Chapter Eleven

“She united Bedlam,” Chace said.

Ash shouldn’t have let him back on board. She should have taken the wheel and driven the boat straight into his head.

“Get off,” she said. “All of you.”

The two nameless dregs glanced at Denn, who still leaned against the side of the boat. Rykus was right. This was a decently planned rescue. Denn must have begun scheming the minute he’d learned who she was. He’d scraped up two low-detection speedboats and a team of a dozen dregs, and he’d moved into place outside the operations facility so he could act quickly should the opportunity arise.

Perhaps she should be grateful, but dregs didn’t offer help unless they received something in return. Denn had said he did this for her. What he meant was he’d saved her in exchange for a prominent position in her precinct should she take control again.

She shouldn’t have taken control to begin with. But she’d been ambitious and arrogant, and she’d seen a way to consolidate power. Dregs had been trying to unite all the small pieces of Bedlam for decades. They’d all failed.

Ash had done something different though. She’d united Bedlam with lies of inspiration instead of with threats of force. She’d told the sub-bosses she could take down Scius and that she could feed their people, provide them with medicine and with security. She was an expert at manipulating people, and her words had worked so well even she had started to believe them.

And those who hadn’t believed?

They hadn’t survived long.

Ash sent her coolest glare to Denn’s two hooded dregs. They glanced at Denn again, and he signaled them to transfer to the other boat. He made no move to follow though.

She should tell Chace to get rid of him. That’s what she would have done five years ago if a dreg didn’t follow her orders…

Well, maybe not five years ago. More like five and a half. And if she became that person again, Rykus would think even less of her.

Ash couldn’t look at him, but she felt his gaze, his scrutiny. She felt him flipping through his mental file, linking every behavior, every flirtation and manipulation and protocol violation to her past. She hadn’t been a good person. Not even a half-decent one.

“You’re driving,” Ash told Denn. “Straight to Tower Mouth. I’ll tell you where to stop when we get there.”

She moved to the rear of the boat where the heat of the engine warmed the floor. Two tightly packed duffels were tucked beneath a bench. She pulled one out to use as a pillow.

“Dry clothes,” Denn said. “Courtesy of Aksel.”

Of course Aksel had sent him. The bartender couldn’t keep himself from helping her.

She unzipped the bag, tossed a set of clothes to Mira, and pulled out another set that should fit her.

She shed her ripped and bloodied pants and shirt. The clot cloth over her side wound stretched. She peeled up a corner of the bandage, grit her teeth when it clung to her skin. Blood seeped from the hole. That was an improvement over the last time she’d changed the cloth though.

She pulled on a pair of black fatigues and was about to don the shirt when Rykus put a hand on her arm.

Thoughts and phrases flashed through her mind. A few almost escaped her mouth. The teasing quips and innuendos were instinctive responses when she stood half-naked next to a man, especially this man, but she swallowed them down. Maybe because she was exhausted. Maybe because she was scared. Five minutes ago, she’d been just another dreg from Glory. Now she was something else, something Rhys “Rest in Peace” Rykus would want to stomp out of existence.

He ripped open a package containing a fresh clot cloth, then peeled the old one off her wound and pressed the new one on.

“You could have told me,” he murmured, his voice just audible over the waves and hum of the engine.

She looked at Chace, who was talking with Denn. “I’ve tried to forget my past.”

“Yet you’re here.”

She pulled on her shirt, smoothed it down.

“We need to talk about that,” he said.

Her gaze hooked onto his. Panic squeezed her throat. The emotion was a side effect of the loyalty training. She breathed through it, but she couldn’t fully erase the ache in her chest. If he pushed her away, it would hurt. She could deal with physical injuries, but she sucked at dealing with emotions.

“About why you’re here,” Rykus clarified. “The other doesn’t matter.”

He squeezed her arm before turning to the second duffel.

She watched him search for clothes, analyzing his posture, his expression, the handful of words he’d just said. He was going to ignore what she was? What she had done to become a precinct boss?

