I had used up the only advantage I had, the flight suit, and now I was stuck in the royal house of a Tigerlord, a place as well fortified as any Coalition military base.

How did this keep happening to me?

I had gotten caught up in a whirlpool of politics, spinning me this way and that, and it was all I could do to keep my head above the water.

Kai wasn’t going to relent on his marriage proposal. That wasn’t his way.

My stomach growled. The sun was rising. I stumbled into the kitchen part of the suite assigned to me. From what I understood, in most of the suites, the kitchens weren't used save for making tea. We were expected to make our requests to the estate kitchens, which apparently employed a dozen people in the lost art of food preparation. You selected what you wanted from a menu each morning and the food would be hand-prepared and delivered on your preferred schedule. It was a rather decadent if archaic system, for shifters were notorious for insisting that their food be “natural,” as in having lived a relatively natural life, whether it be plant or animal. They insisted that the lab-made nutrit-bars and drinks that most humans subsisted on were an abomination. I suspected that this was also part of the reason why shifters tended to stay on their planets.

My finger hovered over the picture of a black egg. The food here, like in my father’s house, was seductively delicious. Everything came from nearby dedicated farms with real livestock and actual plants grown in soil and sunlight. Everything was made to order, overseen by a team dedicated to food preparation. Being able to boast of such staff was one of the things that set a major House apart from the minor Houses.

It was a far cry from what I had been used to.

What I would ultimately have to return to.

I closed the menu and opened up a terminal screen and began digging into the code. I threw up more floating screens, waving my arms and moving chunks of code around. As I made changes and tweaks, I felt a calmness come over me. At least this I could control.

My door chimed. “Dr. Ina Silver is here for an Arvonian parasite check.”

I shuddered at the thought of being infected by a brainstem-eating slug. There was no cure for it. “Send her in.”

The doctor walked in, tapping at a pad. She saw me surrounded by code. I wondered if she would report me.

“You’re not doing anything that will jeopardize your safety, are you? Because if you are…”

“I’m tired of the food here. I want something familiar.”

“You are either very brave or very foolish.”

“The Tigerlord knows I can do this.” At least, I think Kai knew I could do this. Well, now he would. I dug into the code. Oddly enough it was Ealen. There weren’t many places in the universe that still used Ealen code. Part of their estate was integrated into an ancient Ealen building of some sort, so I suppose it made sense. They must have somehow combined the existing computer network into their own.

Dr. Silver laughed. “It’s not the Tigerlord you should worry about. It’s Mistress Niamik of the Kitchens. She’ll be so insulted you’ll never have a decent meal again.”

If things worked out the way I wanted it to, I wouldn’t be staying long. “I would prefer that.”

This was Ealen code. With enough time, I could pretty much take any room with a networked terminal and figure out how to make it work for me. I skimmed through the symbols. Oh, what do we have here? The water temperature controls in the bathroom of the Tigerlord’s suite.

I smiled.

I finished making a few tweaks to the code and closed that area off. Kai would regret making me stay here.

She shrugged. “Suit yourself.” She walked over to me. “Can you hold out your hand for a moment?”

I felt a quick pinch, and then a sting of cold as the device took a blood sample and instantly healed the pinprick.

Dr. Silver watched me handle the code. “What is it you used to do again? A Code Archeologist?”

“I’m an Infoist.”

The reaction on her face was as if I had said I murdered small helpless animals for fun. I shouldn’t be surprised. The Library originally was the central research institute of the Ealens, the long-extinct race that had created the shifters. Saying the shifters had issues with their makers was like saying dry wood had issues with fire.

“It’s not like that anymore,” I said to her.

“Oh?” she responded, clearly skeptical.

“We help whoever asks for help. But shifters don’t usually come to us.”

“Slaves do not ask former masters for help.”

“It’s been thousands of years. No one who works in the Library now had anything to do with that.”

Dr. Silver only offered an unconvincingly passive aggressive hmmm in response. She looked up at the code floating around.

“What exactly are you doing?”

“Reprogramming the food dispensers.”

Dr. Silver pushed an errant line of code back toward me. “I don’t think those things have been used in years. You could just ask the kitchen to make something.”

I deleted the line she had touched and substituted another one. “Yes, but they would make it from fresh ingredients, and it would taste amazing.”

