Queen of Candesce Read Online Free Page A

there, we still trade with the rest of the principalities. We have to; we’ve got no agriculture of our own. But the hereditary nobles own us because they control the industries down here.” The bitterness in his voice was plain.
    â€œSo, Garth Diamandis, if you’re a city person, what are you doing living in a hole in the ground in Greater Spyre?” She said it lightly, though she was aware the question must cause him more pain.
    He did look away before smiling ruefully at her. “I made the cardinal mistake of all gigolos: I cultivated popularity among women only. I bedded one too many princesses, you see. I was kindly not killed nor castrated for it, but I was sent here.”
    â€œBut I don’t understand,” she said. “Why is it impossible to leave? You said something about defenses…but why are they there?”
    Diamandis guffawed. “Spyre is a treasure! At its height, this place was the equal of any nation in Virga, with gravity for all and wonders you couldn’t get anywhere else. Why, we had horses! Have you heard of horses? And dogs and cats. You understand? We had here all the plants and animals that were brought from Earth at the very beginning of the world. Animals that were never altered to live in weightlessness. Even now, a breeding pair of house cats costs a king’s ransom. An orange is worth its weight in platinum. We had to defend ourselves and prevent our treasures being stolen. So, for centuries now, Spyre has been ringed with razors and bombs to prevent attack—and to prevent anyone smuggling anything out. And believe me, when all else has descended to madness and decadence, that is the one policy that will remain in place.” He hung his head.
    â€œBut surely one person, traveling alone—”
    â€œCould carry a cargo of swallowed seeds. Or a dormant infant animal in a capsule sewn under the skin. Both have been tried. Oh, travel is still possible for nobles of Lesser Spyre and their attendants, but there are body scans and examinations, interrogations and quarantines. And anyone who’s recently been on Greater Spyre comes under even more suspicion.”
    â€œI…see.” Venera decided not to believe him. She would be more cheerful that way. She did her best to shrug off the black mood his words had inspired, and focused on her meal.
    They ate in silence for a while, then he said, “And you? Pirates or a fall overboard?”
    â€œBoth and neither,” said Venera. How much should she tell? There was no question that lying would be necessary, but one must always strike the right balance. The best lies were built of pieces of truth woven together in the right way. Also, it would do her no good to deny her status or origins; after all, if the paranoid rulers of Spyre needed money then Venera Fanning herself could fetch a good price. Her husband would buy her back or reduce this strange wheel to metal flinders. She had only to get word back to him.
    â€œI was a princess of the kingdom of Hale,” she told Diamandis. “I married at a young age—he is Chaison Fanning, the admiral of the migratory nation of Slipstream. Our countries lie far from here—hundreds or thousands of miles, I don’t know—far from the light of Candesce. We have our own suns, which light a few hundred miles of open air that we farm. Our civilizations are bounded by darkness, unlike you who bask in the permanent glory of the Sun of Suns…”
    Some audiences would need more—not all people knew that the whole vast world of Virga was artificial, a balloon thousands of miles in diameter that hung alone in the cosmos. Lacking any gravity save that made by its own inner air, Virga was a weightless environment whose extent could easily seem infinite to those who lived within it. Heat and light were provided not by any outside star but by artificial suns, of which Candesce was the oldest and brightest.
    Even the ignorant