Allies and Enemies: Exiles, Book 3

by Amy J. Murphy

  “Another one down. Check it out!” It was in Regimental! Her heart bounced at the sound. She inhaled, ready to call out, but stopped. It felt wrong. Their accents sounded out of joint as if someone were pretending at the language.

  They hurried past. The light of the firefight changed, dimmed. It left her in an inky darkness. She remained that way for some time, heart thudding in accompaniment to the noisome buzz in her ears. She counted her breaths, telling herself that when she got to one thousand, it would be okay to move.

  She lost count, started over.

  At some point, she must have fallen asleep or passed out. Did it matter? One prospect was just as deadly as the other.

  When she woke, the light had changed. She was no longer sprawled across the stairs. The surface beneath her was spongy. An itchy fabric clung to the left side of her face. She reached up to touch it. Someone swatted her hand away.

  “Wouldn’t do that, Commander.” The voice was sing-song but firm; Commonspeak, not Regimental. Male, but with an odd lilt. “Looks like you lost your implant. Took me forever to get that stitched up.”

  She opened her eyes. The room was a cramped metal box. A bunker? The person that stood above her seemed a mile tall; his head brushed the ceiling. He hunched down over her and offered a bitter smile. “I thought you were dead for sure, my little war muffin.”

  War muffin? It evoked a surge of irritation. Who called anyone that? Certainly not something you called a Volunteer.

  “What is your unit? Have I been reassigned?” The questions tumbled out of her in Regimental. When he didn’t answer, she asked again in Commonspeak.

  With a scoff he straightened, propping his hands on his hips. “Hon, do I look like I’d ever be caught dead in fatigues?”

  She gaped. He wore a gown that shimmered in the lantern light. His expression was expectant and challenging as if he dared her to make a comment. He seemed almost disappointed when she didn’t.

  “Somebody really dumped your memory cache, didn’t they?” He watched her, measuring. “It’d definitely explain why you’re back here, anyway.”

  It was her turned to frown. “Explain.”

  “Tell me your name.” There was a weight to his words as if a very important decision hung on her answer.

  She licked her lips. The answer was there. Right there. It was….

  “You don’t know, do you?” There was no pity in his tone. She got the sense that it inconvenienced him.

  She tried to sit up. He put a staying hand on her chest. “Don’t get worked up. You’ll tear your stitches. You’re no good to anyone dead. I didn’t haul your heavy ass here for nothing.”

  She looked down at the hand. Tapered fingers with heavy knuckles ended in elegant fingernails painted in a multitude of colors.

  “Who are you?” she asked. “What is this place?”

  “Sweet Amos.” He paused to pull out a vinestick from a crumbled packet on the chair nearby. A sparker illuminated his face as he lit its end. He exhaled a plume of the pungent smoke. “Welcome back to Brojos, I guess. Armpit of Hadelia.”

  He extended the lit vinestick to her in offer. She shook her head.

  “But the question remains. Do you know who you are, girlfriend?”

  Fifty-Eight

  Guild Master Hirano sent two soldiers to Yasu’s house for Erelah. They found her in her bedroom. Their bows were terse, perfunctory, as they issued an invitation for Lady Veradin to return with them to Hirano’s villa. Erelah had told no one, not even Kelta, that she had asked for an audience with him. His response had been swifter than she expected.

  The hour was late. The house was quiet. All the servants were in bed. She thought of waking Kelta, to tell her of her plan, and thought better. The woman would try to convince Erelah to stay, would say that she was too tired to travel, her healing not yet complete.

  Erelah dressed without help from the lady’s maid. She blundered through the complicated process of the elaborate ties and knots of Ironvale dress. Over this, she pulled on a heavy quilted robe, more ornate than anything she’d ever owned. Another of Hirano’s gifts.

  On legs that felt as if they belonged to someone else, Erelah left with the soldiers in their ground car, watching the lights of the sleeping house recede and telling herself to be calm, be brave. She tried to picture Asher seated beside her. Instead came the memory of their nighttime arrival on Narasmina, as he slumped in the seat beside her.

