Diplomatic Recruit: A Kurtherian Gambit Series (The Empress' Spy Book 1)

by S. E. Weir

  Addison Stone continued teaching as she segued into sharing music samples throughout the class period. Phina found herself fascinated and eagerly listened as each new sample was played.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, we are almost done with our tour of music for today. We will learn more about these music styles over the next several classes. Now listen up. This next piece of music is a complete mystery, but one your musical experience wouldn’t be complete without.”

  Addison smiled with a tinge of sadness as she drew the words out, causing Phina to tilt her head in puzzlement. A few of the students who had been whispering dropped their conversations immediately to pay attention. Before Phina could ask the questions forming in her mind, the music played.

  Phina’s breath caught, and she closed her eyes to focus. The tones were not like anything else that had been shared with them so far or like any music from Earth she had heard. Low tones resonated deep within her at a steady rate, almost like a heartbeat. Middle tones wrapped around her and moved her emotions from one to the next so quickly Phina didn’t think she could name them all. Through both of those cut a higher lilting tone that moved up and down the scales between the middle notes in a melody she knew would haunt her for days. The harmonies resonated in a way that was beautiful, breathtaking, and heartbreaking.

  Just as Phina began to see a pattern to the music and wonder if there was a deeper layer, the music ended. Her eyes popped open in surprise and protest. She wanted to hear more. Had to.

  “Where is it from?”

  Phina looked up to find many of the students, even the males, wiping tears from their faces. The woman who had spoken seemed a little more put together than the rest, but she still sounded shaken. Phina felt her face and was surprised at the tear tracks, though she felt fine compared to the wrecked appearance of everyone else.

  Addison smiled sadly. “I spoke only the truth earlier. It’s a complete mystery. The music comes from a planet a short hop inside the current edges of the Empire, but as far as we can tell, no one has ever been able to communicate with the inhabitants there. All anyone who goes to their planet hears are variations on this music. No one has figured out what it means or if it means anything. Now, with this next and last song…”

  Phina’s mind dwelled so much on the music she had heard that she spent the rest of the day in a daze. The melody kept repeating in her head. There had to be something more to it. She didn’t make up the sensation that a pattern twined through the music.

  Later that night, she sat on her bed, leaning against the wall with her arms wrapped around her knees. She had talked to ADAM about what she had learned that day and hesitated before bringing up the music class.

  “Our teacher Addison Stone played this strange mystery music today. Do you know what I’m talking about?”

  “Yes. I have accessed the class curriculum.”

  “Is there any way for you to listen to it, ADAM? I’m positive there is something more to this music, but I couldn’t make it out.”

  ADAM played the music, and the haunting notes swept through the room, drawing her in. The clip played for almost ten minutes before it finished. She had been drawn forward by the music and now half-crouched on the bed. She frowned, then settled back against the wall. Phina shook her head. She hadn’t imagined something just out of her mental reach.

  “Do you hear it, ADAM?”

  “I hear the notes and the tones, but I’m not certain I hear what you hear, Phina.”

  She tilted her head back against the wall in disappointment, her eyes closed and shoulders slumped.

  “However, just because I or anyone else does not hear what you hear, it doesn’t make you wrong.”

  Phina lifted her head as she perked up. “You think so?”

  “One thing I have learned about people is that each person hears and experiences life a little differently from anyone else. So, yes, it is very possible for something to be there, and we all have missed it so far. Your brain works differently than other people’s. It’s one of the reasons I find you interesting.”

  Phina smiled as she relaxed against the wall with her head tilted up and her eyes closed. “Thank you, ADAM. And thank you for being my friend.”

  “You’re welcome, Phina.”

  “Can we play it again?”

  Sound filled the room again, and Phina fell into the music.

  QBBS Meredith Reynolds, Diplomatic Institute

  “Communications involved in diplomacy runs differently than in other professions. Normally when it comes to communications, you would take into account the person and who they are, a part of which involves the culture they came from.”

  Anna Elizabeth spoke from the front of the large room they had started in on Phina’s first day. Every so often, the dean would scan the students in front of her, likely trying to see if they were paying attention or not. From her chair in the back, Phina wondered what Anna Elizabeth saw when she looked at them all.

  “The person’s culture is one of several factors you give weight to when it comes to deciding your approach. In normal modes of communication, the goal is to gain some sort of understanding of the other person, but usually we only pay attention enough to convey the message we want to send once they are finished speaking or listen to understand the message we are receiving.

  “However, as diplomats, you aren’t merely taking the cultural considerations into account, among many other factors, with the goal of trying to understand or convey a message. In diplomacy, you are first and foremost trying to gain information on the people as a culture so that you understand them on a bone-deep level. This step is needed to assess what the species needs as a people and culture and what they can give the Empire. It is a nuance in viewpoint, but a difference nonetheless.”

  The elegant woman stepped forward, her blue eyes intent as she spoke. “We aren’t merely conveying a message, or we would be a messenger service, not diplomats. We aren’t merely trying to understand, or we would be solely anthropologists. We are striving to understand who they are so that we can fill a need and discover how they can fill a need of our own. This is mutual beneficence or reciprocity, which is a hallmark of diplomacy.”

