“First, because he’s panicking. Ellian denied him something, and the chatter suggests that he knows the rebels have guns. He’s putting on the pressure, but Ellian’s not budging.”
“Which still doesn’t make sense,” Aryn interrupted. She looked over at Talon, shaking her head. “You’re sure Ellian got the message about me being safe?” She’d seen the messages they intercepted, with Ellian continuing to demand Aryn’s safe return.
“I’m sure.” Talon shook his head. “Maybe he hasn’t responded because he’s worried about the networks being compromised. Maybe he thinks the Warlord won’t admit to losing you, and is now trying to use that for counter-leverage. Whatever the case, he’s not handing anything over. He hasn’t even left his rooms.”
“I don’t like that,” Nyx murmured. “He should have gotten out.”
“Whatever he has, he knows it’s something the Warlord can only get through him,” Talon said, with a shrug. “But that doesn’t matter. What does matter is that we move tonight. Those troops are primed to go as soon as the Warlord feels threatened enough. If we can keep the districts quiet, he might hold long enough for us to take him out without anyone else getting hurt.” He pulled the map toward him and began marking. “I’ll send three detachments in the gate here, at the south-southwest point. Nyx, you’ll take out the guard tower first. We’ve got a hook into the alarm systems, so we can deactivate anything that goes off.”
“Got it.”
“Liam will go here, and take out that guard tower—”
He broke off as a wail of sirens went up in Hanin. Floodlights and spotlights came on, lighting up the distant city center like a beacon, and the bottom dropped out of Aryn’s stomach.
“Oh, my God.”
“What is it?”
“They’re starting an operation,” Aryn whispered. “Those sirens…they’re for soldiers. They’re what go off when they think they have resistance fighters in the area.”
“That’s odd.” Nyx grabbed the binoculars and began to scan. “None of the troops are moving. If anything, they’ve hunkered down.”
“Now, what the hell is that about?” Talon narrowed his eyes, leaning to peer out at the flashing lights as if he might discern something there.
“Turn it off,” Aryn said urgently.
“What?” They looked over at her.
“You said you were hooked into the alarm system. Turn those off.”
“Once we do that, they might know we can.”
“Then get on the radio and tell them it was a mistake!” Aryn threw up her hands. “Don’t you see? You said to keep the districts quiet. Well, this isn’t quiet. What if they’ve found the bunker in Hanin? You want to know how they operate? The soldiers come out before they know anything. They’ll be going for one of the control towers to hear what their mission is. If you turn it off before they get there, they’ll just go back to their barracks.”
Nyx and Talon looked at one another.
“It’s a lot to risk without knowing what’s going on,” Talon said quietly. “We need to have that hook-in for when we move at nightfall.”
“Do it,” Aryn hissed. “Jesus, these people are your allies. And maybe Cade can take care of himself, but they aren’t all like him! Turn the alarms off.”
He looked at her for a moment, deciding, then unhooked piece of equipment from his belt. A few touches, a dial, and a quickly-entered code, and the alarms died an instant later. Nyx held a finger up to her lips and held the comm up.
“Command Center Hanin, what was the disturbance?” A voice crackled down the line, and Nyx watched Talon as he pressed a few more buttons, then gave her a thumbs up. She took a deep breath before clicking the button to talk.
“This is maintenance. Raccoons got the transformer.” She filled her voice with disgust and raised an eyebrow until laughter echoed back at her. “Sorry, boys. Everyone back to bed.”
“How did you do that?” Aryn whispered when Nyx handed the comm back.
“It’s not foolproof. The people in the command center will go out to check the transformer soon enough. But it might buy whoever those people are a bit of time.”
“And we should get back,” Talon said simply. “We’ve got the plan. I’ll assign coordinates as I go. Liam can take them before dawn.”
The radio crackled, and all of them looked at the handset on Talon’s belt.
“Rift?”
“Cade…” Aryn breathed.
“Williams.” Talon’s voice was wary.
