by Hotter Edge
She circled again as they descended deeper yet. Would it sting her or shatter, knowing she was not its owner?
A more terrifying possibility loomed in her mind. After all, she had been the l’auralyo’s lover.
Would the key think she sought to claim it?
Gulping at the seawater, she slowly reached out and let the links settle around her webbed fingers. A random shift of the water pushed the bracelet higher, and she braced her thumb to keep the links from looping around her wrist.
“You can’t be mine,” she whispered. “I am not selfish enough to claim the sheerways’ last l’auralyo.”
She clenched her fingers around the bracelet and glided upward through the water.
But when she reached the deck, no one waited to pull her out.
She dragged herself up with one hand, feeling oddly awkward with the bracelet cradled to her chest. If she just put it on… No, that was not her place.
The deck chair was empty; Icere and his clothing were gone. She let herself into her suite. Without pausing to grab a towel, she stalked through the rooms.
Also empty.
She felt somewhat the same. The cleansing fire of shock and the deep dive had left her strangely adrift, as if she needed an anchor.
Something heavier than these delicate, carved links of qva’avaq in her hand.
She started toward the safe in her office but halted. A small locked vault it might be, but it didn’t feel safe enough for Icere’s key crystal. She looked uncertainly around the space, clutching the bracelet. Unease pricked at her. Since when did she dither?
Since him.
She sighed, and the crystal in her hand chimed in answer.
The office door swung open, cutting off the soft almost mocking sound, and she whirled. “Icere—”
“Saya.” Luac bowed. “Omel is on the move early. We’re in trouble.”
Chapter Twelve
Ensconced in his suite, Icere checked the status of ships in orbit again, but the storm static had made the skies all but invisible to his best tech. Hopefully the same would be true for the raiders. If they noticed anything unusual… Well, with any luck, they wouldn’t look up.
He switched channels as a message came in.
Kylara stared at him from the screen, looking very much like her intense mother in the moment. Which made him frown back. “What is it?”
“Omel took the bait. But she took it too soon. She’s in the only operational sub and it has a tracker aboard, but without your ship overhead…”
He cursed under his breath. “They’re due in any time now. But interference means I may not be able to confirm their arrival.”
Ky raked her hand over her head. “If the raider ship comes for her before yours does, we’re sunk. Luac and Mother are going after her.”
Icere stiffened. “When? Where?”
Her gaze shifted. “I should say, they’ve already gone after her.”
Shock chased along his already raw nerves like plasma flares, filling the cold, horrible emptiness that had crept into his qva’avaq when he threw his key out to sea. Forcing Rynn to go after the crystalline chain had been his last chance.
Instead, she had gone after the raiders.
He swore again, not under his breath this time.
“I know, I know,” Ky said. “They didn’t tell me either. Considering they accused me of being part of it, I’m not sure how I feel about being left behind.”
“I could tell you how I feel about it,” he snapped as he hurried through the room, tossing his tech and anything else that seemed useful into his duffel.
Ky grimaced. “Mother wanted us to have more offworld experience, and yet sometimes I think she doesn’t really trust anything that doesn’t breathe the same water she does.”
The wistful comment went through his gut like one of those shattered staves, and he paused to look into the screen. “We don’t have time to list all the ways Rynn is wrong.”
Ky scowled at him. “Careful. That’s my mother and Saya you are talking about.”
“And my should-be a’lurilya,” he muttered.
“What?”
“Nothing.” He headed for the door, still talking. “I assume you didn’t permanently disable the other subs.”
“Of course not.”
“Then meet me at the dock.”
He hurried through the barge, dodging the afternoon crowds pushed indoors by the rising tempest. Judging by the rain that lashed the clear plasteel roof of the main hall, the afternoon storm was going to be the worst of his time on the planet so far.
The horde thinned as he reached the more utilitarian corridors. Still, the pounding of rain—now out of sight—kept time with his urgent steps.
He found Ky pacing outside the double doors that led to the docks. She frowned at the duffle in his hand. “What do you have?”
He ignored the question. “We need a few more things. Where can we get scrubbers?”
“All the life support apparatus we’d need is on the sub. But what—?”
He pushed through the doors. “And weapons?”
She hastened after him. “This is a pleasure barge.”
“Which is regularly awash in drunkards and surrounded by man-eating clams. Weapons?”
She pursed her lips. “I think there’s a locker just on the other side of the docks.”
He gestured for her to lead. She strode past the line of submersibles lined up at the dock, anchored against the slap of waves driven under the awning that covered the large hangar. But nothing could keep out the scent of the storm: briny and wild with a hint of sweetness as if the wind had torn apart a million flowers.
As Icere inhaled the fragrance, the scent-memory of his island night with Rynn swept over him.
Now he was going back with violence on his mind.
Ky stood at a wide cabinet door, frowning. “We’ll have to contact security to let us in.”
He rifled through his duffel and withdrew his tablet. A few keystrokes and…the door popped open.
She frowned at the pulse hazers, spear guns and gaff hooks lined up in orderly rows within. “I don’t think outworlders should be able to do that.”
