“She says she can mask this place from him when he wakes.” Eirlys’s voice came from across the room, and Iolana guessed she was looking down at the unconscious man they had placed on the long bench that served her as seating.
“I know she can,” Brander said, his tone dry. “Don’t forget I came here searching out the Spirit to save Drake’s life, and saw Grim walk right through the rock.”
She felt her daughter looking at her now, and this time she opened her eyes. “It is an illusion I can maintain indefinitely where the Stone of Ziem is.”
“My lady is very talented,” Grim said rather primly. “He will have no idea where he truly is.”
Iolana could sense Grim did not approve, but his support was yet unwavering.
“He doesn’t look like he’ll be running anytime soon,” Brander said frankly.
She agreed. “He is paralyzed, and very weak. I have soothed him into sleep, but it will not last for more than a few hours.”
“Who shot him?” Brander asked.
“No one,” Drake answered.
Brander frowned. But he was nothing if not quick. “The old injury, the one that got him posted here?”
Drake nodded. “He would have died on the spot.”
“If not for the Spirit,” Eirlys said.
Iolana shifted her gaze back to her daughter. “Who had much-needed help.”
Eirlys smiled. She had been hesitant, given who they were trying to save, but she had joined her strength with her mother’s, and between them they had beaten back the black tide.
“It was . . . unsettling. It felt as if he were welcoming death.”
“He was,” Iolana said softly.
Drake nodded. “He is a warrior, not a man who could accept living such a life.”
“Not to mention,” Kye said wryly, “that the Coalition would likely do away with him anyway, if he were unable to function.”
“He knows that, such are the people he serves,” Iolana said. “But he feared more that they would keep him alive for his mind, as one would keep a book on a shelf.”
Eirlys looked at her. “And yet . . . I got the sense he felt nothing about his own death. No fear, trepidation, reluctance.”
Iolana nodded approvingly. Eirlys might be new to this aspect of the skills that had served her so well with her animals, but she was learning swiftly.
“Is this lack of feeling a result of Coalition training or some medical procedure we do not know of?” Drake asked.
“I’ve read of his home world,” Brander said. At Eirlys’s glance he grinned. “I had a lot of time to read, when I was making up for lost blood. Although it sickened me to read of the birthplace of this pestilence. But one of the things I found said that there, children are turned over to the Coalition from birth. And those whose minds are too unruly have those minds destroyed. Blanked, they call it.”
“That’d chill the emotions out of anyone,” Kye said.
“What a horrible way to live,” Eirlys said quietly.
Iolana looked at Brander. “You do not seem surprised that we did not simply let him die.”
Brander nodded. “I was not surprised. I would not have, either. Not this one.”
“Why?”
Brander grinned. “Sheer, raging curiosity?”
Eirlys laughed affectionately. “He cannot resist figuring out why things work the way they do. Apparently that includes people, too.”
“I admit to more than a bit of that myself,” Drake said. “But before you start trying to figure the man out, remember he does not know your true role. You must stay clear while he is here.”
“And while you’re doing so, figure out a way to keep the Coalition from tearing the planet apart looking for him?” Kye suggested.
“That as well,” Drake agreed, then shifted back to Brander.
“I was thinking,” his second said, and Iolana saw every one of them smile, for with those words from Brander, the impossible often began. “I could go down, maybe get someone to mention when he’s expected back. So we’ll at least know when to expect them to start searching.”
“Under what pretext?” Drake asked. “I doubt he told anyone he’d asked you to contact me.”
“Maybe I’m just bored to the brink of insanity and looking for a game of chaser. Maybe I can even complain that he postponed our game because he’d be gone. Or something. I’ll think of it when I get there.”
“And this,” Drake said dryly, “is why you drive me to that brink.”
“So little faith,” Brander chided.
Iolana sat there, realizing with some surprise, that watching these people she loved together, for the moment safe and healthy, was as restorative as actual rest. She was already feeling better, stronger.
“You truly must stay clear of him,” Drake told Brander. “If he survives this, we may need you in your current position. You are too valuable if he is yet uncertain about your allegiance.”
Brander nodded. “I will, unless it becomes clear he has guessed.”
“How long do you plan on keeping him?” Eirlys asked. “Not to mention, what are you going to do with him in the end?”
“He cannot be moved now,” Iolana said. “What I have done thus far was only to stabilize him enough to be moved here.”
“But you can do more?” Eirlys asked. “You have healed such an injury before?”
“Once, in a woman who had fallen and broken her spine. This is different, obviously, but I can draw out that shard, and once it is gone, heal his spine. However,” she cautioned, “I cannot do that and mask myself. Or keep him senseless. He will know who I am.”
“And you are willing to risk that?” Drake asked.
“If it will save Ziem from someone worse, yes.”
“And wouldn’t that just be the way to get a Coalition major indebted to the Sentinels for life?” Kye asked.
“And this,” Brander said softly, “is a man of his word.”
