Warrior and Witch (33 page)
Hyoka looked taken aback at her tone, but nodded again.
They moved on to other topics, then, to the various researches Hyoka’s contingent were still carrying out, but Satomi only listened to it with half an ear. When the Key departed with her stack of notes, Satomi sat for a moment in silence, thinking, before she rang her desktop bell for Ruriko.
The secretary was there immediately. If anything, she was the second most overworked person in Starfall at present.
“Close the door,” Satomi said.
Ruriko did, and at her Prime’s nod came forward and took a seat.
Satomi considered her words for a moment, then set her jaw. “The situation with Eclipse is deteriorating. Mirei will not be able to save him. She’s been trying for two months; if she hasn’t succeeded by now, she won’t.”
“Does he know he’s running out of time?” Ruriko asked.
“Yes. Which is why I called you in here.” Satomi laced her fingers together and stared at them. “Mirei is confident that he won’t hurt her. She cares for him a great deal, and is certain that he feels the same way—enough that he won’t try to carry out the oath.”
She paused there, and it stretched out long enough that Ruriko finally said, “You want to make sure he doesn’t.”
Satomi closed her eyes. “Yes.”
Ruriko’s pen scratched quietly across the paper. Satomi let her make the note; the woman had an impenetrably arcane method of documenting things, and Satomi had no fear that anyone else would be able to sort out what this one meant.
“We can’t lose her,” Satomi said, her voice hardly more than a murmur. “This oath has made it so that one of them must die. He volunteered for that. But if it seems that he is going to lose his conviction—if he makes even the
slightest
move in Mirei’s direction—then I want him out.”
Out
, her mind repeated mockingly.
You won’t even say “dead
.”
“I understand,” Ruriko said. Her pen scratched again, and Satomi felt a tiny amount of relief that she could leave the specifics up to the secretary.
You can pretend your hands won’t have more blood on them.
After a diplomatic pause, Ruriko said, “Is there anything else, Aken?”
Satomi opened her eyes and forced herself to sit up. There was another meeting very soon. “No, Ruriko. That will be all.”
In the conference with Rana and Koika later that day, she told them what she had done with Kekkai.
The Earth Prime stared at her in disbelief. “And you didn’t tell us ahead of time.”
“No.” Satomi sighed and drank a substantial gulp of water. Her head was pounding, and she wanted very much to sleep.
“Mind saying
why
?”
“Why I told Kekkai, or why I didn’t tell you?” Satomi waved away Koika’s irate response before the woman could make it. “Both, of course. I told her because we
need
her back. Having three-quarters of the Fire leadership holed up in Kalistyi—having nothing but the Head Key left here—Onomita’s hardly any use. She played support to the other two, and to Arinei. She doesn’t take her own initiative, and we don’t know how to make the best use of her. We’re not getting Arinei back, so it was Kekkai or Mejiki, and of the two, Kekkai has shown the most indication of thinking that we should still at least be talking to one another.”
“And her predecessor’s the one we had
murdered
.”
“I thought that might carry weight in our favor—not that we did it, but that we confessed it.” Satomi drank more water. She might have to switch to a stimulant tea before the day was over; her energy was flagging and she still had plenty of work to do. “And it may have. It certainly didn’t go as badly as I feared it might.”
“I’m still waiting to hear why you didn’t tell
us
you were taking that risk.”
Because I’m still waiting to see which one of you will walk out next.
The thought jolted Satomi into temporary wakefulness. Was that it? Did she not even trust her two allies anymore?
Rana was sitting in her chair, eyes on the table, not participating in the argument. She was listening, Satomi was sure, but the elderly Water Prime was speaking up less and less often in these councils. Reconsidering her allegiances? And what of Koika, the most vocal Earth Prime Satomi had ever known, diving so eagerly into the situation when many of her predecessors had hardly paid attention to the human politics of Starfall at all?
She reached for her water cup, hand shaking, and knocked it to the floor.
Rana jumped at the sound of shattering ceramic; even Koika jerked. Satomi stared at the spilled water and for a moment couldn’t even think what to do about it.
