Sleep found her somewhere between one thought and the next.
It was not deep.
She dreamed without images, then opened her eyes.
For a moment she did not know why.
The room remained still.
Her pocket watch ticked beside the bed.
Kimia reached for it.
Two thirty-five. Twenty-five minutes.
Council.
She sat up.
The medication resisted only slightly.
Good.
Her head felt wrapped in a thin layer of cloth.
Not ideal. Acceptable.
She stood.
The kaftan had wrinkled beneath one arm.
Kimia smoothed it.
Then went to the mirror.
Hair. Again. Tail. Again.
Face.
Her eyes remained hers.
Mostly.
She worked the comb until everything lay according to intention.
The duchess reassembled more slowly this time, but she assembled.
Kimia retrieved the watch and returned it to her pocket.
Two forty-one.
Nineteen minutes.
She opened the door.
Tarkhe was there. The indrel was there. Two shadows whose shapes never quite matched hers.
Tarkhe looked at her.
“Too tired?”
“No.”
“Dizzy?”
“No.”
“Confused?”
“Only politically.”
“Baseline, then.”
Kimia almost smiled.
“Zhe council. Let's go.”
They went.
The council chamber lay in an older part of the palace.
The room had existed in some form for centuries. Walls had been replastered. Lighting changed. Heating installed. Then electrical service. Then televox connection. Then computer terminals. Furniture replaced, repaired, and replaced again.
The table had survived.
Long. Dark. Scarred beneath layers of polish.
People had argued across it before House Chityala possessed its present name.
Some had probably believed the questions before them would matter forever.
Kimia found this comforting.
Servants had already prepared the room.
Water in glass pitchers. Coffee. Fruit. Bread for the humans, algae for yinglets or anyone else who had a taste for it. Shellfish packed into crushed ice for anyone. Small dishes of pickled vegetables.
No alcohol. Again.
Kimia sat at the head.
Her bodyguard took its position behind her.
Tarkhe chose a chair against the wall.
Kimia looked at the shellfish.
Small silver-blue things in split shells.
She took one.
Cold. Salty. Perfect.
Something ancient in the yinglet brain approved before Kimia had formed an opinion.
She ate another, then drank water.
The combination steadied her.
Not spiritually. Chemically, perhaps.
Sometimes the distinction was unnecessary.
The first councilor arrived at two fifty-one.
Trokhym.
Human. Peshtulan.
He entered carrying a small folder beneath one arm and wearing the expression of a man who had accidentally wandered into government and had not yet discovered the exit.
This was deceptive.
Trokhym dressed plainly. Spoke plainly. Asked questions that occasionally sounded almost stupid.
People underestimated him, often only once.
He ran House Chityala's intelligence apparatus.
Not merely spies.
Reports. Intercepts. Political assessments. Foreign dispatches. Domestic security. Merchant rumors. Military observations. Televox monitoring.
The enormous daily accumulation of things people had said, done, threatened, concealed, misunderstood, or believed.
Trokhym knew more about the world than he usually admitted.
Kimia knew this.
More importantly, Trokhym knew that Kimia knew.
Their conversations therefore contained fewer games than his conversations with almost anyone else.
He sat.
“Afternoon.”
“Trokhym.”
“You look tired.”
Tarkhe made a noise from the wall. Kimia ignored him.
“I am.”
“Good.”