“About twenty miles north of here, there’s a stationpoint. It’s where all the raids come from.” Samira jiggled Hazel as she spoke; the baby was close to falling asleep against her mother’s shoulder. “We have contacts there, soldiers who are loyal to the people of Safara, not Balias. They may be able to help.”
Aris immediately balked. “No. We can’t involve active Safaran soldiers.”
“Lieutenant Nore’s son is here,” Samira explained. “He helps us with supplies and sends warnings before raids when he can. His top priority is saving his son from conscription. We can trust him. He would die before risking our exposure.”
That gave Aris no reassurance that he would die before risking her exposure. Still, a transjet was the fastest way to Atalanta. And by far the easiest for the injured children.
“You said it’ll be a couple days before the next raid. How will you contact Lieutenant Nore?” she asked.
“We have a Military radio,” Alistar said. “It’s so old the frequency is no longer monitored. We’ll send the Lieutenant a message. He’ll say he’s received suspicious intel and will come ‘investigate.’ We’ll explain what we need, and he’ll give us a timeline or tell us if it’s not possible.”
“I thought you said there were no comms. Can we use that radio to contact my stationpoint?” Aris asked, suddenly uneasy.
Alistar shook his head. “It only works on an unused Safaran frequency. It’s antiquated tech—we’ve tried upgrading it with no luck.”
Aris shrugged, though inside her heart had plunged to her feet. She wanted to speak to Milek so badly, she could hardly bear the disappointment.
Alistar disappeared to find Gaven, the older, graying man who’d warned the village before the raid. He was, apparently, the man in charge of the radio.
Samira stood quietly, careful not to jostle Hazel, and murmured, “Follow me.”
Aris left the relative familiarity of the cave for a narrow, dimly lit passageway. Samira’s steps were graceful and certain, while Aris stumbled along behind, her thin cloth shoes catching on the rock beneath her feet. They wove deeper into the mountain, passing other curved tunnels lit by oily tin lanterns. At last, Samira paused before a doorway strung with a ragged scrap of fabric.
“You can rest here while we wait,” she said. “Your belongings are inside, except for your weapons, of course. If we’re lucky, Lieutenant Nore will be back by late afternoon. I’ll come get you when he arrives.”
Before Aris could protest, the woman continued down the hall.
Aris drew aside the cloth with trepidation. Inside, a small mat was draped with a single patchwork blanket made from old shirts. Her uniform and body armor rested on top. In the corner stood a spindly table with a single jar of water and a glass.
Aris drank a glass of the oddly metallic-tasting water and shoved her belongings onto the floor before collapsing onto the thin pad. A small lantern flickered beside her on the floor. She couldn’t bring herself to blow it out.
For a long time she stared up at the shadows that streaked the low ceiling. She pretended Milek was lying beside her, that his hand was inches from hers. That any second he would turn to her, wrap her in his arms, and whisper in her ear in low, fervent tones that everything would be okay.
“Don’t give up hope,” she whispered, not knowing whether the words were for him or for herself.
Chapter 26
Dysis hovered over Daakon, mumbling, “It’s okay, it’s okay,” even though it clearly wasn’t. As much as she wanted to brush her hand across his short hair, she didn’t dare touch him.
Calix knelt over Daakon’s ankle, the supplies from his aid kit spread around him. He’d already removed Daakon’s boot and the snake’s head, but the bite was swelling rapidly, the skin turning a scary purple blue.
“What’s wrong with him? Why’s his leg swelling like that?” she asked, fighting down the panic. “What can I do?”
“Gods, make it stop,” Daakon howled. Dysis had never seen him lose it before. His reaction was more frightening than the bite itself.
Calix stabbed him in the neck with a tiny medigun. “That should help with the pain. I hope.” He glanced up at Dysis. “Help me hold him still. The snake was venomous. I need to remove the poison.”
Dysis knelt next to Daakon’s writhing body. “Ready?”
“Almost,” Calix mumbled, concentrating on his task. He was fashioning a contraption out of a protective glove, a strip of bandaging, and a tube that had once held swabs.
