She didn’t ask if Daniel could fight. He would try; he would most likely attempt to protect her, as if she were the one who had been tortured. Retreating was out of the question; they were as likely to meet guards in the cell block as they were in this corridor, and here, at least, only one enemy could come at them at a time.
They would have to keep moving.
“Stay behind me, Daniel,” she said. “If you try to fight, you will put us both at risk.”
He shuddered. “Not for me,” he said. “Go back, Isis.”
The sound of softly moving feet stopped abruptly just around the curve of the corridor. She heard rough breathing and footsteps approaching from just out of sight. Isis prepared herself, knowing that she would use her influence to the fullest extent to save Daniel.
“Who are you?” a voice called out softly.
So there would be words instead of immediate attack. Isis didn’t let down her guard. “I know you,” she said in the same low tone. “Loukas?”
“Isis.” The Opir came into view, his pale skin like a beacon in the darkness. “Daniel?”
“Why are you here?” she challenged.
“Athena sent me to find you, and I quite literally ran into these humans.” He gestured behind him, and she recognized another familiar face: Hugh, the human who had so gruffly asked for her help, along with his companions Kevin and Jessica. She could see several others with them, hear their shuffling feet and fast-beating hearts.
“Serfs,” Loukas said. “We’re getting them out of the tower.” He peered past her uneasily. “Someone could find us anytime.”
“How are you getting out?” she asked.
“Follow us.”
Loukas turned and disappeared around the bend. Isis had already made her decision. She glanced at Daniel, who nodded, and they fell in behind Hugh, Jessica, Kevin and—ahead of them—a ragtag group of five humans.
Moving at a fast pace, they began to descend successive sets of stairs. She turned frequently to check on Daniel, whose face was drawn with pain and exhaustion. He met her worried glances with eyes blazing defiance, and she knew he would falter only if his body collapsed under him.
Still, she was profoundly grateful when they reached the bottom of the stairs and found a regular corridor again. It was short, and ended at a door that might lead anywhere.
“Lady Isis,” Hugh whispered. “We’re on the bottom floor of the tower. From here, we go underground.”
Without waiting for her reply, Hugh turned away again and helped Loukas pull up part of the floor, the edges so well disguised that Isis might never have noticed the trapdoor.
“There is a ladder here,” Loukas told her, frowning toward Daniel. “Can he make it?”
“Don’t worry about me,” Daniel said. He swallowed a cough. “Go ahead.”
One by one the humans descended into darkness. Loukas followed. Hugh remained behind.
“I’ll go last,” Hugh said. “Go on.”
Isis dropped into the hole, gripping the rungs of the ladder and pausing until she was sure Daniel was strong enough to follow. Blood dropped onto her cheek. She continued down, watching Daniel carefully place his feet and clutch at the side rails with clawed fingers.
Somehow, they made it to the bottom and to a tunnel just high enough to allow the tallest of them to walk upright. Then began a journey in darkness, Loukas in the lead to guide the humans, Hugh still taking up the rear. They moved through tunnel after tunnel, and Isis sensed that they were approaching the center of the city.
Abruptly Hugh took the lead and guided the party into a much lower tunnel that opened into a small, dimly lit but well-built room furnished with simple chairs and a table. There was a door on the other side, and Isis realized that they had probably been paralleling the official network of tunnels once used by serfs and poor Freebloods during the heyday of the Citadel.
The humans fell into the chairs without any prodding, and Daniel slumped against one of the stone walls. He slid to the ground, his chest heaving, and Isis knelt beside him.
“I’m all right,” he rasped, flinching away when she tried to touch him.
“He needs medical attention,” Isis said, looking toward Hugh.
“We’ll do what we can,” Hugh said, “but we’re not in any position to contact a human physician now.” He crouched before Daniel. “Can you keep going?”
“By the Eldest, let him rest!” Isis cried. “He was beaten to within an inch of his life.”
“So were some of the other serfs.”
Isis kept her rage inside. “How many Opiri are keeping serfs now?” she asked.
“We don’t know,” Hugh said. “But one of them escaped, and he was able to confirm that Anu’s behind this.” He turned his head and spat. “A few Opiri have offered to help us. We have some in the resistance now, and we’ve managed to get a few more serfs out of the towers.”
“Do you know about the quarantine of the human citizens by Anu’s secret army?”
“Yes,” Hugh said heavily. “And Loukas has told us about the hostage being held here to ensure the commander’s cooperation.”
“Trinity,” Daniel said, bracing himself on his arms. “She escaped. She found me...in the cell. She was in the elevator heading down...when she left.”
“Where was she going?” Isis asked.
“I told her to...try to find Hugh.”
“She never got to us,” Hugh said.
“We must get to Ares.”
* * *
Daniel pushed himself to his feet, blocking the shriek of pain along his nerves. Isis stared at him with open concern, but all he felt was shame.
For two weeks he had been a prisoner, treated with less dignity and compassion than a rat in these tunnels, and all the old memories had come flooding back. The man he had been since he had escaped Erebus was drowning in those memories, and he wasn’t sure he could ever find his way to the surface.
