“Do you think Daakon has? I mean, if you two, you know . . .”
Dysis shrugged, the fabric of her jacket whispered against the rock. “He was trying to comfort me, I think, but he is who he is. I wanted it to change things, but I don’t think it did.”
“I’m sorry.” Aris touched her arm, but Dysis moved away. She didn’t want to be comforted like a child.
“Now I have to move on all over again.” She made a noise that was part frustration and part sadness.
“Had you? Moved on, I mean? Before you came back?”
Dysis sighed. “I was trying. It was easier, thinking I’d never see him again, not knowing how he’d reacted to finding out the truth about me.” Her voice hardened, even as the shattered pieces of her heart ground together. “Now I know. And it’s not better.”
“But it’s closure, right?” Aris sounded hesitant, like she wasn’t sure if Dysis wanted questions.
“It’s closure for him. For me, it’s . . . something else.”
It’s agony. But that was a truth she kept locked away.
Aris whistled softly under her breath.
“Have you gotten closure?” Dysis asked. “With Calix?”
“We haven’t had a chance to talk yet. I’m . . . I’m a little nervous to, honestly.”
“It’s easier for you, isn’t it? Because you’re in love with someone else.” Dysis’s words fired into the dark cave.
Aris shifted and sighed, her arm brushing Dysis’s in the dark. “Does everyone know?”
“I doubt it,” Dysis said, amusement filtering through the words. “You and Major Vadim have kept your secret well. But Calix and I, we know you.”
“So why is Calix here?”
Dysis started walking. “That’s a question you’ll have to ask him.”
As they emerged into the light of the main cave, she shifted the hemp bags to one hand and grabbed Aris’s shoulder, emotion surfacing in her eyes. “I’m glad we got to talk. I didn’t think I’d get the chance.”
Aris gave her a quick hug and for once, Dysis didn’t stiffen or pull away. “Me too.”
“I didn’t want to wait,” Dysis added, “you know, until after tomorrow.”
The words she left unspoken echoed in her mind. In case the rescue doesn’t go to plan.
In case we don’t get another chance.
Chapter 31
Pyralis stared at the silver windowless door and took a deep breath. He really didn’t want to do this. But Galena’s question haunted him. What if Bett did know something?
He couldn’t let himself be the coward who didn’t ask.
“Open the door, please,” he said.
Two guards held up scanners to the pads on either side of the door, then pressed the devices to the wall simultaneously. With a shimmer, the silver door became transparent, revealing the prisoner inside.
Bett sat on the bed against the far wall of the small, unadorned room, staring straight ahead. When she saw him, she looked down at her hands, clasped demurely in her lap. Her thick black hair—once her self-declared finest feature—was pulled into a single, messy braid. In the bright light, Pyralis could see her first streaks of gray. Bett’s fine clothes and extravagant jewelry had been replaced with an unflattering gray jumpsuit.
As Pyralis and the guards entered the room, a transparent partition slid into the wall behind them and locked into place with an eerie, echoing thud.
“It’s been four months and three days.” Bett’s voice was hoarse, as if it’d been that long since she’d last spoken. She didn’t look up.
Pyralis stood before her, staring down at her bowed head, and wondered how the hell they’d gotten here. When Bett had confessed to giving the diatous-veil tech to Elom, she’d told Pyralis it was his fault. He’d been so beaten down by the war, she felt she had to do something. She’d wanted to help. That’s what she said, anyway. According to her, Elom had promised that once a replacement was in place for Galena Vadim, the war would end. Atalanta would be left alone.
Pyralis still didn’t entirely believe her story. She’d never struck him as someone so gullible as to believe such ridiculous assertions. And she had to have known, whether she admitted it or not, that Galena would be put in danger.
“Hello, Bett.” He kept his voice neutral with great effort; the last months hadn’t cooled his anger.
At last, at the sound of his voice, she looked up.
