The Lost Stars: Tarnished Knight

Was Malin a dupe in this, someone who could be fooled into being her messenger? Or is Malin actually working with her? Was that incident on the orbiting platform merely theater, a preplanned event that would make it appear that seriously bad blood existed between Malin and Morgan so that no one would suspect them of working together?

But how did Togo miss signs of that kind of collaboration? He never told me—

You can’t trust anyone.

Anyone.

Iceni looked at Drakon, who was watching her and waiting for a response. Part of her, the instinctive part, told her to hold that man as far from her as possible and work at limiting his power and eventually neutralizing him completely. Drakon was the only one in the star system with the power to threaten her directly.

But what if that was the wrong answer? What if her only real chance was to invest a measure of the little trust she could spare in a man who was either a lunkhead dumb enough to sleep with an insane bitch or cynical enough not to care that he was breaking one of the few rules he himself had set and was risking his own position for a short period of pleasure.

Or he was being manipulated, despite his power, by those beneath him.

“Many CEOs make the mistake of worrying only about those above them,” a mentor had once confided to Iceni, “when they should be worrying about what those below them are up to. It doesn’t take a lot of strength to make someone stumble. All it takes is knowing when to drop a tiny obstacle in front of their foot. And who knows how to do that better than the people you might barely notice as they do your dirty work?”

“General Drakon.” I am going to regret this. I know I am. Just do it. It’s the last thing anyone will expect. “I would like to meet with you personally. As soon as possible. Neutral ground, no aides or assistants.”

He studied her, then nodded. “All right. The usual place? I can be there in half an hour.”

“I’ll see you there.”

* * *

AFTER the conference room door sealed, Drakon sat down, watching her and waiting.

“I’m going to do something stupid,” Iceni said.

“Really? That sort of thing seems to be going around,” Drakon said in a half-mocking, half-bitter way. “I hope it’s not as stupid as what I did.”

“I’m going to tell you that I may have just killed a man with a carelessly worded statement.” Iceni explained what had happened, then waited for his reaction.

“Why did you tell me that?” Drakon asked. “You know what I could do with that information.”

“I am . . . trusting . . . that you will not.”

He smiled for the first time that she could recall since his return from Taroa. “You’re right. That’s stupid. Fortunately for you, I’m even stupider. I don’t want anyone rummaging through the skeletons in my closet, so I’m not going to send anyone to go looking in yours. That’s the kind of precedent that can bite back hard. As for what happened, or might have happened, to Buthol . . .” Drakon shrugged. “Don’t lose any sleep over it. If you made a mistake, then you know what not to say next time.”

Could he possibly understand? “Under what possible interpretation is a mistake that kills someone acceptable?”

Drakon looked away from her. “President Iceni—”

“Call me Gwen, dammit.”

He seemed briefly taken aback. “All right. Gwen, do you have any idea how many battles I’ve been in and how many little mistakes I’ve made? And how many soldiers died because of those mistakes?”

“That is different. You were trying to do your job, you were learning—”

“It doesn’t feel that way. Not if you’re worth a damn.” This time Drakon appeared surprised at having gruffly admitted feeling like that.

“Then you do understand. Forget what we’ve been taught. Forget all the lessons we learned on our way to the top of the Syndicate hierarchy. Is this what we want? The ability for someone in power to kill on a whim, or by mistake?”

She had expected some argument, expected defensive anger, but Drakon instead sat silent for a long while before replying.

“Neither of us is perfect,” he finally said. “Both of us are human enough to make more mistakes than we should.”