Hearts & Minds: Book Six in the Crown of Blood series

by White, Gwynn

  The rush of people passing him made him blink.

  Without even pausing to look at him, at least ten guardsmen raced up the passageway after the programmers.

  Meka grabbed the opportunity to slip back into the privy.

  “Twenty minutes.”

  Shale sat on the grimy floor with his head resting on his knees. He looked up and glared. “Traitor.”

  Meka dropped down next to him. “You’re not the brightest Norin export, are you?” Shale’s fist swung up, but Meka easily caught it. He held it tight in his hand. “What are you and the others planning?”

  “Like we’d tell you.”

  Meka sighed. “Listen, testicle sack, I’m running out of time and patience.” Taking a chance on the power of his title, he added, “Tell me what the plan is, and I’ll—”

  “Enough!” a female’s accented voice bellowed so loudly the sound carried straight down the passageway and through the privy door. “Stop this nonsense, all of you. Everyone back to your posts. Now.”

  “Kai Lin.” Shale’s whole body slumped.

  It seemed Shale was right about the power the mysterious Kai Lin wielded because the same guardsmen’s boots he’d heard just moments before crunched back down the passage.

  Once they passed the privy, Shale whispered, “The plan doesn’t matter anymore. Thanks to you, your sidekick will get us all programmed again before we can act.”

  “Over my dead body.” Meka shot to his feet. “I’ve got things to do. An alliance to support.” His stomach clenched. “A brother to find.” Grigor was another person he’d made promises to. Promises he hadn’t managed to keep. He still carried Shale’s rifle on his back. He gripped it in both hands and strode to the door.

  “Wait.” Shale also scrambled to his feet. “What are doing?”

  Meka didn’t bother turning. “Getting out of here. And if anyone stops me, I will blow their head off. Present company included.” He wrenched the door open, strode out into the deserted passageway—and paused.

  For all his grand words, he had no idea how to leave this prison.

  He grudgingly called to Shale, “Where’s the exit to this dump?”

  A shrug. “I haven’t a clue.”

  “Will Kai Lin know?” Meka asked, unsure what to believe.

  Shale frowned at him. “I would think you’d know the answer to that.”

  “Norin idiot.” Meka shut the door on Shale and stomped off to the room with the informas.

  “Fifteen minutes.”

  He broke into a run even though he didn’t understand the stakes. The passageway seemed endless. Finally, he reached the steel door. A flash of his eye at the retinal scanner and the steel door slid open inexorably slowly. Rifle at the ready, he edged into a dark room swirling with informas. The programmers he’d seen outside the privy had joined at least twenty others, all armed with rifles. They circled an unarmed man and woman.

  He recognized the woman’s short black hair and creamy brown skin—Kai Lin. Despite the rifles pointing at her, her hands clenched her hips and her upturned face was defiant. In contrast, the man’s bright black eyes, set in an equally dark face, were clouded with worry. His hands were raised in surrender.

  That didn’t stop Claire from thrusting the tip of her rifle into his ribs. “Aljesh, we told you to keep Kai Lin isolated.” She looked at Kai Lin with contempt. “The bitch is so deep up Felix’s ass, she can’t be trusted.”

  Aljesh started to say something, but Kai Lin interrupted. “Leave him alone. I won’t permit you to harm him the way you have probably killed Prince Meka.”

  The only voice of reason here, Kai Lin sounded sorry that he might have been murdered.

  Someone from the crowd yelled, “Permit us! There’s a joke. You don’t run this place anymore.”

  Laughter rippled through the programmers.

  “Ten minutes.”

  Even with time running out, there was more to be learned in hiding than in showing his hand, so Meka remained in the shadows near the door.

  Someone else yelled, “The guardsmen might still be programmed to obey you, but we aren’t.”

  “Right on,” someone else added. “So unless you want us to make you pay for keeping us prisoner here, you’ll do as we say.”

