Surela hadn’t come back.
Reese thought she would have been glad about that; Surela wasn’t great company, and as one of the authors of this mess Reese was still nurturing one of the famous Eddings grudges against her. But the silence in the cell was far more oppressive than Surela’s company had been, and the darkness once the candle burned out felt closer and colder, and she hated having too much time to think… about whether Surela had succeeded in stabbing her rapist, or whether he’d found her out and killed her first, about whether anyone was coming to rescue her and if Baniel would kill them for it, and most of all about herself and whether she’d ever been fair to anyone she loved, enough to make them want to rescue her.
Which of the twins had it been that had accused her of being more prickly than a cactus?
Reese rested her cheek on her knees and tried not to hate herself for all the things she’d left unsaid. She hadn’t told the twins she loved them for their irreverence, and their love of life, and their acceptance of her. She hadn’t hugged Kis’eh’t and thanked her for being the steady core around which everyone else revolved. She hadn’t made it clear to Bryer that his advice had always helped her—maybe he already knew, maybe Phoenixae were a little psychic themselves that way. Allacazam… what would he do without her? Would he miss her?
She hadn’t apologized to her mother. Hadn’t even realized she owed her mother an apology, because as much as Martian custom had imprisoned her, it had given her mother and grandmother and aunts and nieces a structure that made sense, that they valued. Defying it hadn’t made her better than them. It had all been a sad misunderstanding, one of those ugly times when people’s needs conflicted and no one won. If she got through this, she would send the money back that she’d borrowed. It wouldn’t replace her in their hearts, but she’d promised she’d make the money back for her family, and it would be the least she could do to make up for what she couldn’t give them.
And Hirianthial.
All the things she hadn’t told him. All the things she hadn’t apologized for, the verbal abuse and the anger and the fear, the distrust he had never earned, her condescension at his frequent failures because she’d never understood—never been willing to admit—that the things he was striving against were so huge that failure was possible. Reese had never let herself try at anything bigger than the Earthrise. Maybe because fleeing Mars had been the very least she could do to maintain her sanity, and she’d been too frightened to aim for anything bigger, to really chase her dreams, dreams that involved someplace to call home, someone to love her, children sung to sleep by their father as well as their mother.
She’d flubbed it all, and Baniel had thrown her in this cell to force her to face it, thinking it would hurt her… but she’d needed it. Needed this moment with her back to the wall and no way to make excuses for anything.
Reese lifted her head and breathed in once, slowly, the way Bryer would have recommended. Out again, letting it all go.
All she had to do was survive this. If she did, she promised herself and all the other faces hanging in her mind’s eye, if she did… she would be braver. And she would trust other people to forgive her for the mistakes she’d inevitably make, trying to do something more honest than get by.
Now if only she would survive this.
Her epiphany energized her, and she took to pacing. Reese counted the width of the chamber (sixteen steps, toe to heel), and the length (thirteen and a half). She felt along the walls again for any discrepancies or hidden doors, and earned herself only friction burns on her fingers. She examined the door again and found it annoyingly impervious to her plans for escape. Running out of things to do, she returned to pacing until she got tired of hearing the sound of her own boots on stone. Then she sat, and the hours crept on, and she lost track of them. She napped and woke and slept. Paced and sat and hugged her knees and cursed and waited and hated the waiting.
The door twitching in its frame made her look up. Surela, maybe? Another chance to rush the guards, at least. She was just thinking it when the door swung open completely, something her captors had never allowed. Reese blinked in the sudden light, frozen, until the shape in the door resolved into familiarity. An Eldritch—her Eldritch—streaked in red and holding a holo-sword still active, its length coruscating with lilac sparks and weeping webs of blood.
He was the finest thing she’d ever, ever seen, and she was about to tell him so when he crossed the room faster than she could find the words. That hand that cupped her face was long enough to stretch from jaw to temple, and the thumb on her chin shocked her senseless. But she was aware enough to understand the look he gave her as a request, and with all her heart she answered it.
He kissed her.
There was fighting outside in the halls, distant sounds of effort and violence. The stench of blood and sweat and the uglier