Sweep in Peace

Chapter Nine

It was Sunday and we were back in the grand ballroom, watching the negotiations stall. Three days had passed since I discovered the tampering with the inn’s recordings. I was no closer to finding the culprit. I still didn’t know who took the emerald. The cat still hid. Once or twice, while half-asleep, I felt him on the edge of the bed, but when I woke up, he was always gone. I made sure he had water and food and I cleaned his litter box, but that was the extent of our interaction. I clearly failed at making friends. The otrokars and the vampires were still bored and irritable, despite the distractions I provided. And most importantly, the peace summit still made no progress.

The only thing I managed to accomplish was to ensure that Orro’s banquet was scheduled and ready to go tonight.

At the far end of the grand ballroom, a large otrokar rose, his gaze fixed on a point behind me. I’d been reading up on the otrokars’ warrior classes, and he looked like a basher to me. In battle, his kind wore the heaviest armor the Horde could provide and were fitted with arm guns that mounted over their shoulders and limbs and weighed over a hundred pounds each. Bashers were huge mobile guns. They punched through the enemy ranks while lighter warrior classes hid behind them and rained death on their opponents. This particular specimen was over seven and a half feet tall with shoulders that were probably too big for my front door. If he ever had to negotiate it, he’d have to turn sideways.

I turned so I could see the summit meeting taking place behind the transparent partition and keep an eye on the basher at the same time. At the negotiations table, the Marshal of House Vorga leaned forward, his fists on the table. When vampires confronted danger, they unconsciously tried to make themselves larger, like cats before a fight. Lord Robart positively loomed over the table, his face contorted by fury. The soundproof barrier robbed him of his voice, but he looked like he was screaming. Well, at least his fangs weren’t bared.

The male otrokar started forward, moving deliberately, his head lowered slightly, his eyes unblinking, his gaze focused on Lord Robart with terrible intensity. Uh-oh.

Jack peeled himself from the wall by the partition and casually strolled down on an intercept course.

Khanum said something, her face projecting derision.

And there go the fangs.

A slim, hard-looking otrokar female smoothly moved into the big soldier’s path. “Where are you going, Kolto?”

“I’m going to wring his neck,” the large otrokar growled.

“First, you won’t get through.”

“Watch me.”

“And if you did manage it, Khanum would rip off your balls and make you eat them. She’s got it. If she needs our help, she’ll call for it.”

Behind the partition, Dagorkun said something, his pose relaxed, his arms crossed on his chest. The other two otrokars guffawed. The Khanum cracked a smile. Lord Robart did his best to propel himself and his high-tech armor into a massive leap, but Arland, Lady Isur, and the Battle Chaplain grabbed him and pulled him back. Nuan Cee put his furry head on the table, facedown. Lord Robart snarled, his fangs out, trying to break free.

This wouldn’t end well, I just knew it.

“See, she has it,” the female otrokar said. “And you’re still in one piece.”

The male otrokar frowned at her. “Why do you care?”

“I don’t know.” The female otrokar arched an eyebrow. “Maybe I have an interest in your staying intact.”

She turned and walked away, joining a group of three other otrokars.

The male otrokar frowned again, his brain obviously trying to figure out why the female otrokar would be interested in the continued safety of his genitals. Then his eyes lit up. His expression turned speculative. Yes, she likes you, big dummy.

George made some sort of placating gesture and squeezed the top of his cane. The partition drained down, and Lord Robart marched out, his face still contorted with rage. Lady Isur and the Battle Chaplain chased him.

Arland bore down on me. “Lady Dina. We need privacy. He doesn’t need to be around his people right now.”

I unsealed the main entrance. “The front room and the kitchen are yours.”

“My thanks.” Arland raced after Robart.

I opened the side entrances and watched everyone pile out. Once everyone was secured in their quarters, I went into the kitchen.

Lord Robart sat at the table, his face murderous. Arland leaned on the wall next to him. The Battle Chaplain hovered nearby, his crimson vestments framing his big body like tattered wings. At the island, Orro chopped celery and carrots into small pieces, grimly ignoring the presence of the vampires.

I got out three mugs, dropped a bag of mint tea into each, and ran hot water from the Keurig into each one.

“We’ll never make progress this way,” Arland said quietly.

“Don’t talk to me about progress,” Robart snarled. “You want progress. You want to give them everything. Does your honor mean so little to you? Is that how far your House has fallen?”

Arland opened his mouth.

