Raider

by Justine Davis

  But in his heart, he knew that sooner rather than later he was going to be in the position he dreaded twice over; sending a woman he loved into danger.

  The Raider could not afford such luxuries as caring.

  Drake Davorin could not seem to help himself.

  The pull from both sides threatened to rip him apart. At this moment, it was a physical thing, sending the weakness of fear to his knees, so that he had to steady himself with a hand on the bar. He tried desperately to pull himself together; he had much yet to do tonight, and he could not afford to falter.

  “Drake? Are you all right?”

  He looked up into his sister’s worried face. “I—”

  His voice broke.

  “You look absolutely gray. Have you some injury you’ve not told me about?”

  “No.”

  “Then you are ill.”

  “No. I’m not.” He set down the glass he’d been holding before it shattered under his grip. He pulled himself together. “I just don’t like the idea that there may be fighting in the streets of Zelos again.”

  And that was true, no matter which mask he wore.

  Chapter 29

  EIRLYS WATCHED HER brother sleep. The internal churning of every emotion she possessed would not allow her to sleep herself. Not after what she’d learned this night.

  It had not been honest, she supposed, what she’d done. But the way Drake had looked yesterday had terrified her. For all her disgust at his cowering before the Coalition, she knew they would be lost without him. She had begun last night with some vague idea that he was ill and hiding trips to a healer she didn’t know about. But now she knew, and it took everything in her not to shake him awake and scream at him.

  Instead, since she now knew how precious that sleep was, she simply watched.

  She had never imagined she could feel so conflicted, her anger and joy at what he’d done warring within her, with neither ascendant. In fact they seemed to trade off, anger that he had not trusted her, that he had felt her a child in need of sheltering and protection from the truth was then supplanted by sheer elation that he was in fact the man she had once thought him and so wished him to be again. And then she would veer back into anger again.

  And all of it was spiced heavily with an irritation aimed inward, at herself, for being so blind. Of all people, should not she, his sister, have guessed long ago?

  She stared down at the final proof in her hand. All the suspicions she’d quashed over the past couple of years, ever since she’d grown old enough to notice the inconsistencies, the dodging, the answers that were not really answers, haunted her in this moment.

  She hadn’t just been fooled, she’d been a fool. She should have known. She should have realized no one, especially no Davorin, could change as much as quickly as Drake had seemed to.

  He stirred restlessly, muttered something she could not understand. But his brow was furrowed, even in sleep. He muttered again, and this time she could make out one, short word.

  No.

  It began to creep in then, the other realization, the one she’d had no room for. All this time Drake had insisted she stay home, stay safe, while he—

  “No!”

  He jolted upright. His expression was fierce, his jaw set. Sweat had beaded up on his brow. He blinked. Realized she was there.

  That quickly he shifted, went from the intense, forceful man she’d glimpsed just now to quiet, meek Drake. But there was still an edge in his voice when he spoke to her. “What are you doing here?”

  “I believe I live here. For now,” she added.

  “You know what I mean. What are you doing . . . hovering?”

  “You are usually up by now.”

  “I told you I had to go to—”

  “Stop,” she said, waving a hand as if to brush off words she knew were a lie.

  His gaze narrowed. She studied him for a moment, this man who had done so much to make her love him and hate him. It seemed so obvious now, but he had fooled her for a very long time. That he had fooled others just as completely somehow did not ease her.

  “And,” she added, her voice as cold as she could make it given the feelings roiling in her chest, “stop lying to me.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Stop!”

  It burst from her, and she saw his gaze flick upward, toward the sleeping loft where the twins would be.

  “They are not here,” she said flatly. “I sent them to overnight with Rula.”

  His eyebrows rose. “And how much did that cost us?”

  She didn’t rise to the joke. But still, she hesitated. She knew this would change everything. Forever. But it had to change, did it not? Her own reluctance surprised her. But if she was to be the woman she wished to be, the adult she wanted him to see her as, she must behave like one. She was no longer some child, able to pretend that ignoring reality would somehow change it.

  “I can see why you would want to be free of them,” he said, in the usual jocular way he talked of the two imps who sucked up much of their lives. “But why now?”

  She took in a deep breath to steady herself. The plunge would be irrevocable. From this moment on, her relationship with her brother would never be the same.

  But the way it was now was intolerable.

  “So I could follow you last night.” She said it softly, quietly, even though they were alone.

  He went pale. And in that moment, she knew, deep in her soul, how much this man who had practically raised her in fact loved her. The very thought of what she had done had terrified him, he who had faced worse. So very much worse.

  “I know, Drake. Finally, I know. And I should have seen it long ago.”

  “Eirlys—”

  “I should have known.”

