Down Among the Dead

by K. B. Wagers

  I lifted my free hand and Hao relaxed, the others following suit. “I don’t know what to tell you. I just took the pain and tossed it back at him.”

  Aiz frowned but released me, shaking his head. “Mia is the only one I know who can do that. You shouldn’t be able to do it. Even I can’t—”

  “I know how to inflict pain, Aiz.” My laugh was sharp. “Human lives may be short, but we’re very good at hurting each other.”

  “So I am learning.” He patted me on the shoulder, but his look was still wary. “It was a good fight. You did well. Even if you did cheat.” He said the last bit looking in Hao’s direction.

  My brother met it with an innocent look.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I replied, my expression blank.

  “I understand what makes Po-Sin so nervous about the pair of you together,” Aiz replied with a shake of his head. “I suppose I should be grateful you’re on my side.”

  “You’re on mine,” I said.

  Aiz hummed in his throat and walked away, a small frown still marring his face, and I wondered just what it was about my strike on Hamah that bothered him.

  The days passed without further incident, and the last day before we headed for Faria dawned much the same as the others and slid quietly through its paces without much fanfare.

  I’d insisted Emmory and the others take the night off since I hadn’t any plans to go anywhere, and I sat in my room on base late that evening composing a letter to send to Adora while Mia spoke via com to several of the captains of the Shen fleet and what few Farians from Fasé’s contingent were joining us in the space above Faria.

  “I want the 3rd and 4th Fleets with engines hot and ready to jump the moment we get to Faria. The 1st and 2nd Fleets will follow us in but break off just shy of sensor range.” Mia highlighted the cutoff point with a sweep of her arm. “Aiz and I may be out of contact, but if you don’t hear anything else from us after we land, then you stick to the plan and hurt them as much as you can. Understood?”

  “Yes, Thína.” The woman on the other end of the com nodded sharply.

  “Good.” Mia smiled and tapped the back of her index finger to her forehead twice. “It is time. May the stars light your way home, Marcela. I hope we see each other again soon.”

  “The same to you.”

  Mia disconnected and looked over at me. “Are you done pretending not to eavesdrop?”

  I set my tablet down and grinned at her as I got to my feet. “Technically this is my room. If you didn’t want me listening you should have had that conversation elsewhere. Besides, we’re allies, aren’t we? I should probably know what your fleets are up to.”

  Mia didn’t move when I boxed her in against the desk, the smile peeking through just before I kissed her.

  “Allies, is that what we’re calling this?” She murmured against my mouth, her fingers digging into my hips and tugging me closer.

  “I don’t know what to call this, to be honest,” I confessed, pressing my forehead to hers.

  “It doesn’t need a name, does it?” she asked, staring up at me. The lights in my room reflected in her eyes, and Gita’s warning was an unwelcome thought in my head.

  Starstruck.

  Damned if I didn’t suddenly feel guilty.

  “Hail?” Mia caught me by the hand as I pulled away. “What is it? What’s the matter?”

  “I don’t know.” I shook my head, forced the words out. “I feel like I’m taking advantage of you.”

  She laughed, then stopped and stared. “Oh, you’re serious. Why?”

  I dragged both hands through my hair when she let me go. “I am more than just the Star of Indrana.”

  “Have I ever suggested otherwise?” There wasn’t any bite to her words but I flinched from them all the same. “Hail, I know you. What I feel for you doesn’t have anything to do with you being the Star. I know who you are.”

  You’re the person they all keep dying for.

  The voice in my head had been quiet since just after Aiz came on board, so the sudden and vengeful appearance of it was enough to make me curse out loud.

  “Hail.” Mia grabbed for me and pressed me down into the chair. “You are scaring me.”

  “I can’t be the one who gets you killed.” I blinked, scattering the tears that had gathered on my lashes.

  “What are you talking about?” She cupped my face in her hands. “Look at me. You are not getting anyone killed, least of all me.”

  “I wish I could—”

  “Star of Indrana, your brother sent me to fetch you. He wanted to speak with you about the ships. He’s in the hangar.”

