KARDIA, LAMPROS CITY, KALONICA, DROSERO
“What the reek is that thing?”
Overhearing Kalonican fliers’ comms chatter, Roman eyed the strange shape on the readout from the flight command deck. “Whatever it is, keep it away from Kardia.” He flipped a couple switches, keeping his gaze on the display that showed the weird ship coming straight at them. There was something in the air—familiar. Fierce.
“Zeev base to Aetos base, come in.”
At the voice sailing across the comms, Roman hesitated. Why was Vorn talking rather than his flight commander? “Go ahead, Zeev. This is Aetos.”
“Sent you a package,” Vorn reported. “Little beat up but wrapped in a steel bow of hope. Might not want to shoot this one down.”
Roman’s gaze hit the strange craft on the array. It had an orblike cockpit and crescent shape around it that spun so fast, it looked like a pool of honey. “What did you—” He stilled, drew in his focus, let the anaktesios massage the efflux radiating through the atmosphere. “Can’t be . . .”
“I assure you,” Vorn said with a small laugh, “it is. Break out the welcome mats. Your king is coming home.”
Roman flung off the headset and darted out of the booth. He shot down the steps and raced to the far courtyard. Even as he leapt down the steps toward the fountain of Eleftheria, he was searching the skies for the craft that held promise of Marco.
“What is it?” Hushak shouted from behind, alarmed, no doubt, by his swift movements.
A glint sparked in the sky.
Roman held his breath. “Call the regia,” he shouted over his shoulder, watching the crescent-shaped ship sail out toward the Kalonican Sea, then bank around. He almost ordered the ringing of the bells, but the less the Symmachians knew, the better. Especially with so many raiders lurking about Lampros City. “The medora returns!”
“Should I notify the kyria?”
Roman hesitated, the sound of fighting in the streets beyond the wall reaching his ears all too easily. “Not yet—keep her belowground.” The Faa’Cris had shielded her, concerned the Khatriza would detect Marco’s heir and come for them. A risk, considering Marco’s need for her as beacon, but unavoidable. “We need to protect them until he’s within the walls.”
The craft came humming in, straight for him. And he felt it. Tasted it. Marco’s return.
“Lower blast shield,” Marco instructed, anxious for sight of Kardia. His home.
“Forward blast shields rising,” the ship intoned.
Light streaked into the once-dull interior of the ship and ricocheted off the metal braces and acrylic displays. He squinted but did not take his gaze from the—
“No.” He drew in a breath at the gaping hole in the southern wall. The rubble of the servants’ quarters along that perimeter. Smoke rose from the city, easily thirty, maybe forty percent of the structures reduced to rubble. Kardia itself, once noble and austere, seemed to sag beneath the destruction. The towers had been destroyed, the southern portico a pile of ruins in a deep depression.
Her name struggled up his throat. “Isaura.” Is this why he could not detect her? Was she dead? His breath staggered, then latched onto his anger. If she was dead, they would pay. By Vaqar, they would pay! He glanced to the sealed pod where Darius lay in the Lady’s Embrace. Not both of them. He could not lose both his brother and his bound.
“Oh, Ancient, please . . .”
He aimed the Qirolicha toward the clearing on the cliff, he spotted a handful of men. His anak’ing made out each efflux. Roman . . . Ixion. Relief stung his eyes. That the Stalker was not with Isaura plucked at the thin thread Marco held that she yet lived.
Do not let me return to a ruined city and dead kyria. I beg You . . .
As they landed, he felt the tubes of the lectulo retracted into the ship and left him on his feet. For a moment, he stared at the door. He could not anak her Signature, the only one he wished for. The only face he wanted to greet him was not there.
Daq’Ti strode to the hatch and palmed it.
Light spliced through the crack as the door slid away, affording a glimpse of the ramp telescoping onto a bed of grass. He mustered his courage and moved toward the door. Paused. Glanced at the pod that held Darius’s body.
