Gideon went next. He held up his left arm. “I was a foot soldier. They gave me a gun but didn’t bother to teach me how to use it. I was just a body to fill the ranks. I am thirteen years old.”
One by one, the rest of the boys spoke.
“They beat my father because he refused to fight. He died, so they took me instead.”
“My village had no water, no food. Ward Balias’s soldiers came and promised grain and clean water if every boy and man from ten to sixty would join the military. So we all did. Even my little brother. He didn’t make it.”
Galena and Samira stood to the side as the boys pummeled Sera with their pain. Galena fought against the burn of tears. Samira stared straight ahead, face stony, watching Sera’s reaction. Even the soldiers against the wall started to shift and glance at each other from the corners of their eyes. What would the Castalian people do if they knew what was really going on in Safara? Would they still prefer to remain uninvolved?
When the boys finished their stories, Sera nodded gravely. “Thank you for sharing this information with me,” she said, with an almost imperceptible tremor in her voice. “I’m sure it was difficult to speak of such things, and it was a long journey besides. Please accept my offer of hospitality while I . . . consider . . . this new information.” She cut her eyes to Galena and said more sharply, “Ward Vadim, perhaps you and I could speak privately, while your companions eat?”
“Of course, Ward Rossum.” Sera’s face gave away nothing, but Galena couldn’t suppress a sudden, fierce flare of hope.
Chapter 30
Tia watched the vid comm of her family and tried not to cry. The rec room was busy, and she couldn’t afford to have anyone notice her distress. All around her, soldiers argued over the latest news vid or grumbled during their splots games. Nyal and Otto played a few tables over. They weren’t loud like the rest, but they were also more likely to pay attention if she broke. The last thing she needed was someone asking her what was wrong.
Still, it was difficult to keep her emotions in check. Her father had a ragged, gasping cough, and his skin was so pale that she could see the blue of his veins stretching across his thin arms. Her brother had grown gaunt, and he no longer looked like he had any fight in him. Her mother kept her head bowed. Their misery reached through the comm to tear at her with razored claws.
The coded message was clear. Her handler wanted more intel. Always more intel.
A soldier a few seats away cleared his throat. Tia looked up and noticed Commander Nyx stomping toward her. She quickly closed the comm.
“Specialist Pallas, in my office.” Nyx left without waiting for a reply.
Tia stood up on shaky legs. Oh Gods. They know.
Nausea roiled in her stomach, and the room suddenly felt much too small. She rushed into the hallway, afraid she might be sick. Nyx was already rounding the corner at the end of the corridor.
Wait. No escort. No soldiers to make sure she didn’t run.
Her heart rate slowed a fraction. Even so, Tia turned down alternate hallways twice, determined to escape.
But each time, she reconsidered. Because fleeing wouldn’t help her family. She didn’t know where to run to; if she knew where they were, she would have attempted a rescue already.
Somehow her feet delivered her to Nyx’s office.
She held her breath as the door slid open, expecting to see soldiers waiting for her with restraints. But it was just Commander Nyx, sitting at her desk, eyes intent on her monitor. Sunlight filtered through the small bank of windows.
When Tia cleared her throat, frozen in the doorway, Nyx looked up. “No need to linger. Come in,” she said.
Tia shuffled inside, every instinct warning her to run the other way. “You . . . ah . . . you wanted to see me?”
“How are you doing?” Commander Nyx watched her with shrewd eyes.
Tia clamped her jaw so her mouth wouldn’t fall open. That wasn’t the question she expected. “I’m . . . I’m okay, I guess,” she stuttered.
“Did you get cleared by med?” Nyx nodded toward Tia’s wrist, still wrapped in thick white bandages.
“They said I can fly but no combat training for a couple of months,” Tia said.