  Phina listened with rapt attention. She found communications just as interesting as her other classes, if not more so, but much harder to grasp as the content was not merely facts, figures, or bits of history to remember. These were principles to learn in the abstract to be applied in the concrete. Phina found it rather confusing.

  Even more confusing was watching Jace interact with his friends, and he had a lot of them. Students from the first and second year were together in the Communications class near the end of the day. Most of the students in their second year seemed to gravitate toward the dark-haired man. Phina didn’t know what they saw in him. To her, he appeared arrogant, hot-headed, and quick to make judgments. Though she supposed if she looked at it another way, it could be said that he was confident, passionate, and loyal to his friends and their thoughts.

  She shook her head. He would need to get over that arrogance and judgment quickly, as well as be more careful about his defensive reactions. Not that it wasn’t admirable to be loyal, but sometimes you needed a certain distance to see things clearly, and it didn’t seem like Jace had that.

  Class finally finished, and rather than hanging back as she usually did so she was last to leave, she was one of the first out the door. By the end of the day, she needed time by herself to process and digest everything she had learned, as well as to decompress from being around so many people all day.

  Phina had just eased out of the Diplomatic Institute and into the flow of foot traffic to head for home when she heard a playful voice behind her.

  “Hey, new girl! Wait up.”

  Turning, Phina saw Jace working his way toward her, a smirk on his face. His messy hair bobbed up and down as he dodged two humans, a Yollin, and a Torcellan. The two humans, a mother and a young girl who might be her daughter, laughed as he made a funny fac
e while he wove around them to try to catch up.

  Phina turned around and kept walking. She didn’t need to encourage Jace to follow her. He caught up, settled into her pace, and gave her a quick grin, which she ignored. “You headed home?”

  “Nope.”

  “Doing anything interesting?”

  “No.” Not that she was going to tell him, anyway.

  “Can I come with you?”

  “Why?” Phina furrowed her forehead, trying to figure out his angle. She hadn’t been getting any vibes from him that he was interested in her in a romantic or sexual way, so why did he want to come with her?

  “I want to get to know you.”

  “Lie. No, scratch that.” She watched his face intently. “Partial truth. Want to try again and tell me the whole truth?”

  Phina knew she was spot on when she saw him wince. She shook her head and continued at her quick, even pace. Jace began to sound out of breath and struggled to keep up despite his height advantage.

  “Come on, new girl. At least tell me your name?” His cajoling sounded dangerously close to whining, which Phina detested. She didn’t need him getting to know her or trying to convince her to open up to him.

  She opened her mouth to tell him off when he crossed the line.

  “I could just hack your file, so why not tell me?”

  Anger sparking, Phina stopped short in the middle of the hallway, causing a tall guy with a slight beer belly to curse under his breath as he moved around her.

  “Sorry!” she called to the man before he disappeared into the masses, then glared at Jace. His smirking face dared her to say something.

  “Is this guy bothering you?”

  The deep voice behind her sounded unexpectedly kind while possessing a note of steel in warning. She turned to see a large, well-muscled black man standing behind her. He eyed Jace briefly before looking at her with concern.

  Phina blinked as her brain worked overtime to try to place the man. He seemed nice even though he appeared to be tacitly offering to beat Jace up for her. Thinking of that visual made her produce the first genuine smile all day. Jace stood next to her, gaping at the man, which seemed rude. Really, he looked like a flapping fish. With a small sigh, Phina turned to the man with a genuine smile.

  “Thank you, but I got it.”

  The large man looked at the two of them and nodded. “All right. I’m sure I’ll see you both later.” After looking pointedly at Jace, he strode away gracefully for his size.

  “Don’t you know who that is?” Jace still stood with his mouth wide open, then he looked at Phina with a squee worthy of a fangirl. “That was Darryl! Darryl-Freaking-Jackson! Does he know you?”

  Phina blinked in surprise at that information since Darryl Jackson was yet another personal guard of the Empress, but she shrugged it off in light of the current situation. “I seriously doubt it. He was probably just being helpful and considerate, unlike some people who prefer stalking.”

  “I’m not a stalker. I just wanted to talk to you!”

  Phina looked at him in disbelief. “And you thought blackmailing me by telling me to talk to you or you would hack my file was a good way to accomplish that?”

  Since they were still in the way and there was a less crowded hall behind him, Phina put her palms on Jace’s chest and pushed him back. “Hey! What are you doing?” His eyes rounded, and he arched his back too much and windmilled his arms to compensate as his feet shuffled backward.

  Once they were out of the way of traffic, Phina grabbed his shirt to stop his momentum, then stepped back and pulled out her tablet, her fingers flying over the surface.

  “What…”

  Without looking up, Phina held up a long, thin finger before resuming her tapping.

  “Come on, wha—”

  She held her finger up again, forcefully adding, “Shush!”

