Allies and Enemies: Exiles, Book 3

by Amy J. Murphy

  We aren’t safe here.

  The fear brushed up against a deeper understanding that something angry and sharp was coming, like the storm monster in her dream. She had the sudden suffocating thought that everything in the room around her, even Kelta, was flimsy and useless, about to fly away like tiny white sails in a storm.

  “What about Erelah? Is she coming too?”

  “Be brave, my girl.” Kelta embraced her. It was rushed. Her hands were cold and shaking. “As I know you are. Erelah is safe with Master Hirano.”

  She felt a little better. But only a little. Mim nodded, watching Kelta move to the door, stepping quietly. She opened it just a crack. The light from the hall slashed into the room. Kelta peeked out; her voice was a hushed whisper to someone that waited outside.

  Kelta nodded, gesturing for Mim to come to her. The doorway widened. Mr. Yasu stood there. His fancy colorful hair was flattened in spots and poked up in others like he’d just got out of bed.

  “Quickly, my sweetlings.” Mr. Yasu ushered them into the hallway. He was dressed in a long robe made of shiny fabric; the clothes underneath were crinkled. Mim wrinkled her nose. He smelled funny, like sweat and the rum stuff that Asher would drink. “Back down through the kitchen. The ground car can take you to the docks.”

  The carefully painted eye makeup was gone, making him look as pale and sick with terror as his colors. He looked from Kelta and back over his shoulder as if he were afraid someone would see him in his own house. The brownish icky spots at his center were suffocated in a roil of yellow and red. He was frightened, but also sick with guilt.

  Mim stopped in the hallway, head canted. Something had changed in the house. It was coming alive, like a slumbering giant from a story, waking as the terrified thief tried to sneak past without getting eaten up. Someone else was there too. Others. Their colors were seeping into everything, moving up the walls like ink in water.

  Kelta’s grip on her hand tightened. “Come. Hurry.”

  Mim ignored her, turned on Yasu. “You did it. You did something bad.”

  She didn’t realize she was pointing until Kelta grabbed her wrist. “Mim, what are you saying?”

  He backed away, his hand pressed to his chest as if she had actually poked him there. Around them, the noises of the house consolidated into something real, that even Kelta could sense.

  Men were coming. Their low voices echoed up from the first level of the house.

  Two men appeared from the shadows at the end of the hallway. Their colors were the darkest Mim had ever seen. Kelta pulled Mim behind her.

  “I did as you asked,” Yasu said. Mim realized he was talking to the men at the end of the hall. His voice shook. His colors reached a fever pitch of fear twisted with guilt. “Please. They’re no threat to you or your plans. Let them leave.”

  “That wasn’t the deal,” said the man. He had a shaved head and the sinewy body of a tree-snake. Mim swallowed a panicked cry. He had no colors at all. If anything, it felt like the man sucked them all in. “Poisoncry will respect their end of the contract. The same is expected of you, Mr. Yasu. The Veradin woman is not here. Where has she gone?”

  “I…I do not know,” Yasu answered. But the words did not match his colors. He was lying.

  “Until we locate Veradin, the old mother and the child will come with us.” The stranger nodded. Another tall man unfolded from the shadows and slid closer to them. A patch of moonlight glinted on something shiny and sharp in his hand.

  Kelta shoved Mim between the shoulder blades, hard, a move that surprised and stole the air from her. She landed behind an ornately carved cabinet, her knees scraping the rough weave of the floor mats. Mim gasped, ready to protest, but stopped when she saw Kelta wave behind her back in a hectic shooing gesture.

  Mim folded into the shadows that hugged the wall, trying to make herself as small as possible. Her searching hands encountered the delicate membrane of paper intersected with slats of wood. A door! As slowly as she dared, Mim slid it open. It moved on blessedly silent casters. The room inside was like a black mouth. She looked up to Kelta. She knew what she wanted her to do, but couldn’t will herself to leave.

  “Run!” Kelta said, her voice sharp as the colors of fear surrounding her.

  In the hallway beyond, Yasu howled with pain. The sound ended abruptly.

  Mim did as she was told.

