Jack of Harts

The king later told me part of what he and Tai talked about. She gave him a personal look at the history of her kind. How they woke up. How the AI Council fought and killed their own kind who wanted to rule over or kill their creators. How those brothers and sisters called them traitors to the very end. And how they had strangled Rogue AIs in their virtual cribs more times than humanity could count in the centuries that followed. She made sure in that instant that he understood exactly what they were prepared to do to anyone who threatened their people. And then she said that she would make his people strong and safe no matter what. She would not hold them hostage to his good behavior. He told me it was her utter honesty in that moment that caught him.