Aegis Desolation: Action-Adventure Apocalyptic Mystery Thriller (Aegis League Series Book 4)

by S. S. Segran

  He stopped, seemingly waiting for a reaction. When Jag didn’t give him one, he carried on. “This machine I’ve set in motion was decades in the making. With us now so close to the finish line, if you really are who the prophecy spoke about, I must be absolutely certain of it. Try to at least understand the implications from my side of this. If you aren’t an abomination and are in fact the tip of the spear of human evolution, does that mean you are leaping ahead of my people? The five of you are supposedly able to combine your capabilities; either that’s a fluke or you are indeed the second stage of evolution that not even those of my kin have achieved.”

  Jag dropped his gaze as far down as he could manage with his head restrained, zeroing in on his white Sanctuary-provided slippers. Everything about this is messed up, he seethed. If he’s really telling the truth, then this can be stopped soon. But so much damage has already been done. And what if he just wants us all in the same place so we can be repurposed like the SONEs? Or even killed so they don’t have any loose ends to deal with?

  Mokun rose to his feet once more and came around the desk to sit on it. “Jag. Know that I am the closest thing to an ally that you have here. I covered for you when you escaped the Sanctuary. I’m the one who has been keeping Reyor away from much of the research done about you.” He closed in, eyes narrowing. “I am the only reason you are still alive.”

  Jag’s throat worked nervously. “You’re saying if you wanted me dead, I would be.”

  “Oh, yes. The same way that, if I wanted you taken apart and put back together for research, you would be. If I wanted you repurposed, you would be. If I wanted you scattered to the four corners of the world, you absolutely would be. But you’re not, because I really do want to know the truth, even if it means I was wrong and this whole endeavor was for naught. Even if I’ve killed millions of people already—probably a couple of billion by now. You will not get this chance with Reyor, I can guarantee you that much.”

  Jag stared at him. The very last thing he wanted to do was risk his friends, risk the world, by agreeing to bring them in. But in his gut he knew that Mokun was being an open book, as least on this matter.

  It didn’t make his next words any easier to say.

  “If I agree,” he gritted out, “I have terms.”

  “I wouldn’t expect anything less.”

  “First, you’re not gonna let Reyor anywhere near them.”

  “That was something I’d already decided. What else?”

  “They are not allowed to be hurt or tortured in any way.”

  “Done.”

  “The moment you have what you need, you’re letting us all go. Doesn’t matter what the test results are. If you get the same outcomes with them as you did with me, great, you said you’d stop everything. If the outcome doesn’t line up with what you wanted, then we should walk anyway.”

  “If it’s proven that you are simply accidents of nature—and thus, your version of the prophecy is wrong—Reyor will not let you do that, and I will not stop her.”

  “I don’t care. Give us the chance to fight back. You owe us that at least, otherwise you’re still just a coward.”

  Mokun considered him for a long minute. “Alright. You have a deal. Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Sanchez.” As he paged security to take Jag back to the CUBE, he added, “I must get a few things in order. When it is time to call in your friends, I will come for you.”

  “How long will that take?”

  “A couple of days at the most. There will be preparations to make in advance of their arrival.”

  Jag licked his dry lips, trying to will the jitters away. I really hope I’m not screwing things up big-time. He exhaled slowly through his mouth, pushing his worries out with it. Guess we’ll find out.

  Huyani had never been so angry in her life, and for once she didn’t care to hide it.

  Storming toward one of the small neyra at the eastern end of Dema-Ki that had been abandoned decades before, she passed Hutar on one of his morning walks. He’d pulled the hood of his winter tunic over his black hair, and his hands were clasped behind him. Two guards trailed a few feet back. He reached out, as if to catch her by the arm, but remembered himself at the last moment.

  She should have brushed past him. Instead, she halted and turned. “What is it, Hutar?”

  He met her gaze, dark sapphire eyes inscrutable as always. “I am sorry about what happened. To have Akol snap in such a manner . . . my condolences to you and your family. And may Elder Ashack rest in peace. I heard the funeral was very moving.”

