by Natalie Grey
“Beautiful, wasn’t it?” The Warlord spoke from close behind her.
Aryn jumped, looking up at him.
“Please, my dear, there’s no reason for you to have to sit on the floor.” He watched her for a moment, then looked back to the painting. “It was the loveliest castle. Until my own soldiers turned on me.”
“In the—” Aryn closed her mouth, biting her tongue sharply to remind herself. She should not say that she knew who he was. That, she sensed, was a good way to get herself killed.
“Do go on.” The mask stared at her, pitiless.
“In the … past,” Aryn finished lamely. “It must have been a long time ago. I remember the castle.”
“Ah, yes. You would, wouldn’t you? You’re…what, twenty-four? Don’t look so surprised. I know everything about you, Ms. Beranek. Your family, your marriage, your unfortunate infatuation with that bodyguard….”
Aryn looked away, crossing her arms. Sitting on the floor seemed to be the biggest defiance she could summon at this juncture.
“What, are you upset that he was injured?” The Warlord seemed amused. “He very likely won’t die, you know. But you could never have had him. Ellian wouldn’t have allowed it.”
Revulsion came up so quickly that Aryn could almost taste it.
“Had him?” she repeated softly.
“Oh, he’s yours, I’ll grant you that. Besotted. Quite impressive, really. But what use could he be to you?”
“Use?” Aryn turned to look at him now, spitting the words back. “Did you think I wanted him to be a toy?” Before she could stop herself, the words tumbled out. “I’m not like you.”
“Ah. Careful, Ms. Beranek. Up until now, I’ve been a very kind host, but I do not take insults lightly.” The mask watched her. “That will be your only warning.”
“If you were being kind, I wouldn’t be here.” Aryn pushed herself up at last.
“My dear, you do look a mess. Let me send for someone to redo your hair. We can’t have you at dinner looking like that.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Spoken like an angry child. I don’t particularly care if you’re hungry. You will be accompanying me to dinner to show your husband the cost of his actions.”
Aryn paused, her eyes narrowing. She had forgotten, in the horror of what had happened, about the conversation Talon and Cade had had.
“Did you not realize what this was? Oh, dear.” The Warlord waved negligently at a couch. “Please. Sit.”
Aryn considered it for a moment, decided it was likely not booby-trapped, and sat gingerly.
“Now.” The Warlord sat across from her. “Where were we? Ah, yes.”
“You know, I don’t mean to interrupt, but … there’s still a body on your floor.” Aryn felt the hysterical urge to laugh rising in her throat. This was too ridiculous. It could not be real. “Your rug is going to be ruined.”
“Don’t speak.” The Warlord’s voice was cold. “I will tell you when to speak.”
“Do you think I’m going to beg Ellian to get me back?” Aryn asked acidly.
“Whether you do or not is quite irrelevant, my dear. It’s what our dear Mr. Pallas wants that is important now. And I am quite sure that he will do whatever it takes to have his lovely wife returned to him.”
Aryn looked away, and the Warlord laughed.
“Did you really think your little defiance would hold? Persuading him to stop dealing with me was a masterstroke, I admit that. Who would think the little rebel girl would amount to so much? Oh, yes,” he added, when she looked back at him sharply, “I knew all about your past. Ms. Beranek. As does Mr. Pallas, of course.”
“He doesn’t know,” Aryn said, her lips numb. She shook her head. “He doesn’t.”
“He and I spoke about it when he first asked me for you. We agreed it was a wonderful irony. Such fire! If all rebels were as charming as you, my dear, I should have a great deal more trouble with my commanders—and I should have anticipated, I see now, that you would work your magic on Mr. Pallas if I gave you over to him.
“But, you see, the hold you have on him…the irrationality that drives him to defy me….” The Warlord leaned forward, his voice a hiss. “That is my weapon as much as it is yours, Ms. Beranek. For I would bet a great deal that Mr. Pallas will agree to any terms I choose, to get you back. And it would be an especially sweet irony, would it not, if that was how your little rebellion was destroyed?”
Ellian stared down at the figure on the bed.
It gave him more pleasure than he wanted to admit, to see the bodyguard bloodied and broken. He had thought the man would be killed, but this really was better.
“What should we do?” Colin asked dazedly.
Ellian closed his eyes for a moment and prayed for patience. “Heal him.”
“Oh. I….” Colin hesitated. “He killed James.”
“James was working for the Warlord,” Ellian said absently.
“He was?”
“Yes.”
“You knew, and you—”
“He was going to bring Aryn to him for me.” Ellian looked over at Colin. “It would have been simpler, on the one hand, if Mr. Williams hadn’t figured that out. But this will do just as well. You really should give him that injection,” he added, a moment later. “I’d say he has 30 seconds left. A minute at most.”
Colin hastened to obey, managing to still his trembling hands just long enough to slide the needle under the skin.
Ellian settled into a chair as the man worked. All of his bodyguards were trained in emergency medicine and outfitted with the tools to bring someone back from the brink of death.
