He was lying, and they both knew it. If he’d seen that Seirsha lived, then he’d also seen that Valaer had no knowledge of her location. Bavoel remained here because he wanted to torture. The front of his trousers bulged with his yearning, and Valaer knew he wouldn’t survive this. Once he was dead, Bavoel would hunt Seirsha. His gift would make short work of the task; he had only to ask the right person.
And Valaer had just shown him who to ask.
Valaer pressed his skin against the cuffs and sent his mind into the core of the machine that held him. Line after line of code streamed passed his mind’s eye as the knife touched his arm, punctured his skin. Blood and sweat dripped to the floor, but he didn’t stop searching the code. The knife moved to his groin, and his body jerked.
Then he saw what he needed.
He called out the command found in a code buried so deep he almost missed it. It was a fail-safe, designed to allow for the release of prisoners in the event of equipment malfunction. But when he voiced it, nothing happened, and his stomach dropped as he realized the computer wouldn’t respond to a prisoner.
Then the guard repeated his words, his voice faint but audible. The cuffs flashed again, the emergency command rendering them unresponsive to Bavoel’s override. The magnetic field lifted, and the cuffs opened and fell away.
With one last thought for Bhénen, Valaer lunged toward Bavoel, his left hand chopping down to block the knife as his right elbow swung into the side of the soldier’s face. That first jarring blow stunned Bavoel, allowing Valaer one more heavy swing into his midsection. Then Bavoel rammed the handle of the knife into Valaer’s eye and thrust his elbow into Valaer’s ribs. And he raised the knife to plunge.
Valaer threw up his arm, and the knife missed his heart and skimmed his ribs instead, scoring a line of blood through his prison grays. Bavoel roared and bore down, and the knife sank into Valaer’s thigh. Valaer screamed and shoved against the soldier, but the metal sliced the muscle from hip to knee.
He screamed again and grappled for purchase, but his vision was fading. He heard, as the room went dark, “It seems I can kill you slowly after all. But first I’ll serve the will of Myrna.”
And he realized he’d sent a murderer to find the girl who wouldn’t sense him coming.
Leima was walking toward the lifts when she saw him. He stood at an intersecting hall, watching her with those golden eyes while the crew filed past. She told herself to act normally, but her feet stopped of their own volition, and her pulse jumped and skittered. She was too far away for him to hear her fear, but others stared at her as they passed.
He backed out of sight. Leima forced herself to move, but by the time she reached the hall, he’d blended into the throng.
She paused and glanced around, but there was no help to be had. Quarters for the fuel processors were sectors away from those of higher-ranking crew. Since Mikhél was expected to give a speech to the entire crew any moment, she signaled Eithné on her Saroyan bracelet. Then she slipped into the crowd to search for Endetar.
Endetar watched the fuel processor pass him by, her violet hair shimmering as she moved against the horde. He should have gone straight to the assembly, but he’d needed to see how she would react to his face. Now that he had, he couldn’t explain to himself why it mattered. He resisted the urge to follow her and instead fell in with the crowd. He had other matters to attend to now.
Niyhól still walked free.
Jane stared at the paintings propped against the wall. She’d included the one that had hung over the bed, though every time she saw it her blood ran cold. Something terrible would happen in that place, but no matter how many times she dreamed about it, she could never see it clearly. And if she couldn’t see it, she wouldn’t know how to stop it.
All of her belongings had been destroyed according to Meijhé policy, a practice that had helped to cement Mikhél’s assertion that she’d died. Leima had saved her mother’s jewelry box, though, along with the gríth it held. They rested on her lap, their familiar weight a small comfort in the face of all that was to come.
She took out the gríth and ran her fingers over the carving on its top. She could read it now, her name written in the language of her birth. It should have given her a sense of connection, but it only made her feel more alone. Every day that she drew closer to Spyridon was a reminder of the day she’d left. The day her parents had lain down their lives for her. And every day she wondered how she would ever honor their sacrifice.