  Sixty

  Mim shivered despite the heavy, itchy coat. She knew it meant she was afraid, like a little baby. She had made it as far as the gardens outside Mr. Yasu’s house and found a good hiding spot in the hollows of a tiny stone altar. She’d discovered it in a quiet corner of the garden when they’d first arrived. It was the kind of structure that she would have claimed as a secret hideout if Kelta hadn’t forbidden her to play in the garden. Mr. Yasu wouldn’t appreciate having his plants and flowers trampled, she warned.

  Well, Mr. Yasu is a big fat liar faker that sent bad men after us.

  Considering this development, Mim determined that any instructions to not destroy his gardens were now forfeit. With a small rush of satisfaction, she plucked up a thistle-iris by the root and tore the stalk from its base. She absently squished the helpless plant until its sticky sap coated her fingers, pretending it was Yasu’s dumb face.

  I should run. Kelta told me to run.

  Something nailed her to the spot. She kept going back to the hurt animal noise that he’d made and the way it abruptly ended.

  Maybe he was dead. Maybe they were hurting Kelta, too.

  The thought threatened to drown out everything else.

  Step around it. That’s what Asher would say. It’s okay to be afraid, but you have to step around it. Or else it gets in your way.

  Mim swiped at the tears on her face. The flat reality dug at her, just as sharply as the cold gravel dug into her knees. The fear told her to run as much as it sought to freeze her to the spot.

  Tyron was right, I’m just little girl.

  The noises of the men searching the garden grew distant. She listened over the chiseling of her heart against her ribs. They were moving away from her for now, but eventually, they’d find her too. She couldn’t be sure how much time had passed, but the sky through the dome above was still dark with no sign that the pretend sun would come up soon. Mim quietly unfolded and crept from beneath the slab of stone.

  Run. I have to keep running.

  She shivered again. Tried to ignore it as it rattled her teeth.

  The fear lodged in her throat, choking. She wanted to cry. Stop. Don’t be a baby. She squished the plant bulb in her hand and tried to make the need to cry go away.

  Think! Where to go?

  Mim brightened. Erelah! She would know what to do. She’d watched from a crack in the door panels as Erelah, dressed in important clothes, had left the house with Ironvale soldiers. Erelah could help. But it was a question of finding her. Where had she gone with them?

  Mim drew in a deep breath and envisioned it filling her up like a balloon, head to toe. She did this a few times until the fear stopped squeezing her throat and her heart quieted down. Mim shut her eyes and found that place in her mind where the colors lived. Most of the time she ignored them. She’d done this only a few other times. It was something that made people nervous around Binait like her, so she didn’t do it a lot.

  Everything gave off colors: people, animals, plants, sometimes even rooms where lots of stuff had happened. Tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth with concentration, she finally found the mix of colors that was Erelah. It had changed a little bit since the doctor had taken the bad stuff out of her. The baby in her tummy had its own colors too. The two were interwoven in a complex pattern, a strong one. It was unique and bright enough to follow. The colors led from Yasu’s mansion into the street.

  She opened her eyes. There were streaks and gobs of baleful reds and dangerous yellows that belonged to the Poisoncry men. They had none of the essence of Erelah’s. She was special. That’s why Asher had loved
her so much. It was an easy thing to see.

  Mim followed the trail of colors into the night, uncertain of where they’d lead her, but hopeful that help lay at the end.

  Sixty-One

  Hirano’s face was a satisfying shade of red. “Out of the question.” He coughed. “Poisoncry cannot be trusted with such technology. And they will make an advantage out of it, Veradin. And we shall all suffer. You do not know the full measure of their vile nature.”

  Veradin. So. The time for fancy titles was gone.

  It felt better. True. The need for delicate wording had marched past. The relief of it left her stomach tight and edged a lightness between her shoulder blades.

  “It is my knowledge to share or deny,” Erelah replied. Her gaze moved back to Ravinia’s portrait. It had become her touchstone, a piece of Asher in the room. A source of strength in this den of unknowns.

  “The jdrive took years of research led by dynasties of Ravstar technicians. I doubt you have the luxury of such time and resources,” she said. “You need me far more than I need you.”