“Come on, come on,” Daakon grunted. He kept staring at his still-swelling leg, his eyes wide with panic and pain. Dysis took a peek and fought back a gag. Puss was starting to ooze out with the blood.
“Okay,” she said, pulling herself together. She could handle this. She grabbed Daakon’s face and made him look at her. “Listen to me. Focus on me, Daakon.”
He tried to pull away but she wouldn’t let him.
“No. I get to talk now. It’s just you and me. And we have unfinished business, don’t we?” She stared into his bloodshot brown eyes and kept her face calm. She couldn’t let him see how scared she was.
After a moment, he nodded. At some point he’d bitten his lip; a drop of blood clung to his chin. She wiped it away with her thumb.
“You were right, the other day,” she started, her underlying panic pushing out the words. “I did take advantage of you.”
Behind her, Calix whispered, “Now,” and Daakon jerked, groaning. She held him steady.
“I’ve thought about you every day since we met.” She spoke faster, trying to block out the sucking sound of whatever Calix was doing. “That day, when you held me, I couldn’t help trying. Even though I knew it wasn’t the right thing to do.” She didn’t let herself think about the words as she voiced them. “And you gave me exactly what I wanted, what I’d hoped for. Then you told me you could never be with me. That everything we’d shared was all we’d ever share.”
Daakon screamed, a primal sound that chilled Dysis to her core. She couldn’t keep the fear from her face anymore; tears streamed down her cheeks. But Daakon’s attention had turned inward, the whites of his eyes glaring in the darkness of his face.
“I know you were trying to help, but I’m not sure I can ever forgive you for that,” Dysis sobbed. Liar. She couldn’t say out loud that she’d forgiven him. Forgiveness was something you gave to people as they died.
He couldn’t die.
Daakon’s hands reached up and gripped her shoulders, digging into the muscles with all his strength. She cried out but didn’t try to pull away. Instead she held him closer, both of them locked together in agony.
Without warning, Daakon went limp in her arms. She whirled toward Calix. “What happened? What did you do?”
Calix sat back on his haunches, breathing hard. He held up a sythin. The thin, rod-shaped weapon was used to render someone unconscious.
“Why the hell didn’t you use that before? You could have saved him so much pain!” She gently let Daakon’s body rest against the rocky ground, letting go in stages, her arms aching. The sun beat down on her head; they were all covered in sweat.
“I’ve never used a sythin in a mender procedure before. I wasn’t sure how it would affect his heart rate and blood pressure.” Calix slumped with exhaustion, but his hands went to work. “I needed to suck out the poisoned blood first, just in case.” He removed his suctioning contraption and cleaned the wound.
Much of the swelling had gone down, but the skin around the bite was still a horrible purple blue streaked with yellow.
Dysis brushed some dirt from Daakon’s uniform. His chest rose and fell shallowly, but he was breathing. She needed to get him into the shade, where it was cooler. She pointed to a spot under the trees. “Let’s get him out of the sun.”
Together, they dragged him into the shadows, careful not to jostle his foot.
“Is he going to be okay?” she asked.
Calix sighed. “Honestly, I don’t know. I’ve
never dealt with a venomous snakebite before. I . . . I hope I got all the poison out.”
“But?” Her stomach tightened. She glanced around the clearing, as if somehow she’d find a solution there.
“But I don’t have the tools to tell for sure. He needs full mender care. Possibly surgery to save his foot.” Calix’s fingers hovered over his chest. His emergency beacon. “We should . . .”
Dysis’s heart cracked, but she shook her head. “We can’t call for help yet. Not without Aris.”
He dropped his hand, his face still full of doubt. “He could die, Dysis.”
She gestured to Daakon’s leg. “But you’ve done such a good job. Look, most of the swelling is gone. Chances are—”
“Chances are he’ll lose the use of his foot, even if he survives,” Calix said. “There were paralyzing properties in the venom. When the Lieutenant was writhing around, his foot didn’t move.”
