Roen couldn’t leave his office to take Tae to her quarter-annual check-up. She had called me half an hour ago, and seeing as there was no one else and Tae refused to learn how to drive, I was forced to leave in the middle of a meeting, stating I had a family emergency. Which was kind of true.
We were ten minutes late, and the whole way Tae had mumbled about how they were going to reschedule and she wouldn’t see a doctor for another month. I really had to bite my tongue or else I would have told her to learn how to drive and handle her own shit.
But she was my sister, and I loved her. She’d done a thousand things for me and Ara growing up, and this measured as only a tiny fraction of our debt.
The waiting room was vacant—it was noon-thirty in the middle of the work week—and thankfully the doctor was free. I had a feeling he was still free only because I was standing at the reception desk. But hey, whatever worked.
The attendant asked if I wanted to sit in, and I politely declined, not particularly keen on watching someone probe at my sister’s snatch.
As the minutes ticked away, I sat on a chair near the ward entrance, staring vacantly at the wall. My portable Aeon kept chiming with messages from my secretary about meetings this afternoon, but I ignored them. They could wait. There was another message from Leid, ordering me to put dinner in the oven at six, to which I responded ‘sure’ while making a gesture of shooting myself in the head.
The waiting room door opened and two small children, accompanied by their very pregnant mother, strolled inside. After checking in, they sat across the room. I tried not to make eye contact.
The kids immediately attacked the stack of magazines resting on a table. The little girl paraded around the room, wearing one as a hat. She marched by, looked at me, stopped. She stared and stared until I had no choice but to look back.
Her eyes got all big and she pointed. “It’s the Regent!”
Someone kill me.
“Mommy, it’s the Regent!”
I tried to smile, but it probably came out as a cringe. Children made me nervous. I never knew how to act around them.
Their mother was sympathetic. “Yes, Nakha, that’s the Regent. Come here and leave him be.”
Nakha ignored her mother. “Will you marry me?”
I laughed. “Maybe when you’re a little older.”
The mother waddled over and pulled her daughter back to her seat, mouthing an apology. Nakha waved and blew me kisses, and I pretended to catch them. How cute and awkward.
I thought that was the end of it, but the mother asked, “I never thought I’d see you here. Is your wife…?”
“No, my sister.”
It was public knowledge that my wife was not Nehelian, but we’d never mentioned the Court of Enigmus. After years of speculation, the priests had finalized that Leid was an apostle of Maghir, given to us as a gift for our servitude. Everyone seemed fine with that answer, funnily enough. It was kind of scary how no one questioned anything pertaining to our spiritual beliefs. I was still young enough to evade any further speculation as to why we didn’t have children, but that bridge was just down the road.
“Oh, congratulations.”
“You, too,” I said, nodding at her swollen stomach.
She smiled and patted her belly. “This will be my fourth. Maghir help me.”
I smiled back, saying nothing.
Tae emerged through the ward entrance, and I stood to greet her. As we left, the children and their mother waved goodbye.
“Making friends?” Tae asked, smiling.
“You know me.”
***
I didn’t remember the port being so ominous.
Yet on the trip back to my craft, the silence was scary. The lot was practically desolate, peppered with a few empty crafts owned by medical staff. I should have parked closer to the entrance.
Calenus’ visit two weeks ago had put me in a permanent state of paranoia. I walked through every isolated area with an eye over my shoulder, expecting him to pop out from behind each pillar, or around every corner. He had yet to return, but I knew that our ordeal wasn’t over. It was only a matter of time before I’d see him again.
It was sleeting so I’d parked us under a port. Stupid move.
Footsteps.
A slamming door.
I spun, scanning the port.
Nothing. I was going crazy.
“Qaira, is everything alright?” asked Tae, sensing my unease.
“Yeah,” I said, tugging her along. “Let’s walk a little faster.”
Now Tae was looking over her shoulder. “What’s wrong? What are you looking at?”
Voices. Whispers.
No, I wasn’t going crazy. We were being followed.
I stopped, shoving my sister behind me and pulling out my gun. Shadows of men stalked across the pillars, their silhouettes weaving in between the glare of overhead lights.
My sister was silent, understanding, and only clutched at my waist.
I waited for someone to step into clear sight, but instead I heard a pop.
Then, I felt a prick on the side of my neck.
I reached for it, feeling something cold and metallic protruding from my skin. I tore it out and looked at the tiny capsule in my hand. The sight was all too familiar.
A dart.
The dizziness was already coming on. I shoved my sister forward, shouting at her to run.
She did, and I only took two more steps before collapsing on my hands and knees, retching bile and fragments of breakfast.
The voices became louder, and Tae’s cries turned to screams. There was a struggle happening ahead of me, and when I looked up someone’s foot cracked the side of my head.
I’d caught a glimpse of men in enforcer masks, dragging my sister toward a revved craft, before my vision tunneled from the blow and I crumpled face down across the cement.
***
Cool air.
A dull roar.
Soft cries.
I opened my eyes, squinting against dim light. A migraine raged full throttle and even the shadows were too bright. I tried to stir but found that I couldn’t move at all.
