Shadow of the Swan (Book Two of the Phoenix Legacy)

by Wren, M. K.

  And only one thought was clear in her mind now, clear as the polished shaft of a knife blade.

  Lile Perralt wasn’t here. She hadn’t seen him since he left her suite half an hour ago.

  Yet he had promised to go with her to the IP port, had insisted upon it. She wouldn’t hold it against him if he didn’t keep that promise; it would be a relief to her. But she knew him too well, knew he wouldn’t break that promise unless he were incapable of carrying it out. A few minutes, he’d sai d. He’d go to his apartment to make the call to Alexand, then come back to her suite.

  Another grinning couple. Lazar Hamid and Lady Falda. Adrien’s words of thanks were cold and short.

  Dr. Lile . . . .

  She was close to tears, remembering his waxen face and the physical pain he tried so hard to conceal.

  Perhaps she’d asked too much of him, or too much of his ailing heart, but he was her only contact with Alexand. She had no choice but to tell him the truth she carried within her, to tell him her plans. She had delayed this long out of concern for his heart, and out of fear for what Alexand might do. It was too late now for Alexand to try to stop her or put himself in jeopardy for her. She had his pledge, and perhaps she was showing a lack of faith, but she knew it would be virtually impossible for him to stand idly by while she attempted this escape alone once he learned she was carrying his sons.

  But he must know. He must know about the twins, about her plans, about where she was going. And Perralt had promised her Alexand would know.

  She didn’t send anyone to the doctor’s apartment to ask about him; she didn’t know what was involved in making the call to Alexand, and wouldn’t risk anyone discovering him in the process. She had waited in her suite, delaying until she could delay no longer, leaving it with the hope that if he missed her there, he would come here to the entry salon. But he wasn’t here.

  She held one last hope. Perhaps in the face of this crowd he took another exit and would be waiting at the ’car. She knew it was unlikely, she knew something was wrong, but to enable her to walk this endless gauntlet without screaming, she held on to that hope.

  Alexand must know. If Dr. Lile didn’t—or couldn’t—deliver her message . . .

  She was only dimly aware of the next face that materialized before her. A young woman with fair skin as flawless as alabaster, hair the color of white wine, eyes the blue of Polluxian skies, deep and leaning toward lavender. Adrien knew that face, but at first all that registered was that she wasn’t smiling. Her smile came only after Adrien recognized her, a pensive smile, for her alone. The Lady Olivet Omer Woolf.

  “Adrien, the Holy God be with you and watch over you.”

  It occurred to Adrien how unfortunate it was that Lady Olivet would always be compared to Lord Woolf’s first wife; to live up to Elise Galinin Woolf was an impossibility. But this young woman—only a year older than Adrien—had met the challenge. She met it by ignoring it. by being herself—gracious, serene, devoted to her husband and children. And honest, Adrien thought; honest and capable of empathy.

  “Thank you, my lady,” she said softly, letting her tone carry the message beyond her words, as Olivet’s had carried her understanding in words even Selasis couldn’t fault.

  Her eyes moved to Lady Olivet’s right almost reluctantly. She had been aware of the lean, black-garbed figure from the moment she recognized Olivet, yet she found it difficult to look at him. It wasn’t Lord Woolf himself who inspired that reluctance. The one even remotely pleasurable aspect of this day of meaningless ceremonies and hypocrisies was seeing the Lord Phillip DeKovon Woolf dressed head to toe, elegantly sardonic, in black.

  Alexand . . .

  He looked too much like Alexand, and in this context, the reminder was nearly intolerable.

  He seemed to understand that. He offered his hand silently, and he hadn’t been smiling, either; not for Orin Selasis. His smile now was for Adrien, and Karlis might not have existed for any hint of awareness he showed.

  “Adrien, we both had other visions of this day, but if our hopes were crushed, our friendship needn’t share their fate.”

  “My lord, I hope you know how much I’ve treasured your friendship.”

  Karlis’s hand tightened painfully on her arm.

