“Am I supposed to call you the Lady, the Weaver, and the Dragon?” I change tactics, striding over to the table and taking a seat. I ignore the Dragon’s predatory gaze by dint of sheer willpower, letting the anger still smoldering within me be my shield.
“It will do as well as any moniker you might use,” the Dragon rumbles.
“Shiny.” I gesture and pull out snacks of my own, conjuring them from my own inventory. It’s nowhere as smooth, the plates and containers making noise as they drop onto the metal table. I snatch up a chocolate cake, pulling it to me as I spear the entire thing with a fork.
Yes, the entire cake. It’s been a long day.
Ali floats over my shoulder, making little motions with his hand to float one of the Lady’s snacks over to him. Mikito stays standing, watching in silence.
Chocolate cake, carafe of coffee, and a chaser of Mana-imbued water. I eat, ignoring the trio while I wait for them to answer my question. I’m amused to see the Dragon taste-test everything I dropped, while the Lady keeps to her own food. The Weaver just watches, rarely blinking. I’m half-done with the cake before she speaks.
“Few would dare to act like you.” The Lady gestures at me, and I flash her a tight-lipped grin. Mikito makes a wiping motion on her face and I find a napkin to clean up the mess around my lips. “Do you not fear what we might do?”
“To what? Me? Mikito?” I say. “Seems to me if you wanted to torture us, you’d have done it already. If you wanted me dead, you’d have waited a couple of seconds. Which means whatever you seek, it’s not something that force will aid you in achieving. And if I had to guess, you have the same question we’ve all been trying to answer all this time.”
“I care naught for your System Quest,” the Dragon rumbles. Golden eyes sparkle with flame, and the fork in my hand trembles a little as he showcases his displeasure. “It is enough to exist. Seeking the why is a fool’s errand.”
I feel a minor flash of irritation—more because of his casual dismissal than because he doesn’t care. I’ve known for a long time I’m on a fool’s errand, that I’m tilting at windmills of my own making. But stopping has never been something I’m good at. “Foolish or not, you saved me. So you want something.”
“What any good dragon wants.” He grins wide, showing me all his teeth. I’m reminded that he’s a predator as I note the pointed, sharp edge of the majority of them. “I desire power. And you Administrators, with your secrets and hidden agendas, are in the way of that.”
My mind spins, putting together numbers. Nine Inner Council members. Here are three members of the Inner Council in their own secret club.
The two Administrators I met aren’t part of the Inner Council numbers, which confirms there’s another, hidden power set. But there’s no way the Administrators would leave the Inner Council untouched. Which means they’d need at least four, if not more, members to outvote these three.
Six potential suspects.
“Emperor, Nang Mai, the Truinnar representative—their King…” It makes sense he’d be an Administrator. It’d give them power and it’d be an easy way to shape things. “Ares? Or his daughter.”
The Dragon inclines his head a little, marking my guess.
“Four against your three. The Erethrans are out—they’re barely holding on and I’d have been caught. The Movana? Maybe, but dangerous to use a faction,” I say.
Memory from the library comes back, filling me in on details about the seat, the number of seat changes for the faction. Surprisingly stable, with the Movana mostly holding the seat. But occasionally it changes. I run the numbers, gauge the politics, and decide they’re likely not controlled.
Not directly.
“Go on,” the Lady of Shadows says softly. Her eyes lower as she regards me as if I’m an intriguing bug. Or a dancing bear.
I keep talking out loud. “Four against three. But there are more, hidden Administrators who can join the Council if they wish. They probably tilt it in their direction, when they want, through bribes. But that doesn’t work, not all the time.” I sweep my gaze over the three. “And I bet you don’t always work together either. Too obvious. And probably too many conflicting agendas.” I remember Prax, fixing my gaze on the Lady, and frown. “In fact… you vote for them too at times, don’t you?”
She inclines her head.
I turn to the Dragon, somewhat certain of my conclusions. “You want me to distract, kill some of them, don’t you? Maybe help adjust the seats, make some of them lose power. Give you an opportunity to gain further control.”
“That is sufficiently correct for our purposes,” the Dragon says. “Your survival and the aggravation of your existence keeps them distracted. If you are able to end them or create opportunities for such an attack…” His grin reappears, feral and predatory. “My investment will have paid out.”
“But why act yourself, honored lord dragon?” Mikito says, her voice soft and demure.
He turns his head toward Mikito, head twisting all the way around like an owl’s. He looks puzzled for a second. As if he’d forgotten she was even here.
Before he can speak, the Lady cuts in. “Because the Lord Dragon does not countenance the use of others. He feels it is demeaning to his honor to deal regularly with those beneath him. As for myself”—the Lady places a hand on her chest—”I am required to hide you and him.”
That last makes sense. She’s who we were the most worried about all the time. And her presence here explains why the Council hadn’t found us too quickly, if she was working at cross-purposes the entire time. It does amuse me a little that the Dragon doesn’t have minions, but looking at the lounging, confident man, I can see it.
“Honor is important.” Mikito bobs her head in agreement.
I smile slightly as she butters up the Dragon while standing right behind him, ready to cut him apart with her polearm. Of course, I’m not sure it matters since he’s already turned from her at this point. But it’s useful to have at least one of us trying to be polite.
“So he wants Power. And you, the Quest?” I say to the Lady.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I’m the Lady of Shadows and Lies.Keeper of Secrets. Mistress of the Obscure,” The Lady drawls, her voice filled with sarcasm as she names her various unofficial titles. Then she becomes serious. “But there is one secret I do not have. Do you know how irritating that is?”
I open my mouth and, deciding against a direct answer, stuff it with chocolate. While the chewy, chocolatey gooeyness melts in my mouth and the ship we’re on cuts through the water silently, I consider my next questions.
To buy time, I swallow and look at the Weaver. “And you?”
Silence greets my question, which isn’t surprising. It is a floating eyeball after all.
“What do you think? Do we trust them?” I send to Ali, who shifts, staring between the group.
“Do we have a choice? Also, throne room.”
I pick uip the water, washing down my latest mouthful at Ali’s warning about our silent conversations being not so hidden. I slide my tongue along my teeth, picking up crumbs as I turn from the trio. They don’t seem particularly in a hurry to push this conversation along. But a part of me, the part that’s still agitated by the damn Dragon and his power plays, with having my ass handed to me by Kasva, can’t help but push things.
“Then let’s stop playing footsie. What exactly do you want?” I say as I lay down my fork and fix them with a flat stare.
***
“You had to say that, didn’t you?” Mikito says, hands on her hip as we watch the Lady’s vessel submerge itself and motor away. We’re standing on the shore of the beach off a peninsula a good thousand-plus kilometers from where we started.