Desolation of Erimos
Copyright© 2026 by Rycliff
Chapter 11: The Seat
The staff car arrived at nine twenty.
Alliyanna had been ready for nearly half an hour.
She stood in front of the mirror one final time and adjusted the sleeve of her dress. The blue was darker than anything she normally wore, almost Imperial in its formality, broken by white along the collar, shoulders and narrow panels down the sides. It was not extravagant. She had deliberately avoided extravagant.
Today was not a wedding.
It was not a court appearance.
At least she did not think it was.
The sapphire comb held her hair away from her face. She had found it among the personal effects returned to her the previous morning. She remembered wearing it once before and nearly putting it aside.
Then she changed her mind.
If the Senate intended to see Baroness Alliyanna Kar’Jan, then that was exactly who would walk into the chamber.
A knock sounded.
“Baroness?”
Alliyanna took one last look at herself.
Eighteen.
Still eighteen.
For some reason the thought almost made her laugh.
She did not feel eighteen.
Not this morning.
She picked up the small case containing the Senate notice and the notes she had made aboard the Resolute.
“I’m ready.”
The trip took less than ten minutes.
That annoyed her.
For four weeks she had crossed the Empire to reach the Capitol. Now the final distance between temporary confinement and the Imperial Senate was barely long enough for her to gather her thoughts.
The staff car passed through two security checkpoints before entering the Senate complex.
Alliyanna watched the buildings through the window.
She had seen them the previous evening from a distance. Up close, the complex was even larger. Old stone and newer construction had been joined together over centuries until it was difficult to tell where one generation ended and another began. Broad steps rose between columns. Enclosed bridges connected administrative buildings. Uniformed guards stood at entrances while aides and officials hurried through doors carrying tablets, cases and stacks of documents.
The car stopped beneath a covered entrance.
A Senate officer opened her door.
“Baroness Kar’Jan.”
Alliyanna stepped out.
“Yes.”
“If you’ll come with me.”
She followed him inside.
Security took longer than the drive.
Her identity was verified twice. The notice was checked. Her case was scanned. She was asked whether she carried any weapons.
“No.”
The officer looked at the scanner.
“I know. I’m required to ask.”
Alliyanna almost smiled.
“Then no.”
He returned her case.
Another aide met her beyond the checkpoint.
“This way, Baroness.”
They moved through a long corridor toward the main chamber.
Alliyanna could hear voices before she saw the doors.
Hundreds of them.
She slowed slightly.
The aide noticed.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
She was.
That surprised her.
A year ago, perhaps even a few months ago, she would have felt an overwhelming need to do something with the nervous energy inside her. Talk. Argue. Ask questions. Make some remark simply to break the silence.
Now she let the feeling exist.
She had been frightened on Erimos.
She had still walked.
She had been frightened in the Maze.
She had continued.
She had stood in front of the Guardian without knowing whether any answer she gave would be enough.
This was a room.
A very important room filled with people who might decide her future.
But still a room.
The doors opened.
Conversation inside the chamber softened.
Alliyanna stepped through.
The Senate chamber rose around her in sweeping tiers.
She had seen images, but images had flattened it. The chamber was almost circular, its seats rising in broad arcs around the central floor. Lower seats belonged to lesser offices and representatives. Higher tiers carried the hereditary Houses, arranged by rank, history and privilege.
At the far end stood the President’s dais.
Above everything else, high against the rear wall, sat the Imperial seat.
Empty.
Alliyanna noticed it immediately.
Then she found the Kar’Jan seat.
Second level.
Her father was sitting in it.
Gristov saw her.
His expression did not change.
For several seconds they simply looked at one another.
Then the aide motioned toward the open position below the President’s dais.
Alliyanna walked forward.
She could feel eyes following her.
Some curious.
Some openly hostile.
Others impossible to read.
Her heels sounded against the polished floor.
She reached the designated position and stopped.
An officer took her case and placed it on a small table beside her.
The President of the Senate sat above her at the central dais. He was an older man with gray hair and the practiced expression of someone accustomed to speaking while hundreds of people disagreed with him.
He waited until the chamber settled.
Then he lifted the gavel.
The sound carried sharply through the room.
“Order.”
Conversation died.
The President looked down at Alliyanna.
“The proceedings concerning the Senate inquiry into Baroness Alliyanna Kar’Jan will now come to order.”
Alliyanna stood still.
“The record will reflect the presence of the Baroness before this chamber pursuant to lawful notice.”
He glanced toward the clerk.
Then back to her.
“Baroness, please state your full name and standing for the record.”
There it was.
Exactly as she had expected.
Alliyanna drew a breath.
“Alliyanna Kar’Jan.”
The clerk entered the name.
The President began to speak again.
“Baroness Kar’Jan, you have been summoned—”
“Mr. President.”
The chamber shifted.
Not loudly.
Enough.
The President stopped.
Alliyanna continued.
“If I may, I would like to clarify my standing for the record before these proceedings continue.”
The President studied her.
Perhaps he expected argument.
Perhaps a complaint.
Perhaps a demand concerning Birsha.
Instead he said, “Proceed.”
Alliyanna turned slightly so that she was not speaking only to him.
She could see the chamber now.
Her father.
The hereditary seats.
The senators watching her.
She spoke carefully.
“My name is Alliyanna Kar’Jan. I am Baroness Kar’Jan by birth and hereditary succession.”
A few quiet voices moved through the chamber.
Alliyanna continued.
