When the officer stiffened to attention as Amanda thumbed her print and her DNA onto the lock, the prince’s champion was certain of it.

Amanda caught her breath as she read, studying the first page carefully as if verifying for herself the message was real enough, then paging rapidly through the electronic file. Her matronly air deserted her for a moment, replaced with a kind of sorrowful resignation, which was quickly chased away by a calculating frown that looked very familiar to Julian. Anyone involved in the politics of the Inner Sphere knew that look. Julian had seen it before on Harrison, and quite vividly on Harrison’s son and heir, Caleb.

He’d even seen it in the mirror once or twice.

And it never followed good news.

“What is it, Amanda? How bad?” A prickly touch crawled over his scalp.

“Bad enough,” the duchess replied, “especially if we were hoping for stability within The Republic. And it is going to strike close to home as well, Julian. In fact, there is not one Great House or realm that shan’t feel this at some level.”

She had that sorrowful look again. One that spoke of seeing too much of this kind of news. Julian usually guessed correctly. Even so, he had not prepared himself for this.

“Victor Steiner-Davion is dead.”

Terra

The Republic of the Sphere

13 January 3135

“If this is going to be the next three years of my life, I’ll resign now and save myself the ulcers!”

Skylights warmed the exarch’s formal receiving office at the Hall of Government. Natural light soaked into the red cherry wainscoting and gleamed in the room’s bronze accents. Wood polish and leather richly flavored the room that had been nicknamed “The Bullet” by paladins for its unusual shape; one end wall of the long, rectangular room bowed outward and was set with floor-to-ceiling windows.

On good days, The Republic’s leader might stand in that semicircular alcove and stare out over Geneva’s Magnum Park. Fifty acres of cultivated grounds, including the Trees from Every World and some of The Republic’s most beloved monuments.

This was not one of those days.

Pacing the width of the office, traipsing back and forth over the Great Seal of The Republic, which lay on the other side of his desk from the magnificent windows, Jonah Levin ground his aggravation into tiny shards beneath the heels of his dress boots. His path cut the room in half, dividing his baroque mahogany-and-bronze desk from a more comfortable sitting area. The carpet mosaic robbed him of any satisfying stomps, however, and the Latin motto Ad Securitus per Unitas mocked him with every pass. Through unity, freedom.

Or if read another way: Through security, freedom.

He wondered, not for the first time, if Devlin Stone was having a joke on his successors.

Just as he, at the moment, was having a dark jest of his own at the expense of his guests.

Paladin Heather GioAvanti stood respectfully in front of the leather divan, hands clasped in front of her. She wore her formal white-and-gold paladin’s uniform, but softened the martial appearance today by letting her blond hair fall soft and loose from the clips that pinned it behind her ears. She faced Paladin Gareth Sinclair across a small table, and he stood next to one of the two oversized armchairs, shifting from one foot to the other. Gareth was tall and wiry, with green searching eyes that never held still.

Heather’s face was unreadable, her gray eyes cloaked. She was experienced in the ways of Republic politics as well as military campaigns. Sinclair, less schooled at this level of power, was unable to hide his scandalized frown, for which Jonah was thankful.

The man could still be trusted.

“You don’t really mean that?” Gareth asked when silence bottomed out after the exarch’s threat of resignation.

The hell he didn’t—was what Jonah wanted to say. Staring intently at the young paladin, Jonah let his after-lunch mint burn with peppermint coolness at the back of his throat. Had he been as naive as Gareth once? When idealism mattered more than hard facts?

And hadn’t that been only a few weeks before?

“No,” Jonah admitted, reluctantly, “I don’t.”

He’d never lived his life that way. Fifty years old, Jonah had always stepped up when called and taken his best swing at the job. As MechWarrior, and then as a Knight of the Sphere. Later, inducted as one of the seventeen—eighteen, really—paladins. His oath, once given, was inviolate.

“But be damned if I’m not going to complain from time to time,” Jonah told these two. His former comrades. Now two of his most trusted paladins—by process of elimination, if nothing else.

Both had been instrumental in managing the recent troubles on Terra, and Jonah had no choice but to rely on them. His election to the post of exarch had not come without sacrifice, chief among them being trust. Not even his paladins had proven themselves immune to the politics of destruction. Every paranoid report that crossed his desk, every dirty secret from The Republic’s history Jonah was now privy to, they weighed. Oh, how they weighed.

And it was to the shame of all humanity that it had to be so.

“All right,” he finally decided. But he did not return to his desk, that mahogany and bronze monstrosity that might have served better as a dining table than office furniture. He took a seat on the divan next to Heather GioAvanti, waving the other two back into their places as well. The supple leather stretched and complained, but was supremely comfortable. There were perquisites to the position.

“So where are we exactly with Prefecture IX?”

Prefecture IX was the latest in a series of catastrophes to befall The Republic. Clan Jade Falcon, using as their excuse their pursuit of the Steel Wolves, had struck through House Steiner space. Their grab for Republic worlds had been ruthless and extremely effective. So far.

Paladin David McKinnon worked to keep a handle on that region of space. But Heather had spoken to the Founder’s Movement champion most recently, catching him before he departed on a follow-up mission to Lyons.

“The Jade Falcons continue to dig in and improve their position,” she reported. “They control every world that matters except Nusakan and Lyons, all military industry within that region, and the economically rich worlds of Ryde as well. They chose their targets very carefully.”

“None of which mattered so much before Landgrave Jasek handed over the world of Skye.” Gareth sounded ready to strangle the wayward landgrave.

It was the latest news, and the reason for Jonah’s earlier outburst. Interstellar media concerns would have a field day when it broke through public channels. Jonah could look forward to a plague of questions on this topic for at least the next two weeks. Skye’s fall to the Jade Falcons would certainly redirect headlines away from the recent riots and military action in Geneva, but as silver linings went, it was thin, thin.

“As goes Skye, so goes the Isle,” Gareth intoned darkly, obviously thinking along similar lines.

Heather nodded, though not entirely in agreement. “Jasek Kelswa-Steiner did engineer Skye’s delivery to Jade Falcon control, but there is a certain method to his madness. Even David McKinnon called it ‘inspired insanity,’ and I have to agree. The Jade Falcons now carry Skye on their backs like a millstone. With luck, it will grind them down.”