A Conspiracy of Whispers

by Ada Harper

  “The equipment is the capes. They’re threaded with aetheric repulsors.” Galen spread his broad fingers, roughly replicating the shape of an open cloak. “Users can control their descent with minute bursts of repulsor streams, controlled with the rings and straps. It’s not powerful enough to actually hover, but clever use allows for maneuvering, controlled jumps from up to two hundred feet, higher if there’re additional points of contact to work with. We call them aethercloaks.”

  The racers ricocheted their way to the ending platform that was almost, but not quite, at ground level. Olivia suspected any racer who couldn’t maintain enough altitude to stay in the air was disqualified. The racer she’d been studying made it first, landing with a showy flourish of his cloak, and she finally realized why he seemed familiar. He’d been one of the genta scouts with Lyre in the Caeweld. She hummed. “You haven’t mentioned how these are silent and small. Stealthier than parachutes or gliders. Silent, maneuverable, compact.” She arched a brow at him. “It’s gear for spies.”

  Galen’s poker face was terrible; he abandoned it quickly. “Lyre’s scouts are being trained with it, yes. That’s part of what this demo is about, to win the approval from the military houses for implementation in the field.”

  Olivia’s gaze kept getting tugged away as a new race started. She could see now the calculations that went into each launch and flip, the momentum that carried through and worked with the cloak adjustments. It looked exciting. It looked terrifying. “Looks fun.”

  “No.”

  “What? I didn’t ask anything.” Olivia turned, but Galen already had his arms crossed.

  It didn’t quite diminish the fondness tugging at his lips, but he tried. “It’s not a toy. Those straps they wear? Are to keep your body aligned with the cloak and keep your shoulders in their sockets.”

  “So it’s a hard kind of fun. That’s my favorite kind.”

  “A fact I wish I wasn’t constantly aware of,” Galen muttered, but Olivia let it drop for now, content to watch foreign fighters twist through blue skies, turning a fall into a dance.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Olivia watched the races rapt. If there’d been glass, her face would have been pressed up to it. Galen suspected it was an interest that would give him terrors in the future, but it was a price worth paying for the way joy and wonder bloomed across her face, softening the tension around her eyes that she’d carried, as if braced for an ambush, since they’d landed. It’d had the same effect on him. He alternated between watching the races and the way her eyes danced, the way the warm afternoon plucked freckles up out of her sun-warmed skin.

  Nothing that good could last, of course. Galen noted an attaché trying to catch his attention. He caught Maris’s eye and knew she’d keep Olivia out of politics and off ledges. That kept the worst of his anxiety at bay as he left her, promising to find her later.

  Still, Galen carried his unease in his stomach. Something about the court was off. Even a breezy showboat event like today felt off. The greetings were too chummy, the small talk as discordant as the clink of glasses. It was the strained song of power unsettled, crowns uneasy on heads. It sent him searching for the only crowned head that mattered. Sabine had been holding back earlier. He needed to draw out of her what kind of war she’d been waging without him.

  You’d think the empress would be easy to find at her own event; you’d be wrong. Sabine’s festivities functioned like a hunting party. Invite all the wealth and power of the Empire into one building, fill it with an abundance of every luxury, then elevate her presence as the most elusive commodity of all. The result was that even disinterested nobles and diplomats had to expend the effort of seeking her out, to be able to say they had a few words with the empress. It was a clever way of turning small talk into currency that held together fractious houses.

  But it was a pain in the ass when you just wanted to talk to your sister.

  Inevitably, Galen was made to wait until Sabine found him. He turned the corner to a surprisingly empty hallway and a rustle of fabrics approached behind him.

  “Dear brother. Where ever have you been hiding yourself?” Sabine appeared at the arch draped in glimsilk, with sleeves laced up with that ridiculous silver thread that was so fine Galen feared to breathe around it.

