“How about my girl?” he said, grinning proudly even though no one but the fighter’s computer screen could see him.
Rina laughed. “I knew it had to be her or Lyon the moment I saw the explosion.”
Dax laughed. “I felt it first, on my way here.” A shock wave had rocked the little fighter from behind. He’d slammed the controls, whipped it around. Scanned the ground, then the sky.
And had stared in shock. The Coalition mother ship had clearly taken a huge hit, by the color of the flames it was from a nitron torpedo. A torpedo their ground forces did not have, and he himself had not fired. In the moment he realized it, a voice had echoed in his ear.
“Dax?” He recognized the voice. Crim, one of Tark’s men. “See anything interesting up there?”
“I’m looking at it now. What in Hades?”
“That,” Crim said, sounding awed, “was your daughter.”
He blinked. “Shaina did that?”
“She said it was one of your old stunts. And the king’s. With a torpedo-equipped Coalition transport she just happened to find.”
He laughed out loud, joyously. He was prouder of his girl in that moment than of anything he himself had ever done.
And more grateful that she had apparently forgiven him than he’d ever been since the day Califa had agreed to bond with him. And his mate would be just as proud.
“I’m heading back to the pass,” he said to Rina now. “Congratulations to you all.”
While the air fighters hadn’t been able to reach Galatin thanks to the fusion cannons, they’d had free space over the pass, and he’d barely had time to breathe trying to keep them off the Arellian forces below. But now his girl, practically single-handedly, had chased off the mother ship, and most of the fighters with it. And then Lyon had managed to block the pass, trapping that force, while Rina and Tark had demolished the forces sent to invade the city. They were winning. Perhaps had already won.
He was thinking how he and Califa might celebrate once she arrived with the Evening Star, which should be soon, when a voice on the ground frequency had crackled in his ear.
It was Kateri, who had been directing his fire, and very adeptly, since the start of the fight at the pass. She was a canny thinker, this woman, and had often come through with a direction in the same instant he had seen it from the air. The little fighter had lived up to all of Larc’s promises and more, and he was going to buy the genius a lifetime of lingberry when this was over.
“Dax here,” he answered.
“Dax . . .”
Something in her voice pulled him out of the pride-induced exhilaration.
“What is it?”
“Prince Lyon.”
Dax went rigid in his seat. An icy cold swept through him. “What?”
“He was hit. One of the Coalition fighters on a strafing run.”
“Where is he?”
“On the ridge, above the slide. He went up to send the rest of it down, to trap the last forces in the pass with no retreat.” For a moment he just sat there, unable to move. “It worked perfectly. We have them now.”
“How bad?”
“Your daughter is with him. She . . . knew, somehow.”
Shaina. His stomach knotted even tighter.
“Dax.” The woman’s voice held a note he’d heard too often not to recognize.
“No,” he said.
“I’m so sorry, Dax. He’s gone.”
Dax banked sharply, kicking the fighter to full speed. He flew up the pass at low altitude, dodging around corners, barely missing outcroppings of rock, and caring nothing for any of it. He saw the bodies of Coalition thugs strewn thick, and didn’t feel a thing. Not even triumph at the obvious victory.
No.
A memory of Lyon as a child, endlessly curious, quietly fearless, shot through his mind. He was the best of Trios, her hope for the future—this could not be.
He careened recklessly around the last corner. He set the fighter down with a thump, heedless of scraping the perfect surface. He popped the hatch and scrambled out.
He saw the cluster of fighters. One of them saw him coming, signaled the others, and they parted to let him through.
His heart gave up its last hope when he saw Lyon’s body. He had seen too much death to mistake it here, however much he might wish it otherwise. Dare, he thought. I am so sorry, my brother.
Shaina was kneeling beside Lyon, staring at some object that lay on his chest. When he reached them, she lifted her head. He never again in his life wanted to see a sight like the look in his daughter’s eyes.
He knelt beside her, wishing he had some gift for words, but then realizing no words could ever ease this. He knew from his own nearly unbearable pain that hers must be crippling.
“It was supposed to work,” she said brokenly, shifting her gaze down to hands stained with Lyon’s blood. “To heal. He said it would.”
“What?” he asked, not knowing what else to say.
“That,” she spat out. She grabbed up the object from Lyon’s chest, the thing he now saw was a small rock that looked made of crystal of some sort. “Bedamned, useless thing. Will you kill me now, for blasphemy? Do you think I care, now?”
Her voice had gone wild, rising as she clutched the polished rock, her knuckles whitening as if she were trying to crush it with her bare hands. The orb, he thought suddenly. This must be the thing they had spoken of, the Graymist Orb.
“You were supposed to heal him,” she howled, looking around as if for something to smash it on.
He put a hand on her shoulder. “Shaina—”
She shook him off, raved on. “The old man said you could heal, and here is the truest child of Graymist and you let him die.”