  Kai Lin turned full circle. “I never kept you here. I’m also Count Felix’s prisoner. I also want nothing more than to contact Warlord Avanov so he can rescue us. But it’s impossible. The Hive has been compromised. If we contact Treven, Lukan will hear every word we say. That could make trouble for the Light-Bearer and the warlord that we know nothing about. I’m not willing to risk that. Keeping them safe is way more important than getting us rescued.”

  Programmers booed her.

  How dare they claim to support the Light-Bearer when they weren’t bothered that their actions could harm him and the alliance he served?

  Rowan shouted above the noise. “You can build encryption to evade Lukan. You just don’t want to.” He glared at Aljesh. “All you had to do was keep your rifle trained on her until we could force her to obey us.”

  Aljesh sighed. “I’m not interested in your fight. Our ice crystals have gone.” His bright black eyes darted across the programmers. “Isn’t that enough for you?”

  Another wave of protest rippled through the crowd.

  Rowan held up an imperious hand, and the noise abated. “That’s our answer. Is it clear enough for you?”

  “I want to leave here, too.” Aljesh didn’t meet Rowan’s furious gaze. “But if Kai Lin says it’s impossible—”

  “Tosh!” Someone in the crowd yelled. “I heard you say to Kai Lin that you don’t want to go back to Treven.”

  “Aljesh,” Claire shouted. “That makes you our enemy.” Her rifle cracked.

  Aljesh’s eyes widened. Amid a spray of blood, he levitated, spun around, and slumped onto the concrete floor. A hole the size of a fist gaped in his back.

  No stranger to brutal death, the blood rushed from Meka’s face.

  A gasp surged through the programmers, but none of them dropped their weapons. Nor did they call Claire out on her brutal murder.

  “No!” Kai Lin’s hands flew to her mouth. “You killed him.”

  Rowan rounded on her. “And you’re next unless you open a link with the Pathfinder Alliance.”

  Ashamed of not intervening earlier, rifle in hand, Meka stepped out of hiding. “If you want to fight, fight me, but leave her out of this. And no one opens a link to Treven until we know for sure that we aren’t compromising the alliance or risking my cousin’s life.”

  About twenty rifles jerked around to aim at his chest.

  He swallowed his fear. Dying with honor while defending Nicholas and the alliance would always trump being party to murder and blackmail. Feigning confidence, he used his rifle to push his way through the hedge of weapons until he joined Claire, Rowan, and Kai Lin.

  No one challenged him.

  He guessed it had something to do with the fury radiating off him.

  Not so easily intimidated, Claire spat at him. “The traitor who led Lukan to us.” She leveled her rifle at him. “My next bullet is yours.”

  She was the real threat here.

  “Two minutes.” Father’s monotone voice spiked his pulse.

  “Dragon’s ass, Claire!” he snapped. “Stop with the crap. Killing people and forcing others to do what you want at gunpoint isn’t what Nicholas and Axel are about. You either choose to support the Light-Bearer because you believe in his cause, or you’re part of the problem—the problem he will solve when he destroys Lukan.”

  Claire’s rifle didn’t budge. “And who do you claim to support?”

  “Freedom. The kind Nicholas offers. The kind that says that I can disagree with you and still live because my life has as much value as yours.” He pointed the tip of his rifle at Aljesh’s broken body. “You had no right to do that. Just as you and your mob have no right to hold Kai Lin and me at gunpoint. How different are you from Felix
and his ice crystals?”

  “Rights!” Rowan spat. But even shaking with anger, his rifle pointing at Kai Lin didn’t shift. “Rights won’t get us rescued and taken back to Treven. If we have to sacrifice people to get home, then so be it. How else will we fight for the alliance?”

  “One and a half minutes.”

  Meka aimed a shrug at Father. While this standoff raged, he didn’t have time to worry about this mysterious deadline. He locked eyes with Rowan. “If I’ve learned anything about my cousin Nicholas, it’s that his cause requires individual sacrifice. His, and yours, and mine. Killing Aljesh, or Kai Lin, or me won’t buy you a place in his army. How could it, when he has given his whole life to this cause? If you aren’t willing to sacrifice yourself to protect him and the alliance from Lukan, then you’re also part of the problem. The same problem he will fix when he wins.”

