The Consuming Fire (The Interdependency, #2)

by John Scalzi

Hey, you know what, basing an entire system of social, political and economic control on the vague, all-too-easily misinterpreted words of a single person claiming divine inspiration is probably not actually all that smart, now, is it.

The now-dead-and-somewhat-smeary Amit

All except for a “Hey, your fucking sister is planning to shove a shuttle up your ass” alert, Kiva thought to herself. Which to be fair was admittedly a specialized item.

She might currently look like a glittered chicken, but she wasn’t stupid.

She was pretty fucking sure she just broke a finger on the nose of this thundering twat, but she wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of knowing that, so she drew her hand back again, ready to punch.

“We need to talk about your sense of humor,” Marce said, after he and every other human in the room recovered from their mini heart attacks. “Being semi-dead seems to have affected it.” “It was like this before,” Chenevert said. “How do you think I died?”

“I hear rumors that the same night your friend was shot, Countess Nohamapetan’s chief of staff was assaulted in her bed.” “I wouldn’t know anything about that, ma’am.” “No, I suppose you wouldn’t.” Grayland nodded over to Kiva’s hand, which was bandaged. “What happened to your hand, Lady Kiva?” “This?” Kiva held up her hand. “I broke it against something stupid.” “Was it worth it?” “Absolutely, ma’am.” “Well, good. Keep it up.” “I have every intention of doing that.

Kiva considered that she might be developing a thing for Fundapellonan, which on one hand would be a very not-Kiva thing to do, but on the other hand who gave a fuck if it was “not-Kiva,” because she wasn’t some fucking fictional character destined to do whatever some goddamn hack wanted her to do.

By now Marce was aware he was falling more than a little bit in love with Cardenia, not because she was the emperox (that part sort of scared the crap out of him, in point of fact) but because they were awkward in complementary ways.

Not everyone could be an adventurous bang. Not everyone needed to be an adventurous bang.

although she had once had sex in a cathedral, which was great, if you like cold and echoey, which Kiva discovered she didn’t so much.