Elsker cut in. “I say we kill him.”
“Release him into my custody, Elsker.” Tera’s voice was pitched low, each word clearly enunciated.
Elsker spared a glance over his shoulder at the narrow-eyed icrathari warlord. He loosened his grip on Jaden’s arm and took a single step back.
Jaden straightened from his exhausted slump against the wall and walked to the door. His muscles ached. His skin chafed beneath his leather armor, and his head spun from overexposure to the sun. What little energy he had left he focused on putting one foot in front of the other, one step at a time, always moving forward. He was vaguely aware of the icrathari following him, but he paid Tera no attention. He did not need her direction. He knew the way to the elevator and down to the holding cells.
He walked past the sealed door of the cell where his father and his other human companions were imprisoned, and into an empty cell. The walls were bare and the only piece of furniture in the room was a steel-framed bed.
“Get down.” Tera shoved him to his knees beside the bed, unbuckled the straps that held his scabbards to his back, and stripped off his leather armor. She kicked his armor and weapons into a pile before looping a pair of handcuffs around the bedframe and locking the cuffs around his wrists. “Don’t bother trying to break free. The bed is anchored to the floor.”
Jaden did not have the strength or will to look up. Apparently, Tera did not consider him enough of a threat to care to remove his weapons from the cell. Perhaps she was right. He slumped against the wall, grateful for the chill that seeped through the thin cotton shirt, offering relief to his heated skin. Weary and heartsick, he closed his eyes and waited to be left alone.
“I don’t understand.” Tera’s voice drew him from his fractured thoughts.
He raised his gaze to her. “What don’t you understand?”
She stood by the door, a hand on her leather-clad hip. “You love her. Why aren’t you fighting to stay beside her?”
“Because my staying beside her undermines your perception of her. We both know that in a time of crisis, Ashra cannot appear weak. If she doesn’t have the unquestioned loyalty of the icrathari and the vampires, she cannot protect the city.”
“And you’d step aside for her?”
“I’d step aside for the sake of my people,” he said. “The icrathari and the vampires are all that stand between the humans and the daevas.”
She ground her teeth but said nothing.
Jaden released his breath in a quiet sigh. “Take care of Ashra. Keep her safe.”
Tera’s brow furrowed. “Of course. She’s safe in the city.”
“Is she?”
She grabbed his wrist. “What are you trying to say?”
“I’m not the one sabotaging the city, Tera. You know I have no reason to do so. Someone else is, and until you find the traitor, Ashra’s in danger.”
“And you’re convinced I’m not the traitor.”
“You’d challenge Ashra to a fight to the death if you thought she was leading the city astray, but sabotage isn’t your style. You’re much too direct.”
She stared at him.
“Protect Ashra, please.”
Her face tightened. She nodded, spun around, and stalked out of the room. The steel door slid shut behind her, abandoning him to the silence of his cell and his thoughts.
Chapter Sixteen
Ashra ignored the knock on the door and stared at her reflection in the mirror. Her white skin had a gray pallor, though Siri had assured her that she was well on the path to recovery.
How much had she missed in her week of incapacitation? According to Lucas and Siri, she had been unconscious for three days while they worked feverishly to drain the poison from her body. The remaining time had passed in a haze of pain and restless sleep.
She had not seen Jaden in all that time.
A dull ache pulsed through her, but she pushed him out of her mind and focused on the immediate crisis. The balance of power had tipped to favor the daevas. How had the daevas developed a poison toxic enough to overcome an icrathari’s accelerated healing capabilities?
Lucas was apparently working hard to isolate the poison from samples of Ashra’s blood. She did not harbor high hopes for his success. He worked for Siri; she was no longer certain she trusted him, or Siri.
Siri, too, would have known how to develop a poison.
Ashra knew Siri sensed her apprehension. The icrathari who spearheaded Aeternae Noctis’s medical, scientific, and engineering functions had been unusually quiet as Lucas explained Ashra’s prognosis. She had not met Ashra’s challenging gaze.
What could it be if not guilt?
Ashra trusted her instincts. Instinct did not equal evidence, yet waiting for evidence could prove deadly.
Could she afford another betrayal? Could the city survive another crisis?
Soft laughter echoed from behind the closed door of her antechamber where Marion, a vampire, watched over Khiarra and the infant daeva.
The soul that resided in Khiarra’s body was not unimportant, but it had become irrelevant. Ashra had far larger challenges to worry about.
A second knock broke through her distraction. The door opened and Tera entered, uninvited. The warlord leaned against the door, perhaps sensing that she was unwelcomed. “He’s in cell three.”
Fresh from the shower, Ashra tugged a white dress over her slender body before dragging a brush through her still-damp hair, teasing through the knots that tangled the slight waves. She nudged her chin at a pile of discarded leather on the floor—Tera’s borrowed armor. “Thank you.”
Tera knelt down to gather her armor. Her steel-gray eyes lingered on the rents in the studded leather. “You’re all right?”
Ashra shrugged. “I am now.”
The wounds in her abdomen had finally healed. The exhaustion would pass. Physically, little, perhaps nothing could hurt her. Emotionally…
She swallowed through the lump in her throat. Why did he not fight to stay beside me?