“I have reached my legal majority. I therefore formally claim my birthright to the Barony of Kar’Jan, the peerage attached to that title, and the hereditary Senate seat belonging to House Kar’Jan.”
The murmurs grew louder.
The President’s expression changed slightly.
Alliyanna did not stop.
“I accept the duties, obligations, responsibilities, rights and privileges belonging to that office and title, and I assume them in my own name as the lawful heir of House Kar’Jan.”
For half a second the chamber seemed uncertain whether she had finished.
Then voices rose.
Not shouting.
Questions.
Murmurs.
A senator several tiers above leaned toward another.
Someone near the President’s dais turned to a clerk.
Alliyanna looked toward the second level.
Gristov was still sitting in the Kar’Jan seat.
She turned fully toward him.
Their eyes met again.
This time there was no uncertainty in hers.
“Father.”
The chamber quieted enough for the word to carry.
Gristov remained still.
Alliyanna lifted one hand toward the seat.
“You are sitting in my chair.”
Silence.
Complete silence.
Gristov looked at her.
Alliyanna could not tell whether he was angry.
For one moment she was nine years old again, sitting in the enormous chair behind his desk at home, her feet nowhere near the floor, imagining what it might be like to make decisions that mattered.
Then the memory disappeared.
Gristov stood.
No protest.
No question.
No speech.
He simply rose from the Kar’Jan seat.
A chamber officer approached him.
Gristov stepped into the aisle.
Alliyanna watched as the officer escorted him toward the exit.
Her father did not look back.
That hurt more than she expected.
She pushed the feeling down.
Not away.
Just down.
There would be time for it later.
The Kar’Jan seat stood empty.
Alliyanna turned toward the steps.
The President had not spoken.
Neither had anyone else.
She climbed.
The distance was not great, but it felt longer than the entire walk into the chamber.
When she reached the second level, she stepped into the row and stopped before the chair.
Her chair.
It looked exactly as it always had in photographs.
Dark wood.
High back.
The Kar’Jan crest worked into the panel behind it.
Alliyanna sat.
The chamber erupted.
Voices rose from several directions at once.
“Point of order!”
“Mr. President—”
“Has the succession been verified?”
“The House is uncontested.”
“She is of legal age.”
“This inquiry cannot—”
The gavel struck.
“Order.”
Nobody listened.
The President struck it again.
“Order in the Senate!”
The chamber gradually quieted.
Alliyanna rested her hands on the arms of the chair.
She did not smile.
She wanted to.
She absolutely wanted to.
But this was not over.
Across the chamber, a protocol officer had already left his position and was moving quickly toward the President.
Alliyanna recognized the uniform from her reading.
Senior chamber protocol.
He climbed the steps beside the dais and leaned close to the President.
The President frowned.
The officer whispered.
Alliyanna could not hear the words from where she sat.
Neither could most of the Senate.
She watched the President’s face instead.
At first there was irritation.
Then confusion.
Then something considerably less comfortable.
The President turned his head.
The officer whispered again.
“What?” the President said quietly.
The officer lowered his voice further.
The chamber remained restless, but enough senators were watching now that the surrounding conversations began to fade.
The President leaned toward him.
Alliyanna could just barely hear pieces of the exchange.
“ ... lawfully assumed...”
“ ... hereditary seat...”
“ ... sitting member...”
The President glanced toward Alliyanna.
She met his eyes.
He looked away.
The protocol officer continued.
This time his voice carried just enough for those closest to the dais.
“Sir, the proceeding prepared for this morning cannot continue in its present form.”
The President’s jaw tightened.
“Why?”
“Because the Baroness is no longer merely a subject appearing before an inquiry.”
The officer paused.
“She is a sitting member of the Senate.”
The President looked toward the Kar’Jan seat again.
“Yes. I can see that.”
“Then you understand the difficulty.”
“I understand that she claimed a seat.”
“She lawfully claimed an uncontested hereditary seat after reaching majority. The chamber recognized her identity and title on the record before she did so.”
The President’s expression hardened.
“And?”
“And she is now entitled to the protections afforded a member of the peerage and a sitting senator.”
The President said something Alliyanna could not hear.
The protocol officer answered more firmly.
“Formal accusations require formal charges. Evidence must be entered into the record. She is entitled to notice, representation by counsel and disclosure under Senate rules. If witnesses are called against her, she may question and cross-examine them. She may call witnesses of her own.”
The President stared straight ahead.
The officer continued.
“Any proceeding affecting her hereditary title or Senate standing must follow peerage procedure.”
A pause.
“And adverse findings may be subject to petition under Imperial review.”
That got the President’s attention.
“The Throne?”
“Yes, sir.”
The President leaned back.
For several seconds he said nothing.
Then quietly:
“What do you recommend?”
The protocol officer did not hesitate.
“A recess.”
“How long?”
“Long enough to determine what proceeding you are legally permitted to conduct.”
The President stared at the desk in front of him.
The chamber had become quiet enough now that almost everyone understood something had gone wrong, even if most did not yet understand exactly what.
The President reached for the gavel.
Alliyanna sat very still.
The gavel fell.
“The Senate will stand in recess pending review of procedural matters arising from the formal assumption of the Kar’Jan hereditary seat.”
The chamber exploded into noise.
The President struck the gavel once more.
“This Senate stands in recess.”
He rose and left through the door behind the dais.
The protocol officer followed him.
Alliyanna exhaled.
Only then did she realize she had been holding her breath.
Senators began leaving their seats.
Some moved immediately toward the exits.
Others gathered in small groups.
Several were already arguing.
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