The Consuming Fire (The Interdependency #2)(85)

This prompted Kiva to look for Marce Claremont, whom Kiva was almost certain the emperox was now banging, and good for her. Kiva had liked Marce, who had been a solid if not especially imaginative lover and a decent human being in a universe that didn’t put a premium on that. That made him probably a good match for the emperox, who also appeared fundamentally decent and was probably also a solid if not adventurous bang. Not everyone could be an adventurous bang. Not everyone needed to be an adventurous bang.

That said, Kiva didn’t see Marce anywhere in the room. It was instead filled with the Interdependency’s political and economic A-list: important members of parliament, the heads or directors of noble houses, a smattering of admirals and generals, even a few bishops, including Archbishop Korbijn. Everybody at the party who was not serving drinks or finger foods outranked Kiva by a significant margin, which confirmed to her that she was at the party because she and Grayland were now gal pals or something.

Something spangly caught Kiva’s eye; she turned and saw the fucking Countess Nohamapetan on the floor, talking animatedly to Jasin Wu and Admiral Emblad, both of whom were politely attentive but also clearly didn’t give a shit about whatever she was blabbering about. Kiva starting doing the calculus of just how much trouble she would be in if she tuned up the countess right there on the fucking ballroom floor. The calculus was not in her favor; Kiva decided to get a drink to see if that would change any variables.

Before she could flag down a drink mule, one of the side doors to the ballroom opened and the emperox was announced; everyone stood and clapped while Grayland II entered, accepted their applause and walked toward an ornate lectern at the front of the ballroom. The emperox was clearly poised to give some remarks, and possibly give out some pointless fucking awards. Kiva groaned inwardly. If she’d known it was going to be that kind of event, she might have skipped out. She looked around the room and saw a couple hundred really important people who were having roughly the same thought as she was.

“Come on,” Kiva muttered under her breath, “let’s just get to the address at parliament and go crack some fucking skulls.”

As Grayland waited for the applause to die down, she acknowledged a few people in the room, waving or smiling or pointing. Grayland eventually found Kiva in the crowd and smiled, but as her eyes began to track away, she did something else.

Wait, did she just fucking wink at me? Kiva thought, and looked around the room again, to see if there was anyone else the wink might have been directed to. There was no one near Kiva that she thought Grayland would give a single real shit about. So, no, it had definitely been directed at her.

Kiva wished that she had gotten that drink earlier. Something was telling her she might be needing it soon.

“Hello, my dear friends,” Grayland said, after the applause had died down. “So many of you here today. It is a delight to see you, you who represent what could be the very best the Interdependency has to offer, in leadership and in commitment to our union. I know you are all anxious to see how I will embarrass myself in front of parliament”—this line got dutiful chuckles—“but before I do that I have a few presentations to give. Please indulge me. First, will the Lady Kiva Lagos come up to the lectern?”

The fuck? Kiva thought, as she walked to the lectern to very polite applause.

“Lady Kiva, in a very short time you have shown yourself to be astute and extraordinarily competent in business,” Grayland said. “When I thrust you into a custodial directorship at the House of Nohamapetan, no one would have expected that you would have done so much to clean up the house’s finances and rebalance their books. You truly represent the best that the noble houses have to offer. As such, I am now appointing you to the vacant seat on the executive committee of the Interdependency. Congratulations, Lady Kiva.”

There was applause to this, and then some woman walked up to Kiva with a fucking crystal thing, which Kiva took numbly in one arm, the other arm finding its way to Grayland, who stepped back from the lectern to shake Kiva’s hand. Kiva leaned in close.

“I don’t want this fucking job, Your Majesty,” she said, quietly, in Grayland’s ear.

“I know,” Grayland said. “I need you there anyway. Sorry.”

Kiva smirked at this and turned to go back into the crowd, but Grayland caught her by the elbow. “No,” she said. “Stay up here, a little behind the lectern.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“You’re not going to want to miss this,” Grayland said, and then stepped back to the lectern and called up Archbishop Korbijn.

The archbishop arrived at the lectern, dressed in archbishopric finery, or so Kiva supposed, since she didn’t actually attend church with any regularity, although she had once had sex in a cathedral, which was great, if you like cold and echoey, which Kiva discovered she didn’t so much.

“You said to me that you wanted to address an issue with me today, here,” Grayland said to the archbishop. “Here’s your chance, Archbishop.”

Kiva watched the archbishop step up to the lectern and then noticed the look on a number of the faces in the crowd: uncertainty and confusion. A few were muttering to others. More just looked unhappy.

“Your Majesty, in the last month there have been grave and important concerns about your conduct,” Archbishop Korbijn said. “Your visions of the future of the Interdependency, while comforting to many of our parishioners, have also generated legitimate apprehension among the powerful, in our church and outside of it, about your state of mind, and, yes, your sanity.”