Or did I abandon him?
“He told me to protect you.”
“What?”
“He told me to protect you,” Tera repeated, her voice gruff.
Ashra lowered the hairbrush and stared at Tera’s reflection in the mirror. “Why would he do that?”
“He thinks you’re in danger. Are you?”
She shrugged again.
The icrathari warlord’s eyes were narrow slits. “You believe it’s one of us, don’t you? Elsker, Siri, or me.”
Ashra did not reply.
“That’s insane.” Tera paced the length of Ashra’s suite, her arms laden with armor. Her silver braid swung, the tip brushing her waist. “We would never turn against you, never destroy anything we’ve fought so hard to sustain. Elsker’s right. It’s Jaden. For a thousand years, nothing has gone wrong, and now, in under two weeks, everything falls apart.”
“Two weeks? You lost your vampire army over seven months, not two weeks. Besides, we can account for all of Jaden’s movements in Aeternae Noctis. He was either in a cell, in the infirmary under Lucas’s watchful eye, or with me. He didn’t damage the capacitors either; he and his sister are the only ones in the tower without claws.”
“But he and Talon are the only ones who had contact with the daevas.”
“Are they?”
Tera froze. She stared at Ashra. “What are you saying?”
Ashra did not take her gaze off Tera’s reflection. With her back to Tera, she was at a disadvantage if the warlord attacked, but the time for playing safe was long past.
An army of daevas—she did not doubt for a moment that they numbered in the thousands—had damaged too many charging stations. Someone was sabotaging the city. One of the icrathari was a traitor.
She had no intention of being caught unaware. Not without Jaden watching her back.
Tera’s face was pale. Her lips moved. “You’re saying that it’s more than just sabotage. You’re accusing us…one of us
…of high treason, of allying with the daevas.”
I’ve seen an icrathari parley with daevas. “Tell me what I should believe, Tera.” Ashra turned around. “Where were you and your vampire army when I was attacked? Who was monitoring our perimeter?”
“I was in the training arena with Talon and Yuri. Siri was supposed to—”
“But she wasn’t. She was at the entrance with Xanthia when I returned.”
“Elsker then—he and Siri take turns running the city from the chamber—but I went up and checked the security logs. The external sensors never picked up the battle. Elsker didn’t know about the battle, or he would have alerted me.”
“Either the sensors failed, or the security logs were altered.” Siri, and perhaps Elsker, would have known how to alter the security logs. “Where is Siri now?”
“In the chamber, I think.”
“And Elsker?”
Tera shrugged. “Who knows? He comes and goes.”
Ashra’s eyes narrowed.
Tera glanced sharply at her. The tension rippling through her body flared her wings. “You don’t think—”
“His responsibilities with the scouts used to take him away from the city far more frequently than any of us.” Turmoil churned through Ashra. Could it be Elsker? Elsker who preached tolerance and the futility of total war, who balanced both Tera’s ruthless streak in battle and Siri’s cold-blooded approach to research?
She shook her head, dismissing the absurdity of that particular train of thought. How could it possibly be Elsker? For a thousand years, he had been the voice of reason in a domed city ruled by three powerful female icrathari.
He had pulled her back into the city on that first morning when the world began to burn. He had held her even though she screamed and tore at him with her sharp claws, struggling to break free, fighting to return to Rohkeus’s burning corpse. She would have died that morning if not for Elsker.
Later, he destroyed the gratitude he had earned that day when he attempted to desecrate Rohkeus’s memory with lies spawned from jealousy and a love lost.
Still, a thousand years was too long to hold a grudge. Their friendship had survived the loss of Rohkeus. In the final count, there was no one she trusted more.
So who was the traitor icrathari?
Siri?
She controlled the city, knew every detail on how the city functioned. More than anyone, she could make sabotage look like an accident, and she was tired of her unending responsibility to Aeternae Noctis.
Ashra pushed to her feet. “I’m going to talk to Siri.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“No. I’ll handle this alone.”
Ashra left her suite and, instead of soaring through the central shaft, waited for the elevator. It bought her precious minutes of solitude. Uncertainty plucked at her. What would you have done, Jaden?
How was he faring down in the holding chamber? No doubt, it was uncomfortable, though less so now that he had her blood in him. He had been right to separate himself from their conflict; his presence complicated the situation by giving the icrathari an outsider to focus their doubts upon.
She needed to deal with the traitor icrathari alone.
Then she would have to deal with Khiarra. Precisely how, she had not yet decided.
The elevator carrying her up toward the chamber jolted to a stop. Ashra frowned. She tapped the control panel, but the open platform did not move. Suspicion narrowed her eyes.
A soft sound like the mechanical groaning of levers whispered through the tower.
Alarmed, she tilted her head and listened intently, but heard nothing more than the perpetual hum of the engines.
The elevator was still not moving.
Fortunately, she had wings, or she’d be condemned to taking the stairs. Her wings spread, carrying her easily off the open platform and into the central shaft. When she arrived at the chamber moments later, she found Siri alone, seated in front of the massive electronic network that controlled Aeternae Noctis.
