The Odds

Introduction to 'Seats of Power : The Memoirs of Alithia Warwell'

"Writing your memoirs?" Vibbius asks.

He's joking. It's hard to tell if you don't know the signs, but he's not scowling outright and his feet are stretched out in front of him; usually he sits with his feet planted firmly on the floor, ready for action. Next to his chair Kalea is bobbing up and down on the spot, her usually composed face flickering between one emotion and the next so quickly that I can't trace them. She's wearing less make-up than usual, and instead of her usual vivid outfits she's wearing plum and magenta. In fact, she hardly looks like Kalea at all. Pandora sweeps in, takes in the vision of our fellow Gamemaker in basic dress, and allows herself a small look of shock before settling onto her favorite couch.

"As a matter of fact, I am."

"Does that mean that we finally get to find out all that gossip about you and the half-Avox boy?"

I fix Vibbius in a glare that, as always, doesn't quite work. Kalea explodes in a second of shrill giggles, while Pandora's face doesn't change at all. Patience personified. "Alithia, what's this about?" she asks. She's dropped the whispering, ethereal voice she uses for the crowds and is using her usual one, complete with a hint of Garnet accent.

"Not any ill-advised past lovers," I say, warning Vibbius that this is technically a Gamemaker-only conversation and that I can easily ask him to leave. I'm no longer surprised that he knows about Constantus. "And that was a long time ago, Vibbius; it's stale news. I wasn't even a Gamemaker." He grins at me, pointing out that I've been neatly side-tracked. "I just wanted to talk to you all about something."

Kalea's bobbing turns frantic. She doesn't seem to be blinking. Odd. I make a mental note to ask about it once this meeting is finished.

Pandora has picked up on something in my expression. Perhaps I look more steely than usual. I'm dressed for the occasion as if it were a public one, so that's my usual blue-grey faux-armor plating, minus the spiked cape or the severe make-up that the staff always insist that I wear. I think I look like myself. The entire Capitol – the entire nation! – would disagree. Pandora's eyes are expertly lined and watching me carefully. She can tell.

"Now?"

"Yes."

A small smile passes between us. "But we're in the middle of the Games."

"Exactly. The people have something else to focus on, and there'll be no time for any additional ceremony. I'll see it through, and then..."

Even Kalea has caught on by now, her mouth dropping open into a perfect circle, an O of amazement. I can't tell if she's speechless or waiting for me to speak. Only Vibbius seems clueless; he's tipped his head right up and is trying to peer at what I've written. Looking for any mention of himself, probably. As the room goes quiet he gives up and gazes at me.

"Typical. No additional ceremony. All these years, Alithia, and you've hardly changed!" Us three women just stare at him, waiting for the coin to drop. Surprisingly, he takes the hint. A man with a love of drama loves to dampen it in others. "Okay, okay, I'll bite. What for?"

"I'm resigning."

***

A hill. Right up in the distant reaches of Ferrous, where the tree-line and the snow-line overlap, where the Capitol shimmers like a mirage in the heat, every building blurring into the next until it's nothing but a rainbow smear on the plateau far below me. Lurking among the fir trees is a pure white villa, untouched by anybody but a small and select team of family Avoxes for the past decade. It's small and simple, a world away from the enormous estate where at twenty two I left my childhood and moved into the Presidential Palace, but just standing on the gravel path leading up to the door I can feel my roots, tender with the sudden wrench, starting to grow again. The wind whips my hair across my face. My cape - an affectation I don't want to let go of - ripples from my shoulders.

I bought this place as a retreat from the busyness of Gamemaking, forgetting that that very busyness would make it impossible for me to visit. Since then the family have looked after it for me, keeping it secret just in case I need it. I need it now. Someone has tucked a message into the fence, which is so pristine white that it looks like special effects and which is broken only by a dark blue fold of paper. Expecting perhaps something from Pandora, Kalea or Vibbius, I almost tuck it into my pocket. I can ignore that sort of thing now.

Except I can't, because I know that handwriting. I haven't seen it in years but I still recognize it perfectly. It can only be one person.

Something shuffles by the door. It's a man. Older, of course. There are creases in the pockets under his eyes, around the corners of his mouth. This is a face that, since I last watched it in my mirror in my childhood bedroom, has been through two failed marriages (thank you, Vibbius, for finding out about that) and a rebellion that almost destroyed Haematite, his home sector. But the eyes are the same.

"Constantus. You're here."

"I am."

"I'm not leaving again."

"I know."

Welcome home, Alithia.

And I smile.