Eclipsed (Heartstone Book 3)

by Frances Pauli

  “Sitting? I imagine he’s lying down more often than not.” Use the twinge of jealousy. Twist it, remember how it felt when the Heart gave her to Dolfan. Dolfan, who got everything.

  A few of the guards laughed with him. The man with the gloves did not. He looked to the one-way screen, and the mental fingers opened Mofitan’s mind wider, spread his thoughts for interpretation by an unseen eye.

  “And why was that again? If you meant to escape your home world, why would you come to visit your countryman?”

  The fingers flexed. Mofitan heard Shayd’s warning again. If it comes to an untruth, you must tell a direct lie, serve it encased in an emotional reaction. Distract with strong feeling. Confuse passion with guilt.

  He had no choice but to test the theory now, when the cool grip on his mind reminded him that he was not alone there, not for a second…even in his own brain. If Shayd’s shielding had deterred them at all, he’d never felt it. Now, he let all his years of anger and jealousy bubble free. He reopened wounds he’d already healed, and knew their weakness for what it was. Would old pain be enough? His father had loved Dolfan like a son, had ignored him, but that was so far in the past now. Before Vashia and the Heart, before the Shrouded invasion, the betrayal. Before they learned the Heart’s bonding was all a lie.

  That last bit. He felt the spark of fury at it and almost cringed away. Shayd’s words stalled him. Emotion, rage, whatever you can summon. Mofitan thought of the Heart, and his anger answered. The great Shrouded lie. They’d swallowed it from birth, the Heart’s promise, and all it had offered him was confusion, misdirection, trouble.

  “I asked you a question.” The mouthpiece had moved farther into the room. Foolish. He stood inside the strike range now, an easy target, looking at whoever stood behind the viewing wall. “Perhaps you came to help your countryman? Perhaps, he sent you here.”

  “No.” He sat up so fast the man scampered back. Not far enough. Mofitan could have broken him before they would manage to drag him off. Instead he leaned forward and gave the idiot a steady stare, level, full of all the betrayal of his people’s Heart. “I came here alone.”

  “Why?”

  Always alone. How else? He had no heartmate in his future.

  “I…”

  “Why are you here?!”

  “For him.” Mofitan closed his eyes and remembered the stone glowing, the brilliance as it selected one mate for the other, blessing some, and also damning others to a life that would never feel finished. When he opened his eyes, when he stared out at the man again, he knew he’d managed to find his mask. His fury burned so brightly even he could see it. He spoke slowly, made each word a punctuation. “I came here for Dolfan. I came here to kill him.”

  Vashia paced on her father’s balcony while cringing at the sound of her own steps. It was bad enough living here again. Working in Kovath’s office had been convenient, easy for her to overlook. Pacing in his footsteps, however, felt like one ugly step too far. Her skin prickled in an invisible, chill grip. She squished her face up and shook her head.

  “It’s time to move rooms.”

  “You want to sleep in separate beds already?” Dolfan approached her like you might a wild thing, sideways, with his head down, peering at her through a fall of black hair. “I’d hoped for a few more years.”

  “Silly.” She waited for him, leaned her head against her heartmate’s big purple shoulder, and sighed. “I don’t like the echo here. We should move to another suite.”

  “Of course.” His arms came round her, pulled her into a strong chest, and let her hear the beating of the heart inside. The heart that would belong to her forever. She sighed and snuggled against him. “I just wish…”

  “You’ve already done miracles here, Vash. You know that, right?”

  “Slave ships still land on Eclipsis.”

  “Not for long.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Vashia.” He leaned back and gave her a look, brushed the hair out of her face with one hand, and waited until she unclenched to continue. “You’ve done more than anyone else could have. We’ve turned Wraith around, put good people in every sector but one.”

  “Mostly good people,” she tried to protest. The lesser governors she’d appointed were not all her first choices. She’d done excellent with the first three sectors, found men her father had overlooked for their unwillingness to play his games. But she’d had to scramble to fill all the seats, and had only managed a passable job with some. A few she couldn’t be completely certain of, and she’d have bet her position Gervis Dern would work on those. He had probably already spoken with them, hosted parties and wooed them with his bribes. “Dern will undermine me.”

