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Garin tapped his tablet a few times. “No, they’re still in their rooms. They’re due at their hangar soon, though.”
“Let’s go there. I’d like to meet them.” Oliver turned and started walking toward his own transport ship. “We’ll go back down to Tava together.”
A short transport ride later and Oliver was stepping out into the Turner family ship’s hangar just as his brother and father were entering from the living quarters.
“So, you’ve decided to join us after all?” Dominic raised an eyebrow when he saw Oliver. His eyes had been even icier than usual after their tiff leaving the meeting room. He’d clearly been eager to throw Oliver under the bus to their father as soon as they arrived, but Oliver had beaten him.
He’d told his father that Dominic had done brilliantly, that he’d had an answer for every question, that he had knocked the softballs Oliver had lobbed him out of the park. In the face of that glowing praise and the obvious explanation for Oliver’s needling in the meeting, Dominic had been able to do nothing but demure.
“Of course.” Oliver joined them in the larger transport. “The Turner family should present a united front.”
“Good.” Their father nodded crisply. “We wouldn’t want the Klah’Eel thinking that any disagreement they might have witnessed in the meeting was evidence of discontent within the ranks.”
Dominic and Oliver met each other’s eyes only briefly before settling back into their chairs. They rode in silence until their father spoke up again suddenly, though he kept his gaze trained out the window.
“I’m proud of both of you.”
Stunned silence.
“Everything you boys have accomplished. What we’ve accomplished, as Turners, together. I’m very proud.”
Both Oliver and Dominic froze, faces neutral but still. They had never heard those words before. I’m proud of both of you.
Their father had said he was proud of them each individually, but it had always served two purposes: to praise one and to remind the other to do better. They didn’t have a family script for I’m proud of both of you.
Dominic found his voice first. “Thanks, Dad.”
Oliver swallowed around the lump in his throat and fought the urge to touch the pendant against his breastbone. “We do our best.”
“And then some.” Their father still hadn’t looked away from the window, and Oliver could just make out his face in the reflection. There was more emotion in it than Oliver had ever seen—not a lot, certainly—he was still Alistair Turner—but more.
The rest of the journey continued in a new kind of silence, tense, uncertain, and fragile. Oliver and Dominic’s eyes flickered to each other a few times, but they never spoke. Then they arrived at the grand hangar in the political estate on Tava, and the strange mood was broken.
“Alright.” Their father stood, rolled his shoulders a few times, and cracked his neck. Oliver wondered if all the posh and powerful people their father interacted with knew he went into every encounter as though going into an athletic match. “You’ve both received your dossiers and reviewed them?”
“Yes, sir,” Dominic said, and Oliver nodded as they both stood and stretched out the stiffness from the transport journey. Ever since they had been children, they had received dossiers going into dinners and diplomatic events. They were assigned individuals to approach and engage in conversation and topics to steer those conversations.
Oliver had always had more than Dominic, and while it had been a lot of work for a child, it had been the early evidence of their father’s favoritism.
Oliver had so loved being the favorite.
“Good. Let’s go.” Their father led the way down the gangway—none of the bodyguards dared to insist on being first with their father.
They made their way through the complex, and Oliver felt a strange feeling of nostalgia once they started walking through arcades he recognized. He had criticized that standing puddle of water every time he had passed it and watched Mal’ik’s little smile twitch around his tusk. It had been silly then, but it seemed even sillier now when just across the courtyard were still smoldering ruins.
Something hit him in the gut when they passed the courtyard where Oliver had first met Governor Tesh. Had he been the torvar even then? And that was the corner that Mal’ik had dragged him around to tell him to put his scent cream on. It was such a little thing, but Mal’ik had gone out of his way to protect and support Oliver, and that had meant an embarrassing amount to him.
Oliver touched his throat. He had laid his cream on thick again today.
Eventually, they arrived at the banquet. Their father looked them both up and down, nodded, smiled, and then they made their entrance.
Oliver’s nerves burst to life in his stomach as soon as he stepped across the threshold. He took a deep breath.
It was cocktail hour. This was when they would be able to do the most of their mingling, though there would be time after dessert as well. But Oliver couldn’t wait that long—in truth, he couldn’t wait even until the end of cocktails.
As much as he wished he could grab a drink and work down his assignment list like he always had, he had a much more important and much more urgent task. One he couldn’t draw too much attention to.
Conveniently for him, Bryant Harrison was on his list.