Four months and three days ago, when he’d last visited, she had begged him for mercy. He’d explained her punishment wasn’t up to him but to the official tribunal, but she’d begged anyway. Said she loved him. Told him she’d die without his forgiveness.
Now her dark eyes stared through him, full of hate.
“I need to ask you a couple of questions,” he began, taken aback. Her letters—the ones he’d read—had been filled with a wild lack of control, not this quiet calm.
“I will die in here, in this empty, blank room. And what will you do?” Her voice was flat. Dead. “Will you cry?”
“Bett, tell me what you know about—”
“Of course you won’t cry.” Bett tried to laugh, but it sounded like a screech. She turned her head, slowly, to look at the walls of her prison. “You will rejoice to be rid of me at last.”
He took a step closer. He didn’t have time for her guilt trips and manipulation. “How did Elom contact you? Did you ever interact with Safaran spies? Who exactly did you speak to?”
She ignored him, lost in whatever she saw as she stared at the blank wall. “I wanted you from the moment we met. I wanted you.” She looked at him then, a remembered joy momentarily eclipsing the hatred. “You had me, all of me, the moment you asked. And then you went to Ruslana and when you came back, nothing was the same.”
Pyralis shook his head. “I can’t talk to you about this now, Bett. I need information. I’m not here for us.”
“I have nothing but us! Nothing to think about, nothing to do but remember the way you died a little inside, each time you looked at me.” She stood up, the back of her legs banging against the bed. The guards tensed at the sudden movement. “Did you think I couldn’t see?”
“Bett—” he warned.
He shouldn’t have come. There was relief in that, seeing her behave as he had expected. At least he knew he wasn’t missing something.
“Why did you marry me, Pyralis? Why did you have to be such an honor-bound, idiotic child? Don’t you know what you did?” Her face looked sunken, skeletal in the garish light. The words poured out of her, fast and messy, as if she’d been holding onto them for years, waiting for a moment to finally speak. “Why didn’t you just break our Promise? I thought I could love you into loving me again, so I chose you. I had hope. But you killed it! You killed me. Look at me, look at this life you’ve given me. Why didn’t you just let me go?”
He forced himself to do as she asked. He looked at her, really looked at her gaunt frame and shattered eyes, and faced the truth in what she said.
“I shouldn’t have married you. You’re right.” He’d never admitted it to her before. Maybe hadn’t admitted it to himself either. He’d thought it better to make the best of things, to honor his promises. To try. “Truly, Bett, I never meant to hurt you. For that, I am sorry.”
She slumped back onto the bed, all the fight and passion sucked away.
“You’re never coming back. For the rest of my life I’ll be in this room, and I’ll never see you again.”
Pyralis turned to face the door, still transparent, showing the empty hall. “Goodbye, Bett.”
From behind him, her voice, as tragic as the small, empty room: “Balias has eyes everywhere. If you think you’re safe, that your plans are secret . . . they’re not.”
Pyralis spun, shocked, to ask her more, but Bett turned her face to the wall and wept.
Chapter 32
Aris had already gathered with Calix, Samira, and Alistar in the large, central cavern when Dysis joined them. As far as Aris knew, she’d
slept in the clinic, keeping watch over Daakon.
In the tiny cave Aris had been assigned to, the nightmares had kept watch over her.
Samira spread an impressive array of weapons across one of the tables, including the ones that had been taken from her when she first came to the village, and started passing them out to the adults. Aris reclaimed her solagun and utility knife. Dysis reached for a long-range solagun.
Kori sidled up to the table and tried to grab a solagun, but Samira stopped him. “No, sir. You’re staying here.”
He crossed his frail arms across his chest. “You can’t keep me from fighting.”
Samira put a hand on his cheek. “We’re doing this so that you don’t have to fight. Please stay with the others. It’ll be your task to protect them if something goes wrong. Okay?”
“Besides,” Aris offered, smiling at him, “if we do our jobs properly, there won’t be any fighting at all. Just a short conversation, and then we’ll all be on our way.”
