Karis regarded the man in front of him calmly. “You are certain she did not go willingly?”

“Absolutely certain, Your Imperial Majesty. Lorccan kidnapped my daughter to force her to marry him,” Lord Ratan, the representative of Devater, said with some heat. “He and his family are claiming she wants to stay with him, but Tahereh got a message to me not three days ago begging me to rescue her. They tore her away from the comm unit and ended the call before she could do more than get out a short message, but I know where they took her.”

“I will send a small contingent of the army to retrieve her at once, Lord Ratan,” Karis assured him. “I will not tolerate the abduction of someone when they have shown no interest in a marriage contract with the person in question.”

“Thank you, Your Imperial Majesty.” Ratan bowed and vanished into the crowd once more.

Karis finished out the audiences and then called for Durden, his Warmaster General. “Durden, I want a small contingent of the Imperial army to go to Tonvoria and retrieve the young lady named Tahereh, daughter to Lord Ratan. She was taken there against her will, and I wish her retrieved and returned to her family as soon as possible.”

“Does the council approve of this action, Your Imperial Majesty?” Durden asked.

“Probably not, but I do not care at this point. I want her picked up before the situation deteriorates any further.” Karis was already aware his council wouldn’t approve. He wasn’t going to debate this with them.

“Yes, Your Imperial Majesty.” Durden bowed. “I will send a contingent immediately.”

“Thank you.” Durden left. Karis picked up his pad and immediately saw that his council didn’t want him to act. He informed the council of his orders and left it there.

As he’d expected, Vasco was on his doorstep within a matter of minutes. Imre let him in. “Your Imperial Majesty acted perhaps a little too hastily in sending troops in,” Vasco began.

“No, Vasco. I did not act too hastily. The girl was taken by force without her family’s permission. She is being held against her will. I will not tolerate the unlawful imprisonment of a member of my court.” Karis tapped his fingers idly on his pad and waited for the opening he knew was coming.

“We only have her father’s word that she went unwillingly, Your Imperial Majesty.” Vasco was nothing if not predictable.

“I have my investigation minister’s report as well.” Karis kept his face as neutral as possible. “I was waiting to see if Ratan was going to come to me or take matters into his own hands. He was sensible and came to me first.”

“Your spymaster’s report, Your Imperial Majesty?” Vasco asked.

“I have known this was going on since Lorccan first approached Tahereh and she refused him.” Karis fixed the man with a cold look. “I do know what goes on in my court, Vasco. I make sure I keep a close eye on what happens.”

“Ah, so Your Imperial Majesty is operating on information that we as your council do not have.” Vasco seemed greatly disturbed by that fact.

“If I thought you needed it, I would give it to you.” Karis was secretly amused by Vasco’s discomfiture. “As this is a matter that needs to be dealt with decisively, I chose to keep it to myself. I was not in the mood to bicker about it for days on end with you.”

“Of course, Your Imperial Majesty.” Vasco bowed. “I will let the others know you were acting on additional knowledge than what was presented at the audiences.” He left the room.

It was six weeks before he heard the final report of what had happened with his armed forces sent to Tonvoria. Durden came to him after the audiences. “Your Imperial Majesty, the girl has been returned to her family.” Durden didn’t look happy. “But we have a bigger problem. Tonvoria and Devater are mobilizing.”

“What? Why?” Karis was confused. “Tahereh has been returned to her family. There should be nothing else to fight over.”

“Tahereh is pregnant, not by choice, and she wants to terminate the pregnancy. Lorccan is claiming he has a right to the child,” Durden explained.

“They are mobilizing because Lorccan wants to force her to have the child, and Tahereh, who has the right to terminate the pregnancy by law because this is the child of rape, wants to terminate the pregnancy.” Karis set his pad down and sat up straight.

“Yes, Your Imperial Majesty.” Durden looked grim. “They’re pulling in their neighbors and allies. We are going to have a full-blown civil war on our hands if we can’t do something to calm them down.”

“Are Malak and Ratan at court?” Karis assumed they were but wanted confirmation.

Durden shook his head. “No, Your Imperial Majesty. They have sent ambassadors, however, to petition you to step in. They arrived this afternoon but missed their chance at today’s audiences.”

