Through the Veil

by Walker, Shiloh

  Something reached out of the gate, wispy and insubstantial as smoke. It caught her magick, sucked inside. She heard the Warlord shout out, “No!” He slashed a hand through the air, and the power fabric that held the gate together splintered as it consumed the magick. “Get back, Daisha.” His shout was distant, tinny, and she must have been imagining it, but he sounded worried. Terror filled her as more of those smoky tendrils snaked out of the gate, reaching for her.

  She jerked back, instinctively shutting down her magick. Seconds passed as those smoky things continued to reach for her. Time slowed down, and she was excruciatingly aware of each passing second as the gate’s energies tried to reach her. Tension mounted until the silence seemed to scream, and then a huge crack of thunder ripped through the air above.

  The gate fractured and fell, and Lee heaved out a sigh of relief. Above, the clouds opened up, and as the torrential downfall started from above, the ground rumbled. Lee braced herself, but there was no quake. Just a series of tremors that lasted less than a few minutes. Squinting through the rain, she stared at the empty spot where the gate had stood. It was gone now, as was the Warlord—but his words continued to echo through her mind.

  It’s time to return to your home, Daisha.

  Like hell, Lee thought. The gate might be gone, for now, but she wanted to get as far away from this place as she could. Without waiting another second, she turned and ran through the forest. Heartbreak, fear and fury pulsed inside her and she couldn’t run fast enough to get away. She tried, though, running headlong through the forest, uncaring of the noise she made, uncaring of the trail she left behind her. All she cared about was getting away from the man who had stared back at her with eyes nearly identical to her own.

  Hello, daughter . . .

  I’ve been searching for you for a long, long time.

  My Daisha, he’d called her, watching her with a weird mix of pride and possessiveness. Like the way Lee had looked at her first car. She didn’t understand how he had found her or why he was determined to get her back, but Lee didn’t have to understand it to be terrified. Even before he had said a single word, something about him made her gut clench with fear. The way he had watched her, as though he knew her, as though she should know him.

  Hello, daughter . . .

  Daughter. God. She could feel the scream of denial tearing at her throat, but she didn’t want to scream. Not yet. She couldn’t. If she started screaming now, she wouldn’t stop, and she couldn’t do it here. Not until she was back at the camp, with at least the illusion of safety surrounding her. Just an illusion, though. She had watched as the man forged a small gate out of thin air. She knew the Warlords had power over the gates, but facing one who had the power to create one out of thin air had shaken her to the core.

  Theoretically, she knew it was possible, but she hadn’t really prepared herself for seeing it.

  I don’t know why you weren’t prepared . . . How do you think you came to be here?

  That sly little voice whispered inside her head, and Lee wanted to scream as she realized the truth of those words. Lee had made her own gate. Without even knowing how or understanding what she was doing. Only Warlords have control over the gates. Kalen had told her a thousand times.

  Only Warlords.

  Only Warlords.

  Denial burned inside her and she felt her stomach start to roil. Only Warlords. Warlords who enslaved women and turned them into little more than breeding machines. Warlords who stole away the children from their mothers, raising the boys to be good little raiders and the daughters to be obedient little whores. That scream burgeoning inside her was threatening to come loose, and Lee clamped a hand over her mouth as though that would keep it trapped inside.

  Only Warlords, and you are a Warlord’s daughter. More, she wasn’t just a daughter. She had the power to sense the Veil, and she apparently had the power to lift a gate and shut it down; otherwise she never would have been traveling back and forth between the worlds.

  Warlord—

  Enemy. It throbbed deep inside and Lee slowed down, then stopped altogether. She lifted her hands and stared at them. Enemy!

  Just ahead she caught sight of the makeshift barricades. She wanted to turn away and run. Just run and disappear. She didn’t belong in there. She was a fake, a traitor. The blood of the enemy pulsed through her veins, and she had almost walked willingly to his side.

  To her father’s side.