“Your psych eval showed you’ve been struggling with anxiety. I can imagine this most recent mission didn’t help your state of mind.” Nyx had never once spoken to Tia about her mental state. Nor had she ever looked at her with such sympathy. For an instant, Tia wondered if she was having some kind of nervous break. Her shame threatened to choke her. “I should be here offering you a respite, I know that,” Nyx continued. “But I have another mission. With our . . . losses, you’re one of only two flyers with experience on the invisible wingjets, and there’s no time to train anyone else. Are you up for it?”
With a sick feeling in her stomach, Tia nodded. She wanted to scream, No. Don’t tell me anything more. Don’t make this harder! But of course she couldn’t. She could only live with her demons and pray that somehow, somehow it would all be worth it, and she’d save her family.
She had to save them. If she didn’t, she wasn’t a daughter risking everything to rescue her family.
She was just a monster.
***
When Tia walked into the stuffy workout room, she was surprised to see Dysis standing next to a man who had to be her brother. He looked almost exactly as Dysis had when she’d been disguised as a man. Dysis laughed at something he said, then filed into formation with the rest of the soldiers entering the room.
Tia took a spot in the front. She automatically glanced around for Baksen, and then nearly doubled over at the sudden knife of memory. Baksen is dead.
Because of you.
Tia looked around, but the soldiers were strangers to her with the exception of Lieutenant Santos, Otto, and Nyal. As soon as everyone quieted, Lieutenant Latza addressed the room. “As most of you know, Lieutenant Haan and Major Vadim were recently abducted by Safaran operatives. We’ve discovered their location at a prison near the coast. You’ve all been selected and cleared to play a covert and integral role in the mission to retrieve them.”
Tia’s breath froze. They’d found Aris and Major Vadim? Inwardly, she rejoiced, even as her subconscious whispered, This just means you’ll have to betray them again.
Lieutenant Latza nodded to Dianthe, who stood beside him. “For the next forty-eight hours, you will be under Dianthe’s command. She’ll fashion you all with diatous veils. We’ll be using you to infiltrate the prison, throw off Safaran defenses, and create an opportunity for the larger force to take control. It will be a joint mission involving Atalantan, Ruslanan, and Castalian troops.”
Castalia is sending troops? Tia couldn’t believe it.
“Who are we going to be veiled as?” Dysis asked, from the back row. She’d never been one for incomplete instructions.
“You’ll look like Lieutenant Aris Haan,” Jax said.
Tia’s heart thudded painfully in her chest. Murmurs filled the room; Lieutenant Latza held up a hand until everyone quieted.
“We have an opportunity here. Complain all you want about disguising yourselves as women, but this is the single biggest advantage we have. Lieutenant Haan is imprisoned. What will those guarding her do when they see her walking free? The benefits of the inevitable confusion and misdirection cannot be overstated.”
Tia tasted bile at the back of her throat. Her contacts would want to know about this.
Oh holy, what am I going to do?
“What about Major Vadim?” asked one soldier, his voice loud and grating. “Why can’t we disguise ourselves to look like him?”
Lieutenant Latza crossed his arms. “Ideally, we’d have some troops disguised as both Haan and Major Vadim, but the Major has never been fashioned for a veil. Without his data points, Dianthe can’t create his likeness.”
Then, when the
re were no more questions, he released them from formation. Dianthe began taking measurements, and Latza walked through the room, explaining to each of them their individual roles in the rescue.
“Well, this is certainly a reversal,” Dysis said from over Tia’s shoulder.
Tia jerked. She hadn’t seen the girl approach. All she could do was nod; her mouth was too dry to speak.
Dysis’s brother came over and took her arm, leading her a few feet away. Still Tia overheard him say, “Dianthe will be busy here, so I need you to man Alistar’s feed in her stead. Come get your veil fitted during Raven’s shift.”
Tia immediately washed the words from her mind. She had no idea what he was talking about, and she wanted it to stay that way. The less she knew, the less she had to tell the Safarans.
“You realize I haven’t been cleared for active duty,” Dysis said, raising a single dark brow.
Her brother gave her a quick, searching look. “No, I didn’t know. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Just, you know, major surgery. Everyone being extracautious. All that business.” Tia caught a glimpse of Dysis’s face and the two spots of pink that highlighted her cheeks.
