Eclipsed (Heartstone Book 3)

by Frances Pauli

  “Everything I know about the situation in Wraith.” Mofitan’s growl echoed into the mine, bounced back from empty spaces deep in the planet’s core.

  “That’s good,” Niels said. “It’s very good. Here.”

  He slid the cage door open and waited for Mofitan to climb out.

  “These tunnels are in good shape.” Mofitan stepped away from the lift and gazed along the path the lights made. No damage here at all. There must be a way to access the other shafts this way, a connecting tunnel that would allow them to…

  “Did you hear that?” Niels spoke loudly enough for Mofitan to catch it, but he knew immediately the words hadn’t been aimed at him. “You catch everything?”

  The sound of metal scraping echoed around him. He turned slower than he should have, had taken one step farther than was wise.

  “I did.” The second voice came from the communications device Niels held. It came from the grave, with death behind it. Gervis Dern’s voice crackled in the rebel leader’s hand. “End it.”

  The lift door had closed. The gears already complained their way back into action. Niels grinned from inside and waved a pistol between them, just in case Mofitan meant to catch a ride back to the surface. “Hold very still, Mr. Mofitan, and we’ll make this quick.”

  “Dern’s alive.” Mofitan focused on the pistol. If Niels fired now, with the lift gate between them and the car moving, he’d likely miss. “You’re working with him.”

  “Not really your business now, is it?” The lift sped up.

  Niels’s knees passed and Mofitan ran out of time. He leapt forward and snagged the edge of the cage, intent on tearing the box from its mechanism if necessary. The lift rocked. Metal howled. Something hard pressed like a vise against his fingers, crushing them, loosing his grip before he could latch on at all.

  He growled and the mine rumbled with him. The stone hit hard when he landed, scarred his knees and left his head reeling. Above him, a yellow square rose, a blot of rusting color carrying Niels toward the light. Dern lived. Niels and he working together. Corah.

  “Corah!”

  The mine screamed with his voice. Then, his echo shifted, morphed into the shattering of stone. Something in the depths boomed and flashed. The odor of smoke and fire, dust and chemicals rushed from the tunnels and up in the lift’s wake. The walls trembled. The lights flickered and died. Creaking. A rumble in the distance. Mofitan’s feet moved. He ran for a tunnel, any tunnel. Darkness swallowed them all, and the mineshaft closed up and fell in around him.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Corah still lay in bed when the world exploded. After Mofitan left, she’d dressed, but then she’d found herself with nothing useful to do. She had the information Niels wanted, but had decided in the night that Mofitan should be the one to tell him. Sometime during the night, Corah had decided she didn’t need to play a vital role in the revolution. She didn’t need to be useful to Niels, or to the cause, to have a future.

  When the bed jumped out from beneath her, her scream had no sound. The world around her yelled louder, filled with the sound of a planet’s bones shaking and tearing apart. Had the whole of Banshee blown up? She landed on her belly on the floor and remained there while the aftershocks rippled through her flooring and the shrieking outside shifted to human voices. Shouting. Feet pounding their way across the ground.

  Mofitan.

  Her stomach squirmed and tightened into a knot. Corah crawled for the door, reached it, and used the handle to find her feet. She dragged her body out into the light and an atmosphere full of dust and fear. She stumbled out, followed the stream of rebels to her left, and saw the cloud rising from behind the mine. Big explosion. Much worse than the saboteurs had done. Thankfully, it lifted to the sky in back of the complex, away from the pits and the repair crews.

  They ran past her now, men in unmarked jumpsuits carrying tools or rifles. They ran down the line of miners’ shacks toward the rear of the main shaft. Dust rolled forward from the explosion, and Niels’s men ran into it. Why? Why run toward the danger unless…

  “Wait!” She stepped out from the shack, tried to snag one of the passing men. “What’s happened?”

  He shook her grip loose and looked at her like she had two heads. “Explosion.”

  “Where is Niels?”

  The rebel ran off down the row of sheds. He ran toward the accident, which could only mean someone had been left behind in the mine. Someone actually had been working where the danger was.

