“Also agreed.”
He flashed a grin at her, white teeth in the dark. The electric lighting had been installed even more sparsely in the side passages. Still, no slave she’d ever seen had had teeth that white. If his story was true, he hadn’t been in custody long. Corah smiled back and had no idea if he could even see the gesture.
She let him pull her along, stumbled twice in an effort to amplify her dependence and once on accident when the tunnel spawned a spattering of invisible debris. That time she uttered a word she’d learned on the streets, but if it shocked her Shrouded escort, he didn’t comment. He’d probably heard worse in prison, if he’d ever been in prison.
“What were you in for?”
“Treason.” He might have wavered there, but damned if she hadn’t been too busy watching her feet to check his shields.
“Because you hate this prince. What was his name?”
“Dolfan.” He spat it, and she remembered to pry that time. The ire rang sincere.
“Is there a particular reason you want him dead? Oh.” She nearly plowed into the back of him again, managed to avoid entanglement this time by stepping to the side and into the rock wall. “Ow.”
“I think this is it.”
Corah peeked around him. The tunnel sloped down at a slight angle here, and it had narrowed as well until her companion’s head nearly brushed the rock above them. She had to squeeze against the wall to see around him, to catch the gleam of smooth metal in the lamps that were mounted two to a side in this spot. The extra illumination revealed tangled pipes and a broken control box. Some crew had already cleared the debris, and a pile of rubble blocked the passage beyond this mess, but Corah could see where someone had begun the welding, and had to concur with Mofitan about their goal.
“Can you do it?”
“What? The repair?”
“Of course.”
“Yeah. We mine a lot on Shroud.” He’d already configured the welder, examined the job while Corah had just enough space to breathe and examine his back. “We mine.”
“What else do you do?”
“What do you do?” He grunted and shifted to one side of the passage, turning so that she could see his shadowed profile. “Aside from ask a lot of questions and poke around in other people’s thoughts?”
“I don’t…” He looked up sharply, and she could see his eyes narrow even in the shadows. The welder hummed to life. “I do what I’m told.”
“I bet you do.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
He ignored her and started the first weld. Sparks arced from all sides of the pipe, the passage filled with smoke, and Corah shrank back and wondered if today’s “damps” were flammable. They probably were. She would most likely die in a hole with this big ex-con. Maybe ex-con. Either way it was pretty clear she’d pissed Gervis off somehow. He’d sent her here to die in the dark.
Her mask fogged at the edges. Damn. Fantastic. Now she was blind too. She rubbed at the plastic and debated taking it off. Just long enough to clear the plate shouldn’t expose her too much. Maybe. The miners hadn’t worn the protective masks. This particular shaft couldn’t even function at the moment. Niels’s saboteur had done his job too well for that. Corah played with the straps on her faceplate and tried to imagine who he’d sent. One person or a whole unit? Had they made it out, or did good rebels die in order to cause the very tears Mofitan currently mended?
Too dangerous for her to know. She understood that, sure. But Niels could have given her a hint, a shadow of reassurance. The air inside her mask thickened. She’d hyperventilate at this rate. Damps or no damps, she loosened the straps enough to pry the thing off of her face and up, over her hair.
The rear strap caught in her bun. Corah tugged until her hair fell free, still half wrapped into a knot but dangling now. Her fingers unlaced the stray hairs from the rubber while she did her best to breath shallow. Tasted okay down here. Nothing rotten or thick like on the ladder. Maybe they were far enough from the main shaft.
“Don’t leave it off for long.” Mofitan had stopped welding to observe her distress. His eyes glinted, and one side of his mouth had shifted decidedly upward. “I’d hate to have to deliver your corpse to your boss.”
“It seems fine here.”
“Damps are tricky. Don’t always feel them till it’s too late.”
“Oh.” She dragged the strap out of her hair and turned the mask over. “It was fogging up.”
“You’re breathing too fast.”
“Excuse me for needing—”
“Shhh. Look.”
