The Empire Between Stars

1. ONE

ONE

FANKALO

Location: Rollard Isles

Fankalo had once believed that, should all the world burn down, the Shadewalker would stand beside her in the blaze, unflinching. But there were some truths she couldn’t unlearn—like the truth that all things lasted in seasons. Including alliances.

She thought about everything that had come between them, and the promises made before their makers knew their worth. She would not leave herself vulnerable, should the possibility arise that the Shadewalker might maroon their cause for want of lighter cargo.

The late morning light, beaming through the porthole of her meager quarters, hardly emanated past its spotlight on the dingy floor.

Darkness obscured the corners, and while she didn’t fear the dark, it made for rather poor company.

Fankalo clenched her jaw, fingers fidgeting.

She paced to the porthole, attempting to ease her nerves with the familiar aromas of tung and turpentine, salt and linseed, and looked out to sea in the direction of that all too-familiar tether for the tenth time that hour.

Out the window, beyond the water, the sprawling green vegetation of Mount Vespeyan faded to gray rock at its peak.

The sulfurous smoke drifting from it was wispy-white and beautiful, for a thing that created such a violent stench.

She didn’t mind the smell—it was a powerful cloak for a raider outpost—but she rarely joined the crew on the shore for long enough to tire of it.

The ship was her nest, and she stayed in communion with it when the others let their toes curl into sand.

She and her crew had anchored at their base in the Rollard Isles the night before. The galley beside her was absent its usual bustle and bang, and there was no singing, laughing or cursing. Still, she thumbed the worn scabbard at her waist.

Closing her eyes, she meditated on her Luck, the Fate-given power she alone possessed, to glimpse possible futures.

They existed beyond her definable senses, neither seen nor heard, but impressed.

Most impressions existed in an ever-shifting cloud, but those that were most fortuitous—and those that were most deadly—always shone brightly in the eddies of the ‘not’.

The little wooden room tilted with the rise and fall of the tide. Creaks sounded from the planking beneath her: phantoms she’d come accustomed to. She knew the creaking of wood caused by the sea from the creaking caused by footsteps like she knew a song from a siren. She was still alone.

Creak and thump. Thump and creak. Three exhales, and the knot between her shoulders loosened.

Fankalo sat at her desk, crammed into the corner of the room, hoping to be constructive.

She eyed its stack of papers with disdain: revised warehousing fees from Greeny for a product she should have offloaded weeks ago, an outlined list of contingencies and fallbacks, each more expensive than the last. Mitek, her first Hand, must have dropped them before departing for land, off drinking, braiding his shratten hair, or whatever else he did with his free time.

She’d procrastinated reviewing them as long as could be reasonable, but the time for leisure was over.

Still, her mind wandered.

Beside her quill sat a single distortion lamp, the first one Calver had assembled himself and given to her to use. Aethertech Mechanics had patented the design: a way to use distortion, the magical manipulation of energy from unfulfilled realities into the present. She and Calver had stolen it.

She plucked the glass sphere from its stand. As she did, something shifted in her Luck—a creeping foreboding she associated with imminent bad news. She held on to the feeling, hoping to understand more. Bad news about Calver was usually bad news of the worst degree.

“What are you telling me?” she whispered.

No answer came. Calver’s impression shone brightly in her mind, but the Luck around it evaded her like the sun skittered from the night.

The lamp reflected her brown eyes back at her, slanting and unsatisfied.

A thick line marred its surface where Calver had fused it back together.

They had long since progressed to improved models, but she kept this one because…

Footsteps echoed across the deck.

There were two sets. One jaunty and familiar, the other feather-light and foreign.

Fankalo drummed her fingers against the desk.

The day's first meeting wasn't supposed to be until highsun.

Promptness was a fine quality, but Chaos, it would have been nice to accomplish anything this morning other than worry.

A knock came at the door.

“Enter,” she called.

The door opened. Mitek flipped his foppish sable hair from his eyes and flashed a grin that punched right through her tension.

