by Natalie Grey
“Samara—”
But she was gone, and as Aryn turned slowly, she saw why. Ellian had descended from the ship, his black eyes looking at Aryn and the coldest smile she had ever seen on his face. And walking across the launch pad from a sleek black car was a masked man dressed all in black.
Everyone on Ymir knew that mask, but this was the first time Aryn had seen it in person. Her heart seized.
She was staring at the Warlord.
7
Samara sprinted down the back hallways with the rest of the resistance fighters at her heels. They piled out into the rain in an awkward cluster, staring wide-eyed at the Dragons.
Who, apparently, were commandeering the trucks they had come in. Crates were being loaded efficiently, and a man with green eyes and stubble on his jaw gave a sweeping glance at the group.
“Who’s in charge here?” He nodded to Samara. “You?”
How had he known? Samara gave a little nod.
“You ride with me,” he said, jerking his head at her. “Nyx—you take truck two. Jester, truck three. Aegis, truck four.”
“You know talent with ships doesn’t translate to talent with trucks, right?” one of the men muttered, but he took the third truck, a grizzled old man taking the fourth … and one of the most beautiful women Samara had ever seen taking the second.
For a moment, she looked over: brown eyes and dark hair, a quizzical lift to one eyebrow. And then the woman apparently called Nyx swung herself up into the truck, beckoned to a sandy-haired man, and pulled the truck away in an instant.
“Come on,” the dark-haired man said impatiently. He swung himself into the passenger seat and pointed to her to take the driver’s seat. “The rest of you, in the back with the guns.”
They piled in, and he gave an expectant look at Samara.
She held up a finger, waiting, and—as she had expected—the Warlord’s car pulled away, dust rising behind it. Samara waited, and realized she was waiting for the other man to give the go-ahead. She looked over at him as he studied the road, and finally he gave a slight nod. She pulled out to follow.
She wasn’t sure what she wanted to say, but she settled for: “So you’re a Dragon.”
In the truck behind her, several heads whipped around to stare at the man.
“Let’s get this out of the way,” he said grimly. “Yes, I am a Dragon. I am the commander of Dragon Team 9. Several weeks ago, I found out that—”
“When you thought you were coming to Ymir to kill the Warlord’s people, you were instead killing ours,” Samara said. She could feel Arlon’s eyes blazing into the back of her head. “That sounds false, but Aryn seems to believe it.”
“Aryn,” Talon said drily, “saw Cade’s face when he found out.”
“She mentioned.” Samara’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel.
Talon looked over at her, and she had the uncomfortable feeling that he saw everything: the way she’d loved Aryn, the way she still did, the way it felt good to see her so happy, and at the same time, hurt worse than anything Samara had ever known.
Thankfully, he didn’t comment on it.
Instead, he said, “If you had to ask me my worst nightmare, it would be to find out that everything I fought for had been a lie.”
Part of her was still afraid that this was just a pretty speech, just the right words said in the right way so he could lure them out and crush them all. But Samara was suddenly sure, absolute sure, that he meant every word. She looked over at him, tears in her eyes, and he gave an impatient shake of his head.
“It happened. Now we deal with it.”
“How?”
“Same way you deal with what he did to you: kill him.”
The members of the resistance had been sitting in wary silence in the truck, but now they gave approving nods.
Talon seemed to sense it, because he added wryly, “And I have to say—Io District in particular has been quite a thorn in the Warlord’s side. Whatever you’ve been doing, it’s been working.”
There was a pause, while Samara tried not to say the words she wanted to say. She looked up to find him staring expectantly at her, and she said, quietly, “Jacinta would have been glad to hear that.”
His face froze and he looked away.
“You didn’t know,” Samara said quietly.
“I should have.” He shook his head. “I should have taken one look at her and known no one like her would work for the Warlord. All I can do now is make him pay.” He looked back at her, green eyes as cold and hard as stone. “And I will, Samara. I promise you I will.”
