His palms grew damp. He’d been waiting for this moment. None of the Watchers used their real names. When they joined the ranks, they adopted new names, purposeful names. It was an old piece of Nhélanei culture that they’d retained and twisted for their own purposes. If they didn’t choose names, they were given them.
He had no intention of giving any of them that kind of power over him.
“I am the agent,” he said.
There was a pause and then, “That is not a name.”
“It’s what I choose.”
The agent waited again, and he wondered if that would be what he did most with the Watchers. Waiting for the reactions of others, waiting for his moment to strike. Waiting for approval that meant nothing to him.
Finally Endetar said, “It’s your choice, Agent. Report.”
“It was as you predicted. He hovers over the girl.” The agent hesitated, but the question had to be asked. “Endetar, do you doubt his loyalties?”
“My doubts are of no concern to you. What of the girl?”
“She’s expected to live.”
Endetar said, “Lagun will contact you with your next task. Dismissed.”
The agent offered a tekvar and turned away, hands clenching at his sides. He’d wanted to ask what Endetar knew of the girl, but the abrupt dismissal had rendered the question too much of an impertinence to risk. He’d have to save the rest of his questions for his next meeting. And if Endetar wouldn’t answer, he had ways of finding out for himself.
Endetar watched the agent go and wondered if he’d assigned the right person to this mission. There were others who were closer. More adept at blending. Perhaps he would send them all. If his instincts were correct, the girl was too important to leave in the hands of a zealot.
But he couldn’t eliminate the man entirely. He was planning to assassinate the commander of the slave army. Killing Niyhól Mikhél would help his cause only if he controlled the man closest to him.
CHAPTER 8
On Seirsha’s third cycle aboard Dhóchas, they moved her to a long-term recovery room. When Mikhél laid her across the bed set into the corner, a series of flashing lights that lined the wall stilled to glow a bright, steady red. A single light continued to flash, this one in rhythm with her heart. Eithné studied the signals and began to mutter to herself.
“Heart is strong, body temperature self-regulating. Proteins are rising…” She turned to see Mikhél and Leima watching her. “She’s taking the treatment well. Her muscle tissue is stronger, and tests indicate that it continues to develop. I believe her healing ability will help her after all.”
“When will she wake up?”
She shrugged her shoulders, more for a slight stretch than in answer to Mikhél’s question. “It’s difficult to say. I’ve seen some sleep for days, but I don’t know how this compares.” She sensed Valaer outside the room and waited until the doors had closed behind him before continuing. “I’ve never seen a case this severe before, and I’ve never treated someone with her gift. Still, I can’t imagine it taking longer than a week. Ten cycles,” she corrected, resisting the urge to roll her eyes. After a lifetime on the ground, she imagined she’d never get used to star-flight terminology.
“She can’t be left alone before then. We must be here when she wakes.”
Eithné tapped her link. “This will inform me the instant she leaves the bed. But I agree with you; someone should stay here to watch over her. She’s in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people. She doesn’t know our language or customs. For that matter she doesn’t even know that she’s on a ship. It could be very dangerous for her to wake up alone.”
Mikhél nodded and called up a chair. Eithné pretended she didn’t know it was for her and called up her own.
After a beat he said, “We have to discuss her training. She’s years behind our expectations.”
Valaer ran a critical eye over the figure on the bed. “She’s too small for any kind of combat training.”
Eithné frowned. “Probably a result of malnutrition, complicated by an alien climate and topography. Even if the girl had been training all her life, she’d still be small. I don’t see why it has to make a difference.”
“She’ll be going into combat against a species that dwarfs the tallest Nhélanei, and you don’t think size is a factor?”
Eithné’s face went hot, but Mikhél spoke before she could. “It was a handful of children who defeated the most seasoned jagatai warriors. They proved that height makes no difference.” He turned to Valaer. “Had you forgotten?”
Valaer stiffened. “No, Endeté.”
