Alien Penetration

by Kaitlyn O’Connor

  “What is that?” Kael asked, frowning as he, too, listened and tried to decipher it.

  “Another riot,” Camryn said after a moment.

  Kael moved to the window, peering in first one direction and then moving to the other side to look out. “Gods!” he said hoarsely. “Camryn! They have lifted a death banner above the House of Tridan!”

  Camryn turned so abruptly it pulled the barely healed skin along his back.

  Wincing at the burn, he hurried to look out of the window. “Lyan is dead,” he said blankly. “He was young to die! I had not heard that he was ill.”

  A guard appeared abruptly at their cell door, his face ashen as he worked the lock with a shaking hand. “Your Highness! The prince, your father, is dead! The Emperor is dead! Prince Bastian, Lord Lyan—assassins have slain the entire High Council!”

  Camryn and Kael looked at each other blankly. “Assassins?”

  “We do not know what is happening! We had barely heard the news of one when there was another discovered. The entire city is in an uproar! You must come now!

  There is no one to bring order! We do not know what to do!”

  Camryn glanced down at Ean. “Get a physician in here to attend my brother! His fever has risen again.”

  He saw that the city was indeed in an uproar when he and Kael were led out of the prison. The moment they appeared on the steps, however, the mob outside began to chant, “Prince Camryn! Prince Kael!”

  Camryn and Kael both halted abruptly, glancing at one another as it slowly sank through their shock that their fathers were dead and they’d inherited their fathers’ seats on the council.

  Grim faced, Camryn turned to the crowd again and lifted his arms for silence. To his relief, they began to grow quieter immediately. “Return to your homes. We will find the assassins, but we can do so more swiftly if there is order in the city!”

  They seemed more inclined, at first, to remain in the streets, held together by a strange mixture of fear, confusion, and rejoicing. Finally, however, they began to move off. As they began to disperse, he and Kael descended the steps. “Find the other council members,” he told the guard who’d released them.

  The man gaped at him. “They’re dead.”

  “Their heirs, man!” he said impatiently. “Are there investigators on the scenes?”

  “I … I don’t know,” the guard stammered. “It was the servants who discovered the bodies and came out shouting it.”

  “Then make certain you get investigators to the scenes as quickly as possible!”

  Bowing, the guard left.

  Camryn and Kael strode as quickly as they could down the street to the palace of Jakaar. They discovered the household was in nearly as bad a state as the streets had been. The servants gathered in the main hall were shaken and white faced. “Who found them?” Camryn demanded.

  An elderly servant lifted his arm timidly and Camryn pushed through the others to confront him. “Where did you find them?”

  “In Lady Lielani’s apartment,” he said shakily. “She had told me ….”

  “By the gods … Lani!”

  Camryn and Kael both whirled away from him and ran up the stairs and down the main corridor to Lielani’s quarters. The sight that greeted them stopped both of them in their tracks.

  “Gods! Lielani!”

  Camryn reached her first, gathering her carefully in his arms. Her body was already cooling, however, and he could not convince himself that there was any hope.

  He sat back on his heels, cupping her head to his chest, struggling with the pain in his chest, the near impossibility of drawing in a breath.

  “Is she …?”

  Camryn shook his head. “She is gone,” he said blankly. “Why?”

  “You should not move her, Camryn,” Kael said after a moment. “The investigators have not gone over the scene.”

  Camryn glared at him, but after a few moments he lay her gently on the floor and glanced around. His father’s body was lying awkwardly next to hers, twisted, as if he’d been turned over. Bastain was slumped in a chair.

  Drawing his knees up, Camryn propped his arms on them and cradled his head.

  “I cannot wrap my head around his,” he muttered. “Why Lani? She never hurt a soul!

  Why would anyone hurt her?”

  “I do not know, but they will suffer the torment of the damned before they die!”

  Kael growled. “We need to lock down the city! They will escape if they have not done so already!”

  “Go! See to it. I will stay until the investigators arrive.”

  He didn’t have long to wait and yet it seemed time had stopped moving. As he sat staring at Lielani’s face, berating himself for ignoring her when he could have spent more time with her, he noticed marks on her neck that he hadn’t noticed before. He’d reached to brush her hair away from her throat to study the marks when he heard the sounds of an arrival and looked up to see one of the servants hurrying along the corridor with a handful of investigators.

  The men paused in the doorway, bowing respectfully. “Your Highness—if you please?”

  Camryn stared blankly at them for several moments before he realized he was sitting in the middle of the crime scene. He got up abruptly and moved to a corner to watch.

  “Did you move anything?”

  “I moved Lielani,” he said.

  “But not the prince?”

  He shook his head. The investigator left him, moving about the apartment, studying everything very carefully. Another set his equipment down and began scanning the room with first one instrument and then another. After a while, he moved out of the apartment and stood outside, ignoring the pain in his back and leaning against the wall.

  In truth, the wounds paled beside the other pain, the confusion, the anger.

  Kael returned. “I’ve ordered the city locked down.”

  Camryn nodded.