  “Akol did not commit such an atrocious act. He would never.”

  “Did they not catch him? And was it not his staff that was used?”

  Ire burned in every inch of Huyani’s body, so hot she wanted to throw herself into a snowbank to cool off. She forced her voice to remain steady as she spoke. “Anyone who knows Akol knows how out of character this is for him. He has always been the one with his head on his shoulders, who listens to the Elders well; whom the Elders constantly rely on.”

  Hutar blinked slowly. “People can change.”

  “Not without precedence. Now, if you would kindly excuse me, I must be on my way.”

  Hutar stepped aside, allowing her to pass. She locked on to the neyra a few hundred paces away. Four youths, armed with blades of different kinds, stood outside. The pair by the door tried to deny her entry.

  “I am quite certain that I retain the right to speak with my brother,” she said acerbically.

  For their part, the guards at least seemed apologetic. “You know we were instructed not to let anyone in,” one of them said with a shake of her head, her sandy braid swinging.

  “He has not once tried to escape. That must be worth something.”

  “He killed Elder Ashack,” the second guard pointed out, crossing his arms.

  Huyani rounded on him. “You know Akol! Do you truly believe he would do something so vile?” She poked him in the chest, taking him by surprise. She had never acted in such a way before, but she was frustrated and her mild temperament was dangerously close to breaking. “Yoran, have you forgotten how he helped you the numerous times you failed to pass the crystal assessment? Or when he stayed up all night to put together a celebration once you finally earned your crystal?”

  The guard flinched, fingers tapping a nervous rhythm on the elbow of his other arm. Huyani glanced back to the first guard. “Seniya, do you not remember him volunteering to take on the task of substitute teacher for your father when a mountain lion attack disabled him for days? And at the end of every afternoon, Akol would check on him, always bringing meals for your family?”

  “I know!” the youth growled, then rubbed a hand over her eyes. “But how are we supposed to reconcile that with what was seen when Elder Ashack was taken from us?”

  “That is what I want to do. Just let me speak with Akol. Please.”

  The guard released a breath, then opened the door. “Ach, go in.”

  “Thank you.” Huyani squeezed the other girl’s arm and hurried inside.

  Akol sat on a chair at the farthest end of the neyra, the only piece of furniture there aside from a warm sleeping sack and a pillow. When he saw her, he jumped up, relief flooding his face. “You came!”

  Huyani rushed over, throwing her arms around him. “I have been trying to see you for the past three days,” she murmured, a lump in her throat.

  “I had no idea. No one told me anything.” He hugged her fiercely. “I cannot begin to tell you just how glad I am to see you here.” Stepping back, he grasped the sides of her face. “How are Mother and Father?”

  “They are faring about as well as they can, considering the quandary their son is in.”

  “I hate that they have to endure something so painful. They do not deserve this.”

  “They refuse to believe that you could have done such a thing.”

  Akol pressed his hands to his face, shoulders relaxing as he took in her words, then said, “Our grandpar
ents visit me every night.”

  “I have not been able to speak with either of them. They have been so busy, trying to handle all of this and help with the search for Jag. What have they said?”

  “That they are unsure what to make of the situation. They cannot bring themselves to believe that it was my hand that took Elder Ashack’s life, even though Elder Saiyu supposedly saw me. But that could not have been possible, because I was already on my way toward Jov-Ki when it happened. I had yet to make it to the tunnel in the rock wall when I realized my staff was no longer with me.”

  “How could you not have noticed?” Huyani exclaimed.

  Akol put his hands up defensively. “When you wear padded clothing, it is hard to feel the weight of something as light as a staff! I went looking for it and the strap that must have broken, but before I could, I was hauled toward the temple. They had found my staff discarded nearby.”

  “Did you not tell them to search for the strap? I have a hard time believe it gave out at such convenient moment. It might have been cut while you were not paying attention. If it had been done by a blade, that may have helped your case.”