  “Pretty speech.” Rowan’s trigger finger twitched.

  Kai Lin edged away from Rowan, straight into the tip of Claire’s rifle.

  Claire laughed. “There is no escape. For either of you.”

  Rowan gestured to Claire with her chin. “Shoot her.” He swung his rifle to point at Meka. “And I’ll fix him.”

  Someone yelled, “Do it. Do it.”

  The crowd took up the chant. “Do it, do it, do it—”

  Meka jerked his rifle tip down toward Claire’s leg and squeezed off a shot before she could harm Kai Lin.

  It struck.

  Claire let rip a bloodcurdling scream and crumpled to the ground.

  Meka’s breath froze in his lungs; all that remained of her leg was a bloody stump.

  Rowan—everyone—gaped first at Claire and then at him. But Rowan’s rifle didn’t shift away from his chest.

  Not willing to harm anyone else, Meka dropped his rifle and dove for Rowan. He grabbed Rowan’s rifle and pulled them both onto a floor slick with both Aljesh’s and Claire’s blood.

  Rowan’s rifle cracked.

  Something struck Meka’s neck.

  Fiery pain shot up into the base of his skull. His eyes fluttered closed, and he flopped onto the floor.

  “Time’s up,” Father said.

  Around him, silence settled more absolute than a grave.

  Eight

  Behind Bars

  The motorized cage that had ferried Felix, Katrina, the two low-born girls, their father, and the flea-ridden dogs finally stopped at a closed wooden door.

  “This is for you and the Countess,” Treygan said to Felix.

  Despite the comforting weight of an informa pressed against his thigh, Felix’s pulse raced. Did Axel and Malika intend to imprison them in some benighted cave? A vision of his own dog-kennel-sized prison cells in the palace rushed at him. He blanched.

  Surely not even Axel would do that to his mother.

  Perhaps not to Katrina, but me?

  He had no difficulty imagining Lynx locking him in such a hole and leaving him to starve.

  Treygan jumped down from the driver’s seat and pulled out a key. He used it to open the motorized contraption. “Countess, allow me to help you.” He held out his hand to Katrina.

  Katrina sunk her teeth into his wrist.

  Treygan yelped and tried to pull away.

  Katrina hung on like a terrier.

  Felix could have hugged her. This was the woman he’d married. Not that broken creature who begged for Lukan. He patted her back with his manacled hands. “Draw blood if you can, my dear.”

  Her mouth opened, and Treygan jumped back. “You promised to take me to Lukan, Felix,” she yelled. “This dark, cold, rocky place is not the palace. Why do you continue to lie to me?”

  There was no answer to that other than to destroy her ice crystal.

  And then to torture Nicholas with his device to punish Axel for subjecting his mother to this.

  He pulled his hands away from her and glared at Treygan. “If this is where we are to live, then let us enter.”

  Treygan’s lip curled at his bloody wrist. “I was just trying to help.”

  True, but he was the enemy.

  “Watch the countess,” Treygan called to Gallen and Mallow, the two soldiers riding on the bumper at the back of the contraption. Treygan turned on his heel and slotted another even heavier key into the lock.

  The door swung open.

  Felix’s eyes fluttered closed to hide the view.

  But no amount of hedging would stop the inevitable. This was his and Katrina’s new home until his children decided to have mercy on them.

  Or I blackmail Axel into allowing us to leave Treven.

  If he could just get to his Hive, he could take back control of this rapidly deteriorating madness.

  First, he had to cope with this new nightmare.

  He clambered out of the cage and shuffled across the uneven ground to see what they were up against before Katrina learned the truth.

  Lit with bright, cheery lights, a cavern the size of his apartment in the palace beckoned. But unlike his old home, this was one large space divided by a screen.

  Two well-worn, but comfortable-looking sofas waited for him and Katrina. On the back of one of them, someone had draped an olive-green cloak. A pile of crisp white handkerchiefs rested on a table next to it. They shared the space with a furled map and a box he was sure contained tiles for his favorite strategy game.

  There was even a dresser with cups and saucers, and a kettle for melting the piles of hot chocolate waiting on a plate next to a jug.

