David Weber - Hell's Gate

The terror in her breast turned into an ache that made breathing impossible and clogged her throat. The tears she couldn't hold back broke free, filling her with shame for letting them show, for her lack of control … for making her father's pain even worse. She wanted to say "I'm sorry," but her throat was too tight, too raw. So she only nodded, hoping he would understand, or at least stop looking at her through eyes filled with remorse she couldn't bear. It cut like a blade, that remorse, yet it came without a hint of apology for the necessity of what he'd said. He couldn't have not said it and continued to be worthy of his crown. She understood that, too … and couldn't find the words to tell him that, either.

She had never felt like such a wretched failure in her entire life.

Without a word, he pulled a handkerchief from a coat pocket and passed it down the table. She clutched the square of white linen as though it were a lifeline, drying her eyes and ordering the faucet behind them to stop leaking. Fighting her whole body, which ached with the need to put her head down and bawl like a lost child. Instead, she stiffened her spine, gulped several times, and got herself under control. She very carefully did not look at the distress and sympathy in the faces of the Privy Councilors, for her emotions were too precarious to risk seeing it. Instead, she met her father's gaze head-on once more, and as she did, she felt a new and special kinship with him.

He had experienced exactly this same moment, she realized suddenly, seeing the Emperor inside the father … and the boy who had become the man so long ago. He knew exactly what he was doing to her, what she was enduring?must endure?because his father had done the same thing to him, and that understanding made it infinitely worse for the father who loved her. And as she looked into his eyes, saw that memory and that pain merged in their depths, she loved him more deeply than she ever had before.

"I'm sorry for disrupting the Conclave yet again, Father," she managed to croak. "It won't happen again."

He didn't embarrass her further by assuring her that it was quite all right, because she knew it wasn't. She desperately wanted her mother … and knew, without hope of regaining what she had lost, but she would never again be able to hide her face in her mother's shoulder and pretend the world wasn't waiting to hurt her again. In a roomful of people, she felt more alone than she had ever felt in her life as her father nodded and asked the Privy Voice to continue transmitting Director Limana's address.

The train finally cleared the congested city of Gulf Point, situated at the base of the Finger Sea, where the Gulf of Shurkhal connected that sea with the Harkalan Ocean. Even with the Crown Prince's prized locomotive, the journey had required almost ten hours, and the Voice conclave had been over for over an hour by the time they reached the city. Halidar Kinshe felt drained and exhausted, although he'd actually said very little during the conclave itself. Wilkon had kept him and the Crown Prince fully informed, and, if he was going to be honest, Kinshe had to admit that it had gone far better than he'd feared. But the generally ugly mood of the attending heads of state had not filled him with optimism. Worse, they'd resonated with his own grinding sense of responsibility and blazing need for retribution, and his mood was heavy as they approached their destination at last.

The Gulf's busy shipping lanes carried freighters laden with goods from around the globe, making Gulf Point one of the busiest ports in the world. It took time to thread their way through the jammed city, swinging around the southwestern-most point of land to head east toward the little town where Shaylar had gone to school. It lay only thirty miles farther down the coast, but the sun had settled well into the west as the special train pulled into the small local station at last and the prince's carriage was unloaded.

It took a little longer to get the cavalry escort's mounts off-loaded, as well, before they could set out to be Institute, and they drew curious stares from the townfolk, who recognized the royal crest on the carriage. Kinshe could see excited conversations springing up in their wake as people speculated about this unannounced royal visit, but they rode in absolute silence as they followed the road through town and out beyond it. The Cetacean Institute was visible now, another three miles ahead.

Kinshe hadn't visited this part of Shurkhal in years?decades, to be more exact. He'd stood on this shoreline as a very junior member of Shurkhal's Parliament, celebrating the opening of Shurkhal's own Cetacean Institute?the Kingdom's sole cetacean translation facility. Part embassy, but mostly research station, the Institute had been founded by Dr. Shalassar Kolmayr-Brintal. Although Shalassar was not a native-born daughter of Shurkhal, she had built a legacy in which the entire Kingdom could take pride.

Thanks to her work, the dolphins had led Shurkhali divers to rich pearl beds which might have lain undiscovered for centuries, otherwise. Shurkhali pearls fetched excellent prices on the world market, famous for their size and luster, and Shurkhali explorers had laid claim to those to those same pearl beds in other universes, as well, increasing the Kingdom's prestige while providing income to establish Shurkhali colonies.

All of Shurkhal knew who they truly had to thank for that, and Shurkhalis had long since come to recognize Shalassar Kolmayr-Brintal as one of their own, even though she had been born on one of the tiny island chains scattered across the Scurlis Ocean. The Scurlis was Sharona's largest body of water, more than nine thousand miles long, north to south, and nearly ten thousand miles wide along the equator. Most of its islands were governed by the Lissian Republic, whose main landmass was the continent-sized island that was home to some of the strangest creatures on Sharona.

Shalassar had grown up on one of those Lissian-governed islands. She was a tremendously Talented telepath, whose childhood friends had been dolphins and the great whales that roamed the Scurlis Ocean. She had come to Shurkhal to establish the Institute as one of a worldwide chain of embassies serving the sentient whales and dolphins.

They were close enough now to see the large dock and the enormous area which had been roped off around it to serve as the official embassy. A large bell hung from a pole on the dock, with a stout cable that trailed into the water. That bell was a necessary signaling device. Kinshe had heard that she'd had to replace it?and the dock?occasionally when an emissary from a new pod of whales approached to ask for assistance and gave the cable too hard a tug the first try. Shalassar Kolmayr-Brintal simply took it all in stride, as she had everything else in her life.

Until now, at least, he thought, biting his lip.

No one was at home in the house. A note on the door said: "We're at the Embassy. Come on down, the water's fine!"

Kinshe's heart twisted as he read the cheerful words, and he looked at his wife. She was biting her lip now, and he took her hand as they climbed back into the carriage and followed the road around to the cluster of buildings at the water's edge, half a mile from the house. Outside the carriage, the silence was glorious, broken only by the wind and the heartbeat-rushing of the sea against the shore. Inside the carriage, the silence was oppressive, as heavy as a storm brewing on the horizon, broken only by the knife-sharp rattle of horses' hooves on the graveled drive.

"Hal," Alimar murmured, squeezing his hand. She started to say something more, then simply closed her lips and fell silent again. She'd tried to convince him on the train that this wasn't his fault. She'd tried hard … and she would still be trying when he lay on his deathbed.