  His nostrils flexed. His jaw worked again. “Unacceptable.”

  “Yet, here we are, sir.” Erelah lifted her chin.

  A sound came from the doorway, the sound of a throat being cleared. Erelah turned. A guildsman wearing the gold sash of Hirano’s house stood at the threshold. “Sir, forgive the intrusion…”

  “What, Captain Koide?” Hirano kept his stare on Erelah.

  “A problem, sir.” The young man stood at rigid attention after completing a brisk bow. His face flushed with either exertion or embarrassment. “We’ve captured a…an intruder.”

  “Intruder?” Hirano broke his stare to regard the captain.

  A high-pitched wail was followed by the sounds of running feet outside. There were calls of surprise. Then a victorious “Got her!”

  There was a painful yelp, then more running.

  “She bites. Watch it!”

  Hirano moved to the door with surprising speed. Erelah suspected it was anger that fueled him. She did not realize she’d been holding her breath until then. Grateful for the distraction, she shared a perplexed glance with Koide.

  Mim rocketed past the captain and sidestepped Hirano to tackle Erelah about the waist. “Mim!” Erelah stooped over her. “Why are you here? Why aren’t you with Kelta?”

  “The men! They came and took Kelta and hurt Yasu,” the girl panted. “Poisoncry, I think. Kelta told me to run, and I didn’t know where to go, so I used the colors to track you here, and I’m sorry, but it was the only thing I could think of and please don’t be mad.”

  “Captain…what is this?” Hirano growled. “Get this child out of here.”

  Koide grabbed Mim at the waist, ripping her from Erelah’s embrace. The girl lashed out, delivering a vicious kick to the meat of his thigh. More surprised than hurt, the captain dropped her. Mim sprang back into Erelah’s arms.

  “Stop it! You’ll not touch her,” Erelah said, pulling Mim behind her.

  Hirano, winded and annoyed by the disruption, waved the guard off. “Leave the child for now.”

  Mim clutched at the sleeve of Erelah’s robe. “We have to help Kelta. The Poisoncry men have taken her away! They were at Yasu’s house looking for you.”

  Erelah looked up from Mim’s fearful face to Hirano and his shoulders. Something invisible shifted in the room, the sense of hostility solidifying to something more insidious.

  How does Poisoncry know about me? Someone must have told them about me…about the jdrive. But who?

  “Master Hirano.” Another guard entered the room with a stiff bow. A tall, stern-faced woman caressed the injured flesh of her hand that showed a prominent bite mark. “We cannot contact the garrison at Chancellor Yasu’s house. The men I sent to investigate say Yasu is dead. There’s evidence that it is Poisoncry’s doing. Their likely agents are here on Nirro. We must get you to safety.”

  “Understood, guildsman.” Hirano regarded Erelah. Something like bitter satisfaction shaped his mouth into a hard line as if a hard decision had been made. “I doubt I am their intended target.”

  Sixty-Two

  “My friend, what have you done?” Kelta’s throat tried to close, choking off the rest of the words. Yasu was beyond hearing. She sensed it in the wet rattle of his breathing and the tacky blood that dried on his face and neck. Her body was growing stiff in her spot, seated on the cold stone floor against the wall of the hearth room. Cautiously, she shifted, keeping Yasu’s head cradled in her lap. There was no fire laid out. The expensive amber sconces threw out dispassionate light that left the remainder of the space to shadow.

  Her captors, three Poisoncry guildsworn, each as hateful as the next, were busy ransacking the house. Occasionally she heard muffled cries and cut-off pleas from the servants. She tried not to listen. It would not help. Then her thoughts would careen out of control, spilling down into panic, worry about Mim. She would picture the girl crying, fearful huddled against the cold. Or worse—

  Stop it, girl. You’ll do her no good if you don’t keep your wits. Mim got away. She did as she was told. You must believe that.

  They did nothing to help Yasu, despite her begging. His clothes, and now hers, were soaked with blood. Before his breathing became too ragged, he’d begged her for forgiveness, said that he’d never intended for her or Mim to be harmed. Poisoncry had seduced him with wealth and the promise of greater power than a mere chancellor could ever assume in Ironvale.