Mikhél turned back to Eithné. “What else of her condition might impact her training? What did growing up on that world do to her?”
She took a deep breath and reminded herself that Valaer lashed out in pain as much as anger. Then she pulled a bony, lifeless arm from beneath the covers and splayed the girl’s fingers.
“Her webbing didn’t fully develop. It can’t retract, as far as I can tell. It’s the same between her toes.” She glanced at Valaer with thoughts of mocking the importance of swimming to the war efforts, but she bit her tongue. “Visually there’s nothing else I can see that’s different, except, of course, for her coloring. That should change as she recovers and isn’t so unusual here in the outskirts anyway. By the time we reach Spyridon, she’ll be able to blend in sufficiently.”
“We have to go to Vorhódan first. It will add to our travel time, but it can’t be helped. Which means we have about two hundred cycles, give or take, to prepare her for Spyridon.”
Valaer frowned. “She has to learn the language right away, and our history, our customs. Her ignorance will give us away if she’s not careful.”
“That’s important, yes, but there are other factors that need attention.” Eithné turned to Mikhél. “Endeté, she must learn about her jagatai senses as soon as possible. They’ll be vital to her survival. And her healing gift—it’s said to be a painful process. She’ll need to overcome the discomfort if she’s to face any sort of battle.”
“She’ll need more than a sedfai to fight the Meijhé,” Mikhél said. “It seems we have much to do, and everything must be done immediately. She’ll work with Eithné first.” He held up a hand when Valaer opened his mouth. “During the prime shift. She’ll learn about her healing gift. How to use it, how to work through it. During transition I’ll train her to fight and use her sedfai. Valaer will end the second shift by teaching her the language. She’ll sleep during the mid.”
Eithné brushed Seirsha’s hair from her forehead. “It’s a lot to take in after a lifetime of quiet and solitude.”
“She’ll manage.”
“What about the prophecy?” Leima asked.
Before Mikhél could speak, Eithné said, “I don’t believe we should tell her about the prophecy.” She ignored the shock on Leima’s face and the furrowed brow of Valaer and held Mikhél’s expressionless gaze with her own. “We have a unique opportunity here. She knows nothing of what is expected of her, nothing of what will happen. Which, when we look at things impartially, matches our own knowledge of the future.”
She turned to Valaer. “You said yourself that you don’t believe the prophecy is true. Even if it is, we have no way to know if it’s about her. If we tell her, and she begins to behave as predicted, we’ll never know if she does because we told her. If we keep it from her, and still she shows the signs, then we’ll know it’s true. If she doesn’t, we’ll know she’s not the one.”
When she fell quiet, no one else spoke. She was careful not to look at Leima as Mikhél considered her argument. She knew that the young girl believed, as she believed, that the Baanrí’s destiny had been predicted thousands of years before. But she also knew she could not convince the others.
They had to see it for themselves.
Finally Mikhél nodded. “It simplifies things. She’ll know nothing of the prophecy.”
“I also think we shouldn’t tell her of
her true place in our world. It’s too risky.”
At that Mikhél shook his head. “If we don’t tell her who she is, then she won’t understand the danger she’s in. How is that safer?”
“It’s not a matter of safety,” Valaer said with a sneer. “You wish to pamper her, to protect her from the burden. Has she not been indulged enough? Bhénen gave his life to bring back the prophesied one, not some weak, inexperienced girl who needs to be cushioned from reality.”
“We are at war,” Eithné said. “If the truth of this girl’s identity falls into the wrong hands, all of us die. With, of course, the possible exception of Seirsha. If she is the prophesied one and Lhókesh finds out, he’ll either kill her or use her to find the weapon.”
She turned to Mikhél. “At the moment she is at best a liability. She knows nothing of this war, nothing of the enemy who wants her dead—or worse. Endeté, if we tell her who she is, we’ll be entrusting the most vital secret of our cause to a girl who doesn’t even know what species she is.”
“Agreed,” Mikhél said. “It’s too dangerous to tell her now. We’ll tell her she’s a refugee and nothing more. Not until she’s ready.”