The boy turned away, his cheeks flushing. “What if I don’t want to go to Atalanta?”
Aris remembered what he’d said about his mother and sister, and her heart broke a little. She pulled him aside. “Kori, leaving Safara does not mean you’re abandoning your family,” she said, ducking so she was on his level. “The only way you’ll be reunited with them is if you keep yourself safe. I promise I’ll do whatever I can to help you find them.”
He wouldn’t look at her. “Why do you care, anyway?”
She shrugged. Truthfully, she wasn’t sure. But there was something about him that made her desperate to help. She squeezed his shoulder. “I’m a search and rescue flyer. Finding people is what I do.”
With a half shrug, Kori hobbled off to join the other children. They were collecting their bags of belongings, the bigger kids helping the smaller ones. An old woman gave each child a small loaf of bread and a wrinkled orange fruit.
Dysis bumped her arm. “Morning.”
“How’s Lieutenant Daakon doing?” Aris asked.
“Better. Not well enough to get out of bed yet, though.”
Aris nodded. “Alistar said it would take some time for the effects of the venom to fade, even with the antivenom.”
“Can I ask you something?” Dysis didn’t look at Aris, her eyes following the milling children. Someone was helping the boy with the missing leg negotiate his crutches and the small hemp bag that held all he had in the world.
“Sure,” Aris said.
“Why are you doing this, really? You don’t owe them this, Aris. Even for saving your life.”
Aris glanced at Kori, who brightened a little at something one of the smaller kids said. A few feet away, Samira was rubbing Hazel’s back and shooing Jaff back to the group as she handed out the last of the weapons.
She tried to find the words to explain. “I’ve spent the last year fighting a faceless enemy,” she began. “No, not faceless. An enemy that looked like Ward Balias and Elom. Now . . . now I feel sick, knowing the ‘enemies’ are victims themselves. I don’t know what good it will do—we have to protect Atalanta above all—but maybe if the world knows how the Ward persecutes his own people, maybe the other dominions will help us end this. Maybe we can save some innocent Safarans, too.”
“Pretty speech,” Dysis said, the words sounding more serious than sarcastic. She slung an arm across Aris’s shoulders.
Calix approached. “Time to take our positions. Where’s your body armor, Dysis?”
She shifted the gun in her hands. “Back in the clinic. Heading there now.”
Before they parted, the girls shared a quick hug. Dysis grinned. “We’ve got this, Mosquito.”
Aris smiled as she watched Dysis disappear into the tunnel.
“Mosquito?” Calix asked mildly, though a current of something deeper ran through the word.
Aris double-checked her body armor and holstered her solagun. She didn’t look at him. “I told her the story a long time ago. She thinks it’s funny.”
“Ah. I see.”
Without saying more, they headed out into open air themselves. Light broke over the mountains behind them in a bright wave. They walked together to a small storage building with dirty windows that overlooked the landing pad. Aris knew she had to stay out of sight until Balias’s men were in custody, but she wanted to be close so she could examine the cargo jet as quickly as possible. She’d need plenty of time to acclimate herself if the controls were unfamiliar. Calix had asked to walk her over, though he would spend the exchange in the caves to protect the children in case things went wrong. Samira would be there, too, ready to defend them to the death.
Aris had gone searching for Calix the night before, but he’d already gone to bed. It was strange to be this close to him after so long.
They reached the building. Aris turned to him, observing the new seriousness in his eyes, the roughness the scruff along his jaw gave him. Her feelings had changed over the past year, but she could still appreciate how handsome he was.
The most obvious question turned out to be the hardest to ask. “Why are you here?”
Calix took her hands. She almost didn’t let him. Yet somehow the gesture still felt natural.
He cleared his throat. “When I heard you’d died, I realized what a fool I’d been. It crushed me, knowing I’d never get the chance to tell you how sorry I am.”