“This is why we haven’t triumphed,” the Battle Chaplain said, his voice deep and deliberate. “We would rather war with ourselves than our common enemy.”

I used a teaspoon to fish the tea bags out, added some honey to each mug, and brought them over.

“Thank you.” Odalon accepted his cup and sipped the tea. “Mint.” He smiled with appreciation. “Delicious.”

Arland took his mug. Robart pushed the mug away. “I don’t want it. I need neither calming nor healing.”

“You’re being childish,” Odalon said.

“Spare me your lectures. You’re free to question my piety, but stay out of how I run my House.”

Odalon sighed.

“May I ask a question?” I took another chair.

Robart stared off to the side, ignoring me.

“Of course, Lady Dina,” Arland said, putting a particular emphasis on lady.

“My apologies,” Robart ground out. “Please, ask your question.”

“It’s my understanding that Nexus has a single landmass. The Holy Anocracy holds a large portion of this continent to the north and the Horde holds an almost equal portion to the south. Clan Nuan holds a smaller portion to the east, but their territory is the best geographical location for the spaceport. Am I correct?”

“In essence,” Robart grumbled. “The magnetic anomalies of Nexus make it difficult to build any permanent deployment structures. We are forced to drop supplies and troops from orbit via shuttles. Clan Nuan has the only functional gravity tube on the planet, which means they can transport goods and personnel in relative safety.”

I had taken a gravity tube once. It was an enormous elevator that stretched from orbit to the surface and traveled at supersonic speed. The science behind it was magic and riding it had almost made me throw up.

“This is why Nuan Cee is seeking peace,” Arland explained. “Nexus’s main value is in the deposits of kuyo, the liquid mineral we require for our continued war effort. It’s heavy. It’s hard to mine and harder to transport. The Merchants wish to make money on the shipments of kuyo from Nexus. They know we’ll be forced to use their facilities.”

And knowing Nuan Cee, he would count every day he wasn’t charging the Horde and Holy Anocracy an outrageous tariff as a day he lost money.

“We tried to overtake the gravity tube a few times, but we failed,” Odalon said.

“They have Turan Adin,” Robart said, his face grim.

The three vampires paused.

“Who or what is Turan Adin?” I asked.

“Turan Adin is a creature of war,” Robart said and drank some of his mint tea. “He breathes and lives battle. Slaughter runs in his veins. Nexus was settled almost twenty years ago in Nexus time, and he has been there since the very beginning. He is the rassa in the red grass, the shirar in the deep water. The demon of that hell.”

“We don’t know where the Merchants found him,” Arland said. “We don’t even know what he is. But he’s incorruptible and indestructible. He has run their mercenary army for the past two decades. He learns, he adapts, he never tires.”

“But as things stand, both you and the Horde can mine kuyo to use for your military needs?” I asked.

“Yes,” Arland answered.

“Then why not just let things stand as they are?” I asked.

Robart stared at me. “You are not a vampire. You are not a knight.”

Arland put his hand over his face.

“Then help me understand,” I said.

“The land that the Horde holds is stained with our blood,” Robart said, his voice barely controlled. “Only when they are gone can that stain be wiped clean. Would a surgeon remove half of a malignant growth and leave the rest, satisfied with what he already accomplished? Would a hunter skin half a carcass and leave the rest of the precious pelt to rot? We must kill them or drive them off that world. Anything less is a mortal sin. It is an ancient law. Suffer none who would seek to stand on the ground you have chosen. Thus the writs tell us.”

“The Hierophant does not share your interpretation,” Odalon said.

“The Hierophant saw fit to change her mind,” Robart said. “But I did not change mine. My father died in Nexus’s blood fields. The woman I loved more than life itself, the woman I wanted to bear my children, lost her life there. Her light…” His voice broke and he squeezed his fists. “Her light is gone. To look upon the Horde’s territory on Nexus is to dishonor her memory. When I stand before the gates of the afterlife and my father and my almost wife meet me and ask if they were avenged, what will I tell them? That I was too tired of fighting? That I couldn’t spare any more blood to be spilled in their name?”

“What will you tell the spirits of all who stand behind them?” Arland asked. “What will you tell them when they ask you why you threw away their lives in a fight we cannot win?”

“We will win.” Robart punched the table. “It’s a righteous war. A holy war!”

“It’s logistics,” Arland said. “Neither we nor the Horde can shuttle enough troops to Nexus to ensure a decisive victory. We lost two transports just last month. What will you tell the soldiers inside them? They didn’t even get to taste the battle.”