And that gave him an opportunity now. One he had wanted for the past couple of weeks.
17
Talon ducked his head as he walked through the muddy streets. He could not look up the way he wanted to, meet the eyes of the guards and mark their faces. He had to pretend to be defeated and broken, and everything in him rebelled at it.
If he had to pick one of the seven deadly sins to go with, it would be pride. Every time.
Still, he was a professional. There was no reason he couldn't hunch his shoulders and be unremarkable for a couple of hours … especially if he knew he got to make every one of these guards sorry in the very near future.
He had walked most of the streets by now. In case the cameras were watching, he altered his walk and the way he wore his coveralls: now down around the waist, now up and zipped, a limp on one leg, a difference in posture. He made sure to walk in groups of people, so that it was difficult for the cameras to catch a glimpse of him on his own.
You could watch people all you wanted, but there was a powerful blind spot in the human psyche: when you thought you knew what you were looking at, you never thought to question it. It was how Aleksandr Soras had maintained his status as both a respect Alliance general, and as the Warlord of Ymir. There must have been signs—but no one ever thought to look.
Talon would do the same to him. He would slip his way through the Warlord’s defense, and he would dismantle everything about this fucking place. This whole apparatus—the guard towers, the cameras, the guards with their guns—had been set up as a show of force to intimidate civilians who were not trained in warfare.
To a trained soldier, however, the show of force was just that: a show. A few careful strikes at the foundation, and it would come tumbling down.
Despite himself, Talon felt a stirring of hope. The cost of rebellion was high. The Warlord would make it as costly as he could for victory to be won—but it was necessary, and even when Talon felt doubts at the cost, the resistance fighters had never wavered.
And it could be done. It could absolutely be done.
His aural implants caught the sound of a body hitting the ground and he turned his head slowly side to side as he walked, trying to figure out where the sound was coming from. The other side of the street … nothing visible … down an alleyway, maybe?
There had been a “
security” checkpoint put up across the street, and there were about a dozen citizens in handcuffs, waiting to be transported to the jail. Talon knew enough to know that the checkpoint was no more than an excuse to make the citizens’ lives miserable. Samara had told them about killing the officer behind Operation Blackout, and it was clear that the guard captain in this district was wreaking his revenge.
Talon tilted his head as he made his way across the street and started back. The miners, in their handcuffs, looked awfully nonchalant, not worried as he would have expected. They were also entirely blocking the alleyway they’d been shoved into. He gave one of them a curious look, and got only a bland smile in response.
And then he heard the thud of another body.
Talon slid around the back of the checkpoint and ducked through the line of captives. If he’d had any doubts that something was going on back here, they were dispelled as the line of people parted to let him through, and closed up in his wake.
In the alleyway, Nyx turned to smile at him as she and Samara dragged another limp body into an equipment shed. Talon strolled closer, his mouth twitching.
“So, ah … what are we doing here?”
“Wait for it.” Nyx dusted her hands off and watched the line of captives.
Talon turned to look, bemused. It took a couple of minutes, but it wasn’t long before the crowd parted just long enough to let through a guard, who had clearly been yanked backwards when no one would be watching. He came stumbling toward Talon, who obligingly—aware of Nyx and Samara watching—brought his fist down on the man’s head and then, as the guard slumped, turned his head sharply to snap his neck.
Samara grabbed his legs and hauled him away.
“So, how did this start?” Talon asked.
Nyx gave a little shrug. “How does anything start, really? Opportunity. We thought we were trapped in there until they finished the security checkpoint nonsense, but Samara had the idea to get rid of some guards before tomorrow. So far, it’s worked very well.” She nodded toward the captives. “They’re pissed. This place is a fucking pressure cooker. I’m glad we got here when we did, or—”
She broke off as another guard came stumbling through the group, and knocked him cleanly off his feet before delivering a blow to his chest that crushed several bones. Talon winced at the sound and helped her move the body into the shed, passing Samara as she came out.
“There’d have been rioting,” Nyx finished, in an undertone. She glanced at the stack of bodies in the shed and grimaced. “If there was only a way to make them leave….”
“They chose to do this,” Talon pointed out.
“Yes, but what real choice did they have? These are second generation by now. The Warlord doesn’t let them off-planet, either, and he needs guards.”
“They made their choices,” Talon said, his voice hard.
“I’m not saying they didn’t,” Nyx said. “Well, not enough that we shouldn’t take care of the ones who try to fight us. But, all else being equal? Less people to fight our way through would be better. If we can find a way to convince them to stand down….”
Talon considered. He watched as Samara dispatched another guard with brutal efficiency, and then steadied herself with a hand over her mouth.
Nyx saw him looking. “She’s good,” the woman told him. “Determined. She doesn’t hesitate, but she doesn’t like killing. It’s a good sign for the resistance.”
Talon nodded. Often, resistance movements were populated by those so filled with rage that they had come to enjoy hurting their enemies. They would use every torture technique that had been used on them, determined to cause exactly as much pain as they had received. They measured their revenge out.
