your decency. And it drives the breath from my lungs. I will never allow you to part from me.”

Maybe it’s the way she says it. But her words, as much as he wants to rebel from them, kindle something in him.

“You could come to my bed.” She taps her pillow. “It’s a very nice bed. We don’t have to do anything. You can keep yourself from me and I’ll understand. But your warmth. That’s all I want.”

A pang of longing. But no. That’s not a good idea. That’s the first slippery step down a dangerous slope. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t say sorry, Grantyde.” She’s sitting up. “I won’t surrender. My methods have changed, but my mission hasn’t. I will be good to you. I’ll make the Pike a home for you. I’ll earn your loyalty, and your company in my bed. I will redeem myself in your eyes. I don't care if it takes my entire life. I will. Do you believe me?”

He cranes his neck to see her. She’s half-sat up in bed again. Her red eyes catch and shine in what little light there is.

“I want to,” he says.

“I’ll prove it.” There’s steel in her words. “Starting tomorrow. You’ll see the way Sykora of the Black Pike treats her friends.”