Chapter 122 The Council of Thirteen (Plus One)

“Absolutely not,” said Lyra.

“I haven’t said anything yet,” Arthur replied.

“You were about to say ‘I’ll go alone.’ I can see it in your face.” Lyra slammed a stack of ledgers onto the war-room table hard enough to make the tea cups jump. Her silver hair was pinned up in a severe knot, and her violet eyes burned with a fury that had absolutely nothing to do with finance. “I have spent eight years building a currency that doesn’t collapse when you leave the room. I am not letting you walk into a trap built by your own voice.”

The war room of the Apex Estate had never been so full. Every consort was there, along with a map of the Spur, a floating hologram of the hexagon fleet’s last known positions, and a plate of pastries that Nisha had brought and was currently defending from Ignis.

“I wasn’t going to say that,” Arthur lied.

“He was going to say that,” Katherine said gently, without looking up from her diagnostic slate. She sat at his right with her braid over one shoulder and her pen tapping an anxious rhythm against the table. “He always does. It’s very endearing and also extremely irritating.”

“Thank you, Katherine.”

“I’m so proud of you for accepting the criticism.”

Across the table, Valerie unrolled a tactical map and pinned it down with her dagger. “Option one: a full fleet deployment. Three armada groups, a dwarven siege-hull, dragonkin air support. We crush the Grid’s presence at Terra-Prime and ask questions afterward.”

“That is exactly what it wants,” Celeste said, pushing her spectacles up. “It said come home. It sent bait. If it wanted to kill him, it would have done so. A show of force plays directly into its prediction models.”

“So we send a small team,” Vespera purred. She was draped across her chair like a particularly smug cat, one stockinged foot swinging. “Elegant. Surgical. Discreet.”

“Fourteen people is not small,” Greta muttered.

“It’s fourteen, now?” Iris asked weakly from the end of the table, where she had been sitting very quietly in a borrowed Commonwealth uniform and clutching a cup of tea like a lifeline.

“You were voted in last night,” Nisha said. “Keep up.”

“I haven’t agreed to—”

“Your tail is wagging,” Ignis pointed out.

“I don’t have a tail!”

“Metaphorically.”

Arthur raised a hand. The room quieted. It always did, in the end.

“Here is what we know,” he said. “The Grid is not a person. It is a pattern of my own thinking that grew teeth. It says I’m carrying something it needs. It built a world, and it wants me to walk into it. If I refuse, it’ll find another way. If I go carelessly, it will win.” He looked around the table, meeting each woman’s eyes in turn. “So we go carefully. We go together. And we go prepared.”

“I like the word ‘together,'” said Katherine, and smiled up at him.

“I like the word ‘prepared,'” said Valerie, sharpening a dagger.

“I like the word ‘fourteen,'” said Vespera, and winked at Iris, who dropped her tea.

The briefing lasted four hours.

By the end of it, they had a plan. A small, fast, deeply stubborn team would go through the rift in the Sovereign’s Grace. Valerie and Ignis would handle security. Celeste and Katherine would break down the Grid’s signal. Greta would keep the engines running. Elena would carry the medical bay. Lyra would manage resources, because Lyra always managed resources, and Vespera would “gather intelligence,” which everyone understood to mean seduce the enemy’s secrets out of them.

The rest of the household would hold the Commonwealth together in Arthur’s absence: Aria running the academy, the Halfling twins balancing the treasury, Nisha keeping the trade lanes open.

Departure was set for the next dawn.

Which left one very long, very tense night.

Arthur was standing at the balcony of his study, watching the twin moons slide toward the sea, when he heard the door open behind him.

He didn’t turn. He knew the footsteps.

“You’re brooding again,” Elena said.

“I’m thinking. It’s different.”

“It’s brooding. I’ve watched you do it since you were seven years old, Arthur. You pace, and you rub your thumb against your index finger like you’re counting something.” She came to stand beside him at the balcony rail, a small figure in a rumpled white coat with her silver-framed glasses perched crookedly on her nose. She looked tired. She also looked worried. “Do you want to tell me about the thing in your soul?”

Arthur let out a slow breath.