He grabbed her then, pulled her close. She sagged against him. He could feel the shudders that wracked her, yet she did not cry. His fierce girl did not cry, although he knew she had to be broken inside, beyond even his imagining. He was filled with the very real fear that he would lose not only the boy he loved as if he were his own this day, but his girl as well.
He reached to take the orb from her, to get this thing that was obviously only adding to her pain away from her.
It was glowing. Faintly. Now stronger. And stronger.
What had been a translucent stone was now a deep, dark red.
“Shaina,” he said, but she had already realized.
“It’s warm,” she said, staring down at her hands. “No, hot. But not blue. Red.”
He didn’t understand what she was talking about, but sensed silence was his best course, and didn’t speak. He had seen some strange things in his wanderings, and whatever this was definitely qualified.
Shaina pulled free, and he let her go. She scrambled back to Lyon’s body, the glowing rock still in her hands. She placed it over the grievous wound Dax could barely stand to look at. His girl was made of sterner stuff. His girl was her mother’s daughter as much as his.
He felt an odd sort of tingling, much as he had when he’d cut his way through the screen below the tunnel. He knelt once more beside them, his daughter and his prince. He had never doubted they would find each other, in the way they had been meant to. He had seen it himself, had he not, before she had even been born? That they had, at last, had been clear the first time he’d seen them together when he’d gotten here.
But what was the point, if it was to end like this?
“Please,” he heard Shaina say, in a voice he’d never heard from her before. “Please.”
His proud girl was begging, and he could do nothing. Lyon was gone, and he could do nothing. He’d never felt more helpless.
The orb-like rock she held was bright red now, pulsing. Still she held it in place, although he could tell from her face it was burning her fingers. He wanted to take
it from her, but she seemed so intent, as if she knew what was happening.
The orb flashed a starburst of brilliant red. Then faded, returning to its former state almost immediately. Shaina, shaking now, let it drop. Dax held his breath without really knowing why. He wanted to hold her, steady her, but some deep instinct held him back.
He waited.
Shaina waited.
The entire gathering seemed to be holding their breath.
A harsh, shuddering gasp came from that still form on the ground.
And Lyon opened his eyes.
Chapter 55
“BETWEEN YOU all, you left the Evening Star little to do but clean up,” Califa said. “I had to let the crew chase off a few of those ships just so they’d have some part in it all.”
Rina had been smiling from the moment Califa had arrived on the planet, and Dax had raced to greet her. Their joyous embrace had been met with cheers from the crowd; the skypirate and his mate had once more come to Arellia’s aid and were celebrated accordingly.
Rina accepted and returned an embrace of her own, savoring the words of the woman she thought of as mother and big sister combined. “Well done, my girl. Very well done.”
“I did my part,” she said. “But the plans, the tactics, were not mine.”
“So I have been told, at length,” Califa said, glancing at her mate. Dax grinned at Rina. And winked.
Califa turned then, toward where Tark stood, hanging back. She walked to him, halted before him. Rina sensed his uncertainty, wondered that this man who had been so assured, so decisive in a battle against incredible odds, would hesitate now.
Of course, he was facing the former Major Califa Claxton, the most renowned tactician in Coalition history.
“You took this . . . rather unorganized and reluctant force, a depleted arsenal of outdated weapons, a bunch of untrained civilians, including children, and you not only held off but pushed back the entire Coalition strike force. Commander Tarkson, it is an honor to know you.”
Rina grinned at his slightly stunned expression. Califa had not let her down, as she had known she would not. He opened his mouth, but no words came.
“And,” Califa added, “you are likely the only man I would deem good enough for our Rina.”
Tark’s mouth snapped shut, and he nearly winced. Rina barely managed not to run to him as he turned his head slightly, in the way she had come to know. He was hiding the scar, the patch. But she held—her position and her breath.
Califa reached out, and with one slender hand, touched his scarred forehead, then his cheek. Gently, she turned his head back.
“I know something of this,” she said softly. “Of scars carried for life, of hating the pity of others, of thinking yourself less because you are no longer whole.”
Rina saw Tark suck in a breath. Califa’s limp was most times barely noticeable, but it was there, and she knew a man as observant as Tark would not have missed it.
He also would not have missed the sheer joy of Dax’s reunion with his mate, making it clear the scars she bore had nothing to do with them.
“It means less than nothing to her,” Califa said. “I know this, for I know her.”
He held her gaze then, and Rina sensed it took as much, if not more, courage than facing down row upon row of armored Coalition men.
“I cannot say it would restore your vision, but if you wish the scar repaired, we have a physician who could do it.”
Rina didn’t care for the idea. If it would indeed restore his vision, perhaps, but she found nothing repellant in his appearance, or in the scars he carried. Tark glanced at her, saw her reaction in her expression. He turned back to Califa.
“Have you done so?” he asked quietly.
Califa smiled, a slow, warm smile. With a glance at Dax, she said, “No.”
Tark gave a nod that included both she and her mate. “Then I must accept that Triotians are indeed different.”
Califa laughed then. “Indeed they are.” And then, abruptly, “You love her?”
