“What do you mean, why?” Aza scowled at me. “They have always hated us! Their hatred is without basis, without foundation—!”
“No hatred is mindless, not according to the mind of the one who hates,” Teka said, nodding at me. “They hate us because they think we are backward. We follow the currentstream, we honor the oracles.”
“And the oracles, by naming the Noavek family’s fates, have affirmed Shotet’s place in the galaxy,” I said. “But the Assembly didn’t listen. The Assembly didn’t grant us sovereignty. They want to limit the oracles’ power, not magnify it by honoring the fates. And so they hate us, for revering the very people from whom they want to wrest power.”
“That is a bold claim,” Lusha said. “Treasonous, some might say, to suggest that the Assembly wants to strip the oracles of their power.”
“The only treason I acknowledge,” I said, “is treason against the oracles. And I have never once committed that crime. The same cannot be said of our governing body.”
Aza said, “Two seasons ago, Ogra was on the verge of war because the Assembly wanted to release the fates of the fated families to the public, was it not? I read the transcript. You yourself, Lusha, seemed particularly angry about their choice.”
“I didn’t see a reason to break our traditions,” Lusha said stiffly.
“That act,” Teka said, “of needlessly declaring all the fates to the general public, resulted in the kidnapping of an oracle of our planet, and culminated in the very war that we’re in right now. The Assembly sowed the seeds for this war by defying the oracles. And now they want to crush us because of it?”
I didn’t know if she was making any headway. I wasn’t good at reading faces. Nevertheless, she persisted:
“The Assembly is threatened by any planet that is fate-faithful,” Teka said. “It started with us, but don’t think it will end with us. Tepes, Zold, Essander, Ogra—all the fate-faithful planets are at risk. If they can call us backward and orchestrate a war to get rid of us, they can do it to you. We all have to stand together if we want to keep their power limited, as it should be.”
I tried to read Rokha and Lusha’s body language—I was not so poor at that—but it was difficult without understanding Ogran culture better. Rokha’s hands were folded neatly on the table in front of them. Lusha’s arms were crossed. Surely not a good sign, in any culture.
I cleared my throat. “I have an idea, before we even get that far.”
Everyone turned toward me, Teka with her mouth puckered.
“I have met Isae Benesit, Chancellor of Thuvhe. She spent days with Shotet renegades when she was in Voa. She just sent someone to Ogra to talk about an alliance. She knows that we are not the same as Lazmet Noavek.” I lifted my shoulder. “It’s not Shotet that’s the problem for her; it’s the current regime. And we are in agreement on that point.”
“First you say it’s the Assembly waging this war, and then it’s just Isae Benesit?” Lusha demanded. “Which is it?”
“It’s both,” I said. “The Assembly is using Isae Benesit for a reason—they want to follow the law. They won’t attack without cause. So if Thuvhe won’t attack us, the Assembly has no intermediary through which to wage war. The conflict dissipates. Appease Isae, and we appease the Assembly. Unseating Lazmet would appease Isae.”
“Let me guess,” Teka said. “Your proposed solution is to kill him.”
I wasn’t sure how to answer, so I didn’t try.
“You Noaveks,” she said. “Always eager to draw blood.”
“I refuse to choose a complicated solution just because it leaves my hands clean,” I snapped. “I have been urging you all to take Lazmet Noavek seriously since his face first appeared on screens across the galaxy. He is powerful and he holds half of Shotet in his fist. If he is dead, we can reclaim our people and negotiate a peace. Until he is dead, peace will be impossible.”
I was sitting like my mother, I realized. Back straight, hands folded, legs crossed at the ankles. Perhaps she was not my mother by blood, but I carried more of her in me than I carried of the oracle who had traded me for the sake of fate. I had not ceased to be a Noavek. It was not often a comfort, but in this situation, where strength was required, I did not disparage it.
Rokha bobbed their head a few times.
“I think there is a solution here that suits all of us,” they said. “Miss Noavek, since this is your idea, we will arrange for you to propose your solution to Chancellor Benesit herself, on a secure feed. In the meantime, we will open discussions—Shotet and Ogra both—with Tepes, Zold, and Essander. Just to explore our options. Lusha?”
“Discussions, only,” Lusha said, jabbing the table in front of her with one finger. “Covert ones. We don’t want the Assembly to think we are planning some kind of rebellion.”
“We can send our envoys on delivery vessels as they exit the planet’s atmosphere,” Aza said. “The Assembly hardly pays attention to Ogra to begin with—they won’t be checking your flight ledgers.”
“Fair,” Lusha said. “We are agreed, then. Miss Noavek, we will arrange for you to speak to the Chancellor of Thuvhe within a week.”
I felt my pulse in my fingertips. I needed time, more time than I could ask for, more time than they could give me. And even with time, could I really plan to assassinate my own father—could I even do it successfully, given what had happened when I made the attempt on Ryzek’s life?
If you can’t do it, no one can, I reminded myself. If you can’t do it, we’re done for anyway, so you may as well try.
When I stood, it was on steady feet, and with steady hands. But I felt anything but steady.
CHAPTER 32: CYRA
TEKA AND I RETURNED to the small apartment to which Aza had assigned us. It was a single room, with a stove half as wide as the one I had used on the sojourn ship—I thought of its permanent splatters with a sharp pang that made me hesitate with my jacket buttons—and a bathroom we couldn’t both stand in at the same time. Still, there was a little desk where I read late at night, when Teka turned away from the light. She kept tools and wires and computer parts in a box in the corner, and built little things in her spare time, little remote control vehicles with wheels, or a hanging ornament that sparked when the wind blew.
She stripped off her jacket as soon as we were through the door, and tossed it on the bed, its sleeves inside out. I was more careful with mine, undoing each metal button with both hands. The luminous thread was stitched around each buttonhole, keeping it from tearing—a finely made thing, it was, and one I hoped I would get to keep.
Teka was over at my desk, touching her fingers to the page I had left open with a notebook beside it.
“‘The family Kereseth is one of the oldest of the fated families—arguably the first, though they have never expressed much interest in debating that point. Their fates rarely, if ever, guide them toward leadership positions, but rather to sacrifice or, more mysterious still, seemingly unremarkable destinies.’” Teka frowned. “Are you translating this from Ogran yourself?”
I shrugged. “I like languages.”
“Do you speak Ogran?”
“I’m trying to learn it,” I said. “Some scholars say it’s more poetic than most languages—has more rhyming or near-rhyming sounds. I prefer Shotet for poetry, personally, because I don’t enjoy rhymes, but . . .”
She was staring at me.
“. . . I do enjoy the challenge of it. What?”
“You’re odd,” she said.
“You just built a little machine that makes chirping sounds,” I said. “And when I asked you what it was for, you said ‘chirping sounds.’ And I’m the one who’s odd?”
Teka smiled a little. “Fair.”
Her gaze returned to the book. I knew she was about to ask me why I was translating the section about the Kereseth family, and maybe she knew that I knew, too, because she never actually asked the question.