by Queen, Nyna
The reasonable side of him wanted her to stay back and sit this one out. Then again, Alex wasn’t exactly the staying at home kind of woman. Keeping her away from the action was like caging a bird of prey ‘for its own good’, and Darken had too much experience with these types of cages to become her benevolent captor. Someone like Alex was meant to fly and fight her own battles, no matter how much every fiber of his being wanted to keep her safe.
And the truth was, he wanted to watch her employ her shaper skills again. When they had been together in the Scarlet Mountains, hunting for the wild shaper pack, everything went smooth as silk—well, up to the point when their madwoman of a leader declared them dinner, at least. But even then they had come out alive and mostly unscathed. They made a good team, he and Alex, it was a simple fact. Remembering her moving through the forest with a sleek, alert grace sent a prickling shiver of excitement along his nerves, sweetened with admiration and longing.
Of course, she was also stubborn, impulsive and reckless in every facet of the word.
Says the man who pitches occupied cars from motorway bridges? Alex’s voice tantalized him from the recesses of his memory.
There was the pot calling the kettle black.
Yes, Alex was reckless, but at the same time she was smart, resourceful and cunning. Although she would deny it, she had a moral compass and always tried to do the right thing. And he was dying to see her in action again.
A beam of moonlight broke through the drifting clouds, reflecting from solid black eyes not five feet from him.
Darken’s hand jerked toward his sword, pulling it halfway out of its scabbard before he realized it was Alex.
Mother’s mercy and Jester’s grace! And the Blind Child’s cursed eyes in the dark! If the moon hadn’t chosen to blink through the cloud cover at that moment, he might never have known she was there.
Alex let out a soft, silvery laugh as she stepped from the shadows between the trees, her pale face and blond braid seemingly floating bodiless in the darkness around her.
“Jumpy, aren’t we? Expecting an attack, Forfeit?”
The wind carried over her scent, a floral note of jasmine from the perfume she’d worn this afternoon mixed with a hint of feminine sweat from the run, and something so specifically Alex—both sweet and sharp and slightly musky—it unleashed a stream of lava into his blood, burning through his veins and setting his loins on fire. Need almost swept him of his feet.
Darken clenched his jaw and curled his hands into fists. They were on a mission, for heaven’s sake!
Moving with iron control, Darken sheathed his sword and forced himself to relax back against the wall of the shelter, crossing one foot over the other.
“Actually, I was getting worried about you. What took you so long? I thought you might have gotten lost.”
A sharp smile parted Alex’s lips like the flash of a knife’s blade. She rocked forward on her toes. “Lies! I’m almost half an hour before our scheduled meeting time.”
Darken lifted a surprised eyebrow. “How do you know?”
“Shaper, remember?” She tapped her temple with one finger. “We have an extremely good sense of time, like an internal clock, especially with the help of the sun and moon. Speaking of which”—she nodded up at the sky which was a ragged puzzle of clouds and blinking stars—“we only have a few short hours until dawn. If I want to be back at the Canterbury Estate before sunrise, we should get moving.”
Darken cocked his head to the side. “You seem quite eager for someone who just ran over thirty miles.”
“Oh, that! Phst!” Alex waved a hand. “Not worth mentioning. Please, don’t make any concessions on my behalf, I’m all good to go. Unless, of course, you need some more time to rest your royal footsies from your journey?”
A honey pie would have wilted in comparison to the sweetness in her voice.
Darken locked his teeth and performed a slightly stiff bow. “I’ve only been waiting for you, milady.”
Reaching into his equipment bag, he extracted the small container holding the night lenses.
“I don’t suppose you need these?”
Alex shook her head. “Being a shaper does have its perks. Enhanced night vision is one of them. No tech-stuff I’ve seen compares to that. I was once forced to use halfborn night vision goggles to keep up my cover. Horrible.” She shuddered stagily.