  “They did look for it afterwards, but they could not find anything. Perhaps it was taken by the same person who actually killed Elder Ashack.” Akol’s dark eyes flashed. “Someone is impersonating me, Huyani. They have taken my face and desecrated my integrity. I cannot even begin to guess why they would do such a thing, but that is the only explanation I have.”

  Huyani dragged her fingers through her hair. She had concluded as much herself, though there was no proof. “Who do you suspect?”

  “My mind continually goes to Hutar, but Grandfather told me he was under guard when the crime occurred. There are multiple witnesses who can corroborate that.”

  “Let us try to figure out why this happened, then. What would anyone gain from doing away with Elder Ashack?”

  Akol paced the width of the single-room abode. “Hutar and his group of rabble-rousers have been keeping a very low, unassuming profile since last summer, but they could very well still harbor loathing toward the Elders.”

  “But none of them have been allowed near Hutar,” Huyani reminded him. “Besides, they are fully aware that they have been under greater scrutiny upon his return with Aesròn. You especially would have kept a close eye on all of them.”

  “I most certainly did. Well, if not them, then who? No one in the village has the ability of physical mimicry.”

  “Perhaps someone quietly gained it as a secondary ability.”

  “If you go asking around, I highly doubt the perpetrator would admit to gaining another power.”

  Huyani slouched against the wall behind her, silently picking her way through possible culprits, but there hadn’t been any signs of discontent from the villagers toward the Elders.

  Hutar’s words drifted through her thoughts of their own accord. “Akol,” she said, “where is your staff being kept?”

  “I do not know.” He shot her a quizzical look. “Why?”

  “The scent. That would be one way to prove your innocence.”

  “What do you—”

  Huyani bolted toward the door. “Leave it to me! I will visit you soon, I promise!”

  She darted out of the shelter, leaving her dumbfounded brother to stare after her with a glimmer of hope.

  * * *

  Huyani knocked on the door of the Elders’ assembly neyra. After a few moments, Nageau called out, his voice barely audible. “We are in the cellar!”

  Stamping the snow from her boots, Huyani entered the five-sided building and headed down the steps of the open cellar that housed the oldest writings of their Island ancestors. Her grandparents were hunched over an old journal on one of the tables. They looked up as she entered; their eyes were tight, the lines on their faces deeper than she remembered.

  Tikina, wearing a green-dyed winter tunic, held her arms out. Huyani slid into her embrace. “Hello, my love,” Tikina said. What brings you here?”

  Huyani drew back. “I need to borrow you both. Your grandson, the man you entrusted to care for the Chosen Ones along with me, is innocent. All we have to do is prove it.”

  “And how do you propose we do that?” Nageau asked, bracing his hip against the table, one hand by the open journal.

  “Where are you keeping his staff?”

  Her grandparents hesitated before Tikina answered. “It is with Magèo.”

  “I have an idea.” Huyani took their hands and tugged them toward the steps. “But it requires using your enhanced senses, Grandfather.”

  Nageau stopped short, not allowing her to pull them any further. “I think I know what you want me to do, Huyani, and I have already tried it. There was no other scent on the staff apart from Akol’s.”

  Huyani dropped their hands, her face falling. “No. No, no, no.” She stepped back. “That cannot be.”

  Tikina reached out for her again. “Huyani—”

  “Do you know why anyone would want to be rid of Elder Ashack?”

  Tikina brought her arms back to her sides and peered over her shoulder at her mate, slim brows flicked upward.

  Nageau bit the corner of his lip. “Ashack was working on a hunch about how information was getting from us to the harbinger. According to Saiyu, when he was . . . killed . . . at the temple, he had been waiting to meet with her to work out certain details. All that he said prior to that, was that it had something to do with Nal.”

  “Nal?” Huyani echoed.

  “We have already spoken to her, but she has not divulged anything useful so far. She is still in shock about Elder Ashack. The Council has appointed Tayoka to form a circle of individuals to investigate what happened.”

  “Surely you do not believe Akol did this?”

