“Hand out the candy,” Reese said, and let Sascha handle it as Irine grasped her arm. “What? What’s left?”
“One thing before we go,” Irine said. She grabbed a bag from the floor and thrust it into Reese’s arms. “There’s an empty room next to this. Let’s get you changed.”
“Do we really have time for this?” Reese asked, though she desperately wanted the answer to be ‘yes.’
“You’ll slow us down and make too much noise like this,” Irine said, turning her to face the door and giving her a push. “Come on, let’s get it done.”
Reese had wondered how they were going to ‘get it done’ quickly. Irine answered that by taking a knife to the laces and cutting her out of her costume. She stared at the puddle of satin at her feet and struggled with a sense of dismay and foreboding.
“It’s just clothes,” Irine said. “If you’re going to get upset about anything, get upset about your empty boot.”
“My empty—” She stopped, remembering the dagger Baniel had used to lend credibility to his story. The weapon she’d promised Hirianthial she’d treat better than her first, and now she’d left both of them behind! She scowled. “That bastard. Next time I won’t miss with it.”
“That’s the spirit.”
Reese pulled on her pants, her shirt and belt, transferred her data tablet to the inside pocket of her vest before shrugging it on. Her hand glided over the medallion with its rampant unicorn; she paused, turned it over to trace the tiny figure on the back, sword and flowers entwined. There was no doubt in her about any of this. Ordinarily she would have found that strange, but maybe she’d grown inured to shocking twists of fate during the initial pirate-slaver adventure. Rescuing the Eldritch from disaster seemed like an appropriate encore. They wouldn’t know what hit them, if she had any say in the matter, and there was no question that she would.
Reese tucked the medallion under her shirt. “Let’s find Hirianthial and get out of here.”
“There’s at least one good thing about all this,” Irine said as she led Reese out.
“What’s that?”
“This time we don’t have to worry about a cargo rotting out on us.”
It took Reese a moment to make sense of that and then she surprised herself with a laugh. “It’s too bad. We could have used the bombs.”
Of course the Eldritch had dungeons. The youth guiding them through it had objected to the word—he insisted on calling them catacombs—but it was a dank maze lit by torches where evil Eldritch kept prisoners; as far as Reese was concerned, that made the place a dungeon. It was large enough not to be crawling with guards, which she’d been expecting, and for that she gave thanks. The men they brought were equal to the ones they ran into. Olthemiel was the name the first had given her, and the other was Beronaeth, and they were as grim a pair as she’d seen; their faces reminded her of Hirianthial’s when he’d been talking about chasing down pirates and slavers.
They were so adept at handling the guards that it worried her when they stopped at a junction. Olthemiel withdrew, joining them a few feet back.
“What’s wrong?” Reese whispered.
His eyes were somber. “We face priests now.”
“What does that mean?”
“They may be able to sense us coming,” Belinor said. The young priest held his robes closer against the chill. “Or they may be able to warn others by sounding an alarm with their minds.”
To him, Olthemiel said, “You know what we must do.”
“They would have killed my master, who is a good man, and one of their own. Why should we have more mercy than them?”
“Does this mean you’re planning to kill them?” Sascha asked. “In an ambush?”
“Does that trouble you?”
“Hell no,” Reese said. “Go for it.” Olthemiel looked at her sharply, and that was enough evidence of surprise for her to say, “I think it’s pretty obvious who the bad guys are. I’m not going to shed any tears about people who want to arm the Queen’s enemies with guns they got from pirates.”
He studied her a moment longer, brows up. Then inclined his head and went to join his man at the edge of the corridor.
Sascha whispered, “Sure you’re all right, Boss?”
“Yes,” Reese said, but reached for his hand anyway. She closed her eyes, listening to her heart race, fighting nausea. Would they ever attack? Would they be found? Would they end up in cells of their own? They’d found a way out of the first one they’d gotten thrown into, but she didn’t want to push her luck. Besides, somehow she doubted the little trick she’d tried on Inu-Case would fool any Eldritch.