Dr. Silver gave me an odd look. “Because having delicious food served on command is absolutely a method of torture.”

“Because it’s not going to last. I’m going to go back to Tranquility, back to my ordinary life. I don’t want to get used to it.”

Dr. Silver scratched her head in confusion. “Food isn’t supposed to last. You’re supposed to just… savor it while it’s there.”

Dr. Silver didn’t understand. But I shouldn’t have expected her to.

The final bits of the code were in place. I executed the sequence. Machinery in the kitchen began to whine.

“Is it supposed to do that?” she asked.

Apparently, House Stargazer never used the food dispensers in their rooms. “Yes, that’s normal.”

A door opened and a small dark rectangle slid out on a white plate. It was brown, dusted with purple flecks.

Dr. Silver looked nauseated.

I picked up the bar, still warm, and bit into it. Tasted just like home. I chewed. Though it seemed to be more cloyingly sweet with a metallic aftertaste that I didn’t remember it having.

She was trying valiantly to hide the horrified look on her face. “Is that what you eat in the Coalition?”

“It’s efficient and nutritious. You don’t have to waste your time preparing anything.”

“Does it taste good?”

I forced myself to take another bite and chewed.

And chewed.

And chewed.

I forced myself to swallow the hard lump. “It has all the required nutrients for optimal functioning.”

Dr. Silver attempted not to gag. “I’d rather not be optimized then.” The doctor quickly finished her tests and retreated.

I stared at the half-eaten nutritbar on the counter.

I wasn’t that hungry after all.

I dropped the nutritbar in the disposal chute.

Last night’s escape had failed. I had to see if my Coalition pilot-escort-turned-only-ally Red had any other devices up her sleeve. As a special ops pilot, Red had had access to some of the most advanced technologies in the universe. But it remained to be seen if the flight suit was the only secret Coalition tech with her.

I tweaked the code in the dispensers, made some candy, tucked it into my pocket, and went to the door of my suite.

In the hallway, a guard sat in a chair opposite the door. Rish was a tall man with pale skin and white hair that set him apart from most of the other armored retainers of House Stargazer. We had chatted briefly and politely, though he held himself back at the formal distance guards in all the shifter houses seemed to mimic.

He greeted me with a wrinkled nose. “What is that smell?”

“What smell?”

“It smells like food…but fake.”

He must be talking about the nutrit-bar. “Oh, I made some food that reminded me of home. I’m going to go see Red and the kids.”

“Just a moment.” I waited like an obedient little dog as he tapped at the screen in his vambrace, pretending that I didn’t know he was logging my request, awaiting the approval.

I should be more rebellious, I thought. But there wasn’t a point in trying to take it out on a guard who could probably take me down with both hands tied behind his back.

I had to figure out another way to get out of here. And Red was my only hope.

Another guard turned the corner. She was darker skinned, though not as dark as I was, with black plaits braided tight to her scalp with military precision. She was smaller than me but moved confidently in a way that made you think she could take opponents three times her size. The stripes on her shoulders told me she probably had.

“Morning, Lady,” she said.

Rish turned to me, inclining his head. “Gina will escort you.”

I didn’t know whether or not to be thankful or annoyed that the guards continued to maintain this pretense that I had freedom of movement. It was similar to how I had been treated in my father’s house. Never once did they imply that they had to seek approval for my wanderings on the estate. Never did they directly tell me that I was not permitted to go somewhere. Never did they suggest I had any restrictions at all on my movement.

But they were there just the same, shadowing my footsteps, no matter where I went. The Ealen mosaics shimmered as we passed.

“Thank you for allowing me to accompany you,” said Gina, suddenly. “Rish has a hard time around children.”

Guards didn’t just usually strike up conversations. “Rish strikes me as the type who would be a good father.”

“He has wanted children for a long time. But his wife died recently. Arvonian parasites.”

Involuntarily I winced. You couldn’t recover from the things that liked to treat a host’s brain stem as a buffet.

I put the thought out of my mind as Gina held open the doors for me to enter the suite where Red and the kids were ensconced. To Kanona’s credit, she had placed them in a permanent suite in the children’s wing. She had guaranteed that Red and the children could stay under the protection of House Stargazer for as long as I deemed necessary, a concession I knew many in the Stargazer Court found odd.

