by Jasmine Walt
“Besides,” Rylan continued, “Fenris didn’t just pick me for my good looks. I happen to have inside knowledge of the compound.”
“What?” I gaped. That was way too coincidental for my tastes. “How?”
“My unit was sent up here to guard the compound back when it was being built,” Rylan said. “That was over a year ago, when there was no ward yet. Things may have changed a bit, but probably not too much. I’ll be able to get in, no sweat.”
“Sunaya,” Iannis warned, drawing my attention back to him. “We do not have time to debate my decision to include Rylan on this mission. Lord Logar will be arriving tomorrow. We must get Annia and Noria out before then, or they will be killed.”
“Fuck.” I expelled a harsh breath, then closed my eyes and reined in my emotions. My feelings about Rylan weren’t as important as rescuing Annia and Noria. I had to put them aside, at least until after this was over. Rylan and I would have our reckoning, but not today.
“Fine,” I said, opening my eyes and pinning Rylan, my beloved cousin, my closest childhood friend and family member, with the fiercest glare I could muster. “I’ll work with you. But if I detect even a whiff of anything suspicious from you, I will rip out your guts and feed them to you. Is that understood?”
“Absolutely.” Rylan snapped his heels and saluted me. I bared my teeth at him, but he ignored me as he flashed another grin, looking around at everyone in the group. “So do we have a game plan, or what?”
15
We waited until sunset before Elnos and I snuck over to a spot about a mile down the main road, sticking to the trees for cover so that we wouldn’t be ambushed.
“Are you sure you’ve got the timing right?” I muttered as I crouched behind a bush. Even with the foliage to shield us, I had to shade my eyes with my hand against the brilliant sunset painting the sky in streaks of red and gold.
“I’ve been here long enough to memorize the watch schedule.” The grass beneath Elnos’ feet rustled as he tried to make himself comfortable. “The captain of the night guard spends his days with a woman in town. He should come by in the next ten minutes.”
We settled in to wait for the captain to show up. My eyes were trained on the dirt road, but my thoughts were elsewhere—on Rylan, specifically. I still couldn’t believe Iannis had sent for him to help us, knowing how I felt about him. Rylan had done the unthinkable—he’d hired a witch to put a spell on me. Such a thing just wasn’t done in the shifter community. If someone had a problem with another shifter, they handled it according to clan customs. Using a charm or hex or other magical device on another shifter was dishonorable, and most clans considered it a punishable offense. The only acceptable excuse was if magic were required to save a life, but since shifters healed so quickly and we were immune to most diseases, such an event was extremely rare.
Maybe Rylan figured the exception applied, since in his mind, he was saving your life, a voice in my head pointed out.
I gritted my teeth at that. It would be exactly like Rylan to convolute the situation in just that way in order to justify what he had done. But by making me forget to warn Iannis, he’d ended up putting me in danger anyway. Rylan knew me better than anyone else in the Jaguar Clan—he should have known I would go after Iannis. Doing so had involved infiltrating a Resistance camp and thwarting a plot to assassinate the Minister, and shortly after that, the Resistance had put a price on my head.
So in the end, Rylan had only created more danger for me, and helped plunge all of Solantha into a terrible civil war the moment Iannis was gone from the scene.
“Sunaya,” Elnos hissed, nudging my arm. Blinking, I cleared my thoughts, then caught the whistle of a steamcar coming from around the bend. “Are you ready?”
“Yep.” Tensing, I watched Elnos lift his hand. In it, he held a tiny metal spike. The car came chugging around the bend, a shiny, maroon-colored vehicle that looked brand new. Clearly, the captain was being paid well—or perhaps he was skimming profits from the factory somehow.
Elnos spoke a Word, and the spike shot from his hand and into the captain’s front tire. It ripped through the rubber, causing the tire to deflate instantly, with a loud hiss.
“Dammit!” the captain shouted as he pulled the car over, conveniently to our side of the road rather than his. I sprang out from beneath the cover of the trees, landing directly in the passenger seat—the fool had put the top down on his car. Stupid, since it left him more open to attack, but I wasn’t going to complain.
