Spyridon (The Spyridon Trilogy Book 1)

by Lillian James

  When the level was clear, Endetar turned to Lagun. “Thoughts?”

  “He thinks her loyalties are divided.”

  “He’s right,” Endetar said grimly. “And we’re running out of time to convince her.”

  “What are your orders?”

  Endetar thought about it, but he could see only one option. “Give the palletar the knife.”

  “And the security detail?”

  “Double it. We have to stay in control.”

  Mikhél didn’t make his way to his quarters until well into the midshift. A minor malfunction on the generator level had taken a surprising amount of time to fix. But his oversight had been largely automated, requiring little attention or energy on his part.

  And giving him plenty of time to think.

  Seirsha fell asleep less than a pass into the work, her dreams purely dreams for the first time in over a week. She was getting that rest only because she’d told him about the boy. And telling him, he knew, had been the far less painful option. Reliving a memory in sleep didn’t reduce it to mere nightmare.

  He had to tell her what he’d seen. He’d thought he could hold the vision at bay, but the escalation of their memory drop suggested otherwise. The initial stage of the nexus delivered a life story, a gift with such heft it fell into the receiver at an ever-increasing rate until it seemed the memories would bury and smother. Taking on the weight of Seirsha’s life was sapping his strength, and he didn’t know how long his mind could maintain this level of control.

  It would be cruel to make her live through his death twice.

  But next cycle would be soon enough. He would let her sleep, for it was a rest she desperately needed. And in the prime, he would tell her what was to come.

  He sank onto his bed fully clothed, thinking only to rest a moment before he undressed. Across the wall Seirsha breathed deeply, her heartbeat steady. He pressed his palm to the metal between them and imagined he could feel the slow, even rise and fall of her back. He closed his eyes.

  And sleep claimed him. He fell first into Seirsha’s dream, a calming thing about books and rain and haunting music such as he’d never heard. Then the wall he’d worked so hard to fortify crumbled, and his vision came pouring forth.

  The room was cold, as Lhókesh preferred it, but that didn’t explain the depth of the chill Mikhél felt. As the weight descended to press hotly against his spine, his blood iced in his veins. He wasn’t finished, but Avron had returned. Lhókesh would not be far behind.

  And then he felt them, standing silently behind him. The book had pulled him in again. It had distracted him, detained him, so they might find him here. He dropped it, the old leather binding unmarred but for the wide, violet-stained fingerprints along the spine. But it didn’t matter.

  Avron was here. Escape was impossible.

  He turned to face them and saw his father towering over him, standing next to the only man Lhókesh had ever trusted. Lhókesh stared at Mikhél, his face exactly like his son’s save for the solid black of his eyes. Beside him stood Avron, flat green eyes gloating, long, pale build almost lounging. He was enjoying this. He’d wanted this moment to come long before now. He wouldn’t be satisfied until Mikhél was dead.

  When Mikhél looked again at his father, he knew Avron would soon be satisfied.

  “Endeté,” Mikhél began, his head lowered, but Lhókesh cut him off.

  “It’s too late. If you’ve read the book, you know that.”

  Done with pretenses, Mikhél looked up again. This time he let show all the loathing in his heart. “How?”

  For the first time in Mikhél’s memory, Lhókesh smiled at him, a twisted imitation of emotion. “It was your mother.”

  And then he shot forward, fists raised.

  Mikhél was ready for him, and perhaps he could have escaped if he’d only had to defeat Lhókesh. But the Endet of the Meijhé never traveled alone, and he certainly never fought alone. Four guards joined the attack, and two more blocked the door. Each of them, save for Avron, delivered the vicious blows of indifference. When one of them swung into Mikhél’s back with an arm that weighed nearly as much as Mikhél’s torso, his spine cracked. His legs crumpled, and he landed on the book that had brought about so much more than he’d ever guessed.

  Defeated and numbed, he looked up at the six faces that surrounded him. At a motion from Lhókesh, everyone else stepped away. Father looked down at son and smiled that horrible smile once again.

  “You never stood a chance,” he said. And then he kicked his paralyzed son until the world went black.

  CHAPTER 31

  Twenty-nine days till arrival

  It was the void that woke her, a great, gaping hole where her heart had been. She heard a low, keening sound she almost didn’t recognize as her own voice, and her hands fisted into the blanket as she doubled over. She couldn’t breathe, simply couldn’t make her lungs draw in air.

  And then, on the other side of the wall, Mikhél sat up.

  She felt the movement, felt the knowledge that he still lived flood her sedfai, and her lungs filled. Kai walked over to lick her hand, and she buried her face in his neck. Her breath was coming easier, her pulse slowing. But an icy sheen of sweat slicked her skin, and nausea coated her stomach.

  Mikhél was going to die.

  Seirsha.

  She sat up and wiped at her face with shaking hands. Her hair clung to her cheeks in moist strands that made her long desperately for a shower.

  Seirsha, are you all right?

  She closed her eyes against the concern in his deiamar. They’d just seen his death, and he was thinking about her. Worrying about her, protecting her, as if his life was inconsequential.

  And then it struck her, his utter lack of shock, and her heart dropped. Did you know?

