He focused on the man. If Meida was faction, she was fight trained just like Elan was. He didn’t recognize anything about the man she was speaking to from the pits. His body was soft and doughy. He probably bet on the fighters and never set foot in the ring himself. He threw money at men to beat each other to a pulp hoping Fia would bless them with fire again, then everyone involved would get their fire again.
He forced the man to lunge at Meida and wrap his hands around her neck. Meida responded much in the way Isolde must have done when she was attacked. She had already long knocked the man unconscious. He was only still upright because Elan was holding him up. He didn’t want to kill Meida, he just wanted to disable her so Isolde could get into her head. As soon as Meida fainted, Elan let his grip on the man go so they were both collapsed in a heap on the pit arena floor.
Elan had no idea why she went to the man first. Her eyes went white when she grasped his head. “This man’s name is Hikmat. The underground has been around much longer than the sixteen. The underground has existed since your people started losing fire. Centuries. It started as a religious movement. Hikmat’s family has been in the underground for several generations. They call themselves The Children of Fia.
“They started with just prayers and chants. They eventually moved to human sacrifice, thinking it would get Fia’s attention. Hikmat, he comes from a long line of Father, Brothers, and Sisters in the Children of Fia. It was Hikmat’s father, Hendra, who thought their process was wrong. He started the fighting pits forty years ago. Hikmat was spared the pits because he was still high up in the religion and he would be rewarded for his faith and bringing fire back to his people.
“Hendra was in his seventies when our mothers fell pregnant with the sixteen. He thought the answers lay in these children. He had a sickness. It’s something we can cure on Avala, but you haven’t come that far here yet. Apparently, it was a sickness Avala has had the cure for centuries. Hikmat dragged an Avalian slave to his father and she confessed the disease would be treatable on her home planet.
“Hendra knew he didn’t have long for the world, so he prepared Hikmat. Find a way to get close to the sixteen. Hendra was starting to change his mind. If the fighting pits and all the prayer had not brought fire back and the Avalians had a cure for the disease that was killing him, maybe they could use science to get their gifts back.
“It was Hikmat that had your name in the pits changed and he smuggled a martyr, someone willing to die, in my chambers so I could kill him. He wanted me to see that mask. He wanted me to get here and see it as I was dying. Avala is doing exactly what they planned, looking for a genetic link. They have a plan. Either you in the fighting pit as the God of Violence will get fire and you can force the Avalian scientists to give it to them, or they have a plan involving me.
“They want my people upset and rallying when they find out I died on Cendis. They think we will slip up and they can steal the research while we are forming a plan of attack. This man is singular minded. They don’t care who they hurt, they just want the power.”
“Is Nia safe?”
Isolde let go of Hikmat’s head and looks like she was about to faint. She went straight for Meida. “They don’t think Nia can give them what they need. They think her gifts are just for beauty, not power.”
“Isolde, can you wait to get into Meida’s head? You look like you’re going to faint. You said this was unpleasant.”
“You’ll have to carry me back. I’ll need some sort of organ meat and tea when I wake up. Do you have that here? Please, don’t worry. I’ve done this once before and we need these answers. We might not get this opportunity again.”
“Promise me you aren’t going too far, Isolde.”
She stood on her toes and kissed his cheek. “Jovin had me learn this on a thief who had stolen a lot of money from the high born. He talked the inquisitors in circles. Jovin made me stay in there until I had everything. When I fainted, he used salts to wake me up and made me keep going. I’ll be fine.”
She may be fine this time, but he really wanted to get in a few blows to her Uncle Jovin. This time, her nose started bleeding too when she grabbed Meida’s head.
“Meida loves Nia. Nia is her niece. She was glad they can’t use her in the underground. She was instrumental in convincing them Nia wasn’t worth the effort. She doesn’t know about the others. Nia is the only one she has information on. Galih gives her orders too. I think after getting into Botak and Meida’s head, Galih might be some type of leader. I don’t know if he speaks to your mother too, mainly because there were too many other lies to sift through when I was in her head.
“The reason Meida turned on the faction was that she was careless teaching Nia. Hikmat saw her and waited until she was alone. He threatened to kill every single one of the sixteen, not just Nia, unless she cooperated. She’s sharing what she knows, but she’s not being honest with the faction either. She—”
Isolde swayed on her feet. Elan caught her just before she fell. He whisked her through the passage after shutting the secret door and took her back to his bedroom. She said she needed organ meat and tea, so he mentioned to a servant that was what he wanted to be brought up later. He was about to get into bed with her so he could hold her, but he heard someone storm into his bedroom. He stuck his head out the bedroom and saw Sartika bustling towards the back.
She looked down at Isolde on the bed. She was pale and her nose had started bleeding again. Sartika rested her hand on her forehead. “You’re going to have to find a way to stop her when she goes too far. This is all for nothing if she kills herself here because she doesn’t know when to stop.”
The anger he should have felt when he first heard about the cameras finally hit him. “I want those cameras off! I want privacy with her!”
