A Conspiracy of Whispers

by Ada Harper

  He was sluggish when he searched the ground for his rifle, so sluggish that when he turned and saw the attacker’s face, lower half obscured by a familiar mask mottled with camouflage, it didn’t register for a moment. His chest clenched and he was suddenly back in the woods. But the eyes were cold blue, not green, and held a clinical flatness as they took aim. He never got a word out before the air in front of his face bloomed with emerald Syndicate pulsefire.

  He took the shot solid in the chest, and he fell.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Lyre had not betrayed them. It took time to work out that Lyre, the smug bitch, had not betrayed them.

  It took ten minutes of tense gunpoint discussion for Sabine to decide she hadn’t betrayed them, but then, Olivia didn’t like the soft look that passed between the spymaster and empress. Alais relaxed once she saw familiar faces of trusted scouts with her. Olivia, for her part, didn’t move her finger off the trigger guard until Lyre motioned them to the doors where the steam was visible, rising off the bombed-out hulls of two Syn fighter craft outside. The courtyard was carnage. Huge barrier rams had been smashed off their repulsors by what had to have been a blast from directly underneath. Olivia didn’t want to think which poor scout Lyre had ordered to accomplish that.

  Olivia still couldn’t quite believe it. Half an hour ago she’d been quietly trying to resolve what she wanted her death to mean. It felt a little too surreal, the air a little too crisp on her skin and smoke too sharp in her nose as she stood by the gates. There was a line of subdued or injured mercenaries, lined up like rubbish against the walls.

  “You and a handful of scouts did all this?”

  “We had the element of surprise. And better training.” Lyre hummed from the other side of Zahira. The wolf didn’t seem ready to allow the spymaster close yet. “Good enough for you, kitten?”

  “I’m not complaining about not being dead, it’s just more convenient than I’m used to.” Olivia’s gaze fished over Lyre’s soldiers as they worked to lockdown the front of the gates. Each one appeared exhausted, as if they’d traveled through the night to get there. A couple dozen Imperial scouts and soldiers had broken through the unsuspecting Syn perimeter, and the undisciplined mercenary forces had scattered to save their own skin. Still. Her eyes moved restlessly, fruitlessly through the crowd.

  “Looking for someone?”

  Olivia stiffened. In her periphery, the edge of Lyre’s tired smile took a knowing edge. “We’d barely survived our own ambush when we figured out what was going on here. He insisted he’d hold their attention at Meteore then sent us back. To you.”

  He. Galen had survived. Olivia felt dizzy with relief. But the absence kept her on edge. Surely Lyre wouldn’t have left Galen in the field. Hold their attention, what did that even mean? “You obviously were late.”

  “You seemed to manage.” Lyre clapped her shoulder. “You stepped up, kitten.”

  Olivia knew enough to know that was the closest to high praise that the Liar got. “Like you said, can’t run all the time.”

  “You’re done running then?”

  “Might as well give stupid heroics a try. It’s the trend around here.” Olivia let her rifle slide to her shoulder. “So what’s this development that was worth dividing forces? Why didn’t he pull everyone back?”

  “The ambush failed. But they’d unleashed a weapon on the city we’d never seen before. Devastation for miles. You’re the closest we’ve got to a Syn pulse tech, actually...” Lyre reached into an inner pocket and brought out her hand. It was more of the aetheric marbles they’d found on the mercenaries in the Caeweld, all dusted with fine red sand.

  Olivia squinted. “I don’t understand, I already said I don’t—”

  One of the spheres was cracked, split in uneven halves to reveal the wink of black metal. It was duller than the sparkling aetheric crystal around it, but Olivia furrowed her brow in recognition. The other spheres had been empty. She fished the chip out with her fingers. It was melded with the aetheric stone, sending familiar flexible wires out like roots. A transmitter, but crude and forced to work with aetheric technology in a way she’d never seen. The chip twisted against her fingertip, revealing a transmitter code etched on the back.

  A Whisper code.

  Her stomach turned to lead. “We have to stop them.”