The barest scrape of boot heel against ground and her guards were gone. A moment later, she heard the scuffle and the bodies as they hit the floor. Sascha pulled her to her feet and they darted around the corner, Bryer and Irine at her heels and Belinor taking the rear.
“Here,” Olthemiel said, hauling on a heavy door at the end of the corridor.
Reese dropped Sascha’s hand and ran. She was too frightened to walk: if he was dead she had to face it now, before she lost her nerve. And the first sight of him, spilled on the ground, almost choked her breath out of her. She fell to her knees beside him and put her hand on his shoulder and hell with the Eldritch touch thing, she had to know—
—his skin was warm. That was good, right?
“Hirianthial,” she whispered. “Please, please don’t be dead.” She bent down, trying to see his face. “Oh please, don’t be dead.”
He didn’t answer and she let her head slowly fall until her brow rested on his hair. Under the blood stench, he still smelled like expensive cologne. It made her chest shudder, which is how she knew she was trying not to cry. To distract herself, she petted the silken hair... and discovered that most of it was missing.
Was it her indignation that woke him? He must have felt it surge in her, an outrage out of proportion to the triviality of the offense. But he opened his eyes, just enough to see her.
And then he spoke, rusted baritone gravel. “It will. Grow back. Lady.”
“It was so beautiful,” she said, tears leaking, drop by heated drop. “And they cut it!”
His chuckle was so rough it hurt her throat to hear it. But he had laughed—how was that possible?
“Can you be carried?” Reese asked. “We have to get you out of here, but will you bleed to death if we lift you?”
“They... have stabilized me. Or I would have died much earlier. That is... my guess.”
“Your guess!”
He closed his eyes, concentrating. “Better a death... in the arms of friends. Than to stay here.”
Her heart contracted so hard she thought she’d pulled a muscle in her chest. Her fingers fell off the shorn hair, touching the edge of the dangle... was it her imagination, or did he tense and then relax? She hoped all he felt through her fingertips was her concern, her grief at the sight of him this way, and her absolute resolution to save him. That and... everything else, all the things she could no longer hide. Her head slowly fell until it rested against her wrist and she whispered, “Oh, Hirianthial. We have got to stop with you ending up places like this.” She managed a watery smile. “Prison cells aren’t really your speed.”
“Noted... for the future.”
“I hope so,” she answered, hushed, trying to hide her tears. She pulled her hands back to keep from discomfiting him and waved Bryer inside.
“Reese,” Hirianthial said, as the Phoenix bent toward him. Bryer paused so she could lean toward him... but whatever he’d been planning to say was lost with the consciousness that drained from him, taking the animation from his face, the glow, the warmth. Bryer shook his feathers and gathered the Eldritch from the ground.
“Oh, blood, be careful—”
“Know what I do,” Bryer said. And then, with more of an effort, “Trust me.”
She’d never heard the Phoenix say anything like it, and was so shocked she could only watch as they left the cell. Then s
he shook herself and hurried after, wiping her face. The guards were conferring with Bryer, which gave her time to rub her nose and put herself back together again, and once she had she found the twins watching her with expressions she couldn’t quite place. Not sad, and not proud, and not gentle, but all of those things?
“So,” Sascha said, quiet. “You finally know.”
She looked toward the body in Bryer’s arms, saw the slack face with its too-short hair and over the neck the dangle now absurdly long without the mane to give it context. Swallowing, she met their eyes and said, “Yeah. Yeah, I know.”
“Are you going to say something?” Irine said.
Reese shook her head. She lifted her hands to stop them from saying the inevitable. “He knows. He knows, and he hasn’t said or done anything. I mean, how could he not know? He can read my mind. Has read it.” She drew in a shaky breath. “I’m centuries too young for him, can’t marry him, can’t have his children and I’ll be dead in the blink of one of his eyes. I won’t force the issue. How could I?”
“But if he wanted it...?” Irine asked, cautious.
Reese looked down. In the face of Hirianthial’s injuries, she could no more deny her feelings than she could stop breathing, stop leaking tears. “I’d say yes.” Up now, at their eyes. “Oh, I’d say yes.”
