Hearts & Minds

by Gwynn White

  Twenty-Seven

  Heartbreak

  Cool air brushed Grigor’s back. It pulled him from a dreamless sleep. He opened his eyes, and a rush of memories came back to him.

  Meka.

  He’d been reunited with his brother.

  He pushed himself up onto his arms and looked around. Meka was asleep on the cot next to his. Beyond him stretched a row of empty beds. He vaguely recalled Father and Meka bringing him into this infirmary. He assumed it had happened the night before, but with no way of telling the time, he could have been asleep for a day, or an hour.

  He rolled onto his back and froze, anticipating excruciating pain.

  Nothing.

  “Hello, Grigor,” Father said into his head. “Meka needs this sleep. Would you like to come and join me? There are some clothes for you at the end of the bed.”

  He sat up and noticed that he was naked. That was less of a shock than the terrible smell coming off his skin.

  “Any chance of a shower?” he asked quietly so he didn’t disturb Meka.

  “I doubt he’d wake even if the roof fell on him,” Father said dryly. “And as for a shower, a sponge bath is the best I can offer. There’s a bucket, some soap, and a cloth at the end of the bed. Get yourself cleaned up and come and join me.”

  “Where are you?” He looked at Meka as he spoke. His twin didn’t stir.

  “You’ll see, I’ll lead you along.”

  Grigor snorted. “I’m grateful that you came back to help me, Meka, and String, but—”

  “Where was I? His father interrupted. He sounded bleak. “Grigor, I know you believe that I betrayed you, but it is not so. I tried to come to you. I truly did. I watched your beating and it broke my heart. The best that I could do was to help you afterward.”

  Grigor shuffled off the bed to the bucket of water. He picked up a bar of soap, dunked it, rubbed it on the sponge, and wiped it across his face. Next, he sloshed water over his head. Meka still didn’t wake up. He took a breather to ask, “But why?”

  “It wasn’t my choice. You have a destiny to fulfill in Dmitri’s curse. He required you to go through that challenge. Much good came out of it.”

  He wanted to be mature about the situation, but as far as he could see, no good could have come out of any of this. Perhaps it would have helped to see Father’s face while he asked these questions—he could have waited until he had finished dressing—but the pressure to know was too great.

  “After your beating, Lady Tatiana announced to the entire court that you were not Lukan’s son, and that you were not the true crown prince.

  “I figured something like that must have happened,” Grigor said, “because of something that moron Morass said.”

  He’s dead, Father said bleakly.

  “As he well deserves.” Grigor bit his lip. So much killing, so much suffering, so much pain. He wanted to ask about Natalia’s family, but he was scared of the answer. He closed his eyes and let the water slop down his body.

  If Father knew anything, he didn’t comment.

  He sighed. “I don’t think I really mean that about Morass. I’m just tired of it all. All this death, all this suffering. I never wanted any of it.”

  “No,” Father agreed. “All you ever wanted was to have some friends, to be with Meka, and to learn things. In other words, to be a normal teenage boy. But you aren’t a normal teenage boy. You’re Grigor Avanov, and you have a role to fulfill in Dmitri’s curse.”

  “You don’t need to keep telling me that. It’s my job to open the palace gates. I know that. My question is how the hell am I going to do it? If I go back to the palace Lukan will have me killed for sure. And the only way I can get back to the palace, as far as I can tell, is either to climb back up the crapchute, or to head into the city and walk to the palace via the hill road. I’d have to cross the wolf enclosure.”

  “You won’t get past the guardsmen.”

  “Then there has to be another way,” Grigor scowled down at the water. It was filthy, but at least he was cleaner. He picked up a towel and dried himself off, and then looked for his clothing. He expected to find a gray uniform like Meka wore, but it wasn’t a uniform that waited for him on his bed.

  “You raided my dressing room.”

  “Not me. Cricket went and got the clothing for you. Get yourself dressed. You need to look like a high-born.”

