Page 146 of Reaper Said Mine

Horus IV began with language like this. Not the same words, not the same players, but the same clean distance from bodies. Acceptable risk. Civilian disruption. Strategic pressure. Instability management. The vocabulary powerful people use when they want murder to sound like weather.

When I open my eyes, Theryki is looking at me.

She smiles.

The expression is small, polite, and utterly lethal.

“Skahar,” I say.

“I see her.”

“She knows something changed.”

“She knows you received something.”

“Can Vakka trace the sender?”

“Already trying, I imagine.”

Vakka’s voice comes through my ear, dry and annoyed. “I do enjoy being correctly assumed competent.”

Skahar’s implant clicks softly. “Take it to Gnash.”

“Here?”

“No. Not here.”

I look at the room again. Gossip flows like current. Aides whisper in clusters. Gobold laughs too loudly near the far arch. Wilcox watches everyone with military exhaustion she cannot quite hide. Theryki begins walking toward us, her robes whispering over the floor.

“Too late,” I mutter.

Skahar does not move. “Then bite cleanly.”

Theryki reaches us with a glass of something pale gold in one hand. “Ms. Ramone. Skahar. I hope I am not interrupting.”

“You are,” Skahar says.

I nearly laugh despite the situation.

Theryki’s smile does not flicker. “Then I will endeavor to make the interruption worthwhile. Ms. Ramone, I wondered whether you have found the evening informative.”

“Very.”

“I am glad. Informal settings often reveal what formal sessions conceal.”

“That does seem to be the theme.”

Her golden eyes settle on my compad. “Still working, I see.”

“Occupational hazard.”

“One wonders where journalism ends and advisory influence begins.”

There it is. Not a dagger in the ribs. A needle beneath the fingernail.

I meet her gaze. “Usually at the point where someone tries to make the question sound more scandalous than the evidence.”

“How elegantly defensive.”