Sascha stepped forward, clasped her arm. “Then let’s get this business taken care of.”
She covered his hand with hers and followed the guards.
Returning to the library, even with two casualties, was a lot easier with Belinor and the Swords to show them the back ways through the servants’ halls. Even with Urise tottering on his acolyte’s arm, they made good time. At Olthemiel’s signal they emerged into the palace proper, pouring into the hall outside the library. There was no one in the hall: nothing between them and freedom. Beronaeth reached for the library door
...which opened for him...
...on the woman who’d run screaming from Reese upstairs, the one who’d told everyone about them.
Thaniet stopped abruptly, startled, and then her eyes flew to Bryer and the burden in his arms. She squeaked at the sight of Hirianthial, hand flying to her mouth. Reese almost forgave her the whole spying business when she saw the woman’s dismay. Almost.
Olthemiel drew his sword.
“Are you going to kill her?” Sascha asked sharply.
“In front of two priests!” Irine added, though Urise was barely conscious.
“She is Asaniefa’s woman,” the Sword captain said. “She must be dealt with either way.”
“Oh, oh, I won’t tell Surela!” Thaniet exclaimed, going gray at the sight of the naked blade. She looked to Reese and said, rushing the words so fast they almost tripped on her accent, “I didn’t know. I didn’t know it would come to this.”
“You have got to be kidding us,” Sascha said, ears flicking back and teeth showing.
Reese remembered all the times she’d steadfastly refused to think something through because she hadn’t wanted to face the repercussions. “No... I believe her.” To Thaniet, she said, “But you’re a risk we can’t take. I’m sorry.”
Thaniet gasped in.
“We could take her with us?” Irine said. “Maybe?”
“So she can sabotage the ship?” Sascha’s ears were still flat.
“She doesn’t know enough to sabotage anything,” Reese said.
Bryer sighed and shifted Hirianthial in his arms. In a motion faster than Reese could track, his arm flashed out, smashed against the woman’s head, and resettled Hirianthial in its crook. Thaniet dropped like a stone.
“You didn’t—”
Beronaeth was already tying her hands behind her back and dragging her into a nearby room.
“She’ll live,” Olthemiel said. “Go, now. We’ll guard.”
“You won’t come with us?” Reese asked.
“Someone must stay, take the Pad so it can’t be used by the Queen’s enemies,” Olthemiel said. More quietly, “We have our orders, Lady. We go into the countryside to await her direction, protect her assets. Go now, and delay no longer.”
“Right,” Reese said. “Everyone through.”
The Pad was still on standby when Reese flipped the carpet up to check on it. She brought it to full power, watched the lights well as the tunnel stabilized. When it chimed she said, “Bryer, go!”
Bryer jogged across the Pad. The twins followed. The young novice hesitated, then re-shouldered his master’s arm and the two of them tottered over it together. Reese brought up the rear, and the last thing she saw was Beronaeth bending to the Pad... and then she was home, amid the familiar smells and sounds of the Earthrise. Bryer was gone already, no doubt on his way to Kis’eh’t and the lab/clinic. But the twins were waiting for her, with Malia and a blonde Tam-illee woman—Taylor Goodfix, Reese assumed—and next to them—
“Your Majesty—”
“Liolesa.”
“Liolesa,” Reese said, and sighed. “Now what?”
“Now what” was actually not an easy question to answer. They met in the mess hall to discuss it over one of Kis’eh’t’s apple pies: not fresh, but leftovers from the trip in. It reheated well, but Reese had no appetite and pushed it away in favor of the coffee. Blood, but she’d missed coffee.
“So the next step is for you to call for help from the Alliance, right?” Reese said. “You can do that, you’re an allied power.”
“That’s correct,” Liolesa said. Like Hirianthial had always seemed to be, she was completely at ease in the Earthrise’s humble mess... but that didn’t make it feel any less surreal to Reese, to have an Eldritch Queen sitting on one of her battered chairs, her pale beige satin overflowing it with pearl-encrusted folds.