  “He’ll try.” Dolfan shrugged and pulled her back into a hug again. It shouldn’t have worked. So much was at stake. The people of Eclipsis depended on her to sort it out. Lives hung on her decisions now, but Dolfan’s arms around her managed to soothe away the worst edge of her nerves. It didn’t fix anything, but it definitely made her functional again. Dolfan excelled at batting away her funky moods. “But we have Mofitan. If anyone can disrupt Dern’s plans, Mof will make it happen. The man is like a built-in disaster area.”

  Vashia chuckled and pressed her face into his shirt. He laughed with her, but she heard more to it than that. His rivalry with Mofitan had faded into sincere feelings, and her heartmate was worried about his friend. He’d outright forbidden the plan to happen, in fact, which had only made Mofitan more determined to go through with it.

  “Shall we see what Shayd knows?”

  “Good idea.”

  Shayd and Rowri had come to Eclipsis with Mofitan, all three professing a willingness to help, and, Vashia suspected, all harboring a need to be free of Shroud. How anyone could stay under the weight of that atmosphere for long, Vashia couldn’t imagine. She shuddered, did her best to hide it. The toxins in the Shroud had nearly killed her not too long ago, and though she had her own stupid temper to blame for it, the idea of going back beneath that cloud still gave her the shivers.

  Better to keep her fingers working at things here, even if Eclipsis was a bare knife blade of a rock with little to offer her as a home front.

  “Call them up or go down to meet them?” Dolfan stepped back and eyed her from arm’s length. He saw right through her most days, read her mood as easily as he’d read his planet’s toxicity.

  “Let’s go down.”

  Shayd might have seen something. Even Rowri might have, though she had less of a tie to Mofitan. The Choma-Uraru girl had helped with the shielding beforehand. A necessary safety, if a tentative one. Vashia’s father had kept meticulous notes on all the lesser governors. They’d discovered Dern’s fascination with psychics while reading them, and it seemed like an angle they could exploit. Particularly with the Shrouded Seer and his prophetess wife on their side. Maybe they’d seen more now that Mofitan had begun his mission. Maybe they’d seen something that would suggest he’d arrived safely at his destination at least.

  Vashia took Dolfan’s arm and they made their way across her father’s office. She’d have to get her stuff moved out. If nothing else, she could work in her old rooms.

  Hopefully the seers had been able to get a trace on Mofitan. The locator device they’d injected beneath Mofitan’s skin hadn’t survived the slaver’s inspection. Two days had passed since that signal had gone dead. Vashia’s people couldn’t find him, couldn’t even make contact once the slaver ship had entered Dern’s sector. They’d been shut out tight.

  Which left Mofitan alone in enemy territory. Vashia refused to think any further than that. Mofitan could survive anywhere. Survive and create havoc—Dolfan had that right. She’d almost felt sorry for Dern, for whatever trouble Mofitan was causing him. Almost. If only they had some confirmation he was okay. She closed her eyes and let her heartmate guide her, praying that Shayd or Rowri had managed to see him.

  Chapter Four

  Whoever Gervis’s dogs had cornered was doing a fabulous
job of causing a stir. Corah descended the metal steps into the bunker with her ear to the wall and her thoughts running ahead to observe the lay of the land. They had twice the guards normally posted at the top, and one more pair at the landing above the interrogation rooms. She nodded for them, cruised their surface emotions, and found out enough to arm her for the next level.

  An unusual alien among the slaves last night. Fear. The man was big, scary. He’d already escaped once.

  Corah smiled and slipped past the guards. She followed the stairs down, halfway to the detention cell where this demon was being held, and then she paused. Narrow walkways sprouted to her left and right, paths that led to the hidden rooms where Gervis’s psychics could spy on his prisoners, interrogate them from inside their own minds. He waited down the left path along with three of his mental spies. Corah felt them and she read them, too. Their focus was on the prisoner, the man Gervis suspected meant to assassinate him. Purple. Very interesting.