“That’s twice you’ve—”
“Shhh.” His eyes stretched wide, and he sank as she watched, folding his knees and lowering his body in a smooth, slow squat. “Sit down. Slowly.”
Corah’s chest fluttered. He watched something behind her in the tunnel, but he’d shushed her and sat so carefully he might have been resting on a pillow. He wasn’t afraid, and she had a feeling why. She placed a hand against the tunnel wall and tried to mimic his grace, to lower herself in a non-threatening manner. When she’d managed to sit on her heels, she turned her body to the side just enough and lowered her head, peeked back beneath the tangle of her loose hair.
A Chromian watched them. It stood in the open, in the middle of the tunnel, and stared straight at them from three yards back.
“He’s not afraid of us?” Mofitan whispered. “He should be afraid of us.”
“No one really knows how smart they are.”
“Can he understand us?”
“Maybe.” She shrugged. “I know of them, growing up here. Sometimes kids would find them and follow them around. They usually just stay in their tunnels.”
“You’re not safe here.” Mofitan spoke to the Chromian, raised his voice enough to reach the white creature. “You should hide. All of you.”
The round head tilted to one side. Shiny black eyes blinked, and the Chromian lowered itself into a squat mimicking Mofitan.
“What does it want?” Mofitan scooted closer to her, and the alien shuffled to one side too. “Why doesn’t it run away?”
“How should I know?”
“You just said you grew up here.”
“Sometimes people gave them things.” Corah tried to remember. She’d been on the streets for years, but only really been a child for the first few. Life got ugly fast, alone in Spectre. She hadn’t had time to pay attention to the other street rats.
“Things.” Mofitan nodded at her. “Like what?”
“Just things. Gifts. For luck.”
“Luck?”
There’d been a little song too, something the children chanted about giving a penny to the gutter slugs. She didn’t care to repeat it now, facing the smooth, doughy Chromian in the flesh.
“It’s just considered lucky or something,” Corah said.
“I have something.”
“What?”
“Something I need to get rid of, in fact. Something maybe he needs more than I do.”
“What did you do?”
Mofitan fished inside his uniform now, and Corah caught a glimpse of pale tunic, the deep lilac of shadowed skin and muscle. She turned away, but the flash of metal caught her attention, drew her gaze back. “Where did you get that?”
“Captain Curel planted it on me.” Not a trace of a lie in that. She remembered to check. When Mofitan held out the knife, Corah reminded herself to peer into Curel’s thoughts as soon as possible. She could imagine a lot of reasons for giving a weapon to a complete stranger, and Corah didn’t care for many of them.
The Chromian moved, crept forward, and Mofitan matched him, lowered even more until he scuffed on his knees toward the outstretched, ghost-white hand. Gentle for a man so large. Not a chance he’d spent any time in prison. Unless this Dolfan was a monster. As Mofitan smiled and handed his only weapon to the Chromian, Corah tried to imagine what could drive him to hatred. What kind of thing could make a man like this want to kill?
The Chromian’s fingers wrapped around the hilt. Mofitan rocked back and nodded. Then he waved his hands and did his best to shoo the creature out of their tunnel. To encourage it to save itself from the real monsters. “Go on now.” He waved and the Chromian shuffled backwards. “That’s it, take it and get yourself away.”
“What do you think he’ll do with it?” A knife would not save anyone from miners with rifles. She’d never even heard of a Chromian fighting. He’d probably be the next one shot.
“I don’t care,” Mofitan said.
“I know. It’s just…”
“What?” He stood in a single motion, shook himself like a hound, and made a growly noise worthy of one too. “You worried he’ll hurt someone? Maybe we shouldn’t—”
“No.”
“Good. Look, he’s gone already.” His smile flashed teeth again, though this time in a relaxed way. Not defensive or mocking. The kind of guy who worried about the Chromian and not what would happen to himself if that knife ended up in the wrong place.
“Let’s hope it’s good luck,” she said. Mofitan stared after the “ghost.” Corah watched him, traced the outline of the big man with her eyes, and chose not to invade whatever he might be thinking. Orders or not.
