“You sit in on their strategy sessions. There are no cameras here. Nobody would ever know if you chose to share a few drops of information. Help me, and I promise to compensate you. If I become the spouse, I will have unprecedented influence on the Dominion. You and your inn won’t regret it.”
I stopped before the door to her rooms. “We’ve arrived.”
She gave me a frustrated stare. “You truly don’t know what’s good for you.”
I flicked the door open.
“Will you tell him?” she asked.
“I keep the confidence of my guests. All of them.”
Amphie marched through the doors, and I shut them behind her. Beast woofed once softly by my feet.
“I agree,” I told her, and we headed down the hallway to Nycati’s quarters.
I never fully bought Amphie’s earnest act. Every selection candidate was extraordinary in some ways, the best each delegation could offer, and the Dominion was a place of nuance and political maneuvering. Amphie was projecting an earnest sincerity that bordered on naivete, which was absurd because nobody would send an innocent into this process. The preparation for selection began as soon as the Dominion realized that Kosandion would be able to keep his throne. Even if she had started as a sweet young flower, years of education and preparation would have shaped her into a clever, ruthless political operative.
Amphie was ambitious. There was no question about it. She didn’t want Kosandion, but she definitely wanted the power that came with being the spouse and the mother to the future heir. And she wasn’t above holding that future power over my head. Being blacklisted by the Dominion would damage Gertrude Hunt’s standing.
I had no idea what Nycati wanted.
We were still nowhere near figuring out the identity of the hidden assassin. At first, I thought Pivor was it, so I breathed a sigh of relief. But then it occurred to me that a hidden assassin would’ve been less sloppy. Kosandion’s information indicated that the assassin was a highly skilled professional. Pivor had barely covered his tracks. I’d asked Kosandion’s thoughts, and he agreed with me. Pivor was a curveball out of left field. Someone still wanted to murder Kosandion.
And we hadn’t heard anything more from Wilmos’ kidnappers. I felt like a skier midway up the slope of a steep mountain, eyeing the buildup of snow at its apex. Eventually it would break and become an avalanche, and I wasn’t sure we could dodge it.
I didn’t want anything bad to happen to Kosandion, and not because we would lose Gertrude Hunt.
Nycati had chosen a white robe that floated around him like a cloud, a striking color against his amber skin. A silver ornament, shaped like a melting snowflake, rested on his long hair. He gave me a brisk nod, and we proceeded down the hallway without a word.
Gaheas royals lived dangerous lives, and they remembered debts, those of others and their own. I knew his secret, which gave me power over him and made me his least favorite person. He would retaliate to reclaim that power. I just didn’t know how or when. He had requested a game of Dominion chess with the Sovereign. Dominion chess was played on a twelve-sided board with 60 different pieces. It was insanely complex, and a single game took forever. Maybe his revenge was to bore me to death.
We stepped into the gallery. Orata’s cameras were already floating, recording our arrival.
“Candidate Nycati,” Kosandion said.
“Greetings, Sovereign.”
I pulled a small table with the chessboard out of the wall.
“Shall we?” Kosandion nodded to the chess board.
“One moment.”
What moment? No moment. Sit at the table and play chess.
Nycati gave me a smile. “It occurred to me that staying at the inn is a once-in-a-lifetime chance for new experiences, so I wondered if I could impose on our host and ask for a different setting.”
Aha. I nodded. “What did you have in mind?”
“Something unique and extraordinary. I want to see something I would otherwise have no chance of witnessing in my lifetime.”
Not just something he hadn’t seen but something he would never see in his lifetime. This had to be his stab at revenge. He thought he could stump me. The entire Dominion was watching and so was the Innkeeper Assembly and half of the galaxy.
Kosandion raised his eyebrows.
I had to make this good. The floor under our feet shifted, carrying us up. I raised my hand, and the wall in front of us fractured, spinning to the sides.
“Your wish is granted.”
A large room opened in front of us, the tall ceiling supported by square wooden columns, unstained so the rich grain of the wood was clearly visible under the resin. The floor flowed like a river, with currents of malachite and brown onyx twisting as they flowed to the dais at the far end of the room. The walls were the same stunning wood as the columns. Metal screens in shades of silver and white gold showed odd creatures with gemstone eyes. Elegant paintings hung on the walls.
The dais supported a throne. It was a rough, simple seat, carved from a translucent white stone traversed by blood-red veins. They spread through the stone, sparse in some places and dense in others, and the throne glowed in the light streaming through the massive open doorway and large window.
Beyond the doorway, a balcony of polished gray stone wrapped all the way around the room, sheltered by an overhanging roof held up by massive stone columns. The vast plain that rolled into the distance was so far below, the sea of grass and isolated copses of trees looked like a miniature built by an artisan crafter.
The detail was breathtaking. No two columns were the same, no two stone reliefs mirrored another. But it wasn’t just about the detail. Stepping into this space was like entering an entirely different world, completely foreign and yet so cohesive, so refined that being in it was effortless. It was as if you suddenly found a better version of a room, where everything was in its most natural place, and you too became a part of it. Leaving it filled you with regret.
The two men held still, taking it in.
“What is this?” Kosandion asked finally.
“The Seat of Drífan Liege Adira of Green Mountain.”
Shock slapped Nycati’s face.
The Drífen were one of the great mysteries of the galaxy. Their entire solar system existed within a dimensional rift, and it was deeply magic. The sun, the planets, the moon, the plants, the animals, the beings inhabiting it, everything existed within this magical biosphere, connected and shaped by it. The Drífen didn’t trade with the outside worlds. They didn’t exchange emissaries, although some of them traveled through the galaxy for their own secret reasons. The only way to access the worlds of Drífen would be if one of the planets wanted you there, and then it would summon you whether you liked it or not and make you its own.
Sean and I hosted a Drífan Liege during Treaty Stay, an innkeeper holiday, months ago. Her emissary showed us a holographic projection of her throne room, which the inn recorded. I had made her quarters with elements from that image, but the throne room haunted me. Before Adira left, I’d asked her permission to replicate it. I didn’t have to, but it felt right at the time. She agreed.
I’d been working on this space for almost half a year, tinkering with it when I had a moment. I’d started over three times, but I finally got it close. It still wasn’t perfect, and it would likely never be finished. For one, the topography outside was all wrong. The Green Mountain view was that of mountains sheathed with forests. I wanted the height, so I built it in Wancurat, one of our lesser used doors, on top of a giant fossilized megatree.