The Complete Season 1

by Michael Underwood

  Chapter 6

  Bellona

  Bellona used to suspect that Lavinia passed most of the drudgery of wardership on to her. She had labored over endless reports, adjusting her penmanship in rewrite after rewrite; calculated the trade impacts of various decisions on the Mertikan empire; prepared invitations and chosen gifts for visitors.

  Now that she was warder—temporary, powerless warder—she knew that she’d only seen a fraction of it.

  Lavinia had kept the final version of most decisions to herself, and never even consulted Bellona about the most sensitive issues. How often did she need to change the code word for communications by ship? What merchant should be selected for refurnishing the second salon, and thereby also act as an information source on Twaa-Fei port politics? In the aftermath of the council meeting, Bellona now had to not only write the standard summary report she always used to do, but also the top-secret analysis that Lavinia had never even told her existed before it was demanded of her.

  At least that meant she could frame it to her own advantage.

  Surely, Lavinia used to do the same.

  When she’d finished portraying herself as the decisive savior of Twaa-Fei’s squabbling underclasses and statesmanlike declarer of war, Bellona moved to the next task on her list.

  Organizing a monthly dinner for embassy staff? Why couldn’t the majordomo do that? Bellona had trouble imagining Lavinia planning a dinner for servants. Maybe she had invented this to keep Bellona busy.

  Annoyed, Bellona pushed the list away. She had just been sitting still too long, she decided. As her own boss, she could decide on her own breaks. She flounced out of her office, although she couldn’t help a little twinge of transgression as she waved to the guard at the door on the way out. Guard schedules—that was another thing on her list. Would she need to upgrade the security at the embassy in light of the recent unrest?

  Bellona was still thinking through that problem when she passed the park and saw Adechike sitting under a tree.

  “Adechike!” she called.

  He looked up dully. “Aren’t we at war?”

  Bellona was taken aback, and covered it with a laugh. “Adechike. In this time of madness, it is part of our responsibility as diplomats to maintain rational and cordial relations.” At least, she hoped so. She hadn’t mentioned her previous meeting with Adechike to Lavinia. She could tell her when it bore useful fruit.

  “You are the one who declared war on us!” Adechike complained.

  Bellona laughed again. “Surely, you don’t think that was my decision? Adechike. You know how this works as well as anyone. Our government tells us what to do, and we do it. But we can create change by working in the margins of what they don’t tell us, like this.” It had started as babble to bridge the awkward situation until Adechike got over the declaration of war problem, but Bellona was warming to her idea. “We should be interacting more, not less. That could be how we find the solution we need!” The solution for how to be truly recognized for her abilities and dedication, at least.

  Adechike, meanwhile, was still reacting to the first thing she’d said. “It’s true, isn’t it? Ojo was just doing what they told him to do.” He shook his head. “Still, though. He didn’t have to defend them. And . . .” Adechike stopped suddenly.

  Bellona waited, but he wasn’t going to go on. Still, he had been about to say something sensitive, something potentially important, she was sure of it. “You need something to take your mind off all these problems,” she said. “We all do.” Bellona clapped her hands. “I’ve got the perfect idea! We’ll throw a dinner for you!”

  “A . . . dinner?”

  “A dinner party.” After all, if the servants got dinners, why shouldn’t the warders? “I’ll host it at the embassy. It will be a way to bring together the warders—only the young, fun ones, I think?—in an informal way, to build bonds of affection that can cut across the strife of war.”

  Chapter 7

  Cassia

  Penelope, seen through the scrying glass in the Vanian embassy, was stretched on a gravidity couch, specifically designed to encourage circulation to the fetus. Penelope could make anything look regal, but Cassia had worked with her for years, and she could tell when her boss was miserably uncomfortable.

  “So Mertika is throwing their might behind Rumika,” she mused.

  “We knew they would,” Cassia reminded her.

  “Yes, but the timing is interesting. And this stunt with the island . . .” Penelope sighed. “The Matriarchs meet tonight. I will do what I can to influence them.”

  Cassia did not ask in which direction.