  “Here and there.” Galen bowed the small amount required. She was his sister, but also the empress. Two knightsguard lingered behind her like watchful shadows, their intricate weaves of chys armor gleaming like a hidden blade, silk covering their eyes. The blindfold was symbolic: ever present guards that watched all, but saw nothing of the ruler’s secrets. Sabine paid them no mind, sweeping in for a hug. The way she squeezed his ribs told him that, whatever duel they were about to have—and every conversation with Sabine was a duel—she was genuinely relieved to see him home.

  “I saw you make the rounds. Lady Shaw is a lovely creature in that silk. It had a familiar cut.” The barb pricked through a little more. The knights attempted to melt into the shadows, but Galen saw the nearest one’s chin tilt enough to say they heard every word.

  Sabine noted the direction of his gaze. She called over her shoulder, “Thora, Kitrine. My brother looks weary from his service to the crown, don’t you think?”

  That was all it took. The honor knights bent their necks in a bow and withdrew from the room. They would likely come back after a proper amount of time to over-burden Galen with refreshments, but for now he stood alone in the parlor with the empress. His sister.

  At times he wasn’t sure which title was more dangerous.

  “Such lovely silks,” Sabine murmured again. She moved to the sofa without looking to see if he followed. He did anyway, slowly constructing his calm for what was sure to be a difficult dance.

  “Olivia would not appreciate the backless dresses in fashion right now. We are her hosts, so I asked Maris to find something,” Galen said, picking his words carefully. He tendered a mild smile. “It wasn’t as if any of your dresses would fit.” Sabine was a genta but tall, like Galen, and like Galen built with straight lines where Olivia had curves. Soft, wonderful curves.

  “So you put her in one of mother’s? Really, Galen.” Sabine sighed, sounding much more like his older sister and less like the Empress of the Quillian Empire. “You might as well have slapped a family torque around her neck.”

  Galen smiled. “If she gives me the honor, I intend to.”

  The clutch of jewels glittered at Sabine’s long neck as she tilted her head back to implore the parlor ceiling for help. “Now is not the time for your romanticism.”

  “And when is?”

  “When we’re not running the risk of losing our heads. The royal head of our armies should realize that, yes? That we’re on the brink of a civil war if this plot isn’t put down? While my dear addle-headed brother goes gallivanting off into a hostile country and drags my head of intelligence with him. Do you realize the danger you would have put us in if you and Lyre had—”

  “Your care is touching, but you can reassure the crown that I am more than capable of protecting both the Empire and my mate.” Galen leaned forward, finger to his chin as he studied his sister. “So tell me, are you more concerned that I have brought back a Syndicate mate, or that I endangered Lyre to do it?”

  The jewels winked at him as Sabine stiffened. Slowly, with a warning stillness, she brought her eyes back down to return his gaze. Blank, composed, and as always with his sister, perfection was where the danger lay. “I will not dignify that with a response. Lyre is a valuable spy—”

  “I thought we were being honest,” Galen said, suddenly tired with love for his sister. “I care about her. I have to try.”

  “If you weren’t an idiot with courage, you wouldn’t be my brother,” Sabine admitted. “Yet the lady caricae doesn’t seem to share your certainty.”

  Curse Lyre to blue hell. Galen would have to have a firm wor
d about where that woman could stick her intelligence when it came to his personal life. It wouldn’t do any good, of course, but it would make him feel better. He frowned. “She’s taking time to consider my offer. Olivia comes from a very...cynical world.”

  “I’m aware. And I’m sure you’ve gilded ours with sugar and kindness.” Sabine’s eyes were almost pitying. “And what happens when she sees through your optimism? Or she realizes you are human, not fairy tale? I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

  “I’ll be whatever that woman needs me to be.” Galen held her gaze. “I’ve remade myself for someone before.”

  A light hit his sister’s dark eyes. It was only because they were so like his own that he understood they’d entered into uncertain territory. Sabine let out a measured breath, fingers spreading along the even stitching of one sleeve. “You have no idea what this battlefront has been, while you were off finding a soulmate in the woods.”

  Vulnerability was only ever carefully planned with Sabine, another persuasive tool. But there was a concealed authenticity to it, perhaps one Sabine wasn’t willing to admit herself. He quickly ticked backward through the night. The distance of the senate nobles, of course, but also Sabine’s entrance with her—Thora and Kitrine—

  “The knightsguard. You have new attendants,” he realized.

