A Treason of Truths

by Ada Harper

  “Scarab,” Khait called.

  “What?” She didn’t bother correcting him on her name again. She knew from experience if people chose an annoying nickname it only got stickier with correction.

  “About Sylvere...” Khait’s brow nearly collided between his eyes, frown deep and intent as he wrestled with what he wanted to say next. “He’s a good man, he—Never mind. Just remember we never had this talk.”

  “Relax, Doctor. No one ever talks to me. I’m just the hired help.”

  The answer didn’t comfort Khait in the slightest. She left him frowning at shadows in the hallway.

  Chapter Twelve

  Sylvere sent a handful of servants after his exit, who efficiently moved the minor members of the Syndicate and Empire retinues to other living quarters. It left only the primary players—Sabine, Cian, and Alais, along with their personal guards—to rattle around the large solarium. The thing about trapping several trained diplomats in a confined space together: eventually, someone was going to start talking.

  It started with Kitra, though Sabine couldn’t place the blame on her guard entirely. He was naturally friendly, and one could establish a perimeter only so many times, she supposed. When their hosts left and it became evident that no one was going anywhere any time soon, Kitra struck up a conversation with one of the Syn hired guns. Despite being formal around Sabine, Kitra could actually smile, laugh even. Loud enough to disturb Cian from his feed.

  Which was how Sabine found herself in a sparring match with the Prime Minister of the Syndicate, defending the virtues of traditional pigments versus holo arts. She might have maintained a further level of detachment but, really, some verbal offenses couldn’t go unacknowledged, and claiming air and light even held a candle to physical color was one of them.

  “Sentimental attachment to old ways is inefficient. A waste of energy and intelligence,” Cian said peevishly. He really was in a foul mood. His snipped way of speaking had only gotten worse since the data stream was cut off. He’d been reduced to tapping with increasing ire at his wrist, seemingly displeased by what he saw—or didn’t see—in the unseen projection.

  “Some might say the same for placing any value in something a mere machine could replicate.” It was a way to pass the time, and allowed her a little more insight into Cian’s reasoning style. That would come in useful when they finally got down to brass tacks. Besides, it was either argue about painting or address the dead, noble-sized elephant in the room, and everyone present prided themselves on subtlety much too much to be the first to broach that. Amateur move.

  “Machines are the only art that matters.”

  “Such a sad thing for a former entertainment minister to say. This explains so much about the Syn’s dreadful ideas about cinema.” Sabine smiled while silently filing that statement away for later. If Cian hadn’t gotten into entertainment through traditional art business lines, then how had he risen so fast? And what had he done while he was there? She’d have Lyre look into it, her contacts—

  Damn and hell. There she went again. Not having Lyre at her side was like trying to dance in a broken heel. Sabine was perpetually taking steps she made a thousand times only to be caught tripping through open air. Lyre had always been there. Sabine thought she always would be. She shouldn’t be this adrift with one simple absence—even a close friend shouldn’t trip her this much—but Lyre would say nothing was simple. They’d been, once. There’d been one night everything had seemed simple and perfect. Before she’d—

  Hell. Cian was saying something. Something clever and obviously insulting, likely. Sabine reached for her best smile to cover, a twitch of the lips that said she was secretly amused at something yet did not deign to share it with the little people. It would infuriate most people, but Cian had already demonstrated a complete lack of interest in humor and other social niceties.

  It worked. Cian drifted back to his pulse tapping, Kitra shared a knowing look with his guard friend, and Sabine was comfortably in control of the flow of the room. It should be a win, and yet...

  And yet something was missing. Something important.

  Sabine stopped, a silent headcount of the room raising her alarm. She turned to Alais, who’d been suspiciously content to sit out the debate—uncharacteristically content, really. She was sprawled in a lounger nearby, fiddling with a large yellow bloom she’d plucked from somewhere. Sabine approached and lowered her voice. “Lady Alais, where is Ly—where’s your security consultant?”

