Tenacity (Rise of the Iliri Book 5)

by Auryn Hadley

  When the coast was finally clear, Kolton stepped out of the shadows and scurried to her side. Releasing the collar, he helped her up and pressed a dark shirt into her hands. "Put that on. It's Terran."

  She shoved her arms into the sleeves. While she buttoned it up, he guided her forward, keeping her on her feet. There was no hesitation, he just steered her straight for the trees. Sal let him. She no longer cared if she escaped, but she knew she should. For the moment, she was just going through the motions. It was a habit, but she knew it was a good one.

  Unfortunately, all she wanted to do was lay down and give up. The ache in her head still throbbed worse than any headache she'd imagined. The hole in her heart was worse. The guilt of knowing Blaec had died to protect her was crippling. He'd been the greatest soldier the world had seen, and she was just a slave turned conscript, bred to entertain humans. She was supposed to be some great thing, but she'd fucked it all up. She'd ruined the Black Blades, and they'd all know it. Blaec had died because of her. This was all her fault.

  While Sal wallowed in her grief, Kolton kept her moving. He wove through the trees, somehow avoiding humans just as she caught scent of them. She knew she should be helping more, but he was doing fine, and it felt good to let someone else take charge. Right now, walking was about all she was capable of doing, and somehow he understood.

  He didn't need her to talk. They were elites. Even numb, she could move silently enough, and her iliri nature meant that even slow, she was still fast enough to keep up. She just had to let him drag her along. For the first time in over a year, she didn't need to be the Kaisae. She just had to do what she was told. He kept the pace tolerable until the sound of gently flowing water drifted on the breeze.

  "The river?" she asked.

  He looked down, meeting her eyes easily. "Can you smell the last guard? He should be on the bank."

  "We slipping past, or killing?"

  He sighed. "Slipping past if we can. Less reason for them to suspect we came this way."

  She flicked her ears, searching for sounds in all directions. When she found it, she pointed and he pulled her behind a tree. The guard wasn't close, but they didn't need to be in his line of sight. Hidden, they waited until the man eventually made his way past.

  Kolton cocked his head at the retreating guard and made sure the pack Narnx had given him was secure on his back. When the man moved out of sight, Kolton grabbed Sal's arm one more time and pulled her forward at a jog. Together they entered the river, slipping under the surface with as little noise as possible.

  The water was like ice, jolting Sal's mind awake. It wasn't enough to restore her broken and weary body, but it gave her a false rush that would do. Her new protector released her so they could swim, but kept glancing back, always staying within arms reach of her.

  It was hard. All of her reserves were gone and she was working on pure willpower. Her body begged her to just give up, sink, and stop worrying about what came next. Her heart told her she had to keep going, to make it back to Jase and Zep. Kolton's worried glances proved that even if she did stop, he'd only carry her - so she swam a little harder.

  When they reached the far bank, the pair paused before emerging, only their heads visible. "Can you see him?" Kolton asked.

  "No," Sal whispered.

  He tilted his head toward the bank. "Get under the trees."

  It seemed too easy. They were across the river and skirting the Escean border without even an alarm being raised. Sal inhaled the clean air, smelling only herself and the too-sweet scent of the man beside her. Kolt's head snapped toward her, concern on his face.

  "There's nothing around," she said, still keeping her voice low.

  "There will be," he promised. "Those hounds are for tracking prisoners. We need to get well out of here before they can find us, babe."

  She turned her head to him, her ears turning back. He kept doing that. Hadn't he learned from their last meeting? The smallest spark of anger flickered inside her. "Babe?"

  Kolton grinned. "You are neither a lieutenant, nor even a citizen of my country. I don't have to call you ‘sir' anymore. I just wanted to see if it'd get the same reaction."

  Sal turned deeper into the woods and began walking, each leg feeling like it weighed twice what it should. "You shouldn't call me that. Thought I'd already made that point."

  "You did - that you outranked me in the CFC, but we're not in the CFC right now. Granted, Lasryn - my boy - always wants to know why you didn't bite me."