Her eyes burned, and she closed them and pressed her cheek against the cool, smooth underside of the stone. Her breath hitched and feathered out unsteadily over its surface.
And the texture beneath her skin began to change.
She pulled away with a gasp, and with her new exhalation the underside of the rock transformed. Stone shifted and curved into symbols that looked as if they’d always been there, carved into the stone eons ago with a precision even time couldn’t fade.
The first symbol was strange, an abstract shape that meant nothing to her. The second was the symbol Mikhél wore around his neck.
The third was of three simple flames.
She tucked the gríth into her pocket and slipped through the entrance to the maintenance shaft, her heart beating an unsteady tattoo against her breast.
Leima searched until the crowd thinned and dispersed, but she couldn’t find Endetar. A glance at her bracelet told her Eithné was roughly a sector away. She was starting to make her way to the older woman when she thought she heard a muffled footstep behind her. She glanced back, but the dim hall revealed nothing.
And then she felt the knife press against her side.
She stared to pull away, and someone grabbed her wrist and wrenched her arm back and up. She tried to yank her hand free, and something in her wrist snapped. Hot, moist breath pushed against the back of her neck, but she could barely hear the harsh rhythm of it through the sound of her own drumming pulse.
And then, though she couldn’t have explained why, she thought of the bracelet on her arm. Of Eithné a sector away. And of Seirsha two floors below, in a hidden room that required an approved life scan for entry.
Mikhél was dressing for his speech when Seirsha emerged from the maintenance shaft. “You shouldn’t take such risks,” he said as he selected a shirt. “The danger has not lessened.”
“I found something.” She pulled her gríth from her pocket and held it out to him. “It’s your mother’s symbol.”
He frowned and pulled the stone closer. He didn’t recognize the first symbol, but the others were unmistakable. “Do you remember anything about where this came from? Maybe you’ve dreamed about it.”
“Not that I know of. I’ve just always had it. Eithné told me they were common before the war.”
“They were, but not like this.” He turned the stone over and studied her name and then the still smooth sides. “Someone’s used a projective gift on this. How did you—”
Her hand grazed his chest, fingertips against his bare skin, and the question he’d been about to ask fled his mind. Heat spread out from her palm, a silken flame that had everything around them melting away. He told himself to step back, but somehow his hand rose to hold hers in place instead. Her eyes shot to his, and her lips opened into a little o of surprise. She hadn’t meant to start this. She’d been touching only his mother’s amulet, but still his lungs began to work overtime, pushing his skin against hers with each breath.
“You were meant to come for me.” Her voice rode out on a husky little sigh, and he went instantly hard. “You were meant to live.”
He wanted to taste her, to sink into her, to finally let the lure of her consume him. And he wanted to believe her even more than he wanted to pull her close.
But no act could have been more selfish.
He forced himself to release her, and her hand fell to her side. “It’s not my mother’s symbol,” he rasped. “It’s a symbol of Spyridon. It means only that you were meant to come home.”
She stared at him, her eyes dark and her cheeks flushed. She looked as if she’d been kissed, her parted lips pink and plump, her breath coming too quickly. After a moment she looked down at the gríth and cleared her throat.
And then cleared it again.
“Either way,” she said, her own voice not quite smooth, “this is what we’ve been missing. This is the key to understanding the visions. It has to be.”
A tone rang through the room. He had no choice but to step back and don his shirt.
“I must go. Return to your room, and stay with Kai. I’ll come to you when this is done.”
“Be careful.”
There was something in her voice that made him stop. She believed he would live despite all logic, and her heart told him why: she believed because she wanted to. There was no deception crueler than that of hope. It convinced the heart that its deepest desire was inevitable, because the alternative was unbearable. He knew this, because this was how he felt about her.
He could do nothing else in that moment but go to her. He couldn’t show his heart, because he’d learned long ago not to trust in hope. But if he didn’t at least touch her once more, he thought, it might stop beating. He brought a hand to her face and drew the backs of his fingers over her jaw. And her pulse jumped, as he’d known it would.
