LITMIR.BIZ

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Severn said.

      “It would work,” she told him, an edge to the words. “People could sympathize with that.”

      “I believe it would cast the Emperor in an unflattering light.”

      She said nothing. Loudly. But it didn’t last. “I’m sorry, Sanabalis.”

      “Generally one apologizes for behavior one means to curb,” he replied stiffly. But his eyes shaded back to burnished gold.

      “It worked for me,” she told him quietly. “Knowing that—knowing what they suffered—it changed the way I felt about them. Look—I understand why people are afraid of the Tha’alani. I know why I was. It never occurred to me that they wanted to be left alone. That they never ever wanted to read our minds. And the experiments conducted on the Tha’alani—it changed the way I felt about them. Forever.”

      He nodded. “You understand, however, why that information could not be part of a public entertainment.”

      She nodded slowly. “It’s just that it would work, that’s all.” She looked at Severn. “Did you ever fear them?”

      “Yes. But my understanding of the Tha’alani was different.”

      She had the grace to say, “You wanted to understand them.”

      “Yes.”

      “I wanted to hide from them.”

      He nodded again. “It’s natural. Kaylin, I’m five years older than you are. Five years ago—”

      “It’s not your age,” she said, swatting the words away. Willing to be this truthful. “It’s you.”

      “Perhaps. But I have often found understanding my enemies gives me an edge when confronting them.” He paused and then added, “The first Tha’alani I met was Ybelline herself.”

      “You met her first?”

      “I was under consideration for the Shadows,” he told her. “Ybelline could read everything of note, and still remain detached. There are very few others who could. She was summoned. And it is very, very hard to fear Ybelline.”

      Kaylin smiled at this. It was a small smile, but it acknowledged the truth: it was hard to fear her. Even though she could ferret all truth, all secrets, from a human mind. Because in spite of it, one had the sense that Ybelline could know everything and like you anyway.

      Maybe that was something they could work with.

      CHAPTER 2

      Kaylin’s first impression of Richard Rennick could be summed up in two words: Oh, god.

      She wasn’t fussy about which god, either. She was pretty sure she couldn’t name half of the ones that figured in official religions, and of the half she could name, the spelling or accents would be off. One of the things that living in the fiefs taught you was that it didn’t particularly matter which god you prayed to—none of them listened, anyway.

      Rennick looked like an Arcanist might look if he had been kept from sleep for a week, and kept from the other amenities that came with sleep—like, say, shaving utensils—for at least as long, if not longer. His hair made her hair look tidy. It wasn’t long, but it couldn’t be called short either, and it seemed to fray every which way the light caught it. He didn’t have a beard, and he didn’t have much of a chin, either. It was buried beneath what might, in a few long weeks, be a beard—but messier.

      His clothing, on the other hand, was very expensive and had it been on any other person, would have gone past the border of ostentatious; on him it looked lived in. She thought he might be forty. Or thirty. It was hard to tell.

      What wasn’t hard to tell: he was having a bad day. And he wasn’t averse to sharing.

      He didn’t have manners, either. When Sanabalis entered the room, he looked up from his desk—well, from the very, very long dining table at which he was seated—and grunted in annoyance.

      The table itself was what one would expect in the Palace—it was dark, large, obviously well oiled. But the surface was covered in bits and pieces of paper, some of it crumpled in balls that had obviously been thrown some distance. Not all of those were on the table; the carpets had their fair share too.

      “Mr. Rennick,” Lord Sanabalis said, bowing. “Forgive me for intruding.”

      Another grunt. Sanabalis didn’t even blink an eye.

      “I would like to introduce you to Corporal Handred and Private Neya. These are the people Ybelline Rabon’alani spoke of when we last discussed the importance of your work.”

      He looked up at that, and managed to lose some slouch. “I hope you last longer than my previous assistants.”

      “You had other assistants for this?”

      “Oh, not for this project. In general, the office of Official Imperial Playwright comes with assistants.” The sneer that he put in the words managed to remain off his face. Barely.

      “They won’t, however, allow me to hire my own assistants, and the ones they’ve sent me must have been dredged from the bottom of the filing pool.”

      Kaylin gave Sanabalis what she hoped was a smile. She moved her lips in the right direction.

      “We don’t intend to interfere in any way,” she began.

      “Oh, please. Take a number and stand in line. If you somehow—by some small miracle—manage not to interfere, you’ll be the only people in this godsforsaken Palace who haven’t tried to tell me how to do my job.”

      Sanabalis offered Kaylin a smile that was at least as genuine as hers had been.

      On the other hand, if the Emperor hadn’t eaten Rennick, things obviously weren’t as formal as all that, and Kaylin felt a surprisingly strong relief; she was almost happy to have met him. Or would have been, if it were all in the past.

      “This is not like filing,” he added, clearly warming up. He even vacated his seat and shoved his hands into pockets that lined the seams of his robes. “This is not an exact bloody science. Do you have any idea what they’ve asked of me?”

      She had a fairly good idea, but said, “No.”

      Something in her tone caused his eyes to narrow and Severn’s foot to stray slightly closer to hers. But she offered what she hoped was a sympathetic grimace; it was all she was up for.

      “No, you probably don’t. But I’ll tell you.”

      Of this, no one could be in any doubt.

      “They want me to write a play that makes the Tha’alani human.”

      There was certainly a sneer in his expression now, and Kaylin had to actively work to keep her hands from becoming fists. You’ve said worse, she told herself. You’ve said a lot worse.

      Yes, she added, but he’s never going to go through what you did to change your bloody mind. Because she was used to arguing with herself, she then thought, And we’re going to have to do what experience won’t. Oh, god.

      “I am willing to face a challenge,” he added. “Even one as difficult as this—but the Tha’alani themselves don’t seem to understand the purpose of the play I did write. They said it wasn’t true. I told them I wanted a bigger truth. It wasn’t real, but truth isn’t always arrived at by the real.”

      “I can see how that would confuse them,” she offered.

      “And now they’ve sent you. Have you ever even seen one of my plays?”

      “I haven’t seen a play that wasn’t written for children,” she replied.

      This didn’t seem to surprise him.

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