“Thank you, Durden. I will deal with this,” Karis told his Warmaster General. Durden bowed and left.

“What will you do, Your Imperial Majesty?” Imre asked. “If you go through the council, you know they will just try to delay until the poor woman cannot terminate her pregnancy.

“I am not going through the council.” Karis knew this was going to cause issues, but he didn’t care.

“I see. I shall call the ambassadors for the two worlds in for a meeting immediately, Your Imperial Majesty,” Imre told him.

The two men arrived. Karis didn’t give them a chance to speak. “Here is my decree. You will cease mobilizing at once. You will withdraw your claim to the child. Tahereh has my permission to terminate the pregnancy. You have one week to comply, or I will send in the warmasters to bring an end to this farce.”

“But Your Imperial Majesty, that child should belong to Lorccan as well as Tahereh. It is his by right,” the representative of Tonvoria protested.

“He raped Tahereh to get it, and our laws are very specific about the children of rape victims. I have made my decision. Leave now and let Ratan and Malak know I said to cease mobilization, or they will feel the full breadth of Imperial displeasure.” He glared at the two men.

“Yes, Your Imperial Majesty,” both men said, bowing. They left his chambers.

Karis decided he’d wait until the next day to tell his council what he’d done. They could stew on it for an afternoon. He spent the day going over paperwork and pointedly ignoring all inquiries from his council. He went to court and read until he was tired enough to sleep.

The next day he steeled himself for trouble and went into the council chamber. “It seems Lorccan is no longer your problem, Your Imperial Majesty,” Ananya told him by way of greeting. “Someone slipped into his room last night and murdered him.”

“What?” Karis asked.

“Malak is mobilizing against Ratan, claiming that he sent the assassin,” Wieland added. “Ratan is denying he did anything of the sort, stating if he had wanted Lorccan dead he would have sent an assassin long before now. They got what they wanted. Your decree allowed Tahereh to terminate the pregnancy. Ratan was even pulling back his ships. So why would he risk Imperial displeasure by murdering Lorccan? Malak is not hearing a word of it and has doubled his efforts to bring in troops. Ratan is reengaging his troops to protect his world.”

“We need to send the warmasters in as soon as possible.” Karis needed to act quickly. “To prevent this from turning into a civil war situation.”

“I am afraid we cannot allow that, Your Imperial Majesty,” Vasco told him. “The budget does not allow for mobilization. We are going to have to hope our ambassadors can talk the two men out of fighting.”

“This has gone beyond what our ambassadors can deal with, Vasco,” Karis protested.

“I am not going to allow you to mobilize any of our military to put a stop to this, Your Imperial Majesty,” Vasco snapped back. “And I control this council.”

Karis stormed out of the room. He needed a place to think, one where his ministers couldn’t find him. He turned his feet towards the courtesan wing. Their garden was off limits to everyone but him and his courtesans. He would go there to think. There was a spot he used to go hide in when he was a boy, near the sunfire roses at the back. He should be able to find some privacy there.

He didn’t encounter his courtesans when he reached the wing and realized they must all be in the garden. He didn’t particularly want to talk to them right now, so he slipped out and around the back of one of the large shrubs. He could hear them talking but he knew he wouldn’t be seen.

He made his way to the back of the garden. He found his way to the sunfire roses. To his surprise, one of his courtesans was sitting there, deep in thought. He racked his brain for which one it was, and her name came to him – Sayana. It was Sayana who was seated near the sunfire roses.

“I thought I was the only one who liked these flowers,” he commented by way of greeting.

Sayana was on her feet in an instant. She bowed deeply. He stepped from the shadows. “Your Imperial Majesty, these are my favorite flowers. I come here often when we’re allowed to enter the garden. If you wish, I can find somewhere else to sit.”

“I do not want to disturb you.” Karis took several deep breaths of the familiar scent. “I took the servants’ path to the courtesan wing and came out to your garden because it is the one place where the damned council cannot follow me. I need some peace and quiet for a few minutes to think.”

“This is a very good place for thinking.” Sayana’s expression was pleasant enough, but her eyes still carried the sorrow he’d seen on her face a moment earlier.

“You looked as if you were thinking of something unpleasant just a moment ago. You had the saddest expression on your face.” Karis was genuinely curious why she was so sad.