“Thanks for turning off the alarms.” There was a laugh behind the hard breathing. “Haven’t sprinted like that since Shenzin.”
Nyx stifled a laugh against her hand and Talon relaxed.
“Sorry we couldn’t arrange another wine river.” He was grinning. “So why are you setting off alarms?”
“Had to reach you before you started planning the op,” Cade said shortly. “Is anyone in position yet?”
“Not yet. The palace is deserted. He has his troops outside the districts.”
“Mm. Probably not his.” There was a very long pause. “I have to go. Don’t move anyone. Pallas has a horse in this race you haven’t accounted for yet. I don’t know what his game is, but it’s an even bet those troops are his.”
Talon sucked in his breath.
“Williams.”
“Is Io still safe?” Samara’s voice took over.
“Yes.”
“Then we’ll meet you there.” The line cut and Aryn looked over at the shadowy bulk of Hanin as if she might see, even from kilometers distant, two figures making their way over the high walls.
He was alive. Cade was really, truly alive—and with Samara. Aryn felt her shoulders slump in relief.
“Come on. We have to get back. We’ve got a few kilometers to cover before dawn.” Talon started down the mountain, drawing his weapon, and Nyx took up the rear.
“You never rest, do you?” Aryn asked quietly.
“Should we?” Nyx sounded amused.
“No. I guess…I guess not. You’re just not like people I’ve met before.” Aryn hopped over a boulder, taking Talon’s proffered hand to steady herself as she landed. “You pick a direction and you go. No regrets. No looking back. Are all soldiers like that?”
“You were in the resistance.” Talon smiled down at her.
“The resistance isn’t really soldiers,” Aryn countered.
“True enough.” Talon considered. “I guess you could say most Dragons are like that. Cade wasn’t, of course.”
“What do you mean, of course?” She frowned over at him.
“Well, after getting out like that. He was never a man who could kill without thinking twice. It’s why he made the vow.”
Nyx’s warning tut came a second too late. Aryn stopped, looking between the two of them.
“What vow?”
Talon stopped as well, his face suddenly grave.
“I thought you knew. It’s…not my place to say, maybe.”
“Talon. If he told all of you—”
Talon and Nyx looked at one another, and after a moment, Nyx shrugged.
“It’s, ah…nothing big.” Talon managed a smile that looked more like a grimace. He sighed when he saw Aryn’s face. “He got out of the game. You must have guessed that much. He said he couldn’t take another life.” Appreciation sounded in his voice. “And he’s the only one to say that, that I know, who kept his word.” His half-smile faded as he looked at Aryn. “What? What’s wrong?”
She didn’t want to say it. Guilt was worming, cold, in her chest.
“He broke his vow,” Aryn said, her voice very small. “Because of me.”
Chapter 35
They got back to the bunkers as the sky first lightened in the north, a pale glow that hastened their footsteps and began the low thrum of awareness in Cade’s veins. They raced the fleeing pools of shadow along the streets and only just made it to the door entrance of the tunnel as the district stirred to life behind them. An alarm si
gnaled the shift change with a mechanical blare, and Samara cast one look over her shoulder, her face mask-like. Everything here spoke of the Warlord, from the soldiers that were beginning to swarm the streets, to the bowed heads of the workers on their way to the mines.
They had to hurry not to be spotted in any of the tunnels. A roar of machinery sounded deep below, humming through the rock and up through their boots, and the steady tramp of feet nearby, and the low murmur of greetings, told them that the workers were passing in the halls, some exhausted, others awaiting the coming hours with dread. Samara herself had her shoulders hunched, and Cade could see the tension in her head as she kept herself from looking at the wall, as if to see through the walk to the people nearby.
The heat grew as they descended, and sweat ran in rivulets, stinging in the cuts along his side. He winced as they ducked and wove around tumbled rocks, Samara effortlessly finding her way through what looked like dead ends.