  “Regardless of what we believe, we must let truth lead the way. And that is Tayoka’s responsibility.”

  Huyani stood wordlessly, then bid her grandparents a curt goodbye and marched up the stairs, straight out the door, and through the trees toward the building where Magèo spent more time than in his own home. The laboratory and design house, made of logs and slabs of stone, sat stoutly between groves of firs and pines some distance from the greenhouse where the Trees of Life were being tended.

  She rapped sharply on the door, and it swung open to reveal a sallow-faced Nal. When she saw Huyani, her eyes stretched wide. “H-hello.”

  “Good morning,” Huyani said, perhaps too brightly. “Is Magèo here? I must speak with him.”

  “You just missed him. He left to inspect the sap being harvested from the Trees.”

  “Perhaps you can help me, then. May I come in?”

  Nal seemed to waver. Then she opened the door wider and Huyani walked through, taking in the high walls fitted with countless shelves and numerous windows at the top. Glass containers of varying sizes garnished the shelves, some filled with colored liquids, others with dried plants. Four long rows of workbenches lined the middle of the building, all covered with some project or another, and a couple of worn-down divans were pushed up against a wall.

  Huyani’s gaze skimmed over the interior until she spotted a familiar black rod on one of the benches at the far end, by a sink. It was held in two clamps that suspended it above the table. She strode over, with Nal hurrying to catch up.

  “Has Magèo made any progress in finding out who wielded this when Elder Ashack passed?” Huyani asked as she examined the staff. “And do not tell me it was Akol. I do not believe it.”

  There was a sharp intake of breath by her shoulder. Huyani glanced to her left and was taken aback to see that Nal had turned even paler and was blinking fast. “Nal? What is the matter?”

  “I . . .” The other girl was trembling now. Huyani took her by the arm and guided her to one of the divans. Nal wrung her hands, perspiration dotting her forehead. “I feel dizzy,” she rasped.

  Huyani, taking stock of the symptoms, suspected the girl was having a severe bout of anxiety. If they were in her ne
yra she could have easily concocted an herbal remedy to calm her. She had to settle for holding Nal’s hand in her own, rubbing a soothing pattern over her knuckles. She waited until the girl had quieted before pressing on. “I need you to be honest with me, Nal. Why do you think Elder Ashack was murdered?”

  “I—I don’t know.”

  “Akol does not deserve to be condemned for someone else’s crime. I will not rest until he is exonerated, even if that means chasing down every sliver of a lead.” Huyani tightened her hold on Nal’s hand and dropped her voice. “If you will not tell me what you know now, I will come back later, and you will not like me then. For my brother, I will become what I must to clear his good name.”

  Nal gaped at her, and a stab of guilt and unease twisted in Huyani’s core. This was not who she wanted to be, someone who scared and threatened others. Her primary responsibility was to heal and comfort; this felt wrong on every level.

  But then she saw Akol in her mind—locked in a bare shelter by himself, the blood meant to be on someone else’s hands staining his—and her back straightened. She pierced Nal with a cutting look. The other youth flinched, wrenching her hand from Huyani’s grip.

  “I am so sorry,” she said, her words coming out ragged. “Elder Ashack . . . he confronted me a few days ago.”

  “About what?”

  “He suspected me of gleaning private information from Magèo and passing it to Hutar, who he believed was somehow sharing what he learned with the harbinger.”

  “And were you?”

  Nal’s cheeks gained color at last, a deep red that could be seen even with her tanned skin. “In a sense. But not for that purpose! He was curious, and it was how we made conversation. And we spoke of many things, not just about the Chosen Ones and whatever else I had found out through Magèo’s ramblings.”

  Huyani rested against the armrest behind her, turning over Nal’s words in her head. The Elders keep watch in the novasphere and have never sensed the harbinger. There is also always one telepathic guard on shift who prods Hutar’s consciousness, and so far, he has remained closed off and no communication trails were sensed. If he is indeed the one passing information, it cannot be through the novasphere. But if not there, then how else?