Betrayal (The Two Moons of Rehnor, Book 14)

  The Two Moons of Rehnor

  Book 14

  Betrayal

  By

  J. Naomi Ay

  Published by Ayzenberg, Inc.

  Copyright 2012 - 2016Ayzenberg, Inc.

  All Rights Reserved

  260116

  Cover Design by Amy Jambor

  Photo images by [email protected]

  Also by J. Naomi Ay

  The Two Moons of Rehnor series

  The Boy who Lit up the Sky (Book 1)

  My Enemy's Son (Book 2)

  Of Blood and Angels (Book 3)

  Firestone Rings (Book 4)

  The Days of the Golden Moons (Book 5)

  Golden's Quest (Book 6)

  Metamorphosis (Book 7)

  The Choice (Book 8)

  Treasure Hunt (Book 9)

  Space Chase (Book 10)

  Imperial Masquerade (Book 11)

  Rivalry (Book 12)

  Thirteen (Book 13)

  Betrayal (Book 14)

  Fairy Tales (Book 15)

  Gone for a Spin (Book 16)

  The Firesetter series

  A Thread of Time

  Amyr’s Command

  Three Kings

  Exceeding Expectations

  Chapter 1

  Eva had never been to Rozari. Even though her ancestors had immigrated from the planet a thousand years before, even though her ancestral grandfather had been a general in the Markiis Kalila's army, and her ancestral grandmother had purportedly been Markiis Kalila's lover, Eva had never taken the opportunity to visit her home planet.

  Once, when Eva was still working at the aerospace contractor, an opportunity to travel to a conference at SdK Aerospace Rozari came up. The topic was finance related, a discussion of depreciation methods, transfer pricing, and inventory valuation. All of these items were intrinsic in Eva's daily work. She wanted to go. She filled out her travel request, and sent it off to the company president for approval. Eva didn't anticipate any issues, as the company was doing well.

  In fact, Eva was so certain that she'd be going to Rozari, she had gone out that evening and bought herself some new clothes. She spent more than she otherwise would have, acquiring a new linen suit by a famous designer, a silk blouse, matching shoes, a fashionable clutch handbag, and an assortment of lacy lingerie. She bought a nice black dress to wear with her late mother's pearls and the diamond stud earrings her ex-fiancé had given her for Saint's Day one year.

  Rumor had it that the Imperial Prince Revak was going to be there. He was president of SdK then, in addition to Co-Regent of the Realm with his brother, the Imperial Prince Shika. Eva hadn't a thought that Revak, or Rent, as he was commonly known, would even glance her way. But, just in case, she wanted to be prepared.

  Eva had no intention of entering into a relationship, not even with an Imperial Prince. She had been burned too many times before. All she ever ended up with was a few trinkets of jewelry, a severely bruised ego, and an irreparably damaged heart.

  "Not again," she assured herself, standing sideways and sizing herself up in the department store's mirror.

  She did look good though. Her hair was a thick and shiny chestnut. Her figure had been dieted and exercised to perfection. Her skin shone with a luminescent glow. The tiny lines in her face gave her just enough character to make her interesting. She would make a nice picture on the Imperial Prince's arm, and she was smart and mature enough to provide intelligent conversation.

  "No!" She wasn't looking for a man, not a prince, not even the Emperor if he asked.

  Still, she slipped off the black dress, had it wrapped up in tissue, and packed it in her suitcase, just in case.

  Eva was very much looking forward to the journey, to being out in space for the first time. It felt like the first time she saw the ocean, after she had moved to New Mishnah from her childhood home in Kildoo.

  In fact, the whole night before she couldn’t sleep, and just to be safe, she left for the spaceport four hours early. She had already selected a window seat, preordered her meals, loaded four novels on her tablet, and bought a travel pillow in the spaceport's gift shop, when her cell rang.

  "Eva, the conference is cancelled." It was her boss.

  Eva's heart fell, so much so, she could barely listen to the rest of the call. It was something about a crisis, another one in a long series of crises that had befallen the Empire in the last year.