Rina almost wished she had not asked, not in so public a place. Almost.
“I do,” the man who had first sent those words through a boy in battle said, in front of all and without hesitation. “I would die for her.”
“I think,” Califa said with a laugh, “she would much prefer you live for her.”
Rina crossed to him then, heedless of the onlookers, or the cheerful clamor that arose when she put her arms around him.
“Indeed I would,” she said. “I, and all of us, have spent more than enough time thinking you dead.”
Califa smiled, stepped back, and Dax slipped his arm around her. She looked up at him.
“I told you,” he whispered.
“You were right, my love. He is perfect for her.” She gave Rina another smile. “Now, where is my daughter?”
Rina, Tark beside her, led the way quietly to the room where Lyon slept, weary but miraculously alive, his grievous injury already healing. Shaina, who had never left his side, was now lying asleep beside him on his uninjured side, her arm and one leg crossed over him protectively. The orb that, if the incredible story were to be believed, had saved him sat on the small table at the head of the bed where the two were sleeping.
They had been through so much, these two she loved as if they were her blood.
Outside in the square, they were being celebrated as heroes, he for trapping the main Coalition force with that second landslide, risking and nearly losing his life to do it, she for helping carve them up from the rear, and that family stunt with the mother ship.
The acclaim was rightfully theirs, but Rina knew what was most important to them was right here, in each other’s arms. Just as what was most important to she herself was beside her now.
“He’s resting well,” Tark said quietly as Dax and Califa slipped through the door behind them.
“And she would likely slaughter anyone who tries to disturb him,” Rina said.
“That’s my girl,” Dax said, grinning.
“And yours,” Rina said to Califa. “I think she’s proven that.”
“As he has proven he is the king’s son,” Tark said with a nod toward Lyon.
“When you get to know Shaylah, I think you’ll find he’s got a bit of her in him as well,” Dax said.
And Rina nearly laughed again at Tark’s nonplussed expression as they casually assumed he would, of course, get to know the queen personally.
“They will want to take him home as soon as possible,” Califa said.
“Of course,” Rina agreed. “Nothing will do him more good than being home.” She felt Tark go still. “And I cannot wait for you to see Trios,” she said to him.
“I—”
“You are as much a hero on Trios as this rascal,” Califa said, teasing her mate.
Rina could have kissed her. She had told Tark this, but sensed hearing it like this made it more real to him.
“Hero,” Tark muttered with a shake of his head.
“Indeed,” Rina said, “so get used to it.”
There was a stir outside, so loud she feared it would wake Shaina, if not Lyon. She consulted her internal clock. Yes, about right, she thought.
“They’re here,” she said softly.
The four of them moved to flank the door just as it opened. And the King and Queen of Trios walked into the room.
SHAINA WOKE TO the stir. Her parents were beside them as the royal couple paused to give Rina a hug. Rina’s Tark looked uneasy, and rather stiffly made the traditional bow of the head to them.
“No, Bright Tarkson,” Dare said firmly. “I will have no bow from you. Besides, I’m told you will soon be family.”
Tark’s gaze shot to Rina.
“Well?” she said, an impish gr
in on her face.
Tark’s expression softened in a way Shaina wouldn’t have thought possible. “Yes. If you are fool enough to want me, yes.”
Lyon shifted restlessly, and Shaina sensed he was close to waking up. The royal couple turned to cross the room, the queen pausing to kiss Tark on the cheek—his scarred cheek, Shaina noticed, no shrinking away for this queen—making the hardened warrior flush.
She didn’t move from Lyon’s side as his mother sat down on the edge of the bed beside him. The woman who was as a second mother to her gave her a smile as she smoothed the hair back from his forehead tenderly. King Dare stood beside her, looking down at his son, his jaw tight with emotion.
“You told them?” Shaina asked her father, who along with her mother, had come to stand on the other side of the bed.
“As best I could,” he said.
“It was . . . a bit of an odd recounting,” the king said.
“It was odder in reality,” she said.
Lyon moved again, as if he’d sensed his parents’ presence. After a moment his eyes fluttered open. When he saw them there, he smiled. But when Shaina moved as if to rise, his arm came around her to hold her close.
“Quite an adventure you’ve had,” Dare said to him.
“More than you know,” Lyon said. His voice was much stronger, almost normal, Shaina thought in relief. “I don’t know if I’ll ever fully understand.”
“No matter, it was well done,” Dare said. “By both of you.”
Lyon started to sit up. Everyone leaned forward to help him. He waved them off. But he allowed Shaina to pull cushions behind him.
“It was Tark. He and Rina,” he said with a smile at them, “they masterminded the plan.”
Tark ducked his head, but Rina grinned.
“Only you, sir,” Lyon said, looking at the scarred warrior, “could conceive and fight a four-front battle with such a small army, and win.”
Tark’s head came up. “I had help.”
“You and your help left nothing for my force to do but chase the stragglers,” Dare said. “Who, by the way, are still at a dead run for the far reaches.”
Rebel Prince Page 38
