Princes' Game Series Guide: Amulet Rampant

Moving on to Book 3. Wow, Book 3. I didn't realize until I struggled for almost a week on this summary how much is going on in this book. I think I internalized too many people who waved it off as a distraction from the main story. I should know better, right. I never do one thing at once when I can make a story do sixty things at once. >.>

Anyway, here is the synopsis for Book 3. As before, comments welcome both from people who've read the book and people who haven't.

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Book 3: Amulet Rampant

Rating: R. SO MUCH SEX. Consensual sex. All kinky.

“The book with a lot of kissing.”

Book 3 is split equally between two threads. One thread follows the Queen and her first foray into responsibility, and what happens because of that. The other is about Jahir’s visit to Lisinthir, and how their tryst evolves into something more urgent when they discover they’re both mind-mages.

Yeah. Hirianthial is not an anomaly.

This book is a very middle-of-the-series book, and it does a lot of things that are easy to overlook because there’s sex in it. Sex tends to be distracting (especially since most of the series until now has been about nonconsensual stuff). But it’s very busy introducing characters that are going to become important in later books, and giving you information you need to make sense of Books 4-6.

We begin this book in the Empire, with the Emperor and the Queen. The Empire is as restive as the court, and the Emperor’s been hard at work calming these attempts at revolt (without yet realizing the navy he’s employing to do so is itself in partial rebellion against him, as we learned in Book 2). He’s done a lot from the palace, but he needs to leave the throneworld to quell some of the worst problems. 

In preparation for this excursion, he selects Second’s successor to keep the court in check. The new Second used to be Command-East, in charge of the military operations of a fourth of the Empire (the Eastern quadrant). The Emperor thinks Command-East will do well in this new rank, but as former Navy the court (overwhelmingly composed of the system lords who are kept in check by the Navy) are going to hate him. The Emperor wonders how Command-East will do, and if he’ll survive, and figures leaving him in charge while he’s gone will be a good test of his ability to handle the post.

Despite his confidence in Second, he elevates a young Navy male he’s been watching to the ancient rank of the Knife, the Chatcaavan traditionally charged with the security of the Queen Ransomed and her domicile. He also leaves her computer access and a directive to do what she can to further their goals. She is deeply satisfied to be treated as full partner in their endeavor, and because she’s uneasy about the court, she decides she’d like to have an escape plan for herself and the Emperor’s females and children if, in fact, the throneworld explodes in the Emperor’s absence. She also decides she needs to investigate the whole tower and evaluate the people in it for suitability for the Emperor’s purposes, and she starts with the nursery.

The Queen has not spent time in the nursery. We learn in this book that she was sterilized by her family when they realized they were going to lose the throne to the Emperor; they wanted to insult him by making her useless to him. Her arrival in the nursery surprises everyone, including herself… because she discovers the Mother (from Book 1, the female whose child Lisinthir saved) has been sneaking back into the nursery to play with all the children. This is bizarre behavior: females are not supposed to care about the offspring gotten on them without their consent. But the Mother likes children, and not only has she been visiting here, she’s been catechizing the children in the Chatcaava’s ancient religion, which teaches an equitable and sane morality. The Emperor’s sons play games with his daughters, and no one tells. (Partly because the nursery attendants are females whose tongues have been cut out. And the guards are posted outside, not inside. But the children are very discreet with other visiting adults, like the tutors who come to the male children.)

The Queen decides to make allies out of the nursery attendants. She gives them back their voices by changing into her Eldritch shape and demonstrating that she can read their minds when they touch, and so they talk. The Queen also makes an ally out of the Mother, who loves the children (and, as Khaska noted, was kind to aliens; she is a throwback to adherents of the old religion, who were gentler). The Knife observes all this with delight and interest, because he is from a subculture himself, one the Navy taps for much of its ranks: rural worlds where mores are less caustic to male/female relations. But he worries about the Queen, and so he arranges (with the powers of his new rank) to have one of his friends from the Navy re-assigned to the palace to help him: Uuvek, a hacker/computer specialist.

Second (the new Second, who used to be Command-East) has arrived, meanwhile, and his behavior is… subtly off. The Queen starts to wonder if maybe he might not be on the Emperor’s side. After all, he’s an ambitious male, one who fought to one of the highest Naval ranks, and he’s been left unsupervised with authority. She asks the Knife if Second might betray the Emperor, and the Knife finds the idea distressing, but isn’t willing to risk the Queen’s safety by not planning for the contingency. Just in case.