  Mia let me go with a frustrated noise at the unfamiliar Farian who poked his head into the room. “We are busy,” she said.

  “No.” I pushed to my feet. “I’ll go see what he wants.”

  “Hail, he could wait.”

  He could, Hao would have understood, but I was being a coward and running. “I’ll be back.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  The Farian made a noise of protest even as I shook my head. “No,” I repeated, holding up a hand and backing for the door. “Just wait here, I’ll be right back.”

  I followed the Farian down the corridor and forced a smile when he stopped at the stairs leading down into the hangar. The whole area was quiet, everyone resting before we headed out for this final fight.

  “I’m sorry for interrupting you, ma’am.”

  “It’s fine.” I nodded at the gesture for me to go first and started down the stairs. I was going to have to face up to Mia, I knew that. She’d wait for me and all the words in my head were inevitably going to spill out because I could only manage—

  The hot pain radiated outward in a spiral as the knife drove deep into my back. My smati started in with the screaming warnings, but I didn’t need them to know I was in trouble and that my distraction had cost me. The Farian kicked me in the knee and sent me crashing down the steps, knocking the wind from my intact lung. I hit the ground and rolled to my feet, stumbling sideways before a hand grabbed me by the shirt.

  The Farian was gone; in his place Hamah grimly swung the knife down and the second blow landed in my upper right shoulder. He wrenched the knife out and swung again. My right arm refused to work and I barely got my left in the way of the knife, the blade slicing through flesh and scraping along bone.

  “Hamah, what—” I choked on the blood flooding my right lung.

  34

  You are an avedélcion,” he snarled in Shen. “You have corrupted our fight, infested our leaders with your division. They will not find you in time to bring you back.” He jerked the knife free with a gloved hand, dodged my kick, and grabbed me by the shirt again.

  I tried to brace myself, but he spun me around and slammed me into the wall of the secluded stairwell. It was the perfect attack point and I’d dropped my fucking guard for just long enough to give him the opening.

  I attempted another kick through the pain, heard him grunt, and felt another hot kiss of pain as he stabbed me in the back again.

  “I’m going to cut your throat, leave you down here. By the time they realize what’s happened it’ll be too late. You will be dead and gone and things will go back to the way they should be.”

  Somehow, I got my left hand up again and grabbed the knife, felt the blade bite into it as Hamah tried to drag it across my throat. I kicked behind me, connecting with something as I fought with the desperation of a doomed soul.

  Shouting flooded past my panic, and then the pressure on my throat vanished. I collapsed, facedown against the hangar floor, and for a moment the memory of cradling Portis’s bleeding body in my own ship flashed in front of my eyes.

  “Two stab wounds in her back. Left kidney is compromised. Lacerated right lung. Right brachial plexus is severed. Stab wound, left forearm—through and through. Left hand—no, Hail, come on—” Emmory’s voice started to fade as the world grayed out around me. “Hail, stay with me,�
� he murmured in my ear. “I’m turning you over, Fasé is almost here.”

  I wished I’d blacked out from the pain, but sadly my training with Aiz had lifted that threshold a lot higher and so I was awake for every excruciating second of Emmory carefully rolling me onto my back.

  I tried to say something comforting, but the blood still pouring into my lung made it impossible and I felt Emmory’s hands in my hair as he turned my head so the blood sprayed to the side as it left my mouth.

  “Are you tired of being drenched in blood yet?” Fasé demanded when she lowered herself to my side. I managed to flip her off with my blood-coated left hand and felt Emmory’s hands tense against my head.

  “Just fix her, Fasé, save the commentary for later,” he ordered.

  Fasé pressed one hand to my chest and the other to my stomach. It had been a while since she’d healed me. The feeling was distinctly different from the Shen, but I suspected if I had a different Farian put their hands on me I wouldn’t feel that same tinge of wildness. Still, it was so much gentler than I was used to, a soothing wave wiping out the worst of the pain in one pass.

  “What the fuck happened?” Aiz demanded, and Zin gave an indistinct reply.