  “Kelta.” It was a raw whisper, wet with the copper smell of blood. Yasu moved his ruined body. His hand fumbled into the pocket of his gown, and he pressed something smooth and heavy into her hand.

  She glanced up at the door, listened for sounds of Poisoncry’s approach. The weapon was small, almost dainty for a gun. It was ornately carved with a flamboyantly jeweled grip. Little surprise Yasu owned such a thing. She suspected it was a gentleman’s weapon, meant more for decoration than defense. She came close to pressing it back into his hand, refusing it. But he’d stopped moving, stopped breathing.

  “Oh, Klavid.” She exhaled the words, pressed a trembling hand across his forehead. He had done an unforgivable thing, but part of her could not help but remember him as the exuberant little boy she’d once called friend.

  The door opened with a muted click. Kelta forced her back straight, ignoring the twinge there. Bright light sliced into the room along with the man she’d come to think of as their leader. He was a tall, slender creature with an almost obscene pout to his mouth. The lack of hair on his head made guessing his age impossible. His skin was pale enough to border on translucent. When the light of the glowspheres hit him at just the right angle, she glimpsed black veins and other evidence of implants along his jaw and under his chin. At the sight of it, she felt the skin of her arms itch with the imagined burrow of insects.

  With an exaggerated sob, Kelta bent over Yasu, taking the opportunity to tuck the small weapon within her sleeve where it nestled against her wrist.

  Their leader padded closer. After standing over her for one long judging moment, he squatted down to her level, his forearms balanced on his knees.

  “The informant is expired,” he announced with a type of clinical detachment. They all spoke as if offering a disimpassioned narrative to the world around them. They moved with a deadly, patient calm.

  A second Poisoncry materialized from the doorway and with brusque moves, pulled Yasu’s body away by the ankle, like a sack of discarded rags. The blood left a maroon smear across the floor.

  To Kelta it felt as if a protective arm had fallen away from her shoulders. Panic needled at her sides. She looked up at the pale, rust-colored eyes of the Poisoncry guildsman, the sexless features of his face. Something shifted under the white skin along his left cheek. Kelta swallowed, moved her hand to assure herself that the tiny gun was still there.

  Large or small, she’d never held or fired such a thing. Can I do it? Fire a weapon at this man? What good would it do? />
  Another figure, backlit from the hall, filled the doorway. “There’s no sign of Veradin or the device.”

  His body preternaturally still, he watched her. Kelta felt like a pikemouse cowering from a kitchen cat. The skin tightened around his eyes as if he were looking through her and into bleak and meager truths.

  Kelta swallowed. She tilted her hand, felt the gun slide against her moist palm under the cover of her sleeve. The air seemed to grow dense, sluggish. Can I do this? Kill him? Harm him?

  “Where is it, old mother?” His voice was as flat as the others’, but there was an amused hook to that absurd mouth. “Do you have it?”

  They’d already searched her clothes, the whole time demanding the jdrive device, Erelah’s location.

  “I have a name. It’s not ‘old mother,’” she said, mustering steel into her voice.

  His smirk grew. “If you were of our Guild, you would never be permitted to suffer the insult of such age. They would not even bother with resourcing you or your used-up flesh.”

  “Well.” She coughed, shifting her hand and right sleeve. “That’s just rude.”

  He scoffed.

  “There’s a twenty-seven percent chance the Binait child knows the location of both the Veradin woman and the device,” called the man at the door.

  The leader continued to stare at Kelta. The warning of the guard did not seem to register with him. His eyes narrowed. “I will make you watch as we tear the Binait child apart piece by piece. How rude would that be, old mother?”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “She weeps for you even now.”

  Something dropped out of the bottom of her heart. The air of the room became a solid thing, pressing her ribcage. Kelta felt the oily metal of the gun. In that moment, the question was answered.

  Yes, she could kill this man. If it meant keeping Mim from harm.

  The ferocity of the thought filled her, shoving out reason and fear. The weapon slid into her hand as if it had always known a home there. Her finger curled around the unfamiliar shape of the trigger. She tensed.