Yet when he had emerged from the trees along the trail, so stealthily they could have never heard him coming, they had vanished. As if they had never been there, as if he had been following merely phantoms. As if this damnable mountain was enchanted. Or there truly was some omnipotent power who took a personal interest in protecting these bedamned Triotians.
But the woman was Arellian. And this was Arellia. Perhaps that was it, perhaps she knew this mountain, perhaps she knew of secret paths and hiding places. That had to be it, he thought. There was nothing supernatural about it, no mystical power who protected the likes of this Prince of Trios.
And he would be no prince when Mordred got through with him. As for the Arellian, while she was too womanly to appeal to his tastes, he supposed she was beautiful in a rakehell sort of way. There would be men enough at Legion Command who would thank him if he gifted her to them. Slaves were a luxury these days.
Of course, if she got in the way, she was quite expendable.
It still maddened him that he could not think who she reminded him of. It could not be any female he’d met, for he’d had no contact with Arellian women, and the two Arellian children who had assuaged that curling, slicing hunger that drove him in matters of the body hadn’t survived the encounters.
But whoever she was, he would see that she regretted ever having anything to do with that spawn of a demon, no matter how much coin he had paid her. Or perhaps she was the sort for whom the title of Prince was enough for her to offer herself, sham though that title was. A lot of good that would do her—or him—when Trios was again conquered—and this time completely destroyed; he would not rest until he watched that piece of rock shattered into a quadrillion pieces and scattered out endlessly into space.
. . . no matter how much he had paid her.
His own thought echoed in his head. What if he hadn’t paid her at all? What if there were something to this talk of treasure he had overheard in their silly nattering? He had dismissed the idea of some famous Arellian treasure hidden on this mountain as foolishness, some made-up adventure to add spice to the journey. He knew enough men who liked to play pointless games and pretend in sexual encounters.
But what if instead of an erotic game of the prince’s making, she had lured him instead? Perhaps it had been she who had tempted him with stories of riches. What if she knew something, perhaps even where the treasure was? What if there really was something to the tale? What else would get a prince out of the city so close to the celebration? Surely Trios still needed money to rebuild. What prince wouldn’t want to add to the royal treasury?
For a moment the tantalizing thought sent visions shooting through his mind. He savored the idea of capturing not only the hereditary prince of Trios, son of the man who had humiliated them, but a treasure stolen from the planet second on the list for annihilation.
He would let them lead him, he decided. Lead him to whatever they were searching for. And if it was truly a treasure, he would have that, too. And if it were merely a fool’s errand, then he would still have the prince, as he had planned all along. There was simply no way he could lose.
Smiling, he renewed his search. He would find them again; they couldn’t be far. And this time he would keep them in sight at all times. And then, his prize—or prizes—in hand, he would get off this bedamned, benighted mountain and begin his triumphant return.
“I’M NOT SURE this is necessary still, all this subterfuge,” Lyon said. “There’s been no sign for some time.”
Shaina looked over her shoulder at him, then went back to laying a false trail at a right angle to the one they were actually taking. She finished bending—just short of breaking—one more branch of the bush at the side of the path. She let the heel of her right boot leave a faint print in the softer dirt at the edge of the trial. Then she straightened, and shrugged.
“I’m not sure it is not.”
He had no counter for that bit of common sense, so he remained silent as she made her way back, stepping carefully so as not to destroy the picture she had created of someone having passed that way recently.
They walked on, he lost in his thoughts as she would occasionally pause to lay another false trail. But finally, when they came to a likely spot for a rest and some food, she stopped. She faced him, crossing her arms in front of her in a familiar way that sent a hum of warning through him. There was something to be said for knowing someone so well.
“What is wrong with you, Cub? You’re past edgy, and it’s more than just holdover from those thuggers.”
He didn’t try to deny it. It was all too true, and she knew him too well.
Besides, how could he ever explain to her? How could he ever tell her that the realization had little to do with thinking and everything to do with his newly awakened senses? To her, he was still that childhood companion, to be teased and pummeled, and kept close out of habit as much as desire.
And desire had been the wrong word to use, even in his thoughts. He was already having enough trouble keeping himself in check.
“Cub?”
She wasn’t going to give up. But then, she never did. And he couldn’t tell her the truth, that it was she herself who had him on edge. So on edge that he had left the planet to get away from her. And yet now here they were, and he knew deep down he was dealing with something explosive.
“Changes,” he muttered.
“Oh.” She sighed. “It always seemed so safely distant.”
“Shaina,” he began.
She held up a hand to stop him. “I don’t want to hear it, Cub.”
“Hear what?”
“Can you see the Prince of Trios taking off on rambles like this one?” she asked, an almost bitter note coming into her voice. “It will never be the same, and well you know it.”
“It is already not the same.”