  Despite the speed with which they drove through the dark streets of Nirro, Hirano kept her waiting for some time, shuttered in a bland room with the two silent guards. She suspected it was a tactic, perhaps to let her anxiety build. Although she’d asked for this meeting, he still sought to establish his domain, his terms.

  Erelah found she did not care. Instead of pacing, she sat, turning inward. She had spent days preparing for this moment.

  No more hiding. No more running. No more prisoner. It had become her mantra.

  “Apologies, my lady,” Hirano announced.

  A solid limp carried him into the room. The guards parted, backing away a respectful distance. He was positively ancient by any standard, yet he commanded the fearful presence of an old pack leader, scarred and grizzled but revered.

  Erelah tried to imagine Asher among those guildsmen, behaving with such stolid reverence, bowing and scraping, but she couldn’t. Instead, she saw his irreverent smirk, the daring glint in his eye. It threatened to tug her out of this moment. She forced it away, unaware that she’d placed a hand over her abdomen. Her shape had not changed much, but she could feel it in the fit of her clothes.

  He is firm but fair. He will test you. To the Ironvale, honor is everything.

  Hirano offered her a bow. It was not the bow of a superior acknowledging a subordinate, but a deep one, formal and full of respect. She returned the gesture. The customary greeting to offer him Fates blessings died on her lips as she realized the insult it would offer. She recalled Kelta’s coaching at the last moment: he worships other house gods.

  “May your house gods bless you,” she said instead, realizing how awkward it sounded.

  “That’s alright.” He waved a dismissive hand. “I can hardly pronounce their names myself.”

  Erelah offered a wan grin.

  “Shall we talk, my lady?” Hirano offered her his arm. She regarded the soldiers in the room, how they watched her. Her palms slimed with sweat. For a moment, she regretted no longer having the Sight. This was strange ground. There was no way to tell what these men and women were thinking.

  She rested a hand on the crook of Hirano’s arm and allowed him to guide her through a door of frosted glass into a new room. It had the look of a salon, a private chamber. Heavy drapes covered all the walls. The furniture was austere: simple carved benches with flattened pillows, a low table between them. As she walked in beside him, she was aware of how noise was muffled. Sound dampeners, she suspected. Somehow she knew that if she dared to pull the curtains back, she’d reveal heavy blast-proof walls.

  The scowling male guildsman shut the door behind them. A muffled sensation pressed against her eardrums. Yes, definitely a sealed room. The kind of room used for secrets, interrogations. Her pulse ticked in her throat.

  Erelah stopped. Her arm slipped from Hirano’s elbow as she stared at the portrait on the far wall. The woman’s smile was one she knew well. The rich auburn hair, deep brown eyes. The mischievous glint. Ravinia Corsair.

  It was odd. Out of context. A piece of the familiar in hostile territory.

  Hirano watched her, measuring.

  Erelah knew she was meant to see the portrait. He wanted to see her reaction. Perhaps he’d meant it as a surprise, to take her off her footing. Of course, she knew that Hirano was Ravinia’s father. She had to assume that as much as she’d gleaned about him, Hirano had done the same. Kelta had told her of Ravinia’s self-imposed banishment and Hirano’s role. It made sense in a tragic, poetic way—how Asher had seemed so conflicted, yet driven to right past wron
gs.

  “You are not what you seem, last daughter.”

  Erelah replied with a cant to her head. Her voice did not quake, although her knees did. “And what is that, Master Hirano, besides grateful for your aid and shelter in my time of need?”

  He settled onto a long padded bench with a muffled grunt.

  “That is you have the look of a frightened glade-fawn, but within you dwells the cunning of a lupine.” Hirano extended a hand, gesturing for her to take a seat opposite the low table of polished glass and stone. “Little wonder Asher Corsair was so taken with you.”

  The comment about Asher was bait. If he ever truly cared or wondered after his grandson, it was not to guess his choice in women.