  Sabine waved a hand, falseness and light. “It appears it’s not only my brother who’s fickle with his loyalties these days.”

  Conspirators, or sympathizers to conspiracy, so close to the throne. Galen thought of the words Henley had said when he was at his mercy. I was promised rewards. “You were...not too put out, I hope.”

  “I didn’t botch it and get taken hostage like a dazzled teenager, no.” Sabine lowered her voice. “I can’t trust them.”

  “Who can we trust?”

  “Too few to matter.” Sabine lifted a shoulder. “The west lords, perhaps. Lyre has the specifics. We need to move fast.”

  “How fast?”

  “Lyre is on her way with a brief.”

  It was a tilt, from concerns between brother and sister into the chill obligations of government. A shift they’d made a thousand times before, but this time Galen fought a prickle of irritation. He wouldn’t be getting back to Olivia as promised. He tamped it down, ruefully aware that he’d feel her absence more than she’d feel his, busy with races and company from the caricae court that had extended an immediate friendship. He was almost envious of that, sometimes.

  He set it aside, straightened his shoulders and pulled the work around himself like a cloak. “What do you need of me?”

  * * *

  “Did you see that?” Kieran’s voice was muddled around the pastry distending his cheeks. “He boffed that turn.”

  “That’s not what I saw. Look, he cut low to avoid the next turn and shoot under the—ha!” Olivia elbowed him as “her” racer skidded across the finish platform a moment before Kieran’s.

  Kieran made a wounded complaint. “Mine had more air!”

  “And mine had more speed. Sometimes you gotta go low to win,” Olivia gloated. It hadn’t taken much for Maris to tempt her to join them at the railing again—sitting in the royal box without Galen had felt too much like being on display. She couldn’t say she felt precisely comfortable around teenagers, but Kieran’s zeal at least gave her someone to talk to. The kid was gloriously boisterous and loud. His noise acted as a nice buffer, affording the illusion of privacy despite the noble eyes on them.

  Olivia couldn’t quite relax, though. She’d spent more time than she’d liked tromping in the disused sewers under the Cauldron back in the Syn. There were a number of nasty creatures there, but the worst was the gliorspider. Not a proper spider, really, more of a crab-like predator the size of a child. It would laze, sluggish and harmless under a burrow of sludge in the dark, watery sewers. It wouldn’t move if you came sloshing right by. But step directly over its hiding place, however, and pincers would snap your ankle in a flash. Its movement would disrupt the sediment and drag you down into the quicksand. Half the kids who disappeared from the Cauldron were gliorspider fodder.

  That feeling Olivia got tiptoeing around the sewers was what she was feeling now. A party full of gliorspiders. She wasn’t going to mistake patience for disinterest.

  The races were winding to an end, and guests were slowly but surely herded back to the estate proper for what Olivia expected to be an incredibly boring night of avoiding small talk. Kieran dragged her back into the estate’s candied reception halls and toward the banquet area in search of food. A waiter placed a tall glass of something fizzy in her hand that she’d have to subtly dump into a plant later. No Yoshi here to make her nonalcoholic cocktails, and she definitely wasn’t drinking around this crowd.

  Still, the music that filtered in was a tinkly tempo that wasn’t annoying, and Kieran kept on making her try bits of the Empire’s oversalted meats and underseasoned breads. He tended to not share the sweets, but snacking while arguing racing technique with a teenager was not the worst way Olivia had spent an evening. She was scanning the hall for Galen’s dark, messy curls again when a voice cut through her good mood.

  “Lady Shaw, don’t tell me you’ve been abandoned by your altus.”

  She recognized the naked drift of altus pheromones before she recognized the man. Her noise wrinkled at the acrid hit of sour grease and bitters. One would not have thought that color could make an impression in the glittering rainbow of the hall but the ill-fitting clementine suit managed it. Perhaps the wearer thought the color would offset the ailing tan in his skin, but it simply drew attention to the pallid pouches that sat under his eyes like bloat-fly eggs, the angry flush of his cheeks, the dry ginger of his hair.

