CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Other Bodies

Danger!”

“What is it?” Pyaras asked, breathless. She was unbelievable. How could she could go from abandon to readiness so quickly? He buttoned his pants and knelt beside her, staring down through the mesh barrier while he fastened his belt. What was she seeing in the shouting mobs of Arissen?

“Drenas is here, alone,” she said, pointing. “Can you see him? He’s in uniform. He’s gone down to the second crossway, and—” She hissed. “Someone’s following him. If that’s who I think it is . . .”

Drenas was a name he should know. He’d heard it before. Who was Drenas? Too many Arissen names lately; it wasn’t coming to him. Following the second crossway with his eyes, he found a big man in uniform pushing along it, away from their position. Easier to see because his uniform included an orange helmet, and because he’d just passed by one of the drifting wysps. Several body-lengths behind him was a woman, also in an orange helmet, whose jacket looked unbuttoned.

The woman reached for her hip. He’d seen that gesture before—it drove him to his feet.

“NO!” he shouted.

The woman widened her stance and hesitated, almost as if she’d heard him. But then a bolt flashed—

—and disappeared into a bloom of white fire that expanded—

—expanded—

—vanished—

Every person within reach of that fire fell, as if they’d been hit by mining explosives. Then the screaming started.

“Varin’s teeth!” Melín cried, and bolted for the ladder.

“Heile’s mercy.” His brain wouldn’t comprehend it. “Heile’s mercy! Heavens help us!” Then he realized Melín was gone, and ran after her.

He couldn’t get down the ladder fast enough. When he arrived on the ground, the air of the arena felt closer and more unpleasantly hot than before they’d climbed up. He spotted Melín several rows down, hopping from bench to bench to get closer to the hit area. The stairs were crammed with people mobbing the exit, though a number were also climbing benches.

“Veriga!” he shouted. “Veriga!”

What if Veriga had been caught in the explosion?

No, it couldn’t be . . .

He looked around frantically. The maintenance walkway had been almost directly above their seats, and they’d been seated near the first crossway. Drenas had been in the second crossway, visible from the walkway, moving away.

That meant, unless he’d abandoned their seats for some reason, Veriga wouldn’t have been hit. So he would be somewhere here, taking charge like he always did.

Pyaras stepped over the bench at his knees, onto the next concrete row level, and then did it again, moving down toward the disaster area. The exit aisle was a wall of people. He hesitated when he reached it, then remembered the Descent and pushed into a tiny gap. Arissen pushed hard, carrying him upward, but he kept his feet on the ground and shoved sideways, a little farther, a little farther—

He popped out on the other side. Here, he was still two rows above the crossway that Drenas had used, but the disaster area was straight ahead. It smelled of blood, smoke, horror. Melín was going into it. And there was Veriga on the edge of the circle of burned bodies, directing people who came to help.

Pyaras’ stomach roiled. Heile help them all. Those people had done nothing but come to see a game. Now they were dead, or would be if they didn’t get treated immediately. They needed doctors. Medics—probably some of the people helping were medics, but they wouldn’t necessarily have supplies.

The Pelismar Cave-Cats would have team doctors, though.

Pyaras turned and started climbing downward again. The farther he went, the more the spectators seemed scared and confused.

He found a man in the yellow-green vest of event staff, who was turning in circles helplessly in the face of the mass rush for the exits.

“Arissen.” He stopped the man with one hand on his arm. “Where are the locker rooms? Can the team’s doctors be summoned?”

The man gaped at him.

“Arissen. Take me to the locker rooms.”

“Yes, sir.” They made their way farther downward, fortunately not all the way to the cage. The man hopped a barrier and dropped into a sloped concrete walkway. Pyaras hopped after him, remembering to bend his knees as he landed. They ran up the slope and into a door on the right.

The Cave-Cats locker room. He could see where the events man was going, a glass door on the right side of the main locker area. He leapt after him.

The events man pushed the door open, startling a team of Kartunnen in gray doctors’ coats. “Help.”

“There’s been an explosion,” Pyaras said. “At least a hundred casualties, lots of burns. We need you right now. Bring whatever supplies you can.”

The doctors scrambled out of their chairs. Pyaras scanned them as they went for the cabinets, and assigned himself to a woman near an open cabinet door.

“Let me help you.”

He took the supplies she handed to him, but it was going to be too much to carry. He dashed out to the locker area, grabbed a stray sports bag, and dumped its contents—shoes, clothes—out on the ground. Once he’d returned to her, he filled the bag with water bottles, clean cloths, everything she gave him. When she ran out the way he’d entered, he followed, counting on the others to come when they were ready.

The crowd was thinner now. The air was thick with the smell of death. The Kartunnen doctor waded right into the disaster area. At its edges, people sat curled around their injuries, but farther in people were writhing, moaning. With no idea how to help them, he just carried the bag and handed the doctor whatever she asked for. He couldn’t bear to look toward the explosion’s center, where there was no movement at all.

Two rows up from him, he spotted Melín talking to Veriga. Veriga appeared to be writing down what she told him in a small book.

Thank Sirin that Veriga was safe. There wasn’t time to speak with him, though, not when so many people needed help. His throat felt tight, and his stomach hated him, but he kept moving, kept handing things to the doctor.

