Venturers

by Bella Forrest

  At the edge of the woodland, we turned to check that no other soldiers were following us. Bashrik was still battling his way through the throngs with ease, especially as it seemed like the tide was turning. Where before it had looked like Gianne’s soldiers might emerge victorious, now it looked as though Queen Brisha’s army was winning. In fact, it appeared Brisha’s soldiers weren’t far from forcing Gianne’s to retreat over the barrier line. Already, many of them were running back to their vessels.

  Without another moment to lose, we barreled into the woodland. I could hear Angie and Lauren’s voices nearby, and I sprinted toward the sound. We ran into them a split second later, as they were running out. They didn’t have their guns anymore, their hands empty.

  I grasped Lauren by the shoulders. “Where’s Ronad?”

  “He sacrificed himself so we could make a run for it. He’s with a madman, over there!” she explained, jabbing a finger between the shadows of the gnarled trees.

  Angie nodded. “He ambushed us—he took our guns! Sneaky little creep!”

  I grimaced. “Stay here. Don’t move until we come back for you.”

  “We’ll stay hidden,” Lauren promised, grabbing Angie and pulling her down behind a tree trunk.

  Pressing on, with Navan close behind, I reached a small glade in the trees, where Kaido had Ronad walking with his hands behind his head, a device clamped down on his neck. His machine gun lay on the ground, the cartridge removed. It seemed Ronad wasn’t in control of his movements anymore—it must’ve been the device.

  “Forward!” Kaido barked, unaware of us watching from the trees.

  Slowly, Ronad walked forward, though from the strained expression on his face, I could tell he wasn’t responsible for the movement.

  “Sneak around the back. I’ll try to get him from the side,” Navan whispered.

  The two of us split apart. I tiptoed around the side of the glade, until I was facing Kaido’s back. Navan signaled me, and we both sprinted forward. I’d lost a lot of my knives on the battlefield, throwing them too far to snap them back, but I still had a few. I used the last of them as I ran forward, and Navan brandished his blades.

  Kaido flitted out of the way, faster than either of us. “To the ship!” he called, forcing Ronad to break into a sprint.

  I hurried after Ronad, glancing back at Navan, who was fighting Kaido. The curly-haired coldblood was still trying to attach the device to his brother’s neck. Using the button on my gloves, I tried to call the knives back, but most of them had thudded into the tree trunks around me. Only four returned to my hand. It wasn’t nearly enough to take on Kaido.

  I burst out of the woodland, emerging onto the battlefield again, though it looked as though the battle was over. Queen Brisha’s soldiers were the victors, chasing their quarry down, brandishing their weapons as a warning. Over to the other side, I caught sight of Angie and Lauren watching us from the edge of the trees, but I couldn’t stop for them now. I had to make sure Ronad was safe, especially with that device on him. He came to a halt beside one of the stealth vessels I’d seen other members of Gianne’s army retreating into.

  Thinking fast, I ran up to Ronad. “I’m going to try and pry it free,” I said, gripping the device and pulling hard. A roar of pain erupted from Ronad’s throat, and his eyes turned glassy for a moment.

  “Kaido has the… other part to the device. You… need it to… release this,” he explained, panting hard through the agony. “It’s attached to my… nerve center.”

  The trees shuddered as Kaido and Navan came tumbling out in a tangle of flailing limbs and punches. Although he’d lost his swords, it looked like Navan had finally gained the upper hand, his blows more accurate than Kaido’s. As Navan powered through with a blow that should’ve knocked Kaido clean out, the slimmer coldblood feinted out of the way, darting for me instead.

  It all happened so fast, there was nothing I could do about it. Kaido’s arm closed around my neck, and he dragged me toward the now-open door of the stealth vessel. He applied pressure to my wrist with his free hand, bending it back. A searing jolt of pain caused me to drop the last of my knives. It appeared Kaido was skilled in Aksavdo too—beyond the basics every coldblood was taught.

  “In war, one must learn to go for the easier target!” Kaido called out to Navan, who had stumbled forward from the shift in balance.