  She studied the profile of his gray head, then moved to the proffered seat. From this angle, the portrait of Ravinia smirked down at her. She told herself it was a good sign.

  Emboldened by this thought, she leaned forward, planting her elbows on her knees. “Shall we speak plainly then, Master Hirano?”

  “By all means, my lady.” His eyebrow twitched. Something like amusement was in his tone, avuncular.

  “You have something of mine. I would like it back. You were not meant to have it.”

  “Ah.” He reached into the inner pocket of his coat. She stiffened, shifting her weight.

  He held his hand out. Balanced in his palm was the jdrive. The cursed thing.

  “It was not Kelta’s to offer,” said Erelah. “But her motives were good. She meant to protect her master and the father of my child.”

  At this admission, Hirano raised an eyebrow. “Lady Veradin, you place me in a difficult position—”

  “There is nothing difficult about this. Give me back the jdrive. Allow me and mine to leave in peace.”

  Hirano’s hand folded over the drive. “Our best minds have studied at this. They tell me it is the work of true genius. They assure me that with time they might understand it. But time is not a luxury we have.” Threat dwelled under the surface of his careful manners and eloquent speech. “Poisoncry has long influenced Splitdawn through that vain bastard Maxim. Each day, my infiltrators tell me their influence grows. Ironvale has been left to its own.”

  “A shame.” Erelah made her face bland, uninterested. She imagined it would be something Tyron would have said. A part of her liked the idea. “But not my problem.”

  “But it is, my lady. Or rather, it will be.” He shifted, copying her stance. “Since the Treaty of Ashes, the three Guilds have shared power in the Reaches. It was and is a delicate balance, but one that worked. But it is now thrown asunder, thanks to Poisoncry’s treachery. And this device threatens their rule. If there were another means to travel through the Reaches and beyond, Poisoncry’s control over flex point travel would be irrelevant. To them, this is a threat.

  “Say I return this to you, and you leave the safety of Nirro.” He gestured with the fist clutching the jdrive. “Where would you go that is safe? Where would you find this peace you so wish with this balance set asunder? Is that the type of uncertainty you wish for your child…my great grandchild?”

  Erelah hissed through clenched teeth, “My child is none of your concern.”

  But he had her. He knew it. He waited, watching her. His patience seemed infinite, irritating. With Poisoncry now controlling two-thirds of the Reaches, as well as the only usable means of flex point travel among the worlds, there would be no such thing as a quiet corner in which to life her life. Return to Origin was a vast unknown but ultimately a deadly one.

  “Master Hirano,” she said. “I did not make the device for conquest or a tool of war.”

  “Yet here we are, my lady.” Like some neat trick, he pocketed the drive back into the folds of his robes. “War seeks us. I do not seek it.”

  He said it with such reverence that she guessed it was likely a quote from some long-dead Ironvale sage—knowing Hirano’s background, some brave ship’s captain.

  “You and your child…your companions… may have comfort and sanctuary here among the Ironvale on Nirro to the end of your days.” The unspoken threat was there, humming on the edge of his voice. Implied but not spoken. There was an unpleasant alternative.

  A shiver spread up her spine. Yes, Kelta, these are hard people indeed. And I must be hard in my answer.

  “Master Hirano, I was held prisoner once by another that sought to use me. Tristic. It did not end well for her.” Erelah flexed a small, bitter smile. “What do you think that says about your chances?”

  “You misunderstand, my lady,” Hirano replied. “You will not be a prisoner.”

  “You’re right. I will not.” Erelah rested back against the sofa, pretending at casualness when all she wanted to do was wrestle the jdrive from him and run from the room. She forced herself to breathe, to count backward from ten. It felt only marginally better. “Do you know the story of Antilles and Calliop?”

  The gray brows flexed upward on his forehead. “No, my lady. It must be known only in Origin.”