  There was a pause, and then, Yes.

  She couldn’t reply. He’d kept this from her, and she wondered if she had any right to be hurt by that. The nexus brought about such deep and forced intimacy that the distance she’d been striving for, that uniquely Nhélanei respect of privacy, had begun to seem unnecessary with him. But did that make it so in reality?

  Finally she managed, How long?

  Through the wall between them, she could see him put his head in his hands. He sent, I didn’t mean for you to find out this way. I was going to tell you today.

  Mikhél, how long have you known?

  I had the first dream a year before we left Spyridon.

  That was when they’d begun to share dreams. Nearly two years ago by Earth’s calendar. She didn’t know why that made it seem so much more final, but somehow it did.

  Seirsha, we should talk.

  No.

  She couldn’t. She didn’t think she could look at him right now without falling apart. And she had to hold herself together.

  She had to find a way to save him.

  Mikhél felt her leave her quarters, and he had to force himself to let her go. She shouldn’t be alone right now, but he was the last person who could offer comfort. He couldn’t go near her without reminding her of what was to come.

  He should have told her sooner. He’d put too much trust in his ability to hold everything inside. Far too much when he’d formed a nexus with the one person who made him long for the dissolution of secrets.

  He would keep watch through his sedfai, he decided. When she was calm enough, they’d talk. And until then he’d bury himself in work.

  He’d just finished dressing when he was called to the generator level.

  The agent slipped onto the lifts just as the first tech arrived. He caught a glimpse of the woman frowning over the generators and then checking her link as if to verify her summons. He understood her confusion, but she’d never find the malfunction in time.

  But she wouldn’t leave. She wouldn’t risk ignoring a command-level summons. None of them would.

  Just as Niyhól wouldn’t ignore a request for help.

  He called the lift to the residential level. The
re were bodies that still required his attention, hidden poorly in his haste to set his plan in motion. He had to dispose of them properly and then finish setting the trap.

  And then he had to see to the Baanrí.

  Jane all but raced through the halls. They’d missed something; she was sure of it. It was the only tolerable explanation for a vision of Mikhél’s death. There was some clue they’d overlooked. Probably something to do with the paintings or at least hidden near them, and if she could just find it she’d find the way to keep him alive.

  But she couldn’t do it alone. Her sedfai had shown her nothing else concealed within the gallery, so whatever they’d missed had to be in plain sight. Something strange or off in some way that she would overlook but recognizable to someone steeped in the prewar world of Nhélanei art.

  She needed Valaer.

  She found him in his quarters. She scanned the room with her sedfai first, a quick check to ensure he was alone. He shimmered in that light, a silhouette standing incredibly still in the center of the room, his head bent down toward the link he held in his hands. There was a second link on his wrist, and she realized he was studying the link that had belonged to the man he’d watched die.

  His heart was pounding in the quiet.

  She almost backed away. On a good day, he wanted nothing to do with her. If he was already upset, then this conversation could only go one way.

  But what other choice did she have?

  She requested entry and was greeted with silence. He didn’t even look up. She repeated the request and heard the tone ring through his room. This time he glanced toward the door, and she imagined they made eye contact. She couldn’t figure out why that moment sent a chill up her spine, but then he called open the door.

  He was looking at her, but his gaze seemed to pass right through her.

  Her throat went dry at the emptiness in those pale, pale eyes, even as her palms went damp. Something was wrong. And she hated herself for the selfishness of the thought, but she had no time to help him. She started to turn away, and then he looked at his storage wall.

  There were hidden compartments there, as there were in every private quarters on the ship. Some even required a life scan to open. He swallowed audibly, and then he looked down at the link again.

  And she realized he had something else hidden away.

  More secrets. More questions when all she wanted was answers. She shook her head and took a step back.

  “My apologies,” she said. “You wish to be alone.”

  But he said, “Come inside.”

  There was something in his voice that made her blood run cold, and she had the sudden and unshakeable feeling that leaving would not be selfish at all. That it would, in fact, be self-preservation. Then he looked up at her and said, “Please,” and this time she heard the ache in his voice too. And that she couldn’t ignore.

  She stepped inside, and he called closed the door. And then they stood in silence, because he was staring at the link again, and she had no idea what to say. Then he said, “You’ve never come here before.”

  “No. My apologies for intruding—”

  “This is the link you sensed. The one Eithné insists I destroy.”

  He seemed to be waiting for a response, so she said, “I know.”

  “It belonged to my mate. His name was Bhénen. Did you know that? Did Eithné tell you about him?” She shook her head, and he murmured, “No. She wouldn’t have, would she? She’d say it was my story to tell.”

  Her lips twisted, but it was a bitter attempt at a smile. He was right, of course. She’d had the thought before he’d said it, and she realized she’d come to understand the Nhélanei better than she’d thought.

  And still she sometimes felt she didn’t fit with them at all.

  “He was…joyful. Even after the war, even with all that the Meijhé had done, he could find a way through the anger and somehow make us all laugh. When we lost the war, I thought we would be separated. The Meijhé have no use for families or mates. They care only about what we can do for them, and Bhénen had a simple sight gift. He could see emotions. I thought they would throw him into the fields or the mines and send me out here, but Bhénen kept us together. He kept us on Spyridon. I don’t even know how he did it. But I got nineteen extra years with him. And then Eithné asked us to help find you.”

