Andrin winked and covered her exit, and at least being a Voice made it easy to arrange to sneak off with Darcel. She’d have to stop in again before dinner to agree with everything the four women had decided on, but in the meantime she got to spend a lovely afternoon walking with her fiance: the Honorable Mister Kinlafia, Member of Parliament in the House of Talents.
She rather liked the ring of that. Perhaps she could attempt to introduce herself as MP Kinlafia’s wife later and see if any of the other newly elected delegates were politically naive enough to accept that summation of her identity at face value.
She suggested as much to Darcel. He first laughed and then actually thought it through and agreed. Some politicians were elected because politics was simply what their families did and the voters were used to choosing that name, and most members of the new House of Talents were from long established political families. This test might be a way of finding out which of them had taken their seats with intent to actually do something. Anyone who intended to show up for debates and make their own choices about votes would know Alazon Yanamar had been the Emperor’s Privy Voice.
And she would be again, very soon. She’d actually tried to convince Emperor Zindel to retain Ulantha in the position, and he’d admitted she was doing very well. Unfortunately, she lacked both Alazon’s experience and the strength of her Talent. Ulantha was a very good, very strong Voice, but she wasn’t a Projective Voice. Alazon was, and there were times when that could be a critically important ability for Privy Council meetings. On the other hand, Alazon had been thinking about her protege’s future, and it seemed more and more likely to her that Ulantha would make the perfect Personal Voice for Andrin, which would also guarantee the younger Voice’s career.
In the meantime, it amused Alazon immensely that some people thought she’d become a quiet politician’s wife.
The security concerns for the wedding nagged her a bit. Crown Princess Andrin and Prince Consort Howan Fai had discussed sitting in the balcony with most of the Calirath family to watch the ceremony, and she felt almost physically queasy at the thought of putting so many eggs into one basket. On the other hand, Telfor chan Garatz, the Chief of Imperial Security, had everything in his capable hands. Alazon had to trust him to outwit any threats.
Empress Varena was hosting the after party back at the palace. Surely the house guards would be in attendance in some form, but that particular chapel had been expressly nixed in favor of the Conclave floor for the Andrin-Howan Fai wedding because it lacked sufficient defenses. Alazon didn’t think it had been reinforced in the meantime, and while Howan Fai’s marriage to Andrin might have sealed the unification of Sharona, it hadn’t brought peace to the tempestuous Ternathian relationship with the Uromathian Empire.
She hoped the Imperial Guard had a plan to see to the Imperial Family’s safety.
* * *
The interview ran as the lead story in every SUNN market that evening with bits and pieces shared out for further discussion in the talk shows the next morning. And Privy Voice Ulantha Jastyr did indeed discuss it with the emperor. Meanwhile the SUNN correspondent team took the first train back to Tajvana.
Noriellena Drubeka’s promotion had come through, but not for Features Correspondent. Instead she was offered Lead Uromathian Political Correspondent…along with a warning from corporate that an appearance of favoritism towards the emperor could result in firing.
Trebar sometimes wondered if corporate paid any attention to the news the company collected. If SUNN wanted a permanent political correspondent in Uromathia, they’d have to accept the appearance of bias in Chava’s favor.
He also checked SUNN’s staff directory. SUNN had no other permanent Uromathian political correspondents, but “lead” came with a significant pay bump, and as her assigned Voice, he’d get a raise too.
Drubeka suggested they think of it as a hazardous duty bonus and work as many features as possible from the seat of Parliament in Tajvana.
Trebar heartily agreed.
Now Drubeka grabbed her diner-train glass and toasted her reporting teammate.
“To surviving the election season!” She lifted the glass and gulped down half of it.
Trebar tilted his own and sipped while his partner gasped at the kick.
The harsh Uromathian liquor from the bartender hadn’t been miraculously improved by the dining car’s price markup. After a few gasping coughs, Drubeka tossed back the rest of the glass with a grimace.
“I don’t understand how you can sip this stuff,” she said.
Trebar chuckled and added his own toast. “And here’s to getting out alive.”
“Hey now, all that insinuation made for good copy, but-” She waved it away.
Miles away from Uromathia’s capital city and on a fast train to their new office in Tajvana, she indicated with a wiggle of her fingers why SUNN supervisors always paired her with paranoid, or at least highly cautious, Voices. Noriellena Drubeka would never quite be brave-not with the cold blooded courage which truly recognized danger and accepted it. Hers was the sort of personality which protected itself by denying threats, not grappling with them. In the moment, she’d know there was danger and do the work anyway, but in the in between times, she never really acknowledged that that danger had existed. Trebar knew that perfectly well, and now he waited for the inevitable justification.
“You know what I think,” she said. “This battle of the two emperors is all showmanship. Uromathia clearly accepted the Treaty of Unification, and the drama with the Crown Princess’s wedding has all blown over. Yes, I agree with the VBS commentators that the wedding clothes left something to be desired. But really? Complaints about clothing hardly amount to a true attack on the Winged Crown, and we do have this multiversal war with Arcana going on.”
She caught an attendant’s eye and signaled for another round before continuing.
“I mean, surely all these people will put aside their local issues for the war. When all’s said, we’ve got to make sure we still have a Sharona-we’ll need something to fight over amongst ourselves after we smash the barbarians back into fairy dust! Speaking of which, did you see that new shooting gallery promo stunt?”
Trebar shook his head, giving her all the encouragement she needed to keep going. Running commentary was one of the things occasionally required when waiting for something truly newsworthy to occur. Thus some commentators needed to practice near monologues on random public interest topics just to fill the time. Drubeka didn’t need any more practice, but Trebar let her talk anyway.
“What’s the shooting gallery thing?”
“Well the reports are that Arcanans look pretty much like us, so they haven’t been able to come up with any really interesting new targets to sell. But some of the Voice reports say the Arcanans’ magic comes from some kind of crystals, so Tajvana’s shooting galleries have taken to making sugar crystal targets. The first one called it Metal vs. Magic, but the competitor’s branding of Crack the Crystal seems to sell a bit better. I gotta say, I like the idea. Triad forbid the Arcanans ever break as far back as Sharona, but at least if they do, all the shop keepers will know what to shoot at!”
The chances that a crystal powering anything truly deadly would be marked off with concentric circles and held fixed at twenty paces struck Trebar as unlikely, but he grunted acknowledgement.
Chapter Thirty-Three
February 14
“…and the last of the steam drays should be swayed aboard by midday, along with their mud tracks, Sir.” Battalion-Captain Rechair chan Ersam flipped his notepad closed with something between a grimace and a smile. “After that, gods only know what else will go wrong, but I don’t think it’s going to be my people’s fault when it does. Of course, I’ve been wrong before.”