  “Come on, Adrien, the ’cars are—”

  One searing glance from Woolf silenced him. Adrien was still aware of Selasis hovering behind her, but for the moment she felt no fear.

  Woolf said, “Lady Olivet and I would be pleased to have you visit us, and we hope it will be often, since you’ll be in Concordia.” Then he stiffened slightly; he had recognized the ring on her right hand. Alexand’s ring.

  His eyes flashed up, meeting hers with an ironic smile. “We’ll look forward to seeing you in Concordia. And, Adrien, if I can be of assistance to you in any way, don’t hesitate to call on me.”

  She felt Karlis’s grip tighten on her arm again. Under those polite words was a promise, an offer of help. Of all this high-born, jeweled-and-brocaded assembly, Phillip Woolf was the only one who dared offer her aid, the only one who openly recognized the fact that she might need it.

  “My lord . . . thank you.”

  It seemed so inadequate, but she was incapable of saying more, and it wasn’t Karlis’s impatience that drew her away with an abruptness she could only hope the Woolfs would forgive. It was the threat of tears, the icy paralysis stealing along her nerves.

  The entryway . . . a few meters, a few steps. . . .

  And Dr. Lile—where was he?

  At the ’car, she told herself, moving past the last few grinning faces without even acknowledging them. Dr. Lile would be at the ’car.

  The family was already waiting on the columned portico. Lord Loren smiling woodenly, Lady Galia flushed and radiant with triumph. The twins, Galen and Renay, growing so fast, Adrien thought wistfully, both tall and fair-haired like their father, with that quiet confidence in their bearing that he had nearly lost. Patricia next, another daughter of Shang, very conscious of her fragile, dark beauty, but at the moment trying unsuccessfully to hide her boredom, or perhaps it was envy. And Annia. Little Annia, constrained in her ruffled dress and the bandeau of rosebuds that held her blonde hair in unaccustomed confinement.

  As Adrien and Karlis stepped out onto the portico, the night sky exploded with starbursts of fireworks, trumpeters lining the steps loosed shimmering fanfares, and the plaza reverberated with thundering cheers. The neural shock left her shuddering, and she didn’t at first hear Annia calling her name as she ran toward her.

  “Annia?” She knelt and took her small hands. “Too much noise, love?”

  Annia shook her head, her voice pitched high against the onslaught. “I like the noise. Are you going to be all well?”

  “Of course.” Adrien smiled as she straightened the bandeau “I always told you I was tough, didn’t I?”

  She grinned at that. “Like a belnong!” Then, turning sober, “I’ll miss you. When are you coming home again?”

  “Soon, love, soon.” She pulled her into her arms; Annia mustn’t see her tears. “And I’ll miss you very much.”

  “Are you cold, Adrien? How come you’re shivering?”

  “I . . . don’t know, Annia.”

  But she did know.

  She was looking over her sister’s golden head down into the cordoned area where the rose-decked ’cars waited.

  Lile Perralt wasn’t there.

  And she knew she would never see him again.

  3.

  The rock seemed to exude a damp chill; it was deep night in the Midhar. Alex paced the comcenter, arms folded, shoulders hunched. The thermogenerators were on, but the chill still gripped his legs and hands.

  Night in the Midhar, night in Helen, and early evening here in the Cave of Springs. The comcenter was quiet, mos
t of the staff at supper in the sleeping chamber, where one end of the cavern was periodically converted into a dining hall. Only Val Severin and three comtechs manned the monitors. Jael was on the microwave console.

  Alex stopped his pacing, realizing it was distracting to the others. He forced himself to stand in one place, to look at the screens and scanners, to interpret the signals on them; forced himself not to think about Helen or about what was happening there.

  He frowned irritably, staring at Jael’s back. Jael didn’t have to be here now; he should be having supper with the rest of the staff. Or sleeping. He would be on duty with the Helen chapter in less than five hours.

  But the annoyance dissipated. Jael was here for the same reason he was. Rather, he was here because he understood why Alex was here, and he was manning the microwave console so that Alex wouldn’t have to suffer through the numberless extraneous messages coming in while waiting for the one message. The one that might never come.