  “If you will pardon me, that is not necessary,” the lead investigator informed them, obviously having overheard the discussion between them.

  “How do you know that?” Camryn growled. “Unless there were many, it is possible that their foul crime was discovered before they could escape.”

  The man bowed. “This is our second scene tonight. It is the same as the last, with very little exceptions—and all the others I am convinced.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  He motioned them inside and pointed to three glasses lined up on a table.

  “Poison. Lady Lielani served them poison and then drank it herself. Just as Lady Killy served up poison to her men and ended her own life.” He turned to look at them with a mixture of pity and anger. “The concubines conspired to kill the members of the High Council and then killed themselves to evade execution.”

  “That’s a gods damned lie!” Camryn bellowed at him. “Lielani would not harm anyone! She loved them—little though I think the bastards deserved it!”

  The man looked shocked, but he merely bowed. “I apologize. I understand that it is difficult to accept. I myself find it difficult, but there is no sign of an intruder. The servant said the apartment was locked when he reached it and we have ascertained that that was indeed the case. Prince Bastian was dead before he realized her treason,” he said, gesturing to the body slumped in the chair, “or too far gone to attempt to avenge himself for her betrayal. Prince Arrek apparently did. His handprints are on her throat—as you can see from the bruising. From the disposition of the bodies and the things that have fallen to the floor, the repositioning of the couch and chair—there was clearly a tussle—between Prince Arrek and his concubine—no one else. And it cannot be avoided that most any assassin would have used a different weapon entirely—a blade or perhaps a pistol. She took advantage of their trust and served death to them in their drinks.”

  Camryn was tempted to argue with him until it suddenly dawned on him that Lielani had been sheltering Simone. The blood drained from his face with the thought and sheer terror washed
over him. Pushing past the man, he searched the apartment frantically. Kael, prompted by the look on Camryn’s face, followed him in the search.

  They exchanged a questioning look when they didn’t find any sign of her and then abruptly left the apartment and raced down the corridor to Camryn’s apartment.

  They found her hiding on the floor of the shower. She looked up at them with wide, tear filled eyes and struggled to get up when she recognized them. “Camryn!

  Kael! Lielani …!”

  Camryn and Kael helped her get up and then Camryn scooped her up in his arms, held her in a near crushing embrace for several moments and then carried her into the bedchamber, settling her on his bed. “I know. Tell me what happened!”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Simone covered her face with her hands, trying to sort her memories and thoughts into order. Even now, though, when hours had passed, when she’d cried until she couldn’t breathe, she didn’t feel a great deal calmer than she had at the time. She would never have imagined Lielani would do anything like that! Never!

  “I think … I think I might’ve killed your father,” she confessed, looking at Camryn in wide-eyed horror. “He was trying to strangle Lielani and I hit him on the head with a vase and then he just … he just let go of her and he didn’t move anymore.”

  She was sobbing by the time she’d finished her confession. To her surprise, Camryn pulled her to him and cradled her head against his chest, holding her until she’d calmed down enough to stop sobbing. She looked down at her hands when she finally pulled away, sniffing. A large hand appeared holding a small square of material.

  She glanced up the arm, saw it was Kael and smiled a fleeting thanks, taking the offering and drying her face.

  “You didn’t kill him. Lielani poisoned him.”

  Simone nodded, but he hadn’t been dead when she’d hit him.

  “Start at the beginning.”

  “You mean tonight?” she asked. “She didn’t just suddenly decide to do it. He … he drove her to it!”

  “Then start where you think it began,” he prompted. “I need to understand this.”

  She looked at him and Kael, wondering abruptly where Ean was and how they’d gotten out of prison. Both of them were still wearing the clothing issued to prisoners.

  She set it aside. They weren’t likely to tell her anything, especially at the moment.

  Dragging in a shuddering breath, she told them about Arrek’s plans and what Lielani had said afterwards. “She was heartsick already about what he’d done to the three of you—all the things he’d done. She was horrified that he was so coldblooded as to consider killing all of us when he was done with us—and killing our sons—your sons.

  She was afraid for me and the other women. And she couldn’t face being used again as a breeder. She kept saying she was too old. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t face giving up her babies again, that her heart couldn’t take it.

  “I should’ve paid more attention, but I knew she had every reason to be upset. I

  was upset. She … got drunk on the camry and went to sleep and I thought she’d be alright.

  “She went out the next day and she’s hardly ever done that. She was gone all day I was worried that something had happened. She looked … sick when she got back, but it didn’t occur to me what she’d been doing. I swear it didn’t! If I’d had any idea, I would’ve tried to talk to her out of it. I would’ve tried to stop her!

  “That was about a week ago. She hadn’t been quite the same since. I noticed.

  She would sit for hours and just stare. I thought she was just depressed and upset, though.