Jane’s dreams melded together, a palette of color, light, and voice that left no room for loneliness. She murmured in her sleep, shifting on the bed, and silken sheets slid over her like liquid.
All around the lake and up into the deep dark of the cave, the rock gleamed red. The stones caught the dim glow of the water so the ceiling seemed to undulate in slow, beautiful waves.
But it was the crystal that called to her. White and pure, it rose over the blue on a pedestal the color of blood.
Lan’Gemhína.
Under the whisper’s fading ring, water lapped gently against rock. She stepped forward, but the stones cut into her feet. When she stopped, the voice sounded again, the seduction of it all but dripping from the walls.
Seirsha. Come for it, child. It is Destra, and it is yours.
TAKE IT!
The shout jerked her back so she fell onto the ruby floor. It cracked and broke with her weight, and the fractures sped up into the walls until the ceiling shattered. Shards of crystal taller than she speared down, and she threw her arms over her head and screamed. But the floor parted beneath her, and she plunged into a tunnel of endless black as the cave imploded above.
The air rushed by her ears, a gentle whoosh of sound that calmed her racing heart. Dark became gray, and the gray was lit with stars until the walls gleamed in shades of cream and gold. She sank onto a bed of ivory satin.
And he was at her side.
The man with the brown eyes, silently watching her, his face still and firm. He looked at her with something like tenderness, and her breath caught.
He laid a roughened palm gently against her cheek, and his voice moved over her like velvet.
“Sleep,” he said. “I’ll be here when you wake.”
Valaer entered the treatment room to find Leima staring out the window, hands twisted at her waist.
“A room with a view,” he said. “She got lucky.”
Leima jumped, reminding him that she’d not yet developed the sedfai that would have warned her of his presence. When she turned he felt a twinge at the wariness in her stance.
“She deserves the best.”
“Well.” He called up a chair. When she would have left him to his watch, he called up a second chair for her. “You have work?”
“Not till second shift.”
“Long day for a gardó.”
She paused and then took the offered seat. “I’m no one’s gardó yet. Do you think she’ll wake soon?”
He shrugged, but he wondered that himself. “What would your father say about all this?”
“He’d be worried.”
He studied her pale-silver gaze and was reminded of her father, his old friend. If he tried he could see them all together, laughing at some joke or other, Bhénen’s eyes a deep, liquid turquoise. Leima’s parents, Lhúk and Da-Fein, sitting with their fingers intertwined.
But that was before.
“He always believed,” he said. “Your mother too, after a time.”
“They were right.”
“You grew up with the legends. They’re probably everywhere in the Other.” She dropped his gaze, and he lifted a brow. “Take care with what you keep from those stories, Leima. Desperation spins the most alluring of tales.”
On the bed the Baanrí whimpered and thrashed. Leima rushed to her side and looked at the lights over the bed, though Valaer couldn’t imagine they meant any more to her than to him.
“She was sleeping peacefully before,” she said. “Do you think something’s wrong?”
He sighed and stood. “You should probably tell Eithné.” When she hesitated he shooed her away. “I’ll stay with her. Go!”
Jane gasped in sleep as the silken room melted away. Her dreams carried her to a room of cold, dim metal. A new man towered over her, his gilded looks a sharp contrast to the ice in his pale-blue eyes. He grabbed her arm and wrenched it up until it burned.
“There are some aboard this ship who speak his name with reverence,” he said. “They would kill you simply for the loathing in your voice.”
She yanked her arm away, and his image distorted into a grotesque parody of humanity. A countenance made of plates of bone, with gaping holes where the eyes should have been and row upon row of jagged, pointed teeth along the slash of a mouth.
Her lungs constricted, and she beat at her chest as the world started to gray around the edges. Her knees buckled, and her face rushed toward the ground.
Only there was no ground. Just a vast array of stars and moons, and nothing to stop her fall. She tried to scream, but the vacuum of space offered no air, and she couldn’t make a sound.
