Mikhél stiffened. “I thought our equipment couldn’t intercept this signal.”
“It can’t without modifications. The Saroyan technology is ancient. The sheer amount of information we need to send for space travel required us to shift transmission modes centuries ago. No one on Dhóchas will even be aware that this transmission is being sent.”
“How is it working with your link?”
Valaer tapped a finger against the communicator. “This is a crude device. The indicator lights up only to show us where she is in location to us. To get to her using this, we’d have to constantly reposition ourselves. The journey would take twice as long. Worse, if the shuttle’s computer is examined later, it would show we didn’t input coordinates for this trip. We have no way to explain that. So I found old parts in a museum on the entertainment level and used them to create an interface.”
Mikhél seemed to relax, as much as the Endet could, and he laid the communicator on the dash. “How long till arrival?”
Valaer glanced at the output on the navigation display. “Four passes.”
“Inform me when we’re close.”
Valaer nodded, but his interest in the device was already fading. When Mikhél left, he turned back to the stars and pulled out the link. He thought about paths chosen and paths left behind. And his hand fisted and flexed at his side.
CHAPTER 5
Atlanta, Georgia
Jane woke slowly, a dull pain throbbing at the base of her spine. The bathroom tile was cool under her forehead, hard under her hip. Her back was angled, her arms folded beneath her chest. Groaning, she pushed herself up and somehow managed to stand.
The sudden loss of consciousness suggested Johnson’s attack had caused more harm than she’d realized. The vivid beauty of the dream, with its burnt umber fields and painfully blue sky, didn’t negate its danger. She suspected she was running out of options, and then she thought, as she looked around her self-imposed prison, that she’d run out of options three years ago.
A faint flash of white caught her eye. She stepped into her room and glanced around but saw nothing. Then it happened again, a brief, bright blip atop her mother’s jewelry box. She stared at it as her stomach twisted into a cold knot, and the light flashed three times more before she could even make herself blink.
She wanted to close her eyes. To slip back into the dream and ignore the nightmare before her. But she forced one foot in front of the other, moving with stiff and rigid jerks, until she was standing before the mysterious, flashing light.
And the gem went dark. In some deep, secret part of her, disappointment welled. But a second later, light blipped into the gem directly above the first, closer to the center of the box. She jumped, even as a part of her she refused to acknowledge trembled with relief.
What in hell was going on?
The light flashed again, and again she jumped. Jittery and altogether annoyed with herself, she pushed unwilling arms forward to pick up the jewelry box. A hesitant lift of the lid told her the stone was still inside. She frowned, considering, as she closed the lid.
Whatever was happening, she had to believe there was a reason for it. Not being able to explain The Change had always been infuriating. To have another horrible mystery in her life was unacceptable.
She carried the box into the living room, and this time she searched the web for hallucinations of flashing lights. As she read, it occurred to her that the hallucinations were now tied to one of the two most meaningful objects in her possession. That couldn’t be a coincidence, could it?
She opened the lid again. The stone looked just as it always had, but…what if she was missing something? She reached into the jewelry box and pulled out the rock.
And a hot, hard buzz reverberated up her arms.
She threw the stone at the box and skittered backward toward the kitchen. “Jesus.” Voice shaking, the nerves inside her fingertips still sizzling, she stared at the open box. From here she couldn’t see the stone that rested inside, but she could still feel it.
Jesus. She could still feel it.
Muted laughter drifted into the apartment from the unit below, and on the other side of the wall, Johnson banged on the floor. Street sounds penetrated the windows, but she barely heard them.
“What in hell is going on?”
And yet, even as she asked the question, some part of her knew. The thought rang through her mind, indecipherable but somehow incontrovertible: the stone was the key.
She took a step, and the muscles in her thighs quivered. When she realized her palms were sweating, she wiped them on her shirt and forced herself to move faster. The stone was where she’d thrown it, resting on its top so the smooth underside showed.
It didn’t look any different than it had yesterday.
But it sure as hell felt different.
She lowered the lid of the jewelry box until she could see the pattern on the front. The flashing light had moved yet another gem closer to the center of the box. She ran her thumb over the surface of the small, clear jewel that blinked innocently at her. The sharp facets felt the same as they always had.
Why was it moving toward the center? What was her crazed mind trying to tell her?
And the stone. It hadn’t really hurt her, had it? Such a thing was impossible. Another hallucination, nothing more. To prove it to herself, she pushed open the lid and reached resolutely back into the box. She grabbed the stone before she could change her mind and yanked it out into open air.
But this was no simple buzz. This was agony. The explosion of power blasted through her body and drew quickly to the core of her—vibrant, sizzling, seductive.
Excruciating.
And then, mercifully, everything went black.
CHAPTER 6
Transport Shuttle Eighty-Three
“We’re in position,” Valaer said. Mikhél studied the viewscreen. They hovered just above the atmosphere, the veiled shuttle resting between clouds and stars, and he wondered how many times he’d stood in this position. He’d lost count years ago. The wars, the deaths, the haunted faces of those left behind. When they’d begun to blur together, he’d known it was time to take action.
