Chapter 297 --297
She had been running this scenario in the back of her mind since the day they arrived. Not from paranoia — from the accurate assessment that a thorough ruler in a recently contested empire would be examining everything that had happened in the period before he took power. The fourteen missing people from the palace records were a loose thread. Loose threads got pulled.
She had three options and had been running them since the relay arrived.
First: leave. Take the household back to Varen or further east before the picture became complete. Preserve the operational security. Lose the progress on the working list.
Second: stay hidden. Tighten the Liang Meridian cover, reduce activity, wait until the search moved on to other things. Risk was that the search didn’t move on — that he was thorough enough to keep pulling the thread.
Third: something else.
She had been sitting with the third option since the fifth bell.
"Mahir," she said.
He looked at her from the door.
"The search," she said. "How long before he has enough to act on."
Mahir was quiet for a moment.
"If he found the Liang Meridian thread yesterday," he said, "he has people running it today. The trade commission records are public. The eastern province registration connects to the Varen address. Someone in Varen will be asked questions within two days."
"Lilian," Elara said. "Can she hold the Varen end."