“I’ll come to you.”
Eithné kept one eye on the light flashing on her bracelet as she walked. When it winked into the center, she paused, but there was no sign of Leima. Yet after a few paces, the light moved again, indicating she’d passed the younger woman.
Frowning, Eithné backtracked until the light returned to the center of the diagram, and then she stretched her sedfai as far as she could. The hall was empty, as were the surrounding rooms. She cursed the old technology as worry slipped into annoyance at the malfunction. Then she saw another light flash out of the corner of her eye.
Leima’s bracelet was on the floor, discarded. And there was blood streaked near the clasp.
Leima’s eyes wheeled as the knife pressed deeper into her side. She hadn’t said a word, but he was pushing her unerringly toward the safe room. The dark halls offered no recourse, the rooms empty save for the discarded pieces of a forgotten ship.
And no one knew she was here—not even Seirsha.
She gritted her teeth and gathered her courage, and then she drove her head back against his chin. The sharp crack of bone against bone sent stars swimming in her gaze. She bit down hard on her lip to stay conscious and yanked out of his grasp. The knife ripped through her skin, and she cried out and pressed her hand against the spread of blood.
And then she saw his face, and her stomach dropped. She could defend herself in many situations; her father had seen to that. But she had little hope against a battle-tested soldier who’d trained under Mikhél.
Bavoel wiped at the blood that poured from his split chin, smearing it across his face as he grinned. He lifted the dripping knife, and Leima thought of the family she missed so desperately. And of Seirsha, the woman she’d sworn to serve. And she roared as she bent at the waist and charged, ramming her head into his midsection.
She managed to drive him back a step, but he regained his balance almost immediately. He wrapped his arm under her neck and squeezed, and then he drove his knife into her side. Spots danced before her eyes as her head went light and her limbs started to numb. She felt the metal slide through her skin as he pulled the knife away, and she heard an odd, unsteady groan that she barely understood came from her. Her breath hitched, hitched, hitched, and she realized her lungs were filling with blood. He was going to kill her now, and she was helpless to stop him.
Then it felt as if her skull exploded, and her vision went black.
Jane stared at the stone after Mikhél was gone, her mind on the dreams. They knew she would walk the planet, but they didn’t know why or even what path she would take. They knew Mikhél would die, but they didn’t know when or how Lhókesh would discover his betrayal. The visions were like a map without a legend. And she held in her hand the key to reading them.
When she felt Mikhél’s voice rumble steadily, she realized he’d begun his speech. She had no idea how long she’d stood here, but it had been too long. She slipped the stone into her pocket and called open the door to the maintenance shaft.
Then she sensed a man walking below, Leima’s hand in his, her arm twisted unnaturally as he dragged her body behind him.
Bavoel pressed the fuel processor’s hand against the lock, and the unmarked door split and opened. He dropped her and stepped into the room, knife raised.
And something growled.
Bavoel stilled. The animal stalked toward him, hidden from sight but detectable through his sedfai. It was huge, its haunches topping Bavoel’s thighs. It stopped and growled again, a deep rumble that sent the hairs standing on the back of Bavoel’s neck. Saliva appeared in midair and landed on the floor with a hiss, and Bavoel stepped back, his palms raised.
The animal charged.
Enormous paws slammed against Bavoel’s chest, pushing him into the wall with the force of ten men. Teeth sank into his shoulder, their hollow points oozing acid. He screamed and clawed at the invisible creature, and the animal wrapped its front legs around him in a multijointed cage that was impossible to escape. Bavoel swung the knife blindly as the animal’s jaw closed, shredding flesh and crushing bone.
And his knife sunk into the animal’s flank.
The beast yelped but didn’t release him, so Bavoel plunged the knife again. The creature fell away, dark-orange plasma streaming from thin air to pool on the floor. Bavoel kicked at the source of the blood, and the animal whimpered and tried to pull itself away.