“Yes,” Drake agreed. “Brander, do as you discussed, see if we can learn when he is expected.”
“I will try to return before he wakes, or at the least send Runner with word, so you know what we must deal with.”
Drake nodded.
“I presume we’ll need to mount a guard?” Kye asked. With a glance at Iolana she added, “No matter how weak he is, I wouldn’t trust this man not to surprise us all.”
“Nor would I,” Iolana agreed. And she meant it even more, perhaps, than her son’s mate, for she had seen deep into Major Caze Paledan’s mind, and knew that this was a man who would never quit as long as he could fight, that only the likes of what had brought him down now could defeat him. “There will be a time, if I am successful with the healing, when he will be able to move again, and even weak, I would not underestimate him.”
“Then we give him the choice, if we must,” Drake said. “He will hold off the hellhounds and you will heal him, or he will let them come . . . and we will let him die.”
Iolana nodded. And let nothing show of the odd, piercing sense of loss that shot through her at her son’s pronouncement.
Chapter 14
HE HAD NEVER felt quite this way before. There was little pain, which surprised him in that small part of his mind that seemed to be functioning. He could not move, except for feeble, uncontrolled motions of his hands. This did not surprise him, for he’d felt the moment when the shrapnel had finally reached his spinal cord. And the agony as it sliced into the cable of nerves. It was the last thing he’d felt.
But not the last thing he’d seen.
He couldn’t open his eyes; they felt weighted down, sealed, as if they, too, were no longer functional. But that he didn’t care about. For as long as they stayed closed, he could cling to the last image he’d seen. That impossible, beautiful vis
ion of a woman who, despite being long dead, had managed to invade too much of his waking day, and take over every moment of his sleeping world. As she had now, although he doubted he was sleeping.
What his state was he wasn’t certain. Perhaps dying took longer than he’d thought, or perhaps it just seemed longer; perhaps the process affected the brain in such a way as to distort the concept of time. He was glad there was no longer pain, but his practical, no-nonsense mind was not happy with not knowing. It occurred to him, somewhat vaguely, that the hyper-awareness that had been an asset in battle was no longer necessary. If he was dying—or perhaps already dead in all but this tiny corner of his mind—then perhaps it was for the best that it be this way.
“He is fighting it?”
The voice came from a distance, so great a distance that he should not be able to hear it at all. And yet he could. And not only that, he knew the man’s voice. But the name, the face that went with the voice was lost somewhere in the fog that encompassed most of his mind.
And then he heard another voice. Speaking with admiration.
“He is. I don’t believe he was ever completely under.”
Him. She meant him.
She.
That voice. It was still as he’d imagined it. Even dying, his brain was consistent. That final image rose up in his mind once more. And with it came the memory of the thought he’d had in that moment, that if this was to be the last image of his life, the last thing he would ever see, it would be enough.
And then all faded away again.
“I HAVE NEVER encountered a more disciplined yet brilliant mind,” Iolana said.
“Does that speak to him, or to the minds you’ve encountered?” Eirlys asked lightly. Even Grim, sitting in the corner—where, Iolana knew, he could move swiftly should their guest somehow surprise them—chuckled.
“The two qualities are often in conflict,” she said. “As in your mate, for instance. The brilliance is enormous, the discipline selective.”
“Selective?” Eirlys was genuinely interested now, but then they were speaking of the man she loved.
“When he is engaged, focused on some intriguing puzzle, he is incredibly disciplined. But when not, that brilliance tends to run wild.”
“That,” Eirlys said with a loving smile, “I cannot dispute.”
“It is one of the many reasons you adore him, is it not?” Iolana asked.
“Talking about me again?”
Both women laughed as the subject of their discussion in fact appeared at the entrance to the cave. He glanced at the man lying motionless beneath the blanket she had put over him, knowing the state she had put him in slowed all processes and becoming too chilled would only make things worse. Eirlys quickly rose and ran to him, and Iolana knew she was suppressing the worry she’d been feeling the entire time he’d been gone.
She watched them embrace, then glanced at the man who had paused behind them, clearly unwilling to interrupt. Drake was smiling, clearly still greatly satisfied that his sister and his best friend had finally done what had seemed inevitable to all those around them, and become one unbreakable unit, just as he and Kye had. It was quite a family unit they were building, Drake pledged to Brander’s cousin, and now Brander pledged to Drake’s sister.
They’ve done well, Torstan. Despite it all, they’ve found what we had.
To keep Brander clear, they stepped outside, leaving Grim to watch over her patient.
“Were you able to learn anything?” Eirlys asked, her tone remarkably even given what Brander had risked.
“I did. I spoke to his aide, Brakely.”
“Brakely? Is he connected to—” Iolana began
“Yes,” Brander said. “He is Brayton Brakely’s nephew.”
“Who?” Eirlys asked.
“Brayton Brakely, commander of the Coalition ship Brightstar,” Iolana said.