“I was thinking of my brothers and my sister. I find myself missing them a great deal today. My sister just turned fifteen and I missed her birthday.” The sorrowful expression flickered across her face again.

“I am sorry.” Karis knew how hard it was to be torn from the family you loved, after having been taken from his mother. “Tremere should have asked if you had family that you would be leaving behind. I would have told him not to take you from them.”

“I’d have missed her birthday even if I were not in the courtesan’s wing, Your Imperial Majesty.” Sayana sighed. “If you had not chosen me, I’d have been taken by another patron and that patron would never have let me keep in contact with my brothers and my sister. My family is just something I need to let go of, though I find it hard to do so.”

“I have been missing my mother lately.” Karis felt the old anger and sadness rise in him. He saw Sayana’s eyes widen. “She was one of my father’s courtesans, so died when he did. I think it caused her a lot of pain to see the animosity between myself and my father.”

“Leaving our loved ones behind is never easy.” Her voice was soft and there was an echo of the pain he felt in it. “Losing a loved one in death is harder still. I lost my mother and my youngest brother Ethian. My mother died of an illness. Ethian died from what the doctors termed ‘failure to thrive’ and a fever that ravaged his young body. I hoped one day to have a son I could name Ethian in his honor, but that seems rather doubtful now.”

“I still need an heir, Sayana.” Karis looked at her thoughtfully. “I would rather not take an empress if I do not have to. Political marriages are so messy and unpleasant. My father never married. It is why my mother had me. I do not have a particular favorite out of all of you right now, but if I did, she would be permitted to bear me a child or two.”

“Yes, and that would be a bittersweet thing because of the rules of the courtesan wing.” Sayana seemed to see the side of things that no one else did. “Our sons would be taken from us at twelve, and what would become of any daughters?”

“I would send them back to your courtesan academy for training.” Karis hadn’t considered having children. Not with his council as they were right now.

“I would not wish this life on any daughter of mine.” That startled him. He thought all courtesans wanted daughters to follow in their footsteps. “For all that it is a comfortable one, it is not the life I would have chosen had I been given a choice. Of course, as a child I didn’t know there were options. I only knew Pensival came and told me what he wanted me and Kallam to be, and where he’d send Adjira, Eon, and Ethian to keep them safe, and with no better options open to us, Kal and I agreed.”

“Did your parents object?” Karis asked.

“My mother, a courtesan, was already dead because our father neglected and abused her.” Karis was horrified at the thought. How could anyone abuse and neglect a courtesan? “That was our view of the world of a courtesan, which is why Kallam and I were reluctant to agree to become courtesans in the first place. But Pensival – we called him Pen – offered to send Adjira, Eon, and Ethian to the scholar academy on Atania. That was a place Adjira desperately wanted to go, and the only way we could guarantee they could go there was to agree to be courtesans.”

“What did your father think of you becoming courtesans like your mother?” Karis was genuinely interested. He didn’t know anything about the past of any of his ladies, he realized. Sayana’s might be unique, or it might not. He made a mental note to ask the others the next time he called for them about their histories.

“Our father was planning on selling the five of us to a pedophile the day after our mother’s body was taken away.” There was no emotion when she spoke of him. “We ran away from home that night and lived on the streets for a few months before Pensival caught up to us. He didn’t bother checking with our father. He just took us to Atania and that was that.”

“Sayana, selling children to a pedophile is illegal.” Karis was appalled that this had been her life. “Starflare, selling children to anyone is illegal and has been for centuries.”

“He knew that.” There was the bitterness he’d expected to hear. “But we were worthless mouths that he had to feed. He didn’t want us. He had two sons with his wife that were far worthier of his attention than we were. He needed a quick way to get rid of us that wouldn’t immediately alert the authorities. He decided to make a profit off of us and get rid of us in one easy transaction. He was a tradesman so buying and selling things was second nature to him.”

Karis looked at her. “You say it is because of what you witnessed happening to your mother that you did not want to be a courtesan. Is it because you expected that was normal?”

“We didn’t know any better.” Sayana sighed. “How could we? We only had our narrow experience to draw from. We learned that it wasn’t normal, that most patrons are kind to their courtesans and treat them well.”