“I will bring him,” Daq’Ti promised in that still-trilling way of his. What would the Quadrants think of him once they knew what he truly was? What would they do when it became apparent he was from the same race that wanted to annihilate them?
After a nod, Marco descended onto the soil of his forebears. He resisted the urge to drop to his knees and kiss the grass, thank Vaqar for delivering him safely back to Kalonica. Instead, he angled toward the arc of regia forming, men still sprinting toward the ship.
“Vanko Kalonica!” The shouts ricocheted around the orb behind him. “Vanko Kalonica! Long live Medora Marco!”
The words resonated, painfully reminiscent of the night he’d left his father and mother, his brothers, and climbed aboard a ship for the very first time—with the master hunter . . .
His gaze hit his master’s, and Marco felt the earth shift beneath him.
Roman was at his side, pulling him into a hug. Slapping his back. “Welcome home, Marco.”
Easing back, he eyed the master, recalling what Darius said—uncle. Was it true?
Roman sent a spurt of warm cedar to him, friendly. Welcoming. He clung a little longer than necessary, clearly giving Marco the time to find his bearings and balance.
The musty air of the passages were drenched in that minty Signature, which he yet struggled to fully accept was from his daughter. But still no Isaura . . .
Braced, he breathed into the duster-clad shoulder, “Where is she?”
Roman clapped his biceps as he stepped back. “You are a sight for sore eyes. Let us get you inside.” He ran a hand over Marco’s shorn hair. “Much has changed since you stood on these grounds.” He laughed. “Come, you are not safe in the open.”
“No doubt the raiders and Symmachians saw the ship land,” Ixion’s voice boomed as he stepped forward, gripped Marco’s forearm, and hauled him into a one-shouldered hug. “The words have breath.”
The Moidian phrase jarred him—there was some reply he should provide to complete the blessing—but Marco could not be deterred from the fact that Roman had ignored his question. His rank avoidance irritated. “I would—”
Boom! Boom!
Crack-crack-crack.
Ixion and Roman hooked Marco’s arms and drew him forward. “On your medora!”
“Inside—now!”
She’s dead. That’s why they will not speak of her. That’s why the residue is minty—she wasn’t just a girl from the wastelands. She was pure.
Why? Why had he fought so hard to get back? He should’ve realized these last few days what the absence of her voice and visage meant. What that mint implied—not his daughter at all, but his bound’s departure to be with the Ladies. Was that it? Well they would pay—Symmachia would pay for killing her. And his brother—
“Wait!” Marco dug in his heels. Turned back to the ship.
Ixion faltered as his gaze hit the lone man at the ramp of the Qirolicha with the lectulo.
“Come, Daq’Ti,” Marco called over the murmurs and uncertainty—fear—that swelled through the gathered. “We bring my brother’s body home.”
Daggers of scents shot through the air—anger, disgust, grief, uncertainty again.
“Darius?” Mavridis inquired, shocked. “How? He was in Hirakys—”
“We first landed there. The ship—” He motioned with a hand, anxious to see Isaura. Not interested in details. “Later. Important part is that Darius died protecting me.”
The storm of Signatures calmed, though some still simmered.
“See the medora inside,” Roman ordered Mavridis. “I’ll bring them in.”
After indicating to Daq’Ti that he could trust these men, Marco ascended the stairs and path to the east entrance, but his gaze climbed to the balcony of the royal residence he had stood on many times. But half the balcony was gone as was a good portion of the residence. He faltered. No.
“This way.” Ixion led not to the stairs that rose to the royal apartments, but down . . .
“What is this?” Marco asked.
“All are belowground until we purge the land of raiders and Symmachians and restore the residences.”
“The walls, the balcony . . .” Marco noted the state of disrepair, the destruction, still unable to inquire as to whether she yet lived. Anger roiled that he still could not anak her. It meant she was dead. Rage boiled with each step he took that did not bring him to her.
