“Yes.” He leaned back, his handsome face somber. She must’ve told him he had to be honest.
“Everything you have done since you arrived here, every word, every expression, and every action has been carefully calculated. You’ve destroyed the alliance between Robart and House Meer, isolating him from his peers. To Arland and Isur, he is damaged goods and to House Meer he is no longer an asset. He’s an embarrassment, a witness and facilitator of their dishonor. He will be desperate to make peace now. House Meer is huge and House Vorga is one fifth of its size. If the knights of Meer choose to set aside the shame of Beneger’s failure and pursue House Vorga, the Meer will swallow Robart’s House whole and barely notice. Robart has no choice but to throw his lot in with Arland and Isur now and pray for a strategic alliance. On the flip side, House Meer is dishonored. They sent three of their better fighters and they couldn’t take one man. They look weak and pathetic. Together with their excommunication, this will make them hard pressed to form any alliances at all.”
“The region will be more stable for it,” George said, matter-of-fact.
“Then you’ve murdered the pride of the Horde in front of the otrokari. I saw Sophie’s face. She lives for the challenge. You knew that the moment you showed her Ruah’s image, she would target him and kill him. You didn’t check the Horde’s hubris, you annihilated it.”
“Yes,” George said.
“Now the vampires are desperate, and the Horde is desperate. Both are humiliated. Both are indebted to me and the peace talks are in shambles. All part of the plan?”
“Yes.”
If he said yes one more time, I would brain him with something heavy.
“And my inn is an unfortunate casualty of this process?”
“Perhaps.”
“Are you done?”
“Not quite.”
“What else is there? You could also make the Merchants desperate. Is that next?”
“Yes,” he said.
“George, stop with single word answers. You came into my inn and you used me and Gertrude Hunt in the worst way possible. I deserve to at least know the final objective of this terrible mess.”
“It’s not a mess,” he said. “It’s a carefully steered ride. And the objective has always remained the same: to do the impossible and broker peace on Nexus.”
I leaned forward. “Where is my place in this?”
“You’re in the very center of it,” he said. “You and the inn. Everything that happened has been designed for its impact on you.”
“To what end?”
“I can’t tell you that. You have to trust me.”
“That is the one thing I will never do again. You can’t just play with people’s lives.”
“I never play.” A hint of frustration twisted George’s face. “I examine my objective very carefully and I weigh everything I do against the benefits attaining that objective will bring. I’m intimately familiar with death. It’s been a constant companion, almost since childhood. I take no one’s life for granted, not yours, not Ruah’s, not even Beneger’s. To avoid murder, I will go as far as to endanger myself and my objective, provided that the level of risk to my goal is acceptable and my threshold of acceptability is a lot higher than you might believe. I resort to killing only when it becomes absolutely necessary, and you can be sure that when I take a life, it is because I have examined all my options and had no choice. But some events are greater than the people who bring them about and so I will do what I must to set them in motion. It’s almost over, Dina. You will understand soon. I promise, I will not drag it out.”
He rose and walked away.
Who the hell had I let into my inn?
Sophie glided over from the kitchen and set a cup of steaming tea in front of me. I tasted it. Chamomile.
She sat in the same chair as George.
“Do you know what he is planning?” I asked.
“No. I know he is conflicted about it. He calls me his conscience even though, of the two of us, I am more violent, at least at first glance.”
“No,” I told her. “You kill quickly and with mercy. George is merciless.”
“If one can be compassionate and merciless at once, he is that. George was always a contradiction.” Sophie drank her tea. “What will you do?”
“I’ll do what I was hired to do. I gave my word. I won’t back out now, but I will no longer let myself be used.”
Sophie smiled. “I bet he is counting on that.”
Chapter 13
I woke up, because the nameless cat was staring at me. His big round eyes shone like two moons, catching the morning light slipping through the curtains.
I raised my hand. He pondered it for a few seconds, then slowly moved forward and rubbed his soft head against my palm. For some inexplicable reason, it made me feel better. The cat rubbed against me again and settled on the bed to make muffins. I slid down to the floor.
“Beast?”