“Good luck for him, or us?” His head swiveled. His gaze took her breath as surely as the miners’ damps had.
Corah sighed and blocked him out with her mask, shoved the plastic into place, and gave him the best answer she could honestly fashion.
“Yes.”
Chapter Sixteen
Jarn and the pirate captain made friends faster than the Shroud changed moods. Dielel watched them from the doorway of the mini-dome they’d been assigned to and listened to Jadyek’s pacing steps inside the habitat. He’d never been a man of action, had always ridden other people’s shadows. Today, for Jadyek’s sake, Dielel would act.
But he’d better do it fast.
The captain laughed so loudly that it echoed down the row of buildings. He slapped Jarn on his bony shoulder and pointed toward the ships sitting like giant insects on the landing pad. They both turned together and looked in Dielel’s direction. He didn’t need to see any more than that. It was probably too late already.
The demon, Jarn, had poisoned Syradan’s loyalty to his own people. He’d wooed the Shrouded Seer into betraying the Heart. If they waited much longer, Jarn would own this colony. It wouldn’t matter who had more ships, more guns, or more muscles.
Jarn had more evil.
“We need to talk.” He stood, brushed the ever-present dust from his prison-issue trousers, and went inside, closing the door despite the heat. “I’m so sorry.”
“Stop.” Jadyek had ceased pacing. He stood in the center of the single room with his hand outstretched. His ring rested on the open palm, representing their past, their home, and their heartbond. “It’s fine, Dielel. We don’t need it.”
“Are you sure?” In the end, he hesitated for this reason. Without the stone, would Jadyek still want him? Would anyone be able to see him as anything more than a traitor to their people? Haftan couldn’t. None of the others either. They were so far from the Heart here. What if the stone was the only thing holding Jadyek to his side?
“Love.” Jadyek stepped forward and pressed his ring into Dielel’s hand. “This is jewelry. A memento of a place neither of us belonged. We can’t go back now, only forward.”
“And if we die out here?”
“Then we die together.”
“No.” He shook his head until the room blurred and spun. “I’ll keep you safe. If anyone pays for our actions…”
“Together.” Jadyek squeezed his fingers, wrapped them tightly around the ring. “If we’d stayed on Shroud, you would still be in a hole, Dielel. And I would be alone, part of a council where I would never fit in. The Heart brought us together. It freed us, and in its way sent us here. Let it buy us safety too. I still trust it.”
“Yes.” It made so much sense. The stone had not failed them yet. This last chip could buy their freedom. “I trust it too.”
“Good.” Jadyek leaned in, placed a gentle kiss against Dielel’s lips, and lingered there, just long enough to inhale, to fill his lungs with the aura of his bonded. Then he leaned back and gave him a serious look, a look that put fire in his belly at the same time it settled a weight onto his shoulders. “I believe we’ll survive this, Dielel. I believe in you.”
Dielel sighed and nodded. Believe in him? In all the universe, his bonded was likely the only one that did. He nodded anyway, smiled for his heartmate, and clutched the ring tight.
“I’ll do my best.”
“I know you will.”
At least someone does. Dielel sighed and slipped back outside. Jarn had slunk off, but the pirate leader still stood across the dusty clearing. He waited by the landing pads, at the edge of dry planet and man-made platform, and stared up at the sky. Though Dielel approached him with silent steps, the man greeted him long before he’d breached that distance.
“Out for a walk?” The captain brushed at his outermost layer of dust. It hardly changed the color of his jumpsuit. Too many coats remained underneath, a permanent patina and characteristic of anyone who spent time on this glorified asteroid.
“I was hoping to…” Dielel trailed off when the man’s gaze shifted to him. He swallowed what felt like a handful of dust and stared into eyes like twin black holes. Scruffy facial hair made a nebula beyond that, covering sharp cheeks and a square chin. The eyes narrowed. In his previous life, Dielel might have bolted then, shuffled away, and found a shadow to hide inside. Today, however, he had Jadyek to think about. “I was hoping to speak with you in private.”