And despite everything, despite the years of raids and the years of seeing his own soldiers shooting at the resistance … she couldn’t help but believe him.
The Warlord held up a vial and examined it, looking for any hint of vapor. He looked over at Ellian. “I’m assuming this isn’t a ruse.”
“If you have any palace staff you don’t care too much about, and an airtight room, you can feel free to test it.” Ellian would normally have sat elegantly, adjusted his cuffs, and studied the man—but one did not presume to do such things when it came to the Warlord, especially in his own palace.
The Warlord smiled thinly and put the vial back down before strolling to a window. The rest was still in orbit, waiting for Ellian’s signal to land it. He wasn’t quite an idiot. In the grand scheme of things, keeping the poison in orbit wouldn’t keep him alive. It was clear that the Warlord wanted him dead.
But how? And when? Ellian’s own plans hinged on that.
“I heard another name in New Arizona,” he said lazily. “A Dragon commander allied with Rift. Alina Kuznetsova.”
The Warlord went still as stone.
“I wasn’t able to deal with her before I left,” Ellian said. “I have my guard tracking her—”
“Don’t bother.” The words weren’t so much an insult, as a dismissal. The Warlord had made a calculation, and plainly he believed that no one Ellian could summon would be able to take Kuznetsova out.
Ellian might have bridled at this … if this wasn’t exactly how he’d wanted the conversation to go. He looked over at the bookshelves; examining the titles kept his face clear.
“Your assassin,” he said, pretending to be absent minded. The Warlord was silent, and Ellian did not dare look over. “They could handle it, surely.”
There was a pause, and then the Warlord said, “Which assassin?”
Ellian nearly swung around in surprise. There was something here, though he did not have the first idea what it was. The Warlord was trying his best to be casual, and he was failing miserably. Something about this assassin had him on edge.
Ellian could not resist trying to figure out what it was.
“The one who took care of Hoa,” he said simply.
The Warlord turned to look at him, too sharply. “What do you know of that?”
“What everyone knows of it,” Ellian said, pretending at impatience. In reality, he felt a prickle of worry. The Warlord looked uncomfortable, almost cornered—and any animal was thrice as dangerous when cornered. “His agents said later that no one should have been able to take him out, but someone did. If it wasn’t you, then who? And if it wasn’t you, you certainly let everyone think it was.”
The Warlord stared at him for a moment, and Ellian saw him suppress the urge to swallow.
What about this was so dangerous?
“You could call them in again,” Ellian said impatiently. “Someone like that doesn’t get sloppy, no matter how long—”
“Not her,” the Warlord said harshly.
Her. That was interesting.
Ellian’s face must have betrayed his interest, because the Warlord’s hands clenched. “It is—not important. For this mission, no.”
And Ellian knew better than to push it. He was not sure what he should do, in fact. Should he leave?
“I’ll wager you haven’t had a vacation in years,” the Warlord said finally. There was no trace of te
nsion in his voice anymore. “Take the day, spend it with your wife. I will see you both at dinner.”
“Sir, the poison—”
“Is here. I think it can wait a few hours, don’t you?” The Warlord inclined his head, and Ellian sensed that he was giving a cold smile. “Go. Enjoy the day.”
Tera had assassinated more people than she could remember, and she had been very inventive over the years. Guns, knives, poison, friends and servants she had bribed, buildings she had booby-trapped, bombs she had wired herself….
Never, however, had she tried to kill someone without even being able to be on the same planet as they were.
How did one go about doing that, after all? If other people could do what she did, she wouldn’t be the best—and this job required the best. Julian was not going to travel, or live, without extensive protection.
Tera had no way to examine his apartment, follow him to and from work, or otherwise observe him. Normally, she built her plan after days of watching, sometimes weeks or even months. Only once she knew where the weakness lay, could she strike. She wasn’t Apollo, setting bombs everywhere she went.