  “I have been discussing this with the Matriarchs, and we think it best that I remain in Vania to support any fighting that may arise.”

  “You’re not returning after the birth?” Cassia hadn’t realized how much she was counting on Penelope coming back and taking over every aspect of this crisis, letting Cassia go back to her old life. To Anton, for example, whom she hadn’t seen in weeks.

  “Not for a while, although I would expect to return to my post after the war.”

  After the war. What a strangely optimistic phrase.

  “You’ll be fine, Cassia,” Penelope was saying. “You are ready. And I’m always here if you have questions.”

  “Thank you,” Cassia whispered. It wasn’t lack of faith in her own abilities that was upsetting her, although she felt that, too. But being a warder was terrifying and, when it wasn’t that, boring and also hard work. Especially now with this war.

  Penelope opened her mouth but hesitated before speaking, and Cassia knew before the words came out what the topic would be. “How is Ojo?”

  “Not well,” Cassia said bluntly. Maybe it would make Penelope come back sooner. In any case, her boss had never liked sugarcoating. “He looks like he hasn’t slept in weeks. I’m sure he’s having difficulty with the Bright Chamber.”

  “Hmm,” Penelope said, as if to herself. “Perhaps it’s not his decision.”

  “I would guess not,” Cassia said.

  “Keep an eye out,” Penelope advised her, and cut the connection. Still that ritual of hierarchy, Cassia thought, and then remembered that she was now the top Vanian on Twaa-Fei, and likely to remain so.

  It was an unpleasant thought. Cassia couldn’t understand how people like—Bellona, say, or Michiko, or . . . really everyone—wanted to be in charge. Except maybe Takeshi. And Anton, of course.

  Remembering the last time she saw Anton gave Cassia a pang of guilt. She should go find him. Her written report on the Twaa-Fei unrest could wait.

  Cassia walked past the gardens Anton favored, his favorite restaurant—specializing in rabbit, since he always said he got enough fish while at sea—and even went down to the middle island to check at the Falling Leaf, but she didn’t see him anywhere. Surely, he hadn’t set sail again without saying good-bye? She wanted to check the shipwrights’ quarter, where he sometimes went to coordinate repairs, but there was only one lift going down to the lowest island, supposedly for residents and people on official business, and she didn’t think looking for her Herroki pirate-sometime-lover qualified.

  Chapter 8

  Kris

  “A dinner?! She’s throwing him a dinner!” Kris crashed through their dressing room, unintentionally overturning a box of decorative pins. “They are at war. What is the point of this?”

  “It’s supposed to be an apolitical event,” Alyx said with the blandness that indicated disbelief. “And she did invite you, too.”

  “Oh yes, she invited me to her mist-blasted dinner after completely humiliating me at the council meeting. How dare she?” Kris worked themself up again. “Mertika is supposed to be on our side in a war, and now she’s throwing a dinner party for the enemy! Did Otswold invite Lorinth for brunch? Did the empress have the Golden Lord over for cocktails?”

  “You used to be friends with Adechike,” Alyx pointed out.

  “Yes. Before he betrayed me and our country and st
arted a war.”

  There was a knock on the door and Nik came in, glancing at the disarray without comment. “Warder Ueda here to see you.”

  Kris shrugged. “Send him in.”

  Takeshi strode in, gowned in august gray with cobalt accents, as different from his usual aspect as a molted cribber.

  “You look amazing!” Kris gasped. “All this for that silly dinner party?”

  Takeshi swept his gaze around the dressing room. Kris noted that it hesitated over Alyx, who had been female the last time Takeshi had seen him, but only briefly. That reminded Kris that in their current aspect, most cultures preferred greater modesty, and they pulled their dressing gown into order. “So you’re actually going to this thing?” Kris asked, to cover their distraction.

  “Of course,” Takeshi answered, leaning against a bureau. “Aren’t you?”

  Kris made a face. “It’s some gambit by Bellona! She’s trying to make a fool of me, or of Adechike, or possibly both. Or maybe just gain an advantage by having everyone happy and chattering incautiously.” As they had once with Adechike.

