The Mir Chronicles- The Complete Series

by Leisa Wallace

  “The Defenses were infiltrated by the Cimmerians,” Lena said breaking the long silence that followed their last conversation. “Can you believe that?”

  “Yes, I can actually,” Gideon answered. “I think we’re just starting to see the rumblings of an attempted overtake.”

  “Will they succeed?”

  “I think they’re fools. They believe that force and numbers will beat Selene. But her control reaches too far. She’s beguiled too many people. And killed and imprisoned the rest. The overturn of Selene would take a united group bound together, not for the sake of power, but for the sake of liberty.”

  “And the Cimmerians don’t have that?” Lena asked.

  “No one left on Mir has that passion anymore. In Selene’s rise to power, she killed those who had the resolve to stand against her.”

  “Like my parents,” Lena added.

  Gideon nodded. “Now it’s all about who is more powerful. What person has the most control. If there were a large enough group on Mir who’d fight for liberty, then Selene would have something to worry about.”

  “Then would you fight her?” Lena asked.

  Gideon lifted his eyebrows. “There is no one left like that, Lena. Selene has too much control.”

  Lena let Gideon’s answer sink in as she thought about Selene’s control. Dorry had talked to her about control one day at the facility. Lena’s mind jumped to Dorry and what he’d told her about a technology that took away people’s agency, and the device Dorry had left her that gave agency back to the people. She didn’t understand what he meant. She had broken, then lost the device anyway. It felt like Selene was winning and the only direction she had was from Xenia. “I’ve been having dreams,” she said as she grabbed her necklace.

  Gideon looked confused. “What do you mean?” he said.

  “I don’t know. Dreams, visions. That same mystic we met in Everleigh. She’s in all of them.”

  Gideon didn’t say anything. He opened his mouth, then closed it again and shook his head. Lena flushed, she wished she’d never told him. She looked around the cave.

  “I’m sorry,” Gideon said. “I wasn’t expecting...that.”

  She looked into the crystal. She could swear it was changing colors, but didn’t want to bring it up to Gideon. She stared at the Seraphyst Stone. If she looked close enough she saw her image in its depths. “You think I’m crazy.”

  “I didn’t say that Eves. But dreams and prophecies, they don’t determine your destiny. They don’t force you down a path that you can’t control.”

  “Do you really think the prophecy is about me? The prophecy everyone is talking about? The reason Selene wants me dead?” Lena asked.

  “No, I don’t,” Gideon responded with assurance.

  “You act so sure,” Lena said.

  “You determine your own destiny, Evangeline. That, I am certain of.”

  Lena nodded her head, soaking in the information. She pulled her knees up under her chin. “I understand now why you want me to leave Mir. I’m not safe here. The best way to keep me out of Selene’s—or the Cimmerian’s—reach is to hide me somewhere else.”

  “But, even after all you’ve seen the last few days, you don’t think that’s what we should be doing.” Gideon said.

  Lena lifted her eyes to his. “Me leaving makes the most sense. Especially after what just happened with the Cimmerians.” Lena paused not knowing if she wanted to tell Gideon exactly what she had dreamt. Gideon nodded at her to continue. Lena swallowed. “It’s just that for some reason, part of me thinks we’re needed here. Like somewhere inside me is this notion that there is something for us to do here. I can feel it. Can’t you feel it?”

  Gideon stared at the Seraphyst Stone, his shoulders tense. “My goal is to keep you safe. Unless there is evidence that you should stay—something that is more than just a feeling—I’m getting you off Mir.”

  Lena nodded. “There is no proof I should stay. It’s just a feeling, Gideon.” Lena bit her lower lip. If Gideon was right, she should leave. It made no sense for her to stay if the dream she’d had was only a dream. Maybe Thora wasn’t waiting for her. She stretched her legs in front of her and watched her feet rock back and forth. “Do you think we’ll be able to get ahold of Thora before we leave?” Lena asked. “I’d like to let her know where I’m going. And at least say goodbye.”

  Gideon stayed silent for a minute. “I hope we can contact her, but I have a feeling it won’t be that easy.”

