by Lucia Ashta
I kept silent even though she’d asked me direct questions. I figured they were rhetorical enough that I could keep quiet. I didn’t trust what I might say. Now more than before, we needed to sway her to our side. Much depended on it, including her life. She would have to prove worthy of this confidence and quickly. I knew Dolpheus was thinking it too even if he concealed it well.
We waited for something to happen in relative darkness. It wouldn’t last long. Soon, the Auxle Sun would rise. This sun was a reddish orange and more muted than the Suxle Sun. It transformed the plainness of the sky with spectacular shades that most missed in their beds with blackout shutters closing out the art behind them.
Nothing really happened in the end, other than that time passed, and time always passed, even when we didn’t notice it. “Well, that’s something,” Lila finally said.
“So do you realize now why we had to break into the lab? And why no one can find out about it?” Dolpheus asked.
“I imagine that the King holds information as to how to find his daughter. But what about breaking into the lab? Is the secrecy just to prevent Lord Brachius’ fury? Because surely he would be furious.”
“It would be nice to prevent Lord Brachius from venting his rage upon us.” Dolpheus treated Lila to a smile that invited sympathetic collaboration. “But it’s more than that. Lord Brachius can’t find out that we’ve been in the lab because if he knows, he’ll make it nearly impossible for us to break in the next time.”
“A next time? I thought the splicing facility was already supposed to be impossible to break into.”
Another endearing smile. “Tanus and I have a different definition of impossible than most people.”
“I guess so.” Lila’s attention had returned fully to Dolpheus. The look she gave him now held fire in it. Did she already want to bed him? This supposed stranger that had taken her against her will and knocked her unconscious? I would have to congratulate Dolpheus later. He was smooth; I couldn’t deny it. I couldn’t have accomplished this as quickly.
It took a moment for Lila to abandon whatever thoughts were responsible for the devilry she didn’t seem to mean to hide. Then, “And why exactly would you want to break into the lab again?”
“Because it’s the only way to bring the Princess back here.”
“Why?”
“Because the King sent her off planet.”
Lila looked genuinely startled, more than she had since she first ran into me. “He sent her off planet?” She spoke softly, making me realize that this was more outrageous than I’d earlier thought.
Obviously, Dolpheus was reevaluating his thoughts on Ilara’s removal from Planet O as well. He was watching Lila carefully; his subtly seductive coyness was momentarily gone. “He did.”
Lila whistled. “Wow. No wonder you need my help.”
I hadn’t thought we did. I’d thought that we only needed her silence. But if she was offering…
“Are you willing to give us your help? Because we would really appreciate it. The Princess would really appreciate it.”
“Hmmm. Perhaps. Tell me more.”
What choice did we have? I’d thought we were in control. Yet we kept doing what she, our captive, asked of us. Dolpheus would have to tell her everything now that she’d dangled an offer of help out there to us.
As he continued with our story, I wondered who was playing whom and wished what I hoped was not a fruitless desire: that no one was playing anyone at all.
Twenty-Five
Dolpheus possessed my trust; he’d earned it a hundred times over. I let him continue with all the telling alone while I did nothing more than edge closer to the two of them. He’d already revealed the biggest of my secrets. There wasn’t really that much of substance left to tell. But he would find something to share that would satisfy Lila. I could count on his ability to satisfy women, even this one.
“Tanus and I have been searching for the Princess for more than three years, since we first learned that she’d been supposedly murdered by Lord Brachius’ assassins.”
Lila didn’t flinch at the implication of wrongdoing that Dolpheus attributed to my father. “And how did you know she was alive? Did she contact you? Did you see her?”
“No. Tanus felt her alive. But he received no external confirmation of this until quite recently.”
Lila turned sharp eyes on me. “How did you feel her? How could you possibly know that she was alive and not dead?”
I understood from her question that she’d never loved as I did. She’d never experienced anything like what Ilara and I shared, or she wouldn’t have need to ask. “I just feel her, right here.” I placed a hand over my heart where the longing and aching hadn’t ceased since Ilara’s disappearance. “I know she’s alive because I can feel her alive within me.” I hadn’t meant to be so sentimental. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have been with anyone except perhaps Dolpheus. I had a reputation of strength to preserve that didn’t much suit expressions of love. This woman would either keep the secret of my heart or take it with her to a grave that would likely be very near to where we were now sitting.
A wistful look flickered through her eyes before it disappeared entirely. It seemed that she too had an image of herself that she wanted to preserve. But I was glad that she’d revealed this glimpse into herself, however fleeting. It gave me hope that the truth—her version of it—might be close to the surface. We would deal in truths all of us here together, in a field behind my father’s facility, or we wouldn’t deal at all. This was how the terms of circumstance had defined themselves.
Lila turned her face back toward Dolpheus, who was tracking every one of her moves and inflections. She nodded. Go on.
“We searched the palace immediately after the attack. When we found nothing there, we searched everywhere within the royal city, looking for a hint, a rumor even, that she’d survived.”
“How did you get into the palace? I heard that the security at the royal palace was even more strict than usual then.”
