Her instincts pushed her out of her own mind and down along with his. She brushed at him, expecting the door in his mind to slam. Instead, a wave of concern swamped her question. Corah felt his fear for her, and knew from the image in his head that the gases were affecting her more than he’d let her know. She saw how pale she looked, how dull her eyes must seem, and she felt his knowledge and something personal behind his worry. Another woman poisoned. Had that one been his woman?
His fears let her inside, but Corah found she had little strength to swim up the tide in order to find deeper information. She had even less inclination to pry, knowing his current state of terror was for her benefit. Or possibly for the other woman’s? Still, this was the truest peek she’d had at him. She was sure of that much, and the depth of character here, the compassion and dedication that fueled all his surface fury told a story of a different sort of man than he’d claimed to be.
What she’d do with that, however, Corah would have to decide later. For now, his fears spilled over into her and the panic they spawned thrust her right back into her own head, into the darkness where she sat on a thin shelf, alone, and breathing in poisonous fumes with every gasp.
Her fingers splayed over the mesh she sat upon. They fluttered across the steel grate and calculated the thickness, counted holes in the metal until she felt the whole thing could fall away at any second. Or they’d shoot her. The miners below wouldn’t know where she was. If she moved at all, they might mistake her for some vermin or another.
She’d die here in the dark. Alone. Without even the simple success of Gervis Dern’s death to her credit.
A clang sounded. It echoed up toward the last light she’d ever see. The landing groaned and leaned to the side. Corah clamped her hands over her eyes and wished she’d poisoned Gervis when she’d had the chance. Damn Niels for stopping her. Damn his greater cause too.
“Easy.” A low voice in the dark. Mofitan spoke, and Corah drifted back to sentience. “Hang in there. Almost got it.”
The ledge fluttered again, squeaked, but stayed aloft. She didn’t plummet to her death. Instead, big hands brushed the stray hair away from her face and slipped a stiff-domed mask over her nose and mouth. She tensed, but before the panic could flare again, he tightened the straps and a rush of clear oxygen filled her nostrils.
Corah drank it in, huffed until her head cleared and Mofitan’s voice warned her again.
“Easy.”
“What is it?”
“A filter. It will keep the damps from affecting you.”
“Where did it come from?”
“They have them below for emergencies or black days.” He sat back on his heels and smiled at her. “Want to know about black days?”
“No.” She shook her head and the tunnel spun. Mofitan’s laughter stalled when she leaned to one side.
“Careful. Take it slow.” He caught her with one arm, righted her, and then squinted. “You really shouldn’t be here.”
“No choice.”
“Then we’d better sort things out pretty quickly.” His eyes darkened, but the expression was softer, more open than he usually wore and somehow it made her hesitate to probe, to push her way into the places he might be offering. At the moment, it would feel too much like an invasion, would make her the aggressor and maybe something even worse. Did he know that she’d had the chance and let it slip past? He shook his head again. Maybe. Maybe he’d meant for her to look.
“I’ve seen what’s down there,” he said.
“I can navigate the mine. But, thank you for this.” Corah tapped the filter and inhaled, feeling the lack of toxins like a blessing.
“It’s not the mine I’m worried about.” He looked toward the ladder and frowned. “It’s the miners.”
“I’m here under Gervis’s direct orders. If they so much as…”
“Listen, I know you think Gervis Dern’s the boss. I get that. But that’s a pretty thin guarantee that these guys do. Do you honestly think every convict, slave, and mercenary who ends up in Dern’s employ is going to be as loyal to the man as you are?”
“I-I never said…”
“Exactly.” He missed her slip. Missed how his inadvertent slur had raised her hackles. Had almost pushed her into letting her guard down. As if she were Gervis’s henchman, his right arm, his woman. Damn. How else would Mofitan think of her? “Just stay close to me and keep that thing on your face at all times.”
“I will, but…”
“Yes?” He raised the eyebrow again, leaned to one side, and let his black braid swing.