Darken grunted and removed one of the lenses, carefully putting it into his right eye. Magic stung him, much like the brain frost you get after biting into something too cold. He grimaced and swayed a little when it hooked onto the visual nerve. As the pain eased after a second, the night blossomed with light and colors as though someone had pressed a light switch in the sky.
Darken inserted the second lens. Their charge would hold for about three to five hours. They were among the finer gadgets of the Order, and he always made sure to have some in his private stock.
When his night vision was fully functional, Darken secured the pack on his back, checked his sword, and nodded at Alex.
“Let’s move.”
Time to find out the truth behind Maria P. Carvalis, and why Blayde had hemmed and hawed instead of simply coming out with the desired information.
Darken set out to follow a small game path leading up the mountain between tall, straight pines and deep-green firs, Alex a silent shadow behind him, moving with absolutely no sound as though her feet weren’t even touching the ground.
Even at night, it was striking how vastly different these mountains were from the Scarlet Mountains he and Alex had visited together. Instead of the light maple groves and meadows glowing with red and green, craggy rocks protruded through the ground like the bones of long forgotten creatures buried underneath the soil. The thick needle-leaf forest encroached on them so densely, they couldn’t see farther than a couple of feet into the underbrush, nor would they be able to pick their way through it without getting completely scratched. A thick carpet of brown pine needles covered the ground, cushioning their steps.
Many glowing eyes glared at them out of the shadows, but the night hunters kept their distance from them, sensing two focused predators on the prowl.
Pushing a couple of branches out of their way, Darken glanced at Alex. “You heard what Belaris said about Maria P. Carvalis,” he said lowly, while keeping an eye on the route. “That it is supposed to be a decommissioned prison camp from the old war times?”
He waited for her nod of confirmation. According to Belaris’ findings, the Maria P. Carvalis Prison Camp and the land it was built on had belonged to Tharsis before and during the war. They had operated a gem mine on the premise, using criminals and war prisoners as slave labor for the dangerous and toiling mining activities. The transfer of the territory to Arcadia—as well as the decommission of the prison camp—had been part of the Peace Treaty Prime Gerald had negotiated with Tharsis’ ruler.
“I did a little more digging today. If the official documents are to be believed, the camp was shut down about a year after the end of the war, just as agreed. The place is far off the beaten track and deep inside a military prohibited area. All we should find is a decomposed ruin and perhaps some animals nesting there. However, since the Master’s activities are somehow linked to the place, I believe it is a safe assumption that it won’t be all we will find there.”
“And you figured that out all by yourself?” Alex made big eyes at him. “I declare, I’m impressed.”
Impossible woman! Darken gave her a long look. “My point is, when we went up into the Scarlet Mountains to look for the wild shaper pack, I deferred to your superior experience. You possessed the greater knowledge with regard to the situation, and I accepted your lead. Now we’re about to walk into a former war zone in the border region to Tharsis and are bound to run into some nasty surprises. This is my field of expertise, and I expect you to do the same.”
“Anything else you expect of me, your royal highness?”
“Alex!”
“Oh,
alright, alright, Captain Grump.” She snapped off a jaunty two-fingered salute. “I promise to follow your command.”
Darken growled. Sure she would—as long as she thought his orders were reasonable. If she didn’t … well, he’d deal with it when the moment came. And somehow he had a feeling it would come. As sure as night follows day. Alexis Harper wasn’t one to follow orders. Then again, neither was he.
In front of them, the path forked, one arm getting lost in the gloom between the trees while the other ended in a clump of scrubby grass that clung to the base of the twisted ruin of a massive barbed wire fence. It extended in both directions, cutting through the forest, an ugly metal choker around the neck of the mountain.
About twenty yards down to their right, a fallen tree had torn a glaring hole into the wire. Greens had spilled through the hole and vines were creeping along the fence from there. Here, in the heart of the wood, nature claimed back what wasn’t quickly maintained.
