Desolation of Erimos
Copyright© 2026 by Rycliff
Chapter 10: Protective Custody
The Resolute left Ran Academy six hours after the Fragment was placed in Doctor Lei Jing Chow’s custody.
Alliyanna watched the research annex recede through the narrow viewport in her quarters until it became one more light against the stars. The small data card Chow had given her rested between her fingers.
The Fragment was there.
Documented. Protected. Outside the fleet’s direct control and outside the Senate’s immediate reach.
It was not much of a victory, but it was theirs.
Her quarters aboard the Imperial carrier were comfortable enough to make the phrase protective custody almost believable. She had a bed, a desk, a private sanitation compartment, climate control and access to a terminal that connected to an approved public information network.
The door was still locked from the outside.
A guard remained in the corridor.
Her communications were monitored.
She was permitted meals in her room, supervised exercise twice each day and limited meetings with Talak and Kahlan under observation. No one mistreated her. No one threatened her.
Nobody told her exactly what would happen when they reached the Capitol.
The first night, Alliyanna lay awake staring at the ceiling.
The carrier’s engines produced almost no vibration. She could hear the soft movement of air through the ventilation system and, occasionally, boots passing outside her door.
She had spent so many nights on Erimos listening for danger that the quiet should have been comforting.
It was not.
She closed her eyes.
Talak?
The answer came so quickly that she opened them again.
I’m here.
Alliyanna sat up.
The connection should not have surprised her. She and Talak had reached for one another across distance before. Since Luminara the bond had grown stronger, sometimes inconveniently so.
But this felt different.
Clearer.
Where are you?
Same section. I think two decks below you.
Can you hear me easily?
Yes.
A third presence touched the edge of the connection.
Apparently I can too.
Alliyanna froze.
Kahlan?
Unless there is another person aboard who regrets following you into Imperial custody.
Talak’s surprise crossed the link.
You heard her?
I heard both of you.
For several seconds none of them knew what to say.
Kahlan finally broke the silence.
This is awkward.
Alliyanna smiled in the dark.
How long have you been able to do that?
A pause.
Not like this.
That answer told her enough for the moment.
They tested the connection carefully.
Talak walked to the far side of his assigned quarters.
No difference.
Kahlan moved into the sanitation compartment.
No difference.
The next morning, when Talak was escorted to a different section for exercise, the connection weakened but remained.
By the third day, they could reach one another from almost anywhere in the section of the carrier where they were confined.
By the end of the first week, they stopped testing it.
It simply became part of the day.
Alliyanna would be reading and suddenly feel Talak’s impatience before his words arrived.
They served the same breakfast again.
You complained about yesterday’s breakfast.
Because it was the same breakfast.
Kahlan would appear a moment later.
I traded mine for fruit.
Talak’s irritation sharpened.
How?
Charm.
You bribed someone.
Charm with economic incentives.
Alliyanna learned that emotions sometimes arrived before words.
Talak’s restlessness.
Kahlan’s amusement.
Her own fear when she woke from a dream about the Guardian and discovered both men suddenly awake in their separate rooms.
Allie? Talak asked.
I’m fine.
Kahlan answered immediately.
That was unconvincing.
The bond no longer belonged only to Alliyanna and Talak.
That should have bothered her more than it did.
Instead it began to feel normal.
Kahlan increasingly initiated contact himself.
Sometimes for something important.
Sometimes because he was bored.
Sometimes for no apparent reason beyond making certain the other two were still there.
No one mentioned the Chamber of Reflection.
No one needed to.
On the eighth day, Alliyanna discovered that protective custody came with access to the Imperial Senate’s public legal archive.
The terminal in her room restricted private messaging, current intelligence and several government systems, but public law was public law.
She entered the words SENATE INQUIRY PROCEDURE.
The terminal returned more than four thousand results.
Alliyanna stared at them.
I may have made a mistake.
Talak answered.
What kind?
I searched Senate law.
Kahlan joined them.
My condolences.
She spent the next four hours reading anyway.
The Senate Notice identified her as Baroness Alliyanna Kar’Jan, styling herself as the Duchess Birsha.
That wording had irritated her from the first broadcast.
Now she looked at it differently.
The Senate denied Birsha.
It did not deny Kar’Jan.
She searched hereditary peerage.
Then regency.
Then legal majority.
Then assumption of title.
The information was scattered across centuries of procedural revisions, court decisions, hereditary law and Senate precedent.
Alliyanna took notes.
A hereditary title passed at the death or lawful retirement of its holder, subject to whatever succession rules governed the House.
A minor heir could not exercise the full political authority attached to the title.
A regent could exercise those functions until the heir reached legal majority.
That was Gristov.
Alliyanna searched again.
HOUSE KAR’JAN SENATE REPRESENTATION.
The result appeared almost immediately.
Her father was listed as the sitting representative.
She knew that.
What she had never considered was the wording beside his name.
REGENT FOR THE MINOR HEIR.
Alliyanna stared at the screen.
Minor.
She was eighteen.
She was no longer a minor.
She opened the governing rule.
The legal language was dense, but the requirements were surprisingly simple.
Identity.
Lawful succession.
Legal majority.
Formal acceptance of the title and its responsibilities.
No separate confirmation vote was required for an uncontested hereditary Barony.
Alliyanna read the rule again.
Then a third time.
Talak.
His response came immediately.
What?
Kahlan.
Here.
Alliyanna looked at the words on the screen.
I think my father is sitting in my Senate seat.
Silence.
Then Talak:
What?
She explained.
The Kar’Jan title belonged to her by matriarchal hereditary law, but while she remained under age, Gristov had continued exercising the political functions as Regent. Thomas’s death had ended Gristov’s attempt to redirect the succession through his son, but it had never made Gristov the hereditary holder. He had not occupied that Senate seat in his own independent right.
He occupied it for her.
Kahlan understood first.
And you’re eighteen.
Yes.
So the regency should already be ending.
If I formally assume the title.
Talak was quiet.
Alliyanna felt him working through the consequence.
Allie. If you do that, your father is no longer the senator.
She looked at the screen.
I know.
For the first time the discovery stopped feeling clever.
Gristov had sat in the Senate for years.
He had conducted House business there. Built relationships there. Exercised authority there.
Alliyanna had grown up thinking of him as Baron Kar’Jan because that was what everyone called him.
But hereditary law did not care what she had grown accustomed to.
To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account
(Why register?)
* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.