Dysis paced the clearing. Major Vadim had said not to push the beacons under any circumstances unless Aris was with them. But Lieutenant Daakon was his second-in-command. And how could they continue their search, with Daakon completely incapacitated? It was only a matter of time before the Safarans found them.
And when that happened, they’d all be wishing for death.
The morbid thought sparked an idea. “You said he needs full mender care. What do you need to make him better?”
Calix glanced at her, then at the mender supplies still scattered on the ground. He shrugged. “I don’t know . . . some kind of antivenom, probably, and antibiotics. More pain meds, clean bandages. Why?”
New hope coursed through her. It was all stuff she could carry. In a rush, she started unpacking her bag, leaving only a bottle of water and a couple nutrigel pouches inside.
“What are you doing?” Calix asked.
“You stay here with Daakon. Make sure he’s comfortable. Do as much as you can for him.” She heaved the nearly empty bag onto her shoulder. “I’m going to the village, the one we saw on the map. I’ll sneak in after dark, grab the stuff you need, and come back. We can run searches for Aris from this campsite, while Daakon recovers.”
“No way.” Calix shook his head vehemently. “It’s too dangerous. What if you’re caught?”
Dysis crossed her arms over her chest. “Got a better idea?”
Calix opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
“Didn’t think so.” On impulse, she bent over Daakon and pressed a quick kiss to his sweaty forehead. His breath fluttered against her skin, a reassurance. When she stood, she gave Calix a hard look. “If I’m not back by dawn tomorrow, or . . . or if Daakon dies, you keep searching for Aris. Okay?”
Calix nodded, though he still looked like he wanted to protest.
“But don’t let him die.” Dysis grabbed Daakon’s map and stomped out of the clearing and into the trees. She saved her tears until she was far from Calix and certain only the birds would hear.
***
It took a couple hours to reach the outskirts of the village. By that point, Dysis was cloaked in sweat, her short hair dripping, her water bottle almost empty. In silence, she shifted her position to get a better view of the village.
The line of trees butted up to its north side; from her angle, she could see a small collection of ramshackle structures surrounding a dirt clearing. Through a gap in the buildings, a black Safaran wingjet gleamed in the sunlight. The mountains towered above, dotted with tiny stone houses and precarious wooden bridges.
Dysis prayed the mender clinic was on solid ground; she had no desire to dangle from one of those bridges.
After moving throught the shadows to get a better vantage of the wingjet, she sat back against a scruffy tree, pulled out a nutrigel, and settled in to wait out the last of the day.
She focused on the different buildings and the few villagers she saw wandering around, forcing her brain to stop reliving the moment when Daakon silently begged her to make his suffering end.
He’ll be okay. You’ll save him. You’ll save them both.
But she couldn’t shake the fear that she’d made the wrong choice, that she should have hit her transmitter. That Aris was already beyond help, and she wouldn’t get back to Daakon in time.
Chapter 27
Galena chose not to warn Milek of her impending arrival. She arranged the flight through Pyralis and Commander Nyx, and when she stepped from the executive wingjet onto Spiro’s tarmac, only Nyx was there to greet her, just as she wished.
“How is he?” Galena asked as Commander Nyx fell into step beside her.
“Major Vadim has continued to conduct himself professionally, but it’s obvious the mission to retrieve Lieutenant Haan is weighing heavily on him.”
She was tactful, but Galena was certain Nyx knew of Milek’s relationship with Aris. It was Nyx’s stationpoint and her job to know everything, especially the secrets.
The blank white corridors of Spiro reminded Galena uncomfortably of the prison camp where Elom had held her captive. At least here, the hallways weren’t empty and ominously silent. As Commander Nyx led her to Milek’s office, soldiers passed in haphazard clumps. Galena kept her gaze straight ahead, ignoring the looks, first of surprise, then recognition. Occasionally horror. She knew how jarring her scars could be; they still shocked her every morning when she looked in the mirror.
“Ward Vadim.” A female soldier stopped suddenly in the middle of the corridor, her pale gray-blue eyes widening in surprise. A fading greenish-purple bruise marred her cheek.
