Elle was waiting outside the shuttle, having already removed the jagged splinter from her shoulder. Together she and Cara hoisted Aelyx onto the backseat. Then, as the first fire engines and squad cars pulled into the lot, Cara raised the shuttle and piloted them away from the smoking ruins.
This place didn’t seem so fertile anymore.
Chapter Eleven
Human scientists claimed that pain couldn’t be felt in dreams, but Aelyx knew better. On a regular basis he experienced pain while he slept, either because he wasn’t human or simply because the scientists were wrong. Regardless, his mind had been replaying the events of the attack, forcing him to relive every detail of his suffering: the sick sensation of falling, the crunch of his bones upon impact, the dull, pulsating throb of his organs as he lay on the ground unable to move. He watched it happen in a detached sort of way, but his nerve endings screamed just as loudly as they had in real life. When the dream began to falter, interrupted by fingers of reality, his agony faded by gradual degrees until the only discomfort that remained was a slight ache between his temples.
He groaned in immense relief.
Someone whispered, “He’s waking up.” It sounded like Syrine.
The first thing Aelyx detected was a mildew scent, not the kind found in nature, but the concentrated dampness of an old, neglected home. He was aware that he lay on his back, stretched out with a pillow supporting his head. As he shifted his limbs, he felt the cool brush of linen on his bare skin. He knew this sensation. He was naked between bedsheets.
His eyes flew open. Where was he, and why was he naked?
He darted a glance at his surroundings and found himself lying on a thin mattress situated on the floor of what appeared to be a formal living room. Right away he could tell the house had been abandoned. There were no furnishings in the room other than a dilapidated wingback chair missing its seat cushion and a broken, upended coffee table resting beside an empty fireplace. The wood floors were dirty, and someone had defaced the walls with red spray paint. With no electricity, the only illumination came from between the slats of a boarded-up window. Judging by the dim orangey glow outside, dusk had fallen.
He didn’t see Cara, but he noticed her brother leaning against the open doorframe, his arms folded and his face concealed by shadows. In the opposite corner, Syrine sat on the floor wearing an expectant smile. One of her feet was propped up on the chair’s missing seat cushion. Elle knelt at the foot of the mattress. As soon as his eyes met hers, she crawled across the sheets and sat beside him.
“Hello, brother.” Her mouth curved in a triumphant grin, as if she’d beaten him in a game of sticks and couldn’t wait to gloat about it. “Feeling better, are you?”
Aelyx cleared the thickness from his throat and pushed slowly to his elbows. His muscles protested against the movement, but only with the slight soreness that followed an intense workout. He noted the med-kit lying open on the floor. Half its contents were missing.
“Remember the other day,” Elle said, “when you wanted me to use the healing accelerant to fix your l’ihan’s bruises, but I insisted on saving the medicine for an emergency?” Her teeth flashed. “Well, your spleen can thank me for that. And your ribs. And your concussed head, which isn’t nearly as hard as I thought it would be.”
“And my ankle,” Syrine added, pointing at her elevated foot.
At these words, Elle lost her smile, and her posture stiffened visibly. Aelyx noticed a reaction from Troy as well, who clenched his shoulders and released a loud breath through his nose. Syrine seemed to detect the abrupt change in them too, because she quickly turned her eyes to her lap. In the time it took to blink, the tension in the room had grown heavy enough to carpet the floor.
“Yes.” Elle forced a grin that didn’t fool him. “We were lucky. There was barely enough accelerant to go around.”
Troy announced, “I’ll go tell Cara you’re awake,” and then he walked away without a backward glance.
Sacred Mother. What had happened inside this house?
“Cara went to find you some clothes,” Elle prattled on. “We had to cut off your old ones before I could treat you.”
For the first time, Aelyx noticed his sister wasn’t wearing her L’eihr uniform, and neither was Syrine. They’d both changed into oversize sweatpants, rolled up at the ankles, and mismatched, loose-fitting T-shirts. But that didn’t matter. He wanted to know what they weren’t telling him. “Where are we?” he croaked, and cleared his throat again. “How long have I been asleep? And why is everyone acting so strangely?”
