The Consuming Fire (The Interdependency #2)(45)

The presence of Assan was a spicy bit of news that the media glommed onto and ran with. Everyone loved the idea of Assan, obsessed with the traitorous Nadashe Nohamapetan, planning her escape with her witless lawyer as their go-between. The lawyer who, incidentally, had jumped to his death while his family was at the zoo looking at miniature giraffes and long-haired otters.

Nadashe pursed her lips at that thought. Alas, poor Dorick. He had had no idea what he was getting into, and probably continued to have no idea, up to and including the moment whichever of the countess’s bodyguards it was pushed him out of that window. At least his family would be well cared for, as long as Dorick had told his wife where his stash of money was, and also the authorities didn’t find it.

No one as yet had seemed to suggest that Nadashe might still be alive. The escape scene featured a body for everyone plus one extra, and what was left in all cases was hardly identifiable. Assan’s presence, for example, had been identified by a titanium signet ring he was known to have been proud of. Nearly everything else had melted, burned and turned to ash. The only ones who knew Nadashe was still alive were the mercs who had retrieved her, and who Nadashe was sure would all find themselves at the wrong end of some death-dealing weapon sometime in the reasonably near future, and the crew of the Blame, none of whom would have any intention of speaking about her presence to anyone else, because their lives and jobs depended on it.

Well, and Nadashe’s mother, who was no doubt wailing up a storm right now down on Hubfall. Nadashe imagined her mother gnashing her teeth and rending her garments, all for the benefit of the various local and imperial investigators who would be looking for something, anything, to suggest that this escape attempt was something other than a horrible failure.

Let them look, Nadashe thought. Meanwhile, she was safe, she was secure, and as much any place could be called it, she was home. The beds were unspeakably soft and the bedclothes were warm and caressing, the food was exquisite, the showers were hot for as long as you wanted them to be hot, and the clothes weren’t all the same fucking shade of orange. Nadashe celebrated by eating a ridiculously large sandwich, taking a forty-minute shower, and then falling asleep under a pile of blankets for most of a day.

She woke up to her mother sitting in a chair beside her bed. The countess had been watching Nadashe while she slept. Nadashe wondered how long it was that her mother had been watching her, and also, idly, at what point the watching would transmute from warmly maternal to something else entirely, something not quite seemly.

Nadashe propped herself up and smiled at her mother. “Hi, Mom,” she said.

The Countess Nohamapetan slapped her daughter hard across the face.

“That’s for killing your brother,” she said.

Then she slapped Nadashe again.

“What’s that one for?” Nadashe asked.

“For getting caught.”

Nadashe rubbed her cheek. “I thought you’d be more upset about Amit.”

“I’m absolutely furious about it,” the countess said. “He was my favorite.”

“I know. So did Ghreni.”

“I didn’t make a secret about it.”

“You might have. Other parents do.”

“I loved your brother. And he would have made a fine consort for the current emperox. And then there would have been a Nohamapetan on the throne.”

“I have to tell you, Mom, that wasn’t going to happen.”

“It could have been managed.”

Nadashe smiled ruefully. “Have you met the new emperox? She’s not manageable.”

“I learned that.”

“So did I,” Nadashe said. “Early on. And when it was clear she wasn’t going to marry Amit, it was time to try again. There are a lot of Wu cousins. We could have made it work.”

“You didn’t have to kill Amit to get to her.”

“There were other complications.”

“Your damn fool plan to take over End. And yes, I know about that,” the countess said when she caught Nadashe’s expression. “You and Amit and Ghreni. You weren’t as clever as you thought you were about covering your tracks when you skimmed accounts to pay for your little adventures. That Kiva Lagos person is going through our financials for the last decade. You’ve put the entire house at risk.”

“That’s mostly on Amit,” Nadashe said. “He was the one cooking the books.”

“But you were the one telling him to do it,” the countess countered. “You’re the smart one, Nadashe. You were always the smart one.”

“I am what you made me, Mom.”

“Not smart enough to keep Rennered Wu, though.”

Nadashe groaned, fell back on the bed and put a pillow over her head. “I’m not listening to this again.”

The countess removed the pillow. “You had one job. Become the imperial consort. I wanted it. The emperox wanted it. We spent years managing that. And you let it slip past you.”

“For the last goddamned time, Mother, I didn’t let it slip past me. Rennered decided he liked fucking a variety of people and didn’t want to narrow down his enthusiasms.”

“You could have dealt with that.”

“I did. He and I had that conversation. I told him he could stick his dick anywhere he wanted, as long as I was the one he had children with. I thought that was what he wanted. A political marriage with benefits. But it turns out he wanted me to be jealous. Or something. He wanted monogamy and true love, and he wanted sex with just about anything that moved. And he was offended that I offered him the sex, which he was going to have anyway, instead of the monogamy, which he had no intention of practicing. He was a pig.”