Defender

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Firelight went up to the red figures of an ancient frescoed vault, smoke-hazed from the braziers on either side of the black stone tomb. In the dark congregation, watchful eyes now and again caught the firelight and reflected it, gold fire brighter than the sheen of light off opulent brocade.

It was an atevi place—and solemn tribute to a decades-dead aiji. Decades in the past, Valasi might be, but the association he had created had only grown wider at his death. It spanned the continent now. It reached around the world. It shared the heavens with strangers.

An atevi place, an atevi ceremony, an atevi congregation… but one human, one pale, blond, very small and conspicuous human stood in a crowd of towering atevi lords, some of whom had often and fairly recently entertained the idea of killing him. Under the court attire, the frock coat and the lace and the brocades, Bren Cameron wore ten pounds of composite that would stop most bullets, if any of these very adept gentlemen and ladies ventured an assassination without proper Filing of Intent.

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