Elle flicked a lightning glance at Syrine and then seemed to make a concerted effort not to look at her again. Aelyx might assume the pair had been fighting if it weren’t for the way Syrine curled against the wall, pressing herself to the plaster as if wishing she could disappear inside it. He knew his best friend well enough to see she felt guilty about something.
Elle smoothed a wrinkle on the top sheet. “It’s been about four hours since the explosion. Cara picked us up in the shuttle, and then we went to fetch Troy and Larish. Jaxen bombed their factory, too.”
Aelyx gasped, suddenly realizing Larish wasn’t in the room.
“Larish is fine,” Elle said, and pushed him back down on the pillow. “He’s making some calls from the shuttle.”
“He and Troy left the property before Jaxen arrived,” Syrine added, talking mostly to her lap. “We’re still in Canada, but in a different province. Larish researched a list of foreclosures while we were airborne. That’s how we found this house.”
That answered his first two questions, but it didn’t escape Aelyx’s notice that they’d avoided the third. He was about to press them for information when he heard the rapid tapping of shoes descending a staircase, and Cara ran into the room, where she skidded on the gritty wooden floor and waved her arms for balance. She righted herself and looked at him with a smile so wide and pure it lit up her face like a solar flare.
In response, an automatic grin formed on his lips. Somewhere deep inside, a small piece of him he hadn’t known was missing clicked into place, and just like that, he was whole again. “Hi,” he told her, because he couldn’t think of anything more fitting to say.
“Hi,” she echoed. He wanted her to come sit by him, but she stayed in place, nervously wiping her palms on her pants. An awkward tension rose between them, and his heart sank as he remembered their fight. There was damage to mend. “I found some clothes for you, but I left them upstairs.”
“It’s all right.” He hoped she knew he was talking about more than the clothes. When Troy reentered the room looking more somber than before, Aelyx asked, “What happened? How did Jaxen and Aisly know we were waiting for them?”
“Aisly didn’t know,” Troy said. “I caught her by surprise, but not fast enough to kill her. As for Jaxen …” He trailed off and glanced at Syrine. “We have a theory about who tipped him off.”
The room went silent.
Aelyx looked from Troy to Cara to Syrine, hoping for clarification but receiving none. Then Cara flinched and retrieved her com-sphere from her pocket. Instead of speaking her passkey, she held the sphere at a distance as if it might detonate in her face.
“It’s Alona,” she said.
“You might as well answer,” Aelyx told her. She couldn’t deny a summons from The Way. No one could. Her sphere would only continue to buzz inside her head until she accepted the transmission.
Cara strode to the middle of the room and sat cross-legged on the floor. She set the sphere in front of her, then took a deep breath and spoke her passkey.
Alona’s image appeared directly below a beam of fading sunlight from the window. The effect was almost angelic, an odd contrast to the burning fury in her gaze. “Miss Sweeney, please explain to me why the quarters of Aelyx, Larish, Syrine, and Elyx’a were found vacant, and why no trace of them exists on the inbound transport.”
Cara lifted her chin in a show of confidence, but negated it by wringing her ha
nds in her lap. “Because they never left Earth. They’re here with me.”
Aelyx had never seen the head Elder speechless before. Alona couldn’t seem to operate her mouth, but the force with which she gripped her chair arms spoke volumes. She finally growled, “By what authority do they seek to defy The Way?”
“By mine,” Cara answered smoothly. “I ordered them to stay. And because I’m still a member of The Way—or at least I was yesterday—they were bound by law to obey me. If you want to punish someone, it’ll have to be me.”
“Not so brave a statement when you’re beyond my reach.”
Cara’s lips parted. She seemed wounded by the implication that Alona would lash her if given the opportunity. Her voice was less bold when she answered. “I’ll gladly take the iphet if it means defeating the Aribol and keeping our people together.”
“And that’s what you believe you’re doing?”
“I’m trying.”
“Trying,” Alona repeated coldly. “Naïve girl! Your efforts will be the death of us all. The Aribol are the most powerful force in the charted universe.”
