He scooped the boy up, secretly glad to see him finally reacting to the shuttle crash. “It’s okay,” he whispered, hugging Morgan tight. “It was fast. I’m sure they didn’t feel anything.”
“Sorry,” Morgan replied softly. “Sorry that man did that to you.”
Xander stiffened under the boy’s embrace. Was he talking about Rogan?
How could he have known?
He hardly noticed the boy was speaking almost perfect English.
Chapter Eleven: Along the Theseus
QUINCE EASED the bike up into the air, leaving their campsite behind. It was still dark out; the sun had not yet risen over the horizon, and the air was chilly. The last days of summer had passed them by.
Behind her, Xander and the sneach, if that’s what it was, followed on Xander’s bike. She wasn’t as sure now about the gleam she thought she had seen in the little boy’s eyes the night before. He acted like a lost human boy, and he certainly had done them no harm.
The skythane told tales of the little tricksters, imps that once appeared in the forests of Oberon. Little creatures that seemed human enough, until they robbed you blind or slit your throat in the middle of the night.
She didn’t trust him. It. Morgan.
He was Xander’s problem for the moment, though.
She’d managed to get in a few hours of uninterrupted sleep the night before, but she had gotten everyone up early so they could reach the rendezvous site by the afternoon of the next day. They were running out of time.
They had made a short evening of it, eating the water apples and some more of the tubers and MREs they had left. Jameson had eaten the lion’s share of them, his new wings demanding a ton of calories to continue their rapid growth. She gauged that they were now about half their ultimate size, and he seemed both pleased and embarrassed about that.
She had started to change the dressings on his wereveren wounds, cleaning them with soapy water, but then Xander had asked to take over the task, surprising her. She watched as he carefully unwrapped one of the bandages, and then used soap and water to rinse it off. His hands lingered just a little longer than necessary.
Jameson’s wounds were already better, the skin around them looking pale pink and healthy.
Xander caught her staring at him and scowled, hurrying to wrap the wound back up.
She laughed quietly. The dynamic was starting to shift between the two of them.
She sat down next to them and addressed Jameson. “Are you ready?” she asked, thinking about their planned route along the river.
“Yes. I’m still tired, but as ready as I’m likely to get,” Jameson said.
Xander looked tired too, but he nodded. “Now or never.”
“Then let’s go.” Quince urged the cycle forward.
She had initially planned to cross the river to take advantage of the flat, open territory on the far side. The desert would have been far easier to navigate than the forested banks of the Theseus.
But with the downed shuttle somewhere in their path, she was afraid they might draw the wrong kind of attention. There were probably search-and-rescue and investigative teams over there. Moving out into the open risked exposure. So the riverside it was.
The Theseus would lead them up to where it met the Demetrius, which flowed down from the southeast end of the Pyramus Mountains. The confluence of rivers was where they would find the waygate.
It was time for the two princes to come into their own.
“So what was that yesterday, exactly?” Jameson asked, breaking her out of her reverie.
“What?”
“The lights in the sky. The shuttle crash.”
Quince cocked her head, trying to decide how much to tell him. She had been reluctant to talk about it the night before. “It was a solar flare,” she said at last. She steered the bike along the shoreline, looking ahead to judge the best course through the stands of tartanga trees that crowded along the water’s edge.
“I’ve never heard of a solar flare causing that kind of severe and immediate damage,” he said. “Not unless it was huge.”
“It was huge. I’ve never seen anything like it, and I’ve lived here for decades. That was just the effect of the solar radiation thrown off by the flare.”
She felt him shiver. He went silent, for which she was thankful.
The sky was starting to lighten. She turned inland to detour around the dim form of a rock outcropping along the river, easing past a stand of feather trees, their plumes silhouetted against the rosy sky. Xander followed her, single-file.
The cycles could run over water, but she didn’t want to chance a repeat of yesterday’s flare—it could drop them into the depths of the river if it happened at an inopportune time, and while they might well survive the dunking, they would lose their supplies and their transportation.
“Do those kinds of things happen often here?” Jameson asked.
“No, but it’s going to get worse.” She wished they could have had this conversation face-to-face, but time was against them. “There’s a reason you’re here, Jameson.”
“You keep saying that. When are you going to tell me more about how I’m supposed to save the world?” His grip around her waist tightened. “I wish I’d never come.”
“Yes, I know.” Quince wasn’t a sugarcoat-it kind of person. “I’m sorry about that. Truly I am. It sounds like you had a perfectly nice life back on Beta Tau, and I dragged you away from it to help save this world.”
“Well, Tander’s World, where I was stationed last, wasn’t the nicest place….”
Quince snorted. “Listen, I get that you’re angry. I understand that you don’t know what’s going on, and that it’s freaking you out. For the moment, the three of us are stuck with each other. Agreed?”
“The four of us.”
“What?”
“You, me, Xander, and his pet project back there. The… sneak?”
“Sneach.” She sighed. She’d managed to forget the little monster for a moment. “All right, the four of us. We have to stick together.”