  Olivia smiled brightly. “Mister Anders!”

  “Ambrose, Senator Ambrose,” the nobleman corrected, a small frown knitting his ego back together before he righted his smile. All leather tan and teeth. “How lucky for me to catch you alone.”

  Olivia stole a glance at Kieran, who had fallen uncharacteristically quiet and faded a step behind her. Alone then, right. “It’s just my luck as well.”

  “I was telling Virgil here we needed to find your man again and offer our assistance.” The senator’s brother shadowed behind him a step, as he had before. On meeting, Olivia had only registered the impression that Virgil was the epitome of the “spare” part of an “heir and a spare.” He was a narrow and mild shadow, faded, dark eyes and faded, dark features both immediately forgettable but somehow familiar. The way he caught her eyes made her uneasy. The senator blundered on. “The empress is going to need advice from those of us with experience. Me, I know these people.”

  “These people,” Olivia repeated.

  “These—what, malcontents, ungrateful rabble-rousers. It’s obviously the lazy and criminal coming over here and causing problems for the real citizens.”

  It was an unorthodox way of describing the torture, murder, and greed that Olivia had witnessed in the wilds. She lost hold of her smile. “I’m sure that’s a matter for you to discuss. With the empress. Perhaps Lyre is around here somewhere.” She felt approximately zero guilt about deflecting Ambrose’s attentions.

  You’re safe here, Galen had promised her before he’d left. There might just be some...ah, annoyances.

  “Ah.” Ambrose leaned in and unleashed what might have been intended to be a charming smile but only revealed he’d eaten fish for dinner. “But perhaps I want to talk to you. The crown has been so closed-lipped.”

  Olivia was going to murder Galen for understatement. But, no, she could play nice. It was no worse than pretending to be a good genta citizen in the Syn. She hid the strain of her smile behind the wineglass. “I’m grateful for the empress’s hospitality. The Empire is an impressive country.”

  “Mmm.” The senator made a noncommittal sound and Olivia could feel his gaze turning oily, le
aving an unpleasant feeling on her skin wherever his gaze wandered. Be nice, be nice. Ambrose’s gaze finished its circuit. “After they’re done with you, you should come be a guest of my district. Vhance has the largest military complement in the Empire. Very safe. Great lands. Syn like you’d be impressed by the size.”

  “Would I.” Olivia allowed her voice to go flat. Kieran fidgeted next to her. No, she had to set a good example. She fished for what nobles considered proper conversation. “Kieran and I both enjoyed the aethercloak demonstration today. Does your district practice a similar sport, Senator?”

  Ambrose dismissed Kieran in a glance. “It was adequate. But really, even Virgil here can tell you Vhance men are warriors of the mind.” He shouldered in on Olivia again, stomach first. His scent turned overbearing, voice lowered. “Do you know the game of Hist?”

  Olivia’s teeth felt on edge. She leaned back and raised her wineglass as a shield for more space. “Afraid not.”

  “I could teach you,” Ambrose said. “Your ass would look delicious bent over my game room table.”

  His words took a moment to process, in which Olivia froze. Distant music swelled. Kieran made a startled squeak.

  “Brother,” Virgil said, a limp chide with no force behind it.

  Ambrose waved him off. “Relax, Virgil, the Syn aren’t as uptight as us.”

  “You can’t talk to her that way.” Kieran spoke up, outrage coloring his pale face. He took a step forward, dwarfed by Ambrose’s bulk. “Olivia is a royal guest and the Red Wolf said—”

  Ambrose laid a thick hand on Kieran’s shoulder, expression bored. “Mind your place, useless creature. If the Red Wolf doesn’t care enough to watch his war prize, it’s his loss.” He flicked him aside with enough force to make Kieran stumble into the buffet table. Ambrose smiled down at Olivia again. The bitter smell was strong enough to gag on. “You like me, don’t you, sweetheart? Look at that blush, Virgil. Everyone knows caricaes love a strong hand. All of ’em just wet for it. You grab ’em by the nape and—”