Page 114 of Only Cold Depths
VESPER
“Hello,Mother,”Idrawled,my voice as cold as the air wafting through the cavern.
Nerezza strode forward and stopped beside Esmina, who looked back and forth between us. I had surprised the precog by figuring out she was working for my mother, but it hadn’t been too difficult. Nerezza craved power more than anything else, and getting her hands on the Techwave cannon was one way to improve her own position.
“I figured it was you.”
Nerezza arched an eyebrow. “How?”
I gestured at Esmina and Pollux. “Because you always send other people to do your dirty work.”
Nerezza held her arms out wide. “I’m right here in the thick of things, doing my own dirty work.”
“Sure,” I replied. “Afterthe actual hard, bloody work is done, like letting the mercenaries attack the Collier estate instead of doing it yourself.”
Esmina and Pollux looked at each other. My mother ignored the mercenaries, so she didn’t see the acknowledgment flicker across their faces.
“I’ve been wondering where you slithered off to after the Regal midnight ball. I just didn’t think you’d wind up on Sygnustern.”
A smile split Nerezza’s mouth. “What can I say? I have friends across the galaxy.”
“I think you mean marks instead of friends. You told me all about your social engineering talent, remember?”
“Social engineering?” Pollux asked.
“Oh, yes. My mother is quite proud of her little magic trick. How she can figure outexactlyhow to manipulate someone to get what she wants.”
I looked at Esmina. “It’s just another form of our seer magic, and my mother is a master at it. Even you, with all your precognition, didn’t realize what she was truly doing, did you? How she was subtly moving you around like a pawn to further her own goals.” I clucked my tongue in mock sympathy just as she had earlier. “Now who’s the weak link?”
Esmina’s face remained smooth, but her eyes glittered with anger. I didn’t know what Nerezza had promised her, but she’d fallen for at least some of my mother’s lies, just as so many other people had.
I turned my attention back to Nerezza. “After you fled from the Imperium, I’m guessing you went straight to General Ocnus. You pretty much had to, after I outed you as being a Techwave spy.”
Nerezza’s lips pressed into a thin, angry line. That was her only visible reaction, but I didn’t need Kyrion’s telempathy to realize how much she hated me for ruining her position in Regal society.
My own mother hated me.
The knowledge stabbed deep into my chest, and for a moment, I couldn’t breathe. Even now, after all the horrible things Nerezza had done, a sliver of my heart still hoped she might have a shred of concern for me, that I might be the one person she cared about, in her own diabolical way.
But my mother had never cared about me, and she never would, and I might as well have wished for a Frozon moon to plummet out of the sky and drop into my lap. I drew in a breath, steadying myself. The hurt didn’t fade from my heart, but I could bear it now.
“I bet General Ocnus didn’t like you spying on him for Callus Holloway, but I’m guessing you used your social engineering ability to talk your way out of trouble.”
Nerezza’s eyes crinkled with amusement. “People tend to listen to me.”
“I’m guessing General Ocnus didn’t listen so much as he commanded.”
Nerezza’s amusement vanished, and the dark, petty part of my heart thrummed with satisfaction at wiping the smug smirk off her face. “What do you think Ocnus commanded me to do?”
“Find me, capture me, and force me to fix the Techwave cannon.” I hefted the weapon in my arms, and Pollux and the other mercenaries tensed. “This cannon. Without it, General Ocnus can’t kill enough Arrows and soldiers to topple the Imperium.”
I lowered the weapon, and Pollux and the mercenaries relaxed. Idiots. They should have killed me and pried the cannon out of my cold, dead hands the second I’d arrived, not let me stroll into their lair. But Esmina, Pollux, and Nerezza thought they’d already won, and they wanted to taunt me with their victory.
“How did you know it was me?” Nerezza asked, circling back to her original question. “That I hired the mercenaries?”
“I didn’t know—at first. But Esmina and Pollux weren’t interested in turning me over to Holloway to collect the bounty. Then they broke into the House Collier mineral exchange. At first, I thought they just wanted to hurt the Colliers, but then I realized the mercenaries had stolen a variety of gemstones, as if they needed them for something specific. Like, say, figuring out how to fix a broken weapon. That’s when I started thinking about the Techwave cannon.”
Once again, I hefted the cannon in my arms, causing the mercs to flinch, but that was okay. The more they focused on me, the easier it would be for Asterin and Zane to slip into the cavern.