Her gaze shot back to his face. “Don’t say that. We were to have this one last adventure. It doesn’t have to change yet.”
“It already has,” he said, determined not to backtrack now that he had begun. “I cannot pretend it hasn’t.”
“I’m still me,” she protested.
“Yes. Which makes the beauty you have become even more compelling.”
Something shifted in her expression, and for an instant he thought he saw a sort of longing there. An echo of what he himself was feeling. But it was gone immediately, and she dropped to sit on the large rock at the side of the path, as if her strength had given out.
But this was Shaina; her strength never failed her.
“What is this, Cub?” she asked, her voice so near to shaky it rattled him. “Have you taken to believing the old predictions?”
Oddly, until this moment when she’d spoken of it, he’d put it out of his mind. But her words brought it all back, the memories of the various adults who had watched over them as they played together as children, speaking of the potential union of the royal house of Trios with the house of Silverbrake. Destiny had been the word he’d heard most often.
He’d thought, as a child, they simply meant friendship. And the talk had stopped by the time he’d gotten old enough to understand. Rather abruptly, as if that talk had suddenly been banned.
And likely it had, he thought now, suddenly remembering something else he’d heard. Califa, speaking to his father.
They need to be free to make their own choices, Dare. No one knows better than you and I the pain of having that taken from you.
She had meant, of course, the one thing she and his father shared that his mother and Shaina’s father did not. They both knew what it meant to be enslaved, your will subordinated, your entire being subjugated to someone else’s will. They both knew what it meant to have no choice of your own. No wonder she had raised her daughter to be so determined to choose her own path.
He just hadn’t realized exactly what choice she’d bee
n referring to, then.
“I’m glad the talk stopped,” she said.
“Thanks to your mother.”
Her head came up then. “My mother?”
He told her then, of the memory he had of her mother and his father. “I think they banned such talk, at least from our presence.”
“I wish they had done so sooner. I wish I’d never heard it.”
“The idea is so distasteful to you, then?” He said it carefully, neutrally, wanting an honest answer from her. Better to know now, when he perhaps might be able to control his own response, if she found the idea and thinking of him in that way repellant rather than just unexpected.
“More frightening,” she said, surprising him.
“You’re never afraid,” he said.
“What I am is contrary.”
His mouth quirked. “And you suppose this to be news?”
“Quiet, skalworm,” she said, but without much heat. “I meant only that I spend half my time coveting what my parents have together, and the other half wishing to forever avoid it.”
Feeling it safe enough now, he sat down beside her. “An interesting conflict,” he observed, still striving for that neutral tone. “I understand the coveting, I feel the same about my own parents, and the bond they share.”
She gave him a sideways look, but at least did not push him off the rock into the dirt.
“Did you never fear it? Loving someone so much that their loss would destroy you?”
He had, in fact, thought of that. As a child, during the ongoing fight to keep Trios free of the Coalition, he’d early on realized the truth adults tried to hide, that anyone could be killed on any given day. Including his parents. Especially his parents since they were at the forefront of that battle, often putting themselves in the most danger.
But never both at once.
“I remember,” he said softly, “the day I realized why my parents never went into battle together, even though I knew they wished it.”
“Because they did not want you to lose both of them, should the worst happen.”
“Yes. I knew even then that if that worst happened, they would prefer to go together. That one of them staying behind for my sake was, in fact, a sacrifice of sorts.”
“Because that one would be facing life without the other. That’s exactly it, Cub.”
“But is it a price worth paying?”
Shaina shifted on the rock, now staring down the mountain, as if by looking they could return to where this journey had started.
“I don’t know. I’ve had a taste of loss now, with my father, and I don’t like it.”
He opened his mouth to point out that her father still lived, and that they could repair the damage—and would, he was sure—but it didn’t seem the right time. She was opening to him, and he did not wish to disrupt that.
“There are those who say you have no choice where you love,” he said. “Not when it’s that kind of love. Your parents, and mine, are proof of that.”
She considered that. “If that is true . . . then it cannot be forced, can it?”
“No, I would think not.”
“So we cannot make it happen, simply because of some old talk and the wishes of others.”
He stifled a sigh. He’d been wrong to hope. To her he would always be Cub.
“No,” he agreed. “It will only happen if it is meant to.”
She grimaced, and he tried not to let it sting too much, but without much success. He wanted to ask her if she found nothing in him to make her even consider the possibility, but wasn’t certain he cared to hear the answer, so held back the words.
“Truly meant,” she said.
“Especially since we—” you “—are on guard.”
“So if it were . . . to happen, it would be real, then,” she said. “Not just the fruit of an idea planted long ago.”
Something snapped back to life in him. Was she actually acknowledging the possibility? “Yes,” he said, carefully. Very real, he thought.