If only he knew how he eased the coiling of her stomach, but to tell him would be to pull key threads from eight years of precise stitching.

Men had a way of misinterpreting affection for desire. Even the ones who claimed to know her.

He escorted a balding man whose movements were as slight as his figure. Their new rationmaster—and just the rat she needed to give her enemies misinformation.

“Thank you for your audience, my queen. This is Doctor Cowen Relna.” Fankalo caught Mitek’s wink behind the doctor’s back. As much as she enjoyed the performance, she couldn’t help but wonder just when they had transitioned from the days when he would have said, “Ay, Bratty, ‘ere’s the new guy.”

Likely around the time that their on-paper worth became more than the entire nation of Chori’s. Its own fabrication, of course. The only thing real about paper notes was the amount of bullshitting it took to obtain them.

Mitek prodded the rationmaster forward, exited, and shut the door.

The room—a generous term—was suddenly crowded.

The space had served as a pantry to the previous crew of the Rogue’s Rapture; the captain’s quarters had been reconstructed into a communal resource room.

Like her father, Fankalo needed neither the space nor adornments.

She owned little: the desk, the hammock, a bookshelf, and, of course, that stupid lamp.

She kept her father’s dagger on her person at all times, even bathing, so there was no place for its holster to hang beside her single spare set of clothing.

She owned little, and yet, she controlled everything.

Alone with her, Doctor Relna’s eyes darted first to each nearby corner, and then to meet hers. His fingers rubbed together. Fankalo sighed inwardly. She stood, her unusual stature raising her above eye level with him. It was one of the few inheritances she embraced willingly.

“Would you prefer to sit?” she asked, gesturing toward the unfinished stool at her desk.

“No, thank you.” The man’s eyes ran another lap of the dark, infinitesimal room.

“Standing suits me fine.” His voice was as diminutive as the rest of him, but Fankalo did not take slightness for weakness.

He cleared his throat. “I was told I would be meeting with the Shadewalker’s Hand. Do you know if he…?”

Fankalo clasped her hands together and affixed him with a level gaze.

The man’s face paled. “Ah. I see. Please excuse my misunderstanding.”

What had he expected, if not a woman half his age in a broom closet? She smiled without teeth. “Do you understand why you’re here?”

The doctor’s tongue darted over his lips. “You require a sustenance plan for your legions.”

Legions. That was certainly an inflation of their apocryphal numbers, but it meant they’d been weaving the right message.

“Yes. I have an army to feed. You will be given headcounts for each location and their requirements.” And those would be exaggerated too.

Mouths tended to move, regardless of whether trust or terror had been established.

The larger threat her Ghosts—the name outsiders had affixed to those under her command—posed, the easier it was to recruit. “I want them to eat like kings.”

Incredulity crept into his expression. “Have you the chefs to—”

“You misunderstand me. No extravagance. Simply the highest quality foods in their most basic form.”

“Fortification tabs in gruel?”

“Better. I want herbs. Teas. Produce. ‘Basic’ is for its preparation.”

“And cost limitations?”

“There are none within the parameters you have already been given.” Nevermind their rapidly disintegrating budget.

“If I might advise you, my… queen,” he tested. She nodded in approval. “I have spent time in the Red Wing’s nutrition council. Such delegations are unheard of. To gain health and compliance, your armies can perform on—”

“I appreciate your wisdom, but the Red Wing has hardly established the model by which I wish to abide.

Every Ghost in my employ is guaranteed conditions superior to any they could accomplish by their own means, and certainly superior to any presented by the fated Red Wing.

Pay to use as they please. Three days of leisure per tenday.

Education, should they want it. Advancement, should they prove themselves.

Medical attention for their families, should it be needed.

Sex workers, happy for the safety I ensure them. "

“So I have heard.” His eyes were wide.

Nelfindar had spiraled into a nation of patricians who could hardly think past making their next dollar, and Groundlings who were too busy working sixteen-hour days to think past keeping food in their children’s stomachs. She needed eveyone to believe that Ghosts had risen beyond that.