But I recognized why Kanona was doing it.

Red stood at a pair of outer doors that opened out to a vast green area dotted with colorful play equipment. Her bushy dark hair was unbraided, hovering around her head like a halo. Her cream-colored loose draping dress, a far cry from the tight military uniform I had first met her in.

I had never seen her look happier.

The laughter of the children, the simple sweet chaos of dirty feet and sticky hands, rang a peal of sorrow within me.

I fought tears in my eyes.

“Anders,” her voice boomed. “Don’t you dare think of sticking that thing up your nose!”

I almost decided to go, but then she turned and saw me. I couldn’t very well leave now.

I forced myself to walk over to her.

Two fully shifted tiger kittens scrambled toward me. They were huge, coming up at least to my waist. I braced myself, expecting to be knocked over, but one of the kids in human form shoved himself in front of me. You would have expected them to mow him down, but he just stood there, arms outspread.

“Be careful!” said Anders, the cuts on his skin already healing. He looked at me with those clear blue eyes.

The kittens looked contrite, but only for a moment. They dashed around me, impossibly fast, leaping around me, over me with ease. I offered them scratches on the head and a popstick each. As soon as they got their pops, they dashed back to the grass, two giant tiger kittens with popsticks protruding from their mouths.

“Sorry about that Aunty Sri,” said Anders. He wrinkled his nose. “Why does your breath smell so bad?”

What was it with shifters and nutrit-bars?

“I made myself a nutrit-bar.”

Red offered me a look of disgust. “Are you trying to poison yourself?”

“You’re lucky I didn’t bring them for you.” I handed Anders a blue pop and ruffled his hair. “Go play and tell the others I brought pops for you all.”

Anders gave me a quick hug and ran off.

“Heya,” said Red.

“It was a good book you lent me,” I said, thinking of the book that had turned into a flight suit. Maybe she had other things, like a dress that could turn into a spaceship, not that such a thing existed, but if it did, the Coalition would have it. Their cutting-edge technology was what gave them an edge against the shifter empires. “Unfortunately, I don’t think the story is a good fit.”

Red didn’t look at me. “Did you try to read it last night?”

“I got interrupted. I don’t know if I’ll have another chance.”

“That’s unfortunate. It’s the only one I brought.”

“I’ll find something else to read,” I said.

We stood there in silence.

At the edge of my vision, I saw Gina examining something in her vambrace.

I moved closer to Red.

“I hear you gave the Coalition Space Force your notice. And that they didn’t like it.”

She shrugged. “I’m still a citizen. It was a free education with benefits. And then I learned what the military was.” Suddenly she raised her voice, “Talos, if you keep poking Kyron like that, of course he’s going to bite you.” She turned back to me. “Pointless missions for a nameless bureaucracy that treated me like the back sludge waste from a shard shaken water hauler.”

Red’s people had had a long history of being victims of religious persecution on First Earth, a history that unfortunately carried over into space once humans started spreading throughout the universe. The Coalition was an organization that consisted of several planets of hundreds if not thousands of cultures. Theoretically, all Coalition citizens had equal rights. The reality wasn't so charming.

“Destinies are unpredictable,” I said.

“If I were still serving, no one would miss me, if I died out there in space. No one.” She was quiet for a moment.

Red had been an orphaned refugee like me and found her path up and out of the camps. The cold peace with its ongoing conflict and skirmishes between the tigers and wolves produced a never-ending supply of refugees and orphans.

Including these children, rescued from a supposedly uninhabited planet.

These kids were survivors of gruesome experiments by another House to produce tiger-shifter super-soldiers. They were young but already as strong and fast as the most elite of the Stargazer fighters. Fully grown they would achieve a whole new level of deadliness.

Dorran ran up to me. “Hi Aunty Sri,” he said jumping up to my height. He pointed at my pocket. “Can I have a pop?”

“Of course.”

The rest clamored around, but I noticed now, so very carefully so as not to jostle me with their extraordinary strength. They had been learning.

“I want a pop!”

“Aunty Sri, your breath stinks bad!”

“You went first last time!”

“What about me? I never get to be first!”

I distributed more pops and hugs and sent them running off back into the field.

“So you’re staying here then.”

