The Matriarch, as always, ignored her gloom. “The Emperor will have a report of the Inquisitor’s visit by now,” she told Donia. “If your fool of a father has created any new problems for us—”
“Please don’t call him a fool, Mother. He’s really quite visionary in his own way.”
“—if he has, then the Emperor will have told his confidants. Their children will have heard. You need to listen, Sidonia, both to what they say and what they don’t say. The survival of our family may depend on the information you gather in these forums.”
The Matriarch prized these gatherings so dearly, she always sat next to Donia and tapped into the feed with an add-on headset of her own. In that manner, she monitored her daughter’s interactions and hissed advice—or rather, orders—in her ear.
Today they settled by the computer console and pulled on their headsets to begin observing a world only they could see. I listened as Donia stammered nervously through small talk. Occasionally she made some social blunder, and the Matriarch pinched her in punishment.
It took all my self-restraint not to stride forward and break the Matriarch’s arm.
“What have I told you about avoiding certain subjects?” the Matriarch hissed. “Do not even ask her about the nebula!”
“I just asked if it was as beautiful as I’d heard,” Donia protested.
“I don’t care why you asked. The Great Heretic’s daughter can’t afford to ask anything that could be misconstrued as scientific curiosity.”
Then the Matriarch said, “That’s the avatar of Salivar Domitrian. Everyone will soon be fighting for an audience with him. Go pay your respects before he is swarmed.”
Then, a few minutes later, “Why are you at the edge of this crowd, Sidonia? You are flanked by nobodies! Move lest someone think you belong here!”
At one point, both Donia and the Matriarch tensed up. I straightened, watching their backs, wondering who they’d just seen to put them both on edge. The Matriarch’s hand whipped over and clenched Donia’s shoulder.
“Now, tread very carefully around this Pasus girl. . . .”
Pasus.
My eyes narrowed as Donia nervously conversed with the girl who had to be Elantra Pasus. I knew her family well because I’d made it my mission to acquaint myself with all the Impyrean enemies—Sidonia’s enemies. I’d watched the Senate feed live a year before as Senator von Pasus gleefully denounced Sidonia’s father. Pasus and his allies were the most ardent Helionics in the Senate, and they’d had enough votes to formally censure Senator von Impyrean for “heresy.” The Impyreans suffered a dreadful blow to their reputation, for which the Matriarch still couldn’t forgive her husband.
Privately, I resented Senator von Impyrean as well, for he’d endangered his daughter by publicly speaking on those matters that were supposed to be left unvoiced. He questioned the wisdom of forbidding education in the sciences. He possessed strange ideals and an absurd devotion to learning. It was one reason he collected old databases containing scientific knowledge, those databases the Matriarch and I had hastily concealed from the Inquisitor. He believed humanity needed to embrace scientific learning again, and he never gave a second thought to how his actions would impact his family.
He was reckless.
And now because of him, Donia had to interact with Senator von Pasus’s daughter as though their fathers weren’t rivals.
Donia did not converse long before hastily making her excuses to walk away.
Surprisingly, the Matriarch patted her shoulder. “Well done.” It was rare praise.
It seemed an eternity before Donia could tug off her headset, dark shadows of exhaustion under her eyes.
“Let’s discuss your performance,” the Matriarch said as she rose imperiously to her feet. “You were very good about evading forbidden subjects, and your interactions were most cautious, but what did you do wrong?”
Donia sighed. “I’m certain you’ll tell me.”
“You sounded meek,” the Matriarch railed. “Self-deprecating. I even heard you stammer several times. You are a future Senator. You can’t afford to be weak. Weakness is a sign of inferiority, and the Impyrean family is not inferior. One day you’ll lead us, and you will squander everything your ancestors have won for you if you don’t learn to show some strength! There are other members of the Grandiloquy slavering to take what we have thanks to your father’s idiocy, covetous Grandes and Grandeés who would rejoice to see the Heretic’s family fall! Your father is set on bringing this family to ruin, Sidonia. You will not take after him.”
Donia sighed again, but I watched the Matriarch from where I lurked, forgotten, in the corner of the room. Sometimes I suspected I valued her wisdom more than her daughter did. After all, Donia had very little instinct for self-preservation. She had never required it, growing up sheltered as she had. The idea of enemies creeping in from the dark remained foreign to her.
I was not like her. I had not been sheltered.
As ready as I felt to tear apart the Matriarch and break her every bone when she slapped or pinched her daughter, I also recognized the cold, merciless wisdom of her warnings. I knew she believed she was acting for Donia’s own good when she was harsh and brutal with her. Donia’s father had placed the family in danger with his brash and opinionated conduct, and the Matriarch had the survival instinct to know it. She was the only one of the Impyreans who seemed to appreciate the threat that the Inquisitor’s visit had posed.
The Matriarch hauled Donia from the room so she could critique her in front of Senator von Impyrean—hoping, no doubt, to show her husband that he was failing to teach his daughter sense. Usually I followed them, but today I had a rare opportunity.
Donia’s retina was still scanned into the computer console.
One look, I thought, moving toward the console. It might be the only time I’d get to see the avatars of these aristocratic children for myself. . . . The one chance I’d have to gauge the dangers on Donia’s horizon with my own firsthand judgment. I would avoid speaking to anyone.
I pulled on the headset, and disorientation swept over me as my environment shifted. I snapped into a new scene, Donia’s avatar standing on one of a series of glass platforms—totally surrounded by bare space.
A swooping sensation filled my stomach. I swallowed hard, shaking off the feeling. As the strangeness receded, I grew aware of the other avatars. . . . The finest-dressed young Grandes and Grandeés of the Empire were scattered about me, laughing in a void that would kill them in real life, the starlight artificially bright to bring out the unnatural beauty of the computerized personas they’d chosen for themselves.
Acutely aware that I was using Donia’s avatar, I slowly mounted the crystalline stairs between platforms, moving wherever my mind willed me to go, passing avatars that seemed oblivious to me. I remained silent, hoping to avoid attention. Apart from a few surprised greetings at Sidonia’s abrupt return, none seemed the wiser.