Then Koika muttered a quiet imprecation and pulled the sash from her dress to mop the table dry. That done, she dragged her chair closer and put one hand on Satomi’s. “What’s wrong?”
“I just need sleep,” Satomi said. Had it been anyone else asking, even Ruriko, she would have put a facade over it, presented the same calm, level face she always did. But Koika was the one person here she truly trusted, apart from Mirei.
Dear Goddess
—
let her be safe to trust
.
Koika therefore saw exactly how tired Satomi was. “Mother’s tits,” she swore. “Satomi, I’ve been telling you all along—you can’t do everything yourself.”
“We’re shorthanded,” Satomi reminded her. “Appallingly so. There are witches on our side, yes, but how many of them are qualified to teach the students? How many have the knowledge and skills necessary to handle our political affairs? I’m not the only person who’s tired.”
“I know,” Koika said, with real bite in her voice. “Mirei collapsed yesterday. Only briefly,” she hastened to add, as Satomi jerked in worry. “Just a bout of dizziness while she was trying to demonstrate some spinning something-or-other to her trainees. Ashin told me.”
If there was one good side effect to this schism, Satomi reflected with sour humor, it was that more witches of separate Rays were talking to each other than ever before.
Koika was still talking. “The point is, neither of you is dispensable.”
“I know,” Satomi said in weary frustration. “That’s why I’m pushing so hard.”
“You’re missing my point completely,” Koika replied, shaking her head. “If you two fall apart, we’re in trouble. So you
need
to rest, and we’ll just find ways around you while you’re doing that. We’d rather cope without you in the short term than the long.”
Satomi bent to pick up the shards of the cup and placed them back on the table. “You two are just as important, you know—you and Rana.”
Koika smiled in triumph, as if Satomi had walked into a trap. “Yes. Which is why
we
are making sure to get enough sleep every night. Right, Rana?” She looked to the Water Prime for support.
“Mostly,” Rana said in a soft voice. Her lined face looked older than ever.
Pulling Satomi to her feet, Koika said briskly, “We’ll deal with Kekkai later. Tomorrow, say. For now, you’re going to rest.”
Satomi snatched her hands from the other woman’s grasp before she could be led toward the door. “There are things I need to—”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Koika said blandly. “Did I give you the impression that you had a choice?”
She started singing then, and Satomi’s tired mind took too long to sort through the notes and pitches and figure out what the spell was, and by the time she made it that far, Koika was done and she was asleep.
The next day, she was furious with Koika’s autocratic decision, but the Earth Prime seemed unfazed. “You’re not the only one who can make decisions without consulting other people,” Koika said, and smiled cheerfully at Satomi’s glare.
It had done some good, though; she had to admit that. The spell-induced sleep was the deepest she’d had in ages. Normally she woke up several times during the night, mind racing with the endless list of things she had to do. Her mind was sharper now, without even resorting to stimulant tea.
So when a sealed scroll landed on her desk, appearing out of midair a short distance above, her first reaction was irritation, rather than the slow-witted confusion she’d been wrestling with for days. Correspondence of this type was not supposed to come to her; it should go to the appropriate Key or Prime, and anything intended for her directly should go to Ruriko instead. That was what a secretary was
for
.
But now that it was here, calling Ruriko in would waste more time than it would save. Grimacing, Satomi picked up the scroll and cracked the seal.
After a moment of reading, eyes growing wider with every word, she reached for the bell and rang it as loudly as possible.
Ruriko appeared in the doorway. “Aken?”
“Bring the other Primes to the council room,” Satomi said. “Immediately. Also Onomita and Mirei. And Ashin.” She thought it over. Churicho and Bansu? No, best not to involve the interim Fire Keys. Best to involve as few people as possible. “Just those five. Tell them to come without delay.”
The secretary nodded and vanished.
Alone in her office, Satomi reread the note, written in Kekkai’s small, neat lettering.
Tungral, sunset, three days’ time. Inn is the Bear’s Claw. Send Mirei to get me out.
“It’s a trap,” Koika said flatly.
Mirei had just enough self-control not to crane her neck at the curled slip of paper Satomi had handed to the Earth Prime.
Trap
? she wondered, curiosity aroused.