Bavoel started after it, but he slipped in the blood and fell against the table near the window, knocking over a glass of water. Cool fluid splashed against the paintings that rested there, and the colors began to bleed. A clang came from the direction of the closet, and he looked over and grinned. Then he made his way toward the sound, his left arm hanging uselessly at his side.
Jane tucked the gríth back into her pocket and twisted to drop to the grate. But the angle was awkward and the space too narrow. She landed badly, wrenching her knee and tearing ligaments, and fire consumed her leg.
Below her, Leima’s attacker spoke, and the door to the maintenance shaft opened. Jane brought up the ship’s map in her mind, calculated the distance to Mikhél.
Then she gritted her teeth and ran.
CHAPTER 35
Mikhél’s voice carried clearly over the crowd, but his stomach twisted with his words. He spoke of the journey’s successes, but his mind’s eye saw the cost paid. The injuries, the fear, the hate. The lives laid waste by a killer who still walked free.
Seirsha stood in his closet, hidden because he’d failed to find her attacker. In danger always, because he’d failed to stop his father in the years before this mission.
When her fear flooded him, he first mistook it for his own. But then he felt her heart rate soar, heard her voice utter a nearly unintelligible mix of thoughts: Leima, Kai, Mikhél. Felt her leap and land badly.
And then he felt her run.
He said something—he didn’t know what—to the audience and strode toward the doors. Eithné burst through them, a Saroyan bracelet clutched in one fist.
“Leima,” she began, her voice low and frantic.
He grabbed her arm and shook his head. “Seirsha’s in trouble. Distract the crew.”
Valaer woke suddenly, the agony in his leg allowing no slow rise to consciousness. The sight of the filleted muscle made his head go light, and he looked quickly away. He tried to stand, but his leg collapsed under him, sending fresh pain spiraling through him. He forced himself to move through it, dragging his leg behind him as he half crawled, half slid through his own blood.
The guard was sprawled against the glass, his throat cut wide, so his gore painted the floor. His baton was missing. A quick search of his body re
vealed a small dagger strapped to his ankle, Watcher contraband that Bavoel had overlooked. Valaer slipped it into his belt with shaking hands, doing his best to ignore the thought that he might already be too late.
The command station was in the center of the room, the path to it covered in blood. His hands slipped with nearly every pull, sending him face first into the gore until he was drenched in it. By the time he reached the cluster of shelves and drawers, his arms trembled from the exertion. He searched for the Saroyan bracelet first, his hands steadying somewhat when the amethyst light winked on. Then he searched for medical supplies, his eyes racing over the shelves as each beat of his heart urged: HUR-ry, HUR-ry, HUR-ry.
He bound his leg with metallic strips that sealed together to form a tight, pressurized sleeve. The bleeding slowed to a trickle and then stopped, but he still couldn’t put any weight on the leg. He pressed a tube of anesthetic against his skin, and three long needles shot deep into his thigh. The medicine seared the muscle, but it worked quickly, and after a moment he was able to stand.
He donned the bracelet, and then he began to move.
Jane raced through the dark, but each step ruptured the ligaments in her knee, interrupting her healing and slowing her down. If she didn’t stop and let the injury finish healing, she’d never make it to Mikhél. She leapt over the next ladder hatch and then crouched in the dark while heat built in the joint.
Backlit, Leima’s attacker sprinted toward her, a baton swinging from his belt and a long blade in his right hand. His left arm hung limply at his side, but she saw no other signs of injury. His shoulders spanned the walkway, and he towered over her. Her mind raced through her options, but she knew she couldn’t best him in close quarters.
As he neared the ladder, her eyes locked on to the baton, her hands loose and ready. But then his madness hit her like a cloud, the putrid blood thirst unmistakable. Her blood iced in her veins, and her lungs began to hitch. He touched the ladder, and her gaze shot to his face, her sudden need to flee matched only by the need to know who had slit her throat weeks before.
Spyridon (The Spyridon Trilogy Book 1) Page 32