Eclipsed (Heartstone Book 3)

by Frances Pauli

  “I hope you do.” They’d reached the top of the stairs, the portal that opened out on a busy shipyard, on the graveyard of so many. Slavers. Thieves and smugglers. Gervis Dern’s bread and butter.

  Corah’s skin crawled at the proximity of so many monsters. Her jaw clicked tighter.

  “I hope you see, Corah. Seeing is why I hired you in the first place. It’s why you are still here, my lovely right arm.” He turned to face her, backlit by the mammoth running lights that stood guard at all times over the plains of gray concrete. Her master’s voice lowered, adopted an edge that turned her prickles into full-on shivers. “At least, it is one of the reasons you are still here.”

  “I will see for you.” It would have sounded better if the trembles hadn’t sneaked into the assertion.

  “Of course you will.” Gervis’s hands waved aside the mood. He continued on his way, out into the light, and Corah kept step at exactly the distance he was most comfortable with. “And for now I want you to see him. While he’s in the mines, he’s your project, my dear. Keep him in your sights and let me know the minute you have the information I need.”

  “And that is?” Keep him close? She was meant to spy on the man, to shadow him and report to Gervis. Except he’d shut her out in the cell, closed his thoughts to her as surely as if he were an adept psychic even though she hadn’t felt anything of the sort. In fact, she’d sensed something else, something she couldn’t pin down. He’d slammed the door shut in his mind before Corah could decipher anything further, and no matter how skilled she was, how much Gervis relied on her, she didn’t think she’d break through the stranger’s barrier any time soon.

  “I need to know when you’ve decided I can trust the man, Corah. He’s absolutely no good to me if I can’t.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Gather some things and meet the captain back here as soon as possible.”

  “Sir?”

  “I don’t intend to keep the fellow in Spectre, Corah. Please. He might have behaved himself down there, but he stirred up one hell of a ruckus last night. Can’t have the risk this close to home.”

  “Then where are you sending me, sir?” She used the lightest touch, the barest feeler to read him. Even so, Corah suspected Gervis Dern knew all about the invasion. His thoughts felt far too clean, too innocent to be his true ones.

  “You’ll follow him to the Banshee Basin. I’ll arrange for you to be housed near him, primitive I’m afraid, but you must shadow his every move so that you can keep an eye on things. It is of the utmost import that we know what motivates this man and how I can win him over.”

  “Of course.” Something had gone horribly wrong. Had Gervis puzzled out her true reasons for being in his service? Corah couldn’t fathom it, not with his team of semi-qualified psychics and his own infantile skills. She’d slipped up, or Niels had, perhaps, if Gervis meant to send her out of Spectre.

  She surfed his emotions for any sense of betrayal and found nothing. Only his ordinary, background noise of psychic static, his intentional confusion, answered her probing. But if he hadn’t found her out, why send her away? Gervis Dern never chose any action lightly, but ever since this lilac warrior appeared, Corah’s master had adopted a nearly impetuous decision-making process. Dangerous. Spooky.

  And it meant she’d have to live beside Mofitan, monitor him every moment.

  “Corah.” Gervis’s voice lowered again, became velvet and glass. He stepped into her space, and his hand hovered near her collar, not touching but still a threat. “I understand that this man is a potential threat, I do. But I need him. He could be the key to getting rid of Kovath’s whore-child, and I think you know how much that would mean to me.”

  “Yes, sir. I—”

  “I don’t want to wait too long for this. You understand. If there is anything you can do, any magic you can manage that will bring this purple gorilla into the fold more quickly…” His hand moved in. Long fingers twisted like a snake’s caress along her collar, brushing the skin below. “Anything. You understand?”

  “Yes, sir.” She was to be his prostitute now.

  “You fully understand?”

  “Whatever it takes, sir.”

  “Good girl.” His sleazy hand dropped from her throat. It didn’t banish her shivers, but it let her breathe again. “Get this done for me and get back as soon as you can.”

