The Gambit with Perfection (The Phantom of the Earth Book 2) by Raeden Zen

fluttering in the wind.
    “Do you know,” Atticus licked the butter from his fingers, “how I’ve managed to keep peace for so long?”
    He motioned for the two Jurinarian migrant workers on either side of the table to scram.
    Isabelle sashayed around the table. “Naturally,” she said. She tossed her hair and sat on the table next to Atticus’s plate, giving him a good view of her. “Because you have me . ” She took a strawberry from his plate and licked the whipped cream from it. “What other reason could there be?”
    Atticus guffawed, then opened his mouth to receive the strawberry.
    Isabelle got up and sat on one of the golden chairs next to him. She bit into the strawberry, letting the juice run down her chin.
    “Hmm,” he said and licked his lips. “Isabelle, where would I be without you?”
    “Best not to think on it.”
    Atticus chortled and popped a grape into his mouth. “In the early days,” he slid his tongue over his lower lip and a seed fell to the dish, “I pondered whether immortality, this idea older than man, could sway the crowd.” He pushed a second glass filled with Loverealan wine in Isabelle’s direction.
    “I remember, you would speak of nothing else.” Isabelle ignored the glass. Atticus seemed fairly soused already, and she preferred her advantage.
    “Then I realized the only reason we are mortal is because we know we are mortal. Take age away from the crowd, and it will believe itself immortal and attach the idea of service to this immortality, and it will spread and take control of its host—”
    “Perhaps even you still have a lot to learn.” She pushed the glass back to him.
    Atticus closed his eyes and nodded. “Death,” he said, “no human timeline ended without it, and all because of aging—”
    “It was a heinous disease, wasn’t it?” Isabelle pulled her bracelets up her forearm. “Alas, now we deal with Reassortment.”
    Atticus’s head jerked, and he finished his drink. “I’m thinking big here, Isabelle! I’m thinking historically unprecedented!” He stormed out of his chair and looked out to the terrace, where the maidens lathered their bodies with pome lotions. “Never in the history of mankind have peace and prosperity endured so long! Two hundred years without a major war or economic contraction! Not under the Romans or the Russians. Not under the Chinese or the Japanese! Not under the English or the French! Not under the Germans or the Americans—”
    Isabelle folded her arms. “What do you call the Evolutionary War with the BP? A minor skirmish, a nuisance to your perfect world, or simply something you cannot accept?”
    Atticus ignored her. “See the future as I do,” he said. “We’ve built a heaven within the Earth. No one can deny it.” He massaged her neck and shoulders. She cringed. “I’d like to keep it that way.” She felt his breath before he kissed her neck. “So tell me now,” he said softly near her ear, “why did you command my Janzers to attack a supply depot and tunnel in Northport?”
    Isabelle’s pulse quickened. For while the Janzers continuously connected to Marstone, and from Marstone to the chancellor, she took care, at times, to sever their connection to Atticus. How did he find out?
    She stared blankly at his empty chair.
    “What,” he murmured, “you were so eager to throw the war in my face before, you can’t speak up now?”
    Isabelle stood and turned, meeting the chancellor’s eyes. “I did what had to be done,” she said, her voice a whip. “We need the people’s hearts and minds. That’s what the Evolutionary War is about, and if we’re to win it, we must turn the Northeast the way I did the North—”
    “Oh, really! You think you turned the North?” Atticus laughed. “Ministers Mueriniti and Sineine were skilled telepaths when you were still a speck of cells in your mother’s cunt.” The fury in Isabelle’s face couldn’t hide her bemusement in the ZPF. “Oh, now here’s a