As understandable as it might be in some ways, it sickened a resistance movement, rotting it from the inside. People who thought like that were so focused on the past that they lost their ability to be effective during the fighting. Given the choice between ending a fight quickly and drawing it out, they would draw it out—which was always risky. Not only that, they could rarely build a new society successfully.
Someone like Samara would have a better chance.
As Nyx helped Samara get the body into the shed, Talon’s earpiece buzzed.
“We’re starting the takeover,” Kuznetsova said, businesslike. In addition to weapons drops, she and her team were infiltrating the guard headquarters in Kell District. From there, they would be able to intercept calls for reinforcements and, even if news of the coup reached the district, control the gates to keep people and equipment from getting to the palace. “I’ll let you know when it’s done. Whatever happens, you’ll want to move tomorrow midday at latest. Hopefully we’ll have this wrapped up shortly.”
“Roger.” Talon kept his voice low. “Something to consider: Nyx pointed out that we might have a chance of getting them to stand down.”
“Do you have money?” Kuznetsova asked pragmatically. “Because that’s how you get mercenaries to do what you want.”
“Hmmm.” Talon considered. “I’ll see what I can do. Good hunting.”
“Good hunting.” She ended the call.
Talon crossed his arms and considered. He pondered as a guard came stumbling out of the group and he thrust a knife upward into her chest. He pondered as he dumped the body in the shed. He pondered as he heard Samara telling Nyx that they’d gotten all of the guards, and the two women began undoing handcuffs.
The three of them disappeared into the swirling crowds with the former captives, and Talon’s mind was only half there.
Where did you get enough money to make thousands of mercenaries stand down?
A few necklaces’ worth of jewels weren’t going to cut it this time.
Alina Kuznetsova did a final weapons check and nodded to herself. The headquarters of Kell District was remarkably well run, all things considered. It would have been easy for them to get sloppy, knowing that the civilians of Ymir were several locked gates away. To their credit, they hadn’t. Their security protocols remained in place and were, as far as she could tell, followed rigorously.
It wasn’t going to make much of a difference in whether they lived or died, of course, but it was admirable.
“Beginning approach.” Misty’s voice was quiet. The name evoked someone pale and slim, but rugged and broad-shouldered, with black hair that gave him a perpetual 5 o’clock shadow, the only thing Misty shared with mist was that he moved quietly.
“Same.” Beans, a woman with more grey than brown in her hair, whose age even Alina was afraid to ask, chimed in. She was intimidating enough whenever an unwary newbie asked her about her call sign.
Although that had been useful for weeding out any weak members of the team. Everyone made a point not warn new team members about it.
Misty and Beans would be taking two guard towers apiece, removing aerial surveillance. They had a tight window to operate, as two rounds of guards patrolled around the walls. Two teams of two would scale the walls behind them and help them take out the patrol groups. It could be done with just two soldiers, but in infiltration, silence was essential.
“Beginning system override.” Freeze had wedged himself between two of the dumpsters behind the walls and was beginning to fuzz out the surveillance data with a wireless signal. At the signal from Beans, he would be up and over the wall quickly to make a hole in the back wall of the building itself, and attach blockers to the data cables.
Alina and Knight, her interim XO, were standing guard over Freeze. If everyone else failed, if the mission had to be aborted, Freeze was the one whose work would still give them a fighting chance.
Not that Alina thought for a second they would have to abort the mission—but it was wise to prepare, in any case.
“Hey.” The voice behind her was surprised, and she turned to see a guard staring at her in the twilight. He was frowning. “Are you lost, or—”
He died quickly, and Alina stared down at him with her head tilted. It was really remarkable how suscep
tible people were to preconceived notions about size. Here she was, visibly armed to the teeth, and the man had still managed to assume from her stature that she wasn’t a threat.
Life wasn’t kind to people who didn’t think. Alina sank back into a crouch to wait.
Yes. These people might have worked hard to stay alert and on-task—but, when it came down to it, whether by trickery or by simple superiority, the Dragons were going to have this place cracked open like an egg.
Alina looked over her shoulder to the spires of the palace, just visible. She smiled grimly. Once the secrets had started coming out, it was all tumbling down around Aleksandr Soras’s shoulders.
They were in the tunnels, heading back to the bunker, when Samara realized both Nyx and Talon were listening to information coming in over their earpieces.
“What is it?”
The two of them exchanged a look.
“What’s wrong?” Samara felt a bubble of worry in her chest.
Nyx shook her head at Talon, but he looked past her at Samara. “The Warlord has done … what we thought he would do. We don’t know where Cade is, but Aryn is with the Warlord now.”
“We have to get her back,” Samara said at once.
Nyx sighed and looked at Talon. “You shouldn’t have told her.”
“We have to be able to trust them to carry out—” he began.
Fury replaced panic. How dare they talk about her as if she weren’t here? If they could do this on their own, they wouldn’t have bothered with the weapons. They needed her—and she was damned if she was going to let them decide what she could and couldn’t know about the people she loved.