I knew it was Lordin, because I could see her red Valer suspended in Hagan’s chest. Hagan even had a faint resemblance to Lordin—petite, cute, pale skin, and electric eyes. I flattened myself against the ceiling in the hallway and eavesdropped on their conversation.
“The death toll has reached three hundred thousand,” Emell was saying. She looked very much like a supervillain in her smart black suit, her hands folded neatly on her mahogany desk. “Projections tell us it will have reached well over two million by the time we distribute the cure.”
“It’s a lot,” Lordin said. She crinkled her eyebrows. “Is there nothing we can do to lessen the casualties? Wouldn’t five hundred thousand, even six hundred thousand, be sufficient?”
Emell frowned at her. “You’re sounding a lot like my daughter again. That’s something Lordin would have said. She never did have the stomach for brutality. Lordin inherited too much of her father, his soft heart and his caring soul. Lordin did as she was told, but she did it with a corrupted conscience.”
“Genocide is a serious business,” Lordin said. “It would corrupt any person’s conscience.”
I didn’t know if it was my newly heightened senses as a Min, but in that moment, I had a clear vision of the relationship between mother and daughter. I could sense Emell’s untamed fury and Lordin’s apprehensive nature. Lordin wasn’t a heartless monster, but her mother sure was. I dreaded what I might find in either of their memory banks.
“It’s not genocide, anyway,” Emell said. “It’s just a bit of culling. We’re trimming the population, encouraging war, disrupting the seat of power, humiliating Kaelyn and Zawne. It’s everything we’ve been working for.”
Lordin nodded. She seemed unimpressed by the whole thing, as if it was beneath her. Then she said, “My informers have told me that Krug is considering siding with Nurlie against the islanders and the Surrvul rebels. If the fighting continues, Shondur will undoubtedly follow. They are still upset about the phosphorus situation. After Shondur, we can expect Lodden to send the elite Aska warriors into battle. The Gurnots will get involved. I predict a world war within two months. Every clan’s secret ambitions will explode into the open. It will be all-out chaos.”
“Excellent.” Emell interlocked her fingers and leaned over the table, giving Lordin a death stare. “We just need to rid ourselves of the underwater weapons system. We must leave Gaard totally vulnerable while allowing them the illusion of power. When the world marches on the capital, I want VondRust to burn for what they’ve done to me.”
Did she mean for what the King Emeritus had done to her? Was Emell really that petty? I had a hard time believing she would secretly organize global warfare over such a thing. However, she had been banished to the north of Gaard for over half her life. Perhaps her anger and disdain had evolved over time in that frozen place, mutated into something toxic.
Then I thought, What if Emell poisoned Lordin with her toxicity? Maybe Lordin isn’t inherently evil. Maybe she was just corrupted by her own mama!
Lordin said, “My technicians are working alongside some undercover Gurnots to disarm the underwater weapons system. Surrvul has provided funding. With all the money we’ve made from these mergers, we can now hire engineers to build our own weapons system. Gaard doesn’t stand a chance.”
Yes, they do, I thought. I’ll tell Zawne about your plan, and he’ll put an end to this madness!
“Excellent.” Emell reclined in her chair, looking pleased with herself. “What about the cure? Why won’t you tell me where you’ve hidden it, Hagan?”
“It’s better you don’t know,” Lordin said, her eyes darting around the room as if she thought someone might be listening.
She was smart. I had to give her that. Lordin must have known no Min could read her mind, so even if a Min intervened and tried to stop the rampant deaths, they’d never discover the secret location of the cure.
“I will make the cure available for mass production the moment you give the word.” Lordin hesitated, then said, “But the sooner the better.”
“Hush!” Emell roared, face wrinkled in anger. Her eyes radiated hatred. “Stop it with your cowardice. You and Lordin would have been the best of pals. I’ve had to babysit you these past months like I had to babysit my daughter her whole life.”
Lordin licked her lips and said nothing. Even I could see her anger mounting. It must have been hard to sit in front of her mama in a stranger’s body and listen to such vile slander. How could Lordin stand it? What was her angle? I cringed when she bowed and said, “My apologies, Mistress Emell.”
It was too wrenching to watch. Besides, I was wasting time. I needed to extract Lordin’s memories and discover the location of the cure. It would be pointless to probe Emell. She knew nothing, only malice. Entering her head would be like plugging in to the mind of a murderous psychopath. I considered possessing her body. I could order Lordin to release the cure right away. But then I would be stuck in Emell’s traitorous husk for the next forty or fifty years, and I didn’t want that. I also didn’t want VBione Corp to be labeled a hero for saving Geniverd from extinction. If anyone deserved to be labeled a hero, it was Raad or Zawne.
I let my new gift stretch away from me, like invisible tentacles, and reach into Lordin’s memory bank. I was slightly worried Lordin would notice, but within seconds I was lost in a world of images and remembrances.
Lordin was wrapped heavily in furs. She was young, beautiful, just a girl. Her visage was as smooth as porcelain under her fur hood, squinting