Before he couldn’t tell the difference between himself and those he fought against.
“Descend,” he said.
When they entered the atmosphere, flames engulfed the shuttle, the sudden compression of gasses burning away the heat shields that lined the hull. The craft jolted and shuddered, and then the fire lifted. The world below them unfurled, and his heart picked up speed.
His family was here.
He pushed aside thoughts of Betha as the shuttle lurched. Valaer had to counterbalance the planet’s unfamiliar gravitational pull with small, controlled pulses of power. But a glance at the readings on the dash showed the planet’s atmosphere and gravity to be similar to those of Spyridon, and Valaer adjusted quickly. As their approach smoothed, a constellation of lights emerged from the city below them. Patterns, movement, and then whole buildings materialized, the picture of a civilization that had never seen alien life.
Soon they stood on the roof of the building they sought. Mikhél opened his sedfai, but Betha was still beyond his sense range. And he reminded himself that it didn’t matter. Rescuing his family could be only his second priority.
He turned to Leima. “Stay with me. Walk with purpose; don’t look nervous. If we encounter anyone, give them space. Proximity increases the risk of the valfaen.” He looked pointedly at Valaer. “We do not want a confrontation.”
“We’d escape the planet easily. Their armaments are primitive.” Valaer put his hand on his weapon. “We need not fear them.”
Mikhél had done his own check of the planet’s weapons, but that was not the issue here. He waited in silence, and Valaer’s hand moved back to his side.
“They have no place in our war,” Mikhél said. “They will not be harmed.”
As he turned away, he noticed Eithné watching him. He didn’t bother
to wonder about her thoughts. She was almost as difficult to read as he was.
Valaer got them into the building, his gift making short work of the lock on the roof door. The halls of the building were narrow and dim, the carpet worn and slightly stained. Mikhél’s head brushed the ceiling, and the damned thing crumbled away, bits of white dusting down onto his shoulders. He glanced at Valaer, and they both hunched and crouched their way down the halls.
The walls were a sickly, faded yellow under the flickering lights and thin enough to leak the sounds of those residing beyond. Voices lifted in anger, the wail of a baby, and the thump-thump-thump of music rose and blended in the hall to give the impression that privacy was an illusion here. Anonymity, however, was assured. Betha had chosen an excellent place to hide the Baanrí.
Three floors down Valaer stopped before a simple door at the end of a long hall. The bulb just above them wasn’t working, and the light that winked in the center of the communicator sent their faces into sharp, pulsing relief.
“I believe this is the location, Endeté.”
Mikhél hesitated. He’d expected Betha to greet them. As soon as his communicator had begun to send a transmission, its counterpart should have signaled the approach of rescue. She should know he stood on the other side of the door, but it didn’t open.
Eithné tapped and called out a soft greeting. When the door remained closed, Mikhél’s nerves began to hum. But he nodded to Valaer. The palletar unlocked the thing, and they slipped inside.
The room was dark and silent, and then he saw a faint flash of light to his right. His hand went to his weapon before he realized it was Betha’s portion of the communicator, lying on its side, its signal flashing against the wall.
“Keirenét,” he said. “Ed avhí Niyhól Mikhél. Aen sé reilan.”
In the answering silence, he called on his link light, and he tried again in the language of the girl’s current home.
“My greetings. It is Niyhól Mikhél. We have arrived.”
Three link lights winked on behind him just as his voice faded, and then someone gasped. He looked down, and his blood ran cold. A woman lay on the floor at his feet, unconscious or dead. From only paces away, he couldn’t feel the movement of her breath. The scant garments she wore pooled around her hips, revealing clouded skin stretched taught over bone. Her hair trailed across the floor, a long tangle of stringy gray that ended under his boot. He shifted his foot, and the faint crunch of dry, dull strands resonated in the shocked silence.
Eithné started to move forward, but Mikhél held out a hand. He drew his weapon and stepped over the body. She was one of them, but which one? Couldn’t be sure. The name ran through his mind—Betha, Betha, Betha—and he pushed it aside. He had no choice but to secure Seirsha first. Then he could worry about his family.
But the dark, spare spaces he found had his stomach sinking. For whatever reason, they were alone. He strode back to the main room, voicing commands before the others were in sight.
“Determine her status.” As Eithné knelt beside the woman, Mikhél turned to Valaer. “Search the quarters. Find anything they brought from Spyridon. Leima, by the door. Listen for sounds of approach. She wasn’t alone. The other one should return shortly.”
He faced Eithné and knelt. “Who is she?”
In answer she lifted the girl’s shoulder to reveal the birthmark that was scarcely visible beneath the graying skin.
Not Betha. His breath left in a rush, though he had no business feeling relief. Seirsha lay before him, their last chance for victory against Lhókesh a wasted scrap of a thing with almost no flesh on her bones.
“Is she alive?”
“Barely.” Eithné pointed to Seirsha’s eyes, which darted back and forth beneath their lids. “She dreams.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
Eithné frisked the torso and limbs, frowning and shaking her head. “Nothing is broken. I see no bruises or cuts. She has an old scar on her wrist, but that can’t have anything to do with what’s happening to her now.”