“I am surprised you agreed to courtesan training in the first place.” Karis realized what she’d said. “Of course, you did it to protect your younger brothers and your sister, though.”

Sayana nodded. “It was always for them that I did everything.”

“You said that you kept in contact with your younger siblings.” Karis’ curiosity continued driving him. “I thought that once inside the courtesan academy, they cut off all contact with the outside world.”

“We were given special permission, because of Pensival and Matron Hannelore who stands to take her place as Head Matron when Head Matron Dushana steps down, to speak to our siblings once a week on the sixth day for fifteen minutes. It wasn’t much but it was better than nothing.” Sayana smiled. “We were able to keep an eye on Adjira and Eon, even if it was only from a distance, and they were able to see we were okay. Adjira and Eon were just as afraid of us being treated like our mother as we were.”

“What were your thoughts when you were chosen as an Imperial courtesan?” Karis saw the flicker of uncertainty in her eyes. “I want your honest feelings, Sayana. Even if they are not pleasant.”

“I hated the idea of coming here.” She looked around at the garden. “I consider it being locked in a prison for the rest of my life. I have nice clothes, good food, and a comfortable bed. I can sit in the garden when the day is fine. I’m allowed to read whatever I wish. However, we do not have the freedom to wander where we wish. We cannot call out, nor can anyone contact us. When you die, if I haven’t died from old age or illness before you, I have to take the honeyvine and die as well.”

“I want to change that.” Karis looked at her thoughtfully. “It was devastating to me to see my mother after she had taken the poison. I do not want any of you to have to go through that. But if I tried to change it, my court would likely go nuclear. The laws that are that old are the hardest to change even if they make no sense for our current day, and this law goes all the way back to the founding. Even if the court would let me change it, my council would not.”

“Why didn’t you dissolve the council and form one of your own when you took the throne?” Sayana looked at him inquisitively. “Isn’t that the tradition?”

“It is.” Karis sighed. He stared pensively at the roses. “I let Vasco talk me into keeping it on a temporary basis while I dealt with the aftermath of my father’s assassination and my coronation. When I showed signs of replacing the other ministers, he assassinated those I chose so I could not replace any of those he controlled. He made it very clear he would keep doing that until there was no one I trusted left in court. Or I could leave the council as it stood and deal with it. I did as he said.”

“You need to get rid of Lord Vasco.” Sayana looked very serious and that expression on a courtesan’s face gave him pause. “He thinks he rules the empire instead of you, and he is proving that supposition correct in how he is forcing you to handle the current situation in court.”

“How do you know what is going on?” Karis was surprised that she knew anything going on at court.

“My servants listen to the gossip and pass it along.” Sayana met his gaze. “You need to banish Lord Vasco from the council and settle the feud before it erupts any further into violence. A galactic civil war is not something we need right now.”

“You are right.” Karis sighed again. “I am in for a slew of assassination attempts on people again, but if Vasco is not stopped, I will have a worse situation on my hands than I do now.” He nodded. “Thank you, Sayana. I appreciate you talking to me.” He turned and strode off, sticking to the shadows to avoid the other courtesans.

Karis returned to the council chamber and called his council back. Karis turned to Vasco. “Vasco, remove yourself from this chamber. You are hereby banished from this council until I feel you have the best interests of the empire at heart again.”

“Your Imperial Majesty is joking.” Vasco was startled by the pronouncement.

“I am not.” Karis regarded the man coldly. “Remove yourself or I will have the Imperial guards remove you.” Vasco glared at Karis, but he turned and stormed out. “Now then, my ladies and lords, we will be sending three warmasters and their troops in to put a stop to this fiasco between Tonvoria and Devater. If that does not work, I will have two more warmasters and their troops on standby to step in if needed.”

“Your Imperial Majesty cannot just move troops like that without considering the budget,” Otto began.

“The budget will allow for it. You will make it allow for it. Or I will replace you.” Karis glared at the man.

“Yes, Your Imperial Majesty.” Otto squirmed a little under Karis’ gaze. Karis dismissed his council and returned to his chambers, feeling a rush of excitement. He’d done it. He’d taken control of his council for the first time in his life. He would probably pay a steep price for it, but it was worth it to put an end to what could have been a galactic civil war in the making.