  “I don’t know what you think you know, but—”

  “Stop. Lying. Just stop.”

  He said nothing. He threw back the worn blanket, swung his legs over the side of the cot he slept on and sat there. So he could avoid facing her?

  “Is the Raider too afraid to look a girl in the eye?”

  He winced as if she’d struck him. She guessed that until she put it into words that he’d yet hoped she was speaking of something else.

  “I followed you, until you disappeared into the ruin. The sentries are very good, by the way. Twice they almost spotted me.”

  She saw a shiver go through him. But still he did not speak, so she went on.

  “And then I came back and searched the house.”

  She reached into her tunic pocket and pulled out the evidence he could not deny. The synthetic mask, the rippled slab carefully formed and colored to appear as twisted, deformed, scarred human flesh. She tossed it on the bed.

  “Did you think you were the only one who knew of that hiding place in the wall? That your very curious little sister hadn’t searched this place top to bottom the day we moved in?”

  He rested his elbows on his knees, dropped his head into his hands.

  “You’re lucky the twins didn’t find it.”

  He looked slumped, exhausted in a way she’d never seen. She gentled her tone.

  “I understand,” she said softly. “Truly, I do understand why you had to keep it from others. What they do not know they cannot tell. Your life depended upon this secret. But me? You felt you had to lie to me?”

  For a long moment, there was more silence. But at last he said, low and harsh, “It was for your own good.”

  She’d never heard that voice from him. Even at his meekest the taproom keeper had never sounded so . . . broken. Still, it was an effort to keep her voice level as the anger rose within her.

  “Good? What was good about thinking my beloved brother a coward? What was good about hating the man I once loved and admired above
all others? What was good about hearing people laugh and mock the Davorin name? My name?”

  He snapped upright. And for the first time, he looked at her face-on. And it was the old Drake she was looking at, the Drake who had been full of fire and fight. And yet there was a coldness, almost bitterness in his expression, and it echoed in his voice. “Would you like to trade? Because I would. I would gladly trade you that for living in constant terror that you would be taken. That you would be tortured by those who would think you might know the Raider’s identity because you were the Davorin left with spirit.”

  She had never thought of such a thing, had assumed it was his own life he was protecting. Yet it was clear he had thought of it, and often, the fear of it, the exhaustion of it, was there in his eyes, his face as he went on.

  “Or that they would come after you simply because you were that one Davorin who openly stands against them, and thus you must be connected to the rebellion. Or that you would break your word and join the fight.”

  She had come near enough to that that she had to mask a wince.

  “And the twins, you know they learn everything from you eventually. Do you really think they could keep such a secret? You know they would burst with it; they are but children.”

  She had not thought of that, either. But Drake had. She should not be surprised by that, either, she realized. Had he not always thought of everything?

  “So you let me think the worst of you.”

  “Against all that, your disappointment and disgust, even when you lashed me with it, didn’t count for much.”

  And she had. She thought now of all the times she’d called him coward or worse. And he had borne it, not defending himself, never fighting back. When all along, he had in truth been the one man fighting back more than any of them.

  When he spoke again, the fire was gone, and his voice was tight. “I cannot lose the rest of my family, Eirlys. I could not bear it.”

  The enormity of what he’d done, what he’d accomplished these last three years, stretched out before her. And she knew somehow this was a turning point for her. She could react as a child herself, continue to be hurt that he had excluded her from this knowledge that would have meant so much to her. Or she could look at it as the adult she so wanted to be, and realize why he had done what he’d done. And that it was, indeed, for the best for all of them.

  Like a child, she had thought mainly of herself when their parents had died. Yes, she had clung to Drake, as the only constant in an upended world, but her pain had been hers alone, and, at nine years old, she had spared little thought for the fact that he, too, was mired in grief.

  And yet he had taken care of them. He had stepped into shoes he had never wished to fill, and she realized now how much of his own pain he must have had to set aside to do so.

  It was time—past time—for her to grow up in more than just days lived.

  “I should have known,” she whispered. “All the evidence was there, but I was too angry . . . I was a fool. I should have realized long ago that no one, especially no Davorin, could change as much as quickly as you seemed to.”

  She rose and went to sit beside him on the cot. When he went so very still, she put an arm around his shoulders. Felt the broadness of them. And wondered yet again that she had not seen her brother’s strength and determination in the Raider.

  “You are,” she said solemnly, “the best brother—and the best father—I could ever have had.”

  She felt a shiver go through him. That alone nearly broke her. She fought down tears, but realized there was no need. In fact, her tears were probably the only thing that might heal them.

  She reached up to cup his face and turn it toward her. Let him see the droplets streaming down her cheeks.