This is how the Queen comes to contact Khaska—Laniis Baker, her former Seersan handmaiden—and ask if the Alliance can arrange for a mass escape from the throneworld, of all the Emperor’s females and children.

At this point we catch up with Laniis, who went through counseling and was released back to active duty in order to help with Fleet’s efforts to balk the Empire. To that end, she was assigned to a Fleet Intelligence Agency “hold” (a specialist team) and sent to the border. This team diverts from that task to deal with the Chatcaavan Queen’s request.

So all of this is in process on the border and in the Empire. In the Alliance, though, we get Lisinthir’s half of the story. After release from the hospital, Lisinthir tells the Night Admiral, the Fleet head of covert operations, that he wants to be involved, something the Night Admiral okays because he gets the feeling Lisinthir’s going to get involved no matter what and Fleet might as well have some visibility into the process. The Night Admiral tells him that it’s going to take a few weeks to pull together the people for the job, so Lisinthir decides this is his window for the tryst he promised Jahir.

This is supposed to be a holiday for both of them—the calm before Lisinthir’s storm, and an interlude for Jahir that allows him to prepare for a life where he can court Sediryl without fear—and they don’t even get one carefree day before they discover that Lisinthir can manipulate people’s bodies without their consent and Jahir can manipulate their emotions. The discovery that they are mind-mages propels them into a series of exercises designed to test the limits of these abilities, about which Jahir is utterly appalled: mind-mages are the stuff of Eldritch legends. As the villains. Only talking to Vasiht’h convinces him to keep going, both because an untrained talent will surely run out of control, and because the Glaseah think mind-mages are blessed by the Goddess. This shift in perspective allows Jahir to tentatively embrace his abilities.

Lisinthir, of course, takes to them instantly. Not without reservations, since any weapon requires an ethical framework, and this one even more than most. But to discover a new way to protect himself and his allies on the eve of a war? Yes, please.

Because they are Eldritch, and complicated, they mix their training with their trysting and long philosophical conversations about the proper use of their abilities (and their love affair, and their own psychologies, and how their history and upbringing has affected them and their plans for their lives. Eldritch talk. A lot.) We learn more about the Eldritch homeworld, its mores, its customs, its language, even its music. There is sex. (The descriptions are not graphic; as with Wingless's violence, one or two details are used to make it feel real, and then the rest of it is about the emotional impact on the characters.) It is not vanilla sex. It’s not kink, either, in the sense of conforming to modern standards of behavior (Jahir and Lisinthir discuss this as well, since Lisinthir had some education at the hands of two Harat-Shar and know how it’s “supposed” to be done). But it is edged in violence—Jahir’s masochistic streak has been a thing from the very beginning, in Dreamhealers, when even Vasiht’h commented about his need to nobly martyr himself all the time.

There’s even a brief and interesting experiment involving Eldritch biology, and a piece of technology Fleet lent to Lisinthir for his use—known as a roquelaure, it can be used to disguise a person completely. It’s supposed to be keyed genetically to a single user, but Jahir can use Lisinthir’s, and neither of them knows why.

So they talk, run their trials, and struggle with the issues their abilities raise in them both. The thread running under all this is that Jahir is slowly coming to a decision about whether he wants to be involved in the war. In Book 2, he senses he might be drawn into it, and he doesn’t want to be but he feels obliged because of his duty to the Eldritch Queen. In Book 3, he learns he has a talent that might make him uniquely suited to fight the war at Lisinthir’s side, and he goes from being uneasy about this to wanting it. Likewise, Lisinthir goes from feeling he has to prepare Jahir for the war just in case he gets accidentally drawn into it, to trying to decide if Jahir will be a liability if he participates because of his deep-seated pacifism… to acknowledging that Jahir has changed enough to be a necessary participant.

There is a lot going on between them. As usual. It can’t be just one thing, with Eldritch; getting together to tryst for fun would have been too easy. 

Vasiht’h is not absent in this book. He has a small side-plot involving his decision to return to Anseahla and become a father, a process that involves applying to the Glaseahn temples to have a priestess assigned to him to act as surrogate mother. He starts that journey by visiting his sister Sehvi first, and hanging out with her husband and two children. After that, Sehvi’s husband, Kovihs, accompanies him to Anseahla so he can make the temple visit. Vasiht’h has some lingering business with his brother Bret (which we’ve been watching since Dreamhealers!), which he finally resolves. At the close of the book he is still on Anseahla with his family, making plans to maybe house-hold with Sehvi and Kovihs and their kids. It is important to note here for fans of Jahir and Vasiht’h that Jahir’s relationships with other people do not affect his relationship with Vasiht’h, except to strengthen it. They remain committed to one another and deeply linked, and nothing Jahir does with other people changes that.