Of course he would. He was from Javery, not Glory. He wouldn’t use the information to belittle and blackmail. That’s something she would have done five and a half years ago.

He was a better person than she was. He belonged in the penthouse of a luxury space station while she belonged in its sanitation unit. Their paths never should have crossed, but she’d had the audacity to become more than a dreg from Glory while he’d become more than a soldier from Javery.

Rykus shed his clothes. Pulled on new ones. She wanted to curl up in his arms, something the old Ash definitely wouldn’t have done. The other things she wanted to do with him must have leaked into her expression because, when he looked her way again, his eyes turned stormy.

The good kind of stormy, the kind that promised thunderous vibrations, cracks of lightning, and waves of pleasure she could ride until they were sweat-soaked and spent.

The boat rocked beneath her. She remembered where she was and realized she was smiling. She quickly flattened her mouth and shot a glance toward Chace, but he and Denn were looking out over the bow, not watching her.

Mira was watching though.

It wasn’t a disaster like it would have been if Chace or Denn had witnessed her feelings. It wasn’t good either. Mira would pry.

Ash sent her a look that warned her to keep quiet. Mira returned one that said she’d say or do whatever she pleased—her typical response when Ash issued warnings.

Ash turned away. A few more hours and she should be able to get Mira to the capsule. Rykus, too, if she could find a way to make him cooperate. Once they were off-world, she could refocus on ensnaring Neilan Tahn.

She zipped up one of the half-empty duffels and placed it on the end of the bench. Before she lay down, she retrieved the case containing her last booster from her discarded pants and slipped it into the pocket of her new ones. She’d made the right choice not injecting it. A few hours of rest, and she’d be functional again.

She closed her eyes and let the boat rock her to sleep.

“We’re here.”

The unfamiliar voice turned over a few times in her head before she remembered who he was and where they were.

Resenting the universe for cutting off her sleep, Ash opened her eyes. Denn had swiveled his chair to face her. He was the only one who had stayed awake. Mira hadn’t moved from the bench opposite Ash’s, Chace was on his back at the front of the boat, and even Rykus had dozed off. He was sitting on the floor beside her bench, the grogginess of sleep fading from his eyes.

He ran a hand over his beard, then looked toward the sky.

Ash’s body screamed its discontent when she moved, and she had to grab the side of the boat to pull herself into a sitting position. Her head rocked more than it should have, especially when she tilted it back to take in the entrance to Tower Mouth.

The rock formations were beautiful during the day, menacing at night, and lethal no matter the hour. The ocean cut a river through large deposits of sheedonite, weathering the soft rock away until only the harder bloodstone remained. The bloodstone shot to the sky in a series of narrow towers, creating a treacherous river that snaked more than twenty kilometers inland.

The towers also made it one of the few natural landmarks on Glory worth seeing. On the surface at least. Beneath the surface, those bloodstone towers gouged the hulls of boats and bashed the bodies of dregs arrogant enough to attempt maneuvering the river.

Ash pushed to her feet and took six unsteady steps to stand beside Denn at navigation.

“You know how to make it through?” he asked, giving up his seat so she could take the wheel.

“I know how not to make it through.” Ash angled them south toward the narrowest channel.

Denn’s jaw clenched, and his hand twitched as if he wanted to redirect the boat to a safer route.

“How far are you planning to go?” he asked.

“High Circle.”

Denn’s eyebrows shot up. “I haven’t heard of anyone making it inland that far.”

Ash almost smiled. Just how far would Denn trust her?

“You’re going to lose your boat,” she said.

A pause, then, “Should I be expecting a swim?”

“Depends on how good my memory is.”

He muttered a string of curses under his breath.

“Rethinking your decision to come along?” she asked.

He crossed his arms and stared out over the bow. The channel wasn’t much wider than their boat. It made Ash a little claustrophobic, but she’d witnessed watercraft the same size as theirs make it through, and if she wanted to reach High Circle, she had to take the southern paths.

