Before Adar and Ria could jump down his throat, the office door cracked open behind them and Selvhara slipped inside. Her brow was creased with concern, though Jason could tell it had nothing to do with this conversation.
“We have a problem,” she murmured.
“No shit,” Ria grumbled.
“The knights are sending Elade back to Calhara tomorrow morning,” Selvhara went on. “She will likely be banished from the Dawn…possibly worse.”
“Wait, what?” Tam blurted out. He had been so quiet Jason had almost forgotten he was there. “What the hell happened?”
“There’s a reason the Zarul Imperator wasn’t able to cut her off from her powers,” Selvhara murmured. “She’s Unbound.”
Jason smacked his forehead. “Just what we needed…”
“I knew we had a special connection,” Tam said, hopping off the ledge where he had been sitting. “Uh…I’m guessing the knights don’t like our kind.”
“Their Code prohibits them from instructing Unbound in Dawn channeling techniques,” Selvhara said. “Tevek knew the truth, of course, and now he will also likely be punished in some fashion.”
“That’s too bad for them, but it’s really not our problem,” Adar cut in. “Right now I need a good reason not to throw all of you back out on the street.”
Selvhara frowned. “What are you talking about, Kyle?”
“You’re placing all of us at risk just by being here. The ‘Coats think we have a new and vulnerable Ascendant walking around, and sooner or later they’re going to come after you again.”
“They were going to come after you anyway, weren’t they?” Jason said. “I’m starting to think you never actually intended to fight them.”
Adar shook his head. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. You don’t know a damn thing about what’s really going on here.” You’re a spoiled coward who abandoned his cause, and now you’ve come back and gotten my people killed.
The words crystallized in Jason’s mind, and suddenly he could see clearly through the haze of emotion and random thoughts swirling around the room. It was an odd sensation, almost like he had just put on a pair of spectacles and watched as the world sharpened around him.
“I know that the Crell should have already wiped all of you out, but they haven’t,” Jason said. “And I know that a man who has successfully led all these people for so long shouldn’t suddenly be scared about the ‘Coats now.”
Adar’s face twitched as if it might rupture at any moment. But while his anger was directed squarely at Jason, something else was fueling it...a cold fear buried deeply in his mind. Jason tried to focus on it, to bring it closer to the surface…
“You don’t know,” Adar repeated. “You can’t know.”
“Then tell me. Tell us. What the hell is really going on here, Kyle?”
Adar’s eyes narrowed. We should have left you to rot at the gates. I should have known nothing good would come of this. “What’s going on is a spoiled traitor has come home, and he expects to be treated like he is one of us.”
“Kyle!” Selvhara snapped.
Jason grunted. “Or maybe a small man is realizing he’s in way over his head, and now he’s just looking for someone to blame.”
Adar smashed his hand on the table. “We shelter you, we feed you, we defend you against an attack you brought upon us, and you dare speak like that to me?”
“If you’re going to accuse me of being a coward and blame me for your problems, yeah, I am. So I ask again: what’s really going on here?”
“That’s enough!” Selvhara warned, glancing between the two of them like they had lost all sense.
Maybe they had, but Jason wasn’t about to back down now. Images flashed through Adar’s mind; battles, conversations, maps…they came so quickly Jason couldn’t pin them down. He tried to reach harder, to slow down the emotional tempest…
Ria lifted herself off the table, shooting daggers at him with her eyes. “I think it’s time you left. All of you.”
“You don’t understand us, and you never will,” Adar muttered. Your father was right about you. I can’t believe I thought you would help us. I can’t believe we thought you might see things our way and realize what we had done here.
Jason’s mouth fell open. He heard the words clearly, but the images behind them cemented it in his mind. His father, speaking with Adar, somewhere in this very city.
Alive.
“Dad,” Jason whispered. “You spoke to him? He’s alive?”