  No. Those voices were in her head again, but this time that cold, cynical bitch didn’t sound so cold. She actually sounded compassionate. You didn’t willingly go to him. Warlords have the power of compulsion. He can make weaker people do whatever he wishes. That you resisted him is a sign of your strength.

  Lee sucked in a harsh breath and tried to still the nerves jangling in her belly, but it wasn’t happening. She was shaking all over, shaking hard, and it was steadily getting worse. Lee shouldn’t have stopped running. Now that she had, the tremors were getting so violent she could barely walk.

  Kalen—

  She just needed to get to Kalen. She pulled up the memory of his face and focused on that. Then she started to walk, focusing on nothing but that mental picture. She’d get to Kalen. Get to him and then she’d . . . then she’d what? Dear God. Lee closed her eyes and prayed desperately, searching for some kind of answer. What was she going to do? Kalen would take one look at her and know something was wrong. He’d want to know, and what was she going to tell him?

  I just met my dad. He’s one of the bastards that have been kidnapping your women. He kidnapped my mother, and I have two brothers, but I think they live with my daddy.

  Oh, yeah. That was going to go over really well.

  She couldn’t tell him.

  Lee stood off to the side and watched as Kalen spoke over the mass funeral pyre. Although his stoic face revealed little, she could feel the pain inside him, the pain and the impotent fury. He’d lost so much in his life, and all of it was because of the Warlords.

  How could she possibly face him and tell him that one of those Warlords was her father? Tell him that the man was looking for her. It was even possible that her father was the reason the gate was so often raised. If he had been looking for her since she’d disappeared, then he had probably used the gates hard and often since she had disappeared twenty some odd years ago.

  A knot formed in her throat as she watched Kalen lower his torch to the funeral pyre. She felt the heat of it as it engulfed the fuel-soaked wood, the flames greedily licking at the corpses. Still, she felt chilled.

  Was all of this her fault?

  He was an important man in Anqar, Lee’s father. She’d recognized the power inside him, and the size and color of the stone around his neck meant a great deal. He was in a high enough echelon that he could very well be behind all of these raids.

  Her gut churned and Lee swayed as a bout of nausea struck her hard and fast. Could it be?

  Please, God, no.

  A sad, poignant voice rose from the people gathered around the funeral pyre. Other voices joined in, singing a melody that was heartachingly sad and so beautiful it barely seemed real. Tears blurred her vision and her breathing hitched a little in her chest as she studied the mourners.

  Warriors, one and all. The families, children and elderly, had been evacuated, and the only people who remained at the destroyed base camp were warriors, deirons and medics. Battle-scarred and battle-hardened, they all looked as tough as nails, but as they sang for their dead, Lee saw their pain.

  Dais stood off to Kalen’s right, his head tipped up to the sky, and she watched as the older man wiped away a tear. Morne stood just to Lee’s right, staring into the fires of the dead, and for once, his impossibly dark eyes weren’t so unreadable.

  The emotion she saw everywhere was enough to tighten the knot in her throat until it threatened to choke her. Dear God—is it my fault?

  Somewhere in front of her, Lee heard a choking sob, and unable to take it anymore, she slipped aw
ay. She waited until the trees closed behind her before she took off running, and then she ran, ran until her muscles burned with exhaustion and breathing was all but impossible.

  Tears blinded her and she ended up tripping, landing on her hands and knees and then shoving back to her feet again and starting the process all over.

  My fault—

  She had no way of knowing. Not unless she asked “Daddy,” but Lee wasn’t certain she could handle the truth, even if she did see him. There is no “if.” She would see him again. If he had been searching for her for twenty years, then he wasn’t going to stop looking until he had her.

  Power danced through the air. There was a strange, sighing little sound and then the music started. No. Shit, I can’t handle this again, she thought, backing away. She saw the energy rising up out of the ground, coalescing in front of her. The Veil took form and Lee watched, shaking her head in denial.

  “Daughter.”

