She saw his mouth quirk. Saw him fight it. But then the grin broke out. Even beneath the mask of scars it was potent. To her, at least.
“Indeed it would.”
They laughed together, and she thought in that moment her heart had never been so full.
“There is one problem,” she said reluctantly.
“I assumed there would be.”
“We’ve only got until six in the morning. That’s when the owner will likely discover it missing.”
“Time enough,” he said mildly, not at all rattled. And for a moment, she allowed herself to marvel anew at the man Drake had become. “And now,” he said in the same mild tone, “the rest of the tale of how you acquired this?”
She sighed, knowing there was no way to put it off any longer. “I got it from the twins.”
He went still, and she hastily explained what they’d told her. When she’d finished, he closed his eyes and let out a compressed breath. “They’ll be the death of me, those two,” he muttered.
And for an instant, the world seemed normal to her, and Drake no different than any adult responsible for two imps who could not stay out of trouble.
But then all the other, much more likely things that would be the death of him came flooding back, and the moment evaporated.
He tapped the card against his fingers, much as she had. And then he walked to the door and pulled it open.
“Teal!”
The younger Harkin brother was there quickly. “Sir?”
“We need a diversion,” he said. “In town. West side of the compound. Can you come up with something in the next couple of hours?”
A wide grin split the man’s face. This was his favorite thing to do, since it usually involved blowing something up. “Aye, sir. I can manage that.”
As the man hustled off, he turned to the table and pulled something out from under the canvas of the map. He held it out to her. She took it automatically, before she realized what it was. When she did, she stared at it, then at him.
“I came across it among Samac Rahan’s things. I do not think he would have minded.”
Her gaze dropped to the book of drawing paper. It was nearly full, only a few sheets missing. In the Coalition world, this was a treasure worth more than coin. At least, to her, since it was harder to get.
“It seemed only fair, since I made you burn your last two,” he said.
She looked up at him again, fighting the emotions that welled up inside her. That he knew this, that he understood what it would mean to her, meant more than she could possibly explain. She wanted to throw herself at him, hug him fiercely, but as usual, there were other demands that came first.
“Thank you,” she said, barely managing the husky words through her tight throat.
He smiled, a personal, intimate sort of smile, as if he’d heard everything she hadn’t said.
“It will help with something I was thinking about,” she said.
“What?”
“I was thinking to design a commemoration of some sort. For those who have sacrificed, as he did. Something we could put up somewhere, so none of us ever forget who we’ve lost.”
“A wall of honor,” he said softly, voicing perfectly what she’d been trying to express.
“Yes. Yes, exactly that.”
“It is a good idea, a wonderful thought, Kye.” His smile warmed her in yet another new way. “Perhaps even something more, if you could. Something for those they leave behind, to have and hold.”
“A medal of some sort?” She liked the idea.
“If you could draw it, Brander could devise it.”
“Yes. Of course. We could call it the Rahan,” she suggested.
His gaze went warmer still. He reached out, cupped her cheek. “And this is why I love my tough, hardened warrior.”
It was a long moment before she could force herself back to the matter at hand.
“I’d better get started back down, if I’m to be in place before Teal wreaks whatever havoc he comes up with.”
She saw the shadow flit across his face, as it always did whenever she did anything with the slightest risk. But he kept to his word once more and said nothing, did not hesitate, or worse, forbid her what was her right. “Yes.”
“A second set of hands and eyes might be worthwhile,” she said as she considered the building she was about to breach.
“Yes.”
“Who should I take?”
“Me.”
She blinked. “No,” she said, finding herself in the odd position of being the one to forbid. “This is too small, merely an annoyance raid, to strike at Barcon.”
“It is personal,” he agreed. “A chance to hit the man who handed our world over to the Coalition. And who is directly responsible for the deaths of my parents. No one else would be as invested in this as I am.”
She hadn’t thought of it quite that way. And as much as she hated the idea of the Raider risking himself on such a small foray, she could not argue his reasons.
“Besides,” he said, “don’t forget Barcon’s office was once my father’s.”
She had forgotten that. And how Barcon had gloated that he now occupied the office once held by the vaunted Torstan Davorin. No wonder Drake insisted on taking this chance to strike back. And he would know the inside of that building better than she, or probably anyone else would.
She didn’t like the idea of the Raider risking himself for what was essentially symbolism. But he had not quibbled over her going, and he had more reason even than she to want to strike this blow, so she would return the favor.
“Us, then,” she said.
“Yes. Us.”
And in the glance they exchanged was much more than a simple mission plan.
Chapter 36
THEY WERE HUDDLED in the thick scentbrush beside the building that had once been the council hall of Zelos, a large structure that now housed the massive bureaucracy it took to oversee the looting of Ziem and the subjugation of its people. The smell of it, that fresh, head-clearing aroma it let off when touched would give them away to any Ziemite. Fortunately, a local plant that was of no use to them was beneath Coalition notice.