“Pyaras.”

He looked up from the latest victim, a child who had been partially shielded by her dead parent but had severe burns all over her legs.

His friends were standing beside him. “Veriga?” he asked. “Melín?”

“You need to leave,” Veriga said.

“What?”

“That was a wysp explosion,” said Melín. “It was caused by First Karyas. I saw her take the shot.”

He’d seen the shot, too. First Karyas—that woman in the orange helmet had been Nekantor’s favorite Arissen? And she’d just shot Drenas.

Oh, dear gods help him, he remembered the name, now: Adon’s birthday party, the Eminence Herin waving proudly toward the huge Arissen in the vestibule. Imbati make fine bodyguards, but there can be no finer specimen than Drenas, here. We must keep safe every way we can . . .

Veriga shook him and pushed something into his hand. “Pyaras! Get out of here. Go home, now.”

“Melín, I’m sorry.” But he didn’t have to be told a third time. The main exits were still too busy to be safe, so he hopped down the benches and over the barrier again, then ran up the slope into the locker room. Thank all the gods that the exits were clearly marked. He pushed through a door, ran through a hall, jogged around a corner, down another hall, and out.

This was the Riverside. He stood, legs shaking, inhaling the scents of river and food. There were still a lot of people here, and more still emerging from the exits of the arena. The bridges over the Trao were busier than they should have been. The vendors here clearly knew something was wrong, even if they didn’t quite know what.

He hadn’t brought his Jarel with him. Stupid, stupid!

He looked down at his hand. Veriga had given him the key to the skimmer. It seemed like days ago that they’d driven up together from Veriga’s place. The skimmer was parked just on the other side of the third Trao bridge.

He had a few minutes of safety, probably. Nekantor wouldn’t target him, even if he had spies overseeing what happened. He started to walk, fast but casually, fist closed tightly on the key in his hand. It didn’t feel fast enough. Other Families would be reacting, as soon as the news got out.

If the news was what he thought it was.

Drenas had come alone.

He reached for the iron bridge rail and pulled himself faster, into a jog. His legs wouldn’t take much more of this. For a second he couldn’t remember which skimmer was Veriga’s, but then he found it. He pushed the key in, and pressed buttons. The skimmer hummed and lifted.

He was leaving Veriga and Melín behind.

But right now, it was more important to be safe.

He drove fast. Arriving at the Conveyor’s Hall, he delivered the vehicle to the Household with embarrassment, requesting that they hold onto it because he needed to return it to a friend.

He didn’t have to ask for an escort. Three members of the Household fell in around him and escorted him across the Residence grounds, all the way to the door of his suite.

When he walked into the vestibule, his Jarel emerged from the First Houseman’s door.

“Bad news, sir,” she said.

“The Eminence Herin is dead.”

“Yes, sir, but that’s not all. The Cohort bodyguard Arissen Drenas shot dead every person in the Eminence’s dining room, including the Eminence Herin and his Argun, and Arbiter Plist of the Third Family and his Rowyeth. While they were at dinner.”

That didn’t nearly complete the list of deaths, but when he tried to form words for what had happened at the arena, they refused to come. “H-have you told Father?”

Jarel inclined her head. “Sir, I thought you might prefer to tell him yourself.”

Name of Elinda. To take the news to Father . . . that thought brought reality crashing in as nothing else had. His knees quivered, but this was necessary. He walked, shaking, into the back of the suite, and knocked at Father’s door.

“Come in.”

He pushed the door open.

It looked like Father had just been getting tended, because a rolling stand of medical things was out and visible in the room. However, the care appeared to have been completed, and Father was fully dressed. A pair of his caretakers gently helped him to sit up in bed.

Pyaras felt dizzy and sick. This shouldn’t be happening this way. There should have been a messenger coming to speak to Father, and Father should have been the one rushing in to bring him bad news, like it was before. The quivering reached his throat.

“F-Father, there’s—there’s s-some news. It’s bad.”

Father winced.

Pyaras glanced away instinctively from his father’s pain, but forced himself look back up. “The Eminence’s Arissen bodyguard shot Herin and three others to death at dinner tonight. Nekantor of the First Family is now Eminence of all Varin.”

Father gaped at him for several seconds. At last he swallowed with some difficulty. “Pira . . . that’s very bad news. Four people! Elinda keep them.”

It wasn’t four people, though. It was so many, many more. Gripping the bag in his hand, smoke and death in his nose, the doctor’s hand reaching, the victims, the wounds . . . Tears rose suddenly in his throat. He gulped hard. “Elinda.” He had to gulp again. “Elinda keep them all.” He rubbed his face with both hands. His knees weakened.

“You must be respectful of your cousin,” Father said.

Pyaras looked up, blinking. He couldn’t mean Nekantor. “What?”

“Young Adon needs to be the First Family’s candidate for Heir, not you. I don’t want to hear you arguing.”

Maybe he should have felt insulted, but he didn’t. He couldn’t imagine putting himself through such a nightmare. Besides which, he couldn’t possibly give up the Pelismara Division—not now, when he had just started being able to help them.

“Don’t worry, Father,” he said. “I’m not eleven anymore. But I have to go now. I need to make sure Adon is all right.”