Eve of Destruction (17 page)

She frowned. “You mean before we go home.”

“Don’t look at me like that,” he pleaded. “I want to know what’s going on as much as you do, but it’s not safe here, Eve. Forget the Vakari—I don’t trust anyone, including our hosts. And you know Chaval will try again.”

“He’s going to be president,” she reminded him. “If he thinks I’m a threat to him, it doesn’t matter where we run.”

Zach sighed and brought a hand to his temple. “Let’s just be careful, okay?”

She smiled tightly and grabbed his hand. “I don’t need to be careful. That’s what you’re for, remember?”

“Right,” he muttered. “In any case, Aram said it will be awhile before Danev gets back. He was hoping to contact some of your mom’s old college friends.”

“Hopefully they’re still alive,” she said gravely. “Though I have to admit a part of me almost doesn’t want to know.”

His brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

Eve squeezed his hand once then pulled away. “I loved the mother I knew. I’m not sure I’m going to love this other one we keep hearing about.”

“It’ll work out,” he soothed, though she could tell by his tone and sinking shoulders that he had been thinking the same thing. He just didn’t want to show it in front of her.

She smiled. Whatever did come of all this, the one thing she did know is that she couldn’t imagine being here without him. Even when she saw right through his stoic reassurances, they still worked. Mostly.

“I know,” she told him. “Now get out of here.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Why?”

“I need to get dressed,” she said with a wink.

“Oh, right,” he mumbled, and she had the satisfaction of seeing his face flush just a bit as he left the room.

Eve smiled again and cracked open her suitcase.

Chapter Eight

 “Every time you walk through that door I’m hoping you have a miracle in your pocket,” Karyn Marose said. She stood near the floor-length window on the eastern side of her office, one hand propping up a glass of red wine and the other dangling at her hip. The purple velvet folds of her robe of office were as pristine as ever, and the golden trim complimented her dark hair nicely.

Glenn Maltus stopped a few feet into the room and let the door swing shut behind him. “I’m sorry I have to keep disappointing you.”

The silhouette of her lips curled into a faint smile before she finally pivoted to face him. “I’m getting used to it. Every day we pray for one and none are forthcoming.”

“It’s going to take more than faith to see us through this, I’m afraid.”

She grunted and finished her glass before setting it down on her nearby desk. “So why are you here, Glenn?”

Maltus took a deep breath and walked over to the window. It looked out upon the majesty of Selerius, the most gorgeous and vibrant city in Arkadia and perhaps all of Toerth. This tower itself was a shining, sky-scraping spiral and a testament to advances in modern architecture. Karyn, like the long list of magi before her, was the rightfully elected mayor of the city. In the last few years, she’d been attempting to build a wider support base to challenge the impotency of President Janel in the coming election. As it turned out, she should have been focusing on Simon Chaval. After Kalavan, the hope of a magi returning to the presidency was dim at best. 

Karyn was the only member of the Valmeri Seven that Maltus had remained in regular contact with since he moved away from Tara in Lushden. Karyn, like him, had left most of her radical ideals behind when she left Valmeri and ventured out into the world. By now, a career in politics had surely scrubbed off the rest.

Early in her career, she’d been an idealist actively pushing forward many of the notions their group had advocated—things like the expansion of temples and healing magic into rural areas, the open development of new technologies and medical science, and so forth. But as the Industrialists grew in strength, she had slowly sunk deeper into the rut that marked her social class as clearly as the expensive wine, the robust library, and three-story mansion. She, like most magi, had become terrified of change, for they had so very much to lose.

“A few reasons,” he said. “My superiors want to assure you that the election is still their top priority.”

“Well, that’s good to know, now that there’s no time left to win it,” she muttered, unceremoniously dropping into her chair. “Do you people even watch the polls?”

“I don’t particularly trust them.”

“Yes, well, they’re all we have, and they don’t look good. Actually, they look downright abysmal.”

“There are those in the Enclave who believe the election can be salvaged. They wish us to spend resources cultivating goodwill in the time we have left.”

Karyn leaned forward. “Glenn, we have less than three weeks—nineteen days, to be precise. It’s over. People around here are already scurrying around trying to pick up the pieces for the mid-term parliamentary elections. Or they’re running around like headless chickens claiming the world is about to end…”

Maltus cocked an eyebrow at her. “You never used to be the quitting type.”

“He’s thirty points ahead, for Edeh’s sake. He has enough support to control parliament without a coalition. That hasn’t happened since—”

“Janel may drop out,” Maltus interrupted. “Most of his voters would flock to you. It would narrow the gap.”

“He won’t, but even if he did it wouldn’t matter.” She ran a finger through her graying hair and closed her eyes. “Please tell me you came here for something more than this.”

“I was instructed to relay that message. That doesn’t mean I agree with it.”