  “Hail!” Mia dropped down next to us but didn’t touch me; instead she put a hand on Fasé’s and closed her eyes. Fasé shuddered, the energy inside me changed, and I squeezed my eyes shut as I dragged in a full breath.

  There was more shouting as Hao, Gita, and Johar clattered down the stairs, more voices added to the cacophony in my head.

  “Don’t move just yet,” Fasé murmured when I tried to sit up.

  Mia reached across Fasé with her other hand, touching my throat with the tips of her fingers. “Good, Fasé. You got the blood out of her lungs, too. You’re getting better.”

  “How do you do that?”

  Mia smiled. “I’ll explain it to you later when you’re not lying bloodied on the floor.” She glanced over her shoulder, and her smile vanished. “Where is the Farian who—”

  “It was Hamah.” I hated the pain in her eyes.

  “Hamah did this?”

  “Yes. He was ranting about me corrupting you, diverting the cause.”

  Mia hissed a curse in Shen and got to her feet. Gita took her place and I closed my fingers around her outstretched hand.

  “I’m all right.” I met Hao’s look over Gita’s shoulder and he gave me a sharp nod. “Help me up.” I patted Emmory’s arm. He nodded and with Gita’s help got me on my feet. She slipped easily against my side, her arm wrapped around my waist.

  “What happened?” Johar asked.

  “Hamah led her down here and attacked her,” Emmory said. “If the warnings on her bios hadn’t gone off—” He cut himself off, shaking his head when I looked at him with a frown.

  Hao snarled a curse in the air and put his hand on his gun. I lunged, snagging him by the arm, and would have fallen with the movement had Gita and Emmory not caught me. “No, Hao. It’s not our place. Let Aiz handle it.”

  Hamah was on the floor, his hands bound behind his back and his head hanging low. Aiz whispered furiously with Mia, both Shen wearing dark looks. Zin stood with his gun in his hand, pointed at Hamah’s head. He looked briefly away, caught my eye, and raised an eyebrow in silent question.

  I nodded, leaning on Gita, still holding on to Hao, who’d stepped closer to my side. My legs weren’t quite interested in supporting me yet, it seemed.

  “Hail.” Aiz broke away from the conversation with Mia and touched my shoulder.

  “I’m all right.”

  He frowned in response and slid his fingers through the quickly cooling blood. The curse he spat out was in Shen, the same words I couldn’t understand from Mia. “Mia, this ends here. I’m sorry.”

  Mia’s eyes widened when Aiz crossed to Hamah, grabbing him by the chin with his clean hand and drawing three bloody stripes across the Shen’s cheek.

  “The depths of this betrayal, Hamah. You attacked the Star. For what?” Aiz fisted his hand, looking for all the world like he wanted to strike out and was only stopped by a thin thread of sanity. “Are you kataespier?”

  “No. I am not a spy for the Farians. I am loyal to the cause,” Hamah replied with defiance in his eyes. “She brought chaos to us, Aiz. You have been blinded to it, to the damage she does. She puts everything you have worked for in danger, but you refuse to see! She has corrupted Mia, made her doubt the righteousness of our course. She’s corrupted you! You have lost your conviction. You are willing to sit with those bastard Farians and negotiate.” He spit the word into the air. “They will betray us all and it will be the end of everything we have worked for all these long years.”

  “You assume so much, Hamah. How dare you?” Mia hissed, and Aiz held up a hand, stopping her when she advanced on Hamah.

  “What do you know of the future that my sister does not?” Aiz’s mouth thinned when Hamah blinked at him in shock. “Nothing. You don’t have the gift of sight, Hamah, and you cannot protect her from the end of this. None of us can, only the Star. Mia and I will do what we have always done—make the best decision for our people that we can. What we may feel personally has little bearing on those decisions. You attacked the Star. Do you realize what would have happened if you had killed her? You almost brought ruin down on us all with your arrogance.”

  “Aiz—”

  “Enough.” The snap of Aiz’s command cut into the air. “How many others believe as you do?”

  “None.”