  "Because of Tharp and the problems with Blaec. I didn't want to give anyone reasons to come down on him for my actions."

  Her answer hung heavy between them. "I'm sorry," he said after a long pause. "I shouldn't have mentioned it."

  Sal kept going. She'd found a pace and, so long as she put the next foot in front of the other, she could do this. "It doesn't work like that, and you know it. The hole in my mind reminds my heart even if you say nothing. Only time will heal both wounds."

  "Yeah, but I don't want to rub salt in them, Sal. I'd never do that intentionally."

  "I know." She took a deep breath and tried to change the subject to something less painful. "So how old is Lasryn?"

  "Almost seven," he said proudly. "Got a letter from him just before we left to join Terric. He sent me a picture of the grauori guarding where they're staying. Place sounds amazing from what his grandmother said. Nothing but mountains and the beasts everywhere. Arnwhen, or something like that."

  "Arhhawen," Sal corrected. "I take it he's pale?"

  Kolton shrugged. "About like Arctic. Light skin, black hair, but his eyes are blue as ice. Nimae, his grandmother, said he's called aufrio."

  "Like Jase." The thought of her cessivi brought a weak smile. "White with grey points. I'm nacione, or all white. Risk is rafrezzi, or gold tipped."

  "What's Razor?"

  Sal shrugged. "Dark. You know he's almost half iliri and still darker than most of the Blades?"

  "Who's the most human?"

  "Shift. He's the only one that - " she paused. "Never mind."

  "Doesn't have iliri male issues. I gotcha."

  "You know about that?"

  Kolton looked down at the log he was climbing over, but couldn't hide the twitch of his lips. "My boy's well over half, Sal. I know about that."

  "What about your wife?"

  He sighed. "They tell you about the first attack on the Forward Camp?"

  "Yeah. Blades went to help re-secure. Audgan scared the piss out of an entire unit of Esceans."

  He nodded. "Almost fifteen hundred dead. Leiona was one of them."

  "She was a soldier?"

  "Yeah. Conscript. I hoped that marrying her would give her some protections, but it didn't. They put her on the front line. She was an archer, and they put her on the damned front line because she was blonde." When Sal paused and turned to him, reaching up instinctually, he grabbed her wrist just at the edge of her sleeve. "No offense, but I'd rather you stayed out of my head for just a bit longer, ok?"

  "I forget." She lowered her hand. "I've been with my own kind too long."

  "Yeah. And one day I hope Las can say that."

  "Think he's going to be a soldier?"

  Kolton turned her by her shoulders and kept her moving. "He should start learning stances soon. Have to see if Nimae can get him some blades."

  Sal waved that away. "I'll have the Regent get him a full set of weapons. I'll also have them take him and his Kauvwe on a tour of the palace and barracks. I'll make sure they tell him it's because his dava saved the Kaisae's life."

  "Thanks, Sal. That'd make him the proudest boy in the keep."

  "So you going back?"

  He shrugged that off. "To Terric? No. My cover's blown."

  "To the Conglomerate?"

  "We'll see. I never quite learned to live on hope and love like the rest of you. Let's just see if we can make it out of this alive and go from there?"

  She nodded. "Fair enough."

  They wal
ked on in silence for a while before Sal heard the sounds of a hound baying in the distance. Kolton cursed under his breath, scanning the woods around them. "Do me a favor?" he asked, pulling the belt from his pants. "Take a piss by that tree over there?"

  "Sure," she agreed. "This one?"

  "Any of them," he said, taking a stance before a tree of his own.

  Just as she finished, she stood, lacing her pants, and the hounds bayed again. "Ok. What now?"

  He pointed to a tall, thick tree with dense needles at the top. "You're an assassin. I'm sure you can climb. If not, I'll carry you up, but I'm trying real hard not to get bit."

  Looking at it, up seemed impossible, but she knew better. With a nod to show she could, Sal pulled off her belt and wrapped it around the trunk, twining her wrists on either end. Slithering up the limbless tree felt like torture, but she managed. By the time Kolton started up, she was nearly to the branches above. He followed, moving deliberately, but was well into the foliage before they heard the dogs again. Sal clambered onto a branch and waited.

