Aryn shook her head, her face buried in Samara’s shoulder. Only now, here, did she allow herself the thought: she had believed she would never see Samara again. Between the mines and the Warlord’s fury, they both knew how long Samara was likely to last, and now that Aryn was here, she could not hold back her tears. Guilt was pulling her down toward the ground, and Samara was all that was holding her up.
She was doing as much as she could to make it right, she reminded herself. It took four repetitions of the reminder before she could lift her head up and wipe at her eyes.
“I am so glad to see you here,” she whispered. Her voice wouldn’t come out any louder than that, and she was still worried she would burst into tears.
“And I you.” But Samara’s eyes darted to the crates, then back to Aryn, and around the launch pad. “Is Ellian…”
“No. I came alone. Well, with some people.” Aryn opened her mouth to say more and then decided to save that. Who knew what might be overheard? She would let Samara lead the way. “How are you here? Why aren’t you in the mines?”
Samara sighed.
“Remember when I told you that the bombing went on for so many days? Well, we couldn’t get out…so we couldn’t get to the mines. So they know, now, who’s part of the resistance.”
“Is it safe to talk here?”
At that, Samara laughed. Her gorgeous oval face lit up with the mischief Aryn remembered so well from their youth, and her brown eyes sparkled. She shot a look up at the tower operators, then sobered, biting her lip.
“Let’s just say we’ve gotten a little bolder.”
Aryn raised an eyebrow.
“Well, he never thought we’d come to the launch pad, right? We don’t have ships, and who would know how to pilot them, anyway? But we did, just to see. Couldn’t go back to work, could we? And it turns out the Warlord’s getting…sloppy.”
“Sloppy?”
“You remember how it used to be for his supporters. They had anything they wanted. But now he’s started to act against all of the people who support him, too. He doubts everyone. He seems to think no one at all can be trusted. And when he’s just executing people left and right, it turns out there are people to recruit everywhere.”
“I see.” Aryn looked up at the guard towers and saw one of the woman raise a hand in a tentative wave. “There are two things you should know. First, I’m here with Dragons.”
“What?” As she had expected, Samara’s eyes went stony.
“They didn’t know,” Aryn said quietly.
“The people they killed should have been a tip-off!”
“Well, we thought so. But the Warlord…” Well, there was no sense in keeping it back now. Talon had said he’d be presenting evidence to the resistance in each district. “He’s the head of Alliance Intelligence.”
Samara drew in her breath sharply.
“Exactly,” Aryn said quietly. “As far as they were concerned, they landed to take out the Warlord, started with some of his underlings, and then got told to pull out. For years, they’ve been hearing that Intelligence says there’s no way to get into the Warlord’s palace.”
Samara whistled.
“It’s a good story, but do you trust it?”
“Look over there.” Aryn jerked her head subtly to where she knew Cade and Talon were standing. Even knowing it was nonsense, she fancied that she could feel Cade’s presence, a soft pull. “The one on the left is Talon, and he’s the one who got me these weapons.”
“The weapons are from you? Aryn—”
“In a minute.” Aryn looked over at Cade and felt her face soften. “That’s Cade. He left the Dragons, and he’s…well, Ellian hired him as my bodyguard.”
“Then you can’t trust him,” Samara said instantly.
“Why? Because Ellian is the Warlord’s arms dealer?”
There was a stricken silence.
“Why would you say something like that?” Samara tried finally.
Aryn didn’t even bother answering the question.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Her voice was quiet, but she could hardly get the words out, she was shaking so badly. “How could you let me go and not tell me?”
“We wanted to protect you,” Samara said helplessly.
“Protect me?”
“Aryn, I love you, you know that I have always loved you.” Samara reached out a hand to brush Aryn’s cheek. “You were my closest friend. You were…” She looked away. “You were never meant to be a soldier,” she said quietly. “You were meant to be a peacemaker.”
“And you thought I would become one if I married Ellian?” Aryn’s voice was rising.
“No. Yes! It’s complicated.”
