by Cara Bristol
“If she was dead, I’d know it.” He thumped his chest with his fist. “But we can’t waste as much as a minute.”
His words propelled her to her feet. Garat had urged her to hurry, but she’d been too preoccupied with the reunion to heed his admonition. If she had, they might have gotten away. “How can you feel it?”
“She’s my heartmate. If she passed, I’d know it.” He extracted a metal shiv from his pocket and attacked the stone around the hinges of the grate. Though he’d succeeded in chipping small holes in the wall, he was nowhere close to freeing the door.
“My mother is your heartmate?”
“Yes.” He paused to peer at her. “Listen to the silence of your heart. What does it tell you?”
Reena took a breath then went still. There. Pulsing steadily, quietly, a shadow alongside her own beat was the thud of Garat’s life force. Yes. He was alive. A tiny bit of his soul lived inside her. “You sense my mother?” she asked Meloni.
“I always have.”
Would they get out in time to save their heartmates? Reena glanced down at her dirty tunic and leggings. Honna must have taken her borrowed guard’s robe before locking her up. Even if they succeeded in getting out, how would they move about the palace without attracting attention and ending up back in the dungeon? Other than the shiv, they had no weapons. “Where did you get the tool?”
“I fashioned it from a metal dinner tray they gave me one evening. I assume they made a mistake because I haven’t gotten one since. When they feed us at all they throw the bread through the bars. It’s a race to see who gets to the food first—me or the rats.”
“This is horrible. I can’t believe my mother allows this place to exist. Uses it.” Was no one as they seemed?
“I don’t think she does,” Meloni replied, to her relief. “Judging from the amount of vermin excrement, the mold on the stone, the prison hasn’t been used in a long, long time.” He hacked at the stone with the shiv then threw it, grabbed the grate, and tried to yank it loose. “This isn’t working!”
Reena scanned the cell for something she could use to help him. Nothing. She pressed her face between the metal bars. “Guards! Guards! Help! Help!” She didn’t know what she would do if they came, but she would come up with something.
“They won’t come. Some days they don’t even feed us. Her army is dedicated, but small.”
“Who else is here?”
“Anyone who openly professed loyalty to the queen.”
He snagged the shiv and resumed to hacking at the stone. “They isolated me from the Sharona, who are kept in a separate wing. But, at night, voices carry.” He glanced at her. “If Honna thinks your mother is dead, where would she put her?”
“The infirmary. There is a section…a section for…the morgue.”
Clank. Clank. Metal scraping on metal echoed.
“The guards!” He pocketed the shiv and retreated from the door.
Two sets of footfalls shuffled across stone. Fear curdled in her stomach. Were they responding to her cries, or had they come to drag her and Meloni to the gallows? Her pounding heart drowned the murmur of Garat’s beat. Or had they executed him already? She dug her fingernails into her palms and tried to calm herself so she could listen for Garat’s life essence.
“If they open the cell, I’ll grab them, hold them off as long as I can, and you run,” he whispered. “Get your mother and get out of here.”
“They’ll kill you!” She shook her head. They’d have a better chance if she helped him. “If there’s a big one, you grab her, and I’ll take the little one,” Reena said. Unless… “Have the guards been armed with EIDs?”
“Some of them. But I don’t want you involved.”
She lifted her chin. “You can’t stop me.”
“Garat said you were stubborn—” Meloni broke off as the footfalls drew closer.
“Shh!” She backed away from the door. If at least one of them could have hidden, they’d have a better chance at jumping the guards, but there was nowhere to shield themselves from view. Meloni had banked his emotion behind a smooth mask. If only she could be so poised. Her face would reveal every thought.
And then two hooded guards stomped up to the cell. Traitors! Cowards! No wonder they hid behind their robes. One guard appeared of normal size. Unfortunately, the other was a massive hulk of a woman whose robe didn’t even meet her ankles. It would take both her and Meloni to take her down. Not that they would try because, although their faces were hidden, their EID’s weren’t. Reena’s knees shook, and she glanced at the healer hoping he had an idea. For an instant, his façade slipped to reveal consternation. Hope plummeted.
