Tears sprang to his eyes and he wiped them away with the back of his hand.

  Mpanza and Juskiene deserved their happiness, and he told himself that he was glad that someone at least had won love’s lottery.

  And what, he thought, had he really to complain about? He had delightful children, a beautiful and accomplished wife, and a place in both the Fleet and the Convocation—even though Wei Jian was firmly in charge of the Fleet, and in the Convocation, Martinez was a mere auxiliary to his brother.

  Perhaps he should simply devote himself to his family and to his yacht club. It was hardly the life he had envisioned for himself after defeating the empire’s largest fleet in battle, but it was the life that Wei Jian had confined him to. It would last until Jian made a mistake, and Martinez had to admit that Wei Jian made very few mistakes.

  At least, he thought, he was not sharing his bed with a murderer. Even if Sula had killed Braga to protect Martinez, it had been a singularly cold act, and Sula hadn’t bothered to offer an explanation until a year later, and then only to flaunt it in anger.

  If he could reason his way around the gaping hole in his heart, he could almost convince himself he was happy.

  He returned to the party only to say goodbye, claiming that he was needed at the Convocation, and then he got in his car and went to the Chen Palace and his family.

  After ten years, thought Terza Chen, I’m finally rid of the bitch.

  She sat in the music room of the Chen Palace, a spacious room that smelled of rare woods and rosin. Her harp stood gleaming in the corner like a golden statue in the Devis mode.

  She had just learned of the engagement of Caroline, Lady Sula, to Lord Eveleth Saïd. She wanted to laugh aloud.

  She turned to look out the window at the garden, sere and brown in the midst of winter. It was in that garden, here in her father’s house, that Terza had first met Gareth Martinez. He had attended a meeting with her father, and had then spent a pleasant half hour drinking tea in the garden with Terza and chatting about nothing at all.

  By the end of the conversation, Terza knew she wanted this decorated war hero more than she had ever wanted anything in her life, and being a rich and privileged woman who generally got what she wanted, she set herself to working out how she could make Martinez her own.

  She saw Martinez again, a few nights later, at the lower terminal of the High City funicular railway. The chill night was aromatic with the scent of chestnuts roasting over charcoal fires. Martinez was with Sula, watching acrobats perform on the apron in front of the terminal, a dangerous dance with knives and elastic. Neither of them saw Terza watching them from across the apron.

  Martinez had his arms around Sula from behind, and from the way the night lights glowed on their faces, and from the glances they gave each other, Terza knew they were very much in love.

  Terza wished that Martinez was looking at her in that way, but she wasted little time on jealousy. Time was of too great an importance—the war was on, and Martinez might be posted away at any time.

  Terza had been raised in a world frozen in amber, with the Great Masters on top and families like the Chens just below. The highest level of the Zanshaa Peers, secure in their station and in themselves, enacted the stately rituals that marked their lives. Terza had grown up closely supervised by her parents. She’d had a superb education in the best academies of the High City, where she learned not only to rule an empire, but to dance, to play the harp, to participate in sport, to dress superbly in every climate and situation, to walk with poise and distinction, and to dictate the menu for a dinner party involving five different species. She became engaged to Captain Lord Richard Li, a childhood friend, not coincidentally the man deemed most suitable by her mother.

  But then the last of the Great Masters died, and within months the Naxid War began. Richard died at Magaria along with most of the Home Fleet, and Terza began to suspect that her old world was disappearing and might never return. The amber in which she’d been raised had melted in nuclear fire, and she and everyone else must learn to survive in this uncertain, newly revealed world.

  Or die.

  She suspected that if anyone could teach her to navigate this perilous new world, it would be the ambitious officer who had ridden to fame on the back of the empire’s only victories over the Naxids. It would be Gareth Martinez.

  The afternoon following her encounter with Martinez at the funicular terminal, she paid a visit to Roland Martinez in his office in the shambling old Shelley Palace that hosted the Martinez family. She found Roland formally dressed, as he was later in the day attending the wedding of his sister to Oda Yoshitoshi.

  “Lord Roland,” she said, “I want to marry your brother.”

  Roland looked at her in grave surprise, and his eyes went to the white mourning ribbons in her hair, worn for Terza’s fiancé who had died at First Magaria, the battle that made Caroline Sula famous.

  “Very interesting,” Roland said. “I wish you every possible success.”

  “You’re going to have to make my father do it,” Terza said. “He’ll never allow it unless he’s forced, and you’re the only person who can force him.”

  “That . . . will be delicate,” Roland said.

  Roland had loaned Lord Chen the fortune that he needed, after the devastation of war, to keep himself and his shipping empire afloat. Adding Terza as a new condition to the loan was dangerous, but she thought Roland, if he were anything like his brother, had the steel to do it.

  “Another thing,” Terza said. “No one can know this is my idea.”

  Roland was happy to concede that, and happier still to move fast. Within days, Terza was married to Gareth Martinez and spending blissful days and nights in a suite at the Hotel Boniface with her new husband. He had been stunned by the speed of the engagement, but he wasn’t blind to its advantages: a link with one of the great High City families, a father-in-law on the Fleet Control Board, and Terza’s aunt Michi, who would take him aboard her flagship as her tactical officer. The marriage had assured his professional future.

  He didn’t know Terza’s part in the marriage plot, and he viewed her as a victim of his brother’s scheming. He was solicitude itself. A thoughtful partner, a caring lover who could set her nerves aflame with a mere stroke of his hand.

  She never bothered to inquire what had become of Sula.