And then everything came flooding back, and my eyes opened wide, fear numbing the pain.
I was strapped to a metal chair, my wrists and legs bound in barbed wire. Little beads of blood trickled down my hands from my initial struggle, and my ankles stung, pant legs torn to shit.
The room was open and cold, aired by a noisy ventilation system that rattled somewhere in the darkness. Crumbled pillars marked with illicit art stood in rows around the room.
Lower Sanctum. An abandoned storehouse, maybe.
My sister was chained to one of the pillars, only several feet away. Her chains had some slack but she hugged the stone, sobbing quietly against it. There was a bruise forming at the side of her face and her dress was torn at the shoulders. Half of her hair had been ripped out of her braid, tangled and disheveled. She had put up a fight.
“Tae,” I rasped.
At the sound of my voice she looked at me, hope and sorrow filling her eyes. “Qaira, I thought you were dead.”
I didn’t respond, surveying our surroundings. Whoever had put us here would be back soon, and I had to find a way out of this chair before then. Struggling was out, because even a minor yank could scrape the skin clean from my bones, and they made sure that I could not release my wings by compressing my back to the chair.
Once I realized that I was completely fucked, Tae caught a glimpse of the hopeless look on my face and began to cry again.
“Shh,” I whispered. “Please, stay quiet. I need to think.”
“What’s happening?” she mumbled. “Why are we here?”
Those were excellent questions; none of which I could answer. Ten years ago there would have been a thousand reasons, but not now. Not anymore.
Enforcer masks. They had worn enforcer masks.
I didn’t know whether they were soldiers or brutes trying to make a state
ment, and I could only speculate on their intent. They hadn’t killed us outright, so perhaps this was a ransom attempt.
My vertigo sparked the memory of how they had subjugated me. That dart. The sedative… How had they known? The only ones who knew anything about that were—
The sound of a door opening put that thought on ice. Footsteps approached, numerous footsteps, and Tae hushed, making herself small against the pillar.
A group of men stepped from the shadows and into a patch of dim light, still wearing those enforcer masks. They lined up on my right, silent and still, acting like military. Tae and I watched, confused, disturbed, waiting for something to happen but almost a minute passed and they did nothing but stand there.
And then another set of footsteps penetrated the silence, this one less uniform than the rest. Erratic, excited—it almost sounded like skipping.
The line broke and another masked man emerged through it.
He wasn’t skipping. There was something wrong with his left leg and he dragged his foot along the cement. A stool was resting by the pillar, one I hadn’t noticed until now. The man snatched the stool and dragged it across the floor, along with his foot, producing a sound akin to nails on a chalkboard. I winced.
He set the stool in front of me and sat, placing his feet on the bar above the floor, hugging his knees. It was an odd position, like he was posing in a comical fashion.
“Good afternoon, Regent,” he said with a minor tilt of his head. That gesture and his accent was enough for me to realize that he was not an enforcer or a dredge. He wasn’t even Nehelian.
Confusion twisted my face, and he pulled off his mask.
Shaggy, platinum blond hair and light blue eyes—so blue they were almost white—with a mean grin that lifted only one side of his mouth. He was young, not too far past adolescence, and he wore a look that burned with absolution. This wasn’t a ransom attempt.
How did he get into Sanctum?
How did he and the others get past border patrol?
How had he even known where I was?
Those questions overwhelmed me and I looked away.
He laughed. “Don’t try to figure it out. You won’t.”
“What do you want?”
“That’s a good question, Regent. What do I want?” He paused to scratch his chin. “I want my sister back, but that’s something you can’t give me.”
When I only stared, he leaned forward. “My name is Micah Triev. Ten and a half years ago, you and your enforcers stormed our refugee camp and invaded my home. You assaulted my sister and when my parents tried to stop you, you killed them.”
I remembered that.
His sister, Ariel.
“Can you imagine what it was like to come home and find everyone you love face down in a pool of blood? Shot dead and exposed in the street for everyone to see?”
“I didn’t kill your parents.”
“No, your men did. Your men.”
“I punished the soldiers responsible. That wasn’t my order.”
Micah laughed again, but there was no mirth in his eyes. “You shot my sister in the back of the head while she was crawling away, screaming for help. You.”
“Your sister was covered in incendiaries and was holding one of my soldiers hostage. I tried to reason with her, but she wouldn’t hear it. She was a rebel.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Regent. I was the rebel. Ariel was innocent. She found my weapons in our home and used them in self-defense.”
I said nothing. I couldn’t think of anything to say.
Micah turned and looked at my sister as she clutched the pillar, sniffling. She could hear everything that we were saying, and her knowing that I’d killed an innocent girl hurt me in ways no words could describe. Tae never knew how rotten I’d been.
“Let my sister go,” I said, keeping an even voice, no matter how hard. “This has nothing to do with her.”
“But this has everything to do with her. Look at you; your eyes hold no shame for what you’ve done.”
My lip curled. “You don’t know me.”
His smile turned into a sneer. “All is well in The Atrium now. The angels and Nehel have found peace. But not me. I won’t find any peace until we’ve shared the same experience. There is no torment quite like having your sister raped and beaten to death. But your punishment comes with interest; you get to watch.”