  Cream, he assumed.

  His captors must have stolen both the chocolate and the cream from the warehouses and dairies abandoned by the Chenayan guardsmen Lukan had recalled to the palace.

  On the other side of the room stood a table piled high with knitting needles, wool and patterns. A collection of frolicking cat figurines carved from different shades of ice crystal sat on a rock mantelpiece. Katrina loved china cats and had left a large collection of them behind in the palace.

  Beyond the screen, he just made out the edge of a large four-poster bed covered with white linen.

  Cats aside, he knew this furniture well. Scuffed, worn and much loved, it had once belonged to Malika and Stefan. Stefan had made a comfortable home for his family in the Lord of the Conquest’s official residence in Maegkin. Malika had even stored knitting paraphernalia for when Katrina visited. He had also spent many a happy hour in Malika and Stefan’s home playing with his grandchildren.

  Grandchildren who now didn’t bother coming to see him.

  He clutched his chest, fighting the urge to gallop to the pile of handkerchiefs. He needed one to hide his sorrow, gratitude, and relief behind.

  “What did you expect?” Treygan asked. “A dark cell with just cockroaches for company? Or maybe a dank hole with dripping water to drive you insane? One where you can tear your fingers to the bone trying to escape?”

  The hateful man had described Nicholas’s cell in the slaughterhouse.

  “That’s probably what you deserve,” Treygan added. “But the warlord and his sister gave orders for us to set this up for you and the countess.”

  Felix cleared his throat. “My daughter… where will she be staying?”

  “I’m not at liberty to tell you that.” Treygan gestured into the cell. “I can only remove your shackles once you are safe inside.”

  “My wife—” He turned to Katrina.

  Gallen and Marrow had already maneuvered her out of the vehicle. They half-carried, half-walked her past him into their new home.

  He followed.

  Treygan was as good as his word. He unlocked both his and Katrina’s manacles the moment they stepped onto the multi-colored carpet that covered much of the stone floor. He dropped the manacles and their keys on the dresser. “In case you need them.” He gestured at Katrina. Before Felix could muster a reply, Treygan was out the front door.

  The click of the lock was loud in the silence.

  Katrina moaned softly, repeating Lukan’s name over and over. />
  Felix picked up his new olive-green cloak and swung it over his shoulders. He pulled it tight around his shoulders.

  For the first time in his life, he dreaded being alone with his wife.

  Slowly he turned to her. “My love, I’m going to save you. I just need a little time. Can you sit and knit while I work?”

  “Your work is nothing but lies, Felix. Lies and pain and… and…” She took a faltering step toward him. “You did this to me. Your ice crystals. Axel and Malika told me. They showed me on the informa.”

  Felix’s breath caught. She sounded lucid for the first time since he’d been reunited with her. That should not have happened with a mind-controlling ice crystal.

  Unless…

  He edged over to touch her face. “My love, Lukan is our real enemy. If you understand this, please blink.”

  Painfully slowly, her eyelid twitched.

  It took his self-control not to stagger back.

  Katrina was still inside this shell! Trapped in herself just as they were imprisoned in this cavern.

  He threw his arms out to hug her, but she looked away. “This isn’t the palace,” she whined. “I said I wanted to go to the palace.” She lumbered to the table with the knitting paraphernalia. “Lukan needs me. I have to go to him.” She grabbed the edge of it and shoved it. When it didn’t move, she swept her arm across it. Knitting patterns, wool, and needles shot off in every direction.

  Felix’s heart sank.

  Just days before, in their apartment in the palace, she’d single-handedly moved a dresser far heavier than that light table. His Katrina was fading fast, and only he could save her. For that, he needed safety from her punches and freedom from her whining voice. As much as it irked to restrain her again—especially with manacles—he scooped up a set of manacles and crept up behind her.

  Then he pounced.

  Before she pulled away, he slapped the manacle over one of her wrists and propelled her to the bed. A gentle push and his beloved, frail Katrina plopped onto Malika’s crisp, white bedcover. While he manacled her wrist to the bedpost, she screamed like someone was trying to skin her.