“They knew the risks,” Robart barked.

“Yes, but they trust us to lead them into battle. They trust us to not waste their lives. I will not sacrifice any more of my knights on this pointless war.”

“If you’re too weak, then I will find another ally.”

Arland strode to the Keurig and I heard the water pour. If he needed more tea, I would have gotten him some.

“Like House Meer?” Arland asked, opening the refrigerator. “The cowards who wouldn’t even fight?”

“At least House Meer refuses to honor your pitiful attempts at peace,” Robart said. “Their dissent is…” He inhaled.

I smelled coffee. Oh no.

Arland returned to the table with the mug. Judging by the color, at least a third of it had to be the hazelnut-flavored creamer from my fridge.

“Lord Arland.” I sank a warning into my voice.

“What is this?” Robart looked at the cup.

“A drink for real men,” Arland said. “I wouldn’t recommend it. It doesn’t suffer the unprepared.”

Lord Robart turned to me. “I’ll have what he’s having.”

“That is a terrible idea,” I said. “The drink contains…”

“Here.” Arland handed his coffee to Robart. “If you insist. I shall get another.”

“No!” I reached for the cup.

Robart gulped the coffee. “This is interesting. It’s delicious, but I’m awaiting that profound impact you promised me.”

He drained half the mug.

Oh crap. Coffee had the same effect on vampires as alcohol on humans. He’d just downed an equivalent of half a bottle of whiskey.

“You know what your problem is, Arland?” His voice slurred slightly. “You’re a… coward.”

Odalon blinked.

Robart drank another mighty swallow. “All of you”—he waved his index finger around—“are cowards. We must be primal. Resolute. Like our ancestors. Our ancestors didn’t need… weapons. They didn’t need armor. They had their teeth.”

He bared his fangs, clenched his right fist, and flexed his arm.

“Of course they did,” I murmured, keeping my voice soothing. Maybe he would just sit here and tell us about his ancestors and that would be that.

“And they hunted their enemies.” He finished off the mug and flipped it upside down on the table. He looked down at his beautiful armor. “This dung. I don’t need this dung.”

I knew exactly where this was going. “Grab him!”

Arland didn’t move. Odalon stared at Robart, his eyes wide.

Robart hit his crest. The armor fell off him, revealing a black shirt and pants underneath. He yanked the clothes from his body. “To hunt!” Robart roared and shot out of the back door and into the rain.

Damn it.

Orro paused his chopping, rolled his head back, and let out several barking snorts.

“It’s not funny. Arland!” I pointed at him with my broom.

“He needed it,” Arland said, his tone unrepentant.

I squeezed the words through my teeth. “Go get him, my lord, before he hunts a car or a police cruiser and Officer Marais hauls him in for questioning.”

Arland sighed and took off after Robart into the rain.

“Why do you always strip naked when you’re drunk?” I asked Odalon.

“This happened before?” The Battle Chaplain’s eyebrows crept up.

“Lord Arland drank some accidentally last time he was here.”

“It must be the armor. We live in it, so we remove it only in the safety of our homes. If your armor is off, you are clean, safe, and free, probably well fed and possibly ready to meet your partner in the privacy of your bedroom.” Odalon’s somber face remained stoic, but a tiny mischievous light played in his eyes. “Did Lord Arland mention his cousin’s Earthborn wife by any chance while he was indisposed?”

I kept a straight face. “Possibly.”

“The universe is vast and we’re its greatest mystery,” Odalon murmured and followed Arland outside.

I sat in the front room, going through the recording of the phantom who stole the emerald. I decided that calling the thief a phantom was better than referring to him or her as the invisible blob. I’d reached some conclusions.

One, the phantom was definitely alive. It wasn’t a machine. I’d managed to isolate a six-second video where I could see it move through the crowd based on a slight shimmer. The phantom moved to avoid people in its way, and it clearly stepped over other gems and gold on the floor, choosing to move through stretches of empty floor. If the phantom had been a machine, it would have to have reasoning abilities and it would have a complicated mechanism of locomotion. If it had simply rolled on wheels, I’d see things nudged out of the way.

When each delegation entered the grand ballroom, I had the inn scan them for weapons. I knew the otrokars had brought in a gun, although I hadn’t expected them to actually fire it. The inn didn’t register anything with advanced robotics or artificial intelligence or anything that had artificial legs.