  She sprinted for the door as Lyre made startled noises at her back. “Stop what?”

  Olivia shoved soldiers out of her way to vent her fear. “A skipper.”

  * * *

  This was not a day. Time had ceased to exist in succinct minutes and hours. This was a series of small terrors that had knit themselves together into a strobe burst of desperation that had become Olivia’s life. She paced the council room as Primya examined the transmitter shards, Alais, Sabine, and Lyre looking on from the war table. Zahira followed at her heels with a low whine in her throat.

  “It’s possible,” Primya said as she folded her monocular.

  “Of course it’s possible.” Olivia had to resist exploding at her. It was Primya, Primya was a sweetheart. No one exploded at Primya. She ran a hand over her face. Tried to ignore the gnawing tug in her chest. “Why the hell didn’t you lot notice this before?”

  “Not all the little baubles have them. None of the ones you two brought back from the Caeweld did.” Lyre gestured to the broken shards on the table with chips embedded. “These came from ranking officers we took down in the ambush. Selectively given out, if you’re right about it.”

  “I’m right. Gods dammit we are wasting time here.”

  “And we’ll continue to waste time until we’re certain this isn’t yet another misdirection that you’re too bond-addled to see.” Lyre raised her brows, daring Olivia to disagree. “Again from the top.”

  A growl welled in her throat but Olivia pinched the skin between her eyes instead. “I’d never seen one embedded in an aetheric bauble—”

  Primya cleared her throat. “Shell. We use casings to amplify signals and encrypt to—”

  “An aetheric shell—” Olivia growled. “But that transmitter is pulse tech. Whisper tech. I only saw it a couple times during Whisper missions.”

  “You said it’s a weapon?” Sabine interrupted. “How could you not—”

  “Would you lot just be quiet and allow me to beat myself up in peace?” Olivia sank against the table. “It works with a weapon called a skipper. Point it at a large area and it will lay down a blanket of long-distance pulse cannons. Explosives. It can convert five city blocks to a protein pulp in seconds.”

  Lyre was always still, but her stance iced over. Her head tilted. “The rubble we saw. Half the city had turned to red sand.”

  Olivia grimaced. “Yeah, red. Syn aren’t above a good wallop of symbolism. Something with the superheated charge, I don’t know how it works. All that matters is it obliterates anything it’s pointed at. Unless...” Olivia lifted a heavy hand toward the table. “You have a skipbit.”

  Primya paled, indicating at least the tech got it. “It sends its location to the cannon, creates a gap in the blast. You could be standing in the middle of the blast zone but if you have one of these it misses you.”

  “Because it ‘skips.’ Zero asset loss, as long as you don’t count civilians.” Lyre looked impressed. “We always relied on the difference in networks to dissuade Syn from attacking but if they’re incorporating aetheric tech, that means they can use our mapping network. The only reason every higher-up would have such a thing on them is if they were planning on using such a weapon in the field.”

  “And our Imperial military has helpfully gathered in one spot for them. We have—”

  “Did you have access to these skipbits when you were a Whisper?” Lyre asked.

  It seemed an irrelevant question. Olivia blinked. “No, course not. What use would I have for a bomb? Only senior Whispers running
military ops would have.”

  “Sounds like the truth.” Lyre glanced to Sabine, then eyed Olivia for a drawn-out moment.

  “What?”

  “We got a name from Virgil.”

  “We—” Olivia choked. “When?”

  “I paid the cells a visit while you fetched Primya.”

  “And in that ten minutes you got a confession.” Olivia stopped. “No, never mind, I won’t ask. But a name—a Whisper?”

  “Just a name. Virgil wasn’t clear on how she ranked in your lot. I had a thought you could have been collaborating, but Sabine insists you’re true.”

  Olivia spared a glance to Sabine’s impassive face. “I’m—Okay.” She mentally made room for that. A world where Galen’s sister no longer wanted to dropkick her across the border. Where anyone besides a too-kind bartender called her “true.” Gods, she hoped Yoshi was safe. She focused on Lyre. “What was the name?”