Her eyes opened. “So what do
you
think?”

“I think whether we like it or not, Simon Chaval is going to be the next president of Arkadia. Polls can be rigged, numbers can be skewed, but those are all huge risks with no guarantees.”

“So you’re one of the doomsayers, then.”

“I’m a realist,” he corrected. “And I’m not suggesting we give up. I’m saying we need other options.”

Karyn’s face soured. “Why do I get the feeling I’m going to like this even less?”

“Because you’re a smart woman,” he said, smiling tightly. “The Magister’s Council has informed me in no uncertain terms that Chaval will not be allowed to come to power. You can guess what the options are from there.”

“Remove him and create a martyr,” she said. “We start a civil war, and then someone worse rises in his place.”

Maltus pressed his lips into a thin line. “Whoever steps in to fill the vacuum would be an improvement.”

“And how do you know that?”

“He wouldn’t be Simon.”

She locked eyes with him for a long moment before sighing and lowering her head. He turned back to the window and had to hold back a sigh of his own. It wasn’t much of an answer, he knew, but he believed it regardless. Like any revolutionary group, the Dusties were more about an idea than an individual person. But in this case, that idea—namely that industry and technology, not magic, were the future of Arkadia—was so interwoven with one particular individual that it was difficult to separate them. Whoever rallied the rabble would not be as calculating or precise as his old friend. Simon was a rare man, one of those incorrigibly charismatic and insatiable figures who emerged only once in a few generations. Maltus had no doubt the man’s successor could be dangerous, but he would not be the same.

Still, that didn’t mean killing Simon was the best course of action. It wasn’t even a particularly good one.

“It’s not much of an option,” he admitted, “but it is on the table. The other ones might be even less pleasant.”

“We can’t fight a civil war,” she told him. “Not now, not like this. There are times I think we’re barely a nation as it is. Something this divisive…”

“The resources are in place. I don’t think anyone is under the illusion it will be clean or tidy, but it may be the only choice.”

“I can’t accept that, Glenn. And I can’t believe you would, either.”

He grimaced. “There is something else. I assume you heard about Tara’s murder?”

She nodded. “I heard. There were some tasteless jokes around here about the alleged Prophetess not foreseeing her own death.”

“I know you two had a falling out,” he said, letting his voice cool, “but she was our friend once.”

“Glenn, I understand you two were close, and I didn’t wish her ill,” Karyn told him. “But you have to admit she was…frustrating.”

 “She was terrified, and with good reason,” he said. “How many people get visions of their own daughter destroying the world?”

Karyn glanced away and sighed softly. She couldn’t understand even if she wanted to, Maltus knew. She had forgone a family for a life of politics, just as he’d done for a life of service to the Enclave. But in his case, he’d been able to vicariously sample that world through Tara. He knew what it was like to have a child, and he knew what it was like to fear for her future.

 Tara’s husband had died a decade ago, and in the years between the two of them had filled a void in each other’s lives. He’d watched her daughter grow, and he liked to believe he’d experienced at least a few genuine moments of fatherhood over the years. For a while, he even knew what it was to be a husband.

If nothing else, it had eventually allowed him to understand why Tara had retreated like she had. He understood why the only thing that had mattered to her was preventing the horror she had seen so vividly in her dreams.

“So, what about Tara, then?” Karyn asked softly.

Maltus released a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “She sent me a wire shortly before she died. She insisted she had something urgent I needed to know, and that I should get on the next train to Lushden.”

Karyn’s cheek twitched slightly. “And you didn’t.”

“No,” he admitted. “I replied to the wire instead and asked for more information. Then a few days later I got the news.”

“If it was really vital, why didn’t she use a sending stone? I assume she knew how to contact yours.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’m not even certain it had anything to do with her murder, but it might have. We hadn’t stayed in close contact since I moved away.”

“You can’t blame yourself for that. You’re a busy man.”

He shook his head. “You don’t understand. They took her journal, Karyn. Simon took her journal.”

She frowned. “Her journal? What do you mean?”

“She was the Prophetess. I know you believed that once, even if you don’t now. Tara might have kept to herself and stayed out of politics, but she continued to have visions her entire life. I know—I knew—Tara. She wrote down even the most minor details if she thought they would ever become important.”

Karyn tapped her fingers on her desk. “How do you know it was Simon?”

“Who else?” he asked.

Her face twisted. “You’ll have to do better than that.”

“Not many other people believed in what she was, and even fewer knew she kept records. Now he’s on the verge of winning the presidency. If anyone knew something that could bring him down, it would be her.”

“You think she threatened him?”

He shrugged. “Maybe. He’s already tried to kill Tara’s daughter once, but I got to her first.”

“Goddess be merciful,” she breathed. “So you think he is looking for something specific?”