Aether (The Shadowmark Series Book 2)

by T. M. Catron

  “It wouldn’t matter if I was in command.” Doyle grasped her arm, towering over her. “And I am in command, Mina.”

  “You are not in command of me. Let go.” She pointed the flashlight directly on his face. His pupils constricted in the light. Mina didn’t struggle, but she glared at him, daring him to do something stupid.

  Doyle released her arm. “There’s nothing wrong with knowing your options.”

  She sighed. “Is there even a chance the Condarri could be driven out?”

  “I don’t know. But they need this for some reason. We could use it to our advantage.”

  “How?”

  “The only thing I can think of is to use their biggest strength—the adarria—against them. But I don’t know how. I don’t believe I’m powerful enough to do it by myself, but if other hybrids gained it, we couldn’t be sure they would use it for the right reasons.”

  “Would you?”

  Doyle reached for Mina, but she drew away. “Wait,” he said, still reaching. “Wait. I’m sorry I grabbed you.”

  Mina paused—he’d never apologized before. And he hadn’t hurt her. Doyle touched his forehead to hers.

  “Do you intend to use it for the right reasons, Doyle?”

  “I swear it,” he whispered.

  Am I being naïve? she thought. Is this how women end up with dangerous men? Does he really excite me that much? But she couldn’t give up on him now. He hadn’t given up on her. “Then let’s try to figure this thing out,” she said.

  “One more thing to do before we go.” He led her away from the entrance.

  Mina’s light revealed another arch in the round room leading to a corridor. “Was this here before?”

  “Yes, but I didn’t have much time. I came back through here by myself, but I didn’t have any equipment.”

  “Equipment for what?”

  Doyle led her down the corridor. A metal sign hung opposite a hole in the tunnel.

  “That must have been the sign Alvarez told me about,” she said. “ARCHIE. Do you know anything about it?”

  “Only what you’ve mentioned.” He led her past the sign. The corridor ended in a solid wall.

  “That’s it?” Even as she said it, the wall dissolved into nothing, fading into the mountain. Beyond lay another metal stairway. Her light didn’t reach the bottom. Mina shivered.

  Doyle noticed. “Want to go first?” he asked.

  She looked behind them, then back down the stairs. She smiled. “Only if you’re scared.”

  Doyle went down with Mina directly behind him. She looked over her shoulder again as they descended.

  “The mine’s collapsed,” he said after she’d glanced behind for the fourth time. “It happened when the Condarri attacked the camp. The only other way into the mountain is the surface entrance we used.”

  “I just can’t help feeling we’re being watched.”

  “That’s the effect of the adarria. None in here though.”

  At the bottom, a thick metal door blocked their advance. It had been bolted into the stone, and had no handle or latch for opening.

  “How much of this did Halston explore?” Mina asked.

  “He’s been very reluctant to share that with me. I don’t know how much he knows. But he never got past this door.”

  “How do you know?”

  “It’s man-made.”

  “It doesn’t have a handle.”

  “Which means ARCHIE or whoever was afraid of anyone going in.” Doyle pulled off his pack, setting it on the bottom step because the tiny chamber didn’t have enough room to put it anywhere else. He drew out a short stick.

  “That looks like dynamite. Please tell me I’m wrong.”

  “You’re wrong.” Doyle smiled. “It’s better.” He set it at the base of the door then motioned her up the stairs. “Might want to back away.”

  “Yep.” Mina hurried up ten stairs, turned and shone her beam on the door, then walked up twenty more.

  Doyle followed.

  “Should we go farther?” she asked.

  “No, the explosion is very controlled.”

  A bright light and a short blast told her he’d set it off. When she looked, bright blue flames licked their way up the door. Mina squinted into them until the intense heat burned her face. She looked away, residual blue spots obscuring her vision.

  “It’s melting the metal,” she said.

  “Evaporating it,” he corrected. Doyle stood close to her with a hand on her arm.

  Mina watched the final flames dissipate, the entire door and metal frame along with them. She glanced at Doyle’s hand. “Are you protecting me from something? Nothing’s going to come rushing out at us, is it?”

  “Like what?”

  “Dragons? Giant earthworms?”

  “A dragon would be fun.” He smirked. “Know any poems about dragons?”

  “I’ve forgotten all of them right now. I’ll try to remember one to recite in case we meet one.”

  Doyle turned to walk down the stairs. “Seriously though, the Condarri don’t have dragons, but keep behind me all the same.”

  Mina's light shone on more black stone—another tunnel, this one more narrow than those she had seen above. Adarria greeted them from every curve, covering even the floors. Doyle stepped carefully.

  “What do they say?” she whispered.

  “They’re waiting for something,” he said, all traces of his earlier amusement gone.

  His mood sobered Mina, and they walked quietly through the twisting tunnel.

  “It’s winding down,” she said after a few moments.

  Doyle gave a curt nod and put his finger to his lips. Then he reached out to turn off her light. At the click, Mina pressed close to him. She paused, holding onto his arm, letting her eyes adjust.