Corah saw it again. His guard was down. On purpose or not, there was an opening about him, the crack she’d been so desperately waiting for. If she pushed in now, the man’s secrets would be hers. They could get out of here, never have to go a single step farther. She swallowed and shook her head, tapped the side of the mask he’d fetched to save her life.
“Are you sure this thing will work?”
“I’m sure.”
“How do you know?” Something there. She could feel it. Something about the filter, about poison in the air. He wouldn’t share today, though. And Corah, for whatever reason, wouldn’t pry.
Mofitan narrowed his eyes. His lips tightened and his face went to shadows. “I know. Trust me.”
She stared back at him, wondered if he knew what he asked, really. If he understood that somewhere in the dark, their whole balance had shifted. Corah caught his eye and held it, and if he understood the meaning in her answer, Mofitan managed to hide that as well.
“I do,” she said, and the tunnel behind him echoed it to the sky. “I do trust you.”
Chapter Thirteen
Vashia woke suddenly, stared at her father’s ceiling, and tried to grasp at the last wisps of her dream. Dolfan’s hand pressed against her shoulder. He shook her gently, and his voice whispered near her ear.
“Vash. Wake up.”
“I don’t want to.” She pulled the coverlet up and tried to block her face, to dive back into warmth and a setting that didn’t reek of her father’s ghosts. “Let’s tear down this place and build a new one.”
“Okay.”
“Really?” She peeked over the cloth’s edging, squinted when he flipped on the lights and groaned at the glare and the truth it brought. Familiar rooms. Horrible memories. “Can we?”
“Yes.” At least Dolfan was with her. She could bear it a little while, so long as he was here to remind her that Kovath was gone. That her past was firmly in the past. “But first you have to get up. There’s been a message.”
“When?” She sat up, let the covers slip away and brought her mind fully into wakefulness. Dolfan had already dressed. He stood beside their bed, leaning over her with less of a joyous expression than she’d have liked. “Mofitan?”
He shook his head. Drat. No news from Mofitan, no word of anything new from Dern’s sector. But that could be good news too. It could mean that Mofitan had blended in, that he’d managed to live another day.
“It’s Haftan,” he said. “Calling from the capital.”
“At this hour?”
He laughed. “It’s not this hour there.”
“Well, still.” It wasn’t as if the man couldn’t do the math. If he’d called anyway, then it was most likely something important. Vashia sighed and gave up on dreams and remodeling together. “I’m up. I’m awake, but I need something to keep me there.”
“I’ve already ordered it.” He snatched at her covers and dragged them farther away from the bed, fluttered them just enough to spawn cool eddies over her nightdress that sent her leaping. “Get dressed. I’ll make sure the coffee’s here by the time you’re decent.”
Haftan would wait long enough for that. Whatever he thought was vital enough for this hour could wait for her to put on a shirt. Despite the fact that they’d once technically been married, the relationship had never been real, nor had Haftan any business seeing her half-dressed.
Vashia threw on a shirt, scowled at
the carpet while she did the buttons. Ugly. Too dark and formal and very much to her father’s tastes. She pulled her hair out of the collar, spun on a heel, and marched to where her heartmate waited, far too patiently, by the door. “I wasn’t kidding about the remodel.”
“Good.” Dolfan took her in stride. “I think it would be good…”
“Good for me?” It was showing then, drat. She sighed. Rushing off to read the future with her Chromian friend had worried all of them. She’d stayed too long and the driver had ratted her out. Dolfan would want to go with her next time. Maybe it would be okay. For whatever reason, despite having two fully qualified seers in the house, Vashia felt like her silent alley friend was the better link to news about Mofitan. His cards calmed her, maybe. They gave her hope. Even if it was poorly placed, she’d take it. “You’re right, of course. I don’t like living in his shadow.”
“It’s perfectly understandable.”
He led the way out of their chambers and down the hallway to the new office, a tiny room that her father had never bothered with. It had probably served as a storage closet, or possibly an interrogation room. Now it housed the nearest computer terminal, a simple desk, and three chairs. Which left one of them standing, it would seem. Rowri and Shayd had already arrived, and the Shrouded Seer leaned against a corner behind his seated bride. Dolfan slid into one of the chairs and left the last for her.