Meanwhile, Laniis and the FIA personnel are busy linking up the pieces needed to make the break-out work. The first piece involves getting the Chatcaava off the throneworld, and this stage is going to be handled by a refugee organization on a border world where both Chatcaava and Pelted live. The Chatcaava have links to throneworld relatives, so they travel frequently… which gives the Fleet personnel their conduit from the throneworld to the border.

This organization is being abetted by Amber, Jahir’s brother. Amber is a wanderer; he also had a crush on the Eldritch heir, Bethsaida, who returned his regard. Leaving the Eldritch homeworld to meet him was how she got in the way of Chatcaavan slavers, and Amber is incensed at what happened to her. Hearing he has the opportunity to stick it to the Chatcaava by liberating the entire Imperial harem, he agrees… with caveats: he can only get the Chatcaavan off the throneworld. He can’t move them from the borderworld, where the refugee organization operates by maintaining a much lower profile than breaking out two hundred women and children at a time. He sends them to the board member of a charity organization that can supply that next step: his cousin, Sediryl.

Sediryl has been living on Starbase Ana after being disinherited by her mother for taking up with human lovers (something we discover in Dreamhealers 5, “Family”). When Fleet approaches her to ask if her charity will help move the Chatcaavan refugees to safety, she contacts Liolesa (her aunt, the Queen), to see if the Eldritch want to provide that safehouse. Liolesa invites her to become more involved with Eldritch politics, which Sediryl agrees to, and the Queen explains the problems on the Eldritch homeworld (the events of the Her Instruments series). Then she empowers Sediryl to act on her behalf and sends her as the new Eldritch Ambassador ad’Alliance to arrange the Chatcaavan flight to safety, with Amber.

Liolesa has just lost her heir, Bethsaida, who came back from her brief stay in the Empire too traumatized to wield political power on an intergalactic stage. Sediryl is Liolesa’s candidate for Bethsaida’s replacement, and this assignment is part of Liolesa’s test for fitness. Sediryl has the feeling this is what her aunt’s about, but doesn’t ask for confirmation.

Armed with her new plenipotentiary powers, Sediryl returns to the Fleet personnel and says, “We can do this.” They call the Chatcaavan Queen back and tell her the plan is go. This comes just in time, because Second’s behavior has gone from erratic to threatening. He indicates that he has some idea of what the previous Second thought of the Queen, and she decides she has only two roads before her: either Second is loyal, and sending the women and children to safety will be inconvenient and embarrassing but not problematic; or Second is a traitor, and sending the women and children to safety needs to happen now.

Since she can’t win for losing, she pulls the trigger. With one small change. 

She decides to stay.

The Queen has internalized the lessons Lisinthir taught her in Wingless and she believes in the Emperor’s belief in her. If she stays, she can keep an eye on Second and the court for the Emperor. Maybe learn something. She assumes they’ll treat her like they do any other dumb female and dismiss her, and this is a reasonable assumption: if Second truly is going to betray the Emperor, that means he doesn’t believe in the Emperor’s aims… and that means he’ll typically Chatcaavan, thinking only of males as rivals.

But Second surprises her, unpleasantly. Once by understanding what she’s done. Twice, by not actually taking the throne. Instead, he opens the way for a new male, who claims the title of Emperor not by dueling, but by having anyone who opposes him shot with weapons. This male is the male formerly known as Logistics-East, in charge of the logistics of the entire eastern quadrant’s military. He does not think the way most Chatcaava do. For him, slaughtering his enemies is a more rational response than fighting them with claws and teeth. He is an abomination, and witnessing his coup harrows the Queen’s heart.

Second’s final surprise is to think enough of her to deal with her as a threat. He has the Surgeon strip her wings of their mutilated vanes, and then he consigns her to the harem of the Lord of the Twelveworld, “to rot without news” while the Empire attacks the Alliance at last, and starts the war that no one wants. No one sane, anyway…

Back in the Alliance, Lisinthir cuts his tryst short when the Night Admiral calls to tell him the FIA hold that’s been assigned to help him is on its way to pick him up. Lisinthir tells Jahir that he’ll call when he knows what they can do and departs, ready for the fight. Jahir makes plans to return to Veta and meet up with Vasiht’h, and wait.

