Combatant: The Revelations of Oriceran (The Kacy Chronicles Book 3)

by Anderle, Michael

  The Nycht looked to Sol instead. "Chayla?"

  "I lost her toward the end. I thought maybe she'd be here," Sol replied. "There's still hope; she was alive when I saw her last, before we got separated in the fray."

  Toth nodded grimly, then turned to Jordan. "Your father is safe, as is Eohne. I know you're worried."

  "They are? How do you know?"

  "I had Gillen deliver them to your apartment less than an hour ago, they are unharmed."

  Relief flooded every joint, and Jordan's shoulders slumped. "Oh, thank heavens. Where were they?"

  "In a chapel not far from my tower. To be honest, those of us fighting from the ground generally fared a lot better than our airborne combatants. Might be something to consider factoring into our battle strategy." A complicated expression crossed the Nycht's features.

  Regret?

  Jordan hadn't thought of the ground as being the safer place. She'd made an assumption that anyone with wings would automatically be at an advantage. She hoped they wouldn’t have to test the new strategy for a long time.

  Every Strix had an injury of some kind. Toth spoke to each combatant, examined each wound. The Nycht leader had already sent multiple wounded Strix winging toward the small field hospital that had been erected and staffed with Balroc's money.

  "What now?" Jordan asked, looking back at the destruction.

  Pillars of smoke were rising from the cities and fields of Middle Rodania. Dragon roars could be heard in the distance.

  "Right now," Toth raised his voice so all could hear, and the small cluster of battered soldiers closed in around him. "Arpaks, I want you to go home and get some rest, unless I've already told you to get to the field hospital. Nychts, we'll take first shift. The wounded need us, and there is no one more suitable for a night shift than a Nycht. At first light, we'll switch. Arpaks, we'll reconvene at the break of dawn."

  And with that, as the last of that devastating day's sun leaked from the skies, the weary crew took flight. The Arpaks went home to rest, or to have their wounds tended, and the Nychts to find their fallen comrades and help whoever could be helped.

  ***

  The fallen Strix soldiers numbered one hundred and ninty-three, while the critically injured came to sixty-eight. Citizens of Rodania managed to survive the attack with only a remarkable eleven deaths, and six critically injured. The city itself would take months to rebuild, if not years.

  Commerce on Rodania ground to a halt, save for the necessities, while citizens and soldiers alike came together to help those in need and take stock of the damage.

  Jordan recruited Blue to help remove harpy carcasses, and carry their stink far from the islands, dumping them in the sea for the fish to feast on. The fallen Strix were given a respectful cremation and burial, and the date for a solemn ceremony was set.

  Days blurred together, and it seemed the work would never cease. Toth set the Arpaks and the Nychts on a rotation of daytime and night shifts. Someone was always working, yet progress still seemed slow.

  In the mornings, Jordan and Sol dropped Eohne and Allan off in the main square near Juer's library, where they worked the daylight hours; Eohne at the field hospital, and Allan on a clean-up crew.

  In the evenings, the odd little family would crash in Sol's apartment. The crowded bedroom remained a mess of mattresses, feathers, armor, and bodies at night. There had been so little time for their own lives, that the kitchen cupboards and tile floors remained broken from the harpy that had attacked Eohne and Allan.

  No one complained of the close quarters, or the mess, but Jordan felt that one day soon—–when the bulk of the cleanup was done, and Rodania no longer felt like it was in emergency mode— –their living situation would have to change.

  Little by little, Rodania improved. More Strix joined the army, and Toth's ranks swelled. The citizens of Rodania lived in fear of another sudden harpy attack, and there was only one thing that seemed to quell the atmosphere of rising terror: the hulking shadow of the red dragon. She would not be seen for days, and then, as though a messenger sent for her, she would make an appearance in the skies over one of the islands. Word would spread like fire through prairie grass, and the Strix would feel safe again, for a time.

