Through the Veil

by Walker, Shiloh

  He’d always known she was. He’d anticipated some great magickal power, or some sudden insight that would end the war. But he hadn’t expected this. Lee was going to end Anqar’s hold over Kalen’s realm.

  By destroying the gates. While they all watched, Lee continued to pour more and more magick into the gate realms, that ephemeral plane between the worlds. She was going to flood it with more energy than the gate could hold, but the gates were greedy. They would take more and more, until they self-destructed.

  Sudden blinding clarity hit Kalen. Yorkton. Somehow, something similar had happened in Yorkton. The crater that remained was the result. “Dear God,” Kalen prayed.

  He’d been willing, in theory, to sacrifice his army if that secured their world’s safety. His men felt the same in general.It was something they had talked about time and again, but looking at it theoretically and watching as it unfolded were so vastly different.

  Kalen felt sick. Sick and frustrated because there were only two possible outcomes. Both resulted in the destruction of the last large gate that remained in their world, so in the end, his world would finally be safe. Either way, however, his life was over.

  Either they’d all die when Lee’s control slipped and the gate’s backlash killed them all, or as the gate shut down one final time, it would suck Lee inside. She’d be dead—and so would he. Even if his heart continued to beat for another fifty years, when he lost Lee, it was going to kill him.

  Then I go with her, he thought. Caring very little, Kalen glanced around at his men. His gaze lingered briefly on Morne, and he knew that the task of leading his men would fall to the healer. With Dais being a traitor, no other had the experience.

  It would be well, in time, Kalen decided. He spared one glance at Morne and saw the intense focus on his face, and then Kalen looked back at Lee. As he stepped toward her, he heard someone speak. The Sirvani, speaking in the harsh guttural language of Anqar. Like most of his men, Kalen had a fair grasp on the alien language, but the Sirvani’s words meant nothing to him. The man might as well have been speaking gibberish.

  Then Morne spoke. Although Kalen understood the words themselves, the context made little sense. The look on the man’s face when Kalen glanced at him made even less sense. Morne was gazing through the ever growing gate, at the Sirvani. Ignoring the Warlord completely—the man who was the biggest threat, yet Morne didn’t spare him even a glance.

  Instead he gazed at the Sirvani with a look of sadness as he murmured, “Blessings on your path, brother.”

  Kalen felt the power shift then as Morne threw his strength in with Lee’s, aligning their powers. Lee began to glow with the enormous power channeling through her body. The gate shuddered—Kalen could feel it. It shook the earth down to the bedrock. Not the violent rattle and roll of a quake, but trembling, almost like the tremble of leaves on a branch in the wind. But this trembling seemed to go to the very core of the Earth.

  “Lee,” Kalen whispered. He went to her, but power came up, punching him back, knocking him away, as though the gate feared Kalen might do something to stop the deadly infusion of energy. “Lee!”

  He shouted out her name and she turned her head, looked at him. He saw it in her eyes, the acceptance of what was coming. “If you’re going to throw yourself into death, then I’ll damn well follow you,” he swore, surging to his feet.

  “You can’t,” Lee whispered. Her knees gave out, as though the power flowing through her had sapped her strength. She went to her knees and still the magick funneled through her. Light flashed, so incredibly brilliant it left them all standing there blinded.

  The trembling in the earth grew and grew, and the tension in the air seemed to stretch itself out into infinity, and still the gate guzzled up the power. Kalen felt another ripple in the magickal energy and realized somebody else had added to the power flow. A foreign presence, one he didn’t recognize—he snarled, realizing that even now, while death hovered all around them, one of the bloody Anqarians were trying to steal from them, trying to drive through that power.

  But he didn’t pierce it. Didn’t try to wrest control from Lee or Morne. Instead, the power was added to the flow. This third, final power punched through like a laser turned onto ice. The world exploded.

  Or at least it seemed that way. Lee screamed. Behind Kalen somebody cried out. He wanted to scream himself as he saw Lee’s body catch the impact of the backlash. She went flying through the air and Kalen ran toward her. He couldn’t move fast enough. He’d never get to her in time. It wouldn’t matter though, the sane, functioning part of his mind whispered. The power surge was going to strike back out at them and they’d all be gone.

