The Arrival #2
Yuki Mendel-Ashenmere stood at the head of the Ashenmere receiving line in a pale-gray suit that looked simple until you noticed the cut, the fabric, and the fact that every person in the room had oriented themselves around her without being told.
Yuki held the receiving line at a frequency I recognized. Iron under silk. Jurisdiction that didn’t require presence to enforce itself. Mama ran her kitchen the same way. I’d been trained to recognize this woman since I was four.
She’d been head of the Ashenmere council for eighty-one years. Chess grandmaster, in human terms. Her public photograph hadn’t been updated since 1994 because she’d refused every formal sitting since.
Her face was at most thirty. Her eyes betrayed her true age.
I took my place at her left shoulder in the translator’s position. She gave me one look. Calm, appraising, and not remotely surprised to find me there. Then she nodded once. Permission.
Dominic took his position behind Yuki at three paces.
For about four seconds.
Then he moved just enough that he was no longer entirely behind Yuki. Enough that his line to me was clear. Two Ashenmere elders looked at him, then at me, then away.
The Norwegian delegation walked in.
Three men in Northern formal coats. The elder in the middle was Bjorn Solberg, Martin Solberg’s brother and senior diplomatic proxy, handsome, broad through the shoulders, and pale-haired.
The second dragon, tall and silent, took the left flank.
Security, most likely. He was very still.
Someone had told him to be a wall, and the assignment suited him.
Rhain Solberg walked on Bjorn’s right. He was younger than the other two and made no attempt to hide it.
Not young. No dragon in that room was young by human standards. But Rhain carried his years differently. Lighter. Brighter. He moved through the room. He didn’t endure it.
Rhain’s smile arrived first. The smile from the briefing. It was warmer in person. Twice as calibrated. From forty feet away, I could see it: a smile that read as friendly to people who hadn’t built a shield of their own.
He looked at me.
Across the hall, with three dragons and four humans between us, Rhain Solberg looked at me and his face did the same thing Dominic’s had.
The smile didn’t change. Rhain Solberg had trained his face out of changing in front of strangers. Behind the smile, a small narrowing. A flicker.
Two for two. I was beginning to develop a suspicion about what kind of week I was about to have.
Behind me, Dominic let out a tight exhale.
Three Ashenmere elders held the line at Yuki’s left. The fourth from the head was Morag Vale. Cane against the heel of her boot. Face a careful blank.
Rhain went to her before Yuki. He bent his head as he passed. Not the standard bow allowed for council elders. A deeper one. The one reserved for centuries.
Morag didn’t return the bow. Her chin dipped, barely, and held. She’d marked him and let him pass.
Behind Rhain, Bjorn allowed himself an amused huff.
Yuki began the introductions. Bjorn went to her first. He stopped three steps short of her. Yuki didn’t adjust. She held her position at the head of the line and waited.
Bjorn inclined his head. The bow was correct but a half-second too long. The other dragons didn’t look at each other.
Something was off. I didn’t know what I was watching. Rhain had gone briefly still on Bjorn’s right. Two of the Ashenmere elders had found something fascinating about their own hands. The silent Norwegian security dragon was looking at a wall as if the wall was his long-lost lover.
Yuki said nothing. The exchange lasted perhaps two seconds. Then the room re-leveled itself by silent collective agreement. Bjorn took a half step back.
Yuki turned to the rest of the delegation. Rhain crossed the floor with relaxed precision. He’d been taught exactly how much charm a hostile room would tolerate before charm became an insult.
“Lord Solberg.”
“Yuki Mendel-Ashenmere.”
“Welcome to Ashenmere.”
“It’s a pleasure to be received.” His voice was lighter than I had expected. Norwegian-inflected English, consonants precise, cadence trained. A diplomat’s voice.
“The State Department translator,” Yuki said. “Catalina Cordero.”
Rhain’s eyes came to me. I’d practiced what my face was going to do for this exact second. My face did approximately seventy percent of what I’d practiced.
The other thirty percent was unavailable due to dragons.
“Ms. Cordero.”
“Lord Solberg.”
“Cordero,” he repeated. He let it rest in the air.
The smile changed by half a degree. “Lamb, in Spanish. Yes?”
“That’s right.”
“And do you live up to the name?”
“I’d say no.”
His smile widened. “Pity,” he said, and somehow made the word sound less like disappointment than invitation.
He was a foot inside the boundary diplomatic protocol prescribed. I could smell his cologne, something with juniper in it, and underneath the cologne, the warmer base note of dragon under skin.
It was nothing like Dominic. Dominic smelled like cedar and heat held under stone. Rhain smelled like cold air, sharp green branches, and trouble that had learned table manners.
I didn’t move. Neither did he.
Yuki, beside me, didn’t turn her head. Bjorn, behind Rhain, hummed under his breath. I am watching this and not interfering yet.
Dominic’s attention sharpened behind me. I didn’t see him move but I felt the room account for the possibility.
Rhain noticed. His gaze flicked over my shoulder. To Dominic. Then back to me.
Something passed between them too quickly for language. Old acquaintance, read at speed. Dominic’s warning was quiet. Rhain’s answer was amused.
Rhain took a small step back. Half an inch. Not enough to restore the protocol distance. Enough to acknowledge the warning.
“You speak Norwegian, I’m told.”
“I do.”
“Where did you train?”
“Georgetown. Then Oslo for two years.”
“Oslo.” A small pleased inflection. “Where in Oslo?”
“Frogner.”
“My grandmother’s neighborhood.”
“Du m? snakke norsk med meg en dag.” You must speak Norwegian with me one day.
I answered without thinking. “Vi kan begynne n? hvis du vil.” We can begin now, if you wish.
His head tilted.
I’d answered him in his grandmother’s dialect, which wasn’t Oslo standard. I’d learned it from a Northern roommate ten years ago. A detail a translator wouldn’t have offered unprompted.
He noted it without changing his face, without changing his cadence, without giving me any indication that he’d heard it at all.
Which, unfortunately, gave me every indication.
He had heard it. He would keep it.
“Ms. Cordero.” The pause was a quarter of a second longer than the cadence required.
“Lord Solberg.”
“I look forward to many conversations.”
“Likewise.” The word came out smooth. It was the only part of me that did.
He moved on at the right pace. In the right direction. With the right small adjustment of his coat. He greeted the rest of the Ashenmere council in formal cadence. He did everything correctly. And he did all of it with the smile on at the right setting.
Behind me, Dominic let a breath out slowly. A choice. Working very hard not to be the most dangerous thing in the room.
When the receiving hall began to disperse, I stayed at Yuki’s left shoulder.
The 21:00 cable was already drafting itself in the back of my head.
Davis. Norwegian delegation arrived 13:17 local.
Bjorn Solberg, R. Solberg, one unnamed security.
Stopped one half-step short of protocol distance to council head.
Significance unclear. Continuing observation. Report. Three sentences.
I had two weeks and I was going to need every minute.