  Alex couldn’t stay still. He began pacing again, aware of Val’s questioning glance, and aware that he was serving no purpose here. He should go to his room. Or to the hangar. Not that he’d serve any purpose there, either.

  “Alex!” It was Jael. “Kahn Telman on line from the Eliseer Estate.”

  “Telman?” Not Perralt? Alex crossed to the console in a few long strides and reached for a headset. “Stay on, Jael. Ransom on line, Kahn. Have you talked to Perralt?”

  “Not since early this morning. Commander, something’s happened. Lile—Dr. Perralt is dead.”

  The dull, breath-stopping, solar plexus blow; it was fear and shock, and even grief all in one.

  “Oh, God, no. . . . How? What happened?”

  “I’m not sure, but I think he died of . . . of natural causes.”

  “His heart?”

  “Yes. sir. I think so.”

  “When did it happen?” He reached out to turn on the PubliCom screen, but left the audio off.

  “I don’t know exactly, but it must’ve been within the last hour. He was . . . he was still warm.”

  Alex felt the strain in Telman’s voice. The vidicom showed the crowds at the IP port dispersing, one shot homing in on the Eliseer family. Adrien wasn’t with them.

  “Kahn, give me the whole story.”

  “Yes, sir. Well, I knew Lile wasn’t feeling too well. He told me that when I talked to him this morning. He didn’t say much; we only had a few minutes. But he was worried about Lady Adrien. He—he was genuinely fond of her.”

  “Yes,” Alex said softly, “I know.”

  “He said he was sure she had some sort of plan. She told him all along she would go through with the wedding, but after that—well, he didn’t know. But she refused to let him go to Concordia with her. I thought that was odd.”

  A new image on the screen, an overview of the IP port, the vidicam zooming in on one ship, already airborne, as its lights disappeared into the background of dim stars. Alex realized sickly that it was all over; the newlyweds had departed, bound for the bride’s new home; for Concordia.

  “Did he tell you anything else, Kahn?”

  “Only that he had no idea exactly what she intended to do. She kept putting him off, telling him he’d know when the time comes.’ ”

  When the time comes. . . .

  Alex stood numbed, his breathing slow and shallow, his eyes fixed on the grinning face of the female ’caster on the screen, bubbling with practiced enthusiasm.

  “And that’s all?”

  “That’s all he could tell me this morning, but she was—well, apparently ill today. I suppose you know about that.”

  “What was wrong?”

  The image on the screen changed. Recaps of the wedding ceremony. His hand moved jerkily to turn it off.

  “I’m not sure anything was really wrong, Commander. I mean, Lady Adrien never fainted in her life. But she had three fainting spells today, all very public. Maybe they were real. I could understand that on this day.”

  “But you think she may have faked the fainting?”

  “Yes, sir. The last faint was at the ball, and she was carried out with that one. Lile was with her, of course. She was taken to her bedroom, and she didn’t come out until it was time to leave for the IP port. Her father was there part of the time, but I know Lile was alone with her for at least twenty minutes. I wondered if that wasn’t the reason for the fainting spell, to have some time alone with him.”

  Alex rested his palms on the console counter, recognizing the quivering within him as panic, fighting doggedly to keep it under control. On some level he was conscious of Jael beside him. listening to the same disembodied voice, and a few meters away, Val Severin, watching him, the scanners forgotten.

  “All right, Kahn. Go on.”

  “I went to the entry salon and watched the big exit. Everything went off as expected, except Lile wasn’t there. That bothered me because I couldn’t imagine him not going to the port with her, especially when she’d been ill, and at that point I’m not sure it was faked; she looked a little shaky. In fact, she fainted again as she was boarding the ship and was taken straight to her cabin.”

  Alex frowned, wondering why that sounded an alarm in his mind.

  “Who was going to Concordia with her? There must have been someone from the Eliseer household.”

  “Only Mariet. I guess she didn’t want anyone else to go with her.”