They were going to die.
So she had nothing left to lose by fighting. Reena scrutinized the guards for a vulnerability she could exploit. She couldn’t see their faces, but something about their physical carriage struck her as familiar. Had they passed in the hall, exchanged a praise-the-Goddess-for-the-glorious-morn in better times? The larger of the two removed a jangle of keys from her robe pocket. The rusty door screeched open, and they filed into the cell. Reena could not tear her gaze away from their weapons. How many blasts could she take before her heart stopped? Tiny frissons still vibrated her trembling limbs. At least the buzzing emanating from her crystal had subsided somewhat.
The smaller guard flipped back her hood.
“Carinda!” For a long moment, she could only gape in shock. How easily she’d been duped. Never had she suspected. Blood froze in her veins. “You would betray your queen?” she spat.
Carinda’s head reared back, as if she’d been struck. Her face crumpled. “You would think that of me?”
The other guard shook off her hood.
Kor.
Truth and shame hit her in equal punches. Carinda had come to rescue her. “I am so sorry.” No apology could compensate for the wrong she’d committed.
“It does not matter.” The guard, who’d saved her more than once, dropped her gaze. “Please, let’s leave.” She gestured to the door.
“No, wait, it does matter.” Pressure built behind her eyes, thickened her throat. “I’m so very sorry. Can you ever forgive me?”
“Of course. You have been betrayed by someone you should have been able to trust. It reasons you would be wary.”
“If I can’t trust the people around me, then I am with the wrong people.” Her faith in Honna had been rock solid. Honna had done more than destroy their friendship. She’d shattered Reena’s certainties. Would she ever blindly trust anyone again?
Garat, she thought. Her mother. Also Meloni and Kor. The people who were now in jeopardy or who risked their lives to save those who were.
“It is all right, Princess. Truly.”
And Carinda, who had proven herself time and again.
She’d lost innocence but gained wisdom.
“Can we make amends later?” Kor spoke up. “The sun will set in about an hour.”
“No amends are necessary,” Carinda said graciously.
Reena vowed to repay her loyalty but nodded and said, “Let’s get Garat.”
“He’s not in the dungeon,” Kor said. “We searched.”
Reena’s lips parted in dismay. “Where is he?”
“We don’t know,” Carinda answered. “The queen has been moved also. She’s no longer in her quarters.”
“She might be in the infirmary,” Reena suggested.
Meloni touched her elbow. “She’s alive. I promise you.”
“Here.” Kor thrust a package at both of them. “Put these on.”
So focused on the EIDs, she hadn’t paid attention to the rolls tucked under Kor’s arm. She shook out a gray hooded guard’s robe.
“After we make sure the queen is safe, we can grab Garat when they move him to the gallows,” Kor said.
“That’s cutting it a little close, isn’t it?” Meloni asked.
“What other choice do we have?” he countered.
No choice and no other chance.
; Robes donned, they pulled up their hoods.
“We need a signal,” Kor said.
“For what?” Reena asked.
“Identification.”
“There will be a crowd at the execution,” Carinda explained. “With hoods up, we won’t be able to recognize each other from afar.”
“Won’t we arouse suspicion?”
“No. The guards have begun wearing hoods because they don’t want to be recognized as the treasonists they are.”
“How about this?” Meloni tapped his shoulder. “If you see me and aren’t certain, touch your shoulder.”
“That will work.” Kor nodded. “Lead the way to the infirmary.”
“Did you release the others?” Reena asked as they filed out of the cell.
“If Honna recognizes people she knows have been incarcerated she might…act hastily,” Carinda explained. Like kill Garat immediately, instead of waiting to hang him. “After the queen is safe, I’ll come back.”
Kor looked at Reena. “I’ll get Garat while you and Meloni take the queen to the Lahon settlement.”
