by Ada Harper
Olivia’s face began to heat by the time Galen shook himself and turned away. “I suppose that was unfair.” He clawed a hand through his hair. It was nearly undone from its tie now and settled around his face in tangled chin-length waves.
Olivia straightened. “This was the doing of your rebels?”
Galen jerked a nod, turning his gaze away to sweep sightlessly over the row of dead. “These soldiers are...were the most trustworthy in my unit.”
“They would do this to their own people?”
“If you resist men like these, you’re no longer people to them.” Galen bit on the words. “I thought Henley was a pawn but this...to do this, in this amount of time, they recruited more conspirators than I thought.”
“So it’s a message,” Olivia surmised. Galen looked surprised and Olivia waved a hand. “I might not know your politics but this shit’s universal. They know you’re still alive. It’s an intimidation tactic to drive you to where they want you.”
Galen nodded slowly, considering, without taking his eyes off her.
Olivia wasn’t particularly comfortable with that look. “I may not be a local but even I know it’s a big forest. How’d they know you’d find it here?”
“Vhelasea. That’s the border town you’re driving us to, isn’t it?” Galen took her sudden tension as confirmation. “It would be my first destination, too. There’s a military office there. I could report to the crown and call in reinforcements. Among other things.”
“And this would stop you from doing that?” Olivia asked. Galen raised a brow and she shrugged. “Theoretically, of course.”
“No. This only ensures that after I file my report it’d be my duty to hunt them down and part them from their organs a piece at a time.” The quiet, matter-of-fact way he said it made it believable. Even not aimed at her, the fury was palpable enough to make her shiver. “These were my people.”
“Well.” Olivia had no time for blind bloodlust. “Barbarian revenge will have to wait. I have no interest in marching into an ambush. We’ll go a different way.”
She expected him to argue, to rage mindlessly like an altus. But instead he just closed his eyes and drew a deep, steadying breath. When his eyes opened again they were calm, and curious when they turned back to her. His eyes traced her lips, as if now that she had exposed her face it was the only place he could look. “Where, pray tell, is my Syndicate captor suggesting?”
“South, of course.” Olivia kept her face and voice neutral. She didn’t know. She barely knew the way back to the road that led to Vhelasea and the border, let alone how to blaze a trail across a ruddy forest to get back into her civilized country again. But south was the Syndicate. South was safest.
“Of course.” Galen’s eyes narrowed, whether knowing or amused, and he turned his back to her again. “First we’re burying the dead.”
“What?”
Her supposed hostage began to root around the undergrowth. He’d started a disturbing trend of demands since he lost the handcuffs. Olivia had to nip that in the ass. “No, we have to get moving. Your rebels could return at any moment.” Just standing amid the bodies debating this, exposed, made Olivia’s neck itch.
“They won’t return. If they’d planned to linger we would have been ambushed the moment we cleared the rise.”
That...made sense. Set up a trap, bait it with something your prey couldn’t ignore, wait. It was how Olivia would do it—though without the torture—if it’d been her contract. She pursed her lips when Galen surfaced with a large, shovel-like stick. “They’re dead.”
“Yes, and in the Quillian Empire, we take care of our dead and bury them.”
“We don’t have the time.”
Galen hummed up at the purple sky. “It’s nearly dark. I don’t imagine Syndicate assassins are taught nocturnal pathfinding.”
Olivia was quickly losing control of this horrifying, ridiculous situation. Her rifle came up again. “They teach us to shoot well enough.”
Galen levelly held her gaze. “I’m burying my men. You will have to use that if you intend to stop me.”
For a moment Olivia thought that she would. Her supposed altus hostage was free of his restraints, uncooperative, and soon would have the suppressant worked from his system. She could shoot him and take her chances on the woods. But that shriveling feeling swam through her chest again. It was a feeling that made her rationalize: she needed his knowledge of the area, she needed a hostage. He wasn’t that annoying. She could shoot him later. Her finger moved away from the trigger.