“It’s not complicated at all,” Aryn said quietly. “About a week ago, I found out that the man I had married, slept with, and spent two years trying to love was, in fact, the same man who’d supplied the bombs that killed Devin.” She saw Samara flinch at the mention of it. Aryn’s brother had been eleven when he died, killed by the bombs that were raining down in the streets while families huddled inside their houses.
“Aryn—”
“No. Don’t tell me you did it to save me. Because you know what happened? I woke up one day and found out that I was completely alone in the world, that I was at the mercy of a man who’s killed thousands, Samara, if not more—and that my friends had handed me over to him without a word of protest. In fact, they encouraged me to go. And if I hadn’t had Cade, I would still be there. I would be a prisoner, do you understand? I would be watched every second of every day. I already lived with the guilt of leaving you all behind to die in the mines, and that nearly destroyed me. And then—then—I found out that the gowns I wore and the diamonds and the cars—all of it wasn’t just meaningless luxury. It was bought with the money Ellian got for helping the Warlord kill my family. Do you understand, Samara? Do you have any idea what you did?”
Samara stared at her, face white. And then her jaw set and she stared Aryn down, a sheen of tears in her eyes.
“I. Saved. Your. Life.” Her words came out between clenched teeth.
“You could have told me!”
“You wouldn’t have gone!” Samara yelled back finally. “You wouldn’t have, Aryn. And you would have died in the mines, or in another attack—if you were lucky. You think Ellian’s the only one who wanted you? The Warlord’s people were beginning to notice you, too. They could have…”
“Brought me close enough to kill the Warlord?” Aryn asked acidly.
“Aryn.” The fight went out of Samara. A tear trembled on her lashes, broke free, and trailed down her cheek. “You’re not a murderer. And you’re not a soldier. No one here thought any less of you for going. We knew we didn’t have that chance, and your mother and father…well, they’ve been good to everyone here. You marrying Ellian meant they got to go into the city. They can go to hospitals now when they’re sick. They don’t have to work in the mines. You saved them a terrible death, and yourself as well.”
“While I left behind everyone I love,” Aryn whispered back. “It wasn’t worth it. It wasn’t.” She covered her mouth with one hand. “I don’t think I can ever make up the debt.”
“Aryn.” Samara’s hands were at her shoulders. As the alarms went for them to leave the launch pad, she put an arm around Aryn’s shoulders and led her to the tiny hangar at the side of the platform. “Listen to me. You just came back with weapons we desperately need. How did you get them?”
“Well.” Aryn sniffed. “Um. You said Ellian wouldn’t help us. And of course you were right. So I decided to get you the weapons myself. I pawned some of my jewelry.”
“And Ellian doesn’t know?” There was a laugh bubbling up in Samara’s voice now.
Aryn shrugged, wiping at her eyes as she gave a strangled sort of laugh.
“He might have, if—well, if things were different. Cade saw everything. But he kept my secret.” She shrugged, and gave a look over her shoulder, feeling something in her hear
t unlock as she looked at him, walking with Talon. “He…didn’t realize what I was doing. He was horrified.”
“I see.” Samara held her silence as they piled into the hangar.
Cade’s presence was warm at Aryn’s back, his eyes taking in the tears in her eyes. She shook her head and smiled—nothing for him to worry about. Then she let Samara draw her to the far corner.
“Aryn.” The woman’s voice was suddenly grave.
“What?”
“That man…”
“He’s on our side,” Aryn said fiercely. “He would never betray us. I promise you that.”
“I don’t doubt you,” Samara said simply. Wryly, she added, “Though unless I’d seen it with my own eyes, I’d think an offer of help from the Dragons was…a trap.”
“Me as well. But Samara, you should have seen his face when he learned the truth. There’s no doubting—”
“That you’re in love with him,” Samara finished flatly.
Aryn felt her smile die. She shook her head slightly.
“You are. Don’t bother denying it. I’ve known you all my life. I see your face when you look at him, Aryn.”
