Adumbe’s voice announced the approach to the final wormhole. Ronan brushed feline hair from his shipsuit and waited for Cynara to set him free.
Cynara had been to Persephone station many times, but Persephone itself was still a marvel to her eyes. The capital city of its largest continent, seat of the Archon himself, had grown to become the center of the entire Concordat and its constituent worlds.
Utopia, the ancients had called it.
“Eos,” she said to Ronan as they looked down upon the city from the spaceport tower. “City of the Dawn, the place where humans first awoke from the Long Silence.”
Any man might be silenced by awe at such a sight. Eos was as different from Elsinore as Dharma’s largest city was from a Siroccan camp. Here the baroque scrollwork, gilded carvings, and velvet hangings gave way to the clean, simple lines of bleached columns that rose many stories to sculpted pediments, and even the meanest dwellings were in perfect harmony with their neighbors.
No narrow, stinking alleys marred the nobility of its streets, nor did gates exclude those of lesser wealth from the rich and mighty. Elsinore had its ground cabs for the rich, but here the privileged flew skimmers above the earthbound traffic and resided in apartments that seemed fit homes for mythic angels.
At the center stood Eos’s Acropolis and the Archon’s palace with its hanging gardens and obelisk piercing the sky. Beyond the river were the estates of the nobles, and then the countryside with its farms preserved as a reminder of a former way of life.
“My Uncle Jesper was born in this city,” Cynara said. “I’m sometimes amazed that he chose to settle on such a provincial world as Dharma.”
Ronan didn’t so much as glance in her direction. She had released him from his cabin during their final approach to the system, but he had maintained this same stony silence.
She knew the reason. She’d forced him to swear an oath to keep out of her mind as if there had never been any trust between them, let alone the intimacy of that night on Dharma.
A hundred times she had considered various apologies and dismissed every one. She had done what she must to protect the ship. When—if—Ronan realized what was at stake, he would understand why she had acted as she did.
When. Let there come such a time, and a chance to tear down the walls. Let her testimony balance that of Ser Phineas Janek, who was already on his way to present his case to the High Command at Naval Headquarters.
“You have nothing to fear, Ronan,” she said awkwardly, gripping the guard rail until her knuckles ached. “Dharma’s ways are primitive in comparison to Persephone’s. Your mind won’t be at risk here, I promise you.”
“Will you be present when they question me?” he asked.
The sound of his voice was a gift, fertile land and fresh water to a sailor lost on the sea. “I intend to be. I didn’t expect Lord Miklos to agree to see us so quickly. Apparently Uncle Jesper wasn’t overestimating his friendship with the Archon’s brother.”
“You trust these friends of Va Jesper.”
“Law is sacred on Persephone, even among its rulers. You won’t be assumed guilty—” She broke off, staring out at the city.
“Will I see this Archon, who rules so much of human space?”
“The Archon is a very busy man. Lord Miklos can provide what we need as long as we convince him that—” What? That Ronan could become the valuable asset she wanted to believe he could be, that her virtual theft of the Pegasus had been necessary, that she was still competent to captain the Alliance’s most precious treasure… that she had not risked everything for the sake of a single man?
“Captain D’Accorso?”
She turned from the rail as a dark-suited man and woman approached from the tower kiosk. Ronan shifted into his subtle warrior’s stance, moving closer to her. She thought briefly of the sidearm she’d left aboard the Pegasus.
“I am Cynara D’Accorso,” she said.
“I am Gajda, and this is Mains, at your service, my lady,” the man said. “Lord Miklos sent us to escort you to his offices at the palace.”