Tae screamed and yanked on her chains while our masked audience only watched her, still and silent as statues.
Hopelessness and terror coalesced. “Don’t. Please.”
“I’m sure Ariel said the same thing.”
“She’s… she’s with child.”
The sneer on Micah’s face waned and he looked back at my sister, conflicted. “Well… I suppose that makes this even sweeter.”
“You fucking white!” I screamed, thrashing, ignoring the barbed wire shredding my wrists. “I will hunt you down and rip out your fucking entrails!”
Micah smiled, amused. “We’ll see about that.”
He nodded at his men, and they approached my screaming, sobbing sister, forming a semi-circle around her. One of them produced a knife.
They grabbed Tae by her braid and yanked her from the pillar, forcing her on hands and knees with the knife at her throat. She sobbed into the cement as they cut away her dress, exposing her breasts and wingslits.
I couldn’t do anything to stop them. Tae was too close to use my ability. If I tried to hurt them, she would feel it, too.
Micah watched them touch her, sadness behind his gaze. “And this is where I take my leave. Brutality is a trigger. I’m sure you understand.” He patted me on the shoulder and limped for the exit, receding into shadows.
One of them lifted Tae’s right arm, grasping her tiny, trembling wrist in a monstrous fist. The one with the knife cut into her skin and she screamed again, louder and louder as they sawed through flesh, and then through bone. When done, they threw her severed hand aside and it landed inches from my feet.
I stared down at it, numb.
“Commander Raith sends his regards,” said Micah, somewhere in the darkness.
Slam, went the door.
Those words repeated over and over in my mind as Tae knelt in a growing pool of her own blood. Our captors’ hands had disappeared between her legs, but her stare stayed on me. She just kept looking at me with wide, disbelieving eyes as her skin paled and the fight in her faded.
… And all I could do was watch.
O
TUMULT
Leid Koseling—;
“WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME THAT ANYONE saw them?” asked Roen, pale with worry.
Ara sat at our dining room table, his radio placed beside the stiff drink that I’d poured him an hour ago. Distorted discussions blipped through as soldiers and guards scoured the city for Sanctum’s missing Regent and his sister.
My missing husband and sister-in-law.
“We found their craft abandoned at Eroqam Medical Facility,” said Ara. “They were inside the facility at noon. That was the last time anyone saw them.”
“That was eight hours ago. Where could they have gone?”
Ara had called my office this afternoon to inform me that Qaira and Tae were missing. He wasn’t responding to any messages or taking any calls, and neither was Tae. Although Ara and Parliament were working diligently to keep their disappearances out of the headlines, it was getting very hard to lie to the press. Someone in Parliament must have told Sanctum PB, because the Aeon was chiming every other minute. None of us had answered it yet.
Roen and Ara were looking at me, waiting for me to shed some light on this. But I didn’t have anything. I’d listened to their conversation for an hour, raking through memories that might offer a clue of what had happened. But I wasn’t telepathic, or clairvoyant.
I was Vel’Haru, not omniscient.
But then I did remember something. “Qaira was attacked on Yema’s port. Do you remember that? He said they were trying to st
eal his craft and he shot one of the perpetrators. You never found them, did you?”
Ara looked confused. “It’s the first time I’ve heard about it. When did it happen?”
I hesitated, surprised. Qaira told me that he’d asked his brother the very next day to look into finding those craft-jackers.
He had lied. Why?
“Two weeks ago. The night of Sanctum’s Symphony concert.”
Ara shook his head. “He never told me about that.”
Which meant Qaira was hiding something. I could safely bet that no one had tried to steal our craft that night. There was a struggle, shots fired, but…he’d looked so afraid. Qaira would have never been that afraid of petty criminals.
“Have you two been doing anything… questionable lately?” I asked, and Ara blanched.
“Define questionable,” he said, narrowing his eyes. He looked so much like Qaira with that face.
“Questionable, as in ten years ago questionable.”
“No,” he said. “Never again. At least, not me.”
Roen looked between us, curious yet self-restrained, knowing none of that was his business.
As if my inquiry came with a sprinkle of intuition, Ara reached for his radio. “Squadron Seventy, search the industry district in Lower Sanctum.”
“Why there?” I asked.
He shrugged, but his eyes spun a different story. “Don’t know. We haven’t looked there yet.”
Roen could no longer sit still and paced the dining room, fingers raking through his hair. “I can’t believe this is happening,” he muttered. “Do you really think they were kidnapped?”
Yes, I did, but who would be brave enough to kidnap Qaira Eltruan? And succeed?
“No one has called for ransom,” Roen argued, sensing my answer.
“Sir, come in,” said Ara’s radio. He snatched it off the table.
“Go ahead, Sgt. Aruay.”
“Some of the homeless just told us that they were driven out of their squat by a group of men in enforcer masks.”
Ara looked at me, worry filling up his eyes. “When?”
“Sometime this afternoon. There were malay syringes on them so I don’t know if their story is even true.”
The Antithesis- The Complete Pentalogy Page 53