Two, since the phantom was alive, he or she had entered the inn with one of the delegations. I would’ve felt an intruder.

Three, since the intruder was one of the guests, he or she would be missing from the crowd in the grand ballroom when the emerald was being pilfered. Problem was, Gertrude Hunt had recorded a wide-angle video that gave me a nice panoramic view of the crowd, but they bunched up too much in those crucial five seconds.

I checked the clock. We’d scheduled the banquet at nine. It was too late for me, a little late for the Merchants and the vampires, and a little early for the otrokars. The clock said sixteen minutes past three. Plenty of time. I groped with my hand for my teacup on the side table next to the sofa and touched something soft.

The cat sat on the side table.

We looked at each other.

Beast barked once, quietly.

The cat walked over the sofa’s arm, stomped through my lap—he was surprisingly heavy—and rubbed against me. I stroked his head. He rubbed again, purring, walked to the other end of the sofa, and arranged himself on the blanket. He stretched, let out all the claws on his front paws, and began kneading the blanket.

I looked at Beast. She stared at me, her big round eyes puzzled.

The cat bit the blanket and made purring noises.

Okaaay. And that wasn’t weird.

Caldenia strolled into the front room and took a seat on the chair across from me. Her Grace wore a dark purple gown with a severe high neck. Elaborate embroidery in pale lavender and gold decorated the length of the gown, spilling in beautiful rivulets over the expanse of the skirt.

Caldenia frowned at the cat. “Why is he doing that?”

I had no idea. “He’s a freak.”

The freak continued kneading the blanket and sucking on it.

My screen beeped. Dagorkun’s portrait appeared in the left bottom corner.

“What may I do for you, Under-Khan?”

“Khanum wishes to share a tea. Will you be available in ten minutes?”

Being invited to share a tea was an honor and a privilege. Still, if it were up to me, I would’ve stayed on my nice comfortable couch.

“Please inform Khanum that I’m honored and will see her in ten minutes.”

Dagorkun’s image vanished.

“I will come as well,” Caldenia said.

“If you wish, Your Grace.”

“Oh, I do not wish. They’re barbarians. A woefully unrefined culture.” Caldenia rose. “However, I do not trust that brute of a woman to not poison you.”

I dismissed the screen and it retracted into a wall. “Poison wouldn’t be in the otrokar character. They favor direct violence.”

“And that’s precisely why I am coming. In matters of diplomacy and love, one must strive for spontaneity. Doing the unexpected often gets you what you want. It wouldn’t be typical for the Horde to resort to poison, so we must assume they will.”

We walked to the staircase, the doors opening as we approached the walls. “What possible reasons would they have to poison me?”

“I can think of several. The most obvious one would be to gain access to the rest of the inn. With you out of the way, they could ambush and slaughter the vampires.”

“That would bar them from Earth forever.” Not to mention that the inn would murder them.

Caldenia smiled. “And the hope for the peace between the Horde and the Holy Anocracy would perish with them. Of all the types of beings one finds oneself dealing with, the true believers are the worst. A typical sentient’s psyche is a spiderweb. Pull on the right thread and you will get the desired result. Praise them and they will like you. Ridicule them and they’ll hate you. Greedy can be bought, timid can be frightened, smart can be persuaded, but the zealots are immune to money, fear, or reason. A zealot’s psyche is a tightrope. They have severed everything else in favor of their goal. They will pay any price for their victory, and that makes them infinitely more dangerous.”

Caldenia’s mind wasn’t just a spiderweb, it was a whole constellation of spider nests. “So is there no way to subvert a true believer?”

“I didn’t say that.” Caldenia permitted herself a small smile. “At the core, they’re often beings ruled by passion. Given time and proper enticement, one passion can be replaced with another. But it takes a long while and requires careful emotional management.”

Dagorkun met us at the door. He nodded at me, pointedly ignored Caldenia’s presence, and led us to the back where the Khanum sat on a wide covered balcony. A fire pit occupied the center, the stone of the balcony circling it in a broken ring, forming a round bench lined with orange, green, and yellow pillows. A thick blanket of gray clouds smothered the sky, promising rain but failing to deliver. The Khanum sprawled on the pillows. Her spacer armor was gone. Instead, she wore a light voluminous robe the color of blood, embroidered with turquoise birds, their plumage studded with dots of pure white, frolicking among sharp dark branches. Her face looked tired. Up close it was hard to ignore how huge she was. I looked like a child by comparison.