  “Who? Lyre?” Alais said the name with a bit more emphasis than absolutely necessary. “I gave her permission to proceed with the, ah...consulting?”

  “The...” Sabine’s gaze skittered over the solarium again and her lips pressed together. “She left quarantine.”

  “Did she?” Alais said. The buttery petals did another twirl in her hand. A calculated idle. “She did say something about a little look-about.”

  Alais was still aggrieved over the death of her cousin, which was rational. What was not rational was turning that on her empress, especially not at a time like this.

  Sabine tried to cool her tone. “How long ago?”

  Alais didn’t look up. “About the time our gracious hosts locked the doors on their ‘guests.’”

  That long? Sabine did a quick calculation and tamped down the worry that stewed. It’d been too long. Surely Lyre would not have left them locked down for any extended period but she’d been acting peculiar ever since this entire Vault trip was announced. At first, Sabine had trusted that Lyre would tell her in time, but then the argument happened and now they weren’t telling each other anything at all. Not directly at least.

  And why wasn’t Lyre here? She needed...well, Sabine needed her people. Worry brought a flare of irritation to her voice. “You have no right to risk our people.”

  “Our?” Alais arched one gold brow over the petals of her equally gold flower. Lady, the woman accessorized even her sulking. “I wasn’t aware I was doing anything of the sort. Lyre has a purely contractual arrangement with me so—”

  “You are all citizens of the Empire. For now,” Sabine snapped. Blatant empty threats were not usually her style, but she felt her careful wielding of words slipping, fraying around the edges without Lyre here. Nothing felt right.

  “Can’t throw me out twice, Your Grace,” a voice behind them said.

  And of course it was Lyre, there, emerging from a violet thicket like a damned garden nymph. Any irritation Sabine might have had was flushed out in a wash of relief. She ticked over Lyre’s limbs. Covered in dust and grit, but otherwise in one piece. Whole. Not dead in a vent somewhere. She drew closer and Sabine could see fine scratches on her palms. There was a smear of something foul forgotten on her cheek, Sabine had to resist the urge to reach out and wipe it away. No. Right, she was supposed to be angry. She was expected to be angry.

  “You’ve jeopardized the entire summit with your actions. I should exile you.”

  “Exile! What an exciting if quaint idea!” Alais chirped, clapping her hands like a child. One could almost miss the shadows welling under her eyes as she glanced at Lyre. “Where would you go if the Empire turned you out, hmm?”

  Lyre had no problem ignoring her supposed employer. She didn’t break her gaze with Sabine’s as she reached into her pocket and withdrew a slender object. “Exile’s worth it if it means you’ll take a look at this.”

  Sabine allowed Lyre to approach and drop it into her hand. A brush of fingertips sparked a fresh ache that Sabine buried in the furrow of her brow. She forced herself to focus on the item in her hand. “A child’s wallet?”

  “An old chit stick. I found a stash—never mind that—but I wiped it and copied something interesting on it. You want to see it.”

  “Such a conscientious security advisor I have,” Alais said dryly, not even pretending at seriousness now. She dangled a slate in Sabine’s direction, an
offer. Unceremonious and disrespectful, but Sabine was too curious now to correct her.

  She snatched the slate and made quick work of inserting the stick and opening the contents. A constellation of numbers and diagrams lit up the screen. Sabine pulled through the data, trying to make sense of it. Forensics was not her area of expertise, by any stretch of the imagination. That’s what she had people for. “A nano diagnostic? The agent infection?”

  Lyre nodded, and Sabine swallowed the bile in her throat. An infestation, under her skin, waiting to take control and make her a prisoner in her own body. A phantom twinge and echo of screams threatened to rise up, but Sabine swallowed that down too.

  Looking at the swirling algorithm on the slate was like looking at a ghost. A ghost of nightmares past and torture future. She flicked her gaze back down to her hand, and felt the wisps of not-color whipping up and down her veins.

  “These parameters can’t be right,” she finally said after fighting through the data and dread. She passed the slate over to Alais, who hurried to catch up. “No one could construct an agent that flexible.”