“Two nights ago, three ships attacked,” Ixion explained, ushering them further into the castle. “If the Kynigos had not sheltered here in Kardia, we would have been defenseless against Symmachia. Your uncle has been a godsend.”
“Roman.” Marco slid a hand over his nose and mouth, only then realizing he was shielding himself from what that minty Signature meant. He resented that the menthol grew stronger, more painful the deeper he descended into palace dungeons.
“Aye, much has changed since you were last in these halls,” Ixion said.
“So everyone keeps telling me.”
“Darius was convicted of treason and stripped of title—”
“He said as much.”
Mavridis hesitated, his gaze down.
Raw, Marco turned to him, unable to bear it any longer. “Tell me—”
Something strange hit the Stalker’s expression.
Hearing the shuffling of regia around him, the rustle of their clothes, squeak of boots, Marco homed his gift around the noises. None as loud as the grief treading their nervous movements. “Tell me,” he growled. Each breath a chore. Strength leached out . . .
What was life without her? He did not want it. Did not want to be here. Yet, not telling him would change nothing.
Not true. It would force him to accept it.
And that . . . that would be when he’d unleash the most violent war.
“You should not be here,” Ixion hissed.
“What?” Marco scowled at him but only then saw the Stalker did not address him. His gaze had locked on a side juncture in the stone passage. Light from the far end cast its ample beam across a rosied face—Kersei. She stood clutching a babe to her shoulder.
Knowing what body he brought home, what grief he must hand her, Marco could only acknowledge her.
“I had to see for myself.” Kersei’s tears wrestled her words that mirrored her roiling scent. She sobbed, then nodded. “My heart soars with the aetos to see you alive.”
It would not once she learned what happened in Hirakys. I bring only bad news and sorrow. It was too much. All the more, he simply wanted Isaura. To be in her arms. Hear her laugh, whisper love in his ear. He started moving again, searching out Isa.
“Go back.” Ixion stalked toward her, pointing to her guards. “Get her to safety. You know what terror hunts us.” He hustled to catch up.
Marco pivoted to the Plisiázon, unable to meet the man’s gaze. “Give it to me—how did she die? Where is her body that I may send her into the Lady’s Embrace?”
“My medora—”
“Where?” Grabbing Ixion’s jerkin and yanking him forward, Marco released the fury of a lifetime and let it course through his veins, hot, volatile. “Where. Is. She?”
Light flickered and danced beneath movement at the far end of a musty stone passage.
Marco stopped short. The menthol that had saturated his receptors suddenly relented, faded. Startling him. In its place—
Sweet and true, strong and potent sailed the most beautiful of Signatures. It rushed upon his receptors and drowned him in its fragrance, yanked him around.
The silhouette snatched the breath from his lungs. “Isau—” A choked sob stole her name from his lips. Could it be? Dare he hope and have it dashed? He staggered forward, the shadows around her brightening, releasing her. Frozen in place, she did not need light to illuminate her, for she was light.
His feet moved faster, his heart thudding in cadence. The distance felt a league!
She was a vision! Long blonde hair hung over her shoulders, strands reaching toward her enlarged womb. The sight struck him hard. Gratitude to the Ladies, to Vaqar, to the Ancient overwhelmed him. Seeing her, that glorious scent at last bathing his receptors, dropped Marco to a knee. Then two. He bent at her feet. He cried, touching her slippers. His fears were eradicated. Clinging to her, sobbing. She was here. She was alive.
Gown billowing around her as she lowered herself to the cold stone, Isaura wrapped her arms around his shoulders, her chest shuddering beneath her own tears. She cradled and kissed his head. “Dusan. Oh, my love. How I have missed you,” she breathed against his ear.
Her words were life. Her scent healing. He lifted his face and cupped hers. Then shifted his hand to her enlarged, glorious womb. He anak’d the babe fully then, the mint with touches of oak and amber. It had been her. Drawing him back. Lips pressed there, he half laughed, half cried. “Thank you. Thank you for guiding me home, little one.”