Someday, he was going to miss with one of those.
She sat back in the window seat in her bedroom and considered.
An exploding package sent to his work or his home would never get past either the Intelligence mail protocols, or, likely, his own. And there she was, thinking like Apollo. Without knowing what was in his apartment, she couldn’t rig anything to….
Or could she? Tera sat up a little straighter. Maybe she didn’t have to be there at all. The towers on New Arizona were all extensively climate controlled. The water was acidic enough to burn skin, the air at the tops of the towers was thin and cold.
“Miss?”
Tera looked around sharply as one of the maids came in with a tray. “Yes?”
“Lucca said you’d be wanting a snack.” The woman ducked her head nervously. “He said you hadn’t been down this morning.”
They were afraid of her. Except for Lucca, they were all afraid of her—and even he was uncomfortable when she was around. Tera forced a smile, feeling sorry for the maid’s obvious discomfort. “Thank you … Emma?”
She saw the woman consider agreeing with her, but she admitted, “Anna. Miss.”
“I’m sorry. Anna.” Tera smiled. “Thank you for this. And thank Lucca for me.”
“Yes, miss.” The woman disappeared.
Tera cut open one of the muffins and spread some butter on the inside. She was going to go soft if she kept eating like this—normally, she barely ate more than the calibrated rations suggested by the biometric computer in her training arena—but when there were fresh pastries around, it was hard not to eat them.
She chewed as she thought.
Yes. The climate controls in Julian’s apartment. There had to be a way to hack those—without disturbing anyone else.
It would be a challenge. Her mood restored, Tera stuffed the rest of the muffin in her mouth without ceremony and went off to find a pad of paper.
8
Cade swallowed and tried to keep from staring at Aryn. A single curl trembled as it lay against her neck. Her face was blank. She had been made up perfectly by the maids Ellian had brought with him, dressed in a blue-green gown that exactly matched the necklace of Vorekan sapphires at her neck, and she walked silently at her husband’s side as the Warlord of Ymir gave a grand tour of his gardens.
Cade walked behind them and trying to pretend, as a bodyguard should, that he did not exist.
“They tried to destroy it,” the Warlord said now, sweeping out one arm to indicate the greenery. Hedgerows grew in perfect patterns, lining the paths, a fountain at the center. “Barbarians. They have no appreciation for history. It took me ten years to get a clipping of each of the plants. I’ve been thinking of building a perfect replica of the palace as well. It would have to be modernized, of course, but what better than a model of the Sun King’s palace?”
Aryn’s fingers trailed over a brass plaque, proclaiming these gardens to be a perfect replica of those at Versailles on Old Earth. Her face, she kept blank, and Cade ached to know what lay behind those flat, blue-grey eyes.
What must she be thinking now, this woman who had worked in the Warlord’s mines, who had seen his cruelty firsthand, as she looked out at the silent beauty of his palace?
He did not think he could bear to know. And Ellian, Cade thought, should have known better than to ask Aryn to accompany them on this tour.
On the other hand … as Cade held the door open for Aryn to leave the hangar, Ellian’s eyes had looked between them, assessing. He watched every gesture between them, an inspection that was just shy of a blatant accusation, and Cade had the rising urge to ask Ellian just what he expected to see. The two of them lying together on the launch pad, perhaps? Matching rings and a declaration of love, right there in front of everyone?
It would be funnier if his chest didn’t ache with it. It would be funnier, also, if Ellian were not clearly bringing Aryn on this tour as a form of revenge. Cade wanted to take the man by the shoulders and throw him against one of the nearby walls, demand to know why he would throw the two of them together if these were his suspicions.
He should have quit three days ago when he had the chance. Then he’d be with Talon, distracting himself from these kind of thoughts with the relentless planning and preparations that went into this sort of operation. Especially now—Ellian’s presence could only mean one thing, that the Warlord was about to have the weapon he’d been demanding all this time.