  “No one except the Vault,” Lyre corrected.

  “You’re saying it has the ability to execute any number of effects on its host—not just one preprogrammed protocol,” Alais clarified. She was still flipping through the schematics. She tilted her head at a particular knot of data. She went pale. “That means Orric’s death—”

  “Was a choice,” Lyre finished grimly. “These buggers could have done anything to get our attention—given you the giggles, hallucinations, fucked with anything in your system—but they decided to assassinate one of the Imperial contingent instead.”

  “The Vault has no reason to do any of this,” Sabine reminded them. She would not be manipulated into a reaction again. She had to think this through. “The Cloud Vault called the summit in the first place. They arranged the diplomatic logistics and agreed to every demand we had. That’s an irrational amount of work to assassinate one minor northern lord—no offense, Lady Alais.”

  “Every offense incredibly taken, Your Grace, but you are not wrong.”

  “Khait confirmed the Vault’s involvement to me,” Lyre said.

  “Khait?” Sabine frowned, trying to make that fit. She was distracted, and her head was beginning to ache, which was a poor excuse for phrasing the next question as she did. “Did you record that conversation too?”

  Lyre stiffened and frosted over. It wasn’t a visible thing, just a narrowing of the eyes, a harshness Sabine typically saw her reserve only for other people—not her. Never her. “My word not good enough for you, Empress?”

  “Of course it is.” Sabine flushed and attempted to dismiss it. “Don’t be ridiculous. I was simply asking if you had reconcilable evidence—”

  “Proof that I’m telling the truth.” Lyre’s smile tipped into something cruel. “Good thing you fired me, Your Grace, or I’d have to quit. A spymaster you don’t trust is no use to you.”

  “I trust you implicitly. I’m almost positive you’d only betray me for very compelling reasons,” Alais volunteered, attempting—and failing—to break the tension snapping between them now.

  “If you want evidence of your own foolishness,” Lyre said, biting her words like a particularly tough meal, “go ahead and try to request communication off the flotilla. Your pilot. Ask to call your doctor. Your brother. See how far this benevolent hospitality gets you then.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of risking any more of our people than are already infected,” Sabine said. “Not without good reason.”

  “And someone on the Vault banks on just that.”

  They could go about this all day, her and Lyre. They might have different fighting styles, but Lyre was perhaps the only one who offered her a challenge when it came to verbal fencing.

  Perhaps that was why so often their worst fights ended in silence; in words, they were equally matched. Being at turns cruel and compelling, sharp and flinchingly vulnerable, all while holding their hearts out to bleed for each other. It was the worst version of themselves, and the least thing Sabine wanted to do right now. She had to derail it. Her pride wouldn’t allow her to concede, but she could see where Lyre’s words made sense.

  She stood stiffly. “I suppose there’s no reason, of course, that I shouldn’t verify that Galen’s been informed and Olivia isn’t turning my estate into a betting parlor.”

  Sabine trusted Galen to keep her empire in order, and Olivia to master the disorder and make sure no one stabbed Sabine’s honorable brother in the back. Beyond all reason, they worked well like that. It was an easy partnership that Sabine envied. She never told Galen how well she thought he’d mated. Perhaps she ought to.

  Sabine approached Cian, who was plucking uselessly at his pulse feed, grumbling words that might have been curses from anyone else. Sabine wasn’t certain Cian’s mechanical brain could even process curses. Sabine waited for him to draw a breath before clearing her throat. “Prime Minister, have you—”

  “Occupied,” Cian said tersely.

  “Minister Cian—”

  One overly long finger rose up. The prime minister was a nail biter, evidently. But they weren’t at the negotiating table right now.

  Sabine was done with his games. “Trouble with your backchannel comms?”

  Her mild tone turned Cian’s head right quick. His expression made a contortion that was not dissimilar to milk curdling. Motionless but somehow souring at the edges. “Justify your conclusion,” he said after a moment, when his manners presumably rebooted.

