Юн Ли - Raven Stratagem

“Were you planning all this even then?” Cheris said.

“No. I just like keeping my options open. And I happen to think genocide is a rotten policy anyway. Nothing personal.”

“Just what are you doing with one of my people in your keeping, anyway?”

Nija spoke to Cheris before Mikodez could, to his amusement. “He offered me a job ,” she said. “Which I accepted because your shitty life choices left me so many options.”

Cheris looked uncomfortable. “You’re recruiting , Shuos-zho?”

“In a few cases, where warranted,” Mikodez said mildly. “I mean, the Mwennin produced you . Maybe I’ll get lucky.”

Nija was singularly unimpressed with this line of thinking. “You mean you don’t have enough former shoplifters working for you and you’re desperate.”

Behind the girl’s back, Zehun signed, We’ve located the only child in the hexarchate who isn’t afraid of you.

Mikodez signed back, Let me know if you find any more of her.

Cheris’s mouth tightened, then: “I saw the broadcast of my parents’ executions.”

Amazingly, Nija kept quiet.

“I considered intervening,” Mikodez said. He could offer little comfort, although the evidence suggested that she wouldn’t hold it against him. Right now, he almost wished she would. “Because of who they were, Vidona security was too high. I chose not to risk it.”

“I appreciate your forthrightness,” Cheris said. “But what do I have to offer you? All I have is the tenuous control of one swarm, and you undoubtedly have your own mathematicians.”

None of her caliber, but she didn’t need to know that if she hadn’t guessed it already. “Zehun,” Mikodez said, “please escort Nija to lunch or gardening or handgun lessons, whatever you two find agreeable. Nija, thank you for indulging me. I’ll talk to you later.”

Zehun led the girl out. Nija appeared to think she should be back in school, and did the Citadel of Eyes offer a normal curriculum alongside all the Shuos refresher courses with ‘deception’ and ‘murder’ in their titles? Zehun had that ‘I thought I was done raising teenagers’ expression.

“I want in on your social experiment,” Mikodez said to Cheris. “But there’s one thing I believe only you can offer me. I’m hoping you’ll indulge me, as I’m certain it will benefit you as much as it will benefit me.”

“Now you’re making me worry,” Cheris said.

“You know more about Jedao than anyone alive,” Mikodez said. “What the hell was it that drove him over the edge?”

“Ah,” she said, very softly. “That.”

“His academy evaluations said he was a perfect Shuos. If that’s perfection, I don’t want any more of it. We’ve been trying to keep from producing more Jedaos ever since. I was almost purged myself as a cadet for manifesting Ninefox Crowned with Eyes. But the endeavor is doomed if we don’t know what the fucking trigger was.”

For a moment, Mikodez saw Jedao looking at him out of Cheris’s eyes, locked forever in the darkness. Then Cheris said, with Jedao’s accent, “The hexarchate was the trigger, Shuos-zho. All of it. The whole rotted system. He was never mad, or anyway, not mad the way people thought he was. I’ll put together a more detailed account for you. I don’t think it will do anyone any harm, and perhaps it may even, as you suggest, do some good.”

“Thank you,” Mikodez said. He bowed to her from the waist, in the old style that Jedao would remember as a formal greeting between heptarchs. She winced, which was good. He needed her to understand what she had gotten herself into. “I am in your debt. Now, I believe we have emergencies to attend to.”

“Understatement,” Cheris said. “Goodbye, Shuos-zho.”

It did not escape Mikodez’s notice that she signed off with the Deuce of Gears.

BREZAN HAD BEEN putting off the conversation for too long, but he could no longer tell himself that he had direly important matters to attend to, even if he did. Face it, the chief of staff was better at administrative matters than he was, and Cheris seemed to have some idea of what to do about generalized crises, perhaps because she was a trouble magnet.

In an ideal world, the damned uniform would burst into flames and save him from dealing with this, but he needed to deal with the consequences of his treachery like an adult. He was almost starting to wish he could consult Jedao on how you went on with your life after turning traitor. While he could ask Cheris, it seemed gauche.

After drawing a deep breath, Brezan headed down to the brig. His shoulder blades tickled every time he passed a Kel. He could no longer take formation instinct for granted. Now he knew how other Kel felt around him. Fitting punishment, really.

On the other hand, Cheris’s calendar reset meant, for the moment, that Brezan was safe from enthrallment. Terrible excuse for avoiding Tseya: he could have communicated with her remotely at any time, since the ability relied on proximity.

Tseya was being held in a standard cell, although it looked decidedly nonstandard with her in it. He wanted to offer her creeks and birds with ribbony necks and luminous tanks full of fish. Unfortunately, they were beyond the point where apologies would do any good.

Tseya herself sat calmly on the provided bench. The dull brown clothes didn’t flatter her. A servitor must have cut her hair. He ached, remembering the long ripples falling through his fingers, remembering combing out the tangles.

He had expected her to try to enthrall him the moment he stepped into line of sight. Instead, she raised her head and regarded him with silent dignity. Maybe she had decided it would be better to crush his windpipe straightaway, except he had no intention of getting that close.

After an uncomfortable pause, Brezan bowed to her, very formally. She might take it as mockery, although he didn’t intend it as such. “Tseya,” he said. “I owed you better than this. You figured out long ago that I decided to betray you, I’m sure, and I’m probably the last person you want to talk to, but there are some things you should know.”

Startlingly, her eyes glinted with humor. “You’re safe, you know,” she said. “I’m sure the mission’s completely blown, we both know it was Cheris all along, and I can only hold onto righteous fury for so long. Not that you can afford to believe me. So what happened? What was your breaking point?”

He forced himself to meet her eyes. “Cheris offered me a better world. A better calendar. This meant a calendrical spike. All the hexarchs are dead except Shuos, who sold the others out, or something, the details aren’t entirely clear to me. I have no idea what the fuck we’re doing next, but we’re going to let you off at—Tseya?”

Tseya was staring at him, face white. “All the hexarchs except Shuos?”

“If you want to say something cutting about my lack of character, or about how I did this because I let my promotion get to my head, go right ahead. I can’t say you’re not entitled.”

The strength went out of her. “I think,” she said, “that you really think this is for the better, although what it sounds like to me is an unbelievable amount of chaos. But that wasn’t the part that—that got my attention. I’m surprised you didn’t figure this out earlier. You were too polite to dig, I guess. The Andan hexarch is—was—my mother.”

“Say what?” Brezan sputtered. Then, remembering simple decency: “I’m sorry. I—I had no idea.”

“Well,” Tseya said, regaining a little of her spirit, “she was a terrible mother. But she never stopped being my mother, if you see what I mean.” Her breathing was still shaky. “Do you know, when I was little I thought Mikodez was my uncle. He always had the best candy in his pockets. Then I grew up and learned what the red-and-gold coat meant.”