  “Wallis.”

  And Olivia’s world recalibrated to a slow, numb horror.

  “You know her?” Lyre asked.

  “Yes.” It was a slow, internal drop as the details lined up. Wallis had prepped her for the Caeweld job, a job she’d never been intended to survive. Wallis had interrogated her, had let her go to see who she’d run to. Wallis had known she was a caricae. Wallis had reported her. Wallis knowing so much about the Empire. A failed experiment, she’d called her. Wallis, the perfect Whisper. Professional, logical, ruthless.

  And Galen was trying to play cat and mouse with her with a dozen injured soldiers.

  Olivia turned to Sabine, coiled so tight her chest hurt. “You have to call them back.”

  “I already have,” Sabine said quietly. Olivia’s heart just had time to ease before she spoke again. “No one near Meteore is responding.”

  “Then the trap’s already sprung,” Alais concluded.

  Lyre turned back to the plans then. “If they took prisoners—and that’s a big if—they’ll be separated from their transponders. They’ll kill them before we can get near them.”

  No. Olivia refused to believe that. Galen was alive. She’d know otherwise. Her hand found Zahira’s head again. “A small force then.”

  Lyre dismissed it. “There’s no way even scouts could subdue and search a site the size of Meteore in time.”

  “What if we didn’t need to search?” Sabine said quietly, eyes on Olivia.

  Expectant eyes, the whole room. Olivia frowned until she grasped the meaning. She took a faint breath around her fears. “I could. Get me close enough and I could find him.”

  Lyre considered. “A clear location would give us a chance. What makes you so certain, kitten, eh?”

  Doubt mixed with panic on her tongue. She couldn’t stop imagining Galen in Wallis’s hands, at a Whisper’s mercy. They couldn’t trust her with this, she couldn’t survive the failure. She looked down to find Zahira also staring, gold eyes intent, trusting. Olivia felt guilty, then afraid, then the memory of Galen’s smile burned through both.

  Olivia faced Sabine. “He’s my mate. I can find him. I will.”

  Sabine’s gaze lit, an edge that pinned her, half desperate and half demanding. She nodded. “Then go and prove it.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  One craft, six of Lyre’s scouts, and a gut feeling. It wasn’t much to save an empire with. They readied fast, but not fast enough. Any moment, Olivia worried they’d get horrible news on the holo. Confirmation that the insurrection had prisoners. Had begun executing prisoners. It was made worse by the fact that there were Whispers aiding them. Wallis was aiding them. Olivia knew just what creative things a Whisper could suggest to demonstrate how they’d brought the famed Red Wolf low. She’d run through a dozen tortures by the time Lyre announced the shuttle was ready.

  Sabine reappeared on the courtyard pad as they were warming the engines. Zahira padded alongside the empress because of course Olivia was not taking a damned dog to a war zone. All the Imperials seemed more surprised about that than they should have been.

  “I want all my people back in one piece,” Sabine said as Olivia slung the equipment she’d requested onto her back. Her hands tightened on the straps. Sabine was placing the fate of her empire in her hands, the fate of her family, which Olivia knew was even more important. Her eyes trailed to Bowen, body curved in as he tried to reassure a distraught Kieran by the launch pad. Sabine’s people, Galen’s people. She’d get them back. Somehow.

  “I’ll see to it.” Olivia turned for the shuttle until the voice behind her made her turn again.

  “Olivia.” Sabine had received more treatment for her injuries. Her face looked less swollen, but her right eye still hid beneath a silver patch. It must have been entirely destroyed if the medical miracles of Ameranthe hadn’t fixed it. But her one visible eye held her, long and steady. “That means you, too.”

  Olivia nodded. She half turned away before her fingers tightened on the strap and she took three swift strides back to Sabine. “I’m going to save him. But I need to know, Sabine, I need—”

  “Your Syndicate friend,” she guessed.