  Jordan did not approach the red dragon, but Blue met Jordan and Sol every morning. He spent his days clearing harpy carcasses until there were none left to be found. When that was done, his appearances were fewer and farther between. Jordan didn't know if the bond they'd formed that day in Maticaw was damaged, or if it had simply evolved as Blue grew.

  It was another thing she'd love to research if she ever had the luxury of time again.

  "Where are you living these days, my friend?" Jordan asked her big blue companion, rubbing his snout. He was now the size of a small ferryboat, and blinked at her with an eye roughly the size of a laptop. "Have you taken up residence with a certain redhead in some secret lair?" Blue pressed his forehead to her shoulder hard enough to knock her sideways. "One of these days, when I'm not completely shattered with exhaustion, I'm going to follow you home. You know that?" She rubbed the smooth scales between his eyes. "At least no one will be chasing you out of Rodania anytime soon. They realize they might be signing their own death warrants." She kissed his snout. "Rodania owes you big-time, Mister."

  The dragon gave his familiar whistle, spread his broad, leathery wings, and took to the skies. He climbed until he disappeared into the cloud cover.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  The desire to sit and talk privately with Allan had been weighing on Jordan since her father had woken from his coma, but there had never been time. Each time Jordan made to call him aside, guilt that she should be doing something else would rush in to fill the space, and she'd push it off for another day.

  She had gotten as far as telling Allan that she'd found Jaclyn, and that it had been a shock of elephantine proportions for her—–but Jordan and Allan had never been alone, and he would clam up in the presence of anyone else. These false starts at poorly timed moments had thickened the air with awkwardness, so Jordan let it drop until she and her father could be alone.

  One day, the atmosphere in the city shifted. It was subtle, but palpable to every citizen, even the children. There was finally a feeling of hope wreathing the islands, instead of despair. Heartbreak and sorrow would take much longer to pass, but the collective consciousness seemed to agree: Rodania was scarred, but would survive.

  Sol knew Jordan so well by now that, without her having to say anything, he pulled her aside one morning and told her to take an hour with her father. “It is well past due,” he said firmly.

  Another thing Jordan had meant to find time for was a conversation with Eohne about her plans. Thus far, the Elf had not mentioned returning to Charra-Rae, but they all knew it was inevitable.

  Jordan pushed aside the thought and focused on her father.

  She directed him to sit on one of the stools in Sol's kitchen, after Eohne and Sol had left for the day's work. Allan let out a long sigh and ran his fingers through his ginger hair. He'd known it was coming, and his expression was resigned. "This isn't going to be easy, Jordy. For either of us."

  "I never thought it would be."

  "What you told me about your mother, about Jaclyn," Allan crossed his arms over his chest, and his shoulders rose to his ears like he was cold. "It makes some sense to me."

  Jordan's brows elevated almost to her hairline. "Which part?"

  "Not the part about her running some trade office off the coast of Maticaw, I don't know anything about that. But what you said about her attitude, how you described her. It didn't come as a shock."

  "It was a shock to me." Jordan crossed her own arms at the memory of their cold and brutal interaction. "Unless there was some secret Pig Latin going on between her and that crony of hers that I simply did not understand, she gave an order to have me killed."

  "That is indeed a shock. As ruthless as I know Jaclyn can be, I would never expect that from her. I
t's unthinkable. I've only ever told you positive things about her, but the truth is…" Allan bit his lip, and his hazel eyes grew pained, “she never really loved me. I lied to myself about that for so long, because," he shrugged, "well, I loved her so much. You can't know what your mother was like when I first met her. She was magnetic. It wasn't just her physical beauty, it was her intelligence, her ambition, her charisma."

  "I'm sure she can be very charming," Jordan said, her mouth flat. She remembered those beautiful brown eyes, the soft mouth belying a frightening kind of iron will.

  "Charming is an understatement."

  "How much of what you raised me to believe about her is a lie?"

  Allan's shoulders tightened again, making him look small, and Jordan wondered at how the topic of Jaclyn could reduce her father in this way. Her anger burned like coals under the surface of her anticipation.