  Hmm, cryptic, but Grigor dressed quickly. Last time he had pulled a shirt on, his back roared with pain. Now there was nothing. He wished there was a mirror so he could see if there was scarring. A simple vanity, perhaps, but he didn’t want to carry the marks of Lukan’s beating to his grave.

  “I’m afraid that is unavoidable. I healed you, but I did not remove your scars.”

  “And why would you do that?” Not bothering with his cravat, Grigor stuck it in his pocket.

  “Because they’re a badge of honor. They show you and the world that you stood firm, that you gave your heart, and your blood, and your soul. Everything you had to offer to Nicholas the Light-Bearer. Wear them with pride, my son.”

  Grigor shrugged, and his stomach rumbled. “Where are you? Is there any food in this place?”

  “Follow my voice, and I will lead you to a meal.”

  Grigor pushed the door of the infirmary open and stepped out into a wide, stark, sterile passage lit with bright incandescent lights. Half a dozen doors ran the length of the gray walls. They were all closed.

  “Which one do I come to?”

  “The one at the end. On your left.”

  Grigor’s skin prickled. “Am I likely to meet trouble on my way up?”

  “I’ve got your back,” Father said.

  “You still haven’t told me why you didn’t have it last time.”

  That was on Dmitri’s instructions. He forbade me to go to you when you were beaten and during your trial with Natalia.”

  Grigor’s hands clutched at his trousers as he walked. “Natalia. Is she… is she all right?”

  He reached the last door at the end of the passage. It was open, but he stopped and waited for Father to answer.

  He spoke softly. “Natalia is one of the reasons you will open the palace gates to Nicholas.”

  Every muscle in Grigor’s body clenched. He closed his eyes, not wanting to acknowledge what Father was saying. But not knowing exactly what had happened was just as unbearable as hearing the truth.

  He gasped. “What did he do to her?”

  “She and her family are dead.”

  His knees folded, and he buckled onto the floor. Eyes closed, he rocked backward and forward, trying to stop himself from crying.

  Beautiful, kind, intelligent Natalia, the brightest light in his life, was gone.

  A hand brushed his face, and he heard the rustle of clothing. Someone knelt down next to him. “Cry, Grigor, cry,” Father said.

  “I—I can’t. I need to find a way into the palace. Nothing is more important. Nothing.”

  Father wrapped his arms around him and hugged him to his chest.

  Grigor didn’t resist. He wanted to but pressed like a child against Father’s chest, his thoughts raced.

  Everything rested on him. If he could not find a way of getting Nicholas into the palace, Lukan would forever remain unpunished for what he had done. Not just for Natalia and her family, but for Meka, and for Nicholas’s torture, and for Father’s murder, and for the cage, and for every death, and for every pain, and for every suffering Lukan had ever inflicted on the people of Chenaya and the world.

  “I know,” Father whispered. “I know. And you will find a way into the palace. I promise you that.”

  “How?” Grigor croaked. “I can’t go over the wolf enclosure. You said it yourself. And I can’t take an army through a crap chute.”

  “There is always a way.”

  Grigor pulled back and looked at Father. “You know, don’t you?”

  Father nodded. “I do, but it’s for you to find out. Now come.” He stood and pulled
Grigor up with him. “There is someone in here that I want you to meet.”

  Numbly, Grigor followed Father into an eerie room, lit with a dull red light. Hundreds of glowing informas floated in the air as if held up by gossamer strings. Or ghostly hands.

  Four men wearing Chenayan guardsmen’s uniforms sat at one workstation. Grigor skidded to a stop. “What the—”

  “They’re friends,” Father whispered. “Sent by Axel to rescue Meka and the programmers here in the Hive. They’re working hard to break into Felix’s ice crystal systems.”

  That explained the green text they all stared at. None of them even looked up to listen to their whispered conversation.

  “Let’s get you that meal.” Father pulled him into the room.

  “I’m not hungry.” He doubted if he’d ever be able to eat again. Not with the pain in his stomach. The very thought of food made him want to hurl. How could he eat when Natalia would never eat again? It may have sounded stupid, but the least he could do to honor her and her family was to sacrifice a meal.

  “You will need your energy,” Father said softly.