  The cave echoed as Jonah moaned. Rolling to his knees, Jonah put his head on the ground. With his hands still cuffed, he scooted to the side of the cave and rested his back against the wall. With legs bent, he put his head on his knees.

  After an awkward silence, Jonah looked up. “You saved me,” he said raising his eyes to Lena.

  “I saved Thora,” Lena spat back at him. Lena looked away. Silence filled the cave.

  “Tell us your story,” Gideon commanded.

  Jonah shrugged his shoulders. “They—the Cimmerians—came to me when I was living off planet. My father had already pledged his honor to the Priestess and showed his loyalty by volunteering me as a recruit. I wasn’t even old enough to join. I was angry. He betrayed me. He also betrayed the Cimmerians. They came to me and asked if I wanted to do something about it. I spent the year before I was old enough to join the Defenses being trained as a Cimmerian Agent.”

  Lena shifted uncomfortably under Jonah’s stare. “That’s how Nagar found us by the lake, isn’t it?” Lena looked at Jonah full of hate. “The star you gave me, it had a tracking device in it. Nagar locked onto your signal. You were going to kidnap Gideon, but Nagar got there first.”

  “You were never supposed to get hurt, Lena.”

  “Only because you didn’t know who I was. How long did it take you to figure it out, Jonah?”

  He shrugged sheepishly. “When the rest of the facility found out.”

  Gideon huffed. “And you’re the best they got?” Gideon mocked.

  Jonah put his head back on his knee’s and didn’t answer.

  “We’ll stay here tonight, and leave in the morning,” Gideon said.

  “Do you have a plan?” Lena asked.

  “Yes. Druinn and Myri are my plan.”

  “What?” Lena and Jonah responded at the same time.

  “I still have our signal. The one I originally had when Tarek found us in the ravine,” Gideon explained. "We'll start heading to The Port, and with luck, they'll intercept us."

  “How did the Cimmerians not find something as obvious as a tracking device?” Lena asked.

  “They found it, but didn’t know what it was,” Gideon said. “They had it sitting on a desk in the control room. I grabbed it as I walked by. Even with my hands cuffed, nobody noticed.”

  Lena shook her head in amazement. She didn’t know much about the Cimmerians, but what she knew didn’t impress her.

  “What will you do with me?” Jonah asked.

  “We’ll take you to The Port with us. We’ll try to get word to Thora to change her hiding place. You can decide what to do from there,” Gideon said.

  “What do you mean?” Jonah said. “I can still hurt you. I know things.”

  Gideon shrugged his shoulders. “Go ahead. Contact the Cimmerians. Or the Priestess for that matter. I’m sure they’ll be happy to hear from you. They’d love to hear how you helped Lena escape the Defense Facility when the Priestess came for her. Or how you withheld information from the Cimmerians about Thora’s location and then didn’t keep Lena from escaping.”

  Jonah paled and slumped his shoulders even further.

  Lena laid down on the cave floor. Using emergency pack as a pillow, she tried to rest.

  Gideon grabbed the gun. “Just so there is no question, I will kill you if you try to hurt Lena in any way. Ever again,” Gideon said. “Are we clear?”

  Jonah mumbled under his breath and nodded his head. Lena rolled away from him, unable to contain the smile that formed on
her lips at Gideon’s words.

  Chapter Nine

  “Let’s get going,” Gideon commanded, tossing Lena her pack. Lena looked at his eye. The cream seemed to have helped. The swelling was gone, and only a faint yellowing of the skin was left. She rubbed her jawline. She hadn’t looked in the mirror this morning, but her face didn’t hurt as much to touch as it did yesterday. There was only a tender ache when she pushed on it. Jonah knelt then stood, his arms still cuffed behind his back. Lena didn’t look at him as she followed Gideon out of the cave.

  “Are there any patrols near?” Gideon asked.

  Lena opened her insignia. The screen was blank. “I think we lost the signal,” Lena said. Gideon gave a curt nod and pulled out the tracking device that had led Tarek to them days before.

  “We’ll continue to be cautious,” he said, turning it on.