Eithné strode in, studied the girl in a glance, and then turned her attention to the monitors. She noted the racing heart monitor and adjusted the bed’s settings to gentle Seirsha’s dreams.
“Her body is maintaining its own stability now,” she said. “Her heart is quite strong. She should rise within the cycle. I’ll be nearby, but I can’t stay with her. There was a flare-up in one of the processing centers. Several crew members were hurt.”
“I’ll be here,” Valaer said. When she hesitated he stiffened. “Do you not think me capable?”
“It’s not that.”
“Then what?”
“She’ll be frightened.” She lifted her hands. “She’ll need gentleness.”
“I know what she needs,” he ground out. “Stop fussing over the girl, and go do your job.”
Eithné glanced at Seirsha again and frowned at her own reluctance. A year before, her trust in Valaer had been absolute. And how she longed to find that faith again.
She touched her old friend’s arm and pressed her lips to his cheek. He stood rigid for a moment, and then he put his hand over hers.
“Go,” he said softly.
She glanced back as she slipped through the door. He was staring at the Baanrí, his hands flexing and fisting at his sides.
Jane woke to a quiet room. Eyes closed, she drifted in the netherworld between sleep and wake, sifting lazily through the remnants of her dreams. Her body felt used in the way it did after a good workout, her muscles sore but relaxed. She’d never felt so rested.
Yet something teased at the back of her mind. Some knowing that she couldn’t quite see clearly. Tension settled at the base of her neck, and before she could understand why, her heart began to pound.
She opened her eyes, and her senses came alive. The streetlights outside her apartment should have filled the room with a yellow haze, but she found only darkness. Silk sheets slid along her bare skin, but she didn’t own silk sheets. Her body billowed on a bed that felt like a cloud. It wasn’t her bed.
She was not at home.
CHAPTER 9
She shot straight up in the bed. Her fingers plucked at the sheets as she told herself she had to be wrong.
She searched her mind for the last thing she could remember, and her hands stilled.
“Fuck.”
The stone. She’d picked up the stone, and agony had wrenched through her. And then she’d passed out. In her home.
Which this certainly wasn’t.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
The air was too cold, too dry. Acrid and medicinal, the metallic flavor of it was sharp on her tongue. She heard no sounds from the streets below her apartment, no voices drifting through the walls. Instead the pulse of machinery droned around her, serving some purpose she was pretty sure she didn’t want to know about.
But who would have taken her? Who on Earth could even manage to pick her up without pissing themselves? Not Johnson, that was certain. Even if he’d somehow found the balls, he’d never be smart enough—or sober enough—to take her without getting caught.
But if it wasn’t him, then who? She had no issues with anyone else. She had no relationships with anyone else. And no money, no valuables. There was no reason for anyone to take her, and yet a stranger had. That old adage ran through her mind—“better the enemy you know”—and she shuddered.
Quadruple fuck.
She had to get out of here, wherever “here” was. She threw off the sheets and stood, and something rough scrubbed at her skin in the dark. She yelped and slapped it away, but her hand met only air. Her heart thumped so hard she heard it, and she closed her eyes and forced in a deep breath.
She was alone. There was no breath besides hers in the darkness. There was no movement besides hers. An image flashed through her mind of a man standing in the corner, armed with machete and night-vision goggles, rotting teeth bared in a cannibalistic grin. And she had to fight the urge to jump back into the bed and pull the covers over her head, even as she cursed her imagination.
“I’m alone,” she whispered, and the sound of her voice made her feel a little better. “I’m alone. No one is here but me. The room is too quiet for anyone else to be here.”
Except it wasn’t quiet. A rhythmic humming, thrumming sound swished through the air like some sort of engine. Her heart was a timpani drum, her hair like the rustle of spider legs against her ears. She swallowed, and the sound was a shotgun in the dark.
Spyridon (The Spyridon Trilogy Book 1) Page 6