“I don’t see anywhere for me to go at the moment. You didn’t leave me with a lot of options.”
“I’ll make you a deal. After we get to the House of the Sky, I’ll tell you everything. What’s going on. Where you came from. What I need you to do. If you don’t want to go on, I’ll take you back to the spaceport myself and put you on a shuttle up to Titan Station.”
Jameson laughed, harshly. “Hopefully not like that one yesterday.”
Quince shook her head. Those poor people. “Hopefully not. So do we have a deal?”
He was quiet again.
Weighing his options. Like he has any. Quince glanced up at the sky. It was clear now, but there were cirrus clouds on the horizon. Likely rain tomorrow, then. The solar instability had been shaking up weather patterns for weeks, and she worried that the next storm might be even bigger than the last.
“Deal,” Jameson said after a moment. “My girlfriend back home has probably noticed by now that I’m gone. I wouldn’t want her to worry.”
Oh honey, Quince thought. Aloud, she said, “I’m sure she’s already missing you.”
XANDER THREADED the space between a couple tartanga trees so close his elbows almost brushed the silver trunks. It was slow going along the river’s edge, but Quince had said that she wanted to keep them out of sight from pursuit for as long as possible. He remembered how she used to come visit him before his parents had died, “Auntie Quince” would take him to the little zoo in one of the arcos, or out to walk along the beach of the Gildensea on a warm summer afternoon.
He didn’t think they were blood related, despite the fact that he used to call her his aunt. But there was a bond there, forged when he was very young, and strengthened after Alix had saved him from the Syndicate.
His eyes kept straying to Jameson. It was unsettling, the way the off-worlder drew his gaze. The man held on to Quince’s waist as she threaded her way through the trees. Xa
nder wished those arms were around his waist instead.
He shook his head to clear it.
Quince. He was thinking about Quince. She was being cagey about where she was taking them. She’d mentioned the House of the Sky, whatever that was, and she’d talked about a “waygate” once or twice, but he had no idea what she meant by it.
He tried to remember when he had first met Quince. It seemed like she had always been there. Or at least since he’d been little.
He still remembered that dark day when his foster parents had been gunned down on the streets, his mother’s hand falling away from his as her lithe, beautiful form had crashed down to the pavement in a crumpled, broken heap. No, Mommy, no!
Then the man who had shot them had taken him away.
He had prayed for Auntie Quince to come, that night and for many afterward, as his life had spiraled down into a new kind of hell. He’d finally given up hope.
Did he still trust her?
And how did Jameson fit into her grand plans? Xander was starting to feel some sympathy for the psych. He hadn’t come out here through any choice of his own, and somehow he was skythane like Quince and himself. That had been unexpected. Quince had known all along that Jameson was skythane—she’d confessed to treating the man with ethilium to start his transition.
Jameson was, truth be told, pretty good-looking too, skythane or no. The man was whip-smart—maybe too smart for his own good. But Xander had always been attracted to brainy guys.
Jameson glanced back at him, and he turned away quickly.
The land ahead of them opened up again, and he caught up to Quince. “Remember last time we were out here? You, me, and Alix?”
“Caught a couple swamp bears, if I remember right.” Quince grinned.
“How are you handling this?” Xander asked Jameson.
He flashed Xander a wan smile. “Right now I’m just hanging on. Literally.” Jameson’s golden wings flapped behind him in the wind.
They were going to be beautiful when they reached their full length. “Me too,” he said, trying to keep his voice professional.
That earned him a real smile.
The forest was encroaching on their pathway again, and Xander eased back behind Quince reluctantly. At least it gave him a good view.
THEY STOPPED for the night not far from a stream that fed into the Theseus from the north. Jameson dismounted from Quince’s bike, his muscles sore from the long day’s ride. He was beginning to see the advantages of flying.
He’d been aware of Xander’s eyes on him all day. The man seemed fascinated with him now. It was surprising, considering the disdain with which Xander had treated him when they’d first met.
He wasn’t sure which was worse.
He wondered what Jessa would make of him now. His new workman clothes were grimy from travel, and torn where Quince had modified them for his new wings. Those wings!
Every child wanted to fly. He should have been ecstatic at the prospect. Instead, Jameson’s new wings were taking him further and further from himself, or at least who he had always known himself to be. He wasn’t an off-worlder. He was skythane. Connected to this world by blood—his own and that of those who had come before him and had spilled it on his behalf.
He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Who was he, really? Jameson the Psych? Jameson the off-worlder? Or Jameson, the man who could fly?
“Want to refill the canteens?” Quince asked, holding them out to him. “And search out some croyol for a fire? I saw some on the way here.”
“Sure.” The forest here was pleasant enough, a riparian lowland shaded by tall trees, a cool breeze blowing down along the watercourse.
“I’ll help.” Xander took two of the canteens. “Quince, will you watch Morgan, and promise not to kill him?”
“Yes.” The response sounded unusually curt, even for her. “If I must.”
“Come on.” Xander led the way.
Jameson felt like a schoolkid off to do something naughty. There was something in Xander’s attitude, his absolute surety about himself, that was frighteningly attractive.