She felt a tap on her arm—Rykus nudging her with a bottle of water. She took a sip, handed it back, and watched how the dark water moved ahead of them.

“You memorized a path?” he asked.

“Hope so,” she said, angling around an invisible, underwater tower.

“That guy probably thought he did too.” Rykus nodded toward the remains of a vessel to their left. Debris wedged between rocks, evidence of a dreg’s fatal mistake.

“Nervous?” Ash asked.

He placed his hand on her chair, his knuckles brushing against her back. “You got us through the causeway. I’d bet on you to get us through this too.”

Damn it. He had to stop doing that, had to stop saying things that made her think of long nights in twisted sheets instead of grueling days surviving this hellhole.

“I did a lot of exploring,” she said in an attempt to keep her focus on the channel. “I trekked to the south cliff and camped up there for months to study the formations and the paths the boats took through them.”

They passed a rock tower that leaned so far to the right it hit another formation, creating a bridge that beckoned you to sail beneath it. Ash maneuvered around it instead.

“Have you ever actually driven this route?” Denn asked.

“Most of it.” She eyed a ripple in the water.

“And there’s not an easier way?”

“To get where we’re going, no.” When the bow touched the ripple, Ash accelerated, twisted the wheel hard left, and braced for the bump she knew was coming.

The formation hit the bottom of the boat. The extra speed lifted them over it. They lurched hard enough to roll a still-sleeping Mira off her bench.

Chace grabbed the edge of the boat. “Fuck, Ash.”

“That was a little rougher than I expected,” she said.

“A warning would have been nice.”

“I’ll try to remember that next time.”

Denn let go of the rail attached to the navigation console. “Next time?”

“I said you’d lose the boat, didn’t I?”

He opened his mouth to say something, then snapped it shut. After an unintelligible grumble, he shook his head and walked toward the stern.

Rykus’s knuckles brushed her back again, a subtle signal of comfort or encouragement, she didn’t know which. It didn’t matter. She liked him there, and he wasn’t being too obvious with his touch.

There were two more strong bumps before they hit a third that tore the first hole in the hull. Denn patched it well enough. The next one wasn’t too severe either, but after several more scrapes and hits, the leaks added up. Denn continued to do his best to plug the holes while Rykus, Chace, and Mira began hand-bailing water.

The boat began scraping rock more often than she liked. The weight of the extra water was sinking it. They would have to swim soon.

She scanned the tower-spiked river, searching for a path up. Dawn wasn’t far off. The upper cliff glowed with first light and—

“Ash.” Rykus said her name in a frustrated growl. Likely, it wasn’t fun ladling out water from a sinking ship.

“We’re there.” She injected enough lighthearted cheer into her voice to get a scowl from her fail-safe. She responded with a grin and added, “It’s a short swim. I think you can handle it.”

She managed to get the boat aimed directly at the cliff. Specifically, at a skinny chasm splitting into it. This wasn’t exactly where she’d hoped to disembark, but it was damn close. They’d ditch the boat, swim to the chasm, then take it to a swimming hole on the northern side of High Circle, the small precinct the Seekers had built their House in.

She gunned the engine, which resulted in it spluttering. It didn’t die. It didn’t accelerate either. The only reason they reached the canyon wall was because a current caught the boat, pushing it toward the cliff until it hit a tower broken off just above the water line. By some act of God or luck, the rear of the boat veered right, swinging them around until the back end hit the cliff right next to the narrow chasm.

“This goes to the swimming hole?” Chace asked. He stepped onto the quickly sinking edge of the boat.

“Yeah.” She abandoned the wheel, waited for Mira to head into the chasm, then Denn. She would have waited for Rykus too, but he grabbed her arm and maneuvered her in front of him. She splashed down into the cold water, then swam after Denn, who looked over his shoulder when a loud crack came from the boat.