  She murmured a response. Something appropriately regretful, but at the same time understanding. She forced a laugh, hoping it sounded lighthearted.

  "Oh well," she said, clicking off. "There will always be another one."

  There wasn't. As Eva picked up her bag, and headed back through the spaceport, she knew with absolutely certainty that things were only going to get worse. An imperial planet had been destroyed by another imperial planet, a naked act of aggression and murder that would go unchecked by a weakened and Emperor-less throne.

  Eva splurged and took a taxi home. She didn't own a speeder, and the queue for the bus nearly wrapped around the terminal. She figured she'd return the black dress and the linen suit. Also, the handbag. The shoes and the blouse, she'd think about.

  Reggie, Eva's landlord, was surprised to see her arrive back so soon. He was sweeping the front steps of his building, passing the pleasant afternoon by chatting with his tenants, and anyone else on the street. Reggie had inherited this building as well as half a dozen on the street from his Aunt Meri, the only relative he could claim.

  This was a fashionable section of Old Mishnah where exorbitantly high rents bought a flat in a renovated historic building. Supposedly in this very building, the Emperor had lived during his lost boyhood years. Eva wasn't certain if this was true, or just a clever marketing gimmick on the part of Reggie's aunt. In either case, the corner apartment on the third floor was never rented, but instead, for a silver coin, could be viewed from behind a roped off stanchion.

  One could spend ten minutes looking the place over and marveling at the things the boy prince had touched. Here was the bathtub he had slept in, the very cloak which he had used as a blanket. Here was the table where he sat and the bowl from which he drank Reggie’s Aunt’s soup.

  Eva went in for free. Reggie refused to take her coin. For her full ten minutes, Eva had walked around imagining herself as Reggie’s aunt, the boy’s hand grasping tightly to her own. She had to admit, there was a strange feeling in there, as if something mystical or magical had happened inside.

  That wasn't why she had chosen this building, though. No, Eva lived here because of the proximity to the restaurants and theatres. She liked the department stores just down the street, and the fact that she could walk just about everywhere she need to go.

  It was also conveniently located on the bus line, which meant a bus came every fifteen minutes, even on the weekends and holidays.

  Eva liked Reggie from the very first moment they met. She loved his old fashion chivalrous manners, and the lilt of his street Mishnese accent. On the weekends when the sun came out, she'd bring her coffee out to the front stoop. She could sit with him for hours listening to his stories of the streets, and Palace life.

  "Ach, thas bad business goin' on," Reggie remarked when Eva arrived home in the taxi from the spaceport. "Tis a pity, lass. Ye were sure to enjoy yer trip to Rozari. Come and 'ave a spot of tea with me, and I'll tell ye all about the times when I was there."

  "Oh Reggie," Eva told him while sighing whimsically. "You'll make me jealous."

  Eva put her suitcase and clothes away before joining Reggie out on the stoop. He had brought her a mug of tea, and set a little dish of biscuits between them.

  The
Imperial Couple’s portrait was on the dish, both of them looking serious, although the Empress had a gleam in her eye. Her mouth turned up a tiny bit, as if she might burst out laughing. The Emperor wasn't so amused, although something in his posture, in the way he was leaning toward his wife, looked to Eva as if he might be the cause of her mirth. He might have had a hand where it shouldn't have been, or whispered something that made her blush.

  "Ach, they were quite the pair," Reggie nodded, noting Eva's gaze upon the plate. "I miss 'im. That I do. I miss the both of them."

  Eva hadn't really known either of them. Certainly not like Reggie who had served in the palace guard. To Eva, they were almost larger than life, two unreal figures, like actors in a play. She had never seen them in person, only in appearances on the vid, or when they stepped out upon the Palace balcony to wave at the people.

  Eva wasn't certain why the economy had failed so quickly, even though there were pundits and talking heads on the vid with explanations. Famous and notable economists, and those who thought they knew, contradicted each other on what had happened, and what could be done. Every day there was another theory. They argued back and forth using terms like stimulus, tax cuts, tax hikes, inflation, recession, depression.