  This surge was going to level them all. That gate would shatter—

  Then shatter, damn it, Kalen thought bleakly. Be done with it. Just let me go with her.

  The few seconds seemed to stretch out forever as her body hurtled through the air. Something moved between Kalen and Lee—someone. A tall, blond blur that moved with a speed that was inhuman. Kalen recognized Morne as strong arms came up, grabbing Lee out of the air just before she would have crashed into rock walls with deadly force. Slowly, Morne turned, holding Lee cradled against him.

  The ground rumbled; rocks and boulders came crashing down the mountain as the power surge came. Yet the final end that Kalen expected never hit. The power surge struck and the world continued to spin. There was indeed the gatestorm that Kalen had been prepared for, but it was . . . muffled. Almost as though it had hit elsewhere and all they felt was the echo.

  The rumbling of the earth continued as the gate closed in. There was an echoing boom that resounded through the foothills. Then it was done.

  The land was still intact.

  And the gate was gone.

  Relief never had time to move through him. He went from the taciturn acceptance that Lee would die but at least he would follow her, to stark and bitter denial. Lee wasn’t breathing. He closed the distance between them, hoping that it was a trick of the light, or just the space between them that made her seem so still.

  Morne tried to turn aside, still cradling Lee to his chest. “Kalen—”

  “Give her to me!” Kalen demanded, grabbing her away from Morne. His heart seemed to have taken up residence in his stomach, and he couldn’t breathe as he searched for some sign of life. Lee wasn’t breathing. Her face was so pale it seemed translucent, and huge, dark circles ringed her eyes.

  Hands came up to pull her away from him. Kalen turned to the side, cradling her lifeless body protectively against his own. “Kalen, there’s no time,” Morne snarled. He ripped Lee from Kalen’s arms with an unnatural strength.

  “How can I trust you?” Kalen asked, forcing the question out through his gritted teeth. Pieces of the puzzle fell into place as he looked into Morne’s face with its exotic, foreign features. The man’s speed as he moved to catch Lee’s body as it flew through the air like a living, breathing missile. The tempered strength that had caught her body like she weighed little more than air. “You’re a fucking Warlord.”

  “Yes. I’m also the only healer strong enough to bring her back—but only if I do it now.” Without waiting for any kind of response, Morne sank to the ground, cradling Lee in his arms. One hand came up, resting in the shallow valley between her breasts.

  Kalen went to knock Morne’s hand aside. “Don’t touch her,” he growled. Arms came up from behind, catching him before he could reach out for Morne or Lee.

  He struggled against their hold, tried to tear away from them, and just when he managed to jerk his arms away, more hands came up to hold him. Arms wrapped around his waist; bodies came up between himself and Morne, forcing him back. As the distance between Lee and Kalen grew, he struggled harder and harder. “Damn it, Kalen—he’s trying to save her,” somebody said. Kalen had no idea who spoke or who held him. He didn’t care. He just wanted to get to Lee. To hold her in his arms, to lie down beside her and simply . . .

  Her chest moved.

&
nbsp; The strength drained out of his body and he sagged. If all those restraining hands hadn’t been holding on to him, he would have collapsed to the ground. “Lee . . .”

  Her head turned to the side, and a harsh, high-pitched noise left her lips. Followed by a spasm that seized her body. Kalen started to struggle again. “Let me go,” Kalen roared. He jerked away, freed so suddenly he hit the ground, landing on his knees. He scrabbled over the distance that separated them. A weak, pitiful moan escaped Lee. Kalen grabbed her away from Morne, and this time Morne let her go.

  Kalen pressed his cheek to hers and whispered her name. Her body remained limp in his arms, although he could hear the soft, shallow sound of her breathing. Slowly, he looked up at Morne.

  Voice weary, Morne murmured, “She will live. Overextended herself—again. It will take her some time to recover, but she will recover.”

  Hoarse, Kalen whispered, “Why help her? Us? Why save us?”

  A bitter smile curved Morne’s mouth. “It wasn’t about you or your world, Kalen. Not at first. I blame you little for not trusting me.” He reached down and touched Lee’s hair gently. “I was here only to fulfill a promise and had no use for you, your world or the futile way you continued to resist the inevitable. It was that futile, senseless determination that brought me around, though. Hard not to admire that kind of stubborn pride.”