Adar’s expression froze, and his body went stiff. Everyone in the room turned to look at Jason, their expressions ranging from shock to befuddlement. Even if he hadn’t picked it from Adar’s mind, his face—and Ria’s—gave away the truth almost as clearly.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Adar stammered. How could you possibly know that?
“My father is alive.” Jason stood and noticed Ria tensing as if she thought he might attack her commander. “Where is he?”
Adar didn’t even blink for a long moment, but his thoughts were clear as day. Solaria. He should be there tomorrow. I have no way to contact him and tell him what happened with the cube, and now I don’t know what to do here. I’m terrified. These people expect me to be their leader, but I’m lost. I can’t hold it together any longer.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have gotten out of bed so quickly,” Ria said. “I think you’re hallucinating.”
Jason shook his head as everything suddenly become clear. “He’s been leading you the whole time, hasn’t he? Behind-the-scenes, giving you orders.”
“Jason, what are you talking about?” Selvhara asked desperately, grabbing onto his arm. When he didn’t reply, she turned to Adar. “Ethan is alive?”
“He died at Tibel two years ago,” the man replied mechanically. “Everyone knows that.”
“You obviously don’t,” Sarina said, crossing her arms and scowling at him. “Neither of you do.”
“You had better tell them the truth,” Jason suggested, stepping forward. “Tell them that your boss left town, and now you’re panicking because you don’t know what you’re doing.”
“Get back,” Ria warned. She wasn’t fully standing yet, but her muscles were coiled and ready to pounce if he got any closer.
“You’re delusional,” Adar insisted.
Jason shook his head. “Why did he go to Solaria? What’s there for him?”
A coup. “Nothing.”
“A coup?” Jason gasped. “What the hell is going on?”
“Get out of my head!” Adar screamed, throwing his chair backwards. “You don’t know anything!”
“Kyle,” Selvhara said softly, stepping forward and reaching out to take his arm. “Calm down.”
Ria instinctively grabbed the druid’s arm to hold her back. It was a big mistake.
Jason barely even saw Sarina move. One instant Ria had her arm clasped around Sel’s, and the next she was lying on her back, pinned to the floor by a very angry-looking Asgardian.
“Stop it!” Selvhara screamed. Tam had taken a step back, and Adar looked like a man on the verge of breaking into tears. Ria, for her part, struggled to breathe as Sarina’s forearm pressed into her throat.
Eventually, Sarina pulled back, and Ria coughed. “You bitch!” she hissed. “I knew we shouldn’t have trusted you! You’re not even a Galvian!”
While the two women glared at each other, Jason remained focused on Adar. The man’s mind became a jumble of unreadable emotion and images. One moment Jason thought Adar might break down into tears, but in the next he seemed as if he were bubbling over with rage. It took Jason a while to figure out what was going on: Adar was using the dissonance as a shield. He might have been feeling bits of all of those things, but his mind wasn’t that erratic. He had spent a large portion of his life surrounded by channelers, and now he was constructing an emotional wall so Jason couldn’t get anything more out of him. And it was working.
“I need to know the
truth,” Selvhara said, her voice trembling. “Kyle, is Ethan really alive?”
Adar’s hands balled into fists. “Yes.”
Selvhara’s eyes snapped shut. “Goddess have mercy.”
“Wait, isn’t this good news?” Tam asked. “I mean, I know your dad is kind of an asshole, but…”
He mercifully trailed off, and Jason licked at his dry lips. He wasn’t sure exactly what he was feeling. When he had heard the news from Tibel two years ago, he hadn’t shed a single tear. He hadn’t been happy, exactly, but some part of him had actually been relieved. His father’s zealotry had gotten his wife and his king killed. His actions had ruined the lives of thousands of people across Torsia. And it wasn’t as if they had really gotten along before that.
But ultimately, Ethan Moore was still his father. And that should have been worth something.
“Have you known all along?” Jason asked after a moment of tension-filled silence. “Since Tibel, I mean.”