  “Last night when Bastian and Arrek both showed up, I thought they’d just decided to come at the same time until I heard Arrek say something about why had she invited both of them and I still just thought it was weird. But I could tell just from the way she was talking that she was upset or maybe afraid. I think maybe Arrek got suspicious, but I don’t know. She asked if they wanted something to drink and Arrek said he did but Bastian didn’t and she tried to talk Bastian into having a drink. I don’t know what happened. I couldn’t see anything, but then she seemed more agitated. I think Bastian must have drank his first and that was what set it off. She realized the poison would start effecting him and Arrek would know what she’d done and maybe he hadn’t drank his.

  “Well, he couldn’t have because when I ran in Bastian was already slumped down and Arrek …. He’d drank it, though. He demanded to know what she’d done and she told him she’d poisoned them. She said she’d thought at first that she would just poison herself and that they would do something … shin-something, but she knew they were too coldblooded to care and follow her into the afterlife so she’d realized she had to poison them because they had to be stopped.

  “I was so horrified I just couldn’t move. I couldn’t believe I’d heard what she’d said. Then Arrek started bellowing at her and said he’d see to it that she got to the afterlife first and I heard them fighting—physically. When I managed to get out of the cabinet where I was hiding and ran in, he had her down on the floor, choking her. And I … picked up the vase and hit him on the head.”

  She looked up at Camryn and Kael worriedly when she’d finished, trying to decide whether they believed her or not and whether they thought she’d killed Arrek.

  She couldn’t tell anything about their expressions. She thought they were too shocked and grieved to take it in.

  “Lie down and rest,” Camryn said finally. “There are … things that must be done and now no one to see to it but us.”

  Simone looked at him curiously. There was something about the way he said it … but he must be talking about funeral arrangements, she decided. “I didn’t understand the shin-thing.”

  He glanced at her sharply, but he only patted her hand. “Rest.”

  She felt her chest tighten for their grief. “I’m so sorry … about your fathers, and Lielani. I tried to help her, but she said it was too late. She said … she loved them anyway and she couldn’t bear to live without them.”

  He cupped her cheek. “Do not cry again. Lie down and rest.”

  She didn’t think she could rest, but she could see that Camryn and Kael needed some time and some space. She lay down. “Where’s Ean?”

  “He will be alright—now. He has fever but I sent for a physician.”

  Anxiety flashed through her. It took an effort not to demand answers right away, but she told herself that he must not be too sick or Camryn and Kael would’ve been more worried.

  Or maybe they just had too much to worry about at the moment?

  She discovered the emotional upheaval had taken more out of her than she’d realized. Almost as soon as she settled more comfortably, despite everything, she began to drift off. Nightmares woke her, jerked her from sleep to conscious. She lay staring into the darkness and listening to the low drone of voices and finally realized that it was Camryn talking to someone.

  Unwilling to allow them to know she was awake, she rolled over so that she could see and lifted her eyelids just enough to spot the small group of men in the sitting area.

  Camryn, Kael, and a couple of the others were looking directly at her, making it clear they’d noticed the movement. When she didn’t move again, they returned to their conversation.

  “We have gone back over each scene very carefully and we have found nothing to indicate that our first impressions were wrong. It seems very clear that there is no outside involvement. The concubines plotted to kill the councilors and executed their plan. I have found witnesses that saw them walking together and that saw each of them visit the Houses on the same day … about a week ago. We are as certain as we can be that that is when and how they communicated with one another and that that is when the treasonous plot was hatched to murder the council members. What we have not determined is the motive.”

  Camryn nodded. “Close the cases.”

  “But we have not ascertained the motive!”

>   “And there will be no trial so it is immaterial, is it not? The assassins have taken their own lives!”

  “We cannot be sure of that! Others might have been involved. The people will want to know,” the man persisted. “They are in a state of shock that such a thing could have been done and they are distraught—if not over the councilors themselves, then over the bizarre behavior of the women and the loss of so many!”

  “You are right. The Empire, not just the city, is in chaos. The sooner everyone is informed of what happened, the better, and then it must be dropped and focus shifted to other concerns. They are more worried about their future and the future of Macedon.

  Restoration of order will bring about peace far more quickly than a fruitless search for answers the concubines took with them to the grave!”

  A frisson of fear wafted through Simone—and horror to discover that it wasn’t just that Lielani had cracked under the strain and acted upon it. She hadn’t dreamed it was only a part of a wide-spread plot!

  And what would the repercussions be, she wondered abruptly? Would she be blamed, she wondered fearfully? Had they not believed her?

  Of course they hadn’t! Lielani had convinced everyone, even her, that she was the most gentle, loving person in the world, that she didn’t have it in her to harm anyone.

  At the very least, she might be charged with conspiring, instigating mayhem!

  There was no getting back to sleep after that! She more than half expected Camryn and Kael to confront her the moment the other men had left. Instead, they returned to the sitting room and settled again.

  “Simone is not the only one who ignored the signs of warning,” Camryn said after a little bit. “We ignored it. Lielani was thinking about what she did long before she did it.”

  “What are you talking about?” Kael demanded.

  “Do you not think, now, that it is strange that Lielani begged us to promise her we would not consider shinku when she died? We were convinced that she was just begging for attention—and I suppose she was. It just was not what we thought. She was not ill.