In the beginning, Drake’s father had said that one day the Coalition would collapse under its own weight. That tyranny always defeated itself in the end. Drake had never been content with that—just waiting it out. At sixteen, he’d been hot-headed and eager to fight back.
If he had known then what he knew now . . .
But then, he had only wanted to fight. He had never wanted to lead. Somehow, perhaps from seeing the burden his father bore, the way the people’s faith in him had worn him down, he knew it came with leading.
And yet here he was.
An explosion lit up the night sky in the same moment he felt a thump beneath his feet. Across the compound, a cloud of smoke rose, mingling with the night mist, now turning orange—and to them, bright, bubbling green—from the flames erupting below. In the distance, he could see the outline of the fusion cannon, hulking, massive, deadly, aimed at Zelos. He could even see faint outlines of glowmist where the troops manning it were gathering beneath the huge weapon to try and see what was happening.
Whatever Teal had used, it had been effective; the clamor and shouting had begun, with troopers and officers both streaming out of the various barracks and buildings toward the new, gaping breach in the compound wall.
“Now,” Kye whispered, and started climbing. They were using, appropriately, the same tree the twins had used.
Kye, ever light on her feet, dropped down into the compound, making no sound at all as she landed. He followed, aware of both how dangerously close to breaking the alarm beam the branch came under his greater weight, and the more audible thump his landing made. But there appeared to
be no one anywhere near them; all were involved in searching for the ones who had set off the bomb. They would not find Teal, he knew, because he knew Zelos like the native son he was, and because they would likely be looking for an attacking force, not a single man.
Still, they kept to the shadows and mist as they silently made their way toward the doors. When the Coalition had used the council building as one of their walls, and then knocked doors out on that side to connect the two, he’d wondered if that was standard procedure, or if they had expected more resistance than they encountered and wanted the secure place to fall back to if necessary.
They certainly hadn’t gotten much resistance, he thought. Not then, anyway. Ziem might as well have hung out a welcome banner, for all the opposition they’d shown. Of course, in large part that was because the Coalition had come in knowing whom to target, thanks to that traitor Ordam. Who had handed them the keys and then sicced them onto the lodestar of what resistance there had been: Torstan Davorin.
Yes, Ordam had handed Zelos and nearly all of Ziem over to them not just without a fight, but eagerly. He’d betrayed them all, without a thought beyond turning it to his own advantage.
He has things he has no right to . . . would it not be worth taking whatever the pretentious blowpig does have for the sheer pleasure of it?
Oh, yes, it would be worth it. And he loved Kye all the more, if that was even possible, for seeing that. And having the courage and audaciousness to do it.
They reached the doors on the darkest side of the building. He had been hoping they hadn’t changed the system, and that the individual sentry’s pass card would still open the main doors also. But it turned out to be needless; the door was open, apparently unlatched in someone’s haste to get to the scene of what they likely assumed was an attack. He’d figured they probably had twenty minutes at most before somebody realized there was no force coming, no real attack. It might take five more for someone to think—Coalition troopers posted here were not known for their cleverness or initiative—that it might have been a diversion.
Unless it was Paledan. Drake doubted that man would be so easily fooled. He was thankful the major hadn’t been here long enough to whip into shape any of the smarter ones.
Once inside, Drake led the way. He hadn’t been inside this part of the building—Paledan’s office was in the other end, looking out over the compound—for a dozen years, since the Coalition arrival. But while it was now festooned with the trappings of Coalition dominance and power, the floor plan was the same, and he didn’t need a light to find his way to the office that had once been his father’s.
The card and password made short work of getting the door open. As a precaution, the first thing he did was cross to the far wall and open the window. It looked out toward Zelos, and he wondered how Barcon lived with looking out at the city he’d betrayed every day. Of course, he didn’t think he’d betrayed them at all, he thought he’d done them a favor and that they were all too stupid to realize it.
A secondary escape route now open, one that also allowed them to hear the tumult going on a hundred or so yards away, he turned around just in time to see Kye pick something up from a case behind Barcon’s pretentious desk. It was too dark to see what it was. Then she reached up and touched the large painting on the wall above the case. A painting, he realized with a mix of amusement and repulsion, of Barcon himself. Looking officious and imperious as he gazed down his long nose at the viewer.
“Surprised this isn’t on the opposite wall so he can gaze upon it daily,” Kye muttered.
He had to smother a laugh at that. And a renewed surge of emotion made it impossible for him not to lean over and drop a kiss on her ear. She turned her head, her lips brushing over his chin. Even that small connection awoke his body anew. He gripped her shoulders and took a step back. “As much as I want to pursue this, this is not the time, nor do we have time,” he said.
“Too bad,” Kye said with that crooked, impish grin he’d come to treasure. “Because the thought of doing it in his office has a certain appeal.”