He remembered again the moment it had struck him, back home on Trios. It had hit him so hard and so fast he had wondered if, on some level, he had been preparing this for longer than he knew. If the shock of realizing she had become a woman, and a beautiful one, had merely been the spark laid to the fuel he’d been piling up for a long time. Had it all been there, only awaiting that moment of realization?
He knew now it must have. It really hadn’t been so quick at all. It had been building for years.
“We need to move on,” she said, her tone brisk as she stood up. He wasn’t sure if she meant physically, or move on from this morass of emotion.
Either way, he was in total agreement.
He stood, slung his pack over his shoulder once more, and strode up the trail.
Chapter 18
“WERE YOU NOT coming for the celebration yourself?”
Rina nibbled at the sweetstick she’d picked up at one of the street-side stalls along the main street of Galatin. She could hardly explain how little she had wanted to return to this place that so reminded her of his death.
“I had planned on coming when Dare and Shaylah did. Along with many others.”
His mouth curved slightly upward. “It still strikes me odd, how Triotians interact with their king and queen so casually.”
“It is the way of Trios. They rule by our choice.”
“Yet it will be passed to their son.”
“He will have his chance to rule, yes. But if he does not prove himself in his own right, if he loses the confidence of the people, he will also lose the crown.”
“What would happen then?”
“It doesn’t matter. I have no doubts Lyon will prove equal to the task,” she said proudly. “His family has ruled by unanimous consent for centuries now. They would give their all—and have—for the Triotian people, and the people know it.”
“Then your people do not hold the defeat by the Coalition in the first invasion against them?”
She wondered if there was something personal in the question, but answered only what he had asked.
“The Coalition did not come to simply defeat, or even to conquer Trios, they came to destroy her. No one could have defended against such vicious brutality.”
She lost her appetite at the memory, and tossed the last bite of the sweetstick into a nearby trash atomizer.
“Besides,” she went on, “King Galen, Dare’s father, died defending and leading his people. In the very streets of Trios he led, no matter that the fight was hopeless.”
“I heard what they did to him.”
“They tried to destroy him. But they made him a martyr instead.”
“Is it true Dax recovered the king’s crown from the Coalition archives? That he actually broke in and stole it?”
“Yes. And brought it home.”
She didn’t mention his bit of vengeance, leaving one of the bolts for his famous flashbow in the royal circlet’s place. That impulse had nearly cost him everything, including his life.
“He said he would ready the Evening Star. He still flies her?”
“Yes and no.” She laughed at his expression. “He still flies the Evening Star, but she is not the old vessel I flew on with him. Dax and Paraclon and our engineer Larcos have built a new one, from a design by Dare himself. She is a remarkable ship.”
“With an old name.”
“An infamous old name,” she said. “Dax says the infamy is half the battle won before he begins.”
Tark smiled, one of the most genuine she’d seen from him yet, and it warmed her.
“Dax,” he said, “is one of a kind.”
“I’ll not argue that one,” Rina said, smiling back.
“I am glad he . . . found you.”
She tried not to read anything into words that any friend might say. “And saved my sorry life?” She made herself grin. “So am I.”
“You were so young, to have been through so much.”
“And then Dax found me, and my life became one of the grandest adventures you could ever imagine.”
She meant it. She had long ago put those painful early days behind her, only rarely thinking of that time of terror. And when she did it was only for comparison to her life now, because she loved the sense of wonder that filled her.
All of which she owed to Dax. And she had become distracted from her original mission here.
Almost on the thought, Tark said, “You said you were here to do a favor for Dax.”
“Yes. And when I find Prince Lyon, I will accomplish that.”
He gave her a sideways look. “So is that it? Has Trios lost track of her prince?”
She laughed. “Not Lyon. We knew he was coming. He wanted to see some of his mother’s home world. And I think he wanted a few more days of freedom before the weight of office comes down upon him.”
Tark shuddered visibly, and she wasn’t sure if it was for effect or the thought truly was so abhorrent to him. “I cannot blame him for that.”
“No desire to one day lead the Arellian council?” She had thought, once, that if the people of Arellia were wise, they would chose him someday. Never would they find a better leader, no matter his age.
Tark stared at her as if she had suggested he go interstellar without a ship. “There is no likelihood of that, ever, I promise you.”
She studied him for a moment. “Then that is their loss.”
He looked disconcerted, but quickly seemed to shrug it off. “If not the prince, then who is it you have lost track of?” To her surprise, he spoke her name. “Shaina?”
She should have known he wouldn’t miss that, Rina thought. For a moment she hesitated. This was indeed personal for Dax, after all. But if she had trusted Tark enough to bring him to the king, surely he could be trusted with this.
“You know of her?”
“I know she is the prince’s closest companion. They grew up together, did they not?”
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