“Fleet’s stretched thin if my sources are right,” Malia said. “My Lady, there may not be much they can do for us.”
“Even one ship will be enough,” Taylor said. “It doesn’t even have to be very big. Or they can just ship us weapons. We’ll do the rest.”
Malia nodded. “Bring the family in. Nine generations of us have been waiting for this moment, my Lady. You need only say the word.”
“And I may call on them yet,” Liolesa said. “But let me see what my ally might do for me first.”
“So we head back, is that it?” Reese said.
The door opened for Kis’eh’t, who padded in and said, “Did I hear someone say something about leaving? Because Hirianthial needs a real Medplex as soon as possible.”
“He’s not—” Reese half-rose.
“He’s stable,” Kis’eh’t said. “Not because of us, mind you. Someone did a job on him before we did. Someone with modern medical equipment.” She glanced at Reese. “You know what that implies.”
“That we were right about someone on the world selling him to someone off it?” Reese said. She sank back into her chair and rubbed her eyes. “Fine. So the decision is pretty easy, right? We zip away, grab help, come home.”
“Can you do that?” Irine asked Liolesa. “I mean... you’re the Queen. Can you just leave your planet like this? Wouldn’t that be... I don’t know.” She glanced at her brother, who said, “Abdication in favor of the rebelling government.”
“My chancellor remains on-world with my heir, whom I have not yet formally set aside,” Liolesa said. “Neither of them have yet been slain or taken prisoner by the usurpers. So long as they remain on the world and at large, Surela cannot make her claim to the Alliance. Particularly not with me there first, asking their aid.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Sascha said. “When should we—”
The intercom sounded, the triple-buzz of an emergency. Reese jumped from the chair and struck the button. “Yes?”
“Pirate has arrived. Am moving now.”
Sascha hissed. “Battlehells. Tell him I’m on my way up!”
“Hide us somewhere!” Reese said, but the Harat-Shar was already gone. Taylor was quick on his heels.
Irine grabbed her tail, eyes wide. R
eese leaned over and touched her shoulder. “We didn’t come this far to end up slavebait at the end, all right? Go help Sascha. Kis’eh’t—”
The Glaseah was already jogging out the door. “I’ll go keep the vigil. Malia? Can you help? Have you had first aid training?”
“I’m with you,” Malia said.
The room, emptied of everyone but herself, still didn’t seem large enough to contain an Eldritch Queen. Particularly not this one, who reacted to the crisis by calmly sipping her coffee and setting the cup with deliberate precision on its chipped saucer.
“You’re not worried?” Reese asked.
Liolesa said, “Not about what you are, no. They’re not here for us. So long as your men get us out of the way before they notice us, they won’t have cause to seek us.” She looked up without lifting her face, and even shielded by her lashes, her eyes burned. “Over a thousand years, Theresa. Over a thousand years since our Settlement and we have remained hidden all this time. Our world isn’t even in your navigational database. All these years, and now our secret has been revealed... by a traitor, to our enemies. There is a pirate heading for my world.” She inhaled, like a dragon about to stream fire. “Yes, I am worried. About how far I’ll go to destroy everyone and everything that has endangered my people.”
Reese remembered to swallow, though her mouth had gone dry. She offered, “That... sounds... like a good thing to me.”
“Does it?” Liolesa asked, glancing at her sharply. And then she chuckled, though the sound was bitter. “We shall see if you still think so ere the ending.”
“I don’t think I’ll change my mind,” Reese said. “I have a temper myself. A little one.”
Liolesa snorted. “Then we are well-matched.” She paused as the humming under the deck-plates changed. “We are moving?”
Reese tapped the intercom again. “Hey, bridge.”
Irine answered. “They’re still at the edge of the system, so we’re getting out of the way before their sensors can pick us up. Malia says her people don’t have a ship in-system that can do anything about them, and unless they head for the moon, the permanent base can’t help either.” A pause, then dry, “They have a base on the moon, by the way.”
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