  He fell quiet, and the silence hung in the air, a weight she wished would suppress his next words. But of course it didn’t.

  “We were looking for a rebel named Tauruk,” Valaer said. “It means brother. He was said to be unmatched in skills of espionage, with a gift rarer than healing. We were looking for someone to protect you in case Mikhél’s loyalties weren’t what they seemed, and Bhénen’s contact said we needed Tauruk. But while we were looking for him, Watchers found us.”

  She closed her eyes. She didn’t want to hear this, didn’t know if she could stomach it so soon after the vision. But she had no right to ask him to stop.

  “He pushed me down a hill. By the time I climbed to the road, they had him pinned. They were holding a knife over his heart.” He looked at the storage wall again, and his face lost all color. “He looked at me, right before…there was nothing I could do.”

  An image flashed through her mind: Mikhél lying on his broken back, his body still as his father’s boot sank into his side. Her heart wrenched, and her eyes filled.

  “I couldn’t save him. I couldn’t even say good-bye. By the time I got to him, he was already gone. And I never found Tauruk. I failed him.” He looked at her then, and his gaze sliced through her. “I failed Bhénen.”

  But you killed him.

  He didn’t say those words, but he might as well have. The accusation ran through her head over and over, a litany of blame against which she had no defense. Bhénen had died trying to protect her. That was why Valaer hated her.

  How could he not?

  She rubbed a fist over her heart and backed away. How many more deaths would be laid at her feet? Betha, Aida, her parents. Bhénen. The boy in the street, whose life she’d taken as surely as if she’d pointed a gun at him.

  And Mikhél, if she couldn’t save him.

  “I have to go. I shouldn’t have come here.”

  “Seirsha—”

  “My apologies,” she cut in, her voice desperate and harsh. “I didn’t want for this to happen. I would never have asked for it to happen.”

  And then, feeling like the worst kind of coward, she ran away.

  He stepped out into the hall and watched her go. Braillen Enan Seirsha, the only living member of the Nhélanei royalty. And a hypocrite, a thief. She thought she had the right to the throne. She thought she had the right to take whatever would get her there, stepping on the lives of every Nhélanei in her path.

  She thought she was above justice. She would soon learn otherwise.

  He hadn’t expected her to come here, but now that she had it seemed fated. He didn’t have to look for her.

  She had come to him.

  He wiped the bloodied blade on his palm and then brought the wet to his nose and reveled in the stench of it. Empty death, meaningless death, could not be forgiven. But death that served a purpose such as his…there was no greater glory.

  She would give her life to his cause, and she would not be alone in that on this day. And he knew, now that he’d held the weight of sacrifice in his hands, that he could claim her life not with fear or disgust but with joy. But hers was not the next sacrifice required.

  He needed an alibi.

  He wiped his palm on the wall, his fingers leaving shallow, bloodied grooves in the metal. And then he put in a palletar summons to the generator level.

  She couldn’t breathe. Air pumped too quickly through her throat, but it didn’t seem to reach her lungs. She couldn’t see. Her vision grayed at the edges, hazed before her, and she could only hope she was alone in the halls. She could barely walk. Her thighs trembled and threatened to fail with each step.

 
A panic attack. She hadn’t had one in almost a year, but there was no mistaking the sick, rushed tenor of it. But she willed it back. She wouldn’t fall apart. It wasn’t an option.

  She didn’t know how long she walked before she found the lifts, but when she reached them her uniform was drenched in sweat. She called down a lift and considered it a victory when her voice didn’t warble. The swift drop caused her stomach to pitch and roll, so she shook her head and concentrated on her breathing. Slow in, slow out. Slow in, slow out. She concentrated on her vision. She would see once she got the hyperventilation under control. She concentrated on her legs. They were strong and trained. They would hold her now like they always did.

  Her heart began to slow, and she took another, deeper breath. There was nothing she could do about Bhénen or about the others who had already died. But she refused to let Mikhél follow suit.

  Mikhél had been called to a sector across ship, and between broken lifts and other crew requests it took him half a pass to get there. When he did he found twice as many techs as a level-six code would require.

  They were milling about the generators, talking in low voices but not, as far as he could tell, working on anything. Upon his arrival they stood at attention, a straight row of twelve, faces forward, eyes on him.

  As if they were waiting on him to tell them what needed to be done.

  A glance at his link showed him that the rest of the level was empty, and a chill ran down his spine in echo of the dream. Every tech on shift was here and then some, and he suspected that none of them had any idea why. He commanded his link to scan the level for tampering, and one of the crew murmured something. A break in protocol, but a glance at the young man showed innocent nerves.

  Mikhél turned to the highest rank, a woman of shorter stature, and said, “Status.”

  Her gaze flicked to his, and she swallowed. “We await your orders, Endeté.”

  “Who called you down here?”

  Her eyes paled, and she shook her head. “The call came from the wall station over there. No signature, but it held a command code. We assumed it was you.”