“That’s what your mother would say. And you’re right.” He helped himself to one of each and waited while she reluctantly did the same, then he latched the cabinet again. “Ready?”
“For what?”
He smiled. “For whatever.”
They took the smallest sub out. “Small but fast,” Ky said as she guided the four-seater out from the hangar. “If we want to catch up with them, this is our ride. Plus, with any luck, our wake will be too piddling to attract the malac.”
“That would be nice.”
Ky gunned it and the water blurred past them.
Icere checked his tablet. “The Asphodel must be in orbit by now.”
“Must be but you can’t be sure. Tell them where to meet us.”
He keyed in the message. “Can’t be sure they’ll get that either.”
“This must be the whatever part of your plan.”
“I’m told I’m a risk-taker.”
She grunted. “In some pathological way, I’m glad this is happening.”
“That is sick.”
“It’ll force Mother—and Luac too—to see Saya-Terce is a player in the universe, that we’re strung along the sheerways just like everybody else.”
“I don’t think they’re so backwater that they don’t understand the basic science.”
“No, they understand the science, but they don’t appreciate the spirit of it. We’re part of the bigger picture now. They won’t be able to forget.”
In some strange way, he could see her point. Even more strangely, it gave him hope there’d be room in this suddenly wider world for one homeless l’auralyo.
Then he remembered what the Saya had done the last time outworld meddling had impinged upon her pretty little sea.
He handled the spear gun, getting a feel for the weight of t
he weapon, then he checked the settings on the hazer. “It’ll fire underwater too?”
Ky nodded. “Half the range, at best, though. A shot from the spear gun will actually go farther.” She shifted in her seat. “Maybe it won’t come to that.”
“True. Maybe the raiders will see the error of their ways and go native for a lifetime of Purple Passion Pacifiers.”
She shot him a look almost as sharp as the flechettes clipped to the haft of the spear gun. “Hand me a hazer.”
On the sub’s dash, an image of the island appeared with blinking signatures of three other vehicles.
Ky pointed at each in turn. “The sub Omel stole. These two are Mother, Luac and their security team.” With a wave of her hand, she called up another screen. “No evidence of a sheership breaking atmosphere.”
“Where’s the most reasonable place to land?”
She returned to the map of the island and zoomed in. “Here, probably. Flat. Stable soil. It’ll hold a ship.”
“Beach us close to that.”
“But everyone else—” She zoomed out to show the distance between the potential landing site and the three blinking dots.
“Apparently they don’t think they need us there.”
She slanted a glance at him. “And you think they’re wrong.”
He blew out a breath. “No. They probably don’t need us there. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Saya could take out Omel and her partners even without Luac and the security team.” The admission swelled his chest with pride and worry. “But I think they will need us here.”
“Spear guns against a sheership?”
“Maybe someone can write a song about it. We’ll sing it around a campfire on the beach some night.”
She grinned reluctantly. “After the storms.”
He nodded.
So quickly that Icere didn’t have time to contemplate the slow swim he’d taken with Rynn in the opposite direction, the island loomed ahead of them, a bright ghostly image on the screen and then a dark ghostly image in their viewport as they rose above the waves and into the rain.
Ky beached the sub. “We’re going to get wet.”
“You say that like I’ve been dry even once since I got here.”
She gave him a look while they grabbed their weapons and prepared to pop the hatch. “I can’t help but notice that you finally changed into our island wear.”
He glanced down where his chest was half bared by the loose V neck. “It’s camouflage.”
“Right. I can hardly see you past the flexing.”
He narrowed his eyes and crossed the spear gun over the V. “Go.”
The moment the hatch opened, rain poured in as if they’d forgotten to bring the sub to the surface, instantly drenching them. Even Ky cursed in surprise.
They staggered out under the beating water and jumped into the surf. She’d done a good job beaching the sub, and the waves only reached their knees. Immediately ahead, the high arches of tangled tree roots seemed to barricade the shore. When Icere and Ky slipped in among them, the roots made a maze toward the interior. Overhead, the leaves tossed, doing little to protect them from the rain.
Ky turned back toward the sub and aimed her pocket-sized tech toward the vehicle, which powered down at her command. “There.” She had to raise her voice over the rain. “We won’t show up on their screens, and the mangroves will block the view from the landing site.”
They threaded their way between the roots until a field opened ahead of them.
Icere put his hand on Ky’s shoulder. “We’ll wait here.”
“For what?” Then she shook her head. “For whatever. I forgot.”
He hunkered down in the roots, feeling mud splash up onto his thighs from the force of the rain. He’d been created to be the ultimate diversion for some pampered monarch; he’d logged lightyears across the sheerways in pursuit of his revenge for a future that would never happen; and now he crouched in the deluge of a world determined to drown him.
Fuck the elegance and refinement he’d been taught since the qva’avaq had been threaded through his skin; he couldn’t wait to shoot something.