“I figured you two would want to cut your own deal eventually.” The captain spat on the ground, a natural reflex, and nothing, Dielel hoped, that reflected on his opinion of them. “Took you long enough though.”
“We don’t want much. Just safe passage someplace.”
“Without that other one?”
“Jarn owes us.” Did he imagine the judgment in the captain’s question? He might have projected it, but then, Jarn had spent more time with the man. He’d had the opportunity to work the situation against them. “We got him out on Shroud. And we got him to the elevator. He’d have died on the surface without us.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes.” Dielel stood taller and looked into those pit eyes. “It’s true. We wish him the best, too. Just, somewhere where we’re not.”
“I see.” A filthy hand stroked through the stubble. The eyes squinted, and the captain looked up at the sky again. “Well, that’s probably not asking for too much, now is it?”
“We don’t believe so, sir.”
“Sir?” The captain’s laugh echoed between the habitats. “That’s a first. Not that I mind it. Hmm. Not much to ask at all, really. Just transport somewhere, right? Without your skinny leader?”
“Yes, sir.” Dielel had made points with the honorific, and felt certain he should use it again. “Just Jadyek and I.”
“I can do that, you know. Sure I could. But not for nothing.”
“Of course not.” The ring was cool in his hand now. He could almost believe it wasn’t heartstone, that it didn’t represent his whole world. “We don’t have much to pay with, but there is this.”
Dielel held out his fist, but his fingers remained clamped around the ring. He held it out, but his hand failed to open. The captain’s eyes widened a little. His bushy eyebrows lifted together. Open your hand. This is your only shot. He willed his fingers to obey. For Jadyek. For both of us.
Dielel opened his hand, keeping his eyes on the captain’s face. Would it work?
“That’s a pretty bauble there.” If he meant to hide how much he liked it, he remembered too late, sniffed, and shrugged with only half-hearted force. “Is it valuable?”
“It is a cabochon cut from the same vein as the Shrouded Heart. They are made only for council princes and all before us have been b
uried with theirs.”
“That’s valuable then?”
“Yes.” He could see the lust burning in the black holes. The captain had wised up, tried to hide it now, but Dielel saw it just the same. “You’d be the only non-Shrouded in existence to possess one.”
“Aye. I might be persuaded with something like that. Maybe.”
“We want safe passage without Jarn.”
“Anywhere specific?”
“The farther from Shroud the better. Someplace that won’t just send us back.”
“Aye. Oh, I can definitely promise you that.”
“Then you’ll make a deal with us?”
“I’m assuming this here is a secret deal.”
“Yes.”
“I’m in. For the ring, I’m in.”
“Thank you.”
“Paid in advance of course.” The pirate’s hand shot out, palm up.
“And Jarn doesn’t get involved?” Dielel had to be sure. Jarn was too big a risk to their safety.
“Aye. This one is just between you and me.”
Dielel watched his eyes. Nothing but greed flickered there. He dropped the ring into the pirate’s hand, almost certain he’d just saved them. Almost. If he judged the captain correctly, they’d be just fine.
And he’d always been such a good judge of character.
He watched foreign fingers wrap around the Shrouded treasure and prayed Jadyek was right. The Heart was on their side. The Heart would lead them to safety. He would trust in that for now, and if the future proved him wrong, well, they were out of rings. This was their last shot at freedom, and Dielel prayed to everything he’d left behind that he’d played it well enough to save them.
“So you grew up here, on Eclipsis?” Mofitan clicked off the welder and turned his face to confront the woman who watched him. He’d repaired close to thirty percent of the damage in this tunnel, but he’d done it with her squatting like one of the mine’s ghosts just off his shoulder. That had proved far more distracting than he’d have imagined.
“Yeah.” She shrugged and shrank back into herself, shuffled aside, and leaned against the wall. Interesting. Something there she didn’t want to talk about. It was practically an invitation.
Eclipsed (Heartstone Book 3) Page 12