She sat, but waited to signal the comm. “Has anyone heard it yet?”
“We were waiting for you.” Rowri’s voice had a dainty, feminine edge to it. Even though Vashia had seen the woman in her Uraru form, reconciling the diminutive, dark girl with the enormous silver animal she became took more mental calisthenics than she had the energy for. Only Rowri’s eyes and wild black hair gave a hint at her feral nature. She smiled sweetly now, and Vashia pressed the control to initiate reception of Haftan’s message.
His face appeared on the top of her desk, smirky and full of itself. Vashia swiped her hand across one of his cheeks, taking far too much satisfaction in the gesture, and his image moved to the wall where everyone in the room could see it.
“Outbound transmission,” the larger than life-sized Haftan said. “Simultaneous to Shroud and Eclipsis. They both need to hear this. Am I on?”
Dolfan caught her rolling her eyes. She’d meant to keep the disdain in her head, but somehow Haftan triggered too much annoyance to be contained. It amused her heartmate, if the twitching in the corner of his mouth could be trusted. Dolfan didn’t care for her former husband any more than she did.
“Galactic Summit representative class C, Haftan of Shroud, calling King Peryl and Planetary Governor Vashia da Kovath with urgent news, er, message. Are you sure it’s working?” Haftan had the mannerisms of a serpent, all grace and self-awareness. He didn’t usually show his skirts in public, but whatever device he used to send the message had him flustered. He looked off-screen, squinted, tightened his face even more than normal, and then nodded and waved away whoever was trying to help him. “We have news of the prisoners, recently escaped from detention on Shroud.”
Everyone in the room sat straighter at that. Even Shayd stood away from the wall, leaned forward just a little, and quirked one dark eyebrow.
“The stolen Shevran vessel which we now believe was taken by the prisoners has been spotted in Sector Eleven. That’s on the fringe of Summit space, and I’m told that outlaw activity in the sector makes pursuit difficult.” He rolled his eyes then, and Dolfan chuckled.
“Haf is learning how much fun it is to deal with Galactic Summit bureaucracy,” he said. On Eclipsis, serving as her co-governor, Dolfan had endured enough of that to sympathize with Haftan’s frustration.
“I’m concerned,” Haftan continued. “For the situation on Eclipsis. We know Jarn is with them, and that makes me wonder if they’re even alive still. But even more worrisome are Jarn’s ties to your planet, Vashia. If he tries to contact home, well, you know.” He shrugged, looked a lot more like a Shrouded prince through the casual gesture. Vashia had yet to meet any Shrouded aside from Shayd who could pull off serious for too long. Still, Mofitan and Shayd both had assured her that Haftan would take to diplomacy like a fish to water. “Try to block anything coming in, would be my recommendation. And if Peryl has any brilliant ideas, I’d be happy to do what I can from here. Take care. Out. How do you turn it off?”
The wall went back to normal, with the final sound of Haftan’s frustrated sigh.
“What does he mean?” Dolfan spoke first. “Jarn’s ties here? Your father’s people are all gone.”
“Not my father’s people.” Vashia folded her hands together and stared at her fingers intertwined, so much of the past woven all through their future. Would she ever be able to exorcise it all? “Jarn’s family is still here, and if he gets a message through, if he still has Dielel and Jadyek with him…”
They’d be sunk. Wherever he was, Jarn could still destroy everything. He could still bring their plans down in flames around them. Worse, he could blow Mofitan’s cover to shreds.
“Filter all incoming transmissions. Put up a communications net. We have to block him, or Mof will be screwed.”
“I need to send a message.” Jarn spoke to the pirate captain, but if he’d meant to intimidate the man into obeying, he failed. Dielel cringed at the snarl in the bastard’s voice, but the pirate only crossed his arms over an exposed, hairy chest and grinned, showing a row of pointed, golden teeth.
“And I need a free pass to the pleasure planets of Sector Eight, but needin’ ain’t the same as gettin’, is it?”