“Enough gawking, Specialist.” Commander Nyx gestured for the girl to move out of the way, but Galena shook her head.
“No, it’s okay.” This was her chance to speak to a female soldier in person. “What’s your name, Specialist?”
“Tia Pallas, ma’am.” The woman stood with her shoulders back and chin up. The bruise gave her a dangerous air. She was slight, but Galena guessed she was a lot stronger than she looked.
“Your role here?” Galena asked.
“A flyer,” Specialist Pallas said, nervousness sneaking into her eyes. “Ward, if I may . . .”
Galena nodded. “Of course.”
A furrow appeared between her brows. “You could have kept the truth buried. Forgotten us, just like everyone else.” She ran a hand through her pale hair. “But you didn’t. And I want to thank you for that.”
Before Galena could respond, the girl continued down the hallway, her shoulders tense.
Commander Nyx resumed walking.
“It’s harder for them now, even without the threat of exposure,” Galena said, glancing back once, watching as Specialist Pallas turned the corner and disappeared from view. “But are women still happy to serve openly?”
Nyx grunted. “It wasn’t just about what they looked like in the mirror. They had to lie to everyone, even their families. Now . . . it’s not easy.” She stopped before a frosted glass door. “But most—not all, but most—women feel this sacrifice is the lighter one to bear.”
Galena stared at the red scars that crisscrossed the black Military brand on the back of Commander Nyx’s neck. “And you?”
Nyx tapped a panel by the door. “I think integration will fail. Sooner or later, men will find a way to remove us from Military. It’s in their nature.”
It was not what Galena expected. “Are you saying it’s in our nature to let them?”
The door slid open, revealing Milek hunched over the digitablet on his desk, his head cradled in one hand.
“I think we all have a long way to go.” Commander Nyx left, giving Galena no time to reply.
Without looking up, Milek said, “I asked not to be disturbed. The emergency signals could be coming any—”
“Milek, dear.” After a last considering glance toward Commander Nyx’s retreating back, Galena stepped into the room.
“Mother.” Milek’s head snapped up. He rose from his chair, his clear blue eyes—mirrors of her own—wide with worry. “You shouldn’t be here. It’s not
safe this close to the fighting.”
She wrapped her arms around him. “A minor risk, compared to what you do all day.”
“That’s not the point.” He drew away, but his expression was far less angry than his words. “Why did you come?”
“You haven’t been replying to my comms, and you missed our vid meeting yesterday.” She smoothed a hand over the short golden hair above his ear, a gesture that had been a comfort to them both when he was small. She was glad Pyralis had suggested the visit. “I was worried about you. The last few days have been a far more difficult trial than you deserve.”
“It’s fine. I’m fine.” He sank back into his chair, his eyes drawn yet again to his digitablet. “Daakon will find her.”
Galena stood next to his desk and stared down at the top of his head. Weariness bent his shoulders forward, stress dug grooves in his forehead. “He will, I’m certain of it,” she said. “But you’ll be ill-equipped to aid him in the rescue if you don’t take better care of yourself. Come eat dinner with me. Commander Nyx has reserved us a briefing room so we can have some privacy.”
Milek shook his head. “Mother, I’m sorry but I can’t. I need to—”
“Take the tablet with you, of course.” She rested a hand on his shoulder. “I’ve come a long way to have dinner with my son. Would you deny me that small pleasure?” Galena smiled to soften the manipulation. She might have felt bad, if she didn’t believe wholeheartedly that he needed a break.
He looked up, his tired smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. “I know what you’re doing.”
“Then let me do it.” She squeezed his shoulder, pleased when he stood.
“Fine. One quick dinner. I’ll reward your guilt trip this once.” His face lightened a little, even as he collected the digitablet in careful hands, as if it were something precious.
As Galena turned, a buzzer sounded, startling her. Milek pressed a button and the door slid open.
A stocky, bald soldier rushed in. “Sir, we’ve had a hit,” he said, panting as if he’d run miles. His freckled cheeks glowed an unpleasant red.
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