  “Yes.” Maybe in the Banshee Basin she could get a message out without detection. Maybe she could contact Niels, tell him… Corah steeled herself and remembered her purpose. Not tell him she was out. No. Tell him about the Shrouded man, the opportunity both Gervis and Corah saw in the lilac intrusion. Use whatever skills she had to get to him, yes. But she meant to use the man against Gervis Dern, and she knew her master well enough to suspect she wasn’t the only spy he’d be sending. Someone would be there to watch her watch the stranger.

  If she could contact Niels. Maybe.

  Even if she managed that, who won this race would depend on the lilac man. It would depend on which one of them got to him first. Corah saluted and spun away, her head weaving plans to pack into a shield around her treacherous thoughts. She’d need sturdier clothing, boots… There had to be a way to get to him, preferably one that didn’t involve seduction. Two bags should be enough to last her. She’d have him working for Gervis in no time. Get a message out safely. Then, perhaps even seduction would have to be an option.

  Except she knew in advance that it would fail. She knew it just as surely as she knew Gervis suspected her, that someone would report to him on her every move. The Shrouded prisoner had shut her out. He’d locked his mind to her and in that moment, Corah had sensed her failure. She’d have an uphill battle ahead, because unless she’d read him wrong in that brief peek, he’d already decided Corah was his enemy.

  “He didn’t leave Eclipsis on the slaver ship. We got the final manifest back this morning.” Dolfan looked at her with an apology and a measure of fear in his expression. “He got off in Spectre.”

  Vashia sighed, nodded, and buried her face in her hands.

  “That’s good, right?” the Uraru girl, Rowri, asked. She’d come to Eclipsis with Shayd, and she clung to him like a shadow, as haunting and beautiful as the Shrouded Seer, but completely out of her element here in Wraith. This world of filth and metal scared her. Vashia didn’t need the couple’s visionary ability to see that. “We wanted him in Spectre, didn’t we?”

  “Yes.” She exchanged a dark look with her heartmate. Technically, Vashia hadn’t loved the plan from the beginning, and they had tried to talk Mofitan out of it. In the end, however, they’d all agreed to send Mofitan into Dern’s lair. They’d agreed, and now, they all shared the pressure and the blame equally. “But this is the part of the plan that spooks me. This is the part where we can’t contact him. We’re in the dark, and all we have left is to wait.”

  “And see.” Shayd added his typically cryptic two cents.

  “And see, yes.” Vashia nodded and favored him with a pleading expression that the Seer immediately dashed with a shake of his head. “But you haven’t seen anything.”

  “Not yet,” Rowri offered.

  “Well, let’s keep trying.”

  “They will, Vash.” Dolfan leaned against the back of a padded chair, a chair that Vashia remembered her father sitting in. She closed her eyes and tried not to see Kovath everywhere, tried not to think of other topics discussed in this meeting room. “When we worked out the plan, it was Mof’s voice shouting the loudest in favor of sending him into this mess.”

  “I know.” She pinched the bridge of her nose and nodded. “I know. It was his idea, but that might be what scares me the most. He’s been off lately. I can’t be the only one who noticed?”

  “Mof has always had a suicidal streak.” Dolfan’s voice had too much humor in it. Would no one take the danger seriously?

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

  “We’ll try again,” Rowri offered. She had an eager, active disposi
tion, and as far as Vashia could tell, would do anything to fit in with Shayd’s world. Vashia liked her a great deal, but hadn’t had the time to get to know her well enough for there to be any trust between them. Still, the offer worked like a balm on her nerves. They’d try. She believed Shayd could see through the planet core if he really wanted to. They’d find Mofitan if he was anywhere to be found.

  “Thank you.” It was the other option that plagued her, however. What if he’d already failed? Her Shrouded allies tried, but every one of them underestimated the depth of the rottenness infesting Eclipsis. They just didn’t understand how dark it could get on this planet with no Shroud or Heart to protect them. “Good. I’m sure you’ll see him soon.”

  “You all right, Vash?” Dolfan spoke, and she wanted to look, but feared her father’s ghost would be sitting beneath him.

  “Yes.” The walls squeezed her. The rooms hissed with Kovath’s memory. “I think I’m going to go out for a bit. Would you have them move our stuff from the office while I’m gone?”