“W-what is the meaning of this?” the captain stuttered, his eyes widening with outrage. He was a tall, bulky man with thick brown hair and a mustache, bright red thread embroidering his dark blue uniform. “Who are you?”
“A good guy,” I said, clapping a hand over his mouth. He tried to struggle as I spoke the Words to the sleep spell Fenris had taught me, but he was no match for my shifter strength. The struggle lasted about three seconds, and then he was snoring in my arms.
“Great job,” Elnos said, emerging from the foliage. I hopped out of the car and walked around to the driver’s side, then hefted the man out of the car. Elnos helped get him onto my back, draping his arms across my shoulders while I held his legs, piggyback style. “Give me a second to hide the vehicle, and then we’ll be on our way.”
“No way.” I swiped at a bit of drool that dribbled onto my shoulder from the sleeping guy on my back and grimaced. “I’m not carrying this guy around for a second longer than I have to. I’ll meet you back at camp.”
Elnos rolled his eyes, but he let me go on my way as he put an illusion spell on the car to hide it from human eyes. It would have served the owner right for us to just destroy it, but Rylan was going to need it if he hoped to pass himself off as the man I’d just knocked out cold.
Elnos caught up with me just as I reached the camp. Iannis, Fenris, and Rylan were sitting on logs around the fire pit in the center of the encampment discussing the next phase of our operation, and they all looked up as I arrived.
“That’s a big one you caught there, cousin,” Rylan said, coming over to me. “Want some help?”
“No.” I rolled my shoulder to the side and dumped the man onto the ground. He grunted a little as he hit the dirt, then rolled onto his side and immediately continued snoring.
“Damn. That sleep spell really is effective. How long do you think he’ll be out?” Rylan asked me.
“Only a few hours,” Iannis said, coming up from behind him. He touched my shoulder briefly. “Did everything go as planned?”
“Yep,” I said. “No witnesses, and the car’s waiting.”
“Excellent.” Iannis turned his gaze to Rylan. “It’s time to turn you back into a Resistance soldier.”
“Hmm.” Rylan glanced at the man lying on the ground. “Not sure I’m a fan of the mustache.”
“Yeah, well, you’re going to get it,” I snapped. “So just cooperate.”
Rylan frowned. “I am cooperating. Stop acting like such a bitch, Sunaya.”
I bared my teeth, but before I could say anything, Iannis grabbed Rylan by the shoulders and hauled him around.
“I have no intention of meddling in your relationship with Sunaya,” Iannis growled, sticking his face into Rylan’s, “But she is my fiancée, and I will not tolerate insults to her. Is that understood?”
Rylan stared at Iannis for a long moment, back stiff. Surprisingly, I scented no fear off him, or anger either. Then he nodded slowly.
“Of course. I spoke out of turn.” An easy smile curved his lips. “I’m glad my cousin has chosen a man who is willing to defend her honor.”
“I don’t need your compliments,” Iannis said mildly, releasing Rylan. “But I do expect you to apologize.”
“No,” I said, flustered as Rylan turned back to me. I loved Iannis for sticking up for me, but all this attention was throwing me off. “You don’t need to apologize. You’re right, I am being a bitch, and now I’m holding up this entire operation. Let’s just get on with
it.”
“That would be good,” Fenris said, glancing at the rapidly setting sun. “We don’t have much time before Rylan needs to report for his watch.”
Iannis went to work on transforming Rylan into the night guard captain, while Fenris and I secured the actual captain in the tent, binding his hands and feet and gagging him so he would not be able to move when he awoke. In the privacy of the tent, Fenris also strengthened the sleep spell.
“Does Rylan know that you’re not a normal shifter?” I asked, using mindspeak so Rylan wouldn’t be able to overhear.
Fenris placed a hand over the man’s forehead, checking for who knew what, then flicked his fingers and muttered a Word. A privacy bubble enveloped us, like the one Iannis had used in the inn’s common room. “I believe he is curious about my origins, as he gave me quite a few speculative looks on the airship ride here,” he said. “But I have given him no reason to suspect that I use magic.”