Lieutenant Latza studied her. “Stay on the feed, then. That’s important, too. I won’t endanger your health.”
“No. I’m with you on this.” Dysis gripped his arm. “I won’t let you leave me behind.” Just then, her gaze wandered. She caught Tia’s eye before Tia had time to turn away.
Tia flushed. “Sorry . . . sorry, I . . .” I was spying on you, and now I don’t know how to play off this moment.
But Dysis just bumped her arm. She glanced at the group of male soldiers milling in the center of the room. “So this is your clever plan, Jax, turning a bunch of men into Aris. No one will believe these oafs are women.”
Tia couldn’t help adding, “Pretending to be someone you’re not is a lot harder than it looks.”
Dysis snorted. “So true, Pallas. They’ve got no idea what they’re in for.”
“They won’t have to convince anyone for longer than it takes them to run down a hallway,” Lieutenant Latza said, regarding the men. “We’re not asking them to live in Aris’s skin forever.”
“They wouldn’t survive,” Dysis said abruptly.
He shot them both a conspiratorial glance. “Tell me you aren’t looking forward to watching them muddle through, just a little.”
Tia couldn’t help the grin that touched her lips. Still, her heart beat a sickening rhythm against her rib cage. This was exactly the kind of intel her contact wanted. If she didn’t share it, and they found out on their own, they’d kill her family.
But she didn’t want to give them—no. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t put Aris in danger again. She’d give them something else. Anything else. Castalia’s troops. That would work.
Just then, a dark shadow crossed Dysis’s face. The girl took a step closer to her brother and said under her breath, “Jax, this only works if they haven’t killed her yet.”
The words were a punch to Tia’s gut. They could create the illusion of the woman, but it was an entirely different matter to give form to her ghost.
Chapter 31
They chained Aris up between two columns, like they’d done with Milek. They tortured them both, using knives and fists, asking their questions of whoever was forced to watch. After a while, Aris and Milek both lost the breath to scream.
At some point, the soldiers left. Aris wasn’t sure what she’d said, what advantage she’d given Balias. But every wound that crisscrossed Milek’s body, each cut and bruise on her own, she relived, over and over, in excruciating detail.
They hadn’t needed Elom. They’d used Aris and Milek’s love for each other to break them both.
“Aris,” Milek whispered through cracked, blood-crusted lips. “Are you still there?” Both of his eyes were swollen shut, and his cheeks were bruised purple. He couldn’t see her, so every few minutes, his hoarse voice crossed the distance between them.
“I’m here, Milek,” she said, tears cutting new paths down her dirty cheeks. “I won’t leave you, I promise. I’m sorry. I’m so—”
He hushed her, the sound grinding into a cough. Fresh blood speckled his lips. She prayed it was from a cut in his mouth, not from some deep internal injury. Her own lungs hurt every time she took a breath; at least two of her ribs were broken.
Milek’s head sagged against his shoulder. Aris sobbed. He’d passed out again. She called his name, over and over, her voice a ragged whisper. She’d seen soldiers die without a single mark on them. And Milek was beaten and bleeding from head to toe. What if this was the time he didn’t wake up?
Each time her own head dipped, she fought it. She couldn’t fall asleep. She refused to leave him alone.
A while later, the door to their prison slid open. Aris couldn’t keep a whimper from escaping. Voices clamored outside the door.
“Stay here.”
“But sir—”
“I said stay.”
“Yes, sir.”
The grating, nasal tone belonged to the lead interrogator, his voice one that would narrate her nightmares. But the other voice conjured up older fears, more deeply ingrained terror.
And yet, when Elom entered the blood-slicked room in all his bald, murderous glory, Aris nearly laughed.
As soon as the door slid closed and they were alone, she relaxed against her bonds. “Alistar. You’re here.”
“Holy, what have they done to you?” He ran to her side and started working on her restraints. “We don’t have much time. Ward Balias is on his way here.”