And yet he hadn’t stopped fighting. Not as long as Ares and Trinity and the others in danger needed any help he could give.
Not as long as Isis believed in him, even when he couldn’t bear her touch.
“Will telling Ares about Trinity not put him in an impossible position, when we still don’t know her fate?” Isis asked.
“He must know,” Daniel said, his voice almost unrecognizable to his own ears. “His men can help search for her, and no one will question them.”
Isis carefully took his bloodied hand, and he managed not to pull away in self-disgust. “Hugh will also alert the resistance to watch for her,” she said.
“And there may...also be a way for Ares to pretend to obey Anu and still...turn the army against him,” Daniel said.
“Wouldn’t Ares have done that already, if he could?” Hugh asked.
“Only if he’s thinking clearly. Under the circumstances...” Daniel shifted his weight and held very still until the waves of pain passed through his body. “Isis...you stay with Hugh and the others.”
“You know I will not stand idly by,” she said, her delicate chin jutting defiantly. “I will not be separated from you again.”
Daniel looked away. He knew why she was so afraid for him. He knew why she would never let him out of her sight, because he knew what it had been like for his father where Trinity was concerned.
Isis loved him.
And he knew he wasn’t worthy. He never had been.
“Can you assign someone to get us to Ares’s soldiers...in the quarantined wards?” Daniel asked Hugh.
The big man nodded. “It’ll be risky, because we’ll have to move into the main tunnels to get there.”
“If you can tell us the way—”
“No. I’ll see to it myself.” Hugh turned to Jessica. “Get these other people to the safe house. K
evin, inform our people about Trinity. Tell them I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
* * *
They reached the human wards an hour later, moving cautiously from the narrow tunnels used by the resistance to the paved passages dug out at the time of the founding of Tartaros. They were extremely lucky not to have been seen.
Even so, Daniel kept as physically close to Isis as he dared...as if he could defend her better than she could herself, he with his battered body and unstable mind.
Ares’s army had cordoned off two of the human neighborhoods, Bes’s and Hera’s, to contain most of the city’s human population. But when Hugh, Isis and Daniel cautiously emerged from a passage hidden in an uninhabited apartment, they soon found that only a fraction of the army had been left to “protect” their charges.
Isis convinced Daniel that she should be the one to approach Ares’s soldiers, since she would attract less attention than a known resistance member or a bloodied human with torn and dirty clothing. Daniel watched from cover as she boldly walked up to one of the Freebloods and spoke to him with a familiarity that suggested she’d met him when she had been recovering in Ares’s care.
She hurried back after only a couple of minutes, her expression strained with worry.
“Ares has been commanded to meet Anu at the tower,” she said, holding Daniel’s gaze. “His troops are supposed to have been secretly deployed to the other towers inhabited by Opiri.”
“Why?” Daniel asked. “Why guard the Opiri when he intends to give the Citadel back to them?”
“I do not know,” Isis said.
“Hugh?” Daniel asked.
“It makes no sense,” the human said.
“Whatever the reason,” Daniel said, “Anu may have sudden doubts about Ares’s loyalty. If Trinity escaped, he wouldn’t want Ares to know about it. But if he recaptured her...” A crazy thought came into his mind. “We have to convince the remaining soldiers here to come with us to the tower.”
“I do not understand your reasoning,” Isis said, alarm evident behind the even tone of her voice.
“Deception won’t work, and neither will secrecy. Ares virtually controls the city now. Anu won’t be expecting us to march right in with the soldiers left to watch the humans.”
“And then?”
“With the humans unguarded, the resistance will have a little breathing room, at the very least. If Trinity is still on the move, we’ll buy a little more time for her.”
“And if Trinity has been recaptured?”
“We’ll deal with that problem when we come to it.”
“Why would you put yourself in Anu’s hands again?” Isis asked.
“I won’t hide anymore, Isis. If I have to, I’ll challenge Anu himself.”
“You want revenge, even at the cost of your own life.”
“I want to give this city a chance at survival.”
“You know that you are quite mad.”
More than you can understand, Daniel thought. “There’s nothing sane about any of this.”
For a while she simply stared at him. “How do you expect to get the soldiers to obey you?” She hesitated. “I shall have to use my influence to—”
“No,” he said. “I need to do this, Isis. I’m Ares’s son.”
Isis closed her eyes. Daniel was a natural leader. Men did listen to him.
And he was half-god. Now he would have to play the part.
“I believe in you,” she said.
He smiled, dissolving all her remaining doubts. “Hugh,” he said, “stay back. We may need you to arrange a distraction if this doesn’t work. Isis—”
“Do not even ask,” she said with a crooked smile.
He wanted to kiss her. Filthy and beaten as he was, he wanted to make love to her. But this was hardly the right time.
Moving cautiously from the abandoned building, Daniel and Isis crept toward the soldier Isis had questioned before. He had been joined by several others, who were deep in conversation. They looked with surprise at Daniel, but made no hostile move. To the contrary, their attitudes were respectful, and Daniel began to believe that their loyalty for Ares extended to him.