Galen waited another beat. When it became obvious she wasn’t shooting him, he turned and began the slow, laborious process of burying the dead. Olivia dropped to a log, suddenly feeling exhausted as she watched Galen work. She’d thought he’d give up quickly, given the grisly task of wrestling half-impaled corpses off seven-foot stakes.
But it appeared she underestimated him. Instead of removing the bodies, he threw his shoulder into the base of the stake, like a charging bull. He rocked and churned it in the ground until the stake loosened and he could carefully lower the whole bloody thing to the ground. Lady’s bits, he was strong. Olivia’s mind shuddered back to remembering his hand on her wrist, how light and careful the touch had been. Hell, he let me go.
He had nearly all the stakes down by the time the light was almost gone. Olivia dug around in her bag until she came up with a solar torch and pointed it low to light up the ground. Galen gave her an appreciative nod. “You don’t happen to have a shovel in that bag of tricks, do you?”
“No. Even if I did, I’m not contributing to this foolishness.”
He frowned. “Your light—”
“The light was to keep track of you. The living.” Olivia sank into her coat. “The dead don’t need anything from me.”
Galen’s frown thinned and turned back to hacking at the ground with his branch. The sun set, but stole none of the day’s heat with it. Soon, Galen straightened to shed his military jacket and Olivia mentally cursed the way her torch painted where his black undershirt clung to hard lines and thick ropes of muscle. He bent and her gaze rebelled, slowly tracing its way down his sweat-drenched back to where his fatigues stretched...
We’re surrounded by corpses, Olivia. Have some composure.
Olivia wiped a hand over her face hard. She had to stop this nonsense. She stood up and kicked the branch out of his hands. “This is taking too long.”
Galen glowered and crouched at her side in the dim light in a manner that reminded her of a wolf about to pounce. Olivia cleared her throat quickly. “Just stand back and let me try something, doglord.”
When he grumbled assent, Olivia stepped back and took aim. She studied the hard-packed clay soil, calibrated her weapon, and fired. Dirt spouted into the air as plasma shattered the ground. When they could see again, there was a three-foot radius of broken-up earth and clay.
Olivia turned, expectant. Galen rewarded her with a hum. “That’s a fancy shovel for a Syn.”
“Some of us prefer to use our brains to solve things.” Olivia felt she’d earned a smug grin. He stared at her a stunned moment before a small smile melted across his face. Sweet and believable, like sunshine and stars and lies.
Oh, none of that. She turned away quickly and began breaking up ground in rough six by two foot plots, one for each body. By the time she had finished, Galen was already clearing away the softened dirt with his hands. Olivia hesitated before reluctantly beginning to help. It took another hour before they lowered the last body into the ground and smoothed it over.
Dirt sooted her clothing and it felt as if sand had crept into her gloves, but Olivia refused to take them off as she collapsed against a tree trunk. To her dismay, Galen dropped heavily beside her. His head fell back, his eyes closed as she shifted to put more space between them. They both caught their breaths quietly—Olivia more than Galen, the as
shole—but then her gaze dropped. “You’ve mangled your hands.”
Galen squinted at his calloused knuckles, as if just now noticing. Blisters split across his palms, weeping blood. “Appears so.”
Olivia fought through an internal debate before grabbing her bag again. “This is why hostages are a pain. I didn’t bring many supplies.”
Galen’s dark eyes narrowed. “I didn’t ask for anything.”
“If you go lame from infection, you’re no good to me,” Olivia snapped. She tossed him a roll of antiseptic wrap. “Just tape those cuts or I’ll cuff you and do it myself.”
“You could try.” Galen’s lips quirked as he caught the tape. His expression stilled as he raised his hands, hesitating with the roll in front of his face. His nose twitched. “This is...where did you get this?”
