Kai glanced at Torin, but the face that met him was unsympathetic. Tact. Diplomacy. Always. Especially when it came to the cursed Lunars.
Sighing, he half turned to the waiting android. “Third floor.”
The sensor flashed. “Please proceed to elevator C, Your Highness.”
They boarded the elevator, Sybil floating into it like a feather upon a breeze. The guard entered last, staying by the door and facing the three of them as if the thaumaturge were in mortal danger. His icy gaze made Kai uncomfortable, but Sybil seemed to forget the guard was even there.
“This is a tragic time for His Majesty to fall ill,” she said.
Kai gripped the rail and faced her, pressing his hatred into the polished wood. “Would next month have been more convenient for you?”
Her patience didn’t falter. “I speak, of course, of the alliance discussions my mistress has been engaged in with Emperor Rikan. We are most eager for an agreement that will suit both Luna and the Commonwealth.”
Watching her made him feel dizzy, off balance, so he tore his gaze away and watched the numbers above the doors descend. “My father has been attempting to secure an alliance with Queen Levana since she first took the throne. She has always declined.”
“He has yet to meet her sensible demands.”
Kai locked his teeth.
Sybil continued, “My hope is that, as emperor, you will be better able to see reason, Your Highness.”
Kai was silent as the elevator passed floors six, five, four. “My father is a wise man. At this time, I have no intention of altering any of his previous decisions. I do hope we will be able to come to an agreement, but I’m afraid your mistress will need to lower her very sensible demands.”
Sybil’s smile had frozen on her face.
“Well,” she said as the doors opened to the third floor, “you are young.”
He dipped his head, pretending she’d given him a compliment, then faced Torin. “If you have a minute to spare, perhaps you could walk with me to Dr. Erland’s office? You may have questions I’ve not thought of.”
“Of course, Your Highness.”
Neither of them acknowledged the thaumaturge or her guard as they left the elevator, but Kai heard her sugared voice behind them—“Long live the emperor”—before the doors shut.
He growled. “We should have her incarcerated.”
“A Lunar ambassador? That’s hardly a show of peace.”
“It’s better treatment than they would give us.” He raked a hand through his hair. “Gah—Lunars.”
Realizing that Torin had stopped following, Kai dropped his hand and turned around. Torin’s gaze was heavy. Worried.
“What?”
“I know this is a difficult time for you.”
Kai felt his hackles rise in self-defense and tried to nudge them back down. “This is a difficult time for everyone.”
“Eventually, Your Highness, we will have to discuss Queen Levana and what you intend to do about her. It would be wise to have a plan.”
Kai stepped closer to Torin, ignoring a group of lab technicians that were forced to swarm around them. “I have a plan. My plan is to not marry her. Diplomacy be damned. There. End of discussion.”
Torin’s jaw flexed.
“Don’t look at me like that. She would destroy us.” Kai lowered his voice. “She would turn us into slaves.”
“I know, Your Highness.” His sympathetic eyes diffused Kai’s mounting anger. “Please believe me when I say I would not ask it of you. Just as I never asked it of your father.”
Kai backed away and slumped against the corridor wall. Scientists bustled past in their white coats, android treads whirred on the linoleum, but if anyone noticed the prince and his adviser, they didn’t show it.
“All right, I’m listening,” he said. “What’s our plan?”
“Your Highness, this is not the place—”
“No, no, you have my attention. Please, give me something to think about other than this stupid disease.”
Torin took a calculated breath. “I don’t think we need to rewrite our foreign affairs policy. We’ll follow your father’s example. For now, we’ll hold out for a peace agreement, a treatise.”
“And if she won’t sign it? What if she gets tired of waiting and decides to follow through on her threats? Can you imagine a war right now, with the plague, and the economy, and…she would destroy us. And she knows that.”
“If she wanted to start a war, she would have done it by now.”
“Unless she’s just biding her time, waiting for us to get so weak we won’t have any choice but to surrender.” Kai scratched at the back of his neck, watching the bustle of the corridor. Everyone so busy, so determined in their search for an antidote.
If there were an antidote.
He sighed. “I should have married. If I’d already married, Queen Levana wouldn’t even be an issue. She’d have to sign a peace treaty…if she wanted peace.”
At Torin’s silence, he forced himself to look back at the adviser, surprised to find a rare warmth in his face.