  Guilt knotted in her throat. She knew it wasn’t a good time to ask favors. Not when Galen was in danger and everything was balanced on the edge of disaster. But if she did this, if she somehow managed all of this, and saved the one she loved while Yoshi’s family died, she couldn’t live with herself. Nothing would ever be right. Nothing could ever be right. “I know it’s dire here, but Yoshi—”

  “Things were in motion from the moment Lyre told me of the situation,” Sabine admitted. Olivia sputtered, caught between outrage and relief. The empress pushed on. “I don’t have confirmation yet but we will make sure your Syndicate family is secure.”

  Olivia wrestled with it. The idea of trusting anyone to care for her, let alone the people she cared about, was foreign and new. She’d never even asked more of Yoshi than a stool at his bar. But for some reason, she felt reassured instead of vulnerable. “That’s—Thank you. They aren’t technically...aren’t family,” she admitted quietly.

  “Maybe not by Syn standards.” Sabine’s smile was tired and knowing. “Imperials value family above everything. Now go, let’s rescue ours together.”

  * * *

  They flew away from the glittering center of Chrysanthine and into the patchwork night of the surrounding Empire. The archaeological ruins of Meteore were dark. Alais told her it had been the seat of a larger country once, prior to the Crisis. Most of the city ruins had been repurposed in that irritatingly persistent way the Empire had, but the governmental buildings at the center had remained something of holy ground to the tradition-bound Empire. The Imperial university had efforts underway to restore it, but obviously the scholars had been driven out by a militia. Barely lit scaffolding rose out of the ruins, creating shattered skeletons against the dusk sky.

  The shuttle pilot cut the aetheric lifts as they drew near, gliding in on silent petal-like wings. Olivia hovered in the cockpit, squeezed between Bowen and Alais.

  “Anything?” Alais asked the soldier hunkered over a data panel.

  “There’s a crowd of heat signatures at the back of the site, where the old armory used to be. A tight group at the center of the building with a small ring of outer patrols.”

  “That’d be our men. Assuming they were of a mind to take captives, there’s...not many,” Bowen said.

  Olivia’s eyes were trained on the panel. She leaned over the soldier’s shoulder, making him flinch. Soldiers had begun to react to her differently since the siege. She suppressed an eye roll and pointed. “What about these other signs?”

  “Scattered. Most are in that main group, a few patrols, but there’s a couple that are odd—here, in the old capitol building.”

  A seat of power. She pressed the fear between her lips, hard. “That’s where Galen is.”

  Al
ais’s hand brushed her back. “We don’t necessarily know that.”

  “Yes, we do.” Olivia rubbed the spot where her chest ached. She straightened. “It makes sense. He’s the Red Wolf. No one will believe the insurgents have won unless there’s a symbol. They’re going to make a spectacle of him.”

  Or they’ll try. That voice in her head was new; snarling and possessive. She found herself rather liking it. When no one else argued, Olivia nodded to the pilot. “How close can you get me to that building?”

  “Without raising the alarm? Not very. There’s no clear landing—”

  “You won’t need to land. Just get close enough for me to jump.”

  “Just you?” Alais worried.

  “Just me. If they’re this spread out, the plan has changed. You and Bowen take the rest and clear the insurgents, make sure there’s no surprises. Rescue any survivors and try to get out before they use the skipper. At least two clicks.”

  “You think they’ll still use it? They already won.”

  “I think that the only way to keep a conspiracy of two parties secret is if one of them is dead,” Olivia said. “Virgil was working with Syndicate forces. I know Whispers, and I know this one in particular. Once she learns he failed, she’s not going to leave any loose ends.”

  “Wipe their own mercenary forces and any evidence of involvement in one go.” Alais looked disgusted. “That’s horrific.”

  “That’s efficient,” Olivia corrected, feeling the echo of the last time she said that.

  “I can’t,” Bowen interrupted with more certainty than Olivia was used to hearing in his voice. When she turned, he’d straightened. “I can’t let you go in there alone. You’re a caricae, and more importantly Galen’s—”

  They really didn’t have the time. At one point, she might have argued, spitting back insults. But she’d learned enough from her time in Ameranthe to know what would work. “Right now, the only thing I am is the one giving orders.”