Adar’s head drooped and he sighed. “No, I thought everyone was killed. I started this group all on my own.”
“And then dad heard about it and came offering his assistance?”
“Something like that. You know how he is; you know his personality. When he suddenly reappeared, we couldn’t have been happier. I couldn’t have been happier. I’m just a soldier, and he is a general. If anyone could turn the war around, it was him.”
Jason nodded. “How many others knew about this?”
“Ria and myself, and a few others we use as couriers. That’s it.”
“You never told Aidan?” Selvhara asked. “He’s one of Ethan’s oldest friends.”
Adar took a deep breath and then cleared his throat. “The General wanted to remain in the shadows. When I told him you were here, he didn’t want to drop the ruse just yet. He might have, given enough time, but not now.”
“So why did he go to Solaria?” Jason asked.
Adar’s mind flickered, but before Jason could peek inside he threw up another emotional wall. “He has contacts in the Alliance. I don’t know who specifically, but he’s confident that the Crell will invade before the end of the month, possibly sooner. He wanted to arrange more supplies and support for us here before war broke out.”
“There’s more to it than that. You were specifically thinking about a coup.”
“We’re living a coup, Jason,” Adar told him. “We’re trying to overthrow Sovereign Verrator. Ethan figured that once the war started, we’d get an opportunity for some riskier assaults. The Crell would empty the local garrison and send them to the front lines, and after that we could try and take control of the rest of the city. If we succeeded, we could start a full-blown insurrection in Galvia and seriously disrupt their military operations.”
Jason frowned. That sounded like his father’s logic, but Adar had been thinking about Solaria specifically when “coup” had popped into his head. No, there was more here than just opportunism. His father definitely had something else planned…
“None of that explains why Verrator and the Zarul haven’t just wiped you out,” he pressed. “How have you really survived this long? What has my father done?”
“He has done whatever was necessary to keep us alive,” Adar said instead. “He’s always been smarter than the Crell—you know that. He’s managed to whip up some dissention in the ranks and keep them off-balance.”
Jason shook his head. “No, there’s more to it than that. You’re hiding something.”
He turned towards Ria. Unlike Adar, she obviously didn’t know how to erect an emotional shied to block out her thoughts. And the moment he concentrated upon her, the truth suddenly flashed right in front of his face.
Demons.
“Galivar’s blood,” Jason swore. “Dad’s the one responsible—he’s the one who’s controlling the demons!”
For a moment, no one spoke. Sarina and Tam’s mouths dropped open, and Selvhara’s face drained of color. Ria simply glared at him, her expression a mix of shock and anger.
“Ethan,” Selvhara whispered. “What have you done…?”
“He approached me with his plan from the beginning,” Adar said, sinking back down into his seat. His emotional shield buckled and collapsed, and all that remained was a deflated husk. “He convinced me that it was the only way we would ever be able to make a difference here. With his demons, we could sew chaos in the enemy ranks. We could keep them off balance and even score some important victories. After that, recruiting would jump up, and outside groups would be much more willing to help.”
“And he was right,” Ria added bitterly. “Do you really think the Solarians ever would have paid attention to us if we hadn’t taken over the docks here? Everything has worked exactly like your father said it would.”
Jason shook his head and forced himself to swallow the lump of bile rising in his throat. He had always known his father was a ruthless man, but summoning demons? That was a line that even he had never crossed.
“At what cost?” he breathed. “There had to be another way.”
“The other way was to die,” Ria snapped. “I don’t expect you to understand.”
Selvhara glanced away. “That was why the garrison reported an attack yesterday. Ethan must have sent his demons against them.”
“Yes,” Adar confirmed. “He needed to get rid of them since he left the city, and he thought it would give us time to keep Jason safe until the reinforcements arrived.”
“We have to find him,” Jason murmured. “We have to track him down and figure out what he’s up to.”
