Purity Read online

  Before Boone could protest, the Grand Viceroy turned to the gold and purple carriage and nodded. The two footmen in livery blew another blast on their trumpets and several of the soldiers quickly rolled out a lush purple carpet which started at the steps of the carriage and reached all the way up the gangplank of the ship right to Boone’s feet.

  The carriage opened and a tall female with long black hair done up in a elaborate style that involved golden braids and expensive looking diamond netting stepped slowly down. She had the same strong but delicate facial features as K and her eyes were the same violet with a triple golden ring. Her elaborate, jewel encrusted dress rustled richly as she strode in a slow, stately manner down the purple velvet carpet.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Loki hissed at Boone, breaking his contemplation of the elegant female who had to be the Empress of Eros. “Bow before her majesty! And never look directly at her—especially not her face!”

  Boone suddenly realized that everyone in the crowd, including the soldiers and the footmen and even the Grand Viceroy, were bowing low, their foreheads nearly touching the ground as the empress approached. Only he and K were left standing in what was probably a huge breach of Erian etiquette.

  Reluctantly, he got down on one knee and tugged at K’s hand.

  “C’mon, K. When in Rome.”

  “No.” K shook off his hand, refusing to get down or even to bow. Instead, she faced the approaching empress head-on, a look of fierce concentration on her face.

  The empress continued walking, never giving any sign that what K was doing was wrong, though everyone around them was bowing low. Boone watched, unable to help himself, as the two women finally came face to face. He kept expecting them to talk, to say something—anything. And there was certainly something to say—the resemblance between them was undeniable. K could have been a younger version of the empress they looked so much alike.

  At last K spoke. “Mother?” she whispered, her voice breaking on the second syllable. “Are you…is that you?”

  The empress’s expression remained stern but tears filled her violet and gold ringed eyes.

  “Krissana, my darling,” she murmured. “You’ve come home.”

  * * * * *

  The next few hours were like a blur to K and not just because she was being bundled along with Boone—who she refused to let go of—into the elaborate gold and purple coach and taken to a ridiculously ornate palace. All of it—the jostling, shouting crowds, the overwhelming richness of her new surroundings, the strongly perfumed interior of the coach—was eclipsed by the memories that were pouring into her head, like water from a broken dam.

  This road—I recognize it. I remember riding along it when I was little. But everything was so much bigger then. But the road hadn’t gotten smaller—it was just that she had grown, K realized. And it had been over twenty cycles since she saw the place.

  When they pulled up in front of the Empress’s palace, a huge gilded affair with massive purple columns carved of some rich alien marble, she grabbed Boone’s arm.

  “What, darlin’?” he asked in an undertone, casting a glance at the Empress who was sitting quietly across from them. “What is it?”

  “The…the columns,” K choked, staring out the glazed windows of the coach. “I remember…I used to hide behind them and my nurse would try to find me. We made a game of it. Sometimes the guards played too if no one was watching. I remember laughing…laughing, Boone. I remember being…happy. So happy.”

  “Yes, you always were a cheerful child,” the Empress remarked from the other seat. “Everyone in the palace loved your sunny personality.”

  Loki, who had also been dragged into the coach along with them nearly choked. “Sunny personality?”

  The Empress turned a cold eye upon him.

  “Indeed, commoner. Does that amuse you?”

  “Not at all, your highness.” Loki attempted to bow and nearly knocked his head against the ornately carved door handle of the coach. “Forgive me. It’s just that—”

  “It’s just that K, well, she hasn’t had a whole lot of happiness in her life,” Boone finished for him. “Or, well, any emotion for that matter.”

  “Ah yes, the emotionless state of complete and utter Purity.” The Empress nodded as K stared at her, wide-eyed. “Yes, my dear Krissana, I know the Precepts of Purity. The Purists are our enemies—it behooves me to know their beliefs and motivations.”

  “I am a fourth level Paladin,” K said, trying to keep her voice from shaking. “I fear nothing, I feel nothing.”

  “No, my darling—you are a princess. Stolen from your bed when you were only five cycles old,” the Empress corrected gently.

  “Look, your majesty,” Boone said. “I’m sorry but this is all news to us. K is just a Paladin I captured to try and help me get my sister back from the pshalite mines on Midas. Her eyes were black on black until last night so we had no idea—”

  “And why did her eyes revert to their true color?” the Empress cut in, her voice harsh. “What exactly did you do to her, giant?”

  “Boone helped me,” K squeezed his hand tight.

  “She, uh, started her cycle, your majesty,” Loki supplied. “She was growing desperate.”

  “And you let her bond sexually with a non-Erian? With a giant?” the Empress snapped. “Why did you not at least try to help her yourself? True you are a grubby little commoner but even that is better than letting some alien—”

  “There was no bonding involved,” Boone cut in quietly. His cheeks grew red but he refused to look away from the Empress. “I simply helped K, um, take the edge off.”

  “Not that it is any of your business,” K interjected, lifting her chin. Purity but this would be so much easier if the memories didn’t keep crowding into her head like noisy guests all shouting for her attention. She remembered the woman across from her—remembered fearing her regal beauty, being forced to sit beside her at state dinners on a tiny, raised golden throne—always on her best behavior. Remembered—

  “Of course it is my business whom you form a sexual life bond with, Krissana,” the Empress snapped, looking irritated. “Your consort must be of royal blood if you hope to rule the planet when I am gone.”

  “I don’t want to rule anything,” K objected. “I don’t even want to be here.” She turned back to Boone. “We need to leave now. I may have come from Eros but I don’t belong here—not any more.”

  “Krissana, of course you belong here.” The Empress reached forward to touch her hand and K jerked away.

  Contamination! She still couldn’t bear to touch anyone skin-to-skin but Boone, even though her newly restored memories insisted that the Empress, was in fact, her biological mother.

  “K,” Loki hissed at her. “You can’t do that! You must never refuse the touch of the Empress. It’s a gift.”

  “One I fear I bestowed all too infrequently when Krissana was little.” The Empress sat back, a look of sorrow in her jeweled eyes. “I always felt, you know, that your kidnapping was a punishment on me. For not spending more time with you. For allowing you to imprint as an infant on another female.”

  “My nurse…Vanja,” K whispered as another memory rushed into place. “Is she—”

  “She is still here in the palace.” The Empress nodded. “It was clear she had nothing to do with your disappearance and I couldn’t bear to let her go. She was the only one I could speak to about my lost daughter…about you, Krissana.”

  “Stop calling me that.” K crossed her arms protectively over her chest. “I’m K. Just K.”

  “Not anymore.” The Empress spoke with determination. “You are a royal princess of the blood—one possessing the rare triple golden ringed eyes. And you will conduct yourself as such.”

  “Now wait just a minute,” Boone growled. “K is her own person. Just because she started out here doesn’t mean you own her now that she’s back.”

  “Of course I don’t own her.” The Empress spread her hands. “Kr