Eirlys mouth twisted. “Sorry, my Coalition history is limited. For too long I liked to pretend they didn’t exist.”
“He was a Coalition hero on his level,” Brander said, nodding toward the cave where Paledan lay. “Until the rebellion on Trios.”
“Had fighting that rebellion been up to Brakely, it might have ended differently,” Drake said. “But he was under the command of General Corling, and we’ve learned how that turned out.”
“And he was executed along with Corling for his failure,” Iolana said.
“I’m surprised the nephew’s still alive,” Drake said.
“He nearly wasn’t,” Brander said. “I heard someone say that he was in line to be executed himself, simply for being related to Brakely, when Paledan plucked him out of his cell to act as his aide.”
She glanced at Paledan, wondering what kind of Coalition officer would make that kind of decision.
“Yes,” Drake said, and she shifted her gaze back to her son. “It is interesting, that this is who he picks as his aide, someone already with such a black mark against him.”
“That is so unfair,” Eirlys said. Then her mouth curled sourly. “And I cannot believe I just protested unfairness in the Coalition.”
Brander hugged her. “It is one of the things I adore about you,” he said, clearly playing back on the words he’d heard when he’d come in.
“I think,” Iolana said, “it might just be another sign of that brilliance. For who better to have serving you than someone who genuinely owes you his life?”
“Contention very valid,” Drake agreed, then looked at Brander. “What feel did you get of the younger Brakely?”
“That if necessary,” Brander said without hesitation, “he would die for the man. I think his loyalty is to Paledan, not the Coalition.”
“So he has a functioning brain as well,” Eirlys said dryly, “not to remain in mindless support of the Coalition machine that wanted to kill him simply because of a relative.”
Iolana laughed. She glanced toward the cave, where the man lay unconscious just a few feet away. She did not need to check on him so often, especially with Grim right there. She could sense that he was, for the moment, stable. And both she and Paledan would require their full strength if she was going to make the attempt to heal him. But she could not seem to stop herself from wondering.
“What is it?” Eirlys asked. “You get the strangest expression when you look at him.”
“I cannot help but wonder what it must have been like, to have been handed over to that machine you spoke of as a baby, to never have known anything but Coalition cruelty and coldness.”
“We have lost much,” Brander said, “including many we loved. But at least we had them to lose.”
Eirlys looked up at her mate. “Have I mentioned how much I love you?”
He smiled at her. “I’m not sure. Perhaps you could mention it again?”
“Perhaps,” Drake said dryly, but with a wide smile, “you could mention first what else you learned? What you went there for?”
“Oh.” Brander looked discomfited. “Of course. Brakely mentioned that he”—he nodded at Paledan—“might not be back until tomorrow. I asked, as a joke, when he would call out the troops, and he said only if he misses a scheduled daily contact.”
“Scheduled?”
Brander nodded. “I could not push for more without rousing his suspicions. He’s not as . . . curious as the major. But from what someone else said, I believe the schedule is every twenty-four hours.”
“He would be gone so long without contact?” Eirlys asked.
“He always carries the comm link, should they have need of him.” Brander hesitated, then said, “I got the impression he does it often, at will. And given the times and places I’ve encountered him, that does not surprise me.”
“Nor I,” Iolana said. “He is very much his own man.”
“An oddity
in the Coalition,” Eirlys said.
“Yes,” Brander said. “He said as much once. I said he was a rarity in Coalition uniform, in the way he admired the Raider’s tactics and success. He said he was more often called an ‘oddity.’”
Drake looked thoughtful, then nodded in turn. “So he is aware he does not . . . fit.”
“He is very aware,” Iolana said quietly, thinking of those times when what should have been “we” had been “they.”
Drake went back to Brander. “Were you able to ascertain when he might have left?”
Brander nodded. “I overheard the boy Jakel frightened near to death saying he had passed him some six hours ago. So that would be just after first light.”
“So . . . we would have until that time tomorrow morning before his aide would send out a search patrol.”
“Unless the aide breaks the protocol,” Eirlys said.
When Drake looked at him, Brander shook his head. “I think he would follow Paledan’s orders unto death.”
“Agreed,” Iolana said. “He is more certain of his aide’s loyalty than anyone else in the Coalition.”
Drake’s mouth twisted wryly. “To be at such a level and yet be unable to trust those around you, of your own people . . .” Then he looked back at her. “Can he be roused by then, by first light?”
“Yes,” she said. “Sooner, if necessary.”
“Likely,” Drake admitted with a grimace, “for we’ll have to talk him into making that check-in.”
“You think that will be possible?” Eirlys asked.
“I could compel him,” Iolana said, “but there is no guarantee he would not say something that would be a warning.”
Drake nodded. “I’m sure they must have some procedure in place.”
“Not to mention,” Brander added, “that if he learned he’d been mentally forced, he is not a man who would take that lightly.”
“Why?” Eirlys asked. “Is he not compelled every day by the Coalition?”
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