CHAPTER 8

The palace sprawled like a coral reef on a seabed, sprouting wings and structures that housed enough officials and advisors and soldiers and royals to populate a small town. One of the branches was Central One HQ, an imposing military building where Operation Kingfisher had its headquarters. It was on the opposite side of the palace from Kiem’s rooms, but he knew the way. He’d worn a path from the residential wing to General Tegnar’s office every time she was back on-planet, since she all but slept at her desk—though that had been years and years ago.

“So, Colonel Lunver took over Operation Kingfisher from Taam, huh?” Kiem said, as they walked through the gardens laid out between the inner and outer buildings of the palace. “Is she a friend of yours?”

Jainan hesitated. Kiem was getting used to Jainan’s hesitations. Not much came out of his mouth that hadn’t been thoroughly weighed and considered beforehand. “I knew her. She’s worked with Taam before. I don’t believe she would consider me a friend.” He ran one gloved hand along the edge of a low wall as they walked, clearing the snow in front of a flower bed full of bare woody stems. “Major Saffer is a different matter. Taam had a close friendship with him. He would frequently come over for dinner.”

Kiem’s gaze snagged on a tangle of stems in the flower bed and he forgot the conversation. He lunged to catch Jainan’s wrist. “Watch out—”

A small bird erupted from the thicket with a screech of fury, rocketing up into the sky and narrowly missing taking a slice out of Kiem’s ear with its razor-sharp wing pinions. Jainan had jerked back, away from Kiem’s lunge, and now looked up at it in incredulity.

“Ground nesting,” Kiem said apologetically. “They don’t like being disturbed.”

“I will never get used to your wildlife,” Jainan said.

“They don’t generally mean any harm,” Kiem said. He poked a careful finger into the nest it had left behind. “I think they use the creeper flowers to line their nests. There’s not a lot of greenery around at this time of year.”

“Ah,” Jainan said, sounding faintly startled. Kiem saw him examine the climbing creepers at the back of the flower bed and notice the pale, nearly transparent flowers unfolding under the few dark leaves that hung on through winter. “I didn’t realize anything was flowering.” He glanced up at the sky as if the bird might come back, but it had probably found somewhere else to shelter for the day. “It might be charming if that creature hadn’t just tried to kill you.”

Kiem brushed a stray twig off his elbow as they emerged from the gardens and into the front yard of Central One HQ. “It was just being … you know.

Enthusiastic. Which entrance do we take for the Kingfisher offices?”

Kingfisher was in a different part of the building to his mother’s old stomping grounds, and Kiem didn’t know the labyrinth of alabaster corridors very well.