Her message to Laurent Zai seemed such a small and hopeless thing now, a futile gesture against the unstoppable forces of war: the vast fire below her, the still-gathering crowds, the mustering of soldiers, the warships already on their way to the Spinward Reaches. It was all unfolding with the fixity of some ancient and unchanging ceremony. The Risen Empire was a slave to ritual, to these burnings and empty prayers…and pointless suicides. There was nothing she could do to stop this war; her brash legislation hadn’t even slowed its arrival. She wondered if even a seat on the council would ultimately accomplish anything.

Worse, she felt helpless to save Laurent Zai. Nara Oxham could be very persuasive, but only with gestures and spoken words, not the short text messages the distance between them necessitated. Laurent was too far away from her to save, both in light-years and in the dictates of his culture.

The balcony swayed softly, and the sickly sweet scent of the burning sacred trees reminded Oxham of the countryside smells of Vasthold. Crowds began to gather around the fire, the voices in massed prayer blending with the hiss of green wood, the crackle of the fire, and the rush of wind through the balcony’s polyfilament supports.

Then the call came. The chime of the War Council’s summons penetrated the susurrus noises from below, a foghorn cutting through the crash of far-off waves. Insistent and unavoidable, the summons’s interruption brought her self-pity to a sudden halt. Oxham’s fingers made the gestures that prepped her personal helicopter.

But then she saw the shape of an approaching Imperial aircar, silhouetted by the firelight. The delicate, silent craft drifted up and matched exactly the period of the balcony’s sway. It opened like a flower, extending one wing as a walkway across the void. The elegant limb of the machine was an outstretched hand, as if the craft were inviting her to dance.

A ritual request, but one which she could not deny.

“There is strange news from the front,” the Risen Emperor began.

The counselors waited. His Majesty’s voice was very low, revealing more emotion than Nara Oxham had yet heard from the dead man. She felt a twinge of empathic resonance from him, a measure of confusion, anger, a sense of betrayal.

He moved his mouth as if to form words, then gestured disgustedly to the dead admiral.

“We have heard from the Lynx, from His Majesty’s Representatives,” the admiral said, using the polite term for the Political Apparatus.

She lapsed into silence, and the other dead warrior lifted his head to speak, as if the burden of this announcement had to be shared between them.

“Captain Laurent Zai, Elevated, has rejected the blade of error,” the general said.

Nara gasped aloud, her hand covering her mouth too late. Laurent was alive. He had rejected the ancient rite. He had succumbed to her message, her single word.