  "Your mother and I did meet at a ribbon-cutting ceremony," Allan confirmed. "That part is true."

  "For the new Children's Hospital?"

  "Yes. She had recently won the Miss Virginia pageant, and she was at the height of her beauty and popularity. She was the sweetheart of Richmond. Everyone had fallen in love with her, and I was no different. I was the son of a well-liked senator, on my own trajectory for political ‘greatness’." Allan's hands lifted, his fingers tense and curling, emphasizing the emotion of the time.

  "People wanted us to be together as much as we wanted it for ourselves; it was inevitable. Even my parents wanted me to marry her. I can't tell you how much that surprised me." Allan made a face. "They were such snobs, and Jaclyn had come from nothing; she was a nobody. Yet somehow, she had bewitched them. For her part, she appeared to have fallen in love with me just as hard as I had with her. It wasn't until later that I came to recognize the real reason she’d married me." The corners of Allan's mouth turned down, his brow creased.

  "Money?" Jordan guessed.

  But Allan shook his head.

  "Not money. Power. Jaclyn may have come from nothing, but she had a money-making gene. She turned her pageant win into dollars with such skill and cleverness it took my breath away. It was like she'd been raised to be a president or a CEO. No, Jaclyn could make money without my help. It was power that she was most attracted to, and I had the best wagon she could have possibly hitched to at the time. She took to the high-profile life like a flower to the sun. She was like Jackie O, or—–who was the Spice Girl?"

  Allan snapped his fingers, searching.

  Jordan blinked. "The Spice Girl?"

  "Yes, the beautiful one who always looks perfect and never lets anyone see her eat or smile?"

  "Victoria Beckham?"

  "That's the one."

  Jordan laughed. "I'm shocked at how easily that comparison just took my understanding of Jaclyn to new heights."

  Allan chuckled. "Well, my apologies to Mrs. Beckham. Maybe she's a nice lady, and is as different from Jaclyn as a horse is from a parakeet, but she gives the same high-profile consciousness and appearance. A girl doesn't wind up on the cover of Vogue without knowing how to play the game. You know what I mean?"

  "I do."

  "Anyway, we married. We went to Paris for our honeymoon, and it was as magical as one could wish for."

  "That's where mom found the locket."

  Allan nodded. "And the fellow that I met in prison, Marceau, he says there is a portal in Paris, so I wonder if the two are linked somehow. And the locket was empty, I can assure you."

  "We've established that. The portrait happened later."

  "Yes. So the first order of business was children. We both wanted them badly, and we started trying right away." Allan shook his head. "But something was wrong. We couldn't get pregnant. It stressed both of us out, which makes conception even harder."

  "Did you see a specialist?"

  Allan's shoulders sank. "We did." Allan took Jordan's hand. "It was me," his voice broke. "The problem was with me."

  "But obviously you overcame this problem-–"

  Allan was shaking his head, his expression miserable.

  "You…didn't overcome this problem?"

  Allan's face spoke volumes, and his hazel eyes probed hers, watching, waiting for the truth to sink in.

  "But…"

  Jordan's head swam, and her eyes drifted shut as the room spun. I should have known. The evidence was there, staring me in the face. It was so obvious, she now felt like an idiot.

  She began to breathe hard and fast.

  "Jordy, honey." Allan put a hand on her back. "Here, put your head between your knees."

  Jordan spread her knees and dropped her face between them, fighting back tears.

  "No," she croaked out on a sob. "No. No. No. Dad…"

  "Jordy," Allan's voice was breaking too. "I'm so sorry. Honey, it doesn't change anything; it doesn't change how I feel about you. You're my daughter. I couldn't love you any more than I do."

  For a long time, Jordan fought to get herself under control. She'd assumed, when she had found her in that strange office, on that strange island, that Jaclyn's Arpak gene just wasn't expressed. After all, Sol had spent days on Oriceran without any visible wings; it was just as possible for her mother to have done so, especially if she had just returned from Earth.

  The truth was far more brutal.

  Jordan sat up, tears streaming down her face.