  Navan reached the hatch of the stealth vessel a second too late, just as the door hissed closed. Kaido released me immediately, and I ran to the door, trying to figure out how to open it, but there was no way. I was trapped inside, while Navan was outside.

  “Let them go! If you take them, I swear to Rask I will kill you, Kaido! Let them go!” Navan bellowed, slamming his fists against the hull.

  “I’ll find you!” I shouted back. “I love you!”

  “I love you! I’ll come for you, Riley! If he does anything to you, I’ll tear his head off!” Navan roared, but Kaido only snorted.

  “I’d like to see him try,” he remarked, turning his back. I was about to lunge for him when he raised a hand, stopping me in my tracks. “Oh, and if you even think about trying anything, Riley, I’ll trigger the kill switch on dear Ronad’s device.”

  It was no use. Kaido had captured us, and we could do nothing. Moving toward the control room, Kaido slid into the pilot’s seat and fired up the engines, before closing the door that separated the cockpit from the space where we’d been thrown. There was nowhere for us to run, in such a small ship. It made the perfect prison cell. Kaido knew I wouldn’t do anything to risk Ronad’s life, and though I wasn’t sure if he was bluffing or not, I wasn’t prepared to risk it.

  I stumbled to the floor as the vessel rose off the ground, taking us away from Northern Vysanthe and the people I loved, who were still stuck below. With a jolt, we picked up speed. Kaido was retreating with the rest of Gianne’s soldiers. But he had a slice of victory to celebrate that they couldn’t—he had managed to capture a prize.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  As the enemy ship thrummed through the sky, heading for our final destination, I sat back against the curved chrome walls and felt a small wave of relief. At least Kaido hadn’t killed me and Ronad yet, though I had a strong feeling something bad was going to happen once this ship came to a stop.

  The door to the cockpit hissed open, and Kaido stepped out. The ship had evidently been put on autopilot. It still surprised me how readily the coldbloods trusted technology to do the grunt work for them. Back home on Earth, people were freaked out by the mere idea of robotic cars.

  “Come to inspect your prey?” I challenged, getting to my feet—not that it made much difference. He stood almost a foot taller than me, his gray eyes watching me with strange curiosity. Ronad sat on the opposite side of the room, the device keeping him down. Focusing my gaze on Kaido, I patted my bandolier absently, but there were no knives left.

  “You are not prey; you are my mission,” he replied, his tone oddly lacking inflection, although there was a hint of confusion, as though he didn’t exactly understand my meaning.

  “I don’t think either of us was part of the bargain,” I said. “The only person you seemed eager to tag with your nasty little device was Navan, and he’s not here. I’d say that’s a failed mission.”

  “Navan will come for you. That’s the problem with emotional attachments—they get in the way of logical thought. They make a person irrational, especially the males of a species.”

  “Where I come from, there’s a species whose females eat the males when they’re done with them,” I replied sharply, intending it as a threat. However, it seemed to go right over Kaido’s head.

  “You prove my point,” he said.

  “Navan is a smart guy. He won’t walk into your trap,” I continued confidently, finding Kaido a bit odd. Something was off about his manner, as though his mind were missing certain cues that other people would get. Coldbloods naturally lacked a sense of humor, for the most part, but this was different.
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br />   Kaido shrugged. “Either he will or he won’t, but your presence will certainly improve the odds of him launching a rescue mission. He has an affection for you, yes?”

  The question took me aback, though I didn’t see the point in lying. It was obvious this coldblood knew who we were—he had targeted us on purpose. “Well, I’d call it more than affection, but yes, he cares for me.”

  Kaido nodded. “That explains his dramatic scene outside the ship. You see, romance makes ordinarily sane people do foolish things, like attack a solid metal door as though they could tear through it with a strength borne from pure love,” he remarked, not unkindly. “Obviously, that is ludicrous, but you see it happen. Navan’s behavior is a perfect example. The last time I saw him, he would never have allowed his judgment to be clouded by such things, but love is as potent an infection as any you are likely to find.”