  “Then I suppose the approach would be to be cautious with your chatter and listen to everyone else’s,” Takeshi said mildly. “And if she is plotting something, wouldn’t you rather be there to see what happens rather than hearing about it secondhand?”

  “And then needing to report back to the government on what happened when the Mertikan embassy burns down, yes, I suppose so.” Kris began to dig through the mounds of cloth with renewed purpose.

  “Besides, it may give us the opportunity to build other alliances.” Takeshi paused. “I stopped by so we could walk over together. I wanted to tell you about my conversation with the Zenatans.”

  Chapter 9

  Michiko

  “Are you sure this is necessary?” The floor beneath Michiko’s feet was uneven, like brick or small paving stones. She could trail the fingers of her left hand along a damp wall. Anton, who had insisted on blindfolding her before taking her to the location of the survivor of the Rumikan fleet, was clasping her right hand to guide her, but from the way he was walking slightly in front of her, she suspected it was a narrow passageway.

  “I can’t take any chances with this information,” Anton said, but there was a lilting note to his voice that made Michiko think it was just his flair for the dramatic. That, or she was walking into a trap.

  She gritted her teeth. “Are we almost there?” He had also insisted on doing it tonight, at the same time as Bellona’s bizarre dinner party for Adechike. While Michiko did not exactly regret missing what would certainly be a boring and uncomfortable evening, she couldn’t help chafing at the idea of things happening without her.

  On the other hand, this was happening too. And if Anton was telling the truth, it would be much more important.

  “Almost . . .” His guiding hand rose, and Michiko found the steps with her toe. Up three, broad and shallow, then— “Big step here!” Anton told her, and she was on something that swayed.

  A boat. Of course. “Where are we going?” Michiko asked, reaching for her blindfold.

  “Just a moment,” Anton said, his hand catching hers. She waited, berating herself for being a fool, listening to the creak of wood. “All right,” he said, and pulled the scarf off her eyes. Michiko looked around wildly, but the dark bulk of Twaa-Fei’s lowest island loomed not far away, flickers of candlelight here and there giving no clue what part of the island she was looking at. Greater illumination glowed from around the edges of the upper islands. “Sorry,” Anton was saying with a grin, “but I can’t let anyone know the location of the Blue Fang.”

  Michiko spun around to see where the small lighter was headed. “That’s your ship?” The Blue Fang looked like a baroque temple more than a boat, strange bulkheads of scavenged aerstone extending in unexpected outcroppings from the broad hull, which was striped with what looked to be whale ribs. Michiko counted three projections that looked like cannon mouths, and that shape on the back—could that be a trebuchet?

  “Best in the skies,” Anton replied with pride. “Up we go.” The bladecrafter in the back of the lighter had navigated them deftly to a rope ladder hanging from the side of the ship, and Anton followed Michiko up to the deck. “She’s in the medical bay, such as it is, poor sod.”

  The survivor, a young Rumikan currently in female form, was sitting up, at least. There were bandages wrapped around her head and one eye, and she had an arm in a sling.

  “She’s had a bit of, er, medication,” Anton whispered to Michiko as they entered the tiny cabin, and Michiko noted the flush to the woman’s face and her unfocused eyes.

  “This is Xan,” he said, more loudly. “How are we feeling today?”

  “A bit better,” the woman managed.

  “Can you tell this person here about what happened?”

  Xan turned her dull gaze to Michiko. She needed no encouragement “We had just entered the Engwehin Rocks, and three Mertikan ships came out from behind a crag. We didn’t think it would be too much of a problem—we were six, and with guards and extra bladecrafters. But . . .” She shook her head, then buried her face in her hands.

  “What did they do?” Michiko asked, fingers cold.

  “They focused their craft in some way I had never seen,” Xan said. “I don’t know; I’m not a bladecrafter. But the ships just splintered apart, all of them. I was just lucky: I happened to be caught on one of the larger fragments, a chunk of aerstone, and even so I would have perished if . . .” She gestured at Anton.

  “Are you sure they were Mertikans?”