No injury beyond the severe clouding that had consumed her entire body, and that was almost surely due to some sort of malnutrition. A dietary limitation wouldn’t have sent Betha away, and yet something had caused her to leave her charge alone. Something had gone very wrong.
His gut began to tighten and twist, but he managed to keep his voice even. “Eithné, I need to know what happened here.”
She looked up, her eyes pale, and pursed her lips. He knew she understood what he was asking, just as he knew she didn’t like it. But even she had to realize they had no choice. After a moment she nodded and touched Seirsha’s forehead.
“What happened to you?” She held still, as if listening, and then she shook her head. “I’m getting feelings and images, but they’re too fast and jumbled. I’ve never seen anything like it. I can’t make any sense of it.”
“Try harder.”
She nodded and straightened her shoulders, and her breathing deepened. This time she closed her eyes, and after a moment her body went stiff.
“There’s a stone,” she murmured. “A gríth. It’s hers; her name is carved into the top. She’s holding it, and—”
She gasped and yanked her hand away. She looked at him, and her irises had nearly faded into the white.
“What happened?”
“I…” She pinched the bridge of her nose as her eyes began to darken. “It hurt. Something hurt her. She thought it was the gríth, but that makes no sense. All I saw after that was color and light.”
“What do you think it was?”
“It felt like power. It was as if…how old was she when they left Spyridon?”
“Weeks.” He could still remember holding her, a helpless infant in the arms of a boy who’d never been trusted with so much. And Betha beside him, the first family he’d met who could have meant anything to him besides his mother. He shook off the memory. “No more than six weeks old.”
“Endeté, I believe she’s experienced the jagat. I know she’s years too young, but—”
“She wasn’t on Spyridon.”
Eithné quieted, and her brow furrowed. “Of course. I hadn’t thought of that.”
“She looks malnourished,” Leima said. They turned toward her, and she flushed and clamped her jaw shut.
Eithné raised a brow. “You’re young to recognize such a thing. You’ve seen this before?”
“In the Other.” Leima’s gaze darted at Mikhél and away. “Once or twice.”
A look passed between Eithné and Mikhél, and then she turned her attention back to the unconscious girl. She lifted Seirsha’s lids to reveal the muddy eyes beneath. She pressed on the thin skin in the most thickly muscled part of the girl’s arm. The color darkened under the pressure, and then the circle of dark seeped into a crosshatch pattern before it faded into the gray.
“It’s a thaelen deficiency,” she said. “She’s not retaining proteins because her body doesn’t have enough thaelen to process them.”
“You’re sure?”
She pressed the skin again and turned it toward him. “See the starburst pattern here, around the edges? Her capillaries are breaking down. Her coloring could be from a number of things, but the pattern—that’s thaelen.”
“Can you help her?”
“I think so. We need to get her to Dhóchas right away. There might be supplements on the shuttle, but they won’t be sufficient. The jagat requires a great deal of protein. If she somehow went through it, she has almost nothing left.”
Valaer walked in from the hall holding a bloody towel. “There’s nothing from home, but I found this.” He placed it in Eithné’s outstretched hand and began to search the neighboring room.
“It’s blood,” Eithné said, “but she has no wounds. It must be Betha’s blood.”
Mikhél’s gut clenched. “Find out.”
She laid her hand against Seirsha’s forehead, and she seemed to move so slowly. He fought the urge to rush her and to
ld himself they would find Betha. Whatever it took, he wouldn’t leave without her.
Eithné asked, “Where is Betha?” There was silence, and then she asked again. “Child, where is Betha?” After a moment she frowned and asked, “Where is the woman who brought you here?”
The very air stilled as the question hung suspended. Mikhél couldn’t quite draw in a breath. He felt Leima straighten away from the door. He heard the faint shuffling sounds Valaer was making subside as the older man turned his attention to Eithné. But he didn’t look away from Eithné’s face, even as it paled and aged before him. When she opened her eyes, they were nearly white.
“Betha is dead.”
The words seemed to warble and dissipate until he could almost believe they hadn’t been spoken. And then he heard it again, though Eithné didn’t speak, and his heart stopped. He dropped from the crouch to his knees and had to brace his hand against the floor to keep from falling.
Betha was dead.
His family was gone.
“How?”
“The shuttle…it crashed when they arrived. Betha managed to take Seirsha to safety, but she was too badly injured to survive. The girl’s been alone. All these years…she’s been completely alone.”
And Betha had died just months after his mother. He’d carried the hope of her since he was a child, but all this time she’d been dust.
“She isn’t prepared?” Valaer stood near them now, the search abandoned, his voice tight. He held himself unnaturally still, as if the slightest movement would break him. “It was for nothing?”
Eithné looked away from him and closed her eyes, and Mikhél knew what she was thinking. Valaer was right. Bhénen had died for a cause that had failed almost before it had begun.
As had his mother. As had countless others.
Spyridon (The Spyridon Trilogy Book 1) Page 4