Hearts & Minds: Book Six in the Crown of Blood series

by White, Gwynn

  “Ah, in that case—” The one playing with his rifle strap pointed down the passageway to a gray door in the equally gray wall.

  The other continued to stare at him.

  Meka stalked to the door.

  Neither of them moved. Even though his back was to them, he sensed them watching him. What was it about him that had attracted their attention? And why did that attention feel so dangerous?

  Every instinct screamed at him to run.

  He was about to obey his gut when a voice whispered in his head, “Take it slow, Meka, very, very slow.”

  The voice echoed with memory. It called itself Father. It spoke to him constantly, but he had always ignored it.

  Until now.

  Looking neither left or right, he slowed to a crawl.

  He reached the door. The guardsmen still hadn’t moved away. He pushed it open and stepped into a small gray room. The door oomphed closed behind him.

  He sighed and shrugged the rifle off his back. Barely aware of it slipping onto the floor as he slumped against the door. To calm his racing heart, he breathed deeply despite the stench of urine. Had he always been frightened of guardsmen? And how did he know what they were when everything else was so vague?

  “Your instincts are primed to recognize enemies,” the voice called Father said. “And you’ve always considered guardsmen to be your enemies.”

  Although he recalled no specific incidents with guardsmen, the voice resonated with truth.

  How do you know so much about me?

  “You’re my son. I know everything about you.” The affection in the voice warmed him in the same way the zeros and ones had. “Time is of the essence, Meka. You have some decisions to make over the next fifty minutes that will change the course of your life forever.”

  That sounded ominous.

  He swallowed. It would help if you told me what I’m doing here.

  “I can’t.” The voice was wary. “You have to figure it out for yourself.”

  He shrugged. How was he supposed to do that when he couldn’t remember anything? That was the problem, wasn’t it?

  Sweat drizzled down his back. Even in the privy, it was unbearably hot. He grabbed a handful of his shirt—gray, like everything else—and tugged it away from his feverishly warm skin.

  When last had he drunk anything? His thick, dry tongue and cracked lips suggested it had been awhile. A tarnished copper faucet was mounted above a stained copper wash basin. Opposite it, a sluice stinking of urine ran the length of one wall. His body almost folded in on itself with thirst as he stumbled to the faucet.

  But no matter how much he pressed, tugged, or turned the faucet, no water squirted.

  “Emperor Lukan has cut off the supplies of food and water to the Hive, Meka. It’s part of his plan to flush you all out so he can kill you. I don’t want that to happen, so I’m begging you to think back to how you came here.”

  He frowned and cast his mind back.

  Nothing but ones and zeros. Endless streams of them, all speaking their unique, beautiful language.

  Soon even listening to them share their secrets of the One Weapon, One Bullet system grew wearying. He slumped against the washbasin and closed his eyes against their chatter.

  Soon he was drifting.

  Sliding down, down, down.

  A boom-crash. Then another. And another. Thunder pounding the city walls.

  His eyelids flickered. Not thunder... Something else that burned like fire in the sky.

  Flames reflected in enormous eyes that shone like lamps in sunken sockets. So blue. So intense—

  A boy named after a bird claw…

  No, not a bird… Something to do with the sky...

  The click of boots…

  A syringe.

  “Dragon’s effing testicles!” His eyes flew open to see nothing but a dirt-filled crack on the floor. He must have drifted off to sleep and collapsed. He jerked upright and slapped his neck. “Felix’s ice crystal! Father! Nicholas? Where—”

  The door squealed.

  “Meka, get off the floor. Now. Nicholas is safe. You need to be, too. But you only have forty-two minutes left.”

  He stumbled to his feet and lumbered to the urinal. He tore at the buttons on his fly. Where is Nicholas? Is he safe? Please tell me he’s safe. And what do you mean about the time?

  The door opened.

  “I can’t explain about the time. Just trust me that it matters. And as for Nicholas. He’s in Treven with Axel and Lynx.”

  Meka would have sworn with relief if someone hadn’t shuffled next to him. Ostensibly busy with aiming his manhood for a pee he didn’t need, he cast a surreptitious glance at the newcomer.