The war has begun. The Alliance just doesn’t know it yet.

Military/Political Stuff

A lot gets set up in Amulet Rampant. The important takeaways, politically/militarily:

• In the Emperor’s absence, there has been a coup. Two members of the Eastern Naval contingent have declared against him. One of them is now calling himself the Emperor.
• These two Chatcaava have decided it’s time to fight the Alliance, and are gathering the military assets accordingly.
• The Emperor has gone missing. He left to put down a rebellion, but when the Queen and the Knife attempted to contact him, he did not respond. No one knows where he is or what’s happened.
• The Alliance has assigned intelligence assets to the border to find out what’s going on. Lisinthir’s going with them, along with Laniis.
• Sediryl is now the official ambassador from the Eldritch Empire to the Alliance, and is helping to arrange a refugee flight from the Chatcaavan throneworld with her cousin, Amber. She is also being groomed to replace Bethsaida as the heir to the Eldritch crown.
• The Eldritch have two new mind-mages now, Lisinthir and Jahir. (Interestingly, all the existing mind-mages are linked to Galare. Hirianthial’s Galare father married into Jisiensire, which is why he has the Jisiensire house name.)
• The Chatcaavan Queen, after arranging the escape, is now a prisoner, but determined to continue spying for the Emperor and Lisinthir.
• Vasiht’h is planning a joint life with his sister Sehvi, who is on Tam-ley. (This has significance later.)

At the conclusion of Amulet, we’re ready to get into the actual war, which is going to push the plot for the remaining books of the series. A lot of AR seems like a side-story but almost everything that happens in it is going to affect or inform future events and revelations. You should always be suspicious if my characters are doing something that seems inconsequential. The thoughts someone has while having a drink alone at a starbase bar are going to matter down the line…

New Characters: 

So many new characters. All important.

• Amber Seni Galare – Jahir’s younger brother, whom we hear about in passing in the Dreamhealers series, arrives in this book by way of his relationship with Bethsaida, and his desire to avenge her.
• Sediryl Nuera Galare – Jahir’s cousin, the woman he’s been in love with since he was a teenager, makes her debut (alluding to things that have happened that I haven’t yet written about, but might someday).
• Kovihs – Sehvi’s husband makes his first on-page appearance in this book, in Vasiht’h’s sections.
• The FIA Hold – Laniis’s comrades on the Silhouette. Meryl Osgood, a Hinchi woman, is in command. Two other characters in the hold become important: Na’er, an Aera field ops specialist, and Dellen Crosby, the Seersa medic.
• The Knife – The Chatcaavan Queen’s newest security manager, the Knife is former Navy, a follower of the old religion, and curious about the Change.
• Uuvek – The Knife’s friend, a hacker/computer specialist from the Navy. His stunted wings prevented him from attempting the formal challenges that allow personnel to rise in rank, so he put his energy into becoming a master of virtual spaces, rather than physical ones.
• The Priestess – One of the females in the Emperor’s harem, a practical and fearless female previously known as Stripes until the Queen gave her a title.
• Second (was Command-East) – The male the Emperor chose to succeed Second-who-was was previously in charge of a fourth of the Empire’s navy, in one of the most populous and productive sectors.
• The Usurper (was Logistics-East) – The male who took the throne after Second betrayed the Emperor.
• The Lord of the Twelveworld – Another Chatcaavan male, this one in charge of a historically and economically important segment of the border.

JUST FOR FUN: READER HIGHLIGHTS

“If we do not resist society when it is stupid, we allow it to march to its destruction. Societies evolve, just as people do. They mature; they see the follies of their childhood years and amend their behavior.” Lisinthir brushed a thumb over Jahir’s lips, his voice gentling. “When a people’s traditions and customs do not serve its survival, they must change.”

The fears of those without power, she thought, were very different from the fears of those with the responsibility to act on reality.

“So long as you trust me,” Lisinthir said, quiet. “To force you, but not to coerce you.”

He sighed. “At least tell me I am allowed a shirt.” 

“I am the essence of kindness, cousin. I am permitting you two.” 

“One of them must be transparent.” 

Lisinthir grinned. “Close.”

"Because through it we may understand the subtle and unknown... and knowledge is safety, and power."