  “You could have at least given me that truth.” Aiz sighed in disgust. “I once would have trusted you with my life; now I can’t trust a single word you say.” Aiz held out his hand, and Talos moved in, handing over an empty hourglass. It was no larger than a handgun, the surface etched with something, and I saw the fear chase itself across Hamah’s face when he read the inscription.

  “For this, you have thrown everything away.” Aiz shook his head. “You will not see our triumph. You will likely see nothing ever again.”

  Hamah’s face crumpled. “I am sorry. Mia, please don’t. I will—”

  Aiz slapped a hand to his mouth. “Enough. You are done. You are undone. No death. Only an eternity locked in here.” He waved the hourglass in Hamah’s eyeline. “It was your choice. Your consequence.”

  Aiz pulled his hand away, making a fist as he did, and a pale smoke came with it. It wasn’t quite silver, and was filled with lights much like the fireflies of Hagan dancing over the summer fields of gray wheat.

  I realized with gut-clenching terror that it was Hamah’s soul.

  “Holy Shiva, protect us,” Emmory whispered, his arm tightening around me. Zin watched from the other side of Hamah, his gray-green eyes wide with shock.

  Aiz wrapped the smoke around his fist. Hamah convulsed, his eyes rolling back in his head until the last thread came loose, and his body fell to the floor. Aiz put the base of the hourglass into his palm, closing his fingers around it, and the smoke dissolved into it, pulsing frantically.

  “Talos, pitch that detritus out into the desert,” Aiz said, nudging the body with his boot. He looked me over, jaw tight. “How did he get the drop on you?”

  “I was distracted. And I let my damn guard down.” I shot Aiz a rueful smile. “Thought I was among friends, or at least people who weren’t going to kill me. First stab hit me in the lung. It went downhill after that.”

  “You should be more careful. We will be in my room, mourning our friend. Then we will see if he was telling the truth about the others.” With that parting shot, he turned on his heel and headed for the stairs with Mia, the other Shen trailing after them.

  “Let’s get you cleaned up,” Emmory said. “Fasé, have you got this?”

  “Go. We’ll have someone come down and clean it out,” she replied with a wave of her hand. Gita and Jo were in quiet conversation as we left. Hao released me and joined them, staring at the pool of blood on the floor with a hand over his mouth.

  Zin closed a h
and around my upper arm as we headed across the bay, and I smiled at him. “Sorry I interrupted your night off. Thanks for saving my ass.”

  “Any time.” He pointed at his husband. “You know we’re never really off duty, Hail.”

  “What in the fires of Naraka did Aiz mean by ‘no one can protect Mia’?” I muttered as we made our way up the stairs.

  “I don’t know,” Emmory replied. “That’s a question you’re going to have to ask her.”

  “I guess so.” I sighed and leaned on him. “Shiva, I’m tired.”

  “Please stop getting killed, Hail. It’s hard on my blood pressure.”

  “I swear I’m not doing it intentionally,” I said, looking down at my blood-soaked clothes with a sigh when we reached my room. “Fasé wasn’t wrong, you know? I’m getting pretty tired of this, too.”

  “I wish I could tell you we’re done with it.” Zin let me go at the bathroom door.

  “Yeah, me, too.” I patted his face, slipped out of Emmory’s grasp, and closed the door behind me.

  35

  Fasé was in my room, equally clean, when I emerged from the bathroom fifteen minutes later. Emmory and Zin were standing at the doorway and I knew we were back to guards on my door full time whether I liked it or not.

  “Fasé.” I gave her a nod as I finished squeezing the water out of my hair into the towel.

  “We need to talk.” Fasé folded her hands and shook them at me. “I am sorry about earlier, Hail. And about everything.”

  I blinked at her, too stunned to even say anything sarcastic.

  “Sorry for what you went through. Sorry my words weren’t better when you rejoined us. I could blame my inexperience on my reaction, but we both know the truth is I am as uncompromising as you. That’s what got us into this mess in the first place, after all.”

  The apology threw me, but I knew how much it had taken Fasé to make it in the first place, so I dipped my head in acknowledgment. “I am sorry, too. For not listening to you better.”

  “Are you ready to listen now?”

  “Yes. Why, though? Why are you apologizing now?”