  In marrying Gareth Martinez she found a freedom she’d never expected. Her friends looked at her with mixed compassion and regret—the Chen heir forced into marriage with a provincial half-barbarian. But being with Gareth gave her permission to do any number of things: to invent a life independent of the Chen family, to occupy herself with work and politics, and—when threatened—to fight for her life and those of her children.

  Martinez had told her before the marriage that he wanted a child as soon as possible. Possibly this was at Roland’s urging, to make sure that a Martinez fathered the next Chen heir, but it fit in smoothly with Terza’s own plans. Any child would be, in effect, a hostage for Martinez’s good behavior.

  After the final battle of the war, at Naxas, Martinez and Sula were sent back to Zanshaa, each in command of a warship. Their proximity set alarm bells ringing in Terza’s skull. She readied herself to counter any backsliding on Martinez’s part—she met him on the very day he landed, young Gareth in her arms, and as he gazed in rapture at their son, Terza glanced over his shoulder to see Sula’s devastated expression—after which Caroline Sula got into her car and sped away. Terza had made her masterstroke and won the game.

  Yaling was born during the peace, another hostage.

  Before Second Shulduc, Terza had been appalled when her aunt Michi appointed Sula as Martinez’s tactical officer. Not only were they in the same fleet, they were in the same ship, a dangerous proximity with barely a bulkhead separating their sleeping cabins. Her friends—their schadenfreude undisguised—warned her that the two were growing far too intimate.

  Terza gathered her two hostages and planned for the battle of her life, but all her worry and all her preparation turned out to be unnecessary—Martinez himself dismissed Sula, sent her off on an errand in command of a miscellaneous collection of ships, and then he’d told Terza that he would like them to have another child.

  Another hostage. Relieved, Terza was only too ready to comply.

  Sula had no business interfering with Terza’s marriage, which—without Sula—would have been perfect. Terza still wanted Martinez as much as she had the day she met him. He was a devoted father, a considerate and thoughtful partner, and a lover who could turn her insides to molten lava with a mere touch.

  And now, with the marriage to Eveleth Saïd, Sula was conceding defeat. Terza wanted to dance and kick up her heels.

  She rose from her chair and gazed out into the brown, withered garden where, years ago, she had met the man she wanted and now so thoroughly possessed.

  Everything in her life, she thought, was as perfect as perfect could be.

  Appendix

  Drink Like a Peer

  My friend, the author and mixologist Terry Boren, has created two original cocktails based on my characters, the Blue Gredel and the Lady Sula. It seems only fair that I share these with my readers.

  (There already exists a nineteenth-century cocktail called the Martinez. For the sake of completeness, I include the recipe below.)

  The Blue Gredel

  This refreshing cocktail features a transformation that emulates that of Gredel herself.

  2 ounces gin, either Empress 1908 or any gin colored with B’Lure Flower Extract

  basil leaf

  3/4 ounce limoncello mixed with lemon juice

  2 dashes orange bitters

  Measure the gin into a rocks glass, then add ice to taste.

  In a separate glass, muddle the basil leaf, then add the limoncello mixture and the orange bitters.

  Add the limoncello mixture to the gin and stir. Watch Gredel transform into someone new, someone born to the purple!

  The Lady Sula

  In my opinion, this complex and luxurious cocktail is a masterpiece. It even gets me to drink rye whiskey, which I normally don’t care for.

  Luxardo cherries, with their juice

  2 ounces rye whiskey

  1/2 ounce Averna

  1/2 ounce cold press coffee

  1/2 ounce dry sherry

  Black walnut bitters

  Rim a coupe or martini glass with Luxardo cherry juice. To an ice-filled shaker, add the whiskey, 1/2 oz. each Averna, coffee, sherry, and one or two drops black walnut bitters. Shake, then strain into the prepared glass. Garnish with a Luxardo cherry.

  The Martinez

  This cocktail is first recorded in an 1884 bartending manual and is the direct ancestor of both the martini and the Manhattan.

  11/2 ounces gin (for true nineteenth-century flavor, use Old Tom gin)

  11/2 ounces sweet vermouth

  1/4 oz Luxardo cherry juice

  2 dashes Angostura bitters

  Orange or lemon twist, for garnish

  Pour the gin, vermouth, cherry juice, and bitters into a mixing glass with ice. Stir. Strain into a martini glass or coupe and add garnish.

  Cheers!

  —wjw

  About the Author

  New York Times bestselling author WALTER JON WILLIAMS has been nominated repeatedly for every major science fiction award. He lives near Albuquerque with his wife.

  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

  Also by Walter Jon Williams

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  Impersonations

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  Knight Moves

  Voice of the Whirlwind

  Days of Atonement

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  City on Fire

  Ambassador of Progress

  Angel Station

  The Rift

  Implied Spaces

  Quillifer

  Quillifer

  Quillifer the Knight

  Lord Quillifer

  Maijstral

  The Crown Jewels

  House of Shards

  Rock of Ages

  Dagmar Shaw Thrillers

  This Is Not a Game

  Deep State

  The Fourth Wall

  Diamonds from Tequila

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  To Glory Arise

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  The Macedonian

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  Cat Island

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  Facets

  Frankensteins and Foreign Devils

  The Green Leopard Plague and Other Stories

  The Best of Walter Jon Williams

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  imperium restored. Copyright © 2022 by Walter Jon Williams. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  Harper Voyager and design are trademarks of HarperCollins Publishers LLC.

  first edition

  Cover design and illustration by Damonza.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.

  Digital Edition SEPTEMBER 2022 ISBN: 978-0-06-246707-2

  Print ISBN: 978-0-06-246705-8

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