  Lee hissed at him. Fury blistered through her and she welcomed it. It was a sweet respite over the grief and the pain, and it made her feel stronger. Perhaps it was just the illusion of strength, but as she faced the Warlord across the Veil, she imagined that the illusion of strength was better than nothing.

  Warlords respected strength even if they respected little else.

  “Don’t call me that,” she snarled.

  A smile tugged at his lips. “Then what shall I call you? I called you by your name once and you told me not to call you that either.”

  She sneered at him. “You don’t have to call me anything. Leave me the hell alone.”

  He sighed and shook his head. “Now, that is one thing I cannot do. You belong with your people, Daisha. People who understand your power. People who can protect you.”

  Icily, she said, “I’ll take care of myself, thanks. Leave me alone.”

  The Veil’s power solidified, and Lee started to tremble as the power wove itself into something more substantial. He created a gate as easily as Lee could turn on her computer back home. The power came too naturally to him. “I will not leave you alone, Lee. You will return with me.”

  Now his smile took on a decidedly sly bent. “You care for these people you fight with. You grieve. I feel the echo of your grief. Would you do aught to save them?”

  His words froze her to the very bone. “What do you mean?”

  “I think you know what I mean,” he mused. “How many have already died, Lee? We will come through the gate, and I will stop at nothing until I find you. How many more must die?”

  “Go away,” she gritted out.

  But he acted as though he didn’t hear her as he murmured, “None, Daisha. No one else must die.” He held out a hand. “The days of our coming to Ishtan, seeking offworld females, are coming to an end. It can end here. Now. Just return to your home, Daughter. Come home. No one else must die.”

  His words had the same effect on her as a sucker punch, right to the gut. She staggered back, reeling and gasping for breath. It is my fault, Lee realized. Sick and weak, she dropped to her knees and stared at him. Her voice was stilted as she asked, “You would call your armies off if I go to Anqar?”

  He lifted one shoulder, shrugging gracefully. “This is your home, Daisha. You belong here. I understand the power that flows inside your veins. I sense it. You’re strong, and you would pass that strength on to your children. Sons and daughters. You belong here.”

  Lee shook her head. The knot in her throat was making it hard to speak, choking her, and the need to puke was rising inside. She kept swallowing, hoping to hold the bile back, but it was getting harder and harder. “That isn’t what I asked. If I do what you ask, you’ll call your men off?”

  He inclined his head. “That is what I said, Daisha. Warlords do not lie, not to offworlders and certainly not to our children. Come home, and your friends will be left alone. They can rebuild their world in peace.” He turned his dark gaze to the gate, focusing on the perimeter. “The gates will fail—surely the offworld army you fight with has recognized how unstable the gates are. They will falter and fall.” His smile turned cruel and cunning. “But do not think that to be a means to escape me, Daughter. I will not lower this gate until you are at my side where you belong, and I care not if both worlds perish from it. Or you can come to me now and save them all.”

  You’re the key, Lee.

  How many times had Kalen said that to her?

  He seemed to think it was some kind of power she had inside her, and Lee had let herself believe him. Kalen was right, Lee realized, in a way. But it wasn’t any kind of power she had. It was the blood in her veins. Warlord blood—and her father was willing to leave Ishtan alone if she joined him.

  Her knees wobbled as she stood up. “Now?” she asked, her voice trembling.

  He gazed at her with compassion, and that infuriated her until she could hardly see straight. She didn’t want his compassion, and she didn’t want his pity, his empathy, his love—nothing. She sure as hell didn’t want to cross the gate into Anqar and become a good little broodmare for her Warlord daddy.

  But what choice did she have?

  “Now is for the best. Leaving them will not get easier for saying good-byes, Daisha. They will not understand.”

  No. They wouldn’t. And she couldn’t stand to see the hatred in Kalen’s eyes if he knew. A sob threatened to choke her, and she swallowed, fighting not to let it out. Mute, she nodded. Her legs shook as she took one step. Then another.