***
Rynn crept through the underbrush, not bothering to avoid the soaked leaves. They were no wetter than she was. Just ahead of her moved two men from the security detail whose large bodies hadn’t appreciably knocked any of the water from the leaves. Behind her, Luac and another barge guard were no doubt getting equally saturated.
The sloppy conditions had slowed their pursuit of Omel and the other three raiders. They’d picked off one who had lingered behind, presumably to pick them off. That encounter had lessened Omel’s supporters by one but had slowed them down even more.
They hadn’t heard the roar of a sheership coming in, but she expected to at any moment, signaling that Omel’s rescuers had come for her. Or more precisely, for the malac essence.
Rynn halted when the guard ahead of her—Pisey, lieutenant of her personal entourage—signaled a warning and disappeared to investigate some concern ahead of him. The rest waited tensely.
Timing was everything. They needed the ship to come in, with whatever evidence it had that would lead them to the higher-ranking perpetrator of this scheme, but she couldn’t let them offworld. They’d get no liqueur from the emptied sachet, but she wasn’t going to give them another chance to subvert an aphrodisiac from somewhere else.
She would allow no second chances when she’d given herself none.
The irrelevance of the thought made her want to keep moving, if only to escape what it meant. But the other front guard glared at her when she shifted, rustling the leaves.
She subsided, but her thoughts sucked at her like the mud around her ankles, threatening to pull her down.
She had everything she wanted on Saya-Terce. What made her think there was anything more she could ask for?
The bracelet—which she’d stupidly, unforgivably, helplessly slipped around her wrist—twinkled at her through the rain.
Gah. She tugged down her sleeve, not to cover herself from the relentless water but to block that mocking shine.
Through the forest ahead, Pisey returned and gestured to his second while he whispered through their comm-links. “Targets are at the clearing, waiting. We’ll angle around from the side. You two—” he pointed at Luac and the third guard “—come in straight.”
“Us three,” Rynn said.
“Saya—” Luac started.
“Ni-Saya,” she retorted.
Pisey cut his hand through the air, actually slicing the water, which almost made her laugh. “Fine. Three. Wait until we signal, then move fast. Don’t get killed, Saya. See you do the same, Ni-Saya.”
She knew she should have brought a larger crew, but considering the diver had been bought out and even Luac had been contacted unbeknownst to him, she couldn’t be sure whom to trust and had brought only her closest guards into the plan. The forest felt decidedly more empty as Pisey and his second melted away.
She could have trusted Icere.
Another useless thought. He had done enough already. She wanted the words in her head to sound more acerbic. Instead she felt regretful. Which was the sort of thing one felt before one died in a hail of hazer fire.
She forced herself to focus. This was like hunting megalocanths. The huge, armored and sharply spined fish were exceedingly dangerous but the hunt itself was straightforward enough, and Pisey had said it best: Don’t get killed.
Luac edged up beside her, deactivating his comm-link. “Mother, let me say again how sorry I am.”
Regret apparently spread as easily as muddy footprints through the barge. She touched a dripping lock of his hair. “I kept you too close to me, didn’t I?”
He grinned at her. “Ky would say yes. I say I love you.” His grin flattened and his dark eyes turned serious. “And I say I am ready to be more.”
Pride—a mother’s for her son, a leader’s for the one who would someday replace her—filled her eyes with mo
re water than the rain. “I was afraid to let you go.”
“As I was afraid to be let go. You’ve made a place of such beauty and wonder…” his grin flashed again “…and passion, no one would ever want to leave.”
She stiffened. “Leave? How far?”
“Ky teases me, but she’s right about how little I’ve changed. Maybe it’s time I saw more of the universe. After this is over, maybe I’ll take Icere with me and he can show me the stars.”
The pride sharpened to pain in her chest. “The two of you would rule the sheerways.”
He studied her. “Or maybe Icere would rather stay here.”
“I can’t imagine why he would.”
“You can’t?”
She hushed him and put her finger to the comm-link in her ear. Not that Pisey had signaled, but she didn’t want to hear more from her son, not on this.
She was relieved when he reactivated his comm after giving her one last look. “Things don’t have to stay the way they’ve always been.”
“Ahawe-aulu,” she said.
“The wind is only a circle if you’re still standing in the same place.”
She scowled at him and he gave her a mock scowl back.
Just when she was starting to think they’d never have a chance to move—the mud would swallow them where they waited—Pisey whispered through the comm, “Omel is contacting her pickup. Can’t decode the message, but they must be close if she’s reaching them through the storm. We should hear them soon.”
Luac shifted the hazer in his arms. “Can we stop them with the firepower we have?”
“Negative,” Pisey said. “If we want to take the ship, we’ll have to wait until they open the hatch to let her in. We don’t want to risk an explosion and fuel dump this close to the malac field. We could lose everything.”
Rynn didn’t bother reminding them that if they lost the sheerways, everything would be gone anyway. Pisey was a good lieutenant because he focused on what was in front of him. It was hard to envision the universe when everything they’d ever desired was right here.
Only recently had she learned to want more, and now…
A distant roll of thunder made them all look up through the sodden branches. She blinked away the rain that flooded across her face as the thunder only intensified.