  Gideon led them up the mountainside. She fought against the exhaustion and forced herself to keep moving. At this height, only a few trees grew. After an hour of uphill climbing, the path evened out. Lena wanted to shout with relief, but kept it in. Cliffs formed to their right side. Lena looked down. From where she stood, the cliff dropped about twenty-five feet before widening back into the sloping mountainside. A few bushes grew but were sharp and dry looking. The dirt left footprints, but Gideon didn’t seem inclined to cover them. He kept looking at the tracking device, its red light blinking as it beckoned for Druinn's ship.

  “Tell me again why the Priestess isn’t going to lock onto that signal?” Jonah asked. He rolled his shoulders as he walked, trying to stretch them with his hands still cuffed.

  “This technology isn’t from Mir, and is strictly controlled. The Priestess doesn’t have access to it,” Gideon replied. “But I already told you that the day you betrayed us.”

  “Then how did you get it?”

  “The pilot works for the General of the Interplanetary Military Academy,” Gideon said. “There are some advantages.”

  “Gideon, you don’t need to talk to him,” Lena said. “Who knows, it might also be part of his job to be taken prisoner to glean information.”

  “It’s information he already has,” Gideon stated, stepping up a small ledge. He held out his hand to Lena and helped her step up. They both ignored Jonah, who had to sit on the edge before swinging his legs up to stand.

  “If you’re sure they’re looking for you, why are we hiking?” Jonah asked.

  “I’m not sure, which is why we’re making our way to The Port,” Gideon said back. He led them in a descent now, taking animal paths that wound across the cliff’s edges.

  Lena’s legs cramped with fatigue. She was about to ask Gideon if they could rest when she heard in the distance the roaring of water. She looked at Gideon who’d also stopped and was straining his hearing in the same direction as Lena. The sound gave Lena a jolt of energy, and she pushed ahead of the two. Coming around a bend, the small path she’d taken widened out. Lena looked at a pool of water in front of her surrounded by boulders. The roar she heard was a small river falling over the cliffs above them landing in the pool of water, before falling again over another cliff into an already formed river below.

  Gideon came up behind her and stopped. Looking up at the waterfall, he then walked his way around the pool’s edge to the ridge where it fell into the river below. The river then flowed alongside the cliff until it made a sharp turn into a dark forest. Lena thought of Birdee and the woods. Her sweet, funny friend who the Priestess captured. Sadness swept over her, and she wished she had been able to save Birdee from being captured.

  “I’m ready for a break,” Lena said. She walked to the pool of water. Finding a boulder, she sat down and took her boots off. She put her feet into the icy coldness and forced them to stay in its depth. Her aching feet soon started to feel the relief that comes from the numbness of cold water. She put her hands on the rock behind her and reclined into the warmth of the sun peeking through the clouds. Gideon sat next to her. She heard him rustle with the emergency bag he had carried. She felt him staring at her and turned to look at him. He held out a bar of food for her and smiled as she took it out of his hands.

  Jonah cleared his throat to the side of them. “Yeah, it would be really nice if you fed your prisoner,” he called.

  Gideon stood and unwrapped a bar. He approached Jonah and shoved it in his mouth. “Don’t talk,” Gideon said.

  Lena pulled her feet from the cold water. Wrapping her arms around her legs, she rested her chin on her knees and let her feet drip dry on the rock. The mist from the waterfall made Lena feel damp. She shivered and looked down at her dirt encrusted nails. Dirt was smeared all over her. She looked back towards the waterfall.

  “I’m going to wash up,” she called. Putting her boots back on, she slipped from the rock and walked to the waterfall above them. She put her hands under the falls. The water pounded against them as she splashed it on her face and neck. She adjusted her hair into a ponytail. She wet down the frizziness, pushing it towards the back of her head.

  Lena heard the yelling first, then the sound of boots shuffling on the cliffs above her. She felt her chest clenching as she looked up. Defense soldiers stepped into view from the cliff’s edge. Lena spun towards Gideon. “Gid!” she yelled.

  He stood frozen as if in shock, his gaze fixed on the cliff above them. His hands and jaw were clenched. She swallowed and slowly turned to see why he didn’t respond. Zeke Merak, Gideon’s father, stood in the center of the soldiers, his gun pointed directly at her. Lena raised her hands in the air.