He nearly laughed aloud even as he fought down the urge to take her right here, on Barkhound’s fancy desk. And realized suddenly that all his gloom, his doubts about if they would ever win this battle, if there was any point to keeping on, vanished when he was with her. She had such energy, such vitality, that it seemed to overflow into him and he felt renewed. He thought he could fight on forever, if he had her at his side.
But he knew they had no time to waste. He reached for the frame of the painting along one side. Pulled. The painting swung out, revealing the safe set into the wall—a large metal door with a set of three displays and a keypad that were apparently the lock.
“I should have known it couldn’t be that easy,” Kye muttered.
“How lazy is Barkhound?” he asked softly.
“Lazier than any real member of the species,” she said. “Why?”
He didn’t answer, but reached out and keyed in three sets of four numbers in rapid succession. Each display showed the numbers in glowing red, then flicked to green the moment the fourth number was pressed. There was a whoosh as the heavy, airtight door released.
He heard Kye draw in a tiny breath, and by the time he glanced at her she was grinning. “The lazy barkhound never changed it.”
He grinned back. “He did not.”
Her grin faded. “I’m sorry. Your father—”
He held up a hand. “That is an old pain. But it is also the reason he likely didn’t bother. For as far as he knew, the only man who knew the original combination was long dead.”
He turned back and pulled the heavy door wide. There was a large stash of money, from Coalition vouchers to Romerian withals, taking up half the space. The other half held various items, some of which he recognized—angrily—as having been confiscated from Ziemites now dead, slaughtered no doubt by Barcon’s order.
“Clean it out, or just the things he has no right to?” she asked, reaching in to pick up a small, golden carving. He saw it was of a blazer, wings outstretched and long tail curled upward. It was intricately done, with each leathery scale showing in detail. It reminded him of the sculptures she’d given the twins.
He heard the sound of blasters from outside, but they were still distant so he steeled himself to ignore it. There was nothing he could do from here. Kye’s head had snapped toward the window, but almost as quickly she turned her attention back. She was one of a kind, his Kye.
His Kye. He swallowed tightly before answering her.
“Let me look at these first,” he said, reaching to the shelf that ran across the top of the vault. Several papers and books he set aside, although his jaw was tight as he recognized some valuable antiquities of Ziem, histories and drawings. He picked up what had been beneath them.
Kye was preparing to empty the contents into the empty pack they’d brought when he stopped her.
“What?” she asked.
He showed her what he’d found, in the very back of the safe, beneath and behind everything else, as if it had been tossed in, buried, and forgotten. The Coalition data device still showed the last thing read on the small screen.
“It’s the key,” he said.
“To what?”
“Everything.” And once more, he had to make the decision to sacrifice the immediate gain for the better chance at more later. “We leave it all. Back as we found it.”
He did not have to explain. Not to Kye, who immediately began replacing the few items she had removed, back into their original positions. He did the same, burying the small device once more with these treasures of his world, aligning them precisely as they had been before. He closed the heavy door. It took him a moment to remember the process from all those years ago, but he managed to reset the lock, erasing the record of this opening. Then he swung the painting back into place.
&nb
sp; Kye led the way back, and they got out the door just as the clamor from the perimeter began to die down. Teal had given them exactly as long as he’d said he would. They scrambled up and over the wall and headed for the mountain.
Chapter 37
“THIS IS CRAZY,” Brander said.
“Yes.”
“You think a truce flag is going to stop a Coalition officer from taking out the Raider the instant you’re close enough?” Kye demanded.
“I don’t know,” the Raider admitted. “I’ve never had a Coalition officer ask for a meeting before.”
“So you’re thinking this makes him different?” Brander asked incredulously.
“You said yourself he was.”
Brander grimaced. “I didn’t mean softer. Harder, colder if anything.”
“Agreed.”
“So doesn’t that make him more likely to blast your head off? Especially if taking you out is why he’s here?”
“Possibly.”
“But you’re going anyway,” Kye said, her tone sour.
“Yes.”
“And not so that you can kill him?” Brander asked again, as if he still couldn’t believe what he’d said when he’d first told him he was going to go. “I could understand that, at least, we could take him out and—”
“No. I have good reason to want him to leave alive.”
Brander let out a sound that was half growl, half snort of disgust. “And just what am I supposed to do after he kills you?”
He turned to look at the man pacing the room then. The man who had stood beside him since childhood, and whom he had more than once trusted with his life. “You must take my place.”
Brander scoffed. “As if anyone could.”
“No one man is irreplaceable.”
“The Raider is,” Kye insisted.
He shook his head. And began to pace himself, Brander stopping now, as he tried to find the words to explain to them. “I’m not sure when I realized,” he said slowly. “In the beginning, I was blind with anger, and wanted only to strike out, fight back as no one seemed to be doing, until they killed me. And I expected that to happen quickly.” He hesitated, glancing at Kye. “I think I wanted it to happen.”
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