As they moved toward the hole, they passed a rusty sign dangling from one hinge. Battered and scratched, it spelled in barely legible red letters,
“Keep out! Mined-land! High danger zone!”
Any normal person would have stopped and contemplated the wisdom of begetting themselves into such a place, or at least hesitated for a second.
Not the spider.
“Inviting,” she murmured and stepped through the hole without breaking her stride.
Darken shook his head and followed her.
THE area beyond the fence was mostly bare of tress and climbed upward in a lumpy expanse of dry grass and rocks.
“We have to be very careful now,” Darken said as he caught up with Alex while fishing the residue scanner from the inside of his pack. “At the peak of the war, this whole area was heavily larded with magic land mines. We’re walking on shaky ground now, quite literally.”
Using a spark of magic, he activated the magic scanner rod in his hand.
Alex blinked. “The war has been over for more than a decade. Why hasn’t the area been cleaned up by now?”
Darken bared his teeth in a malicious grin. “Oh, they certainly did try. Proved a lot more difficult than they imagined it would be. You see, the mines are designed to not be easily tracked with magic scanners, or else they wouldn’t have been very effective in their purpose, would they? Powerful close-range scanners such as this one”—he patted the silver rod in his hand—“will give a screech, but only at a very close distance. If the mine is buried deeply enough in the soil, it might only react when you’ve already stepped on it.”
Alex rolled her eyes. “That’s what happens when the deadly potential of a government’s weapons exceeds their brains. Did nobody ever consider how to remove these things after the war before throwing them out there?”
Darken shook his head. “No. That’s not how wars are fought. People hardly tend to think about the time after. When they started the clean-up campaign, they lost so many soldiers to accidental blow-ups they eventually decided it wasn’t worth the cost. So they fenced in the most heavily riddled areas and left them be.”
Darken held out the rod, pointed it diagonally to the ground and slowly moved forward, placing his feet very gently. To test its function, he approached a suspicious mound of earth. When he was about a feet and a half away from it, the rod vibrated against his palm and a red dot ignited at its tip. Marvelous. A scope of about one or two small steps. He’d hoped for a better output, but there was nothing to be done about it. They would just have to move very, very slowly.
Alex snorted. “That’s just so trueborn! If your people don’t want to deal with something, you just build a wall around your problems and hope they vanish.”
Darken bristled. “That’s a preposterous allegation!”
Alex just looked at him. “I only say ‘Gomorrah’.”
Alright. She had a point.
“As fondly as I remember that rotten hive of a city, I’d rather hear about the Flora Canis Rae. Did you enjoy the parade?”
Alex snorted again. “I’m afraid my horse felt a bit too much like a steak pricked with a fork while I was on its back. In the end, I wasn't sure who wanted to get rid of the other one more.”
Darken chuckled softly. “You make a garden festival sound like a right ordeal.”
“Next time, I go sneaking through the mountains while you put on the dress and get bossed around by your niece and your mother. Then we talk about ordeals.”
Ah, she was riled so easily. She flipped her braid back over her shoulder, revealing that delicate spot right above her collarbone. The moonlight reflected on it, and Darken caught himself staring at it hungrily.
“Earth to Darken?”
He snapped back to reality. “Anything of interest on our suspects?”
Alex made a face. “Roukewood declined the invitation at the last moment. A family matter—allegedly.”
“A family matter?” Darken wrinkled his brow. “That seems a little hard to believe. The man doesn't have much family and, as far as I am aware, he barely speaks with what little he does.”
The rod vibrated, and Darken skirted around a subtle hill under the grass.
“My thoughts exactly,” Alex said. “Senator Devilier was there, though, doing his usual do-gooder act.” She made a face. “The guy has to have some kind of vice. Maybe he’s eating little children in his spare time and—” Alex suddenly held, eyes wide, and swore softly. “I almost forgot to tell you the most important news! I found the man who spoke to Governor Ferhus in the maze.”