“I was supposed to return that to Aksel,” he said.

“If he knows you’re helping me, he’ll be shocked to get even one boat back. Go.” She nodded for him to move.

Rykus was pressed close against her back, possibly due to the current pushing them into the chasm, but when Denn disappeared around a bend, Rykus looped his arm around her waist and pulled her tight against him.

“You amaze me,” he said, his lips next to her ear. She let her eyes close, let herself feel him instead of the cold ocean and her unrelenting exhaustion.

“I had good training.” She found his hand under the water, or he found hers. Either way, he was the one who spun her around, the one who cradled her face between his palms, and the one who kissed her with enough heat to replace the ice in her body with flames.

She wanted to stay in that connection, forget where they were and how much she hurt, but too soon, he broke the kiss, leaning away enough to look into her eyes. “I want you on that capsule.”

Two meanings in those words, and it was almost painful how much she wanted to be there beneath him.

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

“I’m looking for someone.” She put more space between them.

“Who?”

She shook her head. It would take too long to explain.

“Ash,” he rumbled.

She threw the name out there, a name that would mean nothing to a man from a planet like Javery, and started to turn away.

“Neilan Tahn,” Rykus repeated, his tone not at all what she’d expected.

She stopped. Frowned. “You know who he is?”

“A few years after I joined the Coalition, I was assigned to a team that tried to track him down. Spent half a standard year chasing his shadows.”

“Most people who seek him out are killed.”

“We were quiet about it.” He pressed his lips against her forehead. “You know how to find trouble, don’t you?”

A kiss on the mouth this time, one she didn’t want to end, but they were standing in a chasm with cold ocean waves pushing and pulling at their bodies, and any second now, Chace or Mira or Denn would wonder where they were.

She put a hand on his chest, ignored the flare of desire that urged her to trace the muscle beneath her palm, then she eased him away.

“The Seeker’s House isn’t too far from here. We can talk there.” She turned before the heat in his eyes could draw her in again.

The chasm cut through thirty meters of rock before the bed of stone beneath their feet fell away. They swam the last stretch until they reached the High Circle swimming hole. This early in the morning, it should have been deserted, but a woman and two men were having fun at the edge of the pool. If the cooled fire and overflowing trash bins were any indication, the trio was a holdover from a wild gathering the night before.

The three lovers were too caught up in their activities to notice Chace, Mira, and Denn wade out of the pool.

Ash took a breath, fell into a freestyle stroke, then cut quickly through the water.

When she reached the bank, she wrung her shirt out as well as she could. She was tired of being wet, tired of her feet blistering in her boots, and just tired of being tired. When Bian granted them sanctuary, she would plant a kiss on the curmudgeon’s mouth and make offerings to his god.

“Denn,” she said after they climbed the trail leading away from the swimming hole. A neglected park lay between them and the small city’s nearest buildings.

Denn turned.

“I need you to go to Brightwater and find someone.”

“Trying to get rid of me again?” he asked.

“The man is called Hauch. He’s a member of the Fighting Corps last seen at the spaceport—”

“The one you shot up?”

She scowled. “I didn’t shoot it up.”

“Not what I heard.”

She just shook her head. Half her reputation was built from misinformation and exaggerations. Guess she shouldn’t be surprised to be blamed for the ’port.

“Hauch was last seen at the spaceport. I haven’t been able to communicate with him, so it’s likely he’s still cut off by one of Scius’s dampeners. I need to know his status. It would be even better if you could get him to open comms, but if that isn’t possible, make sure he gets to the capsule.”

Denn studied her with open suspicion. He didn’t want to be sidelined. She couldn’t blame him. He’d risked his ass to help her. He’d probably called in a dozen favors and made promises that could get him killed.

But she was taking a risk too. He had intel he could sell. He knew who she was traveling with and the name of a soldier she obviously cared about. He knew their condition, and if he had any intelligence at all, he could guess their current destination. Sending him away was actually an act of trust.

