Endgame Read Free Page B

her before you sent it.” Jani heard her own voice, soft and steady, and wondered at her calm. “But not to your religious suborn. Not to the one you’re training to take your place. Not to me.”
    Tsecha stilled, his hesitation obvious. Weighing his words—another humanish habit he had adopted. “You have learned much these past months, but not enough to contribute to this level of discourse.” He looked across the room at Jani, the backlight casting his face in shadow, obscuring his expression. “Not yet. In time, yes, I will discuss these matters with you in the same depth as I do with Meva, but until that time…” His voice had grown quieter, the usual booming baritone thinned and drained. “I must be sure of the logic of my arguments. Rauta Shèràa Temple will take any error and use it to render the entire treatise as nothing, and I cannot allow that to occur.”
    Jani pushed away from the wall and paced the workroom. It was the largest and most well-appointed space in the small house, which was located in the heart of the Thalassan enclave. Tsecha had claimed it as his own despite the objections of ná Feyó Tal, the dominant of the Elyan Haárin and his nominal superior, who felt he should reside within her enclave. But bowing to authority had never been one of Tsecha’s traits. Neither is listening, come to that. “You’ve called the entire concept of Wholeness of Soul into question. One of the cornerstones of Vynshàrau faith.”
    â€œMost other bornsects believe in the concept as well, to their great detriment.” Tsecha once more turned his face to the window. “It is an argument that needs to be made.”
    But do you have to make it now? Jani kept her comment to herself. She’d never held back her own actions for the sake of anyone, family or lover or friend. Maybe this was just life’s way of paying back with interest. “The new meeting room’s not ready. Dathim told me he’ll have to work through the night.”
    â€œYou change the subject, nìa. Have I angered you that much?” Tsecha shut the pane, then turned and walked to his worktable, a V-shaped stone slab that took up almost a quarter of the room. “So he will work. So he will complain. And still the room will be completed on schedule, and the visit will take place tomorrow, as is planned.” He fussed with a stack of wafer folders. “It is a social visit, nìa. So Governor Markos has told us. A courtesy call. I do not know why you worry so.”
    Jani stopped in front of the table and studied her old teacher. Read their shared history in his stark, high-boned face, the mutiny, and the subterfuge, and the lies. “Governor Stanislaw Markos of the Commonwealth colony of Elyas is coming here to ask you to act as go-between for him with Wuntoi and the other anti-Cèel bornsect dominants. He’s bringing with him the governors of Amsun and Hortensia.”
    Tsecha rolled his eyes, but the gold on gold shading of his sclera and irises blunted his attempted display of humanish irritation. “I know all this, nìa. I do not know why you are telling—”
    â€œSecession. Elyas wants to secede from the Commonwealth, and Amsun and Hortensia and the rest of the OuterCircle want to go with her. They believe Cèel is on the way out, and the Vynshàrau with him, and they want to make nice with Wuntoi and his Pathen because they’re the likeliest successors. That’s why they need you. They know they’ll need the support of the Outer Circle Haárin to have any hope of pulling this off, and the Haárin support Wuntoi as the next Oligarch.” Jani planted her hands atop the table, spread her fingers, pondered her gold-brown skin. “This could blow up fast. You should be keeping your head down now, for the sake of Markos and the others, if not for your own, and instead you’re attracting