The Lost Stars: Tarnished Knight

Iceni stared at the news item, wondering why it felt not just surprising, but shocking. I can’t fault the timing. Now I won’t have to lose any more sleep over that oaf, and Togo can—

Togo.

What did I tell Togo yesterday? What did I say?

Something about finding a solution for Buthol?

Which Togo could have thought meant I wanted him to get rid of Buthol.

For once in my life, I didn’t want to do that. For once, I wanted to handle it right.

And I might have ordered his death anyway.

She sat looking at her display. Calling in Togo again would serve no purpose. He knew the drill. This wasn’t a routinely accepted thing like sending someone to a public firing squad for failing in their duty. Given the right excuse, anyone sufficiently low-ranking could be disposed of that way without any fuss. But not everyone who needed to be eliminated had committed an offense, and sometimes people who needed to be neutralized had powerful patrons. There were long-established ways of handling that to avoid any personal penalty for the action. If she asked Togo whether he had killed Buthol, or arranged for someone else to do it, he would deny it because that was what he would always do to give her deniability in the matter. She had not said, “Kill him.” Togo would not admit that he had killed him. How many times had they played that game to ensure that any trips to interrogation rooms operated by the ISS would prove fruitless for questioners?

Did you order him to be killed?

I did not tell anyone to kill him.

The subject registers truthful.

Why did it bother her that Buthol was possibly dead at her hand? That damned Marphissa and her speeches about protecting the people.

But it was also about protecting herself, and her people. I had meant to do something about that, to get assassination as a means of personnel management off the list of acceptable actions.

Maybe Drakon did it. Buthol said some bad things about him, too.

She hesitated, then called Drakon.

“Is something wrong?” he asked as soon as he saw her.

That was bad. She was so rattled that she was letting it show. “I was wondering, General, if there were any personnel let go in your office recently?” That code phrase was an old one, a subtle means of asking about assassinations.

Drakon took a while to answer. “No. Not recently,” he finally said.

Either he hadn’t ordered it, or he wouldn’t admit to it. She needed to talk to someone who would understand what had happened. But how could she admit to Drakon that she had possibly ordered a hit? Yes, CEOs ordering assassinations happened all the time, but it was still technically illegal even if a CEO ordered it. An admission of possible involvement would be evidence against her, handed to someone who could use that evidence to help gain total power in this star system for himself.

Had Malin told the truth about Drakon’s intentions? Dared she believe that?

If only that big, stupid ape hadn’t slept with Morgan. I could feel us getting closer, developing some sense of being able to trust each other a little—

A new thought arose, hitting her so abruptly that Iceni hoped her feelings didn’t once more reveal themselves to Drakon. Was that Morgan’s idea? Did she sense that I was feeling more comfortable with Drakon and used having sex with him as a means to shove a wedge between us? She must have known that word of that event would get to me somehow.

Is this part of Morgan’s game? For me to mistrust Drakon, to stop working things out with him because he couldn’t keep his pants on with her? But how could she be sure that I would hear something that I wouldn’t dismiss as rumor . . .

Malin told me.