“Good,” I said emphatically. “I would hate for him to use that against you if he ever decided to defect back to the Resistance.”
“Sunaya.” Fenris grabbed my arm as I turned to leave the tent, and I looked back at him. His face was expressionless, but there was a pained look in his dark brown eyes. “I don’t presume to know your cousin well, but I believe he regrets hurting you, and is trying to atone for his actions.”
“So what, are you saying I should forgive him, just like that?” I propped my hands on my hips and glared at him. “What the hell is going on? First Iannis, and now you, both telling me I should just let Rylan off the hook for nearly getting us all killed.”
Fenris rubbed a hand over his bearded jaw. “I am not saying you should forgive Rylan right away,” he said, “but you might consider moving in that direction. Iannis tells me that Rylan is the only member of your family who actually loves you, and that is not an easy thing to lose.” A shadow crossed his face. “I had to leave my mother and father behind in Nebara. They think me dead to this day.”
“Oh, Fenris.” I dropped to my knees in front of him, where he still knelt next to our prisoner. “That’s horrible. Were you close to your parents?”
He smiled, despite the somber subject. “I am nearly two hundred years old, Sunaya. It’s not as bad as losing your parents when you are young. But they moved back to Nebara when I became Chief Mage there to offer their support and advice, and we saw each other at least once a week. They were devastated when they learned of the Federation’s decision to execute me, my father in particular. He had strongly tried to dissuade me from what he saw as a disastrous, suicidal course.”
“I can’t imagine faking my death, and then being unable to tell my family I was still alive.” I wrapped my arms around Fenris’s broad shoulders and gave him a brief hug. “Do you ever think about getting in touch with them?”
“Yes, but not as much as I used to.” Fenris pushed back so that he could look me in the eye. “I did not tell you this story to elicit sympathy for me, Sunaya, but to make you reconsider your attitude toward Rylan. He may not be your only family, but he is your relative. This is your chance to mend the rift between you two.”
“Sunaya, Fenris,” Iannis called. “Are you coming out?”
“Coming,” I called back, relieved at the opportunity to drop the conversation. Fenris and I ducked out of the tent, popping the privacy bubble, and rejoined the others near the fire pit. Standing between Iannis and Elnos was an exact copy of the night guard captain—a tall, bulky man in a navy blue uniform with red embroidery. I assumed the red was a mark of the Resistance. Since this camp was hiding in plain sight, the soldiers couldn’t wear their red armbands.
“Whatcha think?” Rylan asked, wiggling his thick, dark brown mustache at me. “Do I look the part?”
My lips twitched. “You’ll do.” He sounded exactly like the captain too—I guessed Iannis must have put some kind of spell to help out with that part, since Rylan didn’t know his voice.
“All right, let’s get the scry-eye on you.” Elnos pulled a gold necklace chain from his pocket, from which a large, square pendant with a tree carved into it had been attached. “Are you sure you want Sunaya to be at the other end of this?” he asked Iannis.
“I don’t think it would be wise for me to do it under the circumstances,” Iannis said. “If Lord Logar and his mages arrive early, or if anything else should go wrong, I want to be fully present to deal with it.”
“Very well.” Elnos turned to me. “Hold out your palm.”
I did so, and Elnos placed the pendant in my hand. Earlier, when he’d hatched this plan, Elnos explained to us that the scry-eye was a magi-tech device he and Noria had invented, which would allow another person to borrow the eyes and ears of whoever was wearing it at the time. This way, I’d be able to see exactly what was going on around Rylan as he infiltrated the bunker, and relay important information to the others. It didn’t allow for communication, but I could use my own magic to boost a mindspeak connection between Rylan and myself. Elnos was more familiar with the device, but couldn’t use mindspeak.
Not for the first time, I wondered why it was that Iannis was able to communicate with mindspeak, but not Elnos. Was it an ability Iannis had cultivated over his long-lived life that Elnos had not? Or was it yet another gift of his Tua heritage?
“Close your hand around the pendant and concentrate on it,” Elnos told me.
