Jin turned back at the last minute.“If I were you, I’d leave the inquisitors to Jace’s tender care.A few days in the station brig won’t hurt their disposition none.”
Graydon
Graydon held himself rigid as Kira walked out of the room.Letting her go felt wrong.The intelligence he’d received before arrival suggested the rebels had a strong presence on this station.Above and beyond the fact that they were working with these human pirates.
Someone like Kira, an heir who many perceived as weak because of her lack of formal training, would make quite the tempting target.
Too bad for them that hiscoliwasn’t the soft, inexperienced child they believed.
There were too many eyes on him right now.Watching.Judging.Just looking for an excuse to justify dragging him down from his position as the Emperor’s Face.
He needed to play this carefully.
The trap they’d set for him and Kira was beginning to take shape.To spring it without getting caught in its jaws was going to take cunning and patience.
Two things Graydon had in spades.
“Kashori’s heir is young.She might be swayed to our side if we use her family’s history to incite sympathy,” Amila suggested.
Solal nodded.“Asanth’s interim lord and the inquisitors are the problem.”
“Rhett is preoccupied with Alexander,” Graydon disagreed.
For that matter, so was Tinsley.With their focus split between the forty-three and the attackers, it made his job easier than it would have been otherwise.
“Jarek and Sariah are the issue.”
Graydon liked Jin’s suggestion.He could claim the maintenance of diplomatic relations as his reason for leaving them where they were.
“I didn’t anticipate Sariah’s use of anetav,” Graydon murmured.
It bothered him.He prided himself on being able to anticipate his opponent’s movements before they made them.Graydon had missed something.Either in Sariah’s character or her backing.
People died when he made mistakes like that.People like hiscoli.
“What are you thinking?”Solal asked.
“Many things.”
That Jarek was playing a deep game.Almost as deep as the one the emperor had set in motion.That for the first time, Graydon wasn’t certain he could control the outcome of what was coming.That Kira’s presence here was a headache he couldn’t afford but one he didn’t intend to avoid.
“But mostly, that mycoliis being suspiciously accommodating.”
That wasn’t like Kira.
“You want me to put Baran on her?”Solal asked.
Graydon hummed an assent.
The easy way Kira had given in made him think she had something up her sleeve.Graydon had a feeling it behooved him to find out what.
Kira
Kira slowed as she spotted Jace on her way out.
He stood next to a railing overlooking the station’s spine.A mile long shaft that stabbed straight through the center of the station around which all levels revolved.
That would be impressive in and of itself, but it was the massive tree growing up through the spine and the park that existed in the shade of its sprawling canopy that really stole the show.The tree was the largest one Kira had ever seen.Its branches so thick and wide that some had been turned into walkways.