  “Niels!” Her boss had been with Mofitan. Niels would know where he’d been assigned. She moved to intercept the next man, left him no option but to slow down and notice her. “Where’s Niels?”

  “There.” The guy dodged around her and kept going, but he pointed ahead, and Corah felt the tightness creeping in. She rode the next aftershock in her knees, rocking with it, letting the world shake her loose of herself.

  Two more men passed her at a run. One of them held a med-kit. Corah leapt to her feet and followed them, more falling forward than running. Only her fear kept her from the dirt, kept her legs moving. The dust swallowed her, swallowed them all, and made a filter over the truth. She ran through the dust with the others, stumbled into them, joined their shouts with her own, and only stopped when she hit the wall of debris.

  Twisted pipes lay woven through the boulders. Rocks piled between crumpled black boxes that had once been buildings. Dust made long lines like feelers pointing away from the center of the smoke. If it had been a mineshaft once, that hole had filled with stone. The shaft had filled, had sealed with rubble and pipe and one twisted metal arm dangling a yellow cage. The rebels gathered around the pile near this, and between them she could see a form on the ground.

  Mofitan.

  Her chest squeezed as she pushed into the fray. The man on the ground sat up, but all she could see were backs and legs, elbows and shaking heads. Maybe they hadn’t sent him down that hole. She shoved a man aside and imagined that Niels had Mofitan working on repairs, that he hadn’t been anywhere near this disaster when it blew. She imagined he was all right, right behind her, or at least, sitting in the center of the crowd.

  Except when they parted for her it was Niels on the ground. Niels taking water from the medic.

  “Where is he?” She heard her voice shrieking, reaching a tone close to madness. “Niels! Where is he?”

  He took his time looking up, pulled another long drink from the first aid straw and shook his head. Except he looked okay, had some filth on him certainly, a scrape along one cheek. But he didn’t look that bad. It couldn’t really be that bad, could it? Not if Niels was here and fine.

  “Where, Niels? Please. Where is he?”

  “Hold her.”

  “No. No, Niels.” She heard the pleading in her tone, the futility. The expression on his face mirrored it, showed her there was no hope. Her knees failed. Corah hit the ground and her neck jarred. Hands found her arms and held her still. Rebels surged forward. They grabbed her when she began to thrash and scream.

  “Sedate her.”

  She heard him over her own keening, as if she flew above the scene instead of causing it. Niels spoke the order, waved a dismissive hand in the direction of her tragedy.

  “Hold her still.” He unfolded, found his feet at the same time her world went dim. Nothing left now. Nothing. Something snapped into focus. Corah held her breath, held still, and a cold needle jabbed into her arm. Niels. Something in his voice now, in that familiar smile. He leaned over her and his face blurred, faded in and out. As it slid toward total darkness, his voice, the only voice she’d trusted since childhood, chanted her to sleep.

  “Get her out, boys. Put her down and keep her under guard until Dern arrives.”

  A ship landed the next morning. Dielel rolled Jadyek’s sleeping body closer to his chest and curled around his lover protectively. Too soon. The captain had promised them passage off the pirate planet, but did it have to be that moment, when life seemed almost free of hi
s past evils? Jadyek moaned and opened his eyes.

  “Is that engines?”

  “Someone is landing.”

  Jadyek tensed in his arms. Fear danced across his eyes, but his soft jaw tightened, and the shadow of stubble there took on a determined angle. “Who?”

  Dielel sighed. He didn’t want this to end. Even on the outside here, they’d had a few days together, a few short days that might have been blissful if they hadn’t been worried about what came next. He shrugged his shoulders and tried to shake off the feeling that justice had found them, that they’d have to face the music now, pay for their crimes. Just together, please. He couldn’t lose his heartmate and live.

  For Jadyek, he smiled. “Let’s go find out.”

  They’d only half dressed when a knock shook their hab door. Heavy. Too much thump for Jarn, who usually preferred to sneak inside and only announce himself after assessing the situation anyway. Dielel finished zipping up the jumpsuit he’d worn inside the Shrouded prison and did his best to march to the door.

