The Abbot began, “I cherish—”
“You cherish your limits, yes, I know,” Talis snapped. I did not understand the little squabble, but it had the feeling of an old one. The pair of them suddenly reminded me of my parents. “Never mind. I’ll do it.” Then his attention flipped, like that of a cat that has spotted a laser pointer. “Incidentally, does anyone know what happened to my horse?”
“Excuse me,” said Da-Xia. “But, may I ask—what is under discussion here?”
Talis reached out and claimed my hand. “Do you want to tell them, sweetheart? Or shall I?”
In keeping with my don’t-encourage-him policy, I said nothing.
But this time silence made no dent in Talis. He wrapped his arm around me and pulled me close, then flashed a grin at the others. “Greta and I are going to run away together!”
I’d always known that Elián had an explosive temperament, but I’d never before thought it might be a literal statement. Now, though, he looked as if his head might blow off. “What!” he said. “I’m sorry, I mean, What!”
“Elián . . .” I wanted to explain. But it was hard to know where to begin.
“Is this why you agreed to let the Cumberlanders go?” the Abbot asked Talis.
“No.” Talis grimaced. “And by ‘no’ I mean ‘sort of.’ You know, a bit.”
The Abbot’s eye icons narrowed, and he began to speak, then gave a rattling, shivering cough instead. A test tone sounded before he could get the words out. “Talis, I would not have her blackmailed into this.”
“It’s not blackmail, good Father,” I said. “It’s a treaty.”
“Yeah,” said Elián. “I’m going to stick with ‘What!’?”
Xie said nothing, but looked at me with black, compelling eyes.
“A treaty,” I said. “Between Greta Gustafsen Stuart, Duchess of Halifax and Crown Princess to the Pan Polar Confederacy, and Michael Talis, Master of the World.”
“My blushes, Greta,” Talis murmured.
“I am blood hostage to the Precepture,” I said. “War has been declared and my life is forfeited thereby. But I choose—” My voice broke across the word “choose.” For so long I had thought that I had no choices. I choose. “But I choose not to die,” I said. “I choose to go to the grey room with my eyes open. I choose to let my mind be unspooled slowly, so that it may be copied. I choose upload. I choose to become AI.”
“Greta,” whispered Xie.
“And these are my terms,” I said, closing my eyes. “That the Cumberlanders will not be further punished: no more cities destroyed. And that the Cumberland hostage, Elián Palnik, be spared.”
“In secret,” Talis prompted.
“Spared in secret, to be set free, to change his name and his life, to begin something new.”
I opened my eyes. Elián was staring at me as if I had betrayed him.
“To be as nobody as he can manage,” I said. “To live.”
They were all looking at me now, and profoundly silent.
“Done?” I prompted Talis.
He answered softly, “Done.”
“Witness,” I said.
No one answered.
Talis raised eyebrows at Da-Xia.
“I can’t—” Da-Xia was wearing a fresh samue, and was freshly scrubbed—her hands pink with the scrubbing, but without a trace of Grego’s blood. She looked down at them. “I can’t witness that. . . .”
I stopped myself from reaching for her, though I wanted her strong hand in mine. Wanted it badly. “Da-Xia,” I said. “Please.”
Her eyes locked onto mine. “I witness—” Her voice cracked. “On behalf of the Mountain Glacial States, no party to this conflict, I witness this—” Again, a crack. “This peace. I bind you to it and I—I wish you joy.”
“Your Divinity,” I said, and touched her cheek. She turned her head into my hand and kissed my palm.
“Awww,” said Talis. “That’s adorable. Aren’t they adorable, everybody?”
Elián was gaping at me. “You can’t be serious.”
I let out a huff that was meant to be a laugh but instead sounded as if he’d struck me in the chest. “Didn’t I sound serious?”
“You’re going to be a robot? You want to be a robot? For me?”
Talis patted his arm. “For you, and for the Greater Louisville Metropolitan Area. Also the preferred term is ‘AI.’?”
Elián jerked his arm away.