  When Kolton reached her, he began breaking off smaller fronds and laying them on the branches below. As he worked, he explained, "The dogs will bay at the scent of urine instead of the hint of us up here. They should pass below with only a short pause. The branches shield us from view. Belt yourself to the trunk if you aren't sure you can stay still and stable."

  "Ok," she said, moving to do just that. "What about you?"

  He shifted easily, sliding to sit behind her so he could drape his legs beside her thighs and latch his belt around both of them. "I'll make sure you stay up here."

  They sat like that for nearly half the night. The hounds made their way back time after time, but only once did a dog bay at the pair hidden high above. The handler looked over the trunk seeking signs of cleats or any means for a human to climb the tree. Finding none, he dismissed the possibility of their prey being so high above.

  "They've got nothing but old scents," he called to the others.

  "Same here."

  "That damned iliri couldn't've just disappeared into the air, could she? Do they do that?"

  "Black Blades were known to move like a thought. You saw her kill men with a touch. Who the fuck knows what they can do, and do you really want to be the one to catch her?"

  "No," the man below said with a laugh. "Wanna call it and wait for daylight to find tracks?"

  "Might as well. Heard Narnx is driving the search pretty hard, though. Guess he misses his long lost love."

  "The Emperor's bastard scrubber. Never saw that one coming."

  The men were laughing as they hauled the dogs away from the trees, heading back toward the Terran camp. That's when Kolton realized she'd fallen asleep. The Kaisae leaned against his chest, her arms curled against her. Her head had gone limp, resting on her own shoulder, and his arm kept her from leaning too far to the side. He tried to stay as still as possible, but eventually he shifted slightly, intending to make her more comfortable, and she tensed. When one ear flicked back, he knew she was awake.

  "Who knew you could sleep in a tree," he teased softly.

  "I did." Her voice was rough. "Isn't my first time to spend the night in one."

  "Mm." He leaned around, hoping to see her face. "When was the last time you slept?"

  "Got plenty of rest coming to the Terran camp." She refused to meet his eyes. "I'm good for another twenty hours before I'll need to worry."

  "Hey?" he said gently. "I know you haven't slept in four days. Not really."

  Those large, pale eyes of hers hit him. "You were there the whole time?"

  "When I could be. I had to deal with some orders, but yeah. If I wasn't there, one of the others always was. We were forming a plan, but there were too many Terrans and it all happened too fast with Blaec."

  "I know," she muttered. "I made a bad decision, but he knew."

  "What?"

  "A few hours before, he made me swear that if I could stop it, I would. I had the chance to remove the Emperor's powers, and I took it. He's as mute as a human now, Kolton, but I should've waited. I was too rash, and Blaec paid for it."

  "Sal, they were going to kill him anyway, they'd just planned to do it slower. They were going to skin him alive and make you watch. That's the rumor, and why so many people were there."

  "I couldn't fix it." She pulled in a quavering breath. "I couldn't save him."

  "Sal?" he asked gently. "What can you do?"

  "I dunno anymore." She shrugged in his arms. "Just iliri things."

  Her feeble dismissal sounded so innocent and fragile. Kolt reminded himself that she'd killed more people than he had. She was a soldier. She'd make it through this, he just needed to keep her moving. He knew how much it hurt to lose someone, and he'd let her grieve, but he had to keep her moving. Carefully, he reached around them both and released their belts.

  "Time to make our way down, Kaisae. I'll go first so if you fall, I can catch you." He chuckled, knowing it would hit her pride and make her prove she was better.

  It worked. They both slid down the trunk without incident. Sal's Terran uniform was now a mess and covered in bark, needles, and resin, but it was almost dry. Kolton looked no better. Thankfully, the cold didn't seem to bother her too much, and she didn't shiver like a human.

  "Explain your skills to me?" he asked as they walked.

  "I was born a shifter," she said, gesturing to her body. "I can make this look like what I need it to. When I joined the Blades - my pack - I began to gain more abilities. We have two genders of females, you know."