  They’d donned the Shrouded clothing without discussing it. It just seemed right, more fitting than the garb the pirates had loaned them. If they faced their crimes today, best to do it as Shrouded men. Best to own their past, if they could never fully escape it.

  He waited until they’d made eye contact, until Jadyek nodded that he, too, was ready. Then Dielel pulled open the door and stared the pirate leader in the eye…for about three breaths. The man had a glint to him that just pushed your gaze away. Like a too bright light.

  “We need to talk,” he said. “Fast.”

  “You have visitors today.” Dielel stepped aside and the pirate lumbered into the habitat and waved at him to close the door. The gesture had a curt edge to it, a sense of urgency that made Dielel respond without question. This man triggered his desire to follow orders. He doubted that was a beneficial reflex, where the pirate was concerned.

  “We only have a few moments while Jarn is dealing with them.”

  “With who?”

  “The people we’ve sold you to. Listen. Our deal is solid. You two get out of here without him. I did you right there. You can trust that Jarn will not be joining you.”

  “Say that again, please?” Jadyek had tears in his voice. The sound of them squeezed Dielel’s chest, made him imagine crushing the pirate’s throat. His heartmate pleaded, “You’ve sold us?”

  The pirate waved the devil’s hand at him, a hand bearing a Shrouded prince’s ring. He sniffed as if he’d been interrupted. “No time. That deal was cast before you and I made our arrangement. The point is, you get exactly what you asked, and I have upheld my end of the bargain. Jarn has no idea we’ve made our own bargain. You’ll be free of him today.”

  “But not free?” Dielel held his teeth together and checked the captain’s belt for weapons. Nothing visible, but the man might have a sidearm or a blade hidden in the folds of his loose clothing.

  “I’m not sure about that. These people have been looking for you, for someone like you, for a long time.”

  “Who are they?” Jadyek moved forward, as if he sensed Dielel’s mood and meant for them to take down the man together.

  “People like you.” The captain shrugged. “They’ve been looking for you.”

  “Shrouded people?” Dielel stepped forward, and a miniature pistol manifested in the air between them.

  The pirate captain waved it a little, just so that he could see it was real, there in his hand, pointing at Dielel’s face.

  “Don’t really care what planet they’re from,” he growled. “They want you and they paid well.”

  “We paid you too,” Dielel said. “That ring is priceless.”

  “Two jobs, two fees.”

  “But all you’re doing is turning us in!” Jadyek moved, and the pirate’s other hand jerked a second pistol from inside his shirt. “That wasn’t our deal.”

  “Let’s see.” He used the butt of the second gun to scratch his beard, a ballsy move that would have ended up with Dielel missing his nose if he’d tried it. “You said, away together, no Jarn. Yes?”

  “I believe you know this is not what we meant,” Dielel said. “And I believe you couldn’t care less.”

  The pirate showed them his teeth. Yellow, blackened in places. The teeth of an animal. Outside the sound of engines died. Their new owner landed safely on the pirate planet. Perhaps it was Haftan? Perhaps, he’d have to face more than his crimes today. He looked to his heartmate, to the war waging on Jadyek’s face between determination to save their future and desperate resignation that they’d already lost it.

  Dielel had trusted a pirate. They’d stayed with Jarn too long. He’d been afraid again, too scared to run when they had a chance. Now they had nowhere to go. Time had turned against them as easily as the captain had.

  “You’re a smart one,” the pirate told his heartmate. “But you don’t know what I care about.”

  “I don’t care,” Jadyek snarled. “You stole my ring.”

  “Mind that tongue.” The voice cracked like an electronic whip. “You didn’t just accuse me of stealing, boy. We’ve had a fair deal here.”

  “Stop.” Dielel moved, not toward the pirate for fear of escalating things, but around toward Jadyek in an attempt to defuse them. “Fighting will only get us killed and lose you your deal.”

  He made the first for his love and the last for the greedy demon that had turned them in.

