Making him a diplomat was a terrible idea. Kiem found himself starting to grin.
“Sure,” he said. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
“That is certainly one way of looking at it,” Vaile said. “It seems they’ll be searching for more ambassadors to the Resolution soon as well. I’m sure you’ll have a flourishing career in the Diplomatic Service.”
“Vaile,” Kiem said. “I’m not going anywhere near the Resolution.”
Vaile gave him a small smile. “I’m glad at least someone in my family almost has themself together. Ah,” she added, just as Kiem was trying to work out if that was a compliment or not. “Speaking of family.” She nodded over to the double doors that led out from the reception room.
The doors had swept open to admit a group of latecomers in military dress, bedecked with medals and rank emblems. The crowd opened like a flower around them. Kiem took one look and groaned. “Oh, great.”
“Kiem?” Jainan detached himself from his conversation and discreetly fell in beside him. “What’s wrong?”
“My mother,” Kiem said, under his breath. “She’s not supposed to be here yet. She must have taken an earlier shuttle. Argh.” He wondered for a fleeting moment if one of the gilded chairs would give him enough cover if he concealed himself behind it and thought chair-like thoughts.
“Kiem!” A short, stout woman, her uniform bars sagging with the weight of medals on them, emerged from the center of the group.
Kiem raised a hand. “Welcome back, Mother.” He gave Jainan a sorry this is probably going to be awful look and held out his arm. Jainan took it, and they approached her together.
“General Tegnar,” Jainan said, bowing. Kiem bowed as well.
Kiem’s mother looked them up and down. “Well, at least you two are in one piece,” she said. “No sooner do I hear you’re married, Kiem, than I hear you’ve lost your partner to some sort of kidnapping.”
Kiem raised his head from his bow. “Mother!”
“He didn’t lose me,” Jainan said. Kiem tried to shoot him a sideways apologetic look, but against all odds, Jainan was obviously trying to suppress a smile as he looked down at her. “I conveniently located myself in a classified military facility, which you must admit is hard to misplace.”
Kiem’s mother snorted. “Could say that.” Her face crumpled into something even sterner, like continental collision happening on an accelerated timescale. “Heard about Fenrik. Kingfisher. Bad business all around.”
“Have you heard what’s going to happen?” Kiem said.
“Word is they’re retiring him,” his mother said shortly. “Might bring me back to Iskat.”
“Ah,” Kiem said. He tried and failed to process how he felt about having his mother back on-planet. “Good?”
“Thean,” his mother said, examining Jainan. “Hm. I hear on the grapevine you’re handy with a quarterstaff.”
Jainan inclined his head. “I do my best.”
“You’ll have to show me.” Kiem’s mother folded her arms and stared at Kiem. “Hear you hijacked a shuttle.”
Kiem felt tongue-tied and lumbering and cowardly, as he usually did when confronted with his mother’s judgment. “It was for a good cause.”
General Tegnar reached up a hand and unexpectedly clapped him on the shoulder. “Bet it was. Good show. Your Thean must be a good influence. Kiem wouldn’t even shoot at a target when we sent him to camp,” she added to Jainan. “Hope you can light a fire under him. Needs some backbone. Some ambition.” Her tone at the end turned hopeful.
“I don’t think he needs to join the army to prove any sort of backbone, ma’am,” Jainan said gravely. “And I don’t believe you seriously think he’s going to.”
“Sharp. Oh, well,” she said philosophically. “This diplomacy thing isn’t bad. Soon have you out in the system representing us. Military attaché.” She swept a look up and down him, winced, and appeared to reconsider. “Cultural attaché.” Kiem felt slightly like a pebble under the exhaust of a shuttle that had just launched. He managed a cultural-attaché sort of bow, but she wasn’t looking at him. “Oh, there’s the Fifth Division. Must talk. Jainan, come and find me tomorrow about the quarterstaff.”
She gave them both a nod and strode off. Kiem let out an explosive breath, half frustration and half laughter. “Could have gone worse,” he said. “Sorry about that.”
The smile was still playing around Jainan’s mouth as he watched her cross the room. “I see what you meant about her,” he said. “She’s not very like you.”
“I understand her about as much as I understand the Emperor,” Kiem said. “Did I tell you Vaile’s trying to make me a diplomat? I’m hoping I can quietly slide out of it.”
There was a flash of something curious in the glance Jainan gave him. “Yes, you wouldn’t enjoy that at all,” he said. “Imagine you trying to cope with meeting people, talking to people, persuading people to agree on things…”
“Wait,” Kiem said. “Wait, what? One argument with the Emperor, fine, but I’m not clever enough for—” He broke off. “I’m not used to the other stuff. That’s politics.”
Jainan didn’t reply immediately. Instead, he took two fresh glasses of champagne off an attendant’s tray and handed one to Kiem. After taking a sip, Jainan said, “I would like it if we went to Thea for a proper visit.”
Diplomatic missions went to Thea. Of course, so did tourists. “We’ll definitely go,” Kiem said slowly.
“Think about it,” Jainan said. “I suspect you would be very good at it.” He slid his arm into Kiem’s again and politely brushed off another conversation. The reception seemed to be getting into its stride; the younger staffers from Rtul and Kaan had split off into a noisy group around them. “How many more people do you think we’re obliged to talk to?”
“None,” Kiem said instantly. “Let’s find one of the balconies.” He steered them toward the balconies at one end of the observation hall: bubbles of glass that bulged vertiginously out of the dome, giving an uninterrupted view of the stars. They might be open to the galaxy, but they were the only shot he was going to get at having some privacy with Jainan.
“Kiem?” Bel had slipped out of the crowd and stood between them and the balconies. Both of them stopped. She looked unsettled, less put-together than she normally did, and her eyes on Kiem were accusatory. “Did you have anything to do with the job I just got offered?”
“What?” Kiem said. “No! Wait. So she did offer you a job.” He realized he wasn’t helping his case. “I didn’t have anything to do with it. Why would you think I had something to do with it?”
“Because it’s exactly the kind of thing you’d do,” Bel said.
Kiem cast a glance of appeal at Jainan. “It is exactly the kind of thing you would do,” Jainan said.
“Hey,” Kiem protested. “It wasn’t me. That would be shooting myself in the foot.” That wasn’t the thing at stake, though. He shouldn’t influence Bel’s choice; he tried to make his voice more neutral. “The Emperor made you a job offer.”