“Then forget about how much you hate all the dead Kyzers and help me fight against Dracon.”
“If I believed you could stop a war, I might be tempted,” said Vac.
“I’d be lying if I said I could stop a war, but I’ve got more power to stop it than you do.”
“Or I could win the war without your help,” Vac said. “So why don’t you stop pulling on my heart strings and just make an old-fashioned deal?”
“Fine,” said Jaysynn. “I want Kyrie free, and I want Dracon to think I’m dead.”
Vac nodded. “I want information. Tell me what Dracon is up to, and I’ll consider it.”
“Consider it?”
“When last we talked,” said Vac, “you were not exactly forthcoming. You’ll get no promises from me. But I’m giving you a chance and that’s something.”
Jaysynn looked at Coonhil, who nodded to him, indicating he should take the offer. Whether he should trust Coonhil’s advice that he trust Vac, he didn’t know. Nonetheless, he pulled a chair up to Vac’s desk and the two men sat.
“Dracon is trying to rally Thyrians around their hatred of Remirion,” Jaysynn said. “He was publicly blaming Remirion for the Cataclysm, but he knew they weren’t responsible.”
Jaysynn didn’t tell him what little he knew about Project: Godfire, but said simply that he suspected that Dracon may have had some connection to the Cataclysm. He also made some vague comments about the size, strength, and mobility of the military, but skirted around anything too specific so as not to encourage a counter-invasion.
Vac was full of questions, but Jaysynn answered everything with some version of, “I’ve already told you everything I know.”
At last Jaysynn ended the questioning. He stood and said, “This deal was supposed to go two ways. Now if word is going to spread that I’ve been killed, we need people who believe it with all their heart. So we’re going to need to come up with a plan.”
Vac walked toward Coonhil and motioned for Jaysynn to come. The three of them gathered around the bookshelf and spoke in low voices.
“We won’t waste a minute planning,” the governor said. “I’ll tell you exactly what we’ll do. Coonhil, you head down the hall like you’re going to get a drink of water. Act sneaky about it. But then go into the little armory and get a poison dart—make sure it’s just a tranq. Then give it to the guards outside the door and tell them to follow you in the office, to take down Jaysynn with the dart, then to carry him down to the prison.” Vac pointed to Jaysynn. “Later tonight I’ll have those same guards carry you down to the graveyard and drop you in a cheap casket. I’ll order them to keep it a secret, but they won’t do it. They are just here because this is one of the few things they can do that will earn them a meal for the day for their families. They aren’t paid to keep secrets like that. It’s too big a duty to ask of them. So when I do ask, they will break their word. Then Coonhil will drop the bug in the ears of a few of his men. It will spread as a rumor and these guards and a couple others that see you in prison will come out of the woodwork to confirm it. Clear?”
“Clear,” said Coonhil. “But should I have a story to tell the guards about why they are taking Jaysynn out in the middle of a peaceful conversation?”
“Right,” said Vac. “Here’s the story: Jaysynn is trying to cut a deal with me. He’s trying to get Thyrion and Remirion to join peacefully, so Remirion will once again be a part of his family’s empire. And he is offering me to be governor of the colony. Otherwise there will be a war, and he’ll make certain I die like a dog.”
“Sounds good,” said Coonhil.
Jaysynn shuffled the plan around in his head. He asked the governor, “And do I have your word that Kyrie and I will both go free at the end of all of this?”
“You have my word,” said Vac.
“Alright,” Jaysynn said. “I’m in.”
“But there is one last thing I want to know,” Vac said. He closed his eyes and blew a deep breath out of his nostrils. “I’m prudent enough that I ought to keep this to myself,” he went on. “But every time your mother was pregnant…I wished she would die. I wished someone would push her down the grand staircase at the Palace. Two Kyzers in one blow. That’s what I wanted. I wanted your father to be crippled by the grief of it. So here’s what I want to know: how can you trust me not to bury you alive, or not to hold you and the girl in the dungeon and torture you till your life is over?”
Jaysynn stared at Governor Vac. There was a great weight on the emperor’s face. He was filled with fear, but also with courage and all the pain that comes with it. “I don’t trust you,” he said. “I’d like you to think that it’s more practical to let me go than to torture me. I’d like you to think it’s better to send me away with your blessing rather than to crush me out of hatred.”
Vac waited for him to go on. After a moment he did.
“It’s a leap of faith,” he said. “I just have this feeling that I’ll find another crack in the world.”
Vac swallowed Jaysynn’s reply. “Alright. Then I’m in, too.”
He looked Coonhil in the eye and pointed toward the door.
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