1 Chapter 1

As much as I crave my freedom,I’ve lived so much of my life in a cage thatI’m not sure what I’d do with it once it was mine.I have fantasies of mocking those men who think me some stupid animal,but sometimes,when the night is deep and I’m curtained away from any glimmer of civilization,I wonder if I’m becoming what I fear most,if the lack of true companionshipis molding me into the creature they profess me to be.

These are my nightmares.These are what force my hand when my cage is on display and I’m instructed to sing.I will not succumb to complacency,no matter how impossible my circumstances seem.

I cannot.

My current—I’m reluctant to call him“owner”though in the laws of his land,he is—beneficiary,then,since he is my primary audience and has been since I was given to him by the Serberian diplomat,rules over this new world with the aid of a ten-man council he doesn’t seem to like very much.I do not know his name.Everyone refers to him only as the Regent,bowing and scraping to him without ever meeting his eyes.As far as I can tell,they must not be allowed,but he confides to no one in my presence for me to be certain.

I look at him.I see.But in any world,this one of steel and stone or mine of wind and water,the unseen’s perspective remains as unknown as its identity.The Regent cares not for the wisdom I could impart.I am his distraction,a prize to display.He will govern these people as only he sees fit,even if I wonder if he will drive them to destruction.

For the six months I have been a part of the household,one event has consumed their lives.Their scientists predicted a solar eclipse some time before my arrival,but rather than use it as the learning tool it should’ve been,the Regent has turned it into a party,ordering the construction of a special solarium at the heart of the capitol for him and his guests to view it in safety.My vantage in his glass-domed conservatory gave me the perfect view to watch it rise above the city’s horizon,climbing higher and higher as his crews raced to complete it in time.I didn’t think they would finish,honestly.My faith in them was notas great as the Regent’s.

I was wrong.

“Your first guests have arrived,your Eminence.”

The Regent stood at the window,tall and broad,presumably gazing out over the city,but other than me,only the solarium attracted his interest these days.Risaeng stretched for miles in every direction,bigger,from the sound of it,than the entire Lake District I had called home for the first thirteen years of my life.The planet itself wasn’t that remarkable.From space,Ymoro was dwarfed by all of its neighbors.But it held wealths the galaxy wanted,the mines that ringed Risaeng rich in rare minerals,and the Regent was smart enough to recognize his role in expanding their power on an interplanetary scale.

“Who?”he asked without turning around.

“The Merodines from Llereld.”

His soft sigh momentarily fogged the glass.“I was hoping that boor would turn me down this time.He wouldn’t know a good time if it took up permanent residence in his pants.Though…”He glanced over his shoulder,frowning at his porter in the doorway.The sunlight filtering through the window turned his brown hair to ash,as well as deepened the lines in his forehead.He wasn’t more than a few years older than I,thirty-five at the outside,but the weight of his responsibility was etched in the harsh angles of his face.“There’s more than one?Don’t tell me Dourack got married.”

“The younger recently came of status.This is his first invitation.”

“And we’re the lucky ones to get his sparkling company.Joy.”

The Regent spoke of a lot of his guests in this fashion,disparaging them behind their backs while smiling and laughing at their faces.Nobody was safe from his scorn.I hadn’t understood it at first,how someone with so much to embrace couldn’t look past others’deficits,but now I just felt sorry for him.

“Shall I present them,your Eminence?”

“The sooner,the better.”When the porter bowed and left him alone again,the Regent sagged and shook his head.“This is going to be a very long day,”he muttered.

Occasions like this,I fight the urge to respond.I speak to no one,though.I never have.My only forms of communication have been my songs,and though I have a facility for language that allows me to learn new tongues quickly,I discovered long ago that sharing that knowledge is a waste.

My very first owner had been an elderly woman to whom I was supposed to be some sort of companion.Her son had purchased me from the hunters who plundered my home planet,but it had taken the entire journey for me to learn enough vocabulary to communicate with him.By the time I could string coherent words together,I was ensconced in her home,locked withina glass room.

“For your own good,”he’d said to her.Then,he’d pecked her on the cheek and left us alone.

I started jabbering to her,begging her to let me go,trying to explain howit was all a mistake and that I wasn’t what she thought I was,that I was sure if she could help me return to my family,they would do everything in their power to repay her for the kindness.But I was thirteen and terrifiedof what had happened to me,and she was an old woman whose mind had long agoabandoned her.My frenetic outburst shattered what little control on her sanity she had remaining.

To this day,I can still hear her screams when the winds pick up and my world is blind.I have no idea what happened to her after her son arrived with the officials.I just know that was the longest night of my life.I haven’t tried to talk to anybody since.

Abandoning the window,the Regent returned to the seat he had placed next to my cage.“Play,Dek,”he said,his voice weary.“Something should be salvaged of this presentation.”

I had known I’d be expected to perform—the Regent had used every opportunity to show me off since acquiring me—but his tone prompted me to choose one of the more difficult compositions I knew,a rhapsody that required my hands to play different melodic lines simultaneously while I sang a third.I started with the right,splaying my fingers best to allow the air to pass between each and create the notes,then added the left oncethe Regent began to hum along.This was his favorite.I hoped for his sake it helped him endure the day.

I was lost in the music when the doors swung open and Johaf,the porter,announced the Regent’s first guests.Their approaching footsteps added an unwanted bass to the music,so I closed my eyes and concentrated inward,on the way I tipped and tilted my hands to stir the webbing into the proper notes,on the vibrations in my vocal folds as I sang the lower line.Like most of my songs,this had no words,nothing to distract from the purity ofthe music.Everyone could understand.Everyone could appreciate.

Everyone listened.