  Gervis’s mind never focused. He’d wrapped it in too many layers of protection. Too many cooks in that kitchen. She caught his curiosity, his doubts about the man, but nothing that belied the fear his psychics had centered on. To spook Gervis Dern, there had to be something significant here, something so far out of the ordinary that he’d chosen to bring Corah in instead of just having the man’s throat cut. He’d tell her his own version of why when she entered the room, and she could feel his impatience already. Still, she hesitated, tucked into the opposite hallway long enough to shift her thoughts in a different direction.

  Down to the detention rooms.

  What have you found, Gervis? Corah pushed out and down, expecting the usual sort of mind, a desperate edge, and certainly more fear than she found. The guards’ minds echoed the psychic’s thoughts. Everyone scared today. Everyone on edge, ready to run, to jump at the man’s shadow. Even Captain Curel, who’d be leading the interrogation. Even stoic Curel tasted of terror now. Corah leaned against the wall, hid herself completely from anyone on the stairs, and then wafted her thoughts out toward the source of all this drama.

  She brushed his consciousness, a tremble of contact, and lost all her air in a rush. Her hands pressed against the wall, steadied the sudden weakness in her legs. There was something about him. Not fear, but fury, passion and resolve together. She sucked in a breath and reached out, touched the edge of his thoughts. Like an animal, consumed with rage and…amusement? Corah held still, made herself as small as possible and felt the faint tickle of enjoyment. Fun. He’s having fun down there.

  Skimming the surface fed her his base emotions, told her only half the story. Still, Corah had witnessed enough of Gervis’s tactics to know that fun shouldn’t enter the picture. Something about this prisoner didn’t add up. She peered deeper, drifted in so subtly that she’d feel like one of his own thoughts. His pain laced through his mind, a pale background, something he was using to fuel his anger. Intentionally. He’s crafting a shield from the abuse and even more.

  Her probe touched something else, a word flashed through her, heart, and the man she invaded reached out and touched her in return. Corah’s control warbled. The word pressed against her, followed her mental trail back and out, working its way upstream toward her own shields. Heart. Heart!

  Corah snapped back into her own head and slammed her doorways closed. She buckled against the wall, shaking, her head full of a whirlwind that made no sense. He’s in pain but enjoying it. His thoughts are full of his heart, and yet he hates it. The only thing she hadn’t sensed, in the storm of thoughts, was any malice toward Gervis Dern.

  Which told her everything. It told her he was on the wrong side.

  Whoever Gervis had trapped in his basement had his own agenda. He hadn’t come here to assassinate anyone, and Corah did her best to shake off the residual tumult from touching minds with him. She smoothed her clothes, caught her breath, and tugged her collar up to hide her neck before heading back across the stairway to the opposite path, and the room where her boss waited with his impatience swelling like a tidal wave.

  Outside the viewing room door, Corah paused. Her hands shook. A few breaths calmed the trembles, but her thoughts raced—not a boon with psychic work to do. Not that she planned on telling Gervis the truth about his guest, but she did need to fool his other spies. And she needed to decide exactly how to lie. What story could she spin about the prisoner that would serve her own needs best?

  He hadn’t come to assassinate the governor, but if Gervis knew that what would he do? Why had he bothered to detain the man anyway? Had one of the stupid spies suggested he was a threat? She needed to think fast. If she played the dangerous angle, the man would only be killed. She couldn’t use that, but how did she know he’d be any use to her alive?

  Heart.

  There was skill behind his shielding, the way he wove his emotions through his thoughts. He meant to hide something. If not Gervis Dern’s death, then what? If the stranger had his own agenda, could she hope to sway him to her own ends? Maybe they could make a trade, help one another out. Heart.

  Corah shook her head again and then had to tighten her bun. Stupid. She had no reason at all to seek out an ally. But when she rapped her knuckles lightly against the viewing room door, her breath hovered in her throat, shallow and expectant. The mood in the room beyond spilled outward, influenced her thoughts, and fed the whisper of a plan. If he could be swayed…

  “There you are.” Gervis didn’t look away from the viewer, but his voice told her he’d been waiting for her specifically, that he hadn’t appreciated the waiting either. “Now, perhaps, we can make some headway.”