  None of that made sense. Kalen whispered, “I don’t get it, Morne. Why? Did you start out to be a spy or what?”

  “Spy?” Morne repeated. Then he shrugged. “I never set out to be a spy, although I did become one . . . of sorts. Just not the way you mean. I came here to keep a promise, Kalen. To protect her.” He reached out and touched Lee’s face once more, and then he turned away, disappearing from sight.

  FOURTEEN

  Seven days.

  Kalen hadn’t slept in seven days, and he sat by Lee’s bed, gritty-eyed with exhaustion, almost dumb with it. Lee lay just as still as she had for the last week. She slept on the jela pad that had been brought to the Gap four days ago. It cradled her thin, pale body, but Lee could have been lying on a bed of rocks and it wouldn’t have mattered, not to Lee.

  She hadn’t moved on her own since Kalen had taken her away from Morne, and after that one pitiful moan, the only sound she’d made was soft sighing breaths.

  He sensed the presence behind him, but he couldn’t even find the energy to care. The tent flap lifted, letting light briefly spill inside, and it was dark once more as the flap fell down behind Morne. “What do you want, Warlord?”

  “Technically, the term would be Sirvani,” Morne said, his tone reserved. “I never completed the training required to be called Warlord.”

  A thread of disgust curled through Kalen. “How upsettingfor you.” He glanced over his shoulder at Morne, and then he stilled.

  Morne had come to the Roinan Mountains more than twenty years ago. In all that time, the man hadn’t seemed to grow any older at all. Yet in the week since Morne had saved Lee, it seemed as though the man had aged a good ten years. Lines fanned out from his eyes and deep grooves bracketed his mouth. His hair was all but gone, Kalen realized abruptly. The waist-long blond strands had been cut almost brutally short. His dark eyes were sunken and his features had thinned out, giving him a hawkish appearance.

  Morne had always seemed almost too pretty to be a man, almost angelic in his features. He met Kalen’s gaze levelly. “If being a Warlord meant so much to me, I never would have left Anqar.” He looked at Lee and then back at Kalen. He cocked a brow and murmured, “If I take a look at her, are you going to cut my balls off for touching her?”

  Kalen curled his lip in a sneer. He’d rather the bastard be nowhere near her.

  Yet . . . Begrudgingly, he rose from the stool. His stiff body protested, muscles screaming out at him after so much time of inactivity. “You look like hell,” Kalen noted.

  “You, too,” Morne murmured, smiling a little. He cupped a long-fingered hand over Lee’s neck, his thumb resting in the delicate hollow. “Her mind is healing. Her body . . .” His voice trailed off and he finally shrugged. “The strength of her body will return if she has the will for it. It seems as though the truths she faced and the actions she was forced to take have drained her will.”

  “She’ll waken,” Kalen said softly. He closed his eyes. It was more of a prayer than anything else when he repeated it, his voice stronger, “She’ll waken.”

  With a slow, thoughtful nod, Morne said, “If your will alone will do it, then indeed she will wake.” He stood, but instead of moving aside, he rubbed his hands over his face. “The gate is destroyed.”

  Morne really did look like hell, Kalen thought. He looked like he barely had the strength to remain upright. Kalen didn’t want to care. Not one bit. He reached for some kind of fury, a passionate need to rip Morne apart with his bare hands. Might have to take a metal pipe to his head and knock him unconscious first, he figured. But if he did that, he could pull out a blade and happily go to work.

  And if it was any other Warlord in front of him, he would have had no problem finding the anger he reached for. But he couldn’t. He’d have liked to tell himself it was only because Morne’s intervention had saved Lee’s life, but it would have been a lie. It was going to be hard to totally put Morne’s true identity aside, though. In a mocking tone, he said, “Going to make going home hard on you, isn’t it?”

  Morne glanced at him, his eyes empty. It wasn’t the careful mask that Kalen had seen so many times before on Morne, something designed to keep people from reading any emotion. No, this was more a lack of emotion. As though some part of him had died.