  I pulled a face. “You paint such a charming picture. I take it you’ve never been in love?”

  “I have not, though I believe ‘love’ is a fallacy,” he replied.

  “I thought it was an infection?”

  “You mistake me—there is no bacteria in love, if you ignore the sharing of it through sordid actions. It behaves like an infection, infiltrating the brain, augmenting cellular functions to make the heart beat quicker, irises dilate, cheeks flush with blood, along with other body parts. It is simply a mixture of neurons and chemical reactions, just like anything else.”

  I didn’t know whether to laugh or be utterly dumbfounded. Kaido seemed to say every word as though it were a statement of fact, every sentence weighted. And yet, there was a dry humor to what he said, though I wasn’t sure he knew it was there.

  “What do you want with us?” I asked.

  “You will find out soon enough. In the meantime, make yourselves comfortable. I have refreshments, if you would care for some?” he offered, entirely serious.

  I shook my head in disbelief. “Maybe you could start by taking that device off Ronad’s neck? Can’t you see he’s in pain?”

  “His actions can’t be trusted,” he said, turning to Ronad, who scowled.

  “What about mine? I might have a knife hidden somewhere,” I countered.

  “First of all, you do not have a knife. I just watched you patting your bandolier and saw the disappointment on your face when you found it empty. Secondly, you are small and fragile, and would not risk Ronad’s life, even if you could find a way to overcome me,” he said bluntly.

  I had to hand it to him: he was pretty good at reading people.

  “How did you find us when we crash-landed?” I asked, hoping he’d stay open with his responses. Nobody had known we were returning to Vysanthe today, so how could he have been there, ready to strike?

  “I have a unique acquaintance who happened to owe me a favor. This individual moves freely between sides, relatively undetected. When they told me you had been sent away from the North on a mission of some sort, I asked for the name of your ship. Once I had the name, I simply put an alert out on one of the outer-space satellites. It picked up the Vanquish, which I suppose has now been vanquished,” Kaido replied, his face blank. “The alert was set to notify me when you returned, and so it led me right to you.”

  “You’ve been tracking us all this time?” The hairs bristled on the back of my neck. I didn’t like the idea that even more people might have been watching our every move. Orion was bad enough.

  “Goodness, no. I am much too busy for that,” he assured me. “I just set the alert on a satellite beyond the atmosphere, as I said, to warn me when your ship was in the vicinity of Vysanthean airspace, and to send me the trajectory of your landing. Although, it was not a particularly smooth landing, and your collision course meant I had to get there even faster, in case the impact had killed most of you.”

  Ronad groaned from the other side of the room. “Wanted, dead or alive?”

  I chuckled, even though it was far from funny.

  Kaido frowned. “Well, it was preferable that you be delivered alive, but I suppose they would have accepted dead, too.”

  “You really haven’t changed a bit,” Ronad grumbled, his face contorted with pain.

  “I have changed plenty, Ronad. I am definitely still a coldblood, unlike you,” Kaido retorted. “Giving up your birthright for a female. You see what I mean, Riley? Affection addles the mind.”

  I smiled in response, realizing he’d given me a way in—an emotional trigger I could use against him. “And what would your sister have thought of all this? What would Naya have thought of you betraying two of your brothers and her true love? Do you think she’d have been proud of what you’re doing?”

  “Naya’s death no longer troubles me. I had my moment of grief, and then I moved on from it. After all, Naya did as she pleased and allowed herself to be drawn away from sense and rational thought,” he replied. His words shocked me. Across the room, anger washed over Ronad’s face.

  “How can you say that?” he spat, prompting Kaido to press down on a button that caused a cry of pain to gurgle from the back of Ronad’s throat.

  “My siblings have always pretended I didn’t exist, and Naya was no exception,” Kaido explained, his face still devoid of any real emotion. “I feel no loyalty toward them, just as they feel no loyalty toward me. When I was a child, they locked me away in the attic of our family home, and I believe they wish I were still there.”