“You do have privacy with her in your chambers. I’ve no idea what happened in here last night. I turned the cameras off in your chambers only after she told you the truth in the pool. I left the other cameras up and I’m glad I did! Galih comes bursting into my chambers asking what in bloody hell the two of you are playing at, then when he leaves, I see you knocking people unconscious, and her passing out!”
“We got what we needed. Those cameras don’t have sound? How is Galih involved in all this?”
Sartika glared down at Isolde, but she wasn’t angry. She tenderly brushed her hair off Isolde’s forehead before straightening up. She walked over to hug Elan. “Take care of her. Hold her tight for now if she’ll let you. I’ll tell Galih what I saw on the cameras. I’ll pretend like I’m coming to eat dinner with you after Ace’s outburst this morning. Have them make molten saffron custard cake for her for dinner, okay? She hasn’t had that yet and it was your favorite for the longest.”
Elan crawled into bed with Isolde. For all the times she tried to push him away, when he tried to gently cradle her in his arms, she let out a soft cooing noise and tried to move closer. She nuzzled his chest with her face, wrapped her arms around his waist, and was sleeping again in seconds.
If only she was this affectionate and honest when she was awake.
Chapter 11
Viljar had been working nonstop since Fjola spoke to Sartika. He already routed the satellite feed so that Fjola could watch the cameras on Cendis. He claimed it was easy because he was the one who built the cameras and they had to use a signal he was already familiar with. Sartika had already warned her she had the cameras in Elan’s chambers disabled. Fjola thought she should leave them on during the day and turn them off at night, especially since Elan and Isolde appeared to be uncovering things she had no idea about.
Sartika just clucked her tongue and told her if the two of them ended up sparring again, they were going to end up naked no matter what time of day it was. Fjola always thought awful things when Isolde was around about wishing she was a boy, but she had always been secretly glad she had a daughter. Now that Isolde was an adult, she wished she would wear pretty dresses instead of walking around in tunics and leggin
gs when she could get away with it.
Viljar had to work overtime after Fjola watched Isolde and Elan use their gifts together in some sort of underground area. Viljar had working sound and she heard everything. Cendia’s underground managed to get a martyr on Avala. That had to mean either one of the slaves followed the Children of Fia or Avala had its own underground she didn’t know about.
Viljar was the faction leader on Avala. As far as Fjola knew, the faction there existed before the attacks, before people started losing their gifts. The faction on Avala was working with a faction on Cendis to find a better home for both of them. The faction was working in the background making sure none of the attacks were as deadly as planned. They were still working when the truce was called after people started losing their gifts. One of Viljar’s ancestors started the faction and it had been passed down from there.
Isolde was sleeping off using her mind tricks, so Fjola called for Viljar. She filled him in on everything she had learned about the Cendis underground. He was pacing and scratching his black beard.
“As far as I know, this palace has no secret passages. It’s diamond glass, remember? The only reason people can’t see in entirely is that the scientists found a way to tint it a few decades after we arrived here and they started figuring out how the different equipment worked. Before that, you could see straight in. Why would someone put a secret passage in if they could be seen entering someone room from the walls? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Underground tunnels?”
“No. Underneath the palace is where the water and food are stored during winter. There is an underground chamber that stretches for miles, but it’s water tanks and greenhouses for food. There’s also a few stations for salting meat.”
“Then how did that Cendian get here and get access to everything he needed to change his appearance? Someone was helping him.”
“I agree. If he was familiar with our satellites for air space monitoring, he could have landed a pod here without us knowing. The pod is probably stashed somewhere in the mountain only Isolde and Jovin would know how to get to. Them getting onto the planet without help could be logical. Getting the tools to alter their appearance is not. No one would sell that to a slave. I don’t get the feeling their underground would be willing to work with ours if we had one.”
“You think it was a slave? How?”
“Same way Isolde is at Cendis now. Think about it. It was suggested it when she was only four to slip in as a slave. That would give them plenty of time to plant a spy within our slaves. It’s just a matter of getting in unnoticed by the satellites. If they had already infiltrated the Cendian faction, it would have been easy.
“Our faction knows Isolde is special and we planned on smuggling her into Cendis as a slave. What she can do is only shared between you, Jovin, and me, but everyone knows she’s to go to Cendis to start the alliance with Elan. It had to be someone close to either her or the three of us.”
“Not her. You know a spy in the slaves wouldn’t have been able to get close to her. She would have flipped them without knowing it,” Fjola argued, pacing. “You know she decided when she was really young she was doing away with slavery when she was queen. She thinks even Jovin doesn’t know this, but I’ve seen her sneak down to the slave quarters on camera and give them extra food. This Engkus man we have in the lab that tried to kill her, he was never a slave. He probably never stayed with them either before he changed his appearance.”
“True, true,” Viljar said, running his fingers through his black hair. “She’s going to have a riot on her hands if she doesn’t have an alternative to taking away slaves. Some of us have personal slaves. You do. Everyone at court does. The spy could have learned about her that way.”
“Are you accusing me, Viljar? You think I’d be dumb enough to watch my cameras or discuss her with a slave present? You think I’d risk anything that important? Even if I didn’t know about the underground and I thought the slaves were harmless, I would not have exposed her like that.”