  He shook his head. “Who is this that you want me to meet?”

  “He’s over here.”

  Father led him to a Chenayan guardsman with bright red hair—that wasn’t possible, was it?

  “He’s also from Treven.”

  Right. How stupid not to have figured that. If it wasn’t for the hole in his chest where his heart should have been—

  He blocked the thought. Red stood guard over the street urchins who had accosted him in the tunnel. He looked for little String.

  A couple of feet away from the boys, alone, and looking dejected, sat String. His head rested on his knees.

  Grigor started toward him, but a hiss reminiscent of a feral cat stopped him. “Grigor Avanov, the murderer of Cian.”

  String’s head shot up. “No, Dip. I’ve told you!”

  “Shut up, String!”

  Red tilted his rifle up. “Enough.”

  Grigor looked around for Father. He’d vanished but he did speak into Grigor’s head.

  “The lippy one is Dip. I want you to befriend him. And the meal I want you to have is on that stack of cans over there.”

  Although he couldn’t see Father point, he knew instinctively where to look.

  A pile of square-ish tin cans leaned against the wall behind the boys. On top of them, someone, Father presumably, had left a plate of the strangest looking food he had seen. Stewed fruit shared the plate with some kind of stew. They’d both congealed together.

  Nausea threatened to empty his stomach.

  Father may have abandoned him during his beating, thanks to Dmitri, but he’d never expect Grigor to eat that mess. The food had to have some significance.

  He walked to the cans and picked one up. A label claimed it to be dried egg. He’d never seen anything like it before. But then he hadn’t spent any time around food preparation. Somewhere there was a connection between these cans and Dip. If he was ever to avenge Natalia and her family, he had to find it.

  He knelt down so he was eye level with Dip. The lad had keen, bright eyes. Unfortunately, pure hatred radiated from them.

  He chose his words carefully. “You’re right. I did send a thousand guardsmen into the city. And yes, I’m sure they added to the pain and the mayhem from the airships, the bombing, and the fires. I’m not going to deny my part in it.”

  “See!” Dip snarled, looking left and right at his boys. He glared at String. “And you dared challenge me. You think you’re gonna be the leader?”

  String rolled his eyes. “I don’t want to be a leader, Dip. All I want is for the right thing to happen, and the right thing is that we have to support Meka and Grigor because they’re working with Axel. And if we’re work…”

  Dip turned his back on String. And on Grigor.

  “Dip, it’s not as it seems. You have to listen,” String pleaded.

  “It is as it seems!” Dip shouted. “And don’t think when all this is over that you’re still going to be part of this gang. You can go and find another gang.”

  String blanched.

  It gave Grigor insight into what the boy had risked to support him. String had a little brother he was responsible for. If the cans of food had come with the gang, that meant that Dip had a way of providing for his boys that perhaps the other gang leaders didn’t.

  So where had Dip gotten the food?

  Questioning him directly would result in nothing more than snarls and sneers. He had to try another approach. He rocked on his heels, trying to think past the ache in his chest.

  “He must want something,” Father whispered. “Something he’s willing to trade information for.”

  He looked around for inspiration. A collection of home-made weapons lay on the floor next to the tin cans.

  “Which of those weapons is yours?” he asked Dip.

  Still showing Grigor his back, Dip hissed under his breath.

  Grigor shuffled over on his knees to the pile of wire, home-made cudgels, broken bottles, and most impressively, a four-foot long home-made spear.

  “This yours?” He held it up to Dip, who now faced him.

  Dip’s eyes gleamed. “Not telling.”

  Grigor smiled. “Do you want it back?”

  Red watched Grigor nervously but said nothing.

  “Why would you give it to me?” Dip demanded.

  Grigor fiddled with the arrowhead. It was made from a single piece of beaten metal. From the looks of it, it had been a blade on a fan. Crude in the extreme, it was laced to the shaft with bits of cloth and wire. The arrowhead moved in his hands.

  “Hey! Stop. Leave that alone,” Dip shouted.

  Grigor ignored him. He spoke deliberately to Red. “We’ve not met. My name is Grigor. Who are you?”