“No, I’m going with you.” She loved her mother, but she would be in the best possible hands with Meloni—and Reena needed to be with Garat. If the plan failed, she wanted to be there…when it happened. To stand by his side until the end. Memorize the faces of those responsible.
“He wouldn’t like that.” Kor shook his head. “He would want you far out of harm’s way.”
“He’s not here now, is he? Besides, you two disobeyed his order to remain at the Lahon settlement.”
“He might be our leader, but he’s my brother first. Besides, he can hardly object when I save his sorry ass from the noose. So to speak. It won’t be his ass they’ll string up.”
“My duty is to protect you, Princess,” Carinda said. “I don’t take orders from the Lahon. I report to the queen, and to you.”
Meloni narrowed his eyes at Kor. “Are you wearing the unguent to counteract mating fever?”
Kor glanced at Carinda, and her cheeks flushed. “I applied it before we left camp.” He shrugged. “I haven’t needed to since then, come to think of it.”
“Ah!” Meloni said, and ducked his head.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Reena hid a smile behind her hand. “He means you are heartmates.”
“Heart what?” His face flooded with color. He might not have heard of heartmates, but he must have had an inkling something existed between he and Carinda. No wonder he wouldn’t let her go by herself.
Just as she wouldn’t let Garat die alone. “We’d better hurry,” she said.
* * * *
Carinda was right. Most of the guards they encountered hid their identities. What cowards these traitors were. How easily they had abandoned their Shara and shifted allegiance. And for what? What power or profit had her cousin dangled before them?
A heavy gloom had descended upon the palace, seeping into crack and crevice, darkening faces, stooping postures, turning behavior menacing, furtive, fearful. Evil had spread to infect the entire populace. It was a relief to leave the traffic areas and enter the isolated infirmary wing.
A lone guard stood up as they approached. When a Sharona became ill, Honna or her apprentice administered treatment in the woman’s quarters, unless she had contracted a contagion, in which case they quarantined her in the infirmary. However, the wing had never been guarded before. Somebody was inside others weren’t supposed to see.
Somebody like the queen.
“State your business!” the guard demanded.
Never had Reena been barred from entering anyplace. She itched to fling off her cloak, and put the guard in her place, however, the falsehood of her demise provided safety for everyone.
“We have come to check the patients to verify they are ill and not shirking their duties,” Carinda said.
“There are no patients today.” The guard tightened her grip on her EID.
So why guard a vacant infirmary?
“I don’t question my orders, I only follow them. If, as you say, there are no patients, then we must verify it.”
“Show me your documentation,” the guard demanded. They had no proof! What were they going to do now?
Carinda reached into the folds of her robe. “They’re right here.” She pulled out a small EID, and before the guard could blink, shot her.
The woman’s body convulsed with seizures, and she toppled over. Kor caught her before she hit the stone floor and hefted her twitching body over his shoulder.
“Carinda!” Reena stared, shocked.
“Set to the lowest setting, Princess. She’ll come around soon. Too soon.” Carinda yanked open the door, sprinted to the first room, and pointed to a cot. “Put her there.”
Kor lowered the unconscious Sharona to the bed. “We must secure her before she awakens.”
“Maybe there will be something in here. Bandages or something.” Carinda strode to a small cabinet. How well they worked together, like a team, Reena noticed.
“No need. This will work.” Kor yanked the linen from the adjacent cot, and proceeded to tear it into strips.
“While you do that, I’ll look for my mother,” Reena said.
“I’ll go with you,” Meloni said. He touched her elbow. “Don’t worry. I feel her.”
Reena had come to trust his judgment, and if he said her mother was alive, then she believed it, but that didn’t mean she would be conscious or uninjured. She knew firsthand the potency of the herbs and the power of an EID. The image of her mother convulsing was burned into her brain.
Inside the morgue, she faltered. Dozens of sheet-covered corpses lay atop tables. A silent chill frosted the room. She had not expected to find other bodies. She gulped. They were going to have to look under every sheet.