  “The Roinan Gate is gone,” Morne murmured. “What little energy remains in the gate will not sustain anything more than a small gate for a few moments. And that only for a finite amount of time. Now that I know Lee is healing, I’ll take my sorry ass off. There may still be a few small gates that haven’t totally shut down yet.”

  “Why?” Kalen demanded. “You homesick?”

  “Homesick?” Finally some show of emotion. Morne’s eyes flashed with fury and the air around them crackled with hostility. Instinctively, Kalen braced himself. His hand went to the pulsar at his waist, but no attack ever came.

  Morne looked away. “No. I am not homesick. Anqar hasn’t been my home for years. In truth, I doubt it ever was.”

  Kalen couldn’t stop the sneer. “You’re a Warlord.”

  Morne looked down at his hands and spread them wide, flexing them and then closing them into empty fists. “I said once already—if being a Warlord meant so very much to me, I wouldn’t have spent the past twenty years on your primitive world, Kalen.”

  “Primitive?” Kalen demanded. “That coming from a man whose race enslaves women just to use them as incubators?”

  A faint smile came and went. “A race that has fewer and fewer children born to it with each passing generation. They seek only to survive, Kalen. And yes—a primitive world. My kind sees the refinement of magick as the ultimate mortal achievement. Using technology or manual labor when magick could be used instead—primitive.”

  “Must have been damn hard to live in such a primitive world all this time,” Kalen muttered. A muscle twitched in his jaw. Some of that anger he had expected finally worked through his exhaustion.

  “Oh, for the love of the saints,” Morne snapped. “Come down off your pedestal, you blind bastard. I was born and raised to be a Warlord, Kalen. Born and raised to believe it was my right, my duty to seek a bride from offworld. Just like you were raised to believe that anything that comes out of Anqar is something evil and to be hated. I learned long ago how skewed my beliefs were. ” He nodded toward Lee. “You’ve only got a finite amount of time to figure out the same thing for yourself. You know now whose blood flows in her veins.”

  Furious, Kalen growled, “This isn’t about her. It’s about you and how long you’ve lied to all of us.”

  “And had I come to you and told you that I came out of Anqar,
that I came here years ago to watch over a child, protect her, what would you have done?”

  “Protect her—she wasn’t here for you to protect.”

  “And how do you think she came to be here, Kalen? On her own? By some random twist of fate?” Morne asked with a small smile. “I assure you, it was not.” He turned back to Lee and reached down, brushing her hair from her still face. “Love her well, Kalen.” He sidestepped around Kalen and moved to leave the tent.

  “Morne.” Without looking back at the man he’d thought of as a friend, Kalen said, “Was the gate truly destroyed?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did she do it? How did we live through it?”

  There was a moment of silence and then Morne responded, “Everything, every person, has a breaking point. Even the gate. Lee simply fed it more than it could handle, and the power of the gate splintered from the burden. As to how we survived—power flows forward unless it’s made to flow elsewhere. She shunted it through the gate and it kept flowing. When the power surge broke, it flowed forward through the gate.”

  “What about those on the other side of the gate? The Warlords.”

  He glanced back as he spoke, just in time to see the flash of grief before Morne blanked his features. “Only one was a Warlord. The other was a Sirvani.”

  “Was?”

  Morne looked up. His eyes were haunted. “Yes. Was. He was my twin. My brother.” Morne was quiet for a moment, and then he reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Arnon, my brother, was serving as a Warlord’s personal Sirvani when Aneva, Lee’s mother, was brought through the gate. The Warlord chose her as his body slave and she conceived, almost immediately. He declared her as his mate—she bore him two sons. And then Lee. But Neve loved my brother. The boys were taken from her—it’s customary that boy children be removed from their mother on their fourth birthday and placed into training. When Lee was born, Neve knew that she had to run, or else the girl would suffer the same fate she had, a broodmare. She was a prisoner. Her cage was gilded and soft, but it was still a cage. Neve didn’t want that for her daughter—neither did my brother. They were in love. Arnon would do anything to help her. When he came to me for help, I couldn’t tell him no. He’d find a way, no matter what, and if I helped him, I could do my best to keep him from getting caught— and killed.”