“His name is Halah,” Elan said.
Isolde went and picked the gun up from the table. It was smaller than any gun Elan had seen before, but it looked sturdy and well made. Isolde handled it like an expert and ejected a magazine of bullets. She picked up a bullet with a copper tip and studied it. Her long, nimble fingers twisted it and held it to the light.
“He modified the gun. The bullet is the same as what we use for maximum damage, when we shoot to kill. The bullet explodes into fragments and tears up your insides. The fragments are too small on the off chance you don’t die right away. It would be impossible for a surgeon to remove all of them and save your life, even with the medical training we have on Avala. The chamber in this gun is different and using a different kind of firing mechanism. He can unload more bullets into a person with this gun because it fires faster and it’s designed to hold more bullets. It’s also a lot easier to reload.
“The tracking chip he designed was clunky and sloppy. It’s visible from underneath the skin. Maybe his heart wasn’t in it, but he was serious about this weapon. Ours are made from carbon, which you don’t have here, but he was still able to make it and make it deadlier. We need to find where he was working to see if he’s working on other designs.”
“He’s moved it,” Ace pointed out. “If he’s been locked somewhere working on this, we know someone let him out. The kid wasn’t fleeing just to get out. He was moving with purpose. He had somewhere he was going. I have a feeling he didn’t end up at the creek just to lose us. There’s somewhere in the forest they must all be staying.”
“And our bond animals know exactly where too!” Isolde snapped.
“It’s just another test,” Elan said, wrapping his arms around her waist. “They don’t have fire or ice and they are only immune to some of us. We’ll come up with a plan together, like we always do.”
“How are we supposed to start asking around with the trials for The Children going on? People are going to think we are going after their kids and they all know it was only adults at the temple.”
“Hey, we have time. You make your guns with machines, right? You told me almost everything is made by machines. We make everything by hand, even our weapons. It normally takes a weapons trained blacksmith two days to make a proper gun and they have access to a forge and materials. Hikmat intended Halah to teach his military recruits to do this and they would have bring in a blacksmith. How is Halah going to get a forge and materials in the forest, even with a god on his side? The god couldn’t give him fire and Halah’s immunity to us depended on our bond.”
“Someone needs to start telling us exactly what our bond did. We set the moon on fire, I got pregnant despite my pills, and some gods who hate us, we apparently gifted their creations,” Isolde grumbled.
“Let’s table Halah for now,” Elan said. “We can start search teams in the morning, just make sure they have armor on. We—”
“Those are armor piercing bullets!”
“Let’s all retire for the night and regroup in the morning,” Elan suggested. Isolde was upset and he wanted to get her alone.
She stormed out the door before everyone and was already in his chambers before he arrived, but he couldn’t find her. He called her name and when she responded, it sounded like it was coming from the hot springs. She was already submerged with a glass of red wine. He undressed and joined her.
He put his arm around her. “You know, we do have ale here. I heard you say you prefer it to wine. I could send for some.”
“I can’t get drunk right now. I just want to take the edge off. Red wine is supposed to be safe in moderation.”
“Do you regret the bond, Isolde? Some of the things you were saying….” When she started talking, it sounded like she didn’t want to be pregnant and if it meant not gifting Halah, she wouldn’t have done it.
Her face softened and she slid into his lap. She kissed him gently. “Never. We were just told the bond was us and I keep finding out we did so many things neither of us expected. I’m worried Halah and the others have been told about our babies. They probably already want me dead, but they definitely want our children dead. And I can’t hear any of them to warn me when they come for me.”
“You’re forgetting something, love. They can’t come for us and if they do, we’ll spot them right away with those caps on. If they don’t have the caps on, my people are going to see their hair coming in that shade of blood and think something is wrong with them.”
“You’re forgetting something. Tati and Soelva haven’t exactly been honest with us. We know they are immune to some of us, but what else did we do to them the night we bonded besides giving them immunity and making their hair red?”
“Tati must have told me more than Soelva told you. She said they’ve always been wild and very intelligent. The gods that created them weren’t strong enough to make them like us. They made them smart, unpredictable, and immune to those of us that can attack them unseen or get into their heads. If your ice still works, then my gift might too.”
“Why didn’t you use yours when you saw the gun?”
“I did. You didn’t notice? I moved it under the table. I was going to throw something at his head, but it was already too late. Once he saw the gun was out of reach, he scrambled out the room. How did you know about the food?”
She rested her head on his shoulder and he could feel her heartbeat was still rapidly pounding. “I didn’t at first. I just knew someone in the room was acting strangely and they just brought it in. He looked wild and he wouldn’t look at me at all. I’ve never seen any of your people in a cap before.”
“They wear them as children, but never past the age of ten or so. That’s why they’ll all be easy to spot.”
“I suppose we should call Fjola if someone hasn’t by now,” Isolde sighed.
Elan kissed her forehead. “You should probably put some clothes on.”
She grumbled, but she climbed out the pool and put her robe on. They snuggled into bed and dialed her. It looked like they woke her up and Viljar was next to her in bed. Isolde stiffened in his arms, even though she had already said numerous times she didn’t care who shared her mother’s bed.