“Here?” she asked, eyes widening.
“He has plans for you, Aris. I don’t know what exactly, but they can’t be good. We have to get you two out of here.” Alistar’s frantic look didn’t sit well on Elom’s face; the brows were too bunched up, and his worried eyes didn’t quite match the illusion.
“You can’t free us, Alistar. Your cover will be blown. The flaming—”
“They’re bringing it here.”
The news shocked Aris into silence. Why would they do that? This was the one place Balias must know would be under attack, if Atalanta discovered that Aris and Milek were being held here.
Milek stirred. “Alistar, we need you to remain . . . in . . .” He coughed that horrible, bloody cough again. “In Balias’s confidence. You can’t risk saving us now.”
“Like hell,” Alistar said, ignoring them both. He released Aris’s right arm and got to work on the other. Pain rocked her as blood flowed back to her hand. “We’ll hide you. If we’re lucky, we can make it look like you overpowered me.”
“While tied up, blind, and standing in our own blood?” Milek mumbled.
Aris’s other arm came free, and Alistar helped her rest against one of the columns, then made his way to Milek. Aris wanted to get up and help, but her fingers were numb and she wasn’t sure her legs would hold her.
She didn’t waste time arguing with Alistar. Instead, she shared her own unwelcome news. “The spy is Pallas,” she said, for the benefit of the person listening at the other end of the feed. “She turned us over to the Safarans. They knew we were coming because she told them.” She let all of her hate spill out as she repeated, “Pallas is the spy,” as clearly as she could. She didn’t want there to be any doubt.
Milek groaned as his arms flopped to his sides. Alistar grabbed him around the chest before his legs buckled. As it was, by the strain along Alistar’s neck, Aris could tell Milek was mostly dead weight.
Aris crawled across the dirty floor, not willing to put her trust in her own legs just yet.
“What do we do now?” she murmured. “Is there a plan?”
Alistar grunted, still weighed down by Milek’s limp body. How would they escape, when Milek couldn’t even stand?
“I did some r
esearch on my way here,” he said. “There’s an old lift shaft that runs through the building. We need to get you into the vents and find that shaft. It’ll take us out of the prison undetected.” He cocked his head toward the shadowy back corner of the room. “See? There’s the access panel.”
Aris stifled a groan. Not the vents again.
Alistar continued. “As for a larger rescue effort, I don’t know what’s happening. No one has—”
His voice was swallowed by a sudden, loud screech.
The door.
There was no time to get to the vent. There was no time to move at all.
Ward Balias strode into the chamber, his eyes sliding over Alistar holding up Milek, to Aris crumpled on the ground, unrestrained, a few feet away.
“Well, this is an interesting development,” he said, his brown eyes glowing in his tanned face.
For a moment, Aris ignored him. She continued her painful crawl until she reached Milek. Alistar set him on the ground carefully next to her, and she ran her hands over his few unmarked patches of skin—the curve of his shoulder, the side of his neck—and reassured herself that he was still alive. Still here with her.
“It’s going to be okay, it’s going to be okay,” she whispered, over and over, as she smoothed a hand over his hair.
“Well now, I’m not sure about that,” Ward Balias interjected.
Balias was strong and trim, with sandy-blond hair, weathered skin that crinkled at the corners of his eyes, and a deceptively delicate mouth. Aris still remembered how, in every news vid he’d released, his expression had reminded her of a gleeful monster, ready to swallow her whole.
Up close, the impression didn’t fade.
But there was something in his eyes . . . he was thrown off. He hadn’t expected to see his most trusted operative freeing his hostages.
“Ward Balias,” Alistar-as-Elom said, inclining his head in a respectful bow. “I was under the impression you wanted to speak to the prisoners in their cells.”
“And you what?” Balias gestured to Aris and Milek, still entwined. “Thought you’d give them a moment to themselves first?”
Torn Sky (Rebel Wing Trilogy, Book 3) (Rebel Wing Series) Page 15