A muscle twitched in Rexim’s cheek. Vercha’s eyes flicked to Crake’s hulking son, who studied her impassively, still as a statue.
“If things aren’t going the way you hoped with the vote,” said Catua, “that’s reallyyourproblem to try to solve, isn’t it?”
I felt a flash of admiration. Crake also seemed to appreciate the challenge. His eyes twinkled. “Getting right to it, are we? Very well.” He stepped forward, began a slow walk around the couches. The Orha on either side of me tensed.
“I’m here to ask you to stand down, Rexim. Be a good sport. For the benefit of the Queendom.”
I saw this register in Rexim’s eyes. Then he chuckled, glancing genially at his other guests. “Forgive me, but the Queendom will hardly be best served with a…well, if you don’t mind my uncouth turn of phrase, a warmonger in the Chamber.” He leaned back in his chair. “A man who once told me we should challenge Breova. Who wants to send nearly all Nenamor’s Orha to the front.”
My eyes, along with everyone else’s, flashed to Crake.
“Quite right,” put in Turnstone, though he looked somewhat rattled. To Crake, he said, “I read your letter to Father. Are you really proposing to steal land from Breova? And fight them for it when they—understandably—retaliate?”
“They don’t need that land,” Uirbrig Crake said simply. “The Redback Mountains are desolate—just laconite mines. Breova don’t use much laconite anymore. Not since they started coddling their Orha.”
“That’s still no reason to—” Turnstone blustered, then shook hishead. “But look. Like Shearwater said, isn’t it also true you want to funnel more Orha into Annig’s armies,andyour own, and Regent Shrike’s? What about our sets? All the Orha in the mills? Who’s going to till the fields, clear the mines? Steer the ships and power the smithies? Who’s going to protect coastal towns from the gales?”
“It would be temporary,” Crake countered, “until we had the land we need. Mudmouths and Sparkmouths to the front lines out west. Floodmouths and Gustmouths to the navies down south.”
I glanced to my right and caught Mawre’s gaze. Her eyes had widened behind her spectacles. Tigo and Rhianne exchanged a fleeting, somber look. Even the Orha behind Osprey and Turnstone at last seemed to show some emotion on their faces.
“Would you prefer Regent Finch’s reforms?” said Brigantess Osprey to Turnstone. She sat there, cool and still as a lake. “Raising the age Orha go to the Institutions to twelve, with only six years of training? Then giving them more choice over their placements? And a day off a week?” She gave a light laugh.
“Of course not,” said Turnstone, his cheeks turning rose. “But—”
“Look,” said Rexim, leaning forward in his chair. “Whichever of us is elected will have the deciding hand—in Shrike’s ambitions as well as Finch’s wild schemes. Understand me: I’m no warmonger, nor a radical. You can trust me to keep all these preposterous ideas out of the Chamber.”
He turned to Crake, who was still pacing slowly. “I’m sorry, my friend. But your journey here was wasted if you really hoped to persuade me to step down.”
“I told you this was useless,” came a flat murmur from the son.
Ignoring him, Crake said to Rexim, “Well, I thought I’d ask.” Oddly, he seemed, if anything, cheerier, nearly bouncing on the balls of his feet. “I thank you. You couldn’t have made your position clearer. Now, I hope you will not turn us away without luncheon, otherwise our trip really will have been wasted.”
With reluctance, the guests were led through to a parlor, where pastries and sundries soon appeared. I pictured Cook toiling away over the stove, given barely any notice, cursing the Crake name.
Guards had now appeared and flanked Rexim tightly, while Tigo, Rhianne, Mawre, and I were covertly directed to stand behind the family.
Under my breath, audible only to Rhianne, I murmured, “Crake didn’t bring any Orha with him.”
As the visitors engaged in stilted conversation, Rhianne side-eyed me and replied in a whisper, “The son’s a Mudmouth. His father’s general. Iovawn Crake. The only Orha among the Hundred.”
I looked at the younger Crake in shock. Of course, laconite always hummed in our presence, so I hadn’t been able to tell he was Orha. Rhianne must have heard the family discuss it.
My eyes traveled over him.An Orha among the Hundred.I’d never even heard of such a thing. The Hundred despised us, considered us below them, no matter how many pretty words they couched it in, like Vercha’s after the dinner two nights ago.
“Too powerful, too valuable, to be left to their own devices.”
Now I realized it must be possible for our kind to be born into the highest echelons of society. Zennia, after all, had been a wealthy merchant’s daughter. Why not the Hundred? We could pop up anywhere.
“They accept him because his father does,” Rhianne added, turning her head to hide her murmur. “Because he’s the only one. It’s like his niche.”
And, I thought, a man with such power—both political and elemental—must be feared, too.
His towering figure was silhouetted against the window, removed from the others, watching them dispassionately. Vercha approached him, a cinnamon tart in her hand. She said something, and his eyes slid slowly toward her. He replied—something short that made Vercha smirk—and they entered into an inaudible conversation.
Soon Cook stopped sending tidbits from the kitchens, and Rexim cleared his throat, letting the conversation die away. Uirbrig Crake brushed the crumbs from his hands and inclined his head to Brigant Shearwater and his children.
“I’m very grateful for the courtesy of your hall,” he said, sweeping a disquieting look over us. “I’m sorry we couldn’t come to an agreement.”
