"In every threat there is also opportunity. The dangers we face now are greater than anything we have known in ten generations, but the possibilities are commensurate." Maslovar Tiatiov, speech to the Livien League Assembly, 506 LE

Year 14 of Xer's reign

507 LE

It was strange that the sight of Corlax, its daylit side a gleaming crescent in the transport's viewport, should feel so welcoming. It was an unlovely world, an ancestral enemy to his own and indelibly colored by his first impression of smoke, blood, and slaughter. But this was the world where Jaminere had met the son of Xer. His entire life had changed in that moment, so it was fitting that most of his private, personal meetings with Xim since had taken place here, at the forward base of their struggling campaign against the Livien League.

That struggle was nearing an end. Not at the end; no, that was still distant and there were more hurdles to pass. But Jaminere could finally see the end now, far-away as it was. And with that end, another beginning.

He returned to the orbital command station unannounced. His starship, a common-model hauler bearing civilian identification codes, docked at a private port. He breached the airlock without his usual bodyguards and used private passageways to complete the journey to his personal suite. These were the rooms which had, in many ways, become his home for the past two years.

It was fitting that Xim waited for him there. The pirate prince stood before the porthole viewport, watching the darkness of Corlax's nightside. When Jaminere entered he turned around, a silhouette of black against black.

Xim gave no words of welcome, nor any apology for entering Jaminere's private cabin. He simply asked, "How did it go?"

"A pleasure to see you too," Jaminere said dryly, though he knew better than to expect perfunctory greetings from Xim. The pirate prince was, now as ever, a man of singular focus.

Jaminere stripped off the jacket he had worn during the long inbound flight and draped it over the back of his sofa. Then he sat down and told everything. He explained how he'd followed the secret navigation beacons lit for him by his allies within League territory. He spoke of his rendezvous with a lone Livien cutter near the Kanaver system. And he related, in great detail, his conversation with Maslovar Tiatiov, governor of the League capital of Desevro.

The Desevrars were a proud people, in many ways more like the Sorascans than the merchants of Livien or Jhantoria. Desevro had an old aristocracy and a history of taking the sons of outlying systems and training them into a very capable soldiers class. Those janissaries were the backbone of the League's defensive structure. Indeed, they'd dealt the brunt of the damage to the Cronese and Sorascan fleets; they'd also received the most and were buckling under the strain. At the same time, the other League worlds were pressing all the harder for Desevro to shoulder their collective weight.

"Tiatiov wants the campaigns to end," Jaminere explained, "and he wants the League Assembly off his back. I think he also fears for his own position. He didn't say it, but I think the Assembly may try to remove him. They might even make him a scapegoat for their losses."

"What kind of lifeline did you offer him?" asked Xim, now seated in an opposite chair.

"I was generous. I told him he'd retain his current level of authority on Desevro, as long as his janissaries were placed in your service."

"His response?"

"Flat refusal." Jaminere waited for the indignation on Xim's face (and it showed, just a little) before adding, "He said if we wanted control over his janissaries, he wanted more in turn."

"How much more?"

"He's a canny man. He knows a new empire when he sees it. A real empire, not a loose alliance like the League. And he wants a powerful role within that empire."

"Such as?"

Jaminere smirked. "He suggested that neither the Cronese, nor the Allied Kingdoms, and certainly not the Argai pirates were properly equipped to manage the kind of large, diverse economic enterprise an empire would contain. He suggested he could serve as your minister of finance."

"Mine?" Xim raised a brow. "Or my father's?"

"They part we both left vague."

Xim exhaled and leaned back in his chair, slumped against the soft cushions. Then he blessed Jaminere with a smile. "It went exactly as planned, then."

"Tiatiov is everything my contacts said he would be. Independent. Ambitious. Sick of the old ways doing things."

"Young?"

"For a planetary governor, yes."

"Then he'll have good company." Xim pushed off his chair. "You must have a drink cabinet, don't you?"

"Naturally."

Jaminere rose too, and a minute later both men (independent, ambitious, and young) clinked glasses of Liannan whiskey. It was so strong going down even Xim made a face.

As the alcohol warmed him inside, Jaminere felt a blessed release of tension. Since he'd departed for the secret negotiations he'd felt wrenched tight inside, afraid to even breath. His heart had pounded like a fast drum during his entire talk with Tiatiov, and even during the careful return to Corlax. Now, standing face-to-face with Xim, he could admit that the mission had been a success.