The Khanum regarded me from under half-closed eyelids. “Greetings, Innkeeper.”

“Greetings, Khanum.”

“Sit with me.”

I took a seat across from her. Caldenia sat to my right.

The Khanum rolled her head and looked at her, her gaze heavy. “Witch.”

“Savage.” Caldenia smiled back, showing her sharp, inhuman teeth.

“We know of you,” the Khanum said. “You’ve murdered a great many people. You’ve eaten some of them. You are a kadul.”

A cannibal.

“An abomination,” the Khanum said.

“You know what they say about abominations,” Caldenia said. “We make the worst enemies.”

“Was that a threat?”“ Dagorkun’s eyes narrowed.

“A warning.” Caldenia folded her hands on her lap. “There is only one time to make threats: when you intend to negotiate. I do not.”

A male otrokar came in, bringing a tray bearing a teapot and four cups. Dagorkun reached for it, but the Khanum took hold of the teakettle first.

“Khanum…,” Dagorkun began.

“Hush,” she told him. “It’s been years since I last poured you tea. Pretend you are five for your mother’s sake.”

Dagorkun sat down to my left and watched as the Khanum poured everyone a cup. Caldenia picked up her cup, turned her left hand so the large amethyst ring on her middle finger faced the surface, and dipped it into the ruby-colored liquid.

The Khanum raised her eyebrows.

“It’s an insult to question the Khanum’s hospitality,” Dagorkun said.

“Alas, I do not care.” Caldenia glanced at her ring. A light blue symbol flashed on the surface of the beautiful stone. Caldenia picked up the cup and sipped it. I followed her lead. The tea, flavorful, spicy, and slightly bitter, washed over my tongue. I held it in my mouth, waiting for the familiar nip, and let it roll down my throat.

“You’ve had the red tea before,” the Khanum observed.

“Yes, but not this variety.” Most of the red tea I had seen was lighter in color, sometimes almost orange.

“This is wanla,” the Khanum said. “Poor people’s tea. You probably met the wealthier of our kind. They tend toward the paler teas. I like the tea my mother made. It’s the one the Horde drinks after a hard march.”

I took another sip. The Khanum wanted something. She wouldn’t have invited me otherwise. Asking her about it was out of the question. I’d have to wait.

We finished the first cup in silence, and the Khanum poured us another.

“The blond vampire wants you. Can your kind and his mate?”

Thank you, Arland, for putting me into this lovely position. “It is possible, but I have no interest in such a relationship.”

“Why not?” Dagorkun asked.

I smiled at him. “Because I have no intention of leaving my home, and Lord Arland would make a terrible innkeeper.”

“You could go with him,” the Khanum suggested.

“My place is here.” I sipped my tea. “His place is with his House. His attention is flattering, but it doesn’t interfere with my mission.”

“And what is that?” Dagorkun asked.

“To keep you and them from killing each other.”

An otrokar dashed onto the balcony, running backward, jumped and caught a football sewn from rough leather. He saw the Khanum. His eyes widened and he ran back inside. Dagorkun rolled his eyes.

“Should I purchase some helmets?” I asked.

“No,” the Khanum said. “A few concussions would be good for them. It will settle them down.” The big woman leaned back. “I do not understand you, Innkeeper. I understand the Merchants. They are driven by profit. I understand the vampires. They are our mortal enemy and they seek the same things we seek: glory in battle, victory, and land. I even understand the Arbitrator. There is power and satisfaction in shifting the balance of relations between many nations. What drives you, Innkeeper?”

“I want my inn to prosper. The more guests I have, the healthier and stronger is the inn. If the summit succeeds, it will be known that my home served you well.”

“We know the Arbitrator approached other innkeepers to host this summit,” Dagorkun stated. “They turned him down.”

“My inn was uniquely suited for the summit,” I said. “It’s small and mostly empty at the moment. We specialize in dangerous guests.”

“To take a job like this, one must have a strong motivation,” the Khanum said. “What is yours?”

“I lost my family,” I said. “They were taken from me. I’ve searched for them on my own and I failed. I want my inn to thrive and be full of guests, because sooner or later someone will walk through my door and I will see recognition on their face when they see the portrait of my parents downstairs.”

The Khanum nodded. “Family. This I understand.”

We drank more tea.