  Tall, unnaturally pale, the man was dressed in gray fatigues identical to his. That meant he probably also worked on informas, the only clear memory Meka had of life here. Although gaunt, he could not have been older than twenty-two. His grimy blond hair hung into blue eyes shot with red.

  They had to be smarting as badly as Meka’s.

  The stench of rancid sweat rose off the damp rings under the man’s armpits. He was also long overdue a shower. The man unbuttoned his fly, then propped himself up against the wall with one painfully thin hand. His other hand trembled as he held his manhood over the urinal. Perhaps he was also too exhausted to stand. And like Meka, he didn’t seem able to squeeze out a single drop.

  A Norin? Meka asked Father. What’s his name?

  “Shale. And yes, he’s a Norin. He works on the Final Word.”

  Nicholas’s ice crystal.

  Meka’s fist clenched. It took all his self-control not to shove Shale’s face into the wall. He sighed, not needing Father to tell him how unreasonable his reaction was. Shale probably also wore one of Felix’s effing ice crystals.

  “Can’t squeeze a drop.” Shale’s accented voice caught him unawares.

  Meka glanced over at him. “Then why are you standing here?”

  It took a moment for Shale to reply. “Same as you, I guess.”

  “And why would that be?” Meka asked warily. Unlike him, Shale still carried his rifle strapped to his back. He tucked himself back into his trousers so he would have his hands free if he needed to fight.

  “No one leaves their workstations without Kai Lin’s permission,” Shale said. He studied the urine-stained wall as if it were the most interesting thing in the world.

  Meka wasn’t fooled.

  Shale’s tendons jutting sharply through the papery skin on his neck belied the fake concentration. Shale wanted an answer—one Meka couldn’t give because the name Kai Lin meant nothing to him.

  “She runs the Hive in Felix’s absence. She’s in control now because Felix is also in Treven. In Axel’s prison.”

  Meka gulped as he processed that. So much had happened since that bastard guardsman had stuck that syringe into his neck.

  And still those tendons stood taut in Shale’s neck.

  He mumbled, “Maybe she didn’t notice me leave.”

  “She notices.” Shale flicked his manhood back into his trousers. “And she tells them everything.”

  Meka licked his cracked lips. “Them?”

  “Count Felix is somewhere in the mines in Treven,” Shale said. “I watched him board the airship in Tarach on Nicholas’s ice crystal. She’s in charge now, and she’s no friend of ours.”

  With no energy left for this cat-and-mouse game, Meka flopped back against the wash basin. “What are you saying, Shale?”

  The Norin turned, fixing him with a penetrating stare. “My head is clearer than it’s been since…” His face twisted into an ugly scowl. “Well, longer than I care to admit. And I know yours is, too. I see it in your eyes, Prince Meka.”

  Meka folded his arms at the definite emphasis on his name. “Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t.” His stomach rumbled audibly.

  Shale threw up both hands. “There! See. My point exactly.” His voice dropped. “Something has changed, but I don’t know what.” He looked fu
rtively at the door.

  Father, can I trust him?

  “Sometimes you need to follow your gut, Meka. What’s it telling you?”

  That it’s effing starving! And that if I don’t get out of this dump today, I’ll go insane.

  Father chortled. “While true, none of that is relevant.” All laughter faded. “You have thirty-eight minutes left.”

  Meka blew out a slow breath. He had no idea what decisions Father wanted him to make, but he had a few of his own ideas, and they all centered around helping Nicholas and Axel destroy Lukan. But first, he had to fathom out Shale. “Okay, Shale, say my mind has cleared, and say I wanted to take advantage of that fact, would you join me?”

  Shale’s eyes fluttered closed as if he were gathering his thoughts. When they opened, they were as hard as the stone he was named after. “Why would Emperor Lukan’s so-called son be locked in this place, Prince Meka?”

  “Lukan thinks I’m dead. And I’m a prisoner here, just like you.”

  Shale scratched his stubble with a dirty fingernail. “Then who are you working for?”

  Was the man really this stupid?

  “I could ask you the same question. You’re a Norin. The Norin hate Chenayans. So what brings you here?”