“It’s…it hasn’t come to anything.” Other than a kiss that still tormented her.
There was a pause.
“Why not?” Samara asked finally. The flames of the descending ship were reflected in her eyes, her face lit gold.
“Because…” And it all came crashing in. She hadn’t thought far ahead, and she realized now that was because she knew the answers without thinking. She knew what had to be. “Because even if I’d known who Ellian was,” she said quietly, “I would have gone.”
“What?” Samara stared at her, aghast.
“It’s three for one,” Aryn said simply. “There’s my parents and Nura. And they’ll die soon, and she doesn’t want anything to do with this—but what if she did? She could still get out.”
“Aryn…”
“He’s going to be angry.” Aryn was shaking now. “I should go back now, before he finds out. And Cade…” For once, she said the words in her head. “Cade complicates things.”
“Because you love him.”
“But I can’t! Don’t you see? Ellian knew I might never love him, but to love someone else, right under his nose…”
And yet, how could she go back? How could she live knowing that Ellian would do the same thing on other planets? Was she going to undo all of his work, always, flying down to slums and backwater moons with crates of weapons every time she found out about a deal? A hysterical laugh was rising in her chest.
She remembered her parents’ faces. Nura, with those same blue-grey eyes and dark, dark hair. She kept their pictures on her desk at home, and not from sentiment. She steadied herself.
“Ellian,” Samara said softly.
“Yes,” Aryn said quietly. “Because of Ellian. That’s why it never came to anything. Why it can’t.”
“No.” Samara was shaking. “Ellian…is here.”
“What?” But she realized that the crowd had gone silent, and saw seven figures slip into a back hallway—Talon and the other Dragons moving almost faster than she could see.
“I have to go.” Samara was looking panicked. “Wait for my signal. I’ll send you a signal.”
“Samara—”
But she was gone, and as Aryn turned slowly, she saw why. Ellian had descended from the ship, his black eyes looking at Aryn and the coldest smile she had ever seen on his face. And walking across the launch pad from a sleek black car was a masked man dressed all in black.
Everyone on Ymir knew that mask, but this was the first time Aryn had seen it in person. Her heart seized.
She was staring at the Warlord.
Chapter 23
A single curl trembled as it lay against Aryn’s neck. Her face was blank. She had been made up perfectly by the maids Ellian had brought with him, dressed in a blue-green gown that exactly matched the necklace of Vorekan sapphires at her neck, and she walked silently at her husband’s side as the Warlord of Ymir gave a grand tour of his gardens, Cade walking behind them and trying to pretend, as a bodyguard should, that he did not exist.
“They tried to destroy it,” the Warlord said now, sweeping out one arm to indicate the greenery. Hedgerows grew in perfect patterns, line with paths, a fountain at the center. “Barbarians. They have no appreciation for history. It took me ten years to get a clipping of each of the plants. I’ve been thinking of building a perfect replica of the palace as well. It would have to be modernized, of course, but what better than a model of the Sun King’s palace?”
Aryn’s fingers trailed over a brass plaque, proclaiming these gardens to be a perfect replica of those at Versailles, on old earth. Her face, she kept blank, and Cade ached to know what lay behind those flat, blue-grey eyes. What must she be thinking now, this woman who had worked in the Warlord’s mines, who had seen his cruelty firsthand, as she looked out at the silent beauty of his palace?
He did not think he could bear to know. And Ellian, he thought, his anger rising, should have known better than to ask Aryn to accompany them on this tour.
On the other hand… As Cade held the door open for Aryn to leave the hangar, Ellian’s eyes had looked between them, assessing. He watched every gesture between them, an inspection that was just shy of a blatant accusation, and Cade had the rising urge to ask Ellian just what he expected to see. The two of them lying together on the launch pad, perhaps? Matching rings and a declaration of love, right there in front of everyone?
It would be funnier if his chest didn’t ache with it. It would be funnier, also, if Ellian were not bringing Aryn on this tour as a form of revenge. Cade wanted to take the man by the shoulders and throw him against one of the nearby walls, demand to know why he would throw the two of them together if these were his suspicions.
