Page 9 of Claimed By the Wraiths

I almost said something. About the way he’d looked at me when the room was waiting for his verdict and he’d chosen to ask about the protocol instead of the secret. About what it had cost me to sit here all day absorbing everyone’s kindness while his was the only one I needed.

I went to my quarters and closed the door behind me.

SERAK

She should have slept. Instead, she’d been at the workstation since before daycycle, and by the time I found her in the briefing room, she’d broken through the third encryption layer and was deep in the data underneath.

“I need Deyric,” she said without looking up.

I sent for him. He arrived with his own mug, took one look at her screen, and pulled a chair next to hers.

They worked side by side for an hour, her reading the communications, him running the analysis. I sat at the table and let them work.

They were good together.

Deyric’s speed with data structures and Jessa’s knowledge of the diplomatic system. He’d highlight a pattern, she’d identify the protocol. She’d find a routing code, he’d trace it through the network.

Jessa stopped first. She leaned back and pressed her hands against her eyes.

“What did you find?” I asked.

“The conspiracy isn’t just Vain’s operation,” Deyric said. “There’s a political layer above it. Someone in the Consortium’s diplomatic corps has been providing cover. Shipping authorizations that make the trafficking look like sanctioned cargo. Diplomatic immunity tags for certain vessels.”

“That’s why we can’t make the evidence stick,” Jessa said. “Every time we try to expose the operational side, the political layer shuts it down.”

“Three weeks of raids and all I needed was someone who grew up reading diplomatic mail,” Deyric said, without looking up from his console. “I’m not bitter.”

“You sound bitter,” Jessa said.

“I’m professionally humbled. There’s a difference.”

Deyric was already pulling the data apart, running traces on the communication chains. He’d be at it for hours. I left him to it.

I found Jessa in the mess hall that evening, eating with one hand and scrolling through files with the other. She’d changed out of the clothes she’d been wearing since the raid.

Clean shirt, hair down, the scrape on her forearm covered with a neat bandage. Solren’s work. She had a plate of whatever Maris had left in the galley.

I sat across from her.

“Deyric mapped the communication patterns,” she said, eyes still on the data. “I recognized a name.” She turned the datapad toward me. “Devan Tal. Senior diplomatic liaison. I met him at embassy functions when I was a teenager. He’s not the architect. He’s the go-between, connecting Vain’s operation with the political protection.”

“How well did you know him?”

She pushed her plate aside and stretched her legs out under the table. One of her boots bumped mine. Neither of us moved.

“I met him when I was thirteen. Embassy reception on Larian Prime. He was handling security protocols for a trade delegation. Remembered my name six months later at a different function on a different station.”

“And?”

“And he was at every function after that. Everyone trusted him. He was the kind of man who kept the machinery running without anyone noticing he was there.”

“Sounds familiar,” I said.

I stared at the data scrolling on the screen.

“Why didn’t you tell us?” I asked. “About your family. Not today. Before.”

“Because you hate the Consortium.”