Chapter One

Realm Year 487

The Planet Katanes, Kingdom of the Dozen Stars

15 Years Later

If there was one trait for which the planet Katanes, a minor barony under the authority of Tantos Duchy, could be said to be known, it was its natural beauty. Its dark orange sky gave the planet an air of perpetual twilight, and when its sun set its two large moons filled the sky, casting everything in a silvery glow. Often, they were joined by spectacular auroras whose shimmering lights were visible across most of the inhabited continent. Beyond the cities, the land rose in spectacular mountain ranges at whose feet spread out the vast fields of violet and blue vegetation; Katanes's agricultural products were and remained the planet's primary exports.

Upon the slopes of one of the mountains, not far from Tannen City, the planet's capital and primary spaceport, there stood an elaborate structure from which gleaming silver towers rose towards the sky. This was the palace of the Baron Varas ast Katanes, the titled ruler of the planet whose name he bore. The palace served as residence for the Baron and his family as well as the planet's administrative center and perhaps its most recognizable landmark.

In a large room deep inside the palace a slender figure stood, wearing padded training clothes in the green of the Baron's household and a faceguard that left few features visible. In her – for even with the padded clothes, she was just recognizable as female – hands, she held a dull-edged practice sword in a ready position. Across the room stood her opponent – a training mech with its white armor polished to a glow, its face nothing more than a single, expressionless red eye. It held a sword that was a match for her own.

The girl sighed, adjusted her grip on her sword's hilt ever so slightly, then said clearly, "Begin." At once the mech sprang into motion, charging forward with weapon raised. The girl met its attack with her own weapon, and the resounding clack of the training weapons striking each other echoed through the empty training hall. Backward and forward they darted, human and machine, the one's technique rough but showing promise according to her living instructors, the other's carefully programmed to match her.

Finally, the girl disengaged and stumbled back, and she and the training mech began to circle each other carefully. If she could strike the center of the machine's chest, it was programmed to switch off, and she would win; she thought she'd noticed a flaw in its technique that might give her the opening she needed. Carefully she studied her opponent and then darted forward; it managed to parry just in time, catching her blade on its own. For a long moment they struggled against one another, the girl trying to angle her sword down to hit the critical spot – and the suddenly the mech twisted its wrist, and the motion sent her practice sword flying. The girl landed on her back on the padded ground and looked up to see the mech looming over her, weapon raised.

"End program!" she shouted, and at once the mech froze, awaiting further instructions. The girl sighed heavily beneath her mask and stood, facing her now-immobile opponent and giving it a slight, respectful bow – though a part of her was amused at the idea of treating something that was a glorified appliance with no thoughts or will of its own as a worthy opponent. Carefully, she reached up and pulled her mask off, shaking out her hair as it came free. Revealed beneath it were the tan face and tied-back black hair of a girl of about sixteen. Her name was Arta ast Katanes, and she was the Baron's fostered daughter.

The sound of quiet applause drew Arta's attention away from the mech and towards the training hall's door and the person she now saw leaning there. Karani, her foster-sister and the Baron's biological daughter, was a year older than she was and somehow managed to look confident and dashing even with her hair loose rather than in its customary long braid and wearing a rumpled green sleeping robe. It was hard not to resent that fact, sometimes. "I had a feeling I'd find you here," she said.

"How long were you watching?" Arta asked as she picked up her practice sword.

Karani shrugged. "Long enough," she said. "Not bad, little sister, but you still let yourself get too wrapped up in what you're planning to do to focus on what's in front of your face." She held up one long finger in a reproving gesture. "That's what'll get you."

Karani left her position by the door and began to stroll around the training room. "Why do you keep coming down here in the middle of the night, anyway? I mean, you are getting better, and don't you get enough training during the day? Do you have to get beat up by mechs at night, too? Frankly, I don't see the appeal."

"I don't do it for fun," Arta snapped back. "You come of age next year, and I do a year after that. You're Father's heir – your future's all planned out and you don't need to worry about it. I'm not so lucky. I'm a fosterling – even if I was oldest, I wouldn't inherit anything. That means either I wind up stuck in some political marriage, or a dead-end bureaucratic job, or…"

Karani raised an eyebrow. "Or?" she asked lightly, but from the look in her eyes Arta could tell she was genuinely curious.

"Or I manage to get a knighthood," the younger girl finally said. "I know, I know, I'm a nobody, and who in Tantos Duchy would take my service? Go ahead and laugh. But it's better than being cooped up in an office or shunted off to some planet I've never been to so I can marry someone I barely know."