  “Of course.”

  “Good. Good. And thank you, all of you. I just need some air.”

  “Take a car.” Dolfan moved around her father’s chair, blocked Kovath’s ghost but managed to sound like her dad just the same. He even crossed his arms over his chest, making the fatherly image Kovath had never managed to achieve. “Please.”

  Kovath had never said please in his life.

  “I will.” Vashia set her teeth together, but nodded and smiled for him. Having someone who genuinely cared about her safety was new. It took some getting used to, and she’d very much wanted to walk, but the concern in her heartmate’s eyes sealed her fate. She’d take a car…at least part of the way.

  By the time she exited the governor’s mansion, a hover car already waited for her. Vashia watched the steely side panel slide open and couldn’t bring herself to feel angry about it. Dolfan wouldn’t know the memories the cars stirred in her, and he’d definitely meant to protect her by insisting. She just couldn’t ride in the damn things without imagining Jarn’s sneering face. Then again, if she meant to live in her father’s shoes, to clean up his mess, then she was going to have to get used to the bad memories.

  Maybe she could replace them with good ones, just as she’d spent the last few months replacing buildings, merchants, and traders from the old Wraith with new, respectable businesses. At least as they drove through the capital streets she could see the signs that her efforts were bearing fruit. Here in Wraith, the main port and largest city on Eclipsis, Vashia had managed to keep her word. The streets were clean, and so were the merchants that operated there.

  She’d increased employment, instituted refuges and job training for the citizens that needed it, and restricted any trade in and out of the port that involved illegal trafficking. She’d routed the slavers, replaced the brothels with businesses and schools, and brought in mercenaries to keep the streets safe until she’d been able to enlist a proper police force.

  Wraith, she felt proud of. Unfortunately, schools and libraries didn’t support a planetary economy. Eclipsis would never be the shining star of the Galactic Summit, never provide tourism or gems or even farmland to support its occupants. The planet was good for one thing, mining and the industry it spawned, and like it or not the center of that was Spectre.

  Damn Gervis Dern and his stranglehold on the biggest producer of exports. Even with her people in the rest of the regional seats, Dern had an upper hand financially. He’d sway the best of them eventually. Dern would use the riches of Spectre to put them all in his pocket if she gave him enough time, gave Eclipsis enough time to wear down the ethics of her lesser governors. She needed Dern gone as fast as possible.

  Mofitan had to succeed.

  With her mercenaries stolen away by the Shevrans, all Vashia had was a flagging military force, most of which she’d been using to keep Wraith safe. Dern’s men were nastier, better trained, and more comfortable with slaughter. An equally matched armed conflict would go his way and he knew it. They needed to know how many troops he had, where they were, and how fast they’d be able to respond if forces from Wraith moved in. They needed Mofitan’s mission to work.

  “Stop here.”

  The car slowed and then parked in front of an empty building. Vashia knew it was abandoned because she’d purchased the block herself at a very inflated rate and then ordered everyone to vacate the premises. She crawled out of the car and leaned down to face the driver.

  “Come back in an hour.” When he opened his mouth to protest, she did something far too like her father. One hand came up, instinctively, and simultaneously silenced the man and reminded him that she was the one in charge around here. Her stomach tightened. “Just an hour. I’ll be fine.”

  Vashia waited for the hover car to drift away, for it to round the far corner before she turned her back on the doorway she’d been dropped off at and scurried instead for the nearest alley. Halfway down this she stopped, squeezing sideways into a gap between two buildings and inching her way to a scrap of filthy tarp. This covered a pothole that was deeper than she was tall and, without hesitation, the planetary governor lifted the plastic, crawled underneath it, and dropped down into the darkness.

  Chapter Seven

  Captain Curel watched his every move. The man’s eyes had stuck to Mofitan the second Gervis Dern departed, and they hadn’t flickered away from him for a second since. He’d led the way out of the bunker and across the pad to another, equally dismal building, and the whole time he’d kept his attention fixed one hundred percent on Mofitan.