“You are safe,” one of them said. He looked Daniel over with a flash of anger. “Lord Ares feared for you. He has been trying to find you since rumor came to him that you had been captured. He gave orders that if you made contact with any of us, we should protect you.”
“I don’t need protection,” Daniel said. “I need your cooperation.” He scanned the area and dropped into a crouch. “Why was Ares summoned by Anu?”
The young Freeblood’s expression hinted at rebellion. “Something has changed.” He hesitated. “There is a new rumor that Anu intends to kill all the Opiri in Tanis.”
“That is impossible!” Isis said.
Daniel touched her, though it was one of the most difficult things he had ever done. “There’s more to his plan than we knew,” he said. He addressed the four soldiers. “I need you to gather the others watching the human wards and bring them to me. We’re going to Anu’s court.”
The soldier’s eyes lit with astonishment. “You want us to disobey orders?”
“Orders Ares was forced to give,” Daniel said. “If he’s been compelled to slaughter a third of Tanis’s population, I have to try to stop him.” He stared at each of the soldiers in turn. “You can come with me, or stay behind. The choice is up to you.”
Drawing apart, the soldiers consulted in hushed voices. Daniel didn’t try to listen. He took stock of himself, of the wounds finally beginning to heal and the strength returning to his body. He looked at Isis, who gazed at him with such deep emotion that he was momentarily caught up in his feelings for her, feelings he could no more control than he could influence the movement of the tides or the turn of the seasons.
“You may die,” she said in a harsh whisper. “Daniel, think again.”
“Would you take the risk of seeing your own people murdered?”
“Would you make me pit your life against theirs?”
“Your life means Tanis’s survival.” With all his courage, he took her hands in his. “Your dreams represent everything that was good in Tanis. If you come with me—”
“Again, Daniel?” She smiled tenderly. “The argument is already settled.”
“If I knew how to stop you—”
“You cannot.” She leaned into him, oblivious of the dirt and blood. “Daniel, I love you.”
CHAPTER 25
Isis watched Daniel’s face for his reaction, her heart leaping into her throat. She had known it for so long, but to say the words, to admit to what so few Opiri seemed capable of feeling...
Her heart seemed to stop when she saw the look in his eyes. There was a change in him she hadn’t recognized until this moment. In spite of his boldness and courage, no matter how much he’d tried to hide it, the imprisonment and torture had had their effects. A gulf had opened up between them: a goddess on one side, a serf on the other.
And he was afraid to cross that gulf. Old wounds had been reopened. Her people had done this to him. He would overcome the pain and shame as he had before, but what would be the price of that recovery? Any hope of love between them?
“I should not have spoken,” she said, looking away. “I am sorry.”
Daniel reached out for her, stopped, then dropped his hand. “No, Isis,” he said. “Your feelings...mean a lot to me. I just don’t know who I am anymore.”
“Then I will try to help you find what you have lost. We will face Anu together, whatever may come of it.”
Daniel opened his mouth to speak, but he closed it again when the soldiers returned. “We will obey you,” the spokesman said to Daniel. “We will gather all the soldiers we can.”
“Then scatter,” Da
niel said, “and meet us at the base of the tower as quickly as you can get there.”
The soldiers dispersed, and Daniel, Isis and Hugh began to make their way back to the tunnels. It took them the better part of an hour to reach the tower. Daniel’s face was a study in stubborn determination as he struggled to keep pace.
Hugh led them to another covered shaft that ended beneath the overhang of the ramp that led from the lower city to the elevated base of the tower. The sun had risen over the open part of the city, muffling Tanis with its brightness.
About two dozen of Ares’s soldiers were waiting, hiding wherever they could find convenient shadows.
“We can’t go in using the hidden passages we escaped by,” Daniel told them, his breath coming short. “This will be a frontal assault. Have your weapons ready, but don’t use them unless I order it.” He turned to Hugh. “You’ve done enough. Get yourself to safety.”
Hugh nodded and vanished back down the shaft. The soldiers fell into ranks behind Isis and Daniel.
“We don’t know what’s going to happen,” Daniel said, holding Isis’s gaze. “I only know that whatever we risk now, it’s better than the alternative.”
She caught his face between her hands, very gently, and searched his eyes. “Remember what I told you, Daniel.”
“I will never forget it.”
Daniel looked away, and they entered the lobby with its three evenly spaced elevators. The area was still deserted, as if Anu could not imagine needing guards at the tower.
That, Isis thought, was not a good sign.
“Half of you come with us in the elevator,” Daniel told the soldiers. “The rest follow as soon as you can. If there are obstacles at the top, do whatever you have to do to take them out.”
Isis winced at his ruthlessness, but she knew mercy was a luxury now. She had chosen to follow Daniel, and she would not question his decisions.
They met no one until they entered the lobby outside Anu’s suite. A dozen Opiri stood guard there, weapons raised as the elevator doors opened.
Harlequin Nocturne May 2016 Box Set Page 24