"I'm not going to laugh," Karani said; instead, she looked surprisingly thoughtful. "Makes sense to me, anyway. Although," she said with a satisfied smile, "if you want any pointers, I might be able to give them to you – so long as you ask me at a reasonable hour and don't expect me to drag myself out of bed in the middle of the night for it."

Thanks for the reminder that you're so good at everything, Arta thought, but didn't say aloud. She had to admit, however, that it was true – her foster-sister was good at everything, from swordplay to fashion to dancing – even her studies, when they interested her, which wasn’t as often as her tutors probably hoped. But perhaps because of her talent, she rarely applied herself with any real effort. Sometimes Karani seemed to treat life like it was all one big game and just assumed everything would work out fine for her in the end because it normally did. Arta, on the other hand, wasn't so lucky – she had to work for the skills she had.

"Look," Karani said, noting the expression on Arta's face and mistaking its origin. She walked over to her foster-sister and put her hands on her shoulders; Karani had inherited their father’s height and was very tall for a woman, even taller than most men, and Arta had to crane her head back to look up at her face. "If nothing else, you could always take service with me someday. Baroness and knight. It would be fun!"

Arta leaned into Karani's shoulder, but inside she thought that the last thing she needed was more family charity. Fostering was common among the noble families of the Dozen Stars, though not as common as it had once did; nobles raising each other's children was supposed to help build alliances between them, or that was the idea. Arta, however, had come to the House ast Katanes as an infant, and all she knew of her origins was that she was an orphan that Baron Varas had taken into his care. She knew no father but the Baron, and no sister but Karani, but at the same time, she was always keenly aware she was the outsider, and that it was only through the Baron's kindness that she had become part of their family at all.

Looking up at her foster-sister, she forced herself to smile. "Maybe you're right," she said. "But someday, I'll make a name and a life for myself, I promise you that."

"Of course, you will – blood or not, you're ast Katanes, aren't you?" Karani smiled and hugged her foster-sister, then stepped back and stifled a loud yawn. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm going back to bed, where normal people are at this time of night. I recommend you do the same, unless you want to be falling asleep flat on your face tomorrow." She turned to walk away.

"I will," Arta said to her retreating back, then added more quietly, "thank you, Karani."

"Any time, little sister," the older girl said without turning, though she gave an idle wave of one hand. When she was gone, Arta turned to the mech and tapped the switch on the back of its neck, reactivating it. She handed it her practice sword and watched as it clomped away, taking both swords and itself back to the equipment storage. Arta herself made her way to the changing room and began to strip off her training clothes, revealing the jumpsuit she wore underneath. Training clothes stowed, she pulled on a robe and started to head back to her bedroom.

Karani meant well, and that had helped, even if her words themselves hadn't. But Arta vowed to herself that one way or another, she would show that she was more than an orphaned fosterling, more than the irrelevant second daughter of a minor family. No matter what it took.

/

Arta wasn't the only member of the ast Katanes household who wasn't sleeping that night. High in one of the spires of the palace, Baron Varas stood at a balcony, the wind rustling his hair and the robe he wrapped tightly around himself as he gazed out over the planet that had been given to him to rule and protect. It might not have been a particularly important or prestigious planet, possessing only a small population and having done little of note to earn the attention of the Kingdom’s historians or political scientists, and it was only one of numerous worlds subject to Duke Hiram on Tantos III. Still, it was his, and it was home.

It was moonset over the palace; the larger, silver moon was full and the smaller blue one was nearly so, and as they set their light mingled with that of the aurora to become a glow that was far softer and more comforting than daylight. Varas came here often when he couldn't sleep; he'd done so more often in the years since his wife had died.

He heard the sound of footsteps behind him and turned to see his aide and confidante, Danas hast Dakatis; the Baron smiled to note that the man was, as ever, neatly attired, even at this hour. "I thought you might be interested to know," Danash said, "that I was checking the palace's power readings and it seems someone has been turning on the mechs in the training room again in the middle of the night. I don't think we need to launch an inquiry to know who."

Varas smiled. "At it again, is she?" he asked. "Arta's certainly got persistence; probably got it from her mother. Well, so long as she's not hurting herself – or anyone else – I say leave her be. She'd just find a way around it if we tried to stop her anyway, the way she gets when she's got her mind on something."

