Adena catches it too. “I think it’s worth a try, sir,” she answers defensively.
“You won’t have long to work,” the Speaker warns.
“We won’t have long to fight, either,” I answer with my hands. Jeran translates my words, and all eyes turn to me. “The Federation has pushed back our warfront. We have reached the end of our choices,” I finally sign. “If we don’t act now, we will fail.”
So it has finally come to this. The Speaker looks around the room, surveying the expressions of the other Senators and the Firstblade. They are murmuring to each other, but I can see the glint of hope in their eyes. The Speaker observes this for a moment, hesitating, then turns back to me.
“Very well,” he grumbles reluctantly. He nods at Adena. “You have my permission to study this Skyhunter, but know that you’ll be watched very closely. Report everything back to me, and leave nothing out. Do you understand?”
We all lower our heads to him. The marble floor beneath me glints cold in the evening light. Beside me, Red does the same. Jeran is right. The Speaker sees Red mostly as a weapon—I catch the glint in his eyes over the possibility that we might win this war. But even now, his distrust of me is woven into the air, that somehow this is all my elaborate ruse to take Mara down from the inside. I could hear it in his voice, the belief that we are not going to figure out what the Federation did to Red, and even if we could, we won’t do it in time, not before the Federation sends their soldiers and Ghosts crashing through our walls.
But it doesn’t matter what he believes. We have run out of options. And for the first time, that means that the Speaker of Mara will have to put his trust in a Basean rat.
13
Only three Striker patrols and the Firstblade are allowed to stay in apartments on the National Plaza’s grounds. Our training in silence and speed means we make good bodyguards, and so these Strikers act as the Senate’s, tasked to protect them in a rotating shift whenever they aren’t training at the arena.
I’ve only ever seen the apartments as a set of distant towers along one side of the Plaza, fortified on all sides by steel beams pulled from the Early Ones’ ruins. It never occurred to me that I’d now be setting foot inside one—let alone living in here, and at the personal order of the Speaker, no less.
Adena and Jeran take the first apartment in our new corridor, while Red and I head for the one at the end of the hall. We step into a spectacular room, opulent far beyond anything I could have imagined. The walls are creamy white and lined with ornate marble pillars that stretch up to high ceilings. Morning light slants bright across a black-and-white-marbled floor. Each of the windows stretches from top to bottom and is bordered by white curtains. Furniture carved with curling details decorates our shared central room, while our two bedchambers branch off in opposite halls.
I let out a breath at the sight. This place is bigger than my mother’s entire street in the Outer City.
Red stops in front of the glass cabinets located on both ends of the main room. They’re weapons cabinets specifically designed for our Striker equipment, with secure slots for each of our blades and daggers and guns.
Fancy, I tell him through our link.
Unnecessary, he responds.
For what you’re about to do? I raise an eyebrow at him. This is the least they could offer.
He doesn’t answer, and when I glance at him again, he’s already stooped down to appreciate the intricate construction of the cabinet. I just roll my eyes, a smile forcing its way onto my lips.
We each pick one of the bedroom halls to inspect, then pass each other by to look at the other. One of the rooms is noticeably larger, with a writing desk in one corner and a closet large enough to be its own room.
I want the bigger bedchamber, Red says through our link, his arms crossed as we stand together in the second one.
I scowl at him. How chivalrous of you.
What does that mean?
I don’t bother trying to explain. Besides, I add, I’m the veteran.
I lived in a dungeon for a month.
I have more clothes than you.
I’m the one who got us these apartments. He gives me something