“It was. But we got in. Tanus is considered a courtier, through the wealth and prestige of his father. Tanus has never sought the King’s favor, but the palace guards know better than to turn away any courtier without just cause. The King relies on their contributions too greatly to risk offending any of them unnecessarily.”
“But Tanus is Lord Brachius’ son, and Lord Brachius had just attempted to kill the King, after already killing the Queen and the Princess.”
“Nothing was ever proven. Anyone who’s familiar with the political environment of Origins right now suspects that Lord Brachius did it. Even the King does. But no one’s been able to prove it. Lord Brachius is a cunning man.”
“That he is.” Suddenly, she sounded resentful of this fact. I watched Dolpheus perk in anticipation, just as I had. If my father wasn’t in Lila’s favor, then our odds had just improved greatly.
“When we found nothing within the royal city to indicate that the Princess had survived, we turned outside of it. We ventured into the wilds of O, looking everywhere.”
“Even in the deserts? Even among the rebels?” Lila was impressed although she seemed to be trying to hide her reaction. The wildernesses of O had earned their reputations for harsh and unforgiving places. Once the lushness of the residential areas that surrounded the royal palace faded into barrenness, either the land killed you by denying you what you needed or by giving you more than you could take of its pummeling. And if the land itself didn’t do it, the rebels would. They were as hardened as the parched dirt of the outlying deserts. They had to learn to survive where no one else could. It was either a fool or a soldier ordered to go there that went out into the wilds. Few returned.
“Even there, in the wilds,” Dolpheus continued. “Yet we found nothing. Not a trace, not a whisper, not a single hint that the Princess had survived the assassination.”
“Yet you continued to believe that she lived?” Again, her voice was soft, as if she realized that a deep love and the f
aith it engendered was worthy of awe.
“Tanus did.” Dolpheus leaned farther forward, so that his face was only a short length away from hers. He was reading her cues. Her emotional response to my love for Ilara was an opening to gain her sympathy. “He didn’t waver for a moment. He continued to feel her within his heart.”
She didn’t move or say anything, just proceeded to stare at Dolpheus, round-eyed. For a quick second, I almost felt sorry for her, our captive, that she hadn’t experienced a love as fulfilling as I had. Yet she was young. She looked as if she had many more centuries ahead of her than she had behind her. Her skin was still dewy and supple with the vigor of youth.
“If the Princess wasn’t anywhere within the palace, nor within the royal city, nor within its outskirts, or even as far as the wilds, then she must be off planet.”
“But no one goes off planet, not hardly. Only the select few that can harvest the best sands and return them to O. And they’re trained for decades before they’re entrusted with these missions.”
“Still, it was the only option left. Besides, it also made sense. It was strange that the Princess wouldn’t have reached out to her lover after she escaped.”
“How did she escape?”
“She wasn’t in the palace when Lord Brachius sent the assassins in to kill her and the rest of the royal family. But no one was aware of this but her lady servant, and the assassins killed her.”
“Where was she?”
“In Tanus’ bed. When she snuck back into the palace in the early morning hours, that’s when she must’ve discovered what happened, and that’s when the King must’ve found her. We began to suspect that the King must’ve moved her off planet O. It was the only viable option left. Tanus and the Princess are able to speak to each other with their minds.”
Another widening of those round eyes. Too few understood what we humans are capable of doing. Even someone intelligent as Lila seemed to be had apparently forfeited many of her innate abilities.
“Yet he heard nothing from her. Her arrival into the chaos of the palace, to discover that her mother was dead, with her father undoubtedly desperate to see her thinking her killed and then to discover her unharmed, was the only explanation for her silence. She would’ve needed calm and stillness to communicate with Tanus. She wouldn’t have had this, dealing with the sudden loss of the Queen, and the near loss of her entire family. The King must’ve ordered her away at once.”
I spoke up. “It would have been the wise thing to do, to protect her. The King couldn’t have known whether there would be more attempts on her life.”
“The Princess was likely whisked away in a flurry and sent off planet before she had time even to process what was happening,” Dolpheus said.
“And the King would have wanted to conceal the fact that his daughter lived to keep her safe. If everyone thought her dead, no one would try to kill her. So he wouldn’t have wanted to use the sand industry’s off planet transport machines. Too many employees monitor their functioning. Besides, they’re slow and arcane compared to Lord Brachius’ technology,” Lila contributed.
Lila was smart. I was glad we’d chosen to tell her the truth. She would have seen through our lies anyhow, and we would have forfeited any chance at earning her trust, which we apparently needed even if we hadn’t realized it when we first took her at the splicing facility.
“Lord Brachius’ facility would have been the only smart option for off planet transport. But how did the King get in? Certainly, he wouldn’t have asked for Lord Brachius’ help. He’d just sent assassins to the palace,” she said.
“We aren’t entirely sure whom the King sent to break into the splicing facility, nor how the person managed to do it. We assume that maybe this person had help, somehow. But we don’t know. All we do know is that this person no longer lives,” Dolpheus said.
“The King killed him? Or her?”
“We don’t know.” Now Dolpheus turned to me.