Meloni took a deep breath and exhaled in a hiss. “She is not here. I don’t feel her here.”
“She has to be!” In a desperate way, Reena needed her to be. Lying unconscious in the morgue was better than being conscious in Honna’s clutches. Stomach heaving, she marched to the first table and peeled back the sheet. A young Sharona. Early twenties. Usually only an accident caused the death of one so young. Occasionally childbirth. Rarely an uncommon disease. This one showed no ravages of illness or signs of having been pregnant. She re-covered her, and moved to the next body.
She checked every one.
All in the early or mid-decades of life. All too young to have died of natural causes.
Meloni stood at her elbow when she recovered the last body and sent up a small silent prayer. “They’re resisters.” she said. Her cousin—or one of her loyalists—was eliminating the opposition. Perhaps the Sharona hadn’t been posted to guard Ellynna’s body—but the others. If people knew how many had perished, they would not so easily capitulate to Honna’s rule.
“It looks like it,” he agreed.
Even if—no, when—they found her mother and rescued Garat, Honna would remain a threat. The lives of all Sharona and Lahon were at stake. If her cousin could do this to her own people, the Lahon would die of thirst before she’d give them a drop of water.
How did one win a war against another to whom life held little value? A task far greater than saving the queen lay ahead of them. Nothing would remain the same if Honna claimed the throne.
“Where else might they take her?” Meloni asked.
“I don’t know! The palace covers such a large area, she could be anywhere. I didn’t think Honna would put her in the dungeon, but she might have. We don’t have any time left. We have to get Garat first. They’ll take him to the courtyard.”
In her entire life, there’d never been an execution. And a public one? How could the Sharona watch and even pretend Honna would be a just ruler? As soon as they grabbed Garat, the guards would be on them. They would be so outnumbered. She wished she could feel him as strongly as Meloni sensed her mother. His presence inside her blinked in and out.
“What does it mean
that sometimes I can feel him while other times I can’t?”
“It means you are just learning how to listen to your heart.”
Goddess, help me. What if I don’t reach him in time?
Zzzzz. Zzzzz.
Reena pressed her arm against her body to stop the distracting vibration. What was wrong with her crystal? And what had happened to Honna’s arm? “I’ll send Carinda to search the dungeon and release the guards. We’ll need all the help we can get.” They’d erred in not freeing them when they had the chance.
This would be the worst kind of skirmish—a civil one pitting sister against sister. Blood spilled would be tainted by betrayal.
In the corridor, they met up with Carinda and Kor. The bodyguard’s hopeful expression fell. “The queen is not here?”
“I thought for sure….we’re going to have to split up. Kor and I will get Garat, you and Meloni search for Mother. Start in the dungeon. Free the other prisoners.”
“I feel strongly she’s not there,” Meloni said.
“Perhaps Kor and I should search for the queen—” Carinda suggested.
“No.” Since Meloni could sense her mother, he could assist in locating her.
“As you wish, Princess.” Carinda nodded. “What shall we do if—when—we find her?”
“Bring her to her dressing room. There is a passage behind the armoire. Go into the tunnel and pull the armoire over the opening.” She prayed no one had checked the dressing room and discovered the tunnel. They would have no escape route then.
“Should we wait for you?”
Reena shook her head. “The tunnel leads out of the Sharona village. Take my mother to the Lahon.”
“You’ll follow, won’t you?”
The Sharona needed her to lead them, fight Honna, and restore what had been lost. “I must stay here.”
Meloni jerked and sucked in a breath. His eyes went wide.
“What is it?” Reena looked at him.
He sprinted away.
“Meloni, wait!” she called, but he’d disappeared into a room.
Reena glanced at Kor. He shrugged, and she scurried after the healer.
Oomph. Thud!
A female gasp. A male groan.
Reena pushed through the door. The healer was on his hands and knees. Standing over him, gripping a heavy chamber pot, was her mother.