“You forgot?” Certainly she hadn’t just said that.
“I’m sorry, okay? I meant to tell you first thing, but when I arrived I was still pumped from the run, and then you went into all that bomb business, so I forgot.”
Darken arched his eyebrows with a hint of impatience. “Well? Who is it?”
Alex bit her bottom lip. “Lord Debayne.”
“Debayne?” Darken closed his eyes for a brief second. Damn! Of all the people it could have been, why did it have to be a friend?
“Steph will be devastated.” He paused. “And furious.”
“That’s what your niece said.”
“Does my brother know?”
“I believe he does by now.”
Darken paused in his step. “What do you mean, you believe?”
Alex squirmed a little. Finally, she sighed. “Josy and Max were with me when I recognized him. But I told them to only inform their parents when there was no chance of someone overhearing them.”
Darken rubbed the back of his neck. “To be quite honest, I’m less worried about their reserve than about Stephane’s.” He slowly shook his head. “May the Great Mother have mercy on Edward Debayne because my brother most certainly won’t.”
Alex tapped her chin with a nail. “Do you think he could be the snake biting its own tail? Debayne, I mean.”
When he’d returned from Blayde’s, Darken had recounted to the others everything he remembered about the Augur’s vision and the riddle. The snake was one of the most obvious images, a common sign of betrayal.
“I suppose it’s possible,” Darken said slowly, considering it. They had known since their first trip to the Pacified Zone that there was an informant somewhere among their ranks and come to think about it, Debayne definitely fit the bill. Being friends, Stephane wouldn’t have been very guarded around him.
Darken frowned. “Stephane told me he never really had an eye on his vis-aural emitter, and Debayne would have been able to access it quite easily. Plus, my brother tells him a lot of private things, so he might well have known that the children were going to Helton Manor for the weekend when the abduction attempt happened. He also might have—”
Alex’s hand jerked forward and clamped down on his arm like a biting viper. Darken froze mid-step, one foot hovering above the ground. Alex’s eyes were solid black, her lips pulled back like that of a dog which had spotted a rattlesnake in the grass.
Very, very slowly Darken retrac
ted his foot. The pressure of Alex’s nails eased a little.
Darken nodded at her and gently sank into a crouch. She followed him down with feline grace, still holding onto his left arm.
“Over there.” She pointed a finger to the unassuming spot of earth where, only a moment ago, he had been about to set his foot. Carefully, Darken extended his scanner rod. When it was only a few inches from the ground, it started vibrating, buzzing against his palm like an angry insect. Darken quickly pulled it back before it could accidentally touch the ground.
He rocked back on his heels and let out a soft whistle. “I believe you just saved my life.” He would have been blown sky high and never have known what hit him. “Your shaper senses seem to be better than my high-grade equipment.”
Alex flashed him a grin. “Glad you brought me along, now, aren’t you?”
Darken couldn’t stop the image from popping up in his mind: Alex, a little ways ahead of him, spinning around and grinning a wide, self-indulgent grin—right before she was blown to bits.
Cold rushed down his spine and froze everything inside him. His hand squeezed the scanner rod until his bones cracked.
“I still wish you hadn’t come.” The words came out harshly, roughened by the fear crystalizing in his veins.
Alex’s lips flattened. Her hand dropped from his arm.
Darken closed his eyes and cursed himself under his breath. Smooth, old son!
“Well, I’m here now,” she drawled as she rose back to a stand, her voice sounding just a tad too light. “So, how about you cover the rear, and I go ahead and make sure we arrive in one piece. Or does that go against any of your principles, Commander?”
Darken gritted his teeth and pushed himself up from the ground as well. How could he possibly explain his statement without telling her that the thought of her dying frightened him more than anything had ever frightened him in his entire life? That her well-being mattered more to him than the outcome of this mission, and that he wouldn’t hesitate for a second to compromise the latter if it meant keeping her safe?