Denn seemed to come to the same conclusion.

“Okay,” he finally said. He flicked his finger across his comm-cuff. “A few identities you can contact me at.”

She accepted the profiles and deliberately didn’t send him any of hers.

He snorted at that but walked away, taking a more southern route through the overgrown park.

“I’m not sure that was a good idea,” Chace said.

“You’re the one who waxes poetic about things changing.”

“You’re the one who says you’re not staying.”

“I’m not. By the time he realizes that, I’ll be gone and you’ll have to deal with the repercussions.”

His mouth flattened. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” She patted his cheek, then started through the park.

Weeds crunched underfoot until they reached the nearest buildings. The brick structures were small and graffitied, but most of their windows were intact. In another hour or two, the shops and grub holes would begin to open. People would take to the streets. Four haggard, ocean-soaked dregs wouldn’t draw attention in most Gloridian cities, but High Circle was the most affluent district in Bedlam.

It was also the smallest, chipped away from a huge precinct that used to be known as Red Coast. When a now-dead boss wrested control of the causeway away from the company that ran it, it changed the balance of power on both continents. Scius eventually ousted the dead boss and set himself up as king of Brightwater. Dozens of dregs tried to do the same thing in Red Coast, but they didn’t own the causeway’s operators, and they didn’t have the key to run the tram. Red Coast shattered into twenty-two insignificant districts whose leaders constantly attempted to assassinate the others.

Until Ash manipulated her way into their confidences.

The other reason for High Circle’s so-called affluence came into view a half hour later: Requiem House.

Stretching fifty meters wide and rising four floors into the air, it was more of a compound than a house. It had been converted from an abandoned commercial building, and despite the attempt at landscaping and a roof painted a heavenly gold, it came off utilitarian and cold, the exact opposite of the welcoming feel the Seekers wanted it to have. Ash had offered to burn it down so they could rebuild again from scratch. Its patriarch hadn’t found that amusing.

A low iron fence separated the House from the street. On the cold sidewalk leading to the front porch, dregs slept wrapped in charity-blue blankets. Some were propped against the front facade while others curled up in flattened flower beds. One unlucky woman had the concrete walkway as a cushion.

“Won’t open till ten,” she croaked.

“Thanks for the tip.” Ash stepped over her and climbed the seven steps to the porch. The Seekers might not open for any random dreg, but Bian had always liked Mira, even though she wasn’t a fan of them. They would open for her.

“You’re up,” Ash said, waving her forward.

“I’m going to lose favor for this.”

“He’ll get over it. Promise.” Ash positioned Mira in front of the vid and pressed the call button.

Mira sighed and looked at the camera.

Minutes passed.

“This isn’t going to work,” Mira said.

“It will work,” Chace assured her. “Bian’s probably just going through his morning rituals.”

“The Seekers won’t let us in without his permission.”

Chace leaned a shoulder against the porch wall. “They know you. They’ll open.”

“We can break in,” Ash said, tapping the lock pad beside the door. “I can get this open in ten seconds flat.”

“We’re not breaking into a Seeker’s House,” Rykus said.

“Why not—”

The lock disengaged with a click. Ash held her hands up and away, signaling it wasn’t her doing. The handle turned and…

Well, look at that. Bian opened the door himself.

“Mira,” he said, his tone a mix of welcome and worry. Then his gaze lighted on Ash.

It was amusing watching Bian’s expression shift from recognition to shock to outrage. The patriarch immediately forgot about Mira, took a step back, then swung the door shut.

Ash got her foot over the threshold. Barely.

“We request sanctuary, pops.”

Those were the magic words. Well, the first three were magic. Devout Seekers couldn’t turn away anyone who requested sanctuary inside their Houses. She had effectively shut down any chance Bian had to get rid of her.

Bian stared down at Ash’s offending boot.

“Thwarted by a toe,” she quipped. Then she pushed open the door and stepped inside.