Wattys shortlist 2021. One morning the sun rises a few hours early, striking levitating skyscrapers in Soliara ahead of schedule. People in the streets stop to look up at the sky and then down at their watches. Most of them, puzzled but disbelieving...
"No one is doing anything about it," said Leander.
"I wouldn't worry about it," said the boss.
"Yes, I've noticed."
Potestas clapped him on the shoulder and he said, "I have a better idea. When Exequi Marius arrives, go ask him why the sun is rising and setting early, and what he, as the next president of Constellation, plans to do about it. Bring as many others into the conversation as you can, let them publicly interrogate him, and keep him busy. If you're lucky, maybe Marius will be able to tell you how to stop the 'solar irregularity.' And you can single-handedly prevent the world from ending.
"In the meantime, I acknowledge your concerns that I'm in danger where I stand. I need to have a talk with Ignatius Varian, and we can take him up to my office. Just the three of us. Very secure."
It should have been what Leander wanted, increasing the boss's odds of surviving the night tenfold, but even as he said, "Yes, sir," what he really wanted was to find the Aurelian and shake him until he woke up and went where he would be most effective.
In some laboratory somewhere, right?
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Sipping champagne, Candra wondered whether an election would matter if the world ended. She had arrived early, linking to Invernali the second Pax the designer had her new gown in place on her body.
The boss's purpose was obvious: to control who would replace the dead president. She still didn't know who had eliminated Gaia Solin, or what the killer got out of it, but that was a puzzle for a rainy day.
Candra's purpose became clearer with every elector who came out of the elevators.
The crowd was thickest by the wall of windows, where the first light of the day would be visible through the heavy snowstorm in who knew how many hours or minutes, if ever. Speculation of the cause grew wilder as the night went on; everywhere Candra stopped to listen in, the craziest theories were met with outbursts of skepticism before the group divided like a virus to spread what had been a minute earlier an outrageous hypothesis as verifiable fact.
It wasn't long before everyone at the boss's impromptu gathering was equally convinced that President Solin had built a secret army that turned on her, that Constellation was raising the dead, that President Solin's army was made up of the living dead, that the Soliari theory of the universe was wrong and the planet didn't after all, orbit the sun, that the sun was blotted out by a foreign attack on the Soliari Empire, that the planet was flat and not round, and that the sun's disappearance was an attack on foreign nations orchestrated by President Solin but gone wrong.
They went from believing none of the theories presented to a complete conviction of the truth of all of them by the time the band took its first break.
Guest after guest flooded into the space. There was a puffy eyed girl Candra decided was Diana Aemilia, and she was dying to find out what she was crying about.
Claudia Solace managed an appearance, if not a very presentable one. To be fair, her lilac little toga dress would have drawn eyes at a spring festival. A decade ago. Now it was turning heads, but not in a good way. She should have asked the crying girl what to wear.
Novus Fortunato had attended from Casicaa, stepping right into his father's shoes — possibly literally — and not even taking the day off to mourn. The non-cyclical life with no end in sight did that to a person. The most horrible change was a change, like wind on a hot day when everything stood still in the heat, and you couldn't be expected to be sad about a breeze.
She had been there watching when Antony Solari arrived and guided his beautiful wife into the crowd, but they separated when she stopped to talk to someone and he kept on toward the bar by the windows.
Then, Laio Cytheria had arrived in her absolute finest, a draping golden gown that made Candra jealous of the old woman, or at least jealous of her money and designers, and a huge black structural tailored coat that she was not taking off. Cytheria had a scowl for everyone she looked at, Candra included.
In half an hour Candra counted thirty-seven out of fifty electors to the Constellation board. Some party. Ilan Potestas was orchestrating an assault on Justin Marius's support base. And that was why Portia Nero was directing the troops — Franco, Esperanza Valerian, Acario Lucian, Angelus Gloriam, Sr., and Angelus Gloriam, Jr. — against the enemy.
Candra wasn't among their ranks.
There was a price for her work, and it hadn't been paid. If Justin's victory came too easily, she would never get what she wanted. He wouldn't need her if the land began to slide his way. She watched and prepared her own strategy, to keep the scales balanced, to stop them from tipping too far.
A good place to start was with a crying girl, Exequi Diana Aemilia, who might be persuaded to tip whichever way Candra prodded.