“I already know about what happened,” Fjola said. Maybe this time, she would realize she needed to stick to facts where Isolde was concerned. “Sartika is working too. When she called me, Viljar was with me and we talked about the missing children reports we’ve been getting. We accessed the files and it’s about what she told me. Sixteen of them and they are all of the same age. They disappeared right around the time the water went clean. It’s probably the same on Cendis.”
“Who are they? Would I know them?”
“They are from all over. A few high born and few low. Some with parents in the military. Most of them were staying in the same asylum and escaped the same night. We don’t know if they are changing like the people Cendis. We need names to differentiate the good sixteen with the bad. There’s too many of you to call you by name and we only know the names of the ones on Avala. I’m not sure about Cendis yet.”
“We’ll work on that. Are there search teams?”
“At first light. Go to sleep, Isolde. It’s late and you need your rest.”
Isolde disconnected the COMM and tossed it at the foot of the bed. “You do need to sleep,” Elan said gently.
“I know,” she sighed. “But Fjola is right. We need a name to differentiate us and Soelva won’t tell me the right name of the gods responsible for all of this.”
“We can come up with a name like you did for Ragnis Crystal. It means something to both our people.”
“The Waljans for us? It’s an old English name that means chosen.”
“Perfect. Did you study the old earth Greek language? The Dysdaimons for the others. It means ill-starred. They should have picked their own cosmic event instead of hitching a ride on ours.”
Isolde started laughing, harder than she ever had since sh
e got there. When she finally settled down, she nestled her face into his neck. “I think it’s perfect. They’ll probably hate it too.”
Chapter 40
Sartika had enough on her hands with these Dysdaimon children without Fjola blowing up her COMM. Sartika knew she was worried about Isolde, but she had been watching the trials from her camera and should have seen the people were mostly on her side now. She was brilliant when Elan held his audience for questions. If someone put a question to her, she answered in a way that didn´t break her cover, but showed her as smart, charming, and funny. She was even winning over the high born and their daughters, who wanted Elan for themselves now that they saw him in better fitting clothes.
They still pressed forward with the trials and Stretch had taken point on any claims about missing children. They didn´t have asylums on Cendis like they did on Avala. They used to, but after people lost their gifts, Cendians thought the slightest signs of madness meant someone was cursed. If the person wasn’t burned, the family wanted to keep it a secret and kept them locked away so no one would find out.
They didn´t know if all of the Dysdaimon sixteen were like Halah and would have appeared mad to others, but only three sixteen-year-olds had claims they were missing. They were from all over the place and Stretch interviewed all three families. They were all too upset their child was missing for Stretch to tell if they were feeding him a story. They reported the children were very intelligent, but had seemed agitated and withdrawn before they disappeared.
They all ended up having to argue with Isolde, who wanted to go speak to the families herself so she could peek into their thoughts. She argued just because it wasn´t standard on Cendis that a queen would involve herself in a missing persons claim didn´t mean they couldn´t start now since they had already started changing things. Only Elan got her to back down by telling her as far as they knew, the families of the Dysdaimons were totally innocent. She would be getting their hopes up she was helping find them, then when they found out the truth about The Waljans and the Dysdaimons, they might think she blamed them.
Isolde saw the sense in that. There was already a huge risk the families of the Dysdaimons would join them if they were reunited. Right now, they were worried about thirty-two teenagers separated by stars and they only knew a few of their names. They knew all thirty-two of them were immune to some of the Waljans and would not be as easy to take down as The Children. It wouldn’t do if all thirty-two of them were joined by countless family members. Not with at least one of them with the ability to make weapons. None of them were immune to guns and Sartika had a feeling Isolde’s training on stopping one had to do with her ability to hear someone plotting to shoot her.
It had been five days since Halah tried to poison them and tried to pull his weapon. The trials were starting to wrap up and no one else had been burned. All of the people who got up to speak said they followed Hikmat because they were angry about losing their fire, but had no idea what his real intentions were. Most of them flat out begged to take the place of a slave and it seemed like the crowd was holding their breath hoping for that sentence too.
Hound’s suggestion was the right one, even if it did allow Halah to slip in with the new Cendians. The others wouldn’t be able to do that again because their hair or the caps would give them away. Apparently, The Waljans on both planets were now in the know and had been demanding more information from their bond animals and the bond animals were being tight-lipped. Sartika could see and hear it irritated everyone on Cendis and Fjola was telling her the same thing was happening on Avala.
Sartika had an idea she was shocked she hadn’t thought of before and no one else had. Jaka used to constantly talk about visions of an Avalian girl he was meant to marry and the bond animals had hinted they would all mix and bond, though it wouldn’t do what Isolde and Elan’s bond did. Galih said he could hardly get them to shut up long enough to concentrate on Hikmat after the moon caught fire because they were thinking about it. It was impersonal, but they should meet over COMM.