  “Are there any more deals you’ve made that we should know about?” Jadyek paid less heed to his intended warning, continued to argue with the doubly armed man.

  “Nothing that concerns you two.”

  “Trust me,” Dielel said. “If Jarn has made any other deals, they involve us somehow.”

  “Well then. He got me to let him use the communications array. Not even sure how he pulled that one off, but I suspect there was alcohol involved.”

  “Who did he contact?”

  “He said it was a call home.”

  “Eclipsis?”

  “Sounds right and that’s more than I should’a told you lot. You owe me.”

  “What?” Jadyek moved, the gun clicked. Dielel’s heart stopped beating. “We owe you?”

  “For the warning.” The pirate decided they didn’t mean to fight. He judged them, with one keen look, and found them lacking. No threat here. He tucked one of the weapons away again, let the other sag and used it more to gesture with than anything else. “Didn’t have to come. Didn’t have to tell you anything.”

  “You’re a real angel,” Jadyek said.

  In a way, Dielel wished he had his lover’s moxy. He admired it, the way Jadyek could stand for something even when they’d betrayed everything. Then again, Jadyek had always been the nobler of their pairing. For Dielel’s part, he wanted them to live. He nodded for the pirate, tried to thank him without betraying his heartmate’s anger too. They might survive this yet. Jarn called someone on Eclipsis. He’d sold them to someone Shrouded who’d been looking for them. If the ship waiting for them outside carried Dolfan, or even Haftan, they’d have a chance.

  “Easy, love,” he whispered to Jadyek and draped an arm around his strong shoulders. “It doesn’t matter.”

  What mattered was that they lived, that they stayed together. That had been part of the deal. Maybe this pirate had arranged that much for them after all. Haftan or Dolfan could be reasoned with. They would not willfully defy the Heart.

  The pirate put his gun away and left them, but he left no illusions in his wake. Guards would be posted now, weapons were in hand. They’d never really had any freedom to lose.

  “They’ll let us stay together.” He promised it, because he believed he could convince them. In Shrouded hands at least, even in prison, no one would sever a Heart pairing. At his core, he couldn’t believe anyone would. The stone had sent them here, and the stone always favored a true match. “Trust the Heart.”

  “I do.” Jadyek sighed and leaned into him. “But I worry that
we trust it too much.”

  Dielel stared at the door. His bonded had a point. He’d also lost his ring for nothing. Here at the edge of Summit space, with freedom hovering just out of reach, trusting hadn’t served them well at all.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Consciousness teased her out of the dark. Corah batted it away, tried to dive back into the black comfort that was not knowing herself. Voices called her name and she spat at them. She hissed a shadow cat’s noise and did her best to grow claws.

  Unsuccessful.

  Light exploded the black dreams, tore her mind from the sweetness of death and silence. Life still hammered beneath her skin, and she could not push it away. Corah blinked, found blurry metal and rust and a swirl of faces she did not want to see. Invisible fingers pried her eyes wide, held them open when she tried to hide. Foreign thoughts picked at her inner mind, shuffled through her brain for images they could use.

  He’d brought his psychics with him. Gervis Dern lived, and now, he meant to turn the others against her. She pushed against them, sought the darkness and the quiet where no one could wake her. No one was left to wake her. She imagined smoke and rock, so much rock it piled to the sun and back. Dead.

  On my planet we have a crystal.

  On Eclipsis we bury the light. On her planet, that kind of thinking ended in death. Silence. Mofitan died beneath the whole of Banshee, pressed into nonexistence by the cold, non-glowing stones.

  When a true match stands before it…

  What he’d been getting at no longer mattered. What he’d meant to tell her died with him.

  She pushed back at the mental invasion, knocked aside the probing thoughts, and used her grief to slam the door on them. Get out!

  “She’s fighting us.” Santel’s voice sang above Corah’s head. “Trying to keep me out.”

  “The sedative is wearing off too fast.” Niels’s voice gave her a breath of hope, a flash of something like comfort until she remembered he’d been in bed with the devil all along. “If we dose her again she won’t wake up.”