Ashra landed soundlessly and strode into the chamber. “Did you know the elevator’s not working?”
Siri shot to her feet and spun around. Her pale violet eyes were swollen and red-rimmed. She pressed a hand against her chest and sagged back into her chair. “Don’t do that again. You startled me.” Her hands tapped on one of the screens. “What’s this about the elevator?” Her voice was deliberately nonchalant. She made no reference to the fact that she had been crying.
Ashra delicately skirted the topic. “It stopped.”
“Where?”
“Between my suite and the chamber.”
Siri frowned at the screen. “It says here it’s at the infirmary.” She tapped twice more. “And there, I’ve just sent it to the ark.”
Ashra stepped out of the chamber and peered at the unmoving elevator. “It’s still stuck.”
Siri leaned out of the chamber to verify Ashra’s statement. She scowled and stalked back to the terminals. “Damn it. What the hell is wrong with this thing?”
“Perhaps the same thing that is wrong with the external sensors?”
Siri flinched. “Ashra, I swear I would never have endangered you. We had enough power in the capacitors to keep our sensors running and our shields engaged. Everything was working fine when I went down to the entrance to wait for your return.”
Ashra eyed the screens. All the systems flashed green. “Just like everything’s working right now?”
Siri sighed. She fisted her hand on top of one of the screens. “I’ll have to take it apart again.” She ground her teeth in obvious frustration. “Elsker and I just rebuilt all these systems—”
“When?”
“We started about five months prior, and we finished two weeks ago.”
“Why did you rebuild them?”
“I rebuild the systems every decade or so, Ashra. I’ve been doing it for a thousand years.” Her eyebrows drew together. “Did you really think we’re running on the same hardware that Rohkeus put into Malum Turris a thousand years ago?”
“I never thought about it before,” she confessed. How much work had Siri invested over the years to maintain Aeternae Noctis? No wonder she was growing weary. “So, it was time for another overhaul of the technology?”
“Close. We’re about six months shy of ten years, but this time, Elsker offered to help so I decided to get started before his enthusiasm waned.”
“How much did he do?”
“Oh, a lot of it. He wanted to know how everything worked, how the tower and city functioned.”
The chill that coursed through Ashra had nothing to do with the carbon steel structure of the tower. “Could he have altered the way the systems worked without your knowing?”
“Of course not.” Siri snorted. “That’s ridiculous. He’s not smart enough.”
Siri, like most geniuses, tended to discount people who were merely brilliant. Ashra did not intend to make the same mistake. “Where is Elsker now?”
“I don’t know.”
Time had little meaning in a cell. Tera delivered food and water irregularly, and hours blurred into days. The handcuffs limited Jaden’s range of motion; he shifted in search of a comfortable position but did not find it. Near-constant thirst and hunger sapped his strength, but as exhaustion and lethargy set in, he noticed the chill less. The shivers that wracked his body stilled. His wounds—injuries that should have killed any human—closed, the scars slowly folding over open cuts.
His body healed; his mind roiled.
The stomach-churning panic for Ashra’s life won out, numbing his grief over his mother’s death. Over several days, he wrested fragments of sleep when exhaustion overwhelmed him.
Relief did not come until Tera delivered the news that Ashra had been released from the infirmary, her wounds healed.
Even then, his mind could not rest.
What could he have done differently? If he and Ashra could not close the distance between their worlds, how could anyone el
se?
Ashra’s image took shape in his mind. Her voice echoed, quiet, beguiling. She held out a hand, offering immortality. Transform, and be with me forever.
He squeezed his eyes shut. If I did, I would no longer be me.
She beckoned. He retreated.
She stood in the gap. He did not meet her partway.
Her eyes narrowed. A mocking smile flashed across her face. Her lips shaped a single word. Coward.
Alone, in the silence of his mind, he confronted the truth he had previously denied. I’m afraid.
Fear was an ingrained reflex that allowed humans to thrive in circumstances greater than themselves. How could Talon have embraced the change without fear? What kind of extraordinary courage facilitated the transformation from human to elder vampire?
And why could he not find it in himself?
Ashra waited.
Shame clawed through him. He did not move. He did not dare.
In his mind’s eye, she turned away slowly, but without a backward glance. In that dismissive gesture, the partially built bridge across the chasm that separated their worlds crumbled. He would damn his people to an eternity of fear, of never seeing, never understanding the Night Terrors for the saviors they were.
And if I try but fail the transformation…
What would it be like to be an immortali—dazzled and maddened by that glimpse of eternity, a broken mind in a powerful and immortal body, condemned to wander the Earth alone? How much of his life as a human would he remember? How much would he regret?
Perhaps none, and it would be a mercy. But if he remembered, even fragments, could he ever forgive Ashra for forcing an undesired immortality upon him?
He didn’t want to be immortal.
All he wanted was one lifetime.
One normal lifetime.
A sworn duty to protect a precious sister—regardless of who she had been in a former life.
And one unforgettable love. Ashra.
He closed his eyes against the impossible choices before him. If only he had more time to figure it out. He chuckled at the irony. Perhaps in the final count, his only enemy was time.
The lock on the door clicked.
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