Aside from The Dysdaimons, things were winding down on Cendis and the truth would have to come out. They would have to start preparing to move to Ragnis Crystal and building there. Sartika saw with her own eyes how badly Elan and Isolde’s first meeting went. Maybe she could spare the rest of them that awkwardness and rage. She regretted barging in on Isolde and Elan’s alone time, but they would be eating dinner right now and not what she suspected they did when they were alone and not taking care of basic life necessities.
They were eating like they always did when she went into Elan’s chambers. Elan was sitting with his legs crossed on the floor pillow and Isolde was situated in his lap. They managed to find a way for both of them to eat and not get food all over them like this. She found it sweet and could never stop herself from staring at them when they were like that. Isolde just kept eating like she was used to constant interruptions by now, but Elan looked irritated.
“What is it, Mother?”
She saw why he was irritated. They were both nearly done eating and had started on the milky rice. Isolde either had it before and asked for it again or Elan had introduced it to her tonight. She looked like she was either enjoying it too much to be irritated with Sartika right now or she understood she had something important to say and would try to be quick. She finally looked up when Sartika started telling them her idea.
“I think that’s brilliant. I’ve been saying this entire time Elan and I should have been allowed to do that growing up. All of this could be going totally wrong right now because none of you thought that was a good idea.”
Elan at least tried to diffuse the situation. Sartika knew how much she loved him, but she was still angry at all of them for the lies. “Jaka will be happy to meet his dream girl. I think everyone will like that idea. I know you thought it was a bad idea for Isolde and me. I don’t know how, but I think that was Tati and Soelva’s doing.”
“They obviously don’t know everything,” Isolde grumped.
“Hey, it still worked out,” Sartika pointed out. “I love watching you with him and I want the rest of you to get off on the right foot. I’ll leave the two of you alone now.”
Sartika made a quick exit and called Fjola. She woke her up and Viljar was with her again. Sartika wondered if she would find love again on Ragnis Crystal when she would be allowed to remarry. Elan hadn’t made that change yet and there wasn’t anyone among the Cendians she would have picked for a mate. Maybe there was a strong Avalian she would fall in love with. She told Fjola and Viljar of her plans and asked if there were any new developments on the Dysdaimons.
Viljar ran his fingers through his black hair. The Avalian men didn’t wear their hair long like the Cendians. “It’ll be a relief for them to meet. Palina, she has visions. She’s always talking about a Cendian man she’s meant to meet. I could probably paint a portrait of him I’ve heard so much about him.”
“Is he on the short side with thick muscles?” Sartika asked, her mind immediately going to Jaka. She should have gotten Jaka on COMM to Avala sooner. He must have been talking about Palina this entire time.
“No, he’s tall and thin with a long nose. She calls him her beautiful string bean.”
“Eros?” Sartika squeaked. She had no idea what a string bean was, but he just described Eros perfectly. “Then who has Jaka been seeing? He’s been talking about a tiny Avalian girl with large green eyes and the body of a goddess for years.”
“Lusinda. That only describes her. She can predict what move any opponent will throw at her and is deadly in a fight. What can Eros do?”
“Put someone to sleep and control when they wake up. He can also make your dreams pleasant or horrible while he has you that way too.”
“The pairings make sense if you think about Isolde and Elan,” Viljar said. “Elan can hurt people with his mind while Isolde can get in unnoticed unless she wants to be. She faints if she takes it too far. The rest like her do too. I thin
k the ones who are weakened by their gifts are paired up with someone who can defend the both of them with their mind if needed. It just makes sense.”
Sartika smiled. “Isolde would tell you it was logical, then she would get furious because she doesn’t know who is moving these pieces and making these pairings.”
Fjola frowned. “I thought she was happy with Elan.”
“Oh, she is. They can’t even eat without touching each other. She liked the idea of everyone meeting over COMM too. I think it just hit her once she got here something or someone made her this way and has been guiding her path and testing her. She hates it and she wants answers none of us can give. The bond animals are telling them they aren’t ready for them yet.”
“Is she refusing to do her duty?”
“No, Fjola. She’s cooperating, but outspoken when she’s not happy about something. Elan is the only one who can calm her when she’s angry.”
Fjola found that funny. “Elan must have some other gifts besides moving things with his mind. Before she left, no one could calm her. She’d stomp off with her spear to kill something to calm down. Jovin refused to spar with her when she was angry.”
“I have no idea why, but Elan and Isolde seem to like beating up on each other. I haven’t seen any black eyes or broken noses, but I think that’s how they intend to settle arguments.”
“That’s between the two of them,” Fjola said. “If he’s into that, then he’s perfect for her. I’ve been watching her on that platform. As much as she complained about her lessons and tried to get out of them, she must have been paying more attention than I thought. If she addresses the Avalians the way she’s been talking to the Cendians, I think most of them will follow her. They already like her because she brings in food and that mouth of hers keeps people in line.”
“You said most? If they like her, why not all?” Sartika asked. She already knew even some of the Cendians that liked her wouldn’t come. Superstition was too deep. They may be angry about the lies or they might just be too afraid to leave.
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