  The truth was, Eva suspected, that despite their fancy talk, no one had a clue what they could do.

  "We're in uncharted territory," one economist said, and that was the truth.

  No one had ever built an economy this size. Never before had there been an empire out of so many different planets. No one had tried to unite so many diverse cultures. Without him, that single uniting force, the one man who had brought them all together, there no longer was an incentive for the empire to exist.

  Although she tried not to pay attention, to focus on her own tiny economy at the aerospace subcontractor, Eva couldn't avoid the reality of what was happening around her. Like a tidal wave, the economic collapse engulfed her within its wake. Commerce plummeted, and suddenly, businesses were insolvent.

  At the aerospace contractor, it was no different. Their sole customer, SdK Aerospace was caught up in a quagmire since the explosion of a brand new SdK 878. Lawsuits halted production, putting all deliveries on hold. Pending orders cancelled, and new orders ceased.

  Now, Eva’s company was likewise out of business, and Eva was out of a job.

  In addition to SdK’s troubles, faith in the economy, as a whole, disappeared with the Emperor. Consumers sat on their hands and waited for his return. No one knew what the future held, and so they tucked away the last of their coins, just in case. Hiring froze. Layoffs followed. Like a sled heading down a frozen slope, Rehnor went sliding into a depression.

  Nobody could do anything about it. It was all too immense, too quick, and too arduous a task.

  The final nail in the imperial coffin was when the outer planets started bickering. This quickly turned into a skirmish or two, which escalated into all out wars. With the Imperial SpaceNavy virtually out of commission, there was no one to stop them.

  On the day Eva returned home to her flat, instead of traveling on that junket to Rozari, she discovered that Lumineria II had destroyed her sister planet, III. Thus began the crack in the proverbial dam, which turned into a leak, which would ultimately collapse the whole system, sweeping everyone down a river of despair.

  Over the next two years, culminating in the worst snow storm in the planet's history, Eva adapted to her new life, such as it was. Gone were the designer clothes, a warm apartment, restaurant or take-out food. Life became a daily quest for wood to burn, clean water, and something, anything to eat.

  Then, Eva’s life changed again. In a blink of an eye, Reggie was dead, and Eva’s world spun around. In her hand, she held a golden ticket to Rozari.

  "Come to me," the note read, and Eva did.

  With only the clothes on her back, and the note in her pocket, Eva tread through the still wet streets of Old Mishnah. She turned her face to the glorious sunshine, which after the dark and endless winter, felt more brilliant than ever before. She basked in the warmth, and thanked the Saint for blessing her with this wondrous gift.

  Eva climbed the steps of Palace Hill to the ruined acropolis of the Imperial Palace, entering the gates and passing through the courtyard as if she had been there a thousand times before.

  She knocked on the doors to the Big House, withdrawing the note, and displaying it to the guard.

  "I have come to serve HIM," she said, and serve him she did.

  Chapter 2

  Shika de Kudisha woke up screaming. He'd had that dream again, the one where he was hanging off the side of a cliff by his fingernails, tiny pebbles cascading down on his head. This was the fourth or fifth time he'd had this dream in the last month alone, and it was always at the point, where his tenuous grip finally loosened, sending him plummeting to the jagged rocks below, when Joanne shook him, waking him up.

  "Not again," she muttered, falling back on her pillow. "God, I wish you'd go talk to a shrink or something. This is getting ridiculous."

  "Sorry." Steve turned on his side, his back to her back, trying to steady his racing heart and calm his pounding nerves.

  Naturally, he could never sleep after that. He was as wide awake as if it was the middle of the day. His mind would release the dream, and start thinking about the nightmare he was living instead. Of those two options, Steve wasn't certain which was worse.

  Sitting up on the edge of the bed, Steve rubbed his temples, noting the usual post-nightmare headache already coming on.

  Sex would have cured it. Sex always cured his headaches faster and better than ibuprofen, but Joanne was snoring, or at least pretending to. Even if she wasn't asleep, chances were she'd turn him away. The only reason she bothered to share his bed was because they hadn't been allocated a second.