  Shale’s foot tapped impatiently on the floor. “We don’t have time for this. Not when Kai Lin will be sending them after us.”

  “By them, you mean the guardsmen?”

  “Who else?”

  Meka rolled his eyes. “Okay. Time to level because I’m also under pressure. I’m here because I was helping my cousin, Nicholas the Light-Bearer, the true crown prince of Chenaya, escape to Treven. That bastard Felix took exception and sent one of his thugs after me.” He slapped his neck. “The rest you can figure out yourself.”

  Shale’s lips twisted with skepticism.

  “You think I’m lying to you?”

  “I think you know that I work on Nicholas’s Final Word. And that I watched you and him escape from his prison. And that I tracked your walk through the woods. And that I heard you trying to lead him to the harbor. And when that failed, I saw Oleg inject you.”

  Meka bristled. “Then how can you doubt me?” He was bigger, and probably stronger than the Norin, so if it came to a fight, he’d win—except that Shale’s hand now rested on his rifle butt. He looked longingly at his rifle, abandoned at the door.

  Shale shifted so that he was between Meka and the weapon. “You had another ice crystal in you when you arrived here. Or so we were led to believe.”

  “Yes, I did. One Axel Avanov stuck in me so he could track Nicholas through me.”

  Shale snorted. “Yeah, right. Warlord Axel Avanov put an ice crystal in you. The same Axel Avanov who started the Pathfinder Alliance to fight against ice crystals.”

  Now it was Meka’s turn to throw up his hands. “You think I’m a traitor? To whom?”

  Beyond the door, he caught the shuffle of feet. Unlike the clip of guardsmen’s boots, this was the pitter-patter of soft-soled shoes. The kind he and Shale wore. It had to be programmers.

  “You’re working for Lukan.” Shale’s voice rose proportionally. Was he trying to cover up the sound coming from outside the door? “He stuck that other ice crystal into you. He must have guessed Felix would bring you here.”

  Meka clenched his fists. “That’s insane. Why would Lukan do something so crazy?”

  “You tell me? Since you arrived here, everything has gone to hell. Zakar destroyed. Lukan found us.” Shale almost spat the words. “I’ve been Felix’s prisoner for years, and in all that time, Lukan never even knew we existed. Also, Felix never left us alone without food and water. You arrive, and the bastard not only vanishes but gets captured by the warlord. And Lukan attacks our systems.” He patted his rifle. “She even thinks we’re going to be invaded by Lukan’s guardsmen. Who else could be responsible, if not you?”

  Is this really happening?

  “You have thirty minutes left, Meka.”

  Sweat beading his lip, he said to Shale, “And I suppose I did something to everyone’s ice crystals as well?”

  “Maybe you only meant to fix your own.”

  More feet shuffled outside the door.

  How many programmers had gathered? And to what end? He’d been mistrusted before by Nicholas, and that hadn’t worked well. But even as his blood pounded in his head, he forced the rising panic away.

  “Good. Panic won’t help you,” Father said. “Reason with him. Don’t let this situation get away from you.”

  He tried again with Shale. “I wouldn’t even know how to begin switching off ice crystals. I’ve only just mastered my own program, let alone something as complex as that.”

  “Lies,” Shale hissed. “You knew everything there was to know about ice crystals when you arrived here. How else did you learn the One Weapon, One Bullet system so quickly?”

  The door cracked open. A girl with short-cropped red hair and emerald green eyes poked her head around it. Meka’s heart stuttered as the memory of another Trevenite girl surfaced.

  Farith. The girl he had promised to return to. He had failed to deliver on his promise. Did she still want him? Or had she written him off as a traitor, the way everyone else in the world seemed to have done?

  The girl whispered, “Shale, we can’t keep the bitch isolated forever. Are you done here?” Her eyebrows spiked. “Spirits! You’re still talking to him. Just do it.”

  The rifle in Shale’s hand twitched.

  Meka’s fist and leg shot out. The fist connected with Shale’s solar plexus and his foot with the door. Shale buckled, and the door crunched closed on the Trevenite girl’s face. She hadn’t finished crying out by the time he’d scooped up his and Shale’s rifles.