Aris tightened her grip on his hands. “Calix, you—”
He shook his head. “I was wrong. I should have supported you. I should have told you I’d wait. I should have given you a chance to explain why. But I didn’t. And because of that, I lost you.”
Seeing the longing in his eyes—the love—she wanted to deny it. She wanted to curl herself into his arms like she’d done so many times before. She wanted to go back to the night before he left for Military sector, when they’d kissed in the rain. She’d held him so tightly that night, knowing she’d never want anything else in this life but the feel of his skin and the searing pressure of his lips on hers.
She wanted to tell him nothing was lost. That it wasn’t too late.
But she couldn’t. Because the words would be for him, and for him only. She knew that for certain now, as she looked into his familiar green eyes. The part of her life that was marked by loving him was over. He had lost her. Maybe it had happened when he wouldn’t wait for her. Maybe her feelings had changed before that, when she’d realized her own strength.
“I’m sorry, too, Calix.” She let go of his hands.
Something in his eyes faded.
She smiled gently, thinking of the certainty of that night so long ago. “In another life, there is no war. We Promise the night of Selection, and we live happily, quietly, in Lux for the rest of our days, with children and olive groves and wine on the beach throughout long summer evenings. We’re old, and happy, and at peace.”
He returned her smile, though sorrow still lingered on his face. “It would have been a good life.”
The moment, that life they might have had, lingered between them, before fading into the heat of the rising sun.
Aris reached up and kissed his cheek. “Thank you for coming to find me. I don’t know how you did it, or what possessed Milek to let you, but I’m glad he did.”
They walked into the dusty building together. Aris found a spot by the window, where she could sit on an old desk and watch the proceedings from the shadows. No one would see her.
“He knew I would give my life for you if necessary,” Calix said.
Aris didn’t know to respond. Instead, she watched the villagers disappearing into doorways and around corners as they took position.
“Remember,” Calix said, pausing at the door. “Don’t move into the open until the enemy is secure. Promise me.”
Aris nodded. “Don’t worry. I’ll be safe.”
With a last, long look, Calix said, “Good luck,” and closed the metal door.
Her breath was loud and too fast in the empty room.
&nb
sp; Faintly, she heard Gaven’s piercing whistle.
The Safaran soldiers were here.
Chapter 33
Dysis strapped on her body armor, each familiar clip and cinch a ward against the waiting dark. The Safaran jet would be here any minute. Dysis wanted to believe Aris’s plan would go smoothly—she did think that saving those children was worth the risk—but unnamed misgivings settled like an anvil in her stomach anyway.
“I should be out there with you,” Daakon said, looking up at her from his med-bed, his face drawn into lines of worry.
Dysis patted his knee, her sweaty fingers clinging to the thin sheet. “Now that you’re stable, you need to rest. Alistar thinks you’ll improve quickly once we get you back to Atalanta. Our meds are better.” Her grin was crooked, not quite as confident as she was going for.
And, of course, he saw right through her. “Don’t worry about me, Dysis. I’m fine. Or I will be.” He reached out and grabbed her hand, surprising her. “Focus on the mission. Keep yourself safe.”
Dysis pulled away and retrieved Daakon’s solagun from his pack. “Here.” She handed it to him. “There shouldn’t be any issues, but you never know.”
She shifted the long-range solagun in the harness on her back as she turned to go.
“I’m sorry.” Daakon’s voice was quiet behind her. Dysis didn’t turn around. “I never meant to break your heart.”
She glanced over her shoulder with a wry—if sad—smile. “And I didn’t mean what I said, about not forgiving you.”
She left without saying anything more.
Dysis waited below an overhang at the far edge of the clinic. She couldn’t climb to her position on its roof until the cargo jet landed or they’d see her. Even in the shade, heat blasted her from all sides, drawing out sweat across her forehead. It would be worse soon, when she’d be lying in direct sunlight.
Think cold, wet thoughts.
A whistle split the morning air. Before it faded, the rumble of a wingjet drowned it out.
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