“The King just said that he’s the only one that remains who knows what planet Ilara is on.”
“The King admitted that the Princess lives and is off planet?” Lila asked me.
“Yes.” I didn’t figure it would change our story if I mentioned that I’d broken into the lab once before to confirm this. So I reserved at least this one piece of information.
“And has he told you which planet she’s on?”
“No.”
“Do you know which planet she’s on?”
“No. I can feel her alive, but I can’t tell whence I’m feeling her. She hasn’t responded to any of my prompts. I think, however, that if I were to know at least which sector of the universe she’s in, that I could better pinpoint my mental signals and perhaps garner a response.”
“Really?” Incredulity dripped from that one word. I ignored it. I hadn’t patience with those that were so ready to believe they possessed limitations that existed nowhere beyond their own minds.
“To get a better idea of where she is, I need to give the King what he’s asked for. He’s ordered me to provide him with information on my father’s splicing procedures. If I’m able to give him something good enough, then he’ll give me the name of the planet she’s on, and then I’ll definitely be able to communicate with her.”
“And bring her back.”
“Yes. Either way, whatever information the King gives me, I’ll want to try to speak with her first. Perhaps something has shifted in this time that will help us bring her back.” I shrugged. “Any new information would be valuable at this point. I don’t know what kind of life she’s been forced to live all this time, away from us, from her home, from the planet she feels bound to protect.”
“What kind of information has the King asked for?” A promising question from someone that might hold the treasure I could use to trade for my lover’s life.
“He didn’t specify. He said I would know it when I saw it. Since no one outside of the splicing lab, including the King of all of Origins, seems to know anything about splicing except for what its end result promises to be, I can only guess at what the King is hoping for.”
“Hmmm,” was all she said, and I had nothing more I wanted to say just then. It was all out there in the open, laid out like an opulent feast in front of a stranger. Now it was her turn to choose what she’d do with my secrets.
She leaned back away from Dolpheus to think; at least, that’s what it looked like she was doing. Her gaze was set on a point away from both of us, away from anything in particular.
The moments ticked away. I got up to return movement to my legs. Eventually, I settled into pacing back and forth across our stretch of the field, boots parting the long grasses, making it look as if each of my steps mattered. But then the grasses closed again to conceal my passing as if I’d never been.
Finally, she spoke. “You couldn’t have hoped to find much at the lab. Lord Brachius is extremely careful not to leave any trail of his methods or any records of the procedures that he’s already performed. He’s highly concerned that someone will steal his splicing secrets. You must have known that.”
“We did,” Dolpheus said. “We knew it wouldn’t be easy, and that it might even be a waste of effort.”
“Yet you broke in anyway? Knowing you might be risking your lives for nothing?” This question was for me.
“We didn’t risk our lives for nothing. We did so for love. Wouldn’t you?” It was then that I thought we might have her, in that moment when she thought of what she might do for a love she hadn’t yet experienced, perhaps never would.
After a pause, Dolpheus spoke. “Brachius must keep some records of his splicing methodology. All labs must to be able to progress with their work. If not, he’d have no way of knowing what precise circumstance affected the process for good or bad, especially if something unforeseen were to occur years down the line.”
Lila would, of course, be as familiar with the scientific method as we were. “Is it the records that you need?” she asked.
“I don’t think so,” Dolpheus said. “The King asked only for something he would find useful.”
Lila retreated into herself to think some more. Dolpheus and I let her. He rose to join me in movement. Neither one of us enjoyed being stationary for long. Once you grew used to adventure and the frequent risking of your life, you were left wanting to interact with what time you had more than you could when you were just sitting, unmoving. You desired the sensation of engaging each moment that still belonged to you in life.
Her voice crossed the grasses to reach me when I had my back turned, pacing away. Like a whisper of hope, or a tantalizing promise, or a tease of aid that I hoped was much more than that, because, why not? Didn’t things get to become easier for us at some point? Didn’t love deserve a chance?
“I possess information that the King will find useful.”
Twenty-Six
Dolpheus and I stood before Lila, giving her our full attention. She rose from the stone she’d been sitting on to take a few steps toward us. She’d experienced the shift in power between captors and captive. She understood now that she had something we wanted. It seemed that she intended on wielding her power, and that perhaps she’d forgotten that we still posed a threat to her. Whether or not I liked it, I’d still kill her to protect Ilara if I had to. It might not be fair, but life wasn’t often fair; I’d do what I had to do.
I wanted to ask her if she would give us this information that the King would find useful, but I held my tongue. I could see it all over her face, in the sudden vivaciousness of her features, the twinkling in her eyes. She was thinking that she would play a game with us. She wasn’t thinking as I did of the game of cat and mouse. No matter how clever the mouse was, eventually, the game arrived at an end, with the cat on top. Just as I’d seen King Oderon as a lion when I first met with him to ask him about Ilara, I saw Dolpheus and myself the same way. We were the cats, and we were strong ones; my sense of urgency in reaching Ilara didn’t alter that. If anything, my desire to bring her to me made my decisions more rash than usual. I was a cat looking for a reason to pounce.