He should have quit three days ago when he had the chance. Then he’d be with Talon, planning desperately now that the Warlord’s armorer had arrived. Ellian’s presence could only mean one thing—that the Warlord was about to have the weapon he’d been demanding all this time.
Cade knew he should focus on what the two were saying to one another as they strolled off, talking easily about the folly of the rebellion, but he could not move. Aryn stood as if frozen, staring out at the gardens. In the past days of the journey, she had grown both more confident, and more remote. Now, she might as have been made of marble. She looked down on the gardens, and Cade was reminded suddenly of the statue Li used to keep in her bunk at the Dragons’ barracks. Kwan Yin, she called it, and Cade always thought the little brass figurine looked terribly sad.
Cade looked up to see the Warlord and Ellian waiting, looking back expectantly.
“Ms. Beranek.” He dared not use her name, but when her head turned, he felt as if he’d slapped her. He tried not to wince as she spoke. “Mr. Pallas is waiting for you.”
She said nothing, staring at him for a long moment, and then she turned and walked quickly to Ellian, her practiced smile on her face.
“Forgive me. The gardens are just so beautiful.”
“Not half as beautiful as you,” the Warlord said gallantly. He bent over Aryn’s hand, black-gloved fingers swallowing hers; if he noticed that she held back a shudder, he said nothing. “Mr. Pallas, you should always bring your wife with you. She is a most charming creature, and I am sure it pleases her to be home. Tell me, my dear, will you be visiting your parents while you are here?”
Was it a threat? Even Cade did not know.
“Of course, sir.” Aryn’s voice was low and pleasing, cultured. There was nothing at all behind her eyes. “Family is the most important thing of all, do you not think so?”
“I hope we shall soon live in a world where I can say that is true. But for now, I must say that security is the most important thing. Your husband is helping me to achieve that.” The Warlord bent his head in Ellian’s direction. “But now, I am afraid there is business I must attend to. I shall see you
at dinner, I hope?”
“Of course.” Ellian smiled as the man walked away.
When he turned around, his smile died. Aryn’s hands were clenched, her face a mask of dislike.
“You didn’t mention the bombing.”
Oh, Aryn… Cade gave her an aghast look, but she did not spare a glance for him.
“My dear, the time was not right.” Ellian looked briefly at Cade, smiling at the man’s horror, and then back to Aryn.
“Why not?” she asked, her voice tight.
“There are a great many details to be concluded before I speak to him about something so delicate.”
“Oh?” Aryn crossed her arms. Her eyes had not wavered from her husband’s face. “Because it seems to me that you’re trading food and supplies he desperately needs, and that if you were to tell him how displeased you were about the bombings before you concluded your dealings, he would have an incentive to stop.”
In horror, Cade realized what she was doing. She intended to force Ellian into an outright lie, something she could then expose. But what could she hope to gain from it? She knew she was in the Warlord’s palace itself. She had to know that the Warlord’s assessment of her as charming meant less than nothing if she stood between him and his weapons. And if she angered Ellian…
It all came back to Talon’s question: what game was Ellian playing? Why was he here now? And if he had seen their moments of indiscretion, Aryn weeping on Cade’s chest, Cade embracing her in their rooms, then why had he left them together on a ship, with no one to watch them, only to swoop down on them now? For a man whose actions tempted an indiscretion, Ellian Pallas seemed remarkably consumed with jealousy.
“My dear,” Ellian said now, “we should speak of this in private. In our rooms.”
“Nowhere in this palace is private,” Aryn said simply.
“Aryn!”
“What? We all know it. A man as powerful as the Warlord needs to watch those he allows into his inner circle, does he not?” Her mouth twisted around the words.
“I am glad that you understand,” Ellian said cautiously. “And no doubt you see that the Warlord is understandably upset about the rebellion. After all, it has killed a great many civilians. Please, Aryn, let us speak in our rooms.”
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