Their desired end was no longer a dream. It was reality waiting to be born.

After their second swallows of whiskey they returned to their seats, Jaminere to his sofa and Xim to the chair. The pirate prince swirled amber liquid in his glass and considered. "Once we have Desevro's janissaries, the Liviens will collapse. Kadenzi and I will lead the final thrusts into their territory. Once we declare victory, all that's left will be to secure our new positions."

New positions. Jaminere felt a tiny shiver at those words. So humble, but they implied so much.

For the first time he dared ask: "How?"

"We'll have to act quickly. I recommend you work with Kadenzi. He should have soldiers on Sorasca who can secure your father and brothers."

"I think it would be best if I were on Sorasca myself for it."

"I'll leave that up to you."

"What about your father?" After suffering so many defeats against the League, Xer had left the front-line slog and retreated to his pleasure-palace on Chandaar, but he was still more unpredictable than Coros IX.

"You've heard that some of the old Cronese nobles have been intriguing against him," Xim said. "I've been pushing that along… through an intermediary."

"Your inside man in the court?"

"I never said it was a man." Xim waved a finger.

"That's right. Not a woman either." Jaminere took another sip of whiskey, swallowed it down, and asked flippantly, "Who could it be, then? Your mousy jester? What was his name, Oziaf?"

Then he received another treat: Xim blanched. He moved to cover his embarrassed look with the glass but liquor slowed his response. Jaminere stared in shock.

"That's your inside man? That furry little rat?"

Xim shook his head. "Oziaf is a creature of many talents."

"I remember seeing a few of them, but we're going to need more than song and dance to get rid of your father."

"Oziaf is clever," Xim said defensively. "The fact that everyone, even you, underestimates him plays to our advantage."

Jaminere tried to imagine the miniscule creature was some kind of master spy but could not. Even more baffling was the trust Xim seemed to place in him.

And it was trust. When he regained his habitually serious expression, Xim said, "I've known Oziaf since I was a child. He was… generous to me where others were not. He deserves to be rewarded for his service."

Jaminere felt something new but familiar twist his chest. He recognized it this time as envy. He deeply wanted to know what could have bound the pirate prince and his alien jester so deeply, but even if he pried he'd get no explanation. Xim was his partner in ambition, and he dared call the man a friend, but there was ever a wall around him, its gate closed to everyone save, perhaps, this Oziaf.

Perhaps. The possibility left Jaminere melancholy, and the whiskey-warmth inside him cooled.

Xim did not seem to notice. Thoughtfully he said, "When the time comes to end it, I think you might have the hardest task of all."

"What do you mean?"

"The job of neutralizing my father will be left to Oziaf's small but capable hands. I won't be able to do it myself. But if you plan to be on Sorasca, you'll do it personally, won't you?"

Jaminere simply stared into his glass. It was something he'd pondered in silence many times. His heart grew tight with something else now, another feeling he could not name. Not fear, not dread, not doubt. All of those, and something else entirely.

"I know you have no love for your father, nor he for you," Xim continued. "Still. Without our fathers, we would be nothing. Not even specks of dust. There is… a debt there. You cannot deny that."
Jaminere couldn't. He had also considered leaving the task to someone else; Kadenzi's soldiers, perhaps, or Captain Belmenos of the royal guard, whom he'd suborned a year ago. But he did not totally trust them, and more importantly, it felt necessary that he do this by hand. A response needed to be given for the lifetime of neglect and quiet cruelty he had suffered, and he could not pass that duty to others. If he did, he'd be a coward forevermore. Even though his father would be gone, Jaminere would still be living within the man's shadow.

That was unacceptable. With a creaking voice he said, "There are debts and there are debts. I have one I absolutely must pay… Don't you?"

Xim looked from his cup to the porthole. Corlax was deep within darkness. "I suppose so."

"We've come this far. We can't back down now."

"I never back down," Xim said simply. Not a boast, just dispassionate fact.

Neither did Jaminere. Since meeting Xim he'd been transformed into something far more than a futile, listless Lesser Prince. He'd been placed on a path that took him, with every step, further from what he'd been and closer to greatness he'd never conceived.