  Firing expletives, Shale staggered up with his fist flying.

  Meka used Shale’s rifle to crack him on the side of the head. Shale groaned and dropped like a stone. Expecting the door to fly open, he tossed Shale’s weapon over his shoulder and hefted his own with both hands. His finger hovered on the trigger. He’d never shot a gun before, but how hard could it be?

  “Killing innocent people?” Father asked bleakly, “The hardest thing in the world, I would hope.”

  Then they shouldn’t be hunting me, Meka snapped back. But he wasn’t sorry when Shale twitched.

  “Twenty-seven minutes. Negotiate, Meka.”

  The door flew open again, and Meka’s stomach sank. About fifteen programmers armed with rifles crowded the passage and doorway.

  Blood streamed from the Trevenite girl’s nose, but she was still on her feet. “Traitor, we suggest you come quietly.” She pointed her rifle at Shale. “Or that will be your fate. Only you won’t ever move again.”

  Silent nods of approval from the other programmers sent shivers down his spine.

  Negotiate, huh?

  “Find common ground with Claire.”

  Claire. The girl who’d taught him the One Weapon, One Bullet system. No wonder she was strangely familiar. But how he’d confused her with his tiny, spiky-haired, tattooed Farith, he would never know. He swallowed a gulp of longing. If Farith had been leading this attack, he would have been on his ass already. He had to get home to her. Nothing and no one could get in his way.

  “Mention Farith’s name,” Father said urgently. “It might help.”

  “I’m not a traitor. I’m working with the Pathfinder Alliance. I even know Princess Farith.” He touched his side, where Farith’s initial was tattooed. “She’s my girl.”

  Claire spat out a mouthful of bloody phlegm. It hit his cheek with a disgusting thud. “Don’t you dare mention my princess’s name.”

  That went well.

  He took one hand off his rifle and wiped his face with his sleeve as he considered what to do next. He could open fire—not to hurt them, of course, but rather as a warning—but that would bring the guardsmen running.

  That sounded like a very bad idea.

  “Twenty-five minutes.”
r />   He sighed; the only other option was to break down Claire’s distrust. “Like it or not,” he said. “I’m a prisoner here, just like you. But all I want is to help Nicholas overthrow the empire. If we work together, we can contact Axel Avanov. He could probably use our help.”

  “Wrong, traitor,” Claire said. “We sure as hell aren’t prisoners anymore, but you are. And so is she.”

  A few of the programmers glanced nervously down the passageway.

  He snorted. “I assume you mean Kai Lin.” When Claire didn’t reply, he added, “For someone who’s supposed to be isolated as your prisoner, you sure are scared of her.”

  A hiss seethed through the crowd. Some of them edged closer to him. The intent on their hard faces was clear: they wanted him dead.

  “Enough talking,” a Trevenite man said. “Claire, just finish him off. Until he’s dead, we can forget about controlling Kai Lin. Or any of our other plans.”

  “How right you are, Rowan.” Claire sighted Meka down the length of her rifle.

  It almost made him laugh. With all the whispering and scuttling this lot had done, like him, none of them would release a shot to alert the guardsmen.

  Or at least he hoped so.

  He swung his rifle out. It crashed it into Claire, knocking the rifle out of her hand, before plowing through the front line of programmers. More rifles clattered to the ground as people staggered back. Meka winced at the noise.

  “Hey!” a sharp male voice shouted. “What’s going on here?” A guardsman bore down on them.

  As one, the crowd skittered away down the passage.

  Meka was left alone to face him. His heart sank. A pack of badly confused programmers was nothing compared to this.

  The guardsman grabbed the rifle right out of his hand. He swung it up.

  Meka guessed he was next for a clubbing. “They’re plotting against Count Felix and Kai Lin,” he shouted. “I was trying to stop them.”

  His words were electrifying.

  The man froze and then turned like a beagle to look up the passageway where the programmers had scattered. He hauled out an informa and yelled into it, “Section four to all stations, Prince Meka says the pets are revolting. The pets are revolting.”

  Meka closed his eyes as if that would drown out the thud of boots heading his way. Not to mention that now no one would believe that he wasn’t a traitor.