  She’d assumed the tunnel would be pitch black like the silo above. Instead, a soft, yellow light emanated from each groove and etching of the adarria. The light did not flash as it had in the other tunnel, but provided an unsettling maze of faint light in all directions. Mina wanted to ask questions, at the same time wishing to remain quiet. The tunnel unnerved her, and in another lifetime what might have been taken for an interesting light display felt more like a call to action. An action for what, Mina could not say. And she could only imagine what effect the adarria were having on Doyle.

  He stood in the middle of the tunnel, gazing at the symbols. Then he faced Mina, and his eyes reflected the golden light around them. The movement caught her eye. She tore her eyes away from the adarria to look at him. But the illusion had already disappeared—he must have turned his head.

  “Mina,” he whispered.

  “Yes?”

  “Hold on.” Doyle’s gaze pierced hers, and darkness swept around them. The pressure suffocated Mina at once. She opened her mouth to gulp the air, but what entered her lungs was not oxygen. Tears of pain streamed down her cheeks, blurring Doyle’s face in front of her.

  The aether swirled faster, and the adarria lights became streaks of lightning in a black storm. Then they disappeared altogether, and Mina’s feet left the floor. Doyle held her, his eyes never leaving hers. They flew toward the ceiling—they were going to be thrown against it.

  But her head didn't crack against the stone. Instead, the ceiling seemed to disappear like the floor, and the aether thickened around them. Thinking her lungs would burst, she squeezed Doyle’s arm in terror. He looked up, and so did Mina, expecting to see something to signal the ordeal was over. She saw nothing but darkness.

  Abruptly, the pressure on her chest disappeared. Her feet touched solid earth. The aether departed like a black cloak whipping away. Mina choked, her lungs forcing the darkness out of her body. Doyle let go as she sank to her knees on the dark stone, coughing and sputtering. Subtle flashes of golden light drifted throughout the room.

  Doyle’s boots appeared in front of her. She wanted to hate him. Yet she’d never been so mindful of being alive as she was at this moment. He crouched d
own to help her up. Mina waited for him to speak, to offer some sort of explanation for what she’d just experienced.

 

  Her chest exploded with twisting pain, like her skin was being branded and wrenched off her body. The pain dug through her chest all the way to her backbone. Mina clutched at her shirt, gasping.

 

  Mina screamed and tore at her shirt, pulling the cotton collar down to see her chest. There on her skin, extending from shoulder to shoulder, down her chest and under her bra, a delicate pattern of raised skin branded her. Mina had expected it to be on fire, but even as she touched the new adarre, the pain subsided.

  “What have you done?!” Her fingers fumbled over the new scars. “Doyle! What have you done to me?”

  Doyle grabbed her hands to stop her from clawing at the delicate patterns. “They’re superficial only!”

  “Superficial? How dare you!”

  Doyle let go and backed away.

  The stabbing pain lessened this time as his voice echoed in her head, and Mina’s desire to tear through her own skin diminished. She took a deep, steadying breath, and looked.

  They stood in a vast stone chamber. Adarria covered the walls and floor. Flashes of light burst out of the deep grooves, reaching for her like flares of fire. Mina froze, terrified she would be burned, but the hot tendrils merely swirled around her and Doyle, then moved on.

 

  Mina shook. “Why?”

 

  “Why?” she insisted. “Why have they marked me? I thought you were born this way.”

 

  Doyle’s voice crept around her, invading her body and mind. Mina shivered. “Speak audibly. I thought the adarria were part of the invaders.”

  “Yes.” When Doyle spoke, his voice, though normal, seemed flat compared to the silky caress inside her head. “It’s different, isn’t it?” he guessed as he watched her.

  Mina nodded.

  “The Condarri and the adarria have been a part of each other so long, most have forgotten they are two separate entities. The Condarri bend the adarria to their purpose, adorning themselves in the writings to exercise control over them, to remind themselves of their power. That's what the adarria have been telling me, at least, here in this bunker. No wonder Condar wants to keep it secret.”

  he asked.

  “Like I want to hate you. I think I do. Did you know this was going to happen?”

 

  “You could have asked me first.”

  “What would you have said?”

  “It doesn’t matter what I would have said. What matters is that I should have had an option. I didn’t know this was possible!”

  “And neither did I until today.” Doyle waited on her, on an outburst perhaps. When she offered none, he said, “Admit it—you would have said yes.”

  Mina looked around her again, ignoring him for the moment because she didn’t want to let her anger get the better of her. “Why can’t I hear them?”

  “It will take practice. If you’re worried about being corrupted, don’t. You aren’t a hybrid. There’s no Condarri DNA in you. You are the same person you’ve always been. It will affect your ability to communicate only.”

  Mina gasped at the ease with which the thought left her mind to touch Doyle.

  He smiled.

  “How?”

  “The tunnel to this chamber was set in warning against the Condarri. The adarria here are not under subjugation. They fear Condar, yet stand against it. I need to know why they’re here. I want you to help because I believe it has something to do with why Condar invaded.”

  “And what are you going to do about it?”

  “Whatever is necessary.”

  “Which includes marking me without my permission—is that what you mean?”

  “To possess the adarre is to possess knowledge. You're the only human with this knowledge. What are you going to do with it—run away, ignore it, or act upon your wish to defeat Condar?”