When at last they broke into the bunker, Cade stretched up to his full height once more, feeling tension melt away. He hated being stuck in small spaces, curling his spine to accommodate what were already low ceilings for people much shorter than he was. Although the bunker was small, he could at least stand up straight, and the ceiling disappeared into shadow above the low red emergency lights, creating the illusion of space, if not a reality.
“Are we in the right bunker?”
“They’re just not back yet.” Samara pointed to a low bench. “Sit.” A small industrial lamp came on in a blaze of light. “We should make sure everything’s staying patched up. Whoever helped you out last time didn’t do a very good job.” She looked around for a medical kit.
“That was on purpose.” Cade stripped off his shirt and sat, watching her unpack supplies. They were cheap, antibacterial wipes and cloth bandages, meant to let the body heal at its own pace. A few syringes and bottles pointed to slightly more advanced technology, but there was little there. “Are you sure you can spare this?”
“Tomorrow’s the day, isn’t it?” Samara managed a lopsided smile. “No use keeping this back. Lift your arm.”
He complied, watching as she cleaned the cuts and scrapes along his side. He tried not to wince as her fingers probed gently along each rib.
“Those are healing clean, at least. And how’s your head?”
“Much better.” He shuddered at the memory. “I don’t recommend the experience, though.”
“Probably not any of it,” Samara said, flashing a smile up at him. She bit her lip. “I probably shouldn’t laugh about it.”
“No, you should,” Cade assured her. He let his breath out slowly, closing his eyes as her fingers found another cut. “It is funny, isn’t it? I mean, really funny. Here I was, saying I’d never go back, and in the space of a month…”
“In the space of a month…?” she prompted.
“God, I was stupid. I saw it happening. I kept telling myself that Ellian was throwing us together, that it was like he wanted us to fall in love. And it never even occurred to me to believe what I was seeing.”
“That’s what happened?” She sat back on her heels, looking up at him. “Why?”
“He was beginning to fall in love with Aryn,” Cade said. He could not keep the note of disbelief from his voice. “And so he said he had to know if he could trust her. And he played us like chess pieces. I wonder…”
“What?” Samara asked softly. She pushed up the legs of his pants and examined his legs and his feet, beginning to clean the cuts there.
“If it was real,” Cade said finally. The words shocked him into silence and he sat frozen as Samara finished her work and put his foot down gently. Instead of starting on his other side, she came to sit beside him.
“May I say something?”
He looked over at her wordlessly.
“Aryn was my best friend,” Samara told him. “I nearly lost her over the last two years. I watched her fade away, and I told myself that nothing was wrong, that she was safe, whatever that meant. I told myself I’d done the right thing by not telling her who Ellian was, but all the time, I knew she was bound to figure it out, and every day it seemed like she got a little farther away. It seems melodramatic to say she was dying, but sometimes I was afraid she was. I just didn’t know how to help.
“And then, a few weeks ago, it was like she came alive. It wasn’t happiness. She wasn’t…” Samara looked away. “If anything, that was when she realized just how trapped she was. She was scared, and she was alone, and she was sad. But she was alive again. I didn’t understand until I saw her get off that ship.” Her voice dropped. “Until I saw her look at you,” she finished quietly.
Words were frozen on his tongue; there were so many questions he wanted to ask that they drowned one another out until he was left with his mind in a whirl of half-questions, and nothing to say.
“So when you say you wonder whether it’s real or not,” Samara told him, “I know half of the answer. It’s real for her. Is it real for you?”
“He threw us together.” Cade’s voice was bitter. He looked away. “It was a setup. It was…”
“Do you love her?”
“Yes!” The word burst out of him and he sank his head into his hands. “I loved her before I even saw her face. She was standing, staring out at the city, and she was scared and sad, but she was trying to be so brave…” He tried to find the words. “And I hated her. I could see she was lying to Ellian, playing a part. I thought—well, I thought he didn’t know. I felt sorry for him.”
He was going to be sick at the memory.
“But you didn’t give up on her.”
“How could I?” Cade asked her finally. He looked over into her brown eyes, gleaming faintly in the white light. “I tried. I really, honestly tried to hate her.”