  Alex tried to make sense of that, and perhaps it was simple enough: she didn’t want to put anyone else in jeopardy with her.

  “What about Lectris?”

  Telman hesitated. “Well, Lectris is a question mark all around. He got a leave to visit a sister in Cuprin about five days ago, and he hasn’t returned. I don’t know how long his leave was, or if he was supposed to return before the wedding.”

  “Are you sure he didn’t board the ship with her?”

  “Yes, sir. I’m sure.”

  Alex pulled in a deep breath, working at the overwhelmingly difficult process of ordering his thoughts.

  “We’ll find out about Lectris later. Get back to Perralt.”

  “Well, when Lady Adrien left the Estate without Lile, I thought I’d better check on him. The crowd slowed me down, but I got to his apartment as soon as I could, and . . .” He stopped, the words choked off.

  They had been friends, Alex thought, fellow spies in the Eliseer Estate for over a quarter of a century. A man shouldn’t have to talk about the source of his grief so soon.

  “Kahn, I’m sorry, but I must know what happened.”

  “Yes, I . . . understand.” His voice was dulled with the effort of control. “Lile’s door was locked, but it’s keyed for me. When I went in he . . . was lying on the floor by his desk. No signs of violence. I’m sure it was his heart. I went over the apartment with a montector and checked his alarm system. Everything was square. And he had his transceiver in his hand. That hadn’t been disturbed.”

  “His . . . transceiver? Did you notice the frequency setting?”

  “Yes, sir. It was on the COS HQ band.”

  When the time comes.

  Above him, the black stone turned, closing in; he shut his eyes against it.

  The time had come. The princess had emerged from her tower, sword in hand, to meet the dragon, and trusted Perralt to convey her battle plans to her prince, her timid, timorous prince hiding in his stony keep.

  And if those plans included a plea for help, if she were depending on him to help her fend off the dragon—

  The message was sealed where no power could reach it.

  No. He wasn’t thinking; the panic was getting out of control. There were Phoenix agents in the Selasid Concordia Estate; a new contact could be set up as soon as she arrived.

  “Kahn, how long has it been since you . . .
found him?”

  “At least half an hour. I had to search his apartment and dispose of his Phoenix equipment.”

  “Have you notified anyone at the Estate?”

  “No, I thought I should check with you or Ben first.”

  “Use your own judgment. Do you know if we have any agents on the Selasid ship?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  His jaw muscles tensed. “Damn. Do you have the Selasid agents in Eliseer identified?”

  “Yes.”

  “I want them watched closely; every move they make, every contact, every call.”

  “We already have them covered fairly well, but we can tighten the cover. Will you be calling Ben about . . . about Lile?” There was a silent plea under that toneless inquiry.

  “You needn’t call him. I’ll take care of it. If he needs more information, he can contact you later.”

  “Thank you, Commander.”

  “Keep me posted. If I’m not available, talk to Jael.” He paused, searching for words, finding none adequate. “Kahn, I’m sorry about Dr. Perralt—for your sake.”

  Telman didn’t answer immediately, and when he did, his voice was thick and tight.

  “So am I.”

  Alex slowly removed the headset, only vaguely aware of Val and the comtechs at their stations; aware in the same vague manner that Jael had put aside his headset and was watching him. His strongest awareness at the moment was of the stone walls and ceiling, of the megatons of rock borne on that irregular, light-swallowing dome. Black as night. Black as death.

  Perhaps it was only the combination of seemingly unrelated facts: Adrien’s refusal to let Perralt go with her—her only Phoenix contact. Lectris granted a leave five days before the wedding, a leave from which he apparently hadn’t returned; Lectris who would die to save or avenge his Lady. And the fainting spells, the last one at the ship, sending her immediately to her cabin.

  Perhaps that anomaly birthed the conviction. He knew her strength, knew that steel-boned Selaneen capable of bearing even this terrifying day without giving way. And perhaps it was that linked-twin akinness, the same nearly telepathic communication he had shared with Rich.