Red nodded her head; her eyes fixed on the children. I followed her gaze. “You know that Kanona has plans,” I said, watching as Dorran lifted a massive boulder that was at least three times his size and just as heavy, and start running with it. They were bred to be super-soldiers, and now they would be raised in House Stargazer. Their choices would be limited.

“She can try to have plans,” Red said with clenched fists. “It’s why I have to stay.”

I looked over at the children, laughing at bubbles in the sunlight. A blade twisted in me invisibly.

“I’m not going to let myself get bogged down too much by obsessing about the future or the past,” she said, glancing at my guard. “Life is fragile. I’m going to enjoy what I can, while I can.”

I knew that all too well.

“I’m going to go see if I can find another book to read.”

“Good luck. Don’t forget, you’re expected at the Hospitality Lunch.”

I cursed. “Of course it would be today, of all days.”

I’d just have to keep my mouth shut and make sure I wasn’t noticed. That couldn’t be that hard, would it?

* * *

My Dearest Beloved Daughter,

Is it so terrible that a father wishes to see his daughter happily wed? I will take care of everything.

I put down the screen without reading the rest of the letter.

I sat on the ends of a U-shaped table up on a dais in a room that was most definitely a throne room, even though it was called “The Hall of Auspicious Welcome,” or some other flowery thing. Kai and Kanona sat in the middle, while assorted courtiers drifted throughout in the room. Twice a week, it was the Stargazer custom to hold an open lunch, where everyone could “enjoy Stargazer hospitality.” The table was laden with the natural bounty of their estate: ripe fresh fruits and vegetables in all the colors of the rainbow and at least twelve species of avians, roasted, stewed, and poached with exotic spices from distant planets along with bizarre-looking sea creatures that everyone claimed tasted better than they looked.

It was a display of wealth, power, and extravagance, in an audience for people to air their grievances. As always, guests were garbed in gorgeous embroidered flowing floor-length robes of fire, azure, jade, dawn, and a dozen other hues, as if they were a collection of carnivorous flowers.

I glanced at the letter again.

My Dearest Beloved Daughter,

I could hear my brother Ral’s voice in my head, noting the use of the possessive, the lack of title. My father was still undeterred in his quest to use me as a political pawn.

I suppose I should be flattered. My father had been a dictator for most of his life and expected everyone to jump when he grunted. Ral had years of learning to handle him.

I hadn’t.

The injection site in my forearm itched, reminding me of the depths to which my father would go to get his way.

I hadn’t been born in the court, and I didn’t have the political survival skills. More importantly, he would have taken my child.

Not that it mattered now.

Three figures in Nightclaw colors stood in the center of the room. Two men, one woman, the emissaries who had brought me the letter. The dense light-absorbing fabric of their uniform signaled synth-armor, a clear sign that they came prepared to fight if necessary.

“The Lady Seria is a guest, free to come and go as she pleases,” said Kanona.

The taller man stepped toward me. Another handsome face, but one that had an air of familiarity. The guards announced him as a Lord Aralon, so he was probably another random cousin of mine. He turned to me. “Your father misses you and wants you to come home.”

I made myself lean forward, to show I wasn’t afraid. “Alzar-4 is not home.”

Aralon lowered his hand to his side.

To say the muscles were tense was like saying a tiger had stripes. And as if to show just how completely unprepared I was for this world, my innate reaction was to laugh.

Aralon looked at Kai. “It is not unprecedented for a House to deny an Alpha the right to his progeny. But consider if you would, what happened the last time.”

The room went silent.

The Evermore War.

This wasn’t happening. This was the cusp of insanity.

I clutched the arm of my chair, trying to stifle a giggle. Nightclaw couldn’t be threatening to restart a five hundred years long war over me.

Kanona glanced nonchalantly at her fingernails. Kai looked as if he were bored. “The Lady Seria is a guest, free to come and go as she pleases.” Kanona looked at the men, a cold smile spreading across her face. “But unfortunately you wolves are not guests.”

A whine of smart weapons rang through the air from the Stargazer guards and the Nightclaw messengers.

“Wait!” I said, standing up. They all looked at me. “My father wishes me to return because he wants to marry me off. Well, you can go and tell him the question is moot. Because I am getting married, but to a man of my choosing.”

Lord Aralon looked perplexed. He had not expected this response.

“To…whom?”

Kai leaned forward and smiled with white teeth. “To me.”