As they walked side by side, he felt Xander looking at him again. “What?” Jameson refused to glance at the man.
“Can’t a guy look?”
Jameson shook his head. “I’m not like that.”
“I didn’t say you were.” Xander laughed, a light, happy sound Jameson hadn’t heard him make before. It made him seem more human. “You’ve had a lot thrown at you, all at once. I just wanted to see how you were doing.”
They reached the stream, the cold water trickling through the forest over a bed of rounded pebbles. Jameson found a deep pocket where he could dip a canteen in and filled the first one, trying to keep out of the mud at the water’s edge as much as possible. “I don’t see how I have much of a choice.” It came out sounding more bitter than he’d intended.
Xander knelt next to him. Jameson was acutely aware of his masculine scent. “We all have choices. Not always good ones, but choices nonetheless.”
Jameson could feel the heat from Xander’s arm next to his, radiating like a furnace. He imagined those arms around him, being lifted into the air by those black wings.
Without thinking, he set down the canteen and reached over to kiss Xander. It lasted a brief, intense moment, and then he pulled away, stumbling backward and falling into the mud. “I shouldn’t have done that.” His face flushed hot. “I’m sorry. Forget it happened.”
He grabbed the half-filled canteen and ran back to the campsite without looking back.
XANDER LAY by the campfire, staring at Jameson, fast asleep in his sleep sack across the other side of the firelight.
His mouth still burned where the man had kissed him. He’d had a steadily growing interest in the young psych over the last several days, but that kiss had ignited it like a forest fire, and now all he could do was think about it. About him.
Luckily it was his turn to keep watch. He doubted he could have managed a wink of sleep in the fevered state he was in.
Xander decided he needed to do something about that, or he’d be a mess all the next day. He stood quietly, intending to retreat into the forest to do his business. He took two steps—and came face-to-face with a man in black.
“We’re being attacked!” he shouted. The man was as surprised as he was, and Xander elbowed him and dropped to the ground to reach for one of his pulse pistols. Thank the gods he’d gotten them both fully charged. He swung the gun up and took out the first of their attackers, the man in enforcer black who had slipped from the trees as soon as he’d called out. The man had his own pistol out, but Xander took him down first, sending the man’s pulse wide. There was a crack, and a large branch fell off a tartanga tree a few feet away.
Quince was up on her feet, and a knife flew from her hands with deadly accuracy into the throat of another attacker.
Xander watched as she swept Jameson up in her arms, depositing him on a tree branch high above.
Then she came down like an avenging angel on top of another man, knocking him backward into a tree with a sickening crunch.
“Quince,” Xander said as she turned toward another attacker.
“A little busy at the moment—”
“Quince!”
She turned to see where he was pointing.
Morgan was standing by the fire, his little face twisted in anger. He was glowing.
“Get down!” she yelled, and dove for the forest floor.
Xander followed her example as five more men ran into the firelight.
Morgan put his hands in the air and clasped them, and the glow around him brightened.
Xander turned away, covering his eyes.
There was a sound like a thunderclap, and the air whipped around him as if in a hurricane, hot and wet. He squeezed his eyes shut, willing the terrible heat to go away.
All at once, everything was silent.
He opened his eyes and sat up, checking himself over. He seemed to still b
e in one piece.
The enforcers weren’t so lucky.
They were all burnt beyond recognition, as if they’d been in the path of a laser blast. Or a firestorm.
Morgan lay collapsed by the fire.
“Holy shit,” Jameson called from above. “What the hell was that?”
Quince flew up to get him, while Xander ran to check on the boy who had likely just saved them all. He picked Morgan up in his arms, cradling him gently.
Quince and Jameson came up behind him, looking down on Morgan.
“Is he alive?” Jameson asked.
Xander nodded. “He’s still breathing. Shallowly, but he’s alive.”
Quince looked grim. “Still think he’s a normal boy?”
“Maybe not. Maybe he is a sneach.” He smiled grimly. “But if so, he’s apparently our sneach.”
QUINCE FOUND the second tracker on Xander’s bike. “I should have checked for it when you found us last night.” She shook her head. “I could have gotten us all captured. Or killed.” After all this trouble, their little world-saving quest had almost ended in a heartbeat because of her.
Xander put a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t beat yourself up over it. I didn’t think about it either. We’ve all been through a hell of a lot.”
Morgan was resting on one of the sleep sacks.
“So what do we do with him?” Quince asked. “He’s dangerous.”
Xander looked at her in disbelief. “He just saved your life, and mine. He comes with us.”
“What if he does that to us?”
“He comes, or I don’t.” He crossed his arms and stared her down.
Quince didn’t want to argue. He was right, dammit. The boy had saved them all, but trust wasn’t something that came easily to her, at least not anymore. “All right. We need to move. They might send reinforcements when these ones don’t report back. Do you think he can travel?”
Xander nodded. “He seems better now. I can rig up a harness to carry him on my back.”
“I can help,” Jameson said softly. “I was a Wood Scout once.”
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