“It is the third of autumn,” the Khanum said. “On our home world, summer is the time of drought and heat. Winter is a welcome respite; it is the time of mild weather and rains when the grasses grow. The third of autumn is the day we commune with our ancestors to celebrate surviving yet another year.”

I didn’t know much about the Horde’s celebrations except that almost all of them were conducted outside.

“Do you wish to have an autumn celebration?” I asked.

“My people are restless,” the Khanum said. “It would do us good.”

I waited.

“The Arbitrator has denied my request.”

Here it is. “He must’ve had valid reasons.”

“He believes we are deliberately dragging our feet in negotiations,” Dagorkun said. “He means to use our culture to pressure us.”

“May I ask a question about the negotiations?” I asked.

The Khanum raised her eyebrows. “Yes.”

“You control a large territory on Nexus. The Anocracy controls an equally large territory. Both of you may have to work with the Merchants to get shipments offplanet. Why not agree to peace?”

The Khanum reached into her robe and pulled out a small disk carved of something that looked like bone. She squeezed the sides and an image of an otrokar male appeared above it. He wore full battle armor. His face echoed both Dagorkun and the Khanum.

“Kordugan,” she said. “My third son. He lies dead on Nexus. We never recovered the body.”

Dagorkun looked down on his hands.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Children die,” the Khanum said, her voice resigned. “It is a fact of life. I’ve learned this again and again. It hurts every time.”

“Then why not stop the dying on Nexus?” I asked.

“Because we do not negotiate,” the Khanum said. “We conquer. When I look at the Anocracy’s half of the continent, I see land. I see homesteads. I see families, our families, raising children, building lives, breeding cattle.”

Dagorkun glanced at his mother. “Mother, cattle won’t survive on Nexus. It’s a barren rock. There isn’t enough feed.”

She waved at him. “That is beside the point. We expand, or like my son, we die. This is our way. This is the Anocracy’s way. They stand in the way of our expansion. We must check them on Nexus. We must bloody them, break their spirit, and then launch an offensive. They hold seven planets. Seven fat, wealthy planets. That’s enough land to support my children, and Dagorkun’s children, and their children’s children. Children must be born on the planet, with the earth under their feet, and they will be born on Nexus. That’s what my son died for.”

Right. Neither side was willing to see reason. I could understand why Nuan Cee was in despair.

“But if you oppose the peace so strongly, why agree to the summit at all?” I asked.

“Who says I oppose the peace?” The Khanum sighed, reached over, and ran her hand through Dagorkun’s hair. For a second the seasoned warrior looked just like an eight-year-old human boy whose mother had kissed him in front of everybody as she dropped him off in front of the school.

“I told you what the Horde’s policy dictates,” the Khanum said. “My views are not relevant. My people wish to commune with our ancestors. We have long memories. Will you speak to the Arbitrator for us?”

The bargain was clear: if I intervened on their behalf, they would owe me a favor. They didn’t need to promise me one. It was my duty to see to the comfort of my guests.

“I’ll talk to George,” I said. “I don’t know how much influence I have with him, but I will try. Even if he is receptive, we may have to talk the vampires and Merchants into going along with it, which means we may have to make some concessions.”

“We understand,” Dagorkun said.

I rose and bowed. “Thank you for sharing your tea with me, Khanum. May your days be long and your sun weak.”

The Khanum inclined her head.

Dagorkun rose and we followed him through the otrokar quarters. Something didn’t sit right with me about what the Khanum had said about the Horde’s reasons for fighting. She delivered the lines perfectly, with just enough growl in her voice, but I had a feeling her heart wasn’t in it.

Dagorkun stopped by the door.

I stepped through it. “Thank you for your hospitality.”

“You’re welcome.”

The door sealed shut.

“Well, that was enlightening,” Caldenia murmured as we descended the stairs. “She’s desperate for the peace talks to succeed.”

“You think so?”

Caldenia shook her head. “My dear, you must learn to observe. She is the general of this massive horde, but under all of it she is a mother who loves her children more than life itself. You and I both know who will lead the Horde’s offensive on Nexus—it will be the son who now sits next to her. Remember that National Geographic documentary we watched last week, where the lions were trying to survive the drought? That woman is that old lioness trying to protect her last cub. She is fighting desperately to keep him alive, and she is losing hope.”

She was right. It made perfect sense and it was so awful. The sadness of it took your breath away.

“This is marvelous,” Caldenia said. “Press that lever and you can wrench her heart right out. You couldn’t ask for a better weakness. You should take me to all your talks. They are so entertaining.”