  The man bobbed a bow. “Name’s Dray.”

  “You come from Treven, I assume,” Grigor said, steadfastly ignoring Dip while he played with the spear.

  Dray nodded. “I do. There’s some more of us here as well. We’re here to protect you all here in the Hive.”

  “Ah. And the greatest risk comes from Dip and his gang?”

  A smile twitched; Dray must have gotten some inkling of what he was doing. “Ferocious. That’s what they are.”

  Grigor fiddled with the spear until the arrowhead came off.

  Dip wailed. He lunged to his feet.

  Dray shoved him back down onto the ground.

  “That’s mine,” Dip snarled. “Not yours. You Avanovs have everything. You’ve got the whole world, and we’ve got nothing. And the things that we do have, you come and destroy.”

  Grigor laid the broken spear down at Dip’s feet. “Exactly. That’s what the Avanovs do. At least, some of them. Lukan and Felix.” His breath hitched and he had to fight back tears. “They’re the ones that destroy. Although you might not want to believe it, the rest of us—Axel, me, my brother, my cousin—all we’re doing is our absolute best to overthrow Lukan and Felix.”

  Dip looked at him mulishly.

  Grigor ignored it. “I’ve a job to do for Nicholas the Light-Bearer. Do you know who that is?”

  “I’m not an idiot. He’s the boy with the blue eyes.”

  It helped that Dip knew Nicholas.

  “Yes, he is. The bluest eyes you’ll ever see. It’s his job to kill Lukan.” His fists clenched. How he longed for Lukan to suffer just a fraction of what Natalia and her family had endured. “Then we can overthrow everything that’s evil in this empire.”

  A murmur rippled through the other boys.

  “What does ‘overthrow’ even mean?” Dip demanded.

  “What you’re trying to accuse String of doing.”

  “You mean taking the leadership?”

  “Nicholas the Light-Bearer not only has to take the leadership, but he has to kill his father in order to get it.”

  The boys spoke openly now. All questioning how Nicholas would get close enough to Lukan
to kill him.

  Dip held up an imperious hand, “Quiet! All of you. I’m listening.”

  Despite everything, Grigor smiled. Dip was a pompous little bugger.

  “Your boys are right, Dip. Getting to Lukan is going to be very, very hard. The palace is guarded and Lukan never leaves it.”

  Dip’s chest puffed. “Hah. Getting into the palace is easy.”

  The air oomphed out of Grigor. “Really? You know the way?”

  “Of course I do. Where do you think them tins of food come from?”

  “The palace kitchens?” Grigor asked.

  Dips face shuttered. “I ain’t telling you nothing no more.”

  Time to play his best tile. “How about if I promise to replace your spear with something a little sturdier?”

  Dip’s eyes shot immediately to the rifle in Dray’s hands. “I want one of them things.”

  The knot in Grigor’s stomach pulled tighter. How could he possibly give a young boy a rifle?

  But Dip was already on his knees shuffling toward Dray.

  Grigor held up his hand. “Whoa. Let’s take this slowly, shall we?”

  Dip fell back onto his haunches and glared at him. “I knew you wouldn’t be true! It’s all just talk and nothing else. Talk and sending guardsmen to kill us all.”

  The boy could be dramatic. But if a rifle was the price of entry into the palace, then it was a price Grigor was willing to pay. He said to Dray, “Can you render that weapon suitable for the situation?”

  Dray grinned. “I’ve got just the one for him. Prince Grigor, I leave you in charge.” He walked across the room and vanished amongst the informas. A second or two later, he appeared with another rifle. He handed it to Grigor. “Perfect for the situation.”

  Grigor had to assume that Dray understood that the ammunition was to be removed. He took the rifle and laid it across his knees. He held out his hand. “You have a bullet for me?”

  Dray pulled a cartridge out of his bandolier and dropped it onto his palm.

  Grigor held the cartridge and the rifle out to Dip. “This is the bullet. The thing that shoots out of the front. And this is the rifle.” He handed the rifle to Dip but kept hold of the bullet.