Cara held up an index finger. “Exactly. So why are they threatened by an alliance between two insignificant worlds? Why did they send hybrids to display their power on Earth and on L’eihr instead of doing it themselves?”
“L’eihr?” asked Alona. “No hybrids have breached our borders other than the ones we’ve bred ourselves.”
“That’s not true. There’s something you don’t know.” Cara delivered a quick sideways glance at Syrine. “It wasn’t Zane who destroyed the Voyager fleet and the spaceport that night. It was Aisly, using detonators the Aribol gave her.”
Aelyx felt his eyebrows jerk toward his scalp.
“Syrine has something to tell you,” Cara said, and indicated the spot beside her.
All eyes shifted to Syrine, who used the wall to push herself to standing. Aelyx moved to help her, but she thrust a palm forward and told him to stay in bed. Keeping her weight on her uninjured foot, she gripped the wall like a crutch and limped along its length until she’d reached the other end of the room. Then she lowered herself to the floor and inched her way to Cara’s side.
“Go ahead,” Cara prompted.
Syrine fidgeted with her pear-seed pendant and then seemed to catch herself. She tucked both hands beneath her legs before she spoke. “It happened on the continent, the night before the spaceport was destroyed. I had just finished therapy with my sister healers. They said I was free to join the colony, but the next shuttle didn’t leave until morning.” She swallowed. “It was a nice evening, so I decided to take one last walk around the grounds. That’s when I saw her.”
“Aisly?” asked Alona.
Syrine nodded, eyes fixed on her sweatpants. “I think she was on her way to see the other hybrids in their prison. Maybe to release them, I don’t know. I was faster than she was—stronger, too—and I knew not to look her in the eyes. So when I caught her, I turned her face down on the ground and held her there while I found my sphere. I was going to call the capital guards to come and fetch her. But then …” She paused until Cara elbowed her. “But then she said something that made me hesitate.”
“What did she say?”
“That she knew about my l’ihan, David, and how he had died on Earth. She knew instead of cremating him, I’d asked permission to have his body brought to the colony for burial.”
“A request I granted,” Cara interjected.
“So then—” Syrine’s voice cracked, and she began again. “So then she asked me if he’d been buried yet. I told her no, and she said if David stayed well preserved, there was a way to bring him back.”
The whites of Alona’s eyes flashed. “From the dead?”
“Yes,” Syrine said. “At first I didn’t believe her. But then she said she’d been to visit the Aribol, and they had created technology beyond anything I could comprehend—an elixir full of enzymes to regenerate dead or damaged cells. She promised that as long as enough of David’s remains were intact, he could be fully restored.”
Alona sat back against her chair as a look of understanding crossed her face. “And in exchange for your cooperation, she agreed to provide this elixir.”
Syrine bowed her spine. Though her features were hidden by locks of wayward hair, Aelyx saw tears drop to the floor. He found himself shaking his head. He wanted her to deny it. But the clues rose to the front of his mind—her unwillingness to hold a burial, her refusal to use Silent Speech, her decision to stay on Earth, Jaxen’s knowledge of their whereabouts, David’s missing body, which obviously had not been cremated.
Cara had been right. Syrine had betrayed them.
“I didn’t know she was going to hurt anyone,” Syrine said, dragging a hand beneath her nose. “I just wanted David back. When he died, an invisible blade wedged itself right here”—she clutched her chest—“between my ribs, and all these months later I still can’t remove it.”
“After destroying the fleet, Aisly stole David’s body and brought it to Earth,” Cara said. “I found it today in a storage unit.”
“But I swear I wasn’t in league with the hybrids,” Syrine insisted. “I didn’t know their plans. I’ve never spoken to Jaxen. All I did was let Aisly go, and I haven’t talked to her since that day in the stairwell, to ask where she’d hidden David. I didn’t tell her about the ambush. I would never put my friends in danger like that.”
“You already did,” Aelyx told her. His voice sounded every bit as hurt as he felt inside. “When you trusted Aisly’s word. She’s a liar and a manipulator. You know that.”