He scented something. The suppressant is wearing off. Olivia’s heart bottomed out of her chest. The tape was the same first aid kit she carried with her on every assignment. It’d lived in the bottom of her bag and, between jobs, at the back of her closet for months, if not longer. It likely had her sweat on it, her scent, full of caricae pheromones and she’d just handed it straight to an altus. Blessed Lady preserve your idiot daughter.
She studied her bag until she could fake a careless shrug of her shoulders. “Government issued. Probably from some central facility back in Syn. Why?”
“Ah, that’d explain, I just thought for a second...” Galen knitted his brow, as if his confusion was unexpected. Olivia didn’t start breathing again until he began peeling off strips for his hands. “Never mind.”
For a moment, there was nothing but the quiet skritch of tape over roughened skin. Olivia tracked his movements out of the corner of her eye. There was a flash of teeth as he bent his head to bite off the excess. His movements stilled as the quiet of the forest seeped between them again, muggy and thick.
“You were wrong.”
“What?” Olivia looked up, but Galen kept his eyes closed, the back of his head sunk against the tree as if he was too weary to lift it.
“You were wrong about the dead. When you said the dead felt nothing. In the Empire, there’s a saying. ‘The debts of the dead are the regret of the living.’ We honor the dead for us—not them. I needed to bury them.” Galen’s eyes opened, catching the scant light as they slid to her. “So, thank you.”
“Well. Don’t get used to it,” Olivia mumbled. “We Syndicate have a saying too: ‘the dead make good fertilizer.’”
It was a foreign sound, his laugh. Not brash or high like regular laughter. It was a chuckle that started in his chest and rumbled and roiled outward until it fluttered against Olivia’s skin. “If so then your lands must be fertile indeed, Syndicate.”
Her exhausted nerves stuttered over the word fertile. She was too tired for this. “Olivia,” she muttered.
“Hmm?”
“It’s Olivia.” She shoved to her feet and turned to him, gun in hand. “I’m getting sick of being called ‘Syndicate’ in that ugly, grating accent of yours. So, there: Olivia. We’re not spending the night here. Let’s go.”
Galen’s eyes narrowed and one corner of his lip twitched. Something new flashed through his gaze but it was gone before Olivia could name it. He stood and dusted the grave dirt from his hands. “As you say.”
And as he passed her to take his customary place in her line of sight, a murmur, in a very not grating low voice: “...Olivia.”
Chapter Four
They trudged another hour before stopping for the night. The deep forest was thinner here, just short of the embankment that dropped into the northern end of the Caeweld, a series of winding connected valleys clogged with evergreens and mist. If Olivia planned to go that way, she would be doubling her time to the border, not to mention risking an encounter with worse creatures than the mercenaries behind them. Galen considered the virtue of telling her that, but held off. The valley might be a poor escape route for an assassin, but it would make for a great maze to lose any pursuers in. With luck, Galen could safely rid himself of his captor in the mists and double around on any ambush before they struck.
But where else were they striking? Galen’s mind was clogged with the shadows of dead men. It left him no time to grieve, only worry. The plan had obviously been to eliminate him and other loyalist soldiers. They’d waited until the only other officers in command were away; Lyre and Bowen’s scouting units were gods-knows-where now. He trusted that Lyre would detect and scatter her men before the rebels could get hold of them. He was half-surprised the spymaster hadn’t foreseen it.
But to what purpose? Was this a small-scale military rebellion, or something targeting Sabine’s rule itself? With Galen and Lyre away, did his sister even know? His mind was a caged, agitated beast. Was there a similar assassination attempt against his sister? No, Sabine had made a vast web of the royal senate. Too wide and full of honeyed poison for anyone to reach her that easily, at least not without her hearing the vibrations of treachery a mile away.
She would be fighting with her resources, and expecting Galen to find his own.