  The new bunker had a lower ceiling, forcing Mofitan to hunch his way down the halls inside. Curel marched faster for his discomfort, leading the way through a series of rooms that got narrower and grayer as they went. Finally, the captain stopped in front of an armored door.

  “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “And what’s that?” Mofitan shrugged and his shoulders brushed against the hallway’s walls. “What is it you think I’m doing, Captain?”

  “Dern is not a man to be trifled with at all. Nor are the mines anywhere to escape whatever it is that you’re running from.” Curel turned slate-gray eyes on him. Narrow, as tight as the set of his teeth and jaw. This man, Mofitan thought, would be better suited leading than taking orders. He had that aura, a sense of command. Whether or not he’d lead men to do good or evil, however, Mofitan couldn’t judge. Curel made a tutting sound and turned back to opening the door. “You ever heard of the canary in the coal mine, Mr. Mofitan?”

  “I can’t say that I have.”

  “Well, then it’s safe to say that you are now the canary.” Curel vanished through the doorway, and Mofitan followed him into a barely wider room lined with locker compartments. Each box had a series of electronic numbers on the front, and Curel stopped in front of one that read all zeroes.

  “What’s a canary?” Mofitan examined the lockers around him while Curel fished around inside 000.000.000.

  “Never mind. There’s gear in here, everything you’ll need anyways. When you’re dressed, come on out.” Curel turned his face away, but Mofitan caught the movement of his hands. The captain reached back into the locker, fiddled with one last thing before facing him again. “I’ll be outside waiting. No guards posted. Just you and me.”

  “Cozy.”

  “That’s right.” The captain faced him, raised a steely stare to meet Mofitan’s height. He held the eye contact longer than most men, even Shrouded men, usually could. Then he stepped forward, leaving Mofitan to either turn sideways or hold his ground and force a confrontation.

  “Very cozy.” Mofitan shifted to allow him past. He sucked in his breath and did his best to give Curel room to squeeze by. If this jackass wanted to fight, he had a death wish. If he wanted to blow Mofitan’s cover, to flush him out and turn him over to Dern, Mofitan wasn’t about to play along. “See you outside.”

  “Sure thing.”

  He waited for Curel’s
boots to ring a retreat all the way back to the landing pads. The damn walls were too close in here. The ceiling pressed down on him, heavier than the Shroud. If Dolfan had looked at him like that, there’d have been a brawl. Damned if he didn’t miss Dolfan. He could use a good brawl at the moment, use it to blow off a little steam. Instead, he examined the locker for whatever trap Curel had set for him.

  It didn’t take much looking to find it. The captain had left a message on top of the neatly folded uniform inside. Mofitan had seen his hands darting back into the locker, had suspected something nasty, maybe even a detonator. Curel had left him a weapon instead. He’d left him a little temptation, or else, a means to defend himself. It all depended on how you read the captain’s intentions. Unfortunately, Mofitan hadn’t read shit in those gray eyes that would give him a clue what to do next.

  He pulled out the sheath and checked over the knife inside. Too long to be a utility blade, to be standard issue for miners’ gear. Still, it was short enough to hide easily, a coward’s weapon really, but a useful enough tool to have on him in enemy territory. He couldn’t afford to leave it behind, though his gut told him to do just that. To put on the rest of the gear and leave Curel’s trap in the empty locker.

  No doubt the captain would check if he’d taken it. What would Curel think when he found out he had? Mofitan drew the knife all the way out, turned it in the auxiliary lights and watched the metal dance. Blood grooves in the center made a V that pointed to a sharp hook on one side just above the hilt. A deadly weapon, if a small one. He should leave it behind. He shouldn’t even be thinking of taking it. Curel would come back and check, and he had no idea what message he’d send by keeping the knife.

  He sheathed it and set it back inside the compartment. Then he dressed in a uniform that had to be the largest they had but that still pulled a little across his shoulders when fully fastened. He left the front open instead, and kept his filthy Shrouded under tunic on beneath it. Not pretty, but better than the flimsy white thing he’d found tucked inside the bulky uniform. He’d tear that thing in half just trying to get it over his head.