“Then go,” Adar told him. “Get out and don’t come back. You don’t belong here, and you never have.”
Ria’s head whipped around to glare at him. “You can’t just let them go! Not with what they know.”
“Are you going to try and stop us?” Sarina taunted.
Jason placed a restraining hand on her arm. “Kyle is right. I don’t belong here, and neither do the rest of us. We need to find my father and get to the bottom of this.”
“If you tell the Solarians what you know, you will doom Galvia forever,” Adar warned. “You might even cost the Alliance the war. I know you aren’t of us, but I don’t think you’re a traitor.”
“No, that mantle belongs to you,” Sarina said, shaking her head in disgust. “You lied to me. You used me.”
“Oh, please,” Ria snorted. “This isn’t your fight, Asgardian. All you ever cared about was sating your bloodlust.”
Jason squeezed Sarina’s arm more tightly, but to his surprise she didn’t take the bait. She just glared at the two rebels for a long moment before turning and storming out of the room. Jason waited another few seconds and then followed. Just before he turned into the hall, he glanced back over his shoulder to Adar, the once loyal, diligent soldier known across the country for his honor and integrity. But all that remained now was a stranger. And perhaps that was all these people had ever been.
Jason shut the door behind him. He didn’t look back.
***
“This is insane,” Tam commented, breaking the long silence since they had left Adar’s office. He had already retrieved his belongings and packed up his bag.
“That’s the understatement of the century,” Jason murmured as he finished closing up his own pack.
“I don’t mean your dad being some arch warlock terrorizing the city. Let’s face it: we all knew he was pretty crazy.” Tam turned and crossed his arms. “I mean your plan to chase him into Solaria.”
“It’s not like we have much of a choice. We can’t stay here, and we obviously can’t go anywhere else in Galvia, not with the Crell believing I’m a new Ascendant. And besides, we have to figure out what he’s up to and stop him.”
“I get that he’s your father and all, but why is hunting him down our responsibility?”
“Because no one else knows he’s alive,” Selvhara put in, her voice soft and distant. “We have to speak with him. We have to stop him.”
; Tam opened his mouth to respond but stopped himself, and Sarina glanced away and repressed a sigh. She was still trying to get over the fact that General Moore was alive…and that Adar and the others had been lying to her for months. She had trusted them; she had believed in them. And this whole time they had been summoning demons against the Crell…
She retrieved her crossbow and squeezed the grip so hard her knuckles turned white. As uncomfortable as she was with Jason’s sudden telepathic ability, Adar’s betrayal overshadowed everything. His betrayal…and her own foolishness. When she’d returned from Ikara, she had so desperately wanted to find someone fighting against the Crell that she hadn’t asked as many questions as she should have. She should have known that a simple soldier like Adar could never have held the rebels together this long without help.
“Tam has good reasons to want to avoid Solaria,” Sarina said eventually, taking in a deep breath and buckling her crossbow to her belt. She also retrieved her longbow and slung it over her back. “They treat Unbound as badly as the Last Dawn.”
“Every time we’ve gone there before I’ve ended up running away from the priests,” Tam said. “And now they’ll probably come after you, too. You may not be a real Ascendant or an Unbound, but I doubt they’ll care about the details.”
“The Alliance isn’t the Imperium,” Jason said. “They aren’t going to send shadow agents to watch us everywhere we go. As long as you don’t blow anything up, no one is going to notice.”
“No offense, Jace, but I have a hell of a lot more experience with this than you do. What if something happens and we need to defend ourselves? What if one of their priests walks up to me and realizes I can channel?”
“You’re overreacting as usual. Besides, I have friends in Celenest who can help us.”
Tam cocked his head admonishingly. “Please tell me you’re not talking about that little girl you saved at Fort Isen all those years ago.”
“Last time I checked, Krystia was a high-ranking priestess in the capital,” Jason said. “She’s also an Unbound.”
The Godswar Saga (Omnibus) Page 57