Ivaris - Chapter 8 by Jennifer Raney

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Finally I broke the silence, "What if we sent her a message in writing first, telling her we have information for her about Jovraan and Varren?" I suggested, "then she could decide for herself to see us or not."

"Hm," Seroan said, "someone would open the letter, to make sure it wasn't trapped or poisoned."

"Ah," I said. Duh.

Seroan snapped his fingers, "Why not send Rikashe? She's a sorceress, right? The Empress? I'll bet she can understand chimeras."

"Bloody brilliant," I said, "I bet you're right."

Seroan nodded, and then frowned, "Except I'm sure they have stealth traps, like at the antique shop. How would we get Rikashe to her secretly?"

"Oh, yeah," I said. "Damn."

So we were stumped for a little while, and sat meditating on a sunny bench. It was warm that day for late fall.

Then I had it, "Oh damnit, I know," I said, pointing at the Houvet University badge on Seroan's cloak, "we're emissaries, for shit sake. We can just ask to discuss foreign exchange policy or something, that's her jurisdiction only – foreign policy."

"Ha ha, you're right!" Seroan slapped my knee, "good thinking, I knew I was keeping you around for a reason."

"Hah!"

So with that we had our plan. Did it work? Hell no. We got a meeting with the Secretary of Foreign Policy. His job was to decide whether or not our issues were worth a meeting with the Empress or just a memo.

We were offered a memo. We declined.

The Secretary got up and was about to ask us to leave, but I couldn't let our opportunity slip away. We were one degree from the Empress, so I took a chance, "Sir, can we have just one more minute of your time?"

He turned, but didn't sit down, "What is it?"

I was incredibly intimidated by this man, he was about three times my age, obviously experienced and obviously had a lot of things to do. His official-looking robes hissed his irritation as he laid a hand on the back of the chair but did not sit.

"I- we- I'm sorry, but we didn't come here to talk about foreign exchange policy for ou- for Houvet's students. We were hoping for a private meeting with the Empress about something else entirely."

"And what would that be?" He was obviously unimpressed.

"Well," I paused. I didn't want to insult this man, he was already impatient with us, but I wasn't going to trust anyone but the Empress herself with what we knew. "Is it true that none of the assassins have been arrested for the murders in Parliament?"

He raised a bushy eyebrow, "That's correct. But if you have informa-"

"We captured one of them," I interrupted, "in Tuiran. He's still there, in prison."

"I see, but that doesn't warrant a private meeting with the Empress, I'm afraid, you need to take your information to the Ministry of Internal Security," he finished.

"You don't understand sir, sorry to be so vague but this assassin had information about Itriscian spies in Enora. It's nothing personal against you, Secretary, but we can't trust anyone but the Empress, the spies have infiltrated many areas of the Government.