Then his smile faded, and he looked back over his shoulder at Taje. The First Councilor could see the same peaceful, tranquil scene outside the window, but there was something else entirely in his Emperor's eyes. Something dark and terrible.
"I want us to settle this without anybody else getting killed, Shamir. But I'm Calirath. And in here," he tapped his temple, "what I've Glimpsed doesn't include a peaceful resolution."
"Your Majesty," Taje said gently, "not all Glimpses come to pass."
"But very few which haven't proven accurate have been this strong," Zindel countered. "And don't forget Andrin." He shook his head. "I haven't been saying her Talent is stronger than mine simply to bolster her stature in the Privy Council's eyes, you know. It is stronger, gods help her. It's not as developed as mine?she simply hasn't had the life experience to train it the way mine's been trained. But it's strong, Shamir. Strong."
His eyes were darker than ever, and his jaw tightened as he stared at something only he and his daughter could See. Then they refocused on the First Councilor.
"Peaceful coexistence isn't what she's Glimpsed, either," he said.
"But even if that's true, when do you and she See it happening?" Taje asked. The Emperor quirked an eyebrow, and the First Councilor shrugged. "Even if these negotiations only buy us a few years?even just a few additional months?they'll be worth it, Your Majesty," he pointed out. "As you've been telling everyone for the last month and a half, we have a monumental task in front of us just to prepare for this sort of conflict. Every day we can buy could be invaluable."
"That's true enough," Zindel conceded. "Especially," he added grimly, "with Chava dragging his godsdamned feet this way."
"Well, at least he's finally stated what have to have been his real terms all along."
"I know." Zindel's expression changed subtly. Taje knew he would never have been able to describe the change to anyone else, yet it was instantly recognizable to someone who knew the Emperor as well as he did. It was the expression of a weary, worried father, not a nation's ruler.
"I know," Zindel repeated quietly, "and I wish to all the gods that I could spare Janaki this."
"Your Majesty, you don't have to accept," Taje said. "We can send it back to the Committee on Unification with counter proposals of our own. Whatever he may think, Chava isn't really the sole arbiter of this process, you know. Or we could take Ronnel's advice and simply ignore Chava completely."
"Don't tempt me, Shamir," Zindel said grimly. He turned back to the window once again, letting his eyes feast on the peacefulness and calm. Yet even that small pleasure was flawed, because it was his job?his and his family's?to see to it that that peacefulness and calm were preserved. He wished he could be certain it was a job they could do. And he wished, almost as strongly, that there were some way he could spare his son the price of that preservation.
And how many godsdamned generations of our family have wished the same thing? he asked himself in a rare burst of self-pity. The question hovered in the back of his brain, but no sign of it colored his voice as he went on.
"As you've just said, we need all the time we can buy. I can't possibly justify wasting more of it in ultimately pointless maneuvers trying to avoid what has to be done. Chava's traded away a lot of bargaining points to get to this final demand?enough of them that is "reasonableness" has actually managed to sway a hefty minority of the delegates into actively espousing it on his behalf. Not only that, but this campaign of his of exhuming every single bone anyone's ever had to pick with Ternathia hasn't been totally useless from his perspective, either. He doesn't need a majority to spike the wheel of any modification of the Act he doesn't like, only a big enough minority."
"Of course he doesn't, Your Majesty," Taje agreed. "On the other hand, if you do decide to accept his terms on behalf of Ternathia, you've still got to get our allies in the Conclave to agree to it. I'm not at all sure that's going to be a simple proposition."
"You're thinking about Ronnel, I see," Zindel said dryly, and shook his head with a wry smile as he considered the Farnalian Emperor. "I sometimes wish Ronnel weren't such a throwback to his ancestors. I can just see him charging the shield wall, foaming at the mouth, bellowing war cries, and whirling his ax around his head as he comes!"
"He's not quite that bad, Your Majesty," Taje protested, and Zindel snorted.
"He's exactly that bad," he corrected, "and he hates Chava with a pure and blinding passion. Of course, he's had more actual contact with Chava than we have, since he shares that section of border with Uromathia near the Scurlis. He hasn't told me exactly what Chava's done, but I've had enough reports from others to have a pretty shrewd idea. And Junni of Eniath's told me quite a bit?more, actually, than I suspect he realizes.
"So I understand why Ronnel's so passionately opposed to any sort of … accommodation with Uromathia. And if he thinks he could be any more opposed than I am to the notion of sharing grandchildren with Chava, he's sadly mistaken. But ultimately, he's going to have to swallow it, just like I am. We can't afford to split Sharona between Chava and his supporters and all the rest of us. And let's be honest here, Shamir?if we weren't the ones Chava was making that demand of, we'd probably think it wasn't unreasonable in light of the actual balance of power between Ternathia and Uromathia."
Taje had no choice but to nod.
"Very well." Zindel never turned away from the window. "Inform Representative Kinshe that Ternathia formally accepts Uromathia's proposed amendment of the draft Act of Unification. I suppose," his mouth twitched with just a trace of genuine humor, "that the crown of Sharona is worth a Uromathian daughter-in-law."
Chapter Fifty-One
"HISTORIC VOTE DUE TODAY"
Thaminar Kolmayr barely glanced at the banner headline on the morning issue of the Gulf Point Daily News their new press secretary had brought in. He didn't need to do any more than that, because he was intimately familiar with the story beneath that headline. Indeed, he'd gotten depressingly good at political analysis over the past dreary, endless weeks.
Thaminar had never been a particularly political person before, but since the murder of their daughter, he and Shalassar had followed the news coming out of Tajvana with quiet, grieving intensity, for reasons very different from those motivating most other Sharonians. Everyone else was worried about who would rule them, and how their lives would change. Thaminar couldn't bear the thought of more change in their lives?not after the traumatic savagery of the "change" they'd already endured?but he knew it was inevitable. And however little interested he might have been in change for change's sake, he and Shalassar were profoundly interested in justice.
It had hurt desperately, seeing their daughter's photograph and name splashed across newspaper and magazine pages, or embedded in the telepathic Voicecasts. None of it carried anything approaching the sheer agony of Shaylar's final Voice message, but neither he nor Shalassar had the heart any longer to View those Voicecasts. Using their Voices at all, these last two months, kept bringing back the searing pain of their daughter's death. So they read the newspapers, instead, and told themselves they'd almost gotten used to seeing little Shaylar's picture everywhere they turned.
But the endless, aching grief had not yet passed, and he'd come to realize it never would truly heal. It had faded enough to let them pick up enough of the shattered pieces of their lives to move forward again, yet the pain remained, wrapped around the jagged, empty void her death had left in their hearts, and impossible to forget or assuage. To lose a child, no matter how, was agony. To literally know how she'd died, to have experienced with her the horror and terror of her final minutes of life and yet been forever unable to so much as touch her one last time …