  “You had no right to force me.”

  Doyle nodded. “I know, but I won’t apologize for it. You still have a choice, even now.”

  “The funny thing about me, Doyle, is now that I know I can actually do something, I have no choice but to act. My conscience won’t allow anything else.”

  Doyle straightened his pack on his shoulders.

  “You knew that, didn’t you?”

  He looked at her again, his eyes darker than ever. “It’s one of the things I admire about you, even if I don’t always understand it.”

  “We are not done discussing this. But right now, I really want to know how we get out.”

  ***

  Calla flung the body across the med bay table, blood still seeping from the open chest cavity. It splattered on the already bloody floor and on her boots. When she tore open Halston’s ruined shirt, the robotic arm scanned his chest. She had ruined part of his adarre, but no matter. The Nomad contained a database of all the symbols, and she compared the image that hovered in front of her to the one in the catalog. They were identical. So Halston had not altered himself to evade the Condarri. Had he been truthful about simply renouncing Condar?

  She strode out of the room, leaving the body on the table, wishing for Doyle to find it. Doyle. The pieces fell together. Doyle had shot Williams. A woman had been with him. Calla remembered the footprints and the backpack.

  Doyle had slaughtered the Condarri.

  And the woman—Calla knew that face. The same woman had shot Calla at the lodge. She cursed herself for not seeing what had been in front of her all along.

  Everything now made sense, except one thing—Calla still could not understand how Doyle had tricked Condar. He had blamed Thompson for the murder. She should have known Thompson was incapable of killing a Condarri. Only a hybrid of great strength and cunning could have done it.

  She despised Halston for being correct. She'd wanted to believe Doyle. Even as her gut told her Doyle was untrustworthy, her own pride had tricked her into folly. Calla had refused to believe one she had held so close, had learned much from, could be capable of the ultimate betrayal. And for a human. Undoubtedly the woman factored into the puzzle. Doyle was using her in some way. Because Calla could not afford to make any more mistakes, she would take both Doyle and the woman to the Condarri.

  Before she could turn them over, however, she needed to be able to report the rogues’ location. If they were all gathered as she thought, striking would be easy. Then Calla could get Doyle. Would the Condarri give her the pleasure of killing him? If not, she would still be able to take her own life after she watched him die. A noble reward for loyalty.

  Now she must find them. Calla sat in the cockpit and pulled up a map of the ship’s adarria. They shimmered gold in the air in front of her.

  she told them. As she explained, the adarria uncoiled in front of her like a shimmering snake, unwinding as if to strike. It changed, altering its perception, looking for those not loyal to Condar, for those shutting it out. The answer was simple, yet no one had expected that a hybrid would willingly forsake Condar. As the adarria projection dissolved, Calla thought about Morse. His intention had never been to deny Condar, or he would have been more difficult to find. Fool, she thought. His actions remained a betrayal whether he intended it or not.

  But Doyle intended it, or he would not be able to hide himself. She added it to her mental list of evidence to present to Condar. Then she directed the Nomad to locate the company of rogues. A holographic map showed her they hid close to the bunker, inside the ruined mine. One hundred tiny dots glowing red. Did they believe their proximity to the bunker would protect t
hem from a straight-on attack from a war ship?

  But an attack on them would warn Doyle. Calla needed to surprise him. She watched the map a moment longer, looking for his location. His dot moved down into the valley below the lodge. So he still had contact with the human. Good. According to his pace, she had time to alert Condar and arrange for an attack on the mine before heading him off at the lodge. Calla smiled.

  ***

  Getting out of the chamber had been easier than getting in. A door opened in the room, into the narrow tunnel that led to the stairs. On the way through the silo, Mina glanced up, hoping at least her new adarre allowed her to see the mass of stars in the portal. But the silo remained as dark as ever. So, no superhuman vision then. Refusing to let Doyle guide her, she turned on the flashlight to find her way to the other door.

  On their silent hike to the hotel, Mina worked hard to keep her thoughts to herself. But she quickly discovered that thinking something was different from communicating it. Using the adarre became almost like speaking. Just as any normal human could think without voicing her thoughts, so could Mina think without telling Doyle.

  Good thing too, Mina thought. The half-breed doesn’t need to know everything.

  Leave. Don’t stay with him. He’s faster and smarter and stronger than everybody, but that doesn’t mean he gets to run all over me. If I left, what would he do?

  Nothing—he wouldn’t do anything. He’d let you go.

  Mina clenched her fists even as her heart ached with the thought of deserting Doyle. And it would be desertion; she couldn’t shake that feeling, either.

  You’re loyal to a fault, Mina. He’d be just fine on his own.

  But it’s more than that, isn’t it?

  “Just to be clear,” said Mina finally, “what are we going to do after we get my brother?”

  Doyle glanced sideways at her. “Will your brother follow you without knowing why?”

  “I think it’s obvious now I’ll have to tell him.”

  “No, too dangerous. If the rogues find out about you, they’ll kill you. I’ve told you this before. The same goes for any human who knows their secret. The law resides too deep within the hybrids’ make-up to be cast aside.”