  “I am sorry, Drake. The way I treated you, even were your deception the truth, was unforgiveable. You took over a job you never wanted and were hardly equipped for, and you did it well.”

  “Those who deal with the twins might differ,” he said, but she read the emotion in his eyes.

  “The twins,” she said, “are a law unto themselves. But that they have not yet destroyed half the town and themselves is a tribute to you.”

  She saw a spark of something warmer, stronger in his expression. She went on, needing now more than anything to get this said. “I have been acting as a child, and a spoiled child at that. And if it is worth anything to you, I knew that before this night. Every time I said those nasty, cruel things to you, I swore to myself that it would not happen again. But like a child, I spoke first, thought after.”

  “It means more than you can imagine.”

  He said it quietly, his head lowered once more. And she thought that it was going to be a long time before she realized the true extent of what this double life had cost him. Other Sentinels led double lives, living in Zelos with their families, hiding their connection to the Raider, but Drake was the prize the Coalition would most like to take. And he was the one who put himself constantly in front of them in the taproom, risking his very life every day.

  “Brander,” she began. “Is he . . . ?”

  He shook his head. “Every Sentinel is under orders not to speak of who is or is not with us. I cannot hold myself to a lesser standard.”

  A sudden thought struck her. “But Kye knows?”

  He snapped upright. “What?”

  “Does she?”

  “Why would she?”

  “Perhaps because she’s very smart? Or because she has been regularly in the presence of both of your . . . guises?” She eyed him levelly. “Or perhaps because she loves you?”

  He made a choking sort of sound, again something she had never heard from him. She regretted that, but not having said it.

  “She loves the Raider,” she said, “because he is the Drake she loved before. So she is nothing but consistent.”

  His gaze snapped back to her. Clearly, he had not thought of it in that way.

  “Kye is as true as the western star,” she said softly. “You of all people should know this. Whichever face you wear.”

  He let out an audible breath. “There is no room for such in this war.”

  “Feelings are stubborn things. You may quash them, but they will rise.”

  “Wisdom, Eirlys?” His mouth twisted. “Are you not the one who just said she acted as a child?”

  “I am also the one who has decided it is far past the time to grow up in my thinking as well as my years.”

  He looked at her rather oddly, almost distantly, as if he were seeing the child she had been rather than the woman she was. And, for the first time, she truly saw the weariness in his face, and thought of the incredible load he had carried since their mother’s death, but especially these past three years. How had he managed it all, both playing harmless, broken taproom keeper and being the Raider? Had he slept more than this couple of hours any night in those years?

  She stood up abruptly. “Go back to sleep.”

  He blinked. “What?”

  “Go back to sleep. I will open the taproom, and run it today.”

  “But you hate it.”

  “More childish thinking, to hate the thing that keeps us housed and fed. This too, will change.”

  “You cannot change too much. You must still treat me . . . as you have been.”

  She shook her head. “I cannot.”

  “You must. Others will notice if you don’t. And wonder. And some of those might be with the Coalition.”

  She saw his point. “I don’t like the idea of . . . being like I was.”

  “Believe me,” he said dryly, “I much prefer the way you look at me now. But it cannot be.”

  Her mouth tightened, but after a moment, she nodded, for she knew he was right. “Rest. If anyone asks, I shall say that you’re ill. Frail thing that you
are.”

  “Eirlys—”

  “Just do it.” She gave him a wry smile. “I have much to make up to you for. Let me begin with this.”

  Chapter 30

  “YOU TWO AGAIN.”

  Caze Paledan grasped a twin with each hand. He’d caught them during his morning exercise circuit, up in a tree that grew next to the outer wall. From that tree, he noticed, they would have a clear view into the Coalition compound.

  “We weren’t doing anything!” the boy declared.

  “I suppose you claim this tree as yours as well?”

  “Of course,” the girl said. “This is Ziem. We are Ziem.”

  He wasn’t sure if her tone was meant to instruct or insult. And had the thought that when she was older, this pretty child would be a formidable woman. She was formidable enough now.

  He pushed them, rather gently, considering, up against the stones of the compound barrier. He took a step back, so he could see them both.

  “And what was it you hoped to see, spying over the wall?”

  “We weren’t spying, we—” the boy, Nyx, began.

  “Were just looking,” the girl finished.

  “For?”

  The two exchanged a glance. Lux started this time.

  “We wanted to see—”

  “If it was true you had—”

  “A leathertrunk in there.”

  He drew back. “You expected to see a beast from Zenox, here?”

  “Not expected—”

  “Hoped.”

  “Have you not heard,” he asked, “that they are . . . of uncertain temper?”

  “Why we were up on the wall,” Lux explained.

  “Else we would have been on the ground looking for it,” Nyx contributed with every evidence of unconcern.