“Of course not.”
They’d been forced to land at a derelict platform on the backside of what should have been called an asteroid in Dielel’s opinion. The armed men who met them referred to it as a planet, but the dusty ball of rock and cluster of ramshackle dwellings didn’t quite classify as that significant. The people living here were pirates to the last man, and they’d wasted no time in cleaning out the cargo bay of Jarn’s stolen Shevran vessel.
Their own ships looked like wasps, fast and light and armed far beyond the Galactic Summit’s regulation limits on weaponry. Three of these had escorted them to the landing platform and four more had been waiting on the pad when they lowered their ramp. The pirates’ “planet” had more fighters than buildings. The pirates themselves looked to be big on body hair and very light on personal grooming.
Jarn’s nostrils flared, but he held his rage in check enough not to get them all shot. The pirates surrounding them had enough weapons to turn all three of them into a smear on the pavement. Despite his effort, the fact that diplomacy was not Jarn’s usual negotiation style had become glaringly obvious the moment they’d been introduced to the captain. They needed Haftan to survive a standoff like this. Haftan excelled at making everyone happy and still getting his own way.
“Your cargo might be enough to buy your lives.” The captain emphasized the might and gave Dielel and Jadyek an appraising look around Jarn’s thin frame. They’d stayed back, remained together and done a miserable job of hiding how terrified they were at the moment. “But I doubt there’s enough extra to pay for calling home. Even if I did trust you not to call the Galactic Summit down on us.”
“I wouldn’t call the Summit to unstop my toilet,” Jarn answered the captain with equal derision.
Sass. He’d get them all killed at this rate. Dielel clutched at Jadyek’s hand and tried to hide both their bulks behind Jarn’s skeleton. Jadyek’s fingers squeezed his, and the ring they’d stake their lives on pressed between them, turned around to hide the stone, and now, a smooth warm comfort. A promise that there would always be hope.
Jadyek had given him that much, and Dielel remembered himself, stood taller and stopped trying to vanish. He owed his heartmate for his freedom, and so did Jarn. The day the planet had quaked for them, he’d been forgiven his treachery. It had been a promise of sorts, and they had a new start coming.
“Well then.” The pirat
es chuckled around them. Their leader took a sudden step toward Jarn, and the man only stood straighter, leaned forward to meet the guy. “We’ll just have to see, won’t we?”
“I suppose we will.” Jarn looked away, cast a pointed glance toward the squat domes at the edge of the pad. “You might find I can be of use to you, Captain. Or you might decide that you prefer me dead, is that it?”
“Something very much like that, yes.”
“It is in my best interests to not be dead,” Jarn said. “To which end, I suppose I will have to become of some use to you.”
“Good luck!” the pirate bellowed and slapped his hands against his thighs. His people cackled like a mismatched flock of birds with rifles, and something in the mood shifted. Jarn still stood like a totem in the middle of a ring of outlaws, but somehow, he’d shifted the situation in his favor.
Dielel couldn’t see how it had happened, but he could definitely feel it. He had no delusions about where that put him and his mate, nor did he miss the second look from the pirate, the subtle judgment in the man’s examination of them, nor the fact that, this time, Jarn joined him.
If they meant to use Jadyek’s ring, they’d better do it fast. Somehow, Jarn had landed amongst his own kind. He’d found another crack to creep through, and they had landed somewhere outside and on the defensive…again.
Chapter Fourteen
Had she meant it? Mofitan held the bottom of the ladder still while Corah descended and tried to decide if her terror or his actions had spurred her to say it so quickly. Could she have meant it? Dern had sent her to spy on him, trusted her to be a little more selective, he supposed, than one day halfway down a mineshaft together.
Still, she had said it.
And even if she’d immediately tried to cover it, in the moment, it had seemed honest to him. The lack of air and the darkness had driven a crack in her exterior. She’d shown him her vulnerability, just for a moment, and let something true come out. Mofitan decided he liked her a lot better with her walls down. Better, but not enough to drop his just yet. Too much depended on his acting like something he wasn’t.
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