  Taner, who had temporarily resumed his old roll as Lord Chamberlain of the now significantly reduced realm, had assigned the Imperial Prince and his wife only his boyhood bedroom.

  Although, Joanne had begged and pleaded for one of the apartments in the outer buildings, Taner insisted all were taken. Steve knew for certain that at least one flat was empty. He suspected that this forced cohabitation was purely a misguided effort on Taner's part to prevent yet another divorce.

  Or, his dad, the Emperor had decided this. Not that his dad had any love for Joanne. No, the sole reason he would insist Steve and Joanne stayed together was to make his son suffer. Steve was sure his dad took pleasure in bringing misery to himself and Rent. And, everyone else around for that matter. Apparently, his dad had returned, from wherever he had gone, bent on making all of their lives a living hell.

  Of course, they had all messed up big time while he was gone. There was no debating that the Imperial Brothers deserved to suffer a little. Still, their dad had changed, and not for the better. If anything, the Imperial Father was still transitioning from bad to worse.

  "Either get up or go back to sleep!" Joanne snapped as Steve readjusted himself.

  He lay down, and then sat back up causing the bedsprings to squeak.

  "I'm going outside," Steve announced, finding his robe, and stepping out on the deck.

  Shuffling over to a chaise, he dropped upon it, and stared at the stars as if all the answers he sought were written within them.

  It was warm. Summer had already arrived in Takira-hahr, Rozari. A light breeze blew in off the Red Ocean, its scent an old and welcomed memory, like buttered toast, chocolate cake, his mom's shampoo. Steve closed his eyes and tried to recall all those things, especially his mom's face. It had been nearly three years, and already she was fading into a distant memory.

  She wasn't dead though. He knew that. At least she wasn't during that weird event in his dad's office two months ago.

  Katie was lost somewhere out in the galaxy, somewhere beyond Steve's grasp. Somewhere too far away for him to fetch her and bring her home. A task, Senya wasn't interested in doing either.

  Steve heard a cough somewhere a
round the corner, and immediately, his heart raced into overdrive. His dad might be out on the balcony too. Senya might be listening to all of his thoughts, especially all those errant nasty ones where Steve envisioned his father’s lifeless body buried in the back yard, or being ripped to shreds by ravenous vultures.

  Then, someone sneezed. Steve immediately breathed a huge sigh of relief. His pulse slowed, his breathing calmed. He swallowed his bile. Rising to his feet, he stepped quietly around the corner to his brother's suite where Rent was laying on a similar chaise.

  "Oh. Hey, Steve." Rent waved happily.

  Then, as if remembering where they were or why, his hand dropped to his side, and his usual wary expression returned.

  "What are you doing awake?" Steve asked, relaxing into a chair, spreading his long legs, and deciding that between the two of them, Rent was more likely to be executed first.

  "I couldn't sleep. I can barely breathe. The dust here.” He waved his hand again. “You?"

  "Bad dream again." Steve reached in the pocket of his robe and withdrew a pack of cigarettes.

  Out on the bay, somewhere above the still pink water, a seabird called. The men could hear the bird's mate answer, their two voices echoing off the hillside, joined by yet more birds as the dawn began to break.

  Slowly at first, orange rays spread across the ocean, lightening the dark sky to a deep purple, and then, only a heartbeat later, a violet hue. In mere moments, the horizon turned a light blue, the Rozarian star a bright gold disk growing before the brothers’ eyes.

  The surrounding forest brightened as well, once a dark and foreboding deep green, now shimmering with pale yellow light.

  "I'm having bad dreams too," Rent said. "Except mine are happening when I’m awake. Tell me we're not here, Steve."

  "Can't do that." Steve inhaled deeply on the cig. He contemplated the ascent of the sun, its slow climb until it was nearly parallel with his eyes. He watched it, refusing to shift his gaze, refusing to blink, his eyes burning with the intensity of his concentration. Then, he exhaled, a long gust of pungent smoke which burned his throat, while at the same time, was oddly comforting. "We need to leave, Rent. We need to get the hell out of here."