  She fell into the story, one she’d known since childhood, one that Uncle had told her after a long day of fighting with Jon over some long-forgotten annoyance. “Antilles and Calliop were two great generals of the time when the Kindred families fought among each other, before the founding of the Council of First. The two were well-matched, each jealous of the other. Where Antilles was clever, Calliop was strong. Each time they clashed, there was never a clear victor. One night on the eve of battle, Antilles prayed to Nyxa, the Fate of wars and death, asking for her help in defeating Calliop. That same night Calliop did the same, begging her for an advantage over Antilles. Nyxa was tired of their squabbling. She knew that one was never fated to defeat the other, for she is mother of all warrior souls and knows how each will end. So, Nyxa blinded Antilles that night and crippled Calliop.” Erelah regarded the portrait over Hirano’s head. The smirk there seemed to take on a rueful approval. “‘Now you are as equals,’ said Nyxa. ‘Bother me no more.’”

  Hirano shifted. His jaw worked as his eyes flashed with understanding. “You mean to blind and cripple us all, my lady.”

  “My intention is to make you all equals, Master Hirano,” she replied. “And you will bother me no more.”

  He huffed. “And how do you propose to do this?”

  “You will call a convocation of the three Guilds: Poisoncry, what remains of Splitdawn. Yourself. Invite them to a neutral place. I will share everything with the three of you about the jdrive.”

  “You ask the impossible.”

  “You are a fair man. A reasonable one. Honorable, if what I’ve learned about you is to be believed,” Erelah said. “You said yourself that you do not want war. Then don’t give it. As long as there is no balance between the three Guilds, there will be no peace. Giving this technology to all three of you shall reset the scales.”

  Fifty-Nine

  Mim stood alone on one of the balconies of the house in Narasmina, frozen with fear. A storm of colossal black clouds, veined in reds and sickly purples, rolled in across the harbor. It shrank the fishing boats with its enormity. Their white sails became specks engulfed in billowing poisonous mist.

  Asher was in that storm. Like a monster, it had eaten him up, leaving nothing behind. There were so many people in there with him, more than she could ever count. Their screams became the shrieking of the winds. Mim cowered by the stone rail, a scared marsh hare caught in the open as a raptor swooped and arched.

  She heard Kelta calling for her, but she was afraid to move. The storm would see her. It would eat her up too.

  Kelta’s voice called, more insistent.

  “Wake up, Mim.”

  She snapped awake. The dream still clung to her. The dark shape hunched over her bed was part of the storm, sent ahead so it could catch her. She pushed away at the hands.

  The shadow made a hushing noise, soothing. Kelta. She recognized her colors. They gave her shape without illuminating the room. A frenetic yellow had inserted itself. It meant that
Kelta was worried, scared. Something was very wrong.

  “Something bad’s coming.” Mim had intended it as a question but caught between waking and the last vestiges of her dream, it became a statement.

  Instead of replying, Kelta snapped on the glowsphere. Its amber light spread out but gave no warmth. The shadows of the enormous chamber shifted restlessly beyond its glow.

  “Quickly, get dressed. We must leave,” Kelta said. The wrinkles deepened to either side of her mouth, an expression she used when she was trying to make things seem okay when they weren’t. Like when she told her about Asher never coming back.

  She was up and moving away from the bed before Mim could say anything more. Kelta started pushing things into the open mouth of her travel case. Her hands looked like small white birds in the half-light.

  Mim watched her and shivered. No one had set a fire. The hour was very late. The sounds of the house around them were still hushed, sleeping.

  Kelta turned. Fear made her voice sharp. “Quickly. Don’t dawdle.”

  Slipping from the tall bed, Mim found the tunic she’d deposited on the floor and quickly traded her shift for it. Next came the hatefully itchy coat. Deciding she was not moving quickly enough, Kelta finished fastening the last of tiny metal clips to close its front and went to work finding her shoes beneath the bed.

  “Are we in trouble?” Tears pressed behind her eyes. Her throat tightened. She tasted salt. Don’t be a baby. Stop!

  Kelta bent over her and embraced her shoulders. “People are coming for us. We aren’t safe here.” Her colors scared Mim more than her words ever could. She’d never seen Kelta’s energies like this. Not ever.