I did so, putting all my attention on the cool square in my hand. I focused on the smoothness of the glossy outer stone against my fingers, and the hardness of the metal backing. I wondered exactly what was inside it that made it function the way it did. How could a tiny piece of equipment do such extraordinary things?
Elnos covered my closed hand with his own and spoke a few Words. The pendant grew warm in my hands, and a tingle of power rushed up my arm and into my chest.
“There,” Elnos said, stepping away. “Now put it on Rylan.”
I did as he asked, crossing over to where my cousin stood. He might have had grey human eyes instead of yellow shifter ones, but the gleam lurking behind them as he ducked his head was all Rylan.
“This seems like an awfully pretty piece for a man to wear,” Rylan said as he tucked it beneath the collar of his uniform shirt. “Hope they don’t decide to strip search me for any reason.”
“This particular piece was intended for Annia,” Elnos said dryly.
“That makes a lot more sense,” Rylan agreed. He looked at me expectantly, then back at Elnos. “So, am I supposed to do anything to make this work?”
“It’ll kick in. Just give it a moment.”
My vision blurred just then, and I let out a gasp of surprise. Colors swirled in a confusing pattern, then my vision suddenly snapped into focus. I wasn’t staring at Rylan anymore… I was looking at myself, through Rylan’s eyes. And the shock stamped across my features was almost comical.
“By Magorah, this is strange.” I slapped my hand to my forehead, then grimaced as I watched myself make the motion. “Do you think you could not look at me? It’s really weird to be looking at myself from outside my own body.”
“Sure.” Rylan switched his gaze to Iannis, and gave him a long once-over. My gaze traveled from the hem of his robes—dark red today—up his chest, and lingered on his face for a long moment. Iannis’s eyes narrowed, then his violet eyes sparkled with something that looked suspiciously like amusement.
“Oh, knock it off!” I stomped my foot, having no other outlet for my frustration. I wanted to punch Rylan in the arm, but I worried I would miss since I couldn’t actually see him.
“Fine, fine.” Rylan’s gaze switched toward the canopy of tree branches. “Is there anything else I need to know, or can I get going now?”
“No, you should go,” Iannis said, urgency entering his tone. “If you delay any longer, they might become suspicious.”
“True.” Rylan’s gaze turned toward the hill that blocked our view of the compound. “I’ll be off then.”
He turned
away and headed deeper into the woods. Letting out a deep sigh, I lowered myself onto the log and prepared to be a spectator in one of the most important missions I’d ever participated in.
16
Rylan didn’t waste any time. He dashed through the trees at lightning speed, somehow managing not to make a sound as he dodged branches and roots along the way. He made it to the spot where the vehicle was hidden, then paused just at the edge of the forest.
“Drop the illusion,” I said aloud to Elnos. A moment later, the car popped into view.
“Thank Magorah,” Rylan said to me as he hopped into the driver’s seat and pulled the key from his pocket. “For a moment there, I thought you expected me to drive an invisible car.”
“Ha-ha,” I said, rolling my eyes. It was really strange, feeling my eyes roll in my head while my vision stayed stationary. The sooner this was over and I was back in my own head, the better.
Rylan turned on the engine, then peeled out into the road with a loud whistle of steam.
“For Magorah’s sake!” I yelped. “Don’t drive that thing around like it’s a race car! You’ll arouse suspicion.”
“All right, all right,” Rylan groused, slowing down to a more reasonable speed. “I wasn’t going to drive the whole way like that. Just having some fun. Has becoming a mage apprentice turned you into a stick in the mud, Naya? I don’t remember you being this uptight.”
I said nothing for a long moment as he made his way to the compound. Was Rylan right? Was I turning into an uptight bitch, worrying and criticizing at every turn, unwilling to enjoy life anymore?
“I think the fact that my friends are trapped inside that bunker and are in danger of being blown up is reason enough for me to be uptight,” I finally said. “You could cut me some slack on that end.”
“That’s true.” Rylan paused. “I guess things are a bit different for me, as a former Resistance soldier. We lost members all the time, charged into dangerous situations knowing that some of us might not come back. I learned pretty fast that if you didn’t keep your sense of humor about you, you could quickly fall into depression.”