"You know why she's taken to doing this, don't you?" Danash asked softly. "She's tired of being the younger sister, the fosterling, always in Karani's shadow." He paused for a along moment, as if weighing his options, and finally he continued. "Have you considered telling her the truth, old friend? It might help her understand things better if you did…"

The Baron sighed. "Lord help me, I'm tempted. She'll have to find out someday, but part of me is afraid of what might happen if I did. I never imagined, when I agreed to take her in, how hard it would be to keep the truth from her." He shook his head sadly.

"On that note," Danash added, "I thought you might be interested to know that a message arrived for you a short time ago; it was to your private channel, but since you weren't present, I took the liberty of opening it. The Professor agrees with you; the time is right. He'll be here by the end of the week, he says."

"Thank the Lord," said the Baron. "At last, we can start to get things moving again – for ourselves, for Katanes, and for the Kingdom itself." He paused and looked back out over the nighttime landscape before turning back to Danash. "Anything else you have for me?"

"Just a reminder that you're scheduled for a meeting in Tannen tomorrow; nothing too serious, but the guildmasters are very determined to get your reassurances on the pirate matter in person. Are you still planning on bringing the girls with you?"

"Yes," said Varas. "It'll do them both good to sit in on the meeting; after all, Karani will be running this place someday and she could use the reminder that sometimes a Baron or Baroness needs to take things seriously. But I doubt it'll be much trouble."

"Of course," said Danash. "Well, that's all I have, and I think it's time I retire, and I recommend you do so as well. Good night, old friend."

"Good night," Varas replied, at watched him turn sharply and depart the balcony. Danash was a good friend, and a loyal aide; Varas still wished sometimes he'd been there when he'd been young, if only so someone practical could warn him how difficult it would be balancing his duties as a baron, a father, and as keeper of too many secrets. The first role was the most officially important; the second, the most rewarding; it was the third that brought him most grief.

Sighing one last time, the Baron left the balcony and headed for his bed, even as, several floors below, his foster-daughter prepared to do the same. Above them all, the moons slowly set, heralding the passing of midnight, the end of one day, and the beginning of the next.

/

The city of Tannen was the largest spaceport on Katanes, though in truth, that said very little in its favor. The city itself was only moderately sized, and though it saw traffic to and from other worlds on a regular basis, that traffic was composed chiefly of shipments of foodstuffs sent to the Duke on Tantos III or exported to other markets, or the occasional tourist who had wanted to see the famous auroras or who had a fondness for mountain climbing. Occasionally the Duke might arrive on a tour of the worlds that made up his outlying holdings, or the Baron and his family would leave to pressing business elsewhere in the Kingdom, but that was rare, and remained the most exciting thing the sleepy city ever saw.

This night, however, a small spacecraft descended from orbit and towards one of Tannen's docking bays. It was so black that it seemed to be a sliver of the night itself, and it gleamed like polished obsidian; it had put the militia forces in orbit on edge when it first appeared on their scopes, and the commander had hailed it and, rather more forcibly than usual, demanded its registry information and intended destination.

The only reply had been a brief transmission containing a code that had caused the commander to sharply inhale when he saw it – a code he knew far better than to question or countermand. He ordered his ships to stand down and let the strange new arrival pass unharmed.

The ship landed at the docking bay, seeming surprisingly light for a construction of metal and hard plastic, and its underside opened revealing a ramp from which descended a person in dark clothing, with a hood pulled low over their head. This person paused to look around themselves warily, then slowly approached the nearby booth where the night attendant waited to collect the fee for the use of the bay.

The night attendant didn't consider himself a cowardly man – he'd been in the militia years ago, though he hadn't actually seen much action except against a few pirates now and again – but he couldn't help but feel uneasy at this dark figure who approached him – and let out a sigh of relief when all it did was swipe a card at the provided scanner, then punch a few keys with a gloved forefinger to complete the transaction.

"Er, that seems to be in order," the attendant said, checking the information on his screen. "Welcome to Kartanes. Ah, how long will you be staying?"

"A few days," the figure said softly – a woman's voice. "I have business here, but it shouldn't take me too long. You, if you're wise, will forget that you ever saw me." She placed her card back in the folds of her clothing and then turned without further word and strode off towards the city, her dark cape fluttering behind her in the cool breeze.

Well, whoever she was, the attendant thought she was right – he didn't know why she was here, and he didn't want to. What he did know was that she was the strangest thing he'd seen for a very long time, and that it would be best for everyone involved if he kept his head down and didn't ask questions.

And when his shift was over, he was going to have a nice long drink and then go to bed and try to forget this had ever happened.