To his surprise, Samara laughed. The sound was crystalline and perfect, unbroken by her years in the mines.
“And I’ll bet she helped. Aryn always tried to keep people at arm’s length. It’s a strange thing, in someone who…” She shrugged, hunching her shoulders as she thought. “Who cares as much as she does, I guess.”
“How did it happen?” he asked her suddenly. “Her, and Ellian.” He almost did not want to know, and yet he had to.
“He saw her at the market,” Samara said shortly. “Everyone noticed before she did. She was with Nura, buying grain, and Ellian was stopped in the middle of the street, just staring at her.”
Something in her voice was wrong, broken. Cade took in the set of her shoulders, her eyes.
“What is it?”
“I was the one who told her to go,” Samara whispered. “She wasn’t sure she could love him. She told him that, said she didn’t know him. It was sensible, wasn’t it? He was offering too much, everyone could see it, that she’d be a trophy wife. Her parents were too nice to push her to do it, even though they had everything to gain, and so it had to be me. I was the one who persuaded her.”
“Why?”
“So she’d get out!” Samara’s voice rose. She shook her head, turning her face away. “You don’t know what it’s like, watching your friends die like this. You think it’s a terrible life, not having love, but at least she would be alive. That was what I told myself. And because of who I was…she believed me.”
“Who you were?” Cade looked over at her, and Samara looked down at her lap, shrugging her shoulders.
“It wasn’t…well, I suppose it wasn’t much of anything to her. I mean, it couldn’t be nothing, she’s too sweet for that, but…”
Cade blinked. He could make neither head nor tail of this. When her head came up, he met her eyes.
“Aryn and I were lovers,” Samara said finally.
It fell into place and Cade felt his mouth fall open.
“I’m so—”
“You don’t have to be sorry.” She looked straight ahead, letting her breath out slowly, then looked over and met his gaze, clear-eyed. “I mean it. You don’t. She’s in love with you, I can se
e that. And you…they said one of the first things you did down in the mine was ask for her. That you were saying her name in your sleep.”
He sank his head into his hands. He should not say this, not to Samara, but he could not keep the words back.
“We were going to run away together,” he said quietly. “Right before the Warlord took her.”
“Cade.” She looked over at him. Footsteps were echoing down the passageway, and she dropped her voice. “You still can. Take her, and go. Build a life together, far from here. Get her out before the fighting starts.”
“She’s not going to leave before this is finished, if that’s what you’re hoping.”
“She’s stubborn.” Samara gave a little laugh. “And I think you’re a lot like her. You aren’t going to leave the people you love to fight alone. But please, for all of us—do what you can to keep her safe. I know it’s not my place to ask—I’m the one who got her into the rebellion. And I know she’s bound to try to do something heroic. Just try. Don’t give up on her.”
“Never.” Cade looked over. “It isn’t that that worries me.”
“Then what?” She cast a quick glance at the door. Talon’s voice was carrying toward them, low and urgent.
“The Aryn you know,” Cade told her quietly, “is honorable, and kind, and beautiful, and…”
“And?” She hesitated, then reached out to take his hand tentatively.
“And I’m a killer,” Cade said bluntly.
Chapter 36
Aryn ground her teeth in frustration. If Talon didn’t hurry up, she was going to climb over him to get down the hallway. He was between her and Cade, and he was moving at the pace of a diseased, drunken sloth—while she could hear Cade’s voice, and Samara’s echoing softly up the corridor. She couldn’t make out what was being said. She just knew he was alive, and awake, and she had to get to him. She very nearly shoved Talon down the half flight of stairs as he walked down them with Nyx, into the expanse of the bunker.
Cade stood when he saw her, and world stopped moving. For a moment, she could see nothing beyond him, the familiar bulk of his tall frame, green eyes shining faintly in the light, and—she drew in her breath sharply—bruises vivid on his skin.
Dragon's Honor (The Dragon Corps Series Book 1) Page 20