  It was hard to gauge his feelings from his expressionless face. His words should have been rife with emotion, especially since he was getting into the realm of childhood trauma, but they didn’t. They were as matter-of-fact as everything else he said. There was no hurt, no sadness, no anger—just the same serene, almost cold tone. I wondered if it was some sort of defense mechanism, forged in those childhood years, when his siblings had bullied him and locked him away. Somehow, it felt too innate for that.

  “So is this some sort of revenge for the way they treated you? Do you want to punish Navan and Bashrik?” I ventured, eager to know his reasoning. I thought he was working for Queen Gianne, but perhaps there was more to it.

  He shook his head. “Nothing so banal. Besides, Navan and Bashrik weren’t the worst offenders of my siblings. If they had been, and revenge was my motivation, I would have exacted my vengeance a long time ago. I would not have waited,” he said, almost amused.

  “Well, you know what they say. Revenge is a dish best served cold,” I retorted.

  He frowned. “Surely, revenge is best when it is carried along on the heat of anger or passion? Who says these things? I have never heard that before.”

  “Never mind.” I sighed, trying very hard not to roll my eyes. “So, if you’re not upset about Navan and Bashrik, why are you trying to capture them?”

  “It’s as I said before. You and Ronad will offer me plenty of leverage to coax my brothers back to the South on a more permanent basis. They have gallivanted with Brisha for much too long, and it is bringing embarrassment to our family. With every mission they perform for the enemy, and every day they spend over the border, they bring further shame to my much-beloved parents, and I will not stand for it.”

  “You’re doing this for Jareth and Lorela?” Ronad rasped, sweat glistening on his forehead. Kaido pressed down on the button again, prompting Ronad to grimace in agony.

  “You do not utter their names, Ronad. I have asked you countless times to refer to them as the honorable Mr. and Mrs. Idrax,” he said with an almost unnerving softness.

  “What, so you’re trying to spare them from that embarrassment? Is that what all of this is about?” I asked, incredulous. I could only imagine what he really thought of the relationship between Navan and me, if he was going by his parents’ moral code. Although, for now, I guessed it served a purpose—one he could use against Navan.

  Kaido sighed impatiently. “I owe my parents a great debt. This is the least I can do for them,” he responded. “Besides, Navan’s actions have made my mother quite unwell, and his return wil
l hopefully bring her back to full health once more.”

  “Your mother is sick?”

  “She has fallen ill, and I will do whatever I must to make her better again. Navan caused the sickness, as it was brought on by stress, and he will be the one to fix her. The plague and the cure.”

  “You really like your infections, don’t you?” I jeered. After our experience on Zai, I was just about done with plagues and cures.

  “They intrigue me, yes,” he replied, as though my question were stupid. All throughout our discussion, he seemed to view me as some kind of strange zoo animal to be studied and scrutinized, instead of an actual person. It was probably that coldblood superiority complex coming into play. “However, in the case of my mother, there is no obvious bacterium or virus causing her illness. Hers is an affliction of the mind, which has permeated down to the body. Navan is the cure, as I say.”

  “Wait, so where does Queen Gianne come into all of this?” I asked. A few things weren’t quite adding up.

  Kaido tilted his head. “Well, in case you hadn’t noticed, Queen Gianne is in the middle of a war,” he said. “She is much too busy to trouble herself with the affairs of our family, although my father remains at her side, advising her through this hard time.”

  “What caused the outbreak of war?” Ronad interjected, before I could ask any more about Queen Gianne’s involvement in our capture.

  “Traitorous behavior, of course,” Kaido replied.

  “Care to elaborate?” Ronad pressed, through gritted teeth.

  Kaido gave a sullen shrug. “Queen Gianne captured a squadron of Brisha’s soldiers as they were spying around the underground hangar near Regium. They’d broken in and appeared to be on a covert reconnaissance mission to scope out the extent of Queen Gianne’s new fleet,” he explained. “However, before anyone could be brought in for interrogation, the hangar blew up, killing everyone inside—Queen Gianne’s people, too.”

  “And Gianne blamed Brisha, even though her people died too?” I mused.