Cade knew he should focus on what the two were saying to one another as they strolled off, talking easily about the folly of the resistance, but he could not move. Aryn stood as if frozen, staring out at the gardens. In the past days of the journey, she had grown both more confident, and more remote. Now, she might as have been made of marble. She looked down on the gardens, and Cade was reminded suddenly of the statue Li used to keep in her bunk at the Dragons’ barracks. Kwan Yin, she called it, and Cade always thought the little brass figurine looked terribly sad.
Cade looked up to see the Warlord and Ellian waiting, looking back expectantly.
“Ms. Beranek.” He dared not use her name, but when her head turned, he felt as if he’d slapped her. He tried not to wince as she spoke. “Mr. Pallas is waiting for you.”
She said nothing, staring at him for a long moment, and then she turned and walked quickly to Ellian, her practiced smile on her face.
“Forgive me. The gardens are just so beautiful.”
“Not half as beautiful as you,” the Warlord said gallantly. He bent over Aryn’s hand, black-gloved fingers swallowing hers; if he noticed that she held back a shudder, he said nothing. “Mr. Pallas, you should always bring your wife with you. She is a most charming creature, and I am sure it pleases her to be home. Tell me, my dear, will you be visiting your parents while you are here?”
Was that a threat? Even Cade did not know.
“Of course, sir.” Aryn’s voice was low and pleasing, cultured. There was nothing at all behind her eyes. “Family is the most important thing of all, do you not think so?”
“I hope we shall soon live in a world where I can say that is true. But for now, I must say that security is the most important thing. Your husband is helping me to achieve that.” The Warlord bent his head in Ellian’s direction. “Take in the gardens. Walk together. I shall see you soon at dinner.”
“Of course.” Ellian smiled as the man walked away.
When he turned around, his smile died. Aryn’s hands were clenched, her face a mask of dislike.
“You didn’t mention the bombing.”
Oh, Aryn… Cade gave her an aghast look, but she did not spare a glance for him.
“My dear, the time was not right.” Ellian looked briefly at Cade, smiling at the man’s horror, and then back to Aryn.
“Why not?” she asked, her voice tight.
“There are a great many d
etails to be concluded before I speak to him about something so delicate.”
“Oh?” Aryn crossed her arms. Her eyes had not wavered from her husband’s face. “Because it seems to me that you’re trading food and supplies he desperately needs, and that if you were to tell him how displeased you were about the bombings before you concluded your dealings, he would have an incentive to stop.”
In horror, Cade realized what she was doing. She intended to force Ellian into an outright lie, something she could then expose.
But what could she hope to gain from it? She knew she was in the Warlord’s palace itself. She had to know that the Warlord’s assessment of her as charming meant less than nothing if she stood between him and his weapons. And if she angered Ellian…
It all came back to Talon’s question: what game was Ellian playing? Why was he here now? And if he had seen their moments of indiscretion, Aryn weeping on Cade’s chest, Cade embracing her in their rooms, then why had he left them together on a ship, with no one to watch them, only to swoop down on them now? For a man whose actions tempted an indiscretion, Ellian Pallas seemed remarkably consumed with jealousy.
“My dear,” Ellian said now, “we should speak of this in private. In our rooms.”
“Nowhere in this palace is private,” Aryn said simply.
“Aryn.” He looked horrified.
Cade enjoyed that.
“What? We all know it. A man as powerful as the Warlord needs to watch those he allows into his inner circle, does he not?” Her mouth twisted around the words.
“I am glad that you understand,” Ellian said cautiously. “And no doubt you see that the Warlord is understandably upset about the resistance. After all, it has killed a great many civilians. Please, Aryn, let us speak in our rooms.”
There was no mistaking the threat in his voice, and though Aryn’s eyes flashed, she walked with him down the long hallways in silence. She gave only the slightest sign of disappointment when Ellian’s own guards joined him.