“Fjola, I know,” he said, taking her into his arms and stroking her hair. “That leaves Jovin. Think about it. Engkus could have gotten those devices to change his eye color somewhere on Cendis. It could be popular there or there could still be some left over. Jovin is a fierce warrior and he trained her well, but he’s also a bit of a peacock, isn’t he? He’s used his credits to visit the surgeon to make the lines around his eyes and mouth go away. Don’t you think he would have black hair dye on hand for the first sign of a white hair?”
“Jovin is vain, but he’s not stupid or I wouldn’t have let him near Isolde.”
“Jovin is cunning and so is Isolde. What if the dye was stolen before she knew better?”
“Viljar, Jovin is vain, but I doubt he has stockpiles of hair dye.”
“He doesn’t need to. Think like a faction member for a minute instead of her mother. We don’t know when he got here, but we know he had help. All of our slaves could be part of the Children of Fia. All it would take would be someone like Isolde, who gave them a radio because they felt bad for them. They probably only meant to let them listen to news or music, but they would be curious about a home planet they’ve never seen. It may take time, but they’d find a shared satellite and the frequency to listen to the Children’s sermons. Think about how often people lose COMMs. You lose your COMM at least twice a month. It would be easy to steal one off a charging station if they knew their master had a history of losing it.”
“I don’t want Isolde on that planet with all of this going on,” Fjola shuddered. “I want her here where I can lock her in her chambers with guards at her door.”
“Isolde is doing what she needs to do. Between Isolde and Elan, they both should know every fighting style that exists. Elan is named after a god in those fighting pits. If they stuck Isolde in there with him, I wouldn’t even know which one of them to bet on. They’d probably destroy the entire arena.
“For now, we need a plan. We’re going to have to give out a reason the truth serum is being used on the slaves. Hardly anyone knows about the assassin except the scientists and the soldiers, but the high born are going to ask questions if their slaves are carted off and questioned. No one knows about the serum and the scientist that made it was faction too.”
“Isolde is going to be reported missing as soon as Jovin gets back. She’s just supposed to be missing in the mountains. That story would have worked if this was going to plan, but it’s not,” Fjola said, her mind going a million miles a minute. “Isolde has her own theories about the bond and she’s going to be at Cendis longer than we thought before they can get to the paradise planet. If you can sneak into her chambers and make it look like someone has ransacked it, we can make it seem like someone has kidnapped their princess and we are questioning everyone.
“I know you’re about to say something about Cendis and our people wanting us to break the truce. I’ve already thought of that. We’ll say Isolde was hiding a relic from earth in her chambers. Everyone knows how much she loves hunting. They love her because sometimes she brings home beasts large enough to keep us fed longer during winter.
“We’ll say she want hunting deeper in the mountains than before. She was tracking a beast that led to her an area she hadn’t been before and it’s too dangerous for anyone to try to find. She found a….a rucksack. Yes, that’s it. The rucksack was full of earth relics from the original humans that settled here.”
“Yes, yes!” Viljar yelled, cracking his knuckles. “That way, it’s generic. A rucksack of relics only a few people knew about, so she’s disappeared and someone searched her room. It leaves us free to question people and keeps eyes off Cendis. People will rally behind her and be less angry when she announces she was at Cendis the entire time and made an alliance.”
“I need to get a COMM that only Sartika and Isolde have access to while we investigate this. I wish she had time to get to know him instead of sniffing all this out.”
Fjola eyed Viljar w
hen he laughed. “You’ll have to give Elan access too. Think about Isolde for a minute. Do you think she would prefer to get to know her bond mate over romantic dinners or hunting traitors?”
“Hunting traitors, for sure. But I got the feeling Elan would prefer the romantic dinners.”
“For now. When he seeing how much she’s enjoying herself, he’ll relax and have fun too.”
“I wish she could enjoy herself being a normal princess instead of stalking around the forest with a spear or traipsing around secret passages and sucking thoughts out people’s heads.”
“Maybe. But it’s going to make her one hell of a queen.”
Chapter 12
Isolde didn’t want to move when she finally woke up and smelled citrus and lavender. She could feel herself cradled in two strong arms and pressed against a hard chest. She needed to eat and she had no idea if Elan was awake. His neck was near her face, so she started kissing his neck. He moaned and tightened his arms around her.
“Enough of that, Isolde. You passed out. You promised you could handle it!”
“I warned you that you would have to carry me out of there.”
“I thought I would help you out the pit, not carry you out while you were unconscious with blood coming from your nose. You have to start trusting me. You give me half-truths or you avoid answering when you don’t like my questions.”
“You have to trust me too,” she snapped, pulling out of his embrace. “I said I could handle questioning both of them and you would need to carry me out. I wasn’t lying. We don’t know each other well enough yet, but I knew if I told you I would pass out, you would try to stop me. Or, you would have stood there fighting with me until they woke up and caught us. It’s like a bad headache, but it’s not going to kill me. It needed to happen. You can’t treat me like a delicate flower. I can handle myself, Elan!”
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