“I don’t know what it is,” he admitted. “I’ve never felt it. When I woke up in this world, the first thing I did was check for a system, a spirit, a curse, anything. There was only me.” He rubbed his chest absently. “But the Grid insists I’m carrying something.”

“Then there’s one way to find out,” Elena said briskly. She pulled a small crystalline scanner from her pocket. “Sit.”

“Elena…”

“Sit, little brother.”

He sat. Elena ran the scanner slowly over his chest and then his temples while her expression moved from skeptical to puzzled to something quieter and more worried.

“There’s a pocket,” she said at last.

“A pocket?”

“In your soul-signature. A small, perfectly sealed void, about the size of a seed.” She frowned and adjusted a dial. “It’s dormant. It isn’t hurting you. But it isn’t part of you, either. It’s like something was planted there. Carefully. Deliberately.” She looked up at him, and her voice dropped. “Whoever did it, Arthur, did it before you ever died.”

The cold feeling in his gut sharpened.

“You’re saying someone installed this in me. On Earth.”

“Or something did.”

Arthur stared at the dark horizon. He thought about the sniper’s bullet, and the moment between life and death when he had wished, really wished, for a world of wonder. He thought about a spark in the dark.

“I wished for a new life,” he said slowly. “And it was granted. I always assumed it was luck.”

“Maybe it was,” Elena said gently. “Or maybe someone was listening.” She put a hand on his shoulder, sisterly and firm. “But here’s what I know, because I’ve known you for thirty years across two lives: you are not a tool. Not for the Grid, not for fate, not for anyone. Whatever’s in that seed, you decide what it does.”

Arthur covered her hand with his own and squeezed once.

“Thank you, Elena.”

“Don’t mention it.” She straightened up, dusted off her coat, and managed a smirk. “Now go. I can hear Lyra pacing outside the door like an angry lioness, and I’d rather not be the one to explain why you’re still talking to your sister.”

Lyra was, in fact, pacing.

She stopped the moment he stepped out. She wore the deep violet robe from before, and her silver hair was down, and the look she gave him could have melted steel.

“You have exactly one night,” she said, “before you walk into a trap.”

“I’m aware.”

“I intend to make sure you remember why you’re coming back.”

Katherine appeared at her shoulder in a thin indigo nightgown, blushing already. Behind her stood Vespera, with a glass of wine and a villainous smile. Behind her came Ignis, tail swishing, and Nisha, ears twitching, and Valerie, who looked deeply embarrassed but had come anyway.

“It’s tradition,” Nisha said brightly.

“It’s not tradition,” Valerie protested.

“It is now.”

Arthur surveyed the doorway, the women, the very pointed glances, and the sheer volume of lace.

“I’m going to need a bigger bed,” he said faintly.

“We have a bigger bed,” Lyra said. She took his hand and tugged him toward the master suite. “It was installed specifically for this.”

“When?”

“Three months ago.”

“Lyra!”

“Strategic planning, darling,” Lyra said sweetly, and the doors swung shut behind them.

What followed was long and warm and loud with laughter, and nobody in the estate’s west wing slept particularly well that night. By dawn Arthur had a dozen new bruises, a headache, three separate promises to return safely, and a very strong sense that he was the luckiest man in two worlds.

Iris was the only one awake at sunrise.

She stood alone on the observation deck of the Sovereign’s Grace, wrapped in a coat two sizes too big, watching the rift ripple open beyond the viewport. The stars shifted and bent.

She had her hand in her pocket.

In her pocket was a tiny hexagonal chip, no bigger than a thumbnail. She’d carried it for six years. She had told the others she’d destroyed every piece of Grid code she’d stolen.

That wasn’t quite true.

The chip pulsed once, faintly warm against her palm.

“Don’t tell them,” whispered a small, familiar, patient voice, so quiet only she could hear it. “Not yet, Captain. I’m so close to the truth. And it would hurt him so much if he knew.”

Iris closed her eyes.

Behind her, the dawn light spilled across the deck, and the rest of the family began to arrive in sleepy, laughing, bickering groups. Arthur was among them, hair messy, wearing a gentle smile, and he met her eyes and raised a hand in a quiet greeting.

Iris smiled back.

Her fingers tightened around the chip.

What have I done?