  “Evangeline,” General Merak said. He walked to a hovering device that a soldier had placed just off the cliff’s edge. It lowered him down the side of the cliff until he landed a few steps in front of Lena. He stepped off the device. “You’ve grown up.” He stood stiff with an icy glare. He reached towards her and grabbed the sides of her face with his free hand. His fingers crisscrossed her already bruised face making it sting. He tightened his grip as if he knew it would cause more pain. “You look like your father,” he said. Releasing her face, he slapped her, causing Lena’s head to jerk to the side. She rubbed her jaw trying to ease the pain, then raised her head to meet the General’s gaze.

  “Zeke,” Lena said, forcing out the word. “It’s been a long time.” She tried not to show how scared she was, but the tightness in her chest made it hard for her to relax. She was afraid. This was the man who had stabbed her dad and shot her mom at point blank range. All in the name of the Priestess. This was the man of her nightmares.

  “I’ve spent a lot of time looking for you,” Zeke said. His eyes flashed with fire, a fire so unfamiliar with the Zeke she grew up knowing. Lena stood there looking at him, remembering the man of her childhood. He didn’t look like himself. She studied Zeke’s face some more. It was so full of anger and malice. His posture, while it always had been commanding, was now rigid. He held his head at a higher angle than he used to, as if he looked down on everyone—like all things were below him. The Zeke she remembered wasn’t like that.

  “If it wasn’t for our common enemy, the Cimmerians, I might have never found you,” Zeke said. Lena looked over her shoulder to Jonah, then Gideon. They stood steps away from the edge of the second cliff. Gideon’s arms were lifted in the air as he stared at his father. Jonah stood cuffed but his eyes darted looking for an escape. Anxiety poured into every part of her chest. Three soldiers had climbed down the cliffside and were forming a triangle around them. Lena saw four more defense soldiers standing on the cliff above them, all of their guns pointed at them. They wore the black uniforms of Defense Soldiers. The blood red circles of the Priestess’ insignia gleamed from their chest. Utility belts draped around their waists held a more weapons and round canisters. Lena had never seen these types of canisters before. Zeke surveyed her with his keen eyes. Lena took a step away from him to stand between Gideon and Jonah. “Dorrijan and Toralei couldn’t hide you forever!”

  “I...I don’t know who you’re talking about.”
Lena gulped as she realized he was talking about Thora and Dorry.”

  “They will suffer for hiding you,” Zeke continued.

  “Only if you find them first,” Lena said bravely.

  Zeke pursed his lips. “They’ll be found—just like you. And they will die—just like you,” Zeke said. “Someone will provide us with their location. Just like the Cimmerians provided us with yours.” Zeke turned to Jonah and smiled. She snapped her head towards Jonah who stared at Zeke with a look of disbelief.

  Chapter Ten

  “You see, the Cimmerians contacted us as they were running away,” Zeke said, his eyes shifting to Jonah. “They suspected their agent was keeping vital information from them, so they put a tracking device on him. They gave us access to his location in return we stopped pursuing them.” Zeke reached for Jonah, causing him to flinch. Lifting the collar of Jonah’s jacket, Zeke pulled off a small device that looked like a button. He held it up for the three of them to see. Jonah looked furious. He bit his lower lip in rage and his eyes bore into the General’s. “There is no one I can’t control.” Zeke started laughing, a high shrill laugh. It was haughty and condescending. A laugh that did not belong to Zeke Merak.

  Lena’s eyes went wide as everything clicked into place inside her mind. She knew why everything seemed off about Zeke. It wasn’t him looking or talking to them at all. It was the Priestess. They were talking to Selene. Lena’s heart started pounding. It all made sense. It was Selene’s posture that Zeke walked with. It was Selene’s icy eyes that sent fear into her soul. Dorry had told her he created a device that took away a person’s agency. Dorry said it was used the day Everleigh was attacked. She remembered how Zeke had acted so differently. Selene used the device on Zeke that day.

  “I’m done chasing you,” Zeke said. Lena turned her head towards Gideon. He looked furious. His muscles flexed as he leaned slightly forward the same way he always did before attacking someone. The guards surrounding them twitched in anticipation, their fingers already on the triggers of their guns. This wouldn’t end well.