  “You are doing the honorable thing—you truly are the daughter of a Warlord,” he marveled, and his eyes all but glowed with pride as he stared at her. Lee wanted to gouge them out. She wanted to hit him. She wanted to pull one of the weapons from her pack and turn it on him.

  Instead she took another shaky step.

  “She’s not going anywhere.”

  Morne’s voice was both a welcome intrusion and a harbinger. She saw him separate from the shadows of the forest, clad in black from head to toe, his face hidden by the black hood wrapped around him so that only his eyes showed. That dark blue snapped with a fury that surprised her.

  “Lee, one more step and I will render you unconscious. You will not do this.”

  “I don’t have a choice,” she whispered. Terror and rage warred for supremacy inside her, and it made it damn hard to speak. She covered her face with her hands and struggled to breathe. She stood there, shoulders slumped and head bowed. Like nothing else, she wished she could do as Morne asked and pull away from the man who’d fathered her. She knew no loyalties to the man, and her soul rebelled at the thought of going to him, letting him place her in some silken prison and turn her into some glorified version of a broodmare.

  But she did have a loyalty to Kalen. Though she had been in his world such a short time, so much of it felt familiar and she had memories of this place dating back to her childhood. If going with this strange, terrifying stranger would end the war between these worlds, what true choice did she have?

  You can’t trust him. That internal voice urged her to go to Morne, hide behind him and let him handle this—more, she wanted to call for Kalen. Wanted to feel his arms around her and snuggle against him. She’d feel a bit safer for it.

  But there was also a part of her that did recognize some part of the Warlord. His words echoed with truth, and she knew he meant every word he said. Was it naive of her to think he would do as he said when his kind was responsible for so many deaths? Lee didn’t know. She only knew that she believed him. Completely.

  Slowly, Lee lowered her hands and looked at Morne. He had moved closer, aligning himself at her shoulder, and as their gazes locked, he edged in. It was a minute, instinctive moment, but she knew exactly what he was doing. Blockingher from the man who stood at the gate. “I don’t have any choice, Morne.”

  Under that weird mask, she couldn’t make out any expression on Morne’s face. Nothing save his eyes. “In a way, Lelia, you are right. In this, you have no choice.” He reached up, touching his fingers to
her brow.

  If she had known him a little better, the queer note in his voice might have warned her. But Lee was totally unprepared for the onslaught of power that struck her. It swarmed out of Morne and flooded her entire being in a matter of heartbeats. It wrapped itself around her mind, and before she could even form a single thought, her vision went dark and she slumped forward.

  Morne caught her weight and lifted her in his arms before she could collapse to the ground. He slid the man standing at the gate a narrow look. He knew the man and wasn’t surprised to see that the Warlord had already drawn his blade. “You do not wish to pursue this, Warlord. It will not go well for you.”

  “I’ll gut you where you stand, you daft, offworld bastard. She isn’t safe there. You have no idea how to train her, how to deal with her. She barely even understands her magick.”

  Behind the concealing material of his mask, Morne smiled. “She understands better than you think. And if you think safe is a fair trade in exchange for freedom, you do not know women at all.”

  “I could care less about women.” He lifted his blade and made as if to cross the gate. “Just her.”

  Morne grinned. “Have you a Sirvani anchoring the gate for your passage, Warlord? If you think I would hand her over to you without a fight, then you’re the daft fool. You want her, you will have to cut me down to get her—and all of the men who even now rush to her side. With no Sirvani anchoring the gate for you, have you the time before it falters and becomes unstable? Harder to erect the gate on this side of the Veil.”

  “Know so much about the gates, do you?” The Warlord paused, his eyes narrowed and thoughtful.

  Morne shrugged. Obliquely, he replied, “You learn much of your enemy during war.” Off in the distance, he heard the disturbance as Kalen’s troops drew closer. “Time runs short for you, Warlord. What is it going to be?”

  As though he, too, heard the men approaching, the Warlord eased back. He lifted the blade and held it point out, level with Morne’s throat. “You will die for this, offworlder. I’ll see to it.”