  “Come now. Syn are communications experts in general, and a prime minister who was a former minister of entertainment? I find it improbable that one such as yourself would travel to a goldmine like the Cloud Vault without a plan in place to communicate data back home unobserved. It’s the only reason you’d have taken to a moratorium of comms so meekly.”

  “You agreed as well.”

  “Yes, well. I’m just an Imperial brute. I know our reputation in the Syndicate, Prime Minister.” Sabine leaned forward, enjoying the uncomfortable sniff Cian gave at that. Good. Perhaps there was a real human brain underneath the intellect. A real human brain that came with real human flaws and insecurities. That, Sabine could work with. She gave him the retreat he wanted. “How about we put our cards on the table. You’ve been throwing a silent fit over here not because you’ve been cut off from your inbox but because, while it seems the quarantine’s been for show, the communications blackout has been quite thorough. Were you able to get any confirmation from your people on the outside before the curtain dropped?”

  His neural interface was not visible, but Cian made a decisive tap on his wrist that felt like a disconnect. For a moment, Sabine wasn’t certain he’d take up the opening she’d left. Or perhaps she’d guessed wrong entirely, but Cian’s lips thinned to a bloodless line before he spoke. “Every encrypted message has an automated confirmation protocol. I might have received a confirmed receipt from an off-flotilla station just before some kind of scrambler was engaged.”

  “But?” Sabine hated having to prompt people. It put a strain on her patience.

  “But no automated receipt from our transport. I kept a shuttle in stealth nearby as a precaution, as I can only assume you did. If the signal carried to the ground, then it should have been received and confirmed by our pilots first.”

  Kitra inclined his head ever so slightly. Ah, their pilots had gone silent too.

  “Meaning either your transport’s responder has been disabled or it’s no longer in the area.” Alais joined the conversation—without an invitation as usual—but for the first time Sabine was a little grateful that the meddling northern lords had sent her. Alais was an irritating dinner companion but a solid woman to have in a pinch. Altusii in the Empire had mandatory military service and Alais had distinguished herself, both in her service and in standing by Sabine
’s side during the siege of Ameranthe.

  Her skin crawled. Lady, Sabine did not want to be reminded of that time.

  “Well, I’ve had enough of this idleness. If you don’t mind, Prime Minister, I’m going to summon our hosts.” Sabine strode toward the door. It didn’t open, but Sabine had anticipated that. She tapped on the silver panel next to it. Despite not being familiar with the Vault’s systems, it beeped with a tone that was a universal query noise.

  “I will speak to Dr. Sylvere.” Sabine cast a glance at Lyre. She stood, cagey and alert at the back at the group. “Or Dr. Khait,” she amended into the speaker.

  The response was fast. Suspiciously fast. Sylvere’s voice was silky on the speaker. “Empress Sabine, how can I make your stay with us more pleasant?”

  “Allowing me to speak with my people would be an excellent start. I understand the insidious threat of this nano agent and the need for quarantine procedures, Doctor, but as a sovereign I must insist that I’m allowed to communicate with my own physicians on the matter.”

  “Of course!” Sylvere’s agreement was bright as glitter and just as false. “As I promised, your Imperial counsel has been advised on the situation—including your physician. He agrees with me on the necessity of quarantine.”

  “He does. Well then, I know better than to question a physician’s wisdom. Please update my brother that our status is adequate. The Red Wolf is prone to worry.”

  “Of course, Your Grace.”

  Sabine stood, smiling serenely at the silver panel for a moment longer.

  Cian made a disgusted noise. “Your reputation for indomitable will must hold a great margin of error. You call that a demand?”

  “No, I call that a confirmation.” Sabine turned on her heel. “I believe we’ll need an exit, Ly—” She stopped, frowning at herself before correcting. “Lady Alais. Make it happen. Swiftly.”

  “Right. Me. That was a command for me. I’ll put my best man on that,” Alais said with a shrug. She turned her droll expression to Lyre, who had her head cocked.