Which, at the moment, consisted of one Syndicate mercenary with a personality like a thorn bush. She was his sole card, but also a wretched problem. The coincidence of her arrival was just too unlikely. From the little she’d said, Henley had been her target—on the exact day Henley had been set to assassinate Galen. It would have left them all dead. Perhaps it was simply to keep the conspiracy a secret, but Galen’s death would also be the perfect excuse for the senate to take action. Lose the crown’s military infrastructure in an uprising, clamor for war, and when Sabine refused, paint the empress as too weak to rule. It was one possibility.
It all came back to who had sent the Whisper into the mix. Galen felt certain she was involved. The question was why, and how to best turn it. He tracked her as she paced the clearing. It wasn’t a bad spot to stop, with dry ground and far enough from the rise to avoid detection from afar. But it was obvious she’d never been anywhere wilder than a city park.
He was avoiding a direct confrontation. She could have information. She could be useful, to Sabine, to the Empire, and Galen told himself he needed all the useful things at his disposal. That was why. He definitely hadn’t decided it was when she’d grudgingly allowed his people a proper burial. Definitely not when she’d distracted his grief with her sharp, clever tongue. Not the way her throaty voice snarled and softened in the dusk.
Definitely not the voice.
He wondered how she laughed. No. He supposed that was also regulated in the Syndicate. He knew enough of the neighboring country for that. The Syndicate was a tenth the size of the Quillian Empire, a prickly, dangerous barnacle of cold technology and secrets on their southern border. Though neighbors, the two countries shared little.
The division was in their roots. After the Crisis three centuries back, once their ancestors were assured the gene program would guarantee their mutual survival, the countries had an amicable split. Probably because each people interpreted the Crisis’s impetus to survive a different way. Quillia had taken the disaster as a wakeup call, to preserve what was still left after nearly going extinct, placing value on family houses. When children were so rare, it only made sense to prioritize family. Even the Imperial senate was organized along family house lines.
The Syndicate and its technocratic government, it seemed, had also decided children were rare, but as products, not people. From the outside, it appeared the mad Syn had mutated their entire world in the name of efficiency. The whole society was shaped around maximizing output—of production and of people. Career assignations, data-driven corporations and initiatives, and in recent administrations, rumors of a series of government programs driven to wring every last drop of potential out of its people. If Lyre’s reports were to be believed, the Syndicate’s compact cities were filled with a population of cold, unquestioning drones. A po
st-Crisis battle for resources had strained relations, and when a new regime had risen to power thirty years ago, the borders had closed completely, cutting off communication. Only diplomats and spies crossed into the Empire from the Syndicate now. Spies, and one assassin.
He believed the rumors. The Whisper had the blood of two men and the grave dust of more on her hands, the froth of a rebellion around her, and she’d barely blinked. Still, somewhere in that cold trap of a brain was a clue, a name. Someone had moved against his family, killed his soldiers. He needed those clues.
“We’re stopping here,” Olivia announced. He was relieved that she had made no effort toward a campfire—the Caeweld would grow chill after dark, but light would only draw trouble. Instead, she stretched and pulled out a small thermal camping blanket, which she tossed to him. “It might only reach your knees but it’s better than nothing.”
“I’ll make do,” Galen said. Olivia snorted at that and slung her bag closed. She began pacing the clearing, restless as a wolf in a cage. No, not wolf. He was familiar with wolves, but she was a new brand of feral. “And where’s yours?”
“I won’t need one. I’ll take watch.”
“That’s not a wise choice.” Galen debated how much to say. “The Caeweld wilds aren’t like a Syn city park, the worst comes out at night. It’s good to take shifts—”
“You’re mad if you think I’ll be trusting my hostage to watch over me while I sleep.”
“I don’t have any intention of—”
“Save it.” Olivia gave him a flat look. “I don’t trust you.”
“Fair enough.” Galen couldn’t fault her for being cautious. Not after the line of dead they’d crossed. She half turned, shielding the bag from view as she rummaged, but he saw quick hands surface with a small canister. She gave it a sharp tap and jerked her hand to her mouth.