  Jace crossed his arms and glowered at her, but since he was silent, she ignored him and continued tapping rapidly for another minute. Finally she relaxed and replaced the tablet in her pocket. Without another glance at the source of her trouble, Phina turned back to the main corridor to go on her way.

  “Hey! That’s it? What were you doing?”

  She turned at his aggrieved tone and glared at him, then walked back to poke him in the chest. “What I was doing was protecting my information so that even if you wanted to hack it, you couldn’t.” She crossed her arms and tried to shoot laser beams out of her eyes. Sadly, it didn’t work. She mimicked him in a mocking tone. “‘I could just hack your file, so why not tell me?’ Seriously? You don’t threaten people with stuff like that. I would have thought you knew better!”

  He blinked in disbelief. “You can’t do that.”

  Phina narrowed her eyes at him. “Can’t do what?”

  “You can’t just put that kind of protection in place. That takes major skills and hours of work.”

  Phina shrugged a shoulder half-heartedly. “I just did, so clearly you can.” She turned away again.

  “Won’t you at least tell me your name?”

  His voice sounded almost desperate, and Phina turned back to really look at him. His jaw was clenched, his body tense, and his mouth twisted as if he were not sure whether to scowl or smile. In his eyes she saw curiosity, but more so anger’s younger brother, frustration.

  She took a step back toward him. “I see what this is.”

  His face turned wary. “What do you mean?”

  Taking a step closer with every few words, Phina ended up in his face. “I mean, you aren’t really interested in me. Good job trying to convince me, though. No, you just can’t stand that even though everyone else thinks you’re the greatest thing since implants were created, I not only don’t fawn over you, but I’m not even interested in talking to you.”

  She laughed as he reddened and looked away, his jaw tightening in irritation. She didn’t need to be so harsh. Phina sighed before she patted his chest with a reassuring hand.

  “Sorry, pal. It’s not you, it’s me. I don’t have anything against you except your deplorable threat to hack my files. My friend card is just full up.”

  Turning to go, Phina made it almost to the end of the corridor before he shouted, “Hey, new girl!”

  She turned to find him staring at her with a glint in his eyes. “I’m going to find out your name, and it’s going to be soon.”

  Phina smirked then threw back. “You do that, Jace!”

  She continued on her way, joining the masses in the corridor before repeating to herself, “You do that.”

  Chapter Eight

  Etheric Empire, Vermott, Planet of the Baldere

  Geirik held his shield up just in time to deflect the blow coming toward him, then thrust his skalax, the twin-bladed weapon he favored, forward. When he saw his blow would be deflected by a shield, he sprang to the side, then stepped forward, this time swinging the skalax to slice into one of the narrow spaces between his opponent’s armor.

  Blood sprayed as his arm completed the arc, though the wound didn’t appear deep enough to be debilitating. Geirik pulled back just in time to miss getting a blade to the chest. He set his shield in the proper place to defend and sank into the battle zone where all that existed for him at that moment were Geirik’s opponent and his weapon. After several more minutes of dashing, lunging, and slashing, time was called. Geirik relaxed as he straightened and assessed his injuries, finding two small slices and a large bruise on himself and two long gashes on his opponent, all of which seeped deep-violet blood.

  “Good. Very good.” With weapon sheathed and shield hooked on the belt harness made for it, the other Baldere inspected the gashes on his body.

  Geirik lowered his skalax and shield. “Is it enough?”

  “Probably.”

  “Halvad, ‘probably’ isn’t going to do it. Not this time. There is too much at stake, hey?”

  His oldest friend and mentor frowned, removing his head protection and running his fingers through the fringe of
hair around his bald, ribbed head as he considered the question seriously. He finally nodded. “Aye, you’ve a fair chance of it. Velof is tricky, though, as well as being quicker and more agile than most. You will need to be at the top of your game to win and become the Jeskir.”

  Geirik hooked his shield on his belt but still held his skalax as if the weapon had been made to be an extension of his own hand rather than sheathed.

  “Halvad, Velof has lied to everyone, risked our status in the Etheric Empire, and abused his position as Jeskir and the leader of our people. He can’t be allowed to continue, hey?”

  “Aye, I understand. You wouldn’t say it unless you knew it to be true. It’s one of the reasons I follow you, you bow-legged leatherneck.” Halvad grinned briefly before dropping into serious tones. “Just the betrayal of risking our position in the Empire is enough. I admit, I had my doubts, but we’ve gained more by allying with them than not. One of the better decisions Velof has made, hey? The people love him just for that.”

  “I know. His popularity has been high since he signed the agreement with them at the beginning of his rule, but that was then, hey? We know what he’s done since then, which is why I must win in the Rikhar games. No one would have the position and authority to do anything about his depredations if I do not.”

  Geirik motioned his friend over to the side of the ring. His bondmate had entered near the end of their bout and now stood with their refreshment, one container in each extended hand. The two warriors downed their cold protein slusher at the same time. Geirik let out a satisfied breath and smiled at the female before him. “Thank you, Fastel. These were just what we needed.”