David Weber - Hell Hath No Fury

"Your Majesty," he replied now, and bent over the hand she extended. New Farnalians didn't spend as much time kissing ladies' hands as some, but Kinlafia's training-both as a Voice, and from the Portal Authority-had included the rudiments of courtesy from virtually all of Sharona's major civilizations.

His instructors might never have anticipated that he would someday find himself kissing a hand quite as exalted as this one, and they might not have included the proper modalities for being privately introduced to the Emperor of Sharona, but they had covered this, at least, he reflected with profound gratitude.

"She's really a very nice person who wouldn't dream of having your head cut off just because you didn't kiss her hand properly," Alazon's deep, rich Voice murmured in the back of his brain.

"Really? What a relief!" he replied as he straightened and met the Empress' eyes.

"I'm very pleased to meet you … Darcel," Varena said. "I wish that the events which have turned all of our lives on end over the last few months had never happened, of course. But everything I've read and heard tells me how very fortunate we were to have you out there at Hell's Gate. I only regret," her voice and eyes alike softened, "that you were forced to endure so much sorrow and pain for the rest of us."

"Your Majesty," he told her, "what happened to my friends-and to me, I suppose-had nothing to do with anyone except the people who killed them."

"Perhaps not," she acknowledged. "Yet the fact remains that you were the one who got Voice Nargra- Kolmayr's message to all of us. And so, however it was that that duty fell to you, the fact remains that all of us are deeply, deeply in your debt."

"And about to become more deeply so," Zindel put in briskly. Kinlafia and the Empress both turned their heads to look at him, and he chuckled. "Darcel is a Voice, my dear. I think you're about to find that he's brought you more than just letters from Janaki."

"But I-" Varena began, only to pause as Kinlafia gently squeezed the hand he was still holding.

"Your Majesty, I realize you aren't a telepath yourself. That's one reason I asked if Privy Voice Yanamar might join us this evening, as well, when I discovered that she was a Projective, as well as a Voice."

""One reason?"" a musical Voice rippled through his thoughts. "I like that!"

"Hush woman!" he replied. "It's not only diplomatic, it's even true."

"I hadn't realized you were aware of that," Zindel told him dryly. "It isn't exactly something we've announced to the world in general."

"Oh, I've become aware of quite a few things about the Privy Voice, Your Majesty," Kinlafia assured him.

"Good. And, if I may be permitted to touch upon just a bit of official business after all, have you and Alazon gotten your schedule squared away for that never-to-be-sufficiently-damned parade we're all going to have to endure tomorrow afternoon?"

"We have, Your Majesty," Alazon replied for Kinlafia. "Mind you, I think the tailors left Darcel in a state of shock."

"Really?" Zindel's eyes twinkled, and Kinlafia shrugged.

"Your Majesty, I hope you won't mind my saying that I've never seen such a ridiculous looking outfit in my entire life. I couldn't believe they were serious when they showed me the pattern sketches!"

"After five thousand years, court fashion has tried out pretty much all the variations," Zindel said.

"There's not much new they can do to us, so they have these periodic spasms of 'historical inspiration'

when they go back and reinterpret famous periods of the past. If I remember correctly, the inspiration for our current … costumes was the period of Wailyana the Great. Which, if you're familiar with your Ternathian history, was just over nine hundred years ago. Of course, according to my own research, Wailyana's tailors were inspired by the Time of Conquest, which technically ended about six hundred years before her time."

Kinlafia looked into the Emperor's eyes. For a moment, he was certain Zindel had to be putting him on, but-

"Oh, no, he isn't," Alazon Told him. "There are some disadvantages to being the descendents of the oldest imperial dynasty in Sharonian history, you know."

"I hadn't realized their … lineage was quite so distinguished, Your Majesty," he told Zindel. "And I hope I'm not going to poke anyone's eye out with that ridiculous rapier Privy Voice Yanamar insists that I really do have to wear. But, to be totally honest, what truly astounded me was their promise to have the entire outfit ready for final fitting before lunch tomorrow."

"Our staff, unfortunately, has had entirely too much experience meeting impossible deadlines, I'm afraid," Empress Varena said with a slight smile. "Mind you, we take shameless advantage of that experience!"

"Yes, we do," her husband agreed. "In fact, I-"

Zindel broke off as a side door opened to admit the imperial daughters. Kinlafia turned towards the new arrivals, one eyebrow rising, then, for the second time in a single day, froze as if he'd just been punched squarely between the eyes.

He recognized all of them. He would have been able to put names with faces just on the basis of all of the recent newspaper coverage. Gods knew their photographs and sketches had been everywhere in the papers he'd been devouring ever since he'd reached civilized universes once more! But this wasn't simply a matter of identifying them from their pictures. He recognized them.

Anbessa, the youngest. The willful, eleven-year-old, golden-haired whirlwind of energy. A little terror, with all of her family's determination but without the rough edges-smoothing experience of maturity.

Who, if she'd only realized, held her father's heart in her often grubby little hands.

Razial, the middle daughter. Dark-haired, like her father, but without the golden highlights. Taller than Anbessa, at fifteen, with the awkward coltishness of adolescence and all the tempestuous passion of her raging hormones, all undergirt with an astounding sensitivity and gifted ear for the beauty of language.

The painter whose landscapes decorated her father's study wall, and the daughter whose desk drawer was stuffed with poetry which could have made a statue laugh or a boulder weep.

And Andrin. Tall, quiet Andrin, of the unquiet, knowledge-shadowed sea-gray eyes of her father and her brother. Of the gold-shot black hair of the Caliraths and the haunted soul of the Calirath Talent. Of the sword-straight spine. Andrin, who never recognized the grace of her own carriage, the strength and character already so plain for those with eyes or Talent to see, despite her youth.

Andrin … whose presence reached out and took Darcel Kinlafia by the throat.

He stood there, unable to move, while the images roared through him. Andrin, standing tall and straight, face white and strained with grief but with eyes that flashed defiance, as she faced tier upon tier of seated men and women in a magnificent chamber somewhere which Kinlafia had never seen. Andrin, weeping like a broken child. Andrin alight with laughter, launching a falcon from her wrist like an ivory thunderbolt. Andrin, in a torn gown, with a smoking revolver in her hand and murder in her eyes.

Andrin, standing before the high priests of the Triad as she laid her hand upon the Book of the Double- Three to swear some high and solemn oath.

They ripped through his mind, those images, those visions. None of them had happened yet, and yet he knew-he knew-that every single one would come inevitably to pass. And as he Saw them, he Saw himself. Saw himself with his arms about her, holding her as she sobbed upon his shoulder. Saw himself standing at her shoulder. She was older now, and she turned to look at him, her eyes grim, as he passed her a document of some sort. He Saw himself recognizing in her a daughter. Not simply the daughter of Zindel and Varena Calirath, but his daughter. The daughter of his heart, as surely as if she had been born of his own flesh and bone.