  "Yeah. Women and Kaisaes."

  She nodded, her eyes on the ground, but her voice was sad. "I'm a Kaisae. A leader. The more honest I am with my pack, the more they give back, and it shows as these abilities. I learned to link first, by accident. Learning a new skill is painful. It's like I have to carve it out of my mind and then train it up. Next, I learned to read by touch, to verify that I'd done it right. After that, Shift taught me to heal. I tried to get Blaec to show me prophesy, but it's an unpredictable skill, and we were never linked when it happened."

  "Who knows this?"

  "I dunno," Sal mumbled. "It's not a secret. I mean, not anymore. Anglia doesn't care what I can do, but I kinda do." She sighed, sounding defeated. "But no one can help. My kind always die so there's no one to learn from." Her voice dropped so low her could barely hear what came next. "It should have been me, not Blaec."

  "But it wasn't."

  She shrugged. "Because he always had to fix the future. We were all just pawns in his game. He's the only one who could really save us from the Emperor, and now all we have is me."

  "A Kaisae who united how many nations? I think you're worth a lot more than you give yourself credit for."

  Again, she shrugged. "We'll see what they think when we're closer. I can't hear them from this far away."

  "How much closer?"

  "Two days ride."

  Kolton nodded. "So about a week on foot. We don't have any supplies, Sal, except one small canteen for water."

  "There's wildlife."

  "No bows," he pointed out.

  She flicked an ear at him. "I hunt better on foot. I'll find something to feed us."

  "Maybe I should try that," he suggested. "I figure if you can hunt like this then so can I. If I'm lucky, I'll even be able to climb a mountain fast enough to keep you happy." He hoped she'd remember how she'd berated him so long ago.

  "You weren't too bad," she admitted, proving she did. "I was just pissed that your officer tried to kill me."

  "I know. I had no idea they'd planned that until after it all went down. You know that, right?"

  "I guessed. You never told me the second reason."

  He laughed and rubbed her shoulder. "I know."

  "You told Shift you can read Jase's tattoos and about your boy."

  "I did."

  Annoyed, she yanked her foot free from a nest of withered vines. "What are you playing at?"

 
"Surviving in the Conglomerate's elite units. I just want to live long enough to see my son find a mate. I hope he's a free man when it happens. My wife never asked what I thought about children or we wouldn't have him. It's never been safe for the iliri in the CFC. You know that better than anyone."

  "I do."

  The corner of his lip twitched up. "I also know that the iliri are a lot stronger than anyone can understand. They can survive a lot, and will keep going even when it should be impossible." He ducked his head to see her face, making sure she got his underlying point.

  Sal met his eyes, nodded, then looked back to the ground. "I know. You just don't know how bad it hurts."

  "No, and while my ears don't work as well as yours, I'm still willing to listen. I'm in your debt, Sal."

  She sighed and walked a few paces before responding to that. "We've never truly been friends. We worked together on one mission after your unit tried to kill me. I smell no hate from you, but I smell nothing but human sugar, either."

  "I know," he said with a smile.

  "You don't trust me enough to touch me, our countries are barely civil, and you probably have no idea that the CFC just came to Syhar, begging us to push Terric back into Escea."

  "Shit," he breathed. "They crossed the mountains?"

  Sal nodded. "Forward Camp is gone. Eastward is under siege by now, or close. They're probably almost to Merriton."

  "Are you going to leave the Conglomerate to die?"

  She shook her head. "I told Rais we'd come and ordered the Blades to help. I can only guess that the maargra are already on their way, but I don't know who's leading them." She paused. "Maast. They all felt it too."

  "Felt what?"

  Sal looked up, her eyes wide. "Blaec's death. The Black Blades were surrounded by humans. They would have killed them all."

  "No." He grabbed her shoulders. "Sal, I saw you. You only killed those who hurt you. They wouldn't have turned on Anglia."

  "Yeah, Kolton, they would. It hurts so much we can't think. All that matters is saving him, and since we couldn't do that, all that's left is to fight. They could have done anything, and the only way I'd know is if one of them died, because right now, I'm all alone."