  "Oh, Jordy." Allan searched his pockets for something, a tissue, a kerchief. He pulled out a dirty rag, one that had likely been used to polish a Lewis gun, frowned at it, and decided against giving it to her. "I'm so sorry. I know this is a shock."

  Jordan wiped her face. "It's okay, Dad. You're right, it doesn't change anything." She smiled at Allan through her tears. "It's just going to take a little getting used to. So," she let out a shaky breath, "you never knew about Oriceran?"

  Allan let out a startled laugh. "You thought I knew about this place?" Allan shook his head. "I had no idea."

  "But you've taken to life here so quickly."

  Jordan had been amazed by how much her father seemed to like life on Rodania—–at least up until the harpy attack.

  "Remember, previous to waking up in that bedroom," Allan jerked his head toward their crammed sleeping quarters, "I had been shut up in a prison, stuffed in a box on a ship, and tossed out of a boat by a man who looked and smelled like a rotten vegetable. Waking up here, with you and your wonderful and strange friends, was a kind of heaven by comparison. I was even useful right away. I think that did more to help me recover than anything else." He glowered. "I always felt so impotent as a politician. You know that."

  "Yeah, I know," Jordan sniffed. "But go back. You couldn't get pregnant, then what?"

  "Then Jaclyn and I began to fight something terrible. She felt betrayed. She was so angry with me, as though I was sterile by choice." Allan pinched the bridge of his nose and rubbed his eyes at the memory. "It was awful. She was awful. The fights got so bad that I left her alone at the house and went to my apartment in the city. We both needed to cool off." He blinked at his daughter through red eyes. "That's when she disappeared."

  "The first time?"

  "Yes, the first time. I tried calling her on the Monday morning after the weekend had passed. We hadn't spoken to each other for two days. There was no answer at the house. I figured she was still upset and needed more time, so I left it. I tried again on Tuesday. By Wednesday, I was really starting to worry, so I drove out that evening. That's when I discovered she was missing." Allan rolled his eyes up into his skull and let out a groan of exasperation. "I went out of my mind. I notified the police and took a leave of absence. The press caught wind and followed me around, asking stupid questions. I punched a journalist in the teeth outside the police station. I hired investigators and spent a ton of money. Even your grandfather, who loved Jaclyn and had bottomless pockets, questioned how much I was spending to find her. I had people combing every state; her photo was everywhere. I harassed Interpol, the police, my private detectives,
every day of the week. It was a nightmare. Madness."

  Jordan could picture it. Her father had an inner bulldog that would come out now and then. It had bared its teeth when Jordan was getting bullied in elementary school, and the school was doing nothing to protect her. There had been a nasty court battle; three kids got suspended, and a fourth was sent to another district.

  Allan had been a force.

  "How long until she came back?"

  "Eighteen months, two weeks, and four days," Allan said without even pausing to think. "I don't know if you remember that old chalkboard I used to have on the wall in my war room?"

  "The one covered in hatch-marks?"

  "That's the one. Those hatch-marks didn't have anything to do with either of the World War timelines; they were marking off the days Jaclyn was missing. I was a shadow of myself then. I weighed about the same as a champion jockey, and lost a lot of hair."

  "And when she came back, she…" Jordan swallowed. Her mouth was dry.

  She got up and poured her and her father each a glass of water before returning to her stool. "She was pregnant."

  Allan nodded, taking the glass Jordan offered. "Yes. She was pregnant." He took a couple of long gulps and set the cup aside.

  "How far along?"

  "Not very far, only a few weeks."

  "I didn't know it at the time. When she came back, she was ravenous for me. Sorry if this part disturbs you," he said apologetically.

  Jordan shook her head and waved for him to continue. Of all the things she was disturbed by, the idea of her parents enjoying some exuberant headboard gymnastics was the least of it.

  "She made the agony of those months vanish with the intensity of her love. I thought," Allan swallowed, and the column of his throat moved. His expression hardened. "She let me think the babies were mine."

  Jordan thought she'd misheard.