  “They were all flying Mertikan colors,” Xan answered. “And the ships had the empress prow—at least, the one closest to me did. I could see the carving of her hair, the stones in her eyes.” Xan shuddered, and closed her own eyes. “Yes, short of speaking with them, I’m as sure as I can be.”

  “Satisfied?” Anton asked her.

  Michiko nodded. Xan was weeping openly now, and had turned her face away. “What will happen to her?” Michiko asked in an undertone.

  “She hasn’t decided yet,” Anton murmured. “It’s too dangerous for her to be wandering around Twaa-Fei. We can return her to Rumika when we ship out, or find her passage on another ship, but she needs to recover more first. And besides . . .”

  Besides, war was coming to Rumika. “She’d be more valuable here,” Michiko said.

  “Are you volunteering to guarantee her safety?” Anton asked, and Michiko realized this was what he’d been angling for the whole time.

  “I—” She hesitated, then remembered she was a warder. Showing uncertainty was a luxury she wasn’t allowed. “Nothing can be guaranteed. But I’ll take her under Kakute protection.”

  Anton snorted eloquently.

  “Fine,” Michiko said. “My personal protection.”

  “And what are you going to do with her?”

  Michiko had a brief vision of crashing Bellona’s party with Xan in tow, but that had some obvious drawbacks. “I’ll think of something.”

  “Think of it quick,” Anton told her.

  Michiko stared back at him. “Why? What’s your interest in all this?”

  “War between nations never works out well for the Herroki. If more of you would trust us enough to use us as mercenaries, that might be different, but instead we tend to get caught in the cross fire, resources get short, blah, blah, blah. Oh, and”—Anton shrugged—“it’s upsetting Cassia.”

  Chapter 10

  Kris

  No one could say Bellona didn’t know how to throw a party, Kris thought sourly, taking in the twisted silk bunting along the ceiling of the Mertikan embassy hall. True, the flickering light from the chandeliers did make them look a bit like a shadowy spiderweb, but the colors were festive. The table was overflowing with artfully designed leaves and bird feathers, and the aroma palette, engineered with meticulously plotted potpourri placement, was at the height of fashion.

  Still, they were bored. To their su
rprise, Takeshi had drifted off to speak with Adechike, whom Kris was still avoiding, and Michiko was nowhere to be seen. Was she absent on principle, as Kris should be? Or had Bellona not invited her? They knew she hadn’t invited Ojo, because she’d been talking loudly about that when Kris had come in. “This is just for the younger diplomats,” she’d said, fluttering at herself with her fluffy plumed fan. “Especially in the face of conflict, we have to be unified and hopeful.”

  It was so disingenuous that it made Kris gag, but Adechike didn’t seem to mind Ojo not being around. From their distant hovering perspective, Kris could see that Adechike didn’t look much healthier than Ojo had at the council meeting—he had definitely lost weight, and there were shadows under his eyes—but at least he was smiling.

  Kris glanced sidelong past Cassia to catch another glimpse of that smile. They couldn’t imagine what Bellona was saying that could make Adechike look so pleased and relaxed. They remembered laughing with Adechike about Bellona’s quirks—gently, because Adechike never really wanted to see the bad in anyone.

  Kris wondered whether Adechike held to that when it came to them.

  “How are you doing?” Takeshi asked, materializing at Kris’s side.

  “Hmm,” Kris grunted. “I see you’ve made amends with Adechike. You aren’t angry with him anymore?”

  “Please don’t think I’m any less loyal to you.” Takeshi took a sip from the cinnamon-scented drink in his hand. “But I’m coming to realize that mending rifts and working together is the only way we’ll get through this.”

  Kris snorted. “You are a healer.”

  Takeshi didn’t laugh, and when Kris looked over, he was shaking his head. “I don’t think it’s true,” he whispered. “It doesn’t make any sense. It would mean—”

  A bell rang, and in the middle of the salon Bellona clapped her hands. “Time for dinner!” she trilled.

  The dining room adjoined the salon through a set of open double doors. Trying to avoid Adechike and Bellona, Kris was the last to step through, and when they had torn their gaze from the extravagant array of candelabras on the table, they saw that everyone else was busy examining tiny cards by each plate.