With her face still averted, Syrine gave a small nod. “As soon as you told me what Jaxen had done to David, I knew Aisly was doing the same thing to me. Even if the elixir is real, she never had any intention of using it. She only brought his body here so she can hold it over my head.”
“So anyway,” Cara said to Alona, “the Aribol aren’t the ones who destroyed our fleet, at least not directly. I think this proves they’re not as mighty as everyone believes.”
“Or they simply don’t wish to dirty their hands,” Alona pointed out.
“Maybe, but something’s not right,” Cara argued. “Jaxen didn’t say so, but I know the Aribol promised him and Aisly some kind of control over us when this is done. Once they have us separated and we can’t travel beyond our own worlds, we won’t be able to fight back. They’ll rule us for generations to come.”
Alona’s mouth formed a hard line.
“I know it’s a risk to ignore the deadline,” Cara went on. “But I think it’s an even bigger risk to call off the search. The Aribol must have a weakness. Let’s keep looking until we find it.”
Alona steepled her fingers and appeared to consider the request. Aelyx watched her intently, holding his breath as the seconds ticked by in silence. Finally she said, “Very well. I’ll allow the last Voyager ship to continue its search.”
“Thank you.”
Alona dismissed Cara with a wave. “Don’t thank me, girl. I might have just damned us all.”
“Am I still part of The Way?” Cara asked. “Because I want to be, but I understand if you don’t trust me anymore.”
Alona’s face softened by a fraction. “We will include you the next time we convene. There simply wasn’t a moment to spare last time.”
The transmission ended, and everyone in the room released a collective breath. If nothing else, at least they’d earned another day or two.
“So what do we do about her?” Troy asked, jutting his chin at Syrine.
In response, Syrine drew both knees to her chest, and Aelyx had to fight the urge to defend her. “I didn’t tell anyone about the ambush,” she said. “I would never let Jaxen hurt any of you.”
“Then how did he find out?” Aelyx asked.
“I don’t know, but I’m telling the truth.” She swiveled her gaze to him, wide-eyed as if to use Silent Speech. “I can prove it.”
He turned away. H
e didn’t want her inside his mind.
“Just because she’s telling the truth doesn’t mean we can trust her,” Troy said. “Her loyalty’s divided. She’s proven that.”
Aelyx had to agree. How many L’eihrs had died inside the spaceport when it was destroyed? How many Voyagers had gone down with their ships? Innocent lives had been lost, all because Syrine had allowed Aisly to escape.
He couldn’t believe he’d stood up for her.
Elle strode across the room to where Cara and Syrine sat on the floor. She stopped directly in front of them and announced, “This is what we’re going to do about her.” She reached down with one hand. “We’re going to forgive her. And then we’re going to move David’s body someplace Aisly will never find it. After that, we’re going to forget this happened and focus on the real enemy.”
Aelyx stared at his sister. He hadn’t expected this from her.
“Don’t look so shocked,” Elle chided him. “You should know better than anyone that feelings and logic are mutually exclusive. Didn’t I defend you to Cara last year when you made a similar mistake?”
He and Cara shared a glance.
“Remember how you struggled?” Elle asked him. “Remember how unprepared our generation was when The Way removed our hormone regulators? We knew nothing of love and even less of heartbreak. I felt that same knife in my ribs when Eron died, and if Aisly had made me a similar offer then, I can’t say I would have refused it. Does that make me unworthy of your trust?”
Aelyx turned his focus to his top sheet, rubbing it between his fingers.
“Now imagine Syrine, even more unprepared for her l’ihan’s death because of the gift she possesses,” Elle said. “Emotional healers feel differently than we do. They love more deeply, and their grief has no limits.”
“I know that,” he mumbled.
“Of course you do.” Elle waited for him to meet her eyes. “That’s why you supported her before. And why you’ll do it again.”
Maybe he would. But right now the wound was too fresh.
It seemed Cara felt the same way. “I think we should take some time to calm down and process what happened before we decide.”
United Page 13