  Corah cringed for the other spies. The tone of Gervis’s dismissal, the irritated waving of his hands in their direction suggested they’d displeased him even more than she had. Good for her. Not so great from either of their perspectives. She read that easily, just stepping into the room. Santel, the younger of the men, had nearly frayed to the point of fracture. He wouldn’t be employed much longer if he let Gervis Dern’s moods rattle him that much. The veteran, Mawl, a Sessarian who’d been with Gervis three years before Corah had shown up, hid his distress better. Still, he was the lesser skilled of all of them, and though he veiled his fear, each failure brought it closer to the light. If Gervis cast him aside before he’d ferreted away enough money to retire, Mawl would not have anything to offer another employer.

  He feared destitution, and he saw slavery at its end.

  Which, of course, was where most of the destitute on Eclipsis were destined to end up. Flushed down society’s gutters until they couldn’t scrabble for purchase any longer and were swept off to a grim future as someone’s property. Like the man they’d brought here, the one they held in the room on the other side of the wall.

  The one Corah was doing her best not to look at.

  “I came as quickly as I could.”

  “Of course you did.” A flash of disbelief behind the comment but not real anger. His mood had shifted again, and now Gervis focused on the prisoner and forgave Corah’s tardiness to make room in his crowded head for other passions. “What do you make of him? He looks exactly like the bastard Kovath’s child has wed.”

  Corah hesitated, took in the curve of Gervis’s slim back. His head didn’t sit firmly on his shoulders, perhaps because his neck was as weak as his spine. Either way, the sag of it, the way his chin jutted forward and his dark eyes darted always from one side to the other gave him a ghoulish posture, like a lizard who’d gone far too long without proper food and no longer cared what or who it dined on next. As wretched a picture as he was, she had to force her gaze away, use her forged will to drag the man they spoke of into her field of vision.

  Purple. Furious and taut, built like a stone rhinoceros, the man didn’t sit in the chair they’d provided. He sat it like a general might sit his horse, or an eagle might perch wherever the hell it wanted. They hadn’t cowed this man at all, despite the thin fingers of blood trailing over his lilac muscles. His squared jaw
tightened, but Corah felt why. She knew that his onslaught of emotion was backed by a deep amusement.

  He toyed with them, but if he had meant them any harm, it would be wise to fear him.

  Oddly enough, she felt no inkling of that at all. No hostility, nothing remotely murderous in the man’s attitude. His thoughts spun a web around his humor, dragging childish anger and a deep sense of betrayal into a knot of emotion backed by only one coherent word. Heart. She’d heard it out in the hallway too, and now, clear as day the man they’d dragged from the slaver ship and beaten in this basement thought only of this “heart.” It chanted through his thoughts, and paired with the image he made, the regal captive, easily capable of escape if that had been his desire, it gave Corah a case of the tingles.

  Oh no.

  She cleared her throat, tugged at her collar, and sidled closer to Gervis Dern. This had to look good. If she meant to gain something from the situation, she’d need her head in order. She needed to focus on Gervis, not on the way the man’s jet-black braid fell over his shoulder or how the shadows played across his bicep.

  “What have they found out so far?” Her voice gained strength as she went. “What do you need to know?”

  “Is it him?” Gervis turned to her finally, and she didn’t miss the way his eyes dropped to her neck. “Do they think I’m that stupid? Have they sent the whore-child’s mate to end me?”

  “It’s not him.” Santel spoke up, interrupted where the seasoned Mawl had the sense to keep his tongue. “We told you that already.”

  “Silence.” Gervis pressed one fist to his bony temple. “All day they natter at me, this is this and we saw that. I can’t trust a word of it, you know that? Not one word.”

  “It isn’t the child’s mate,” Corah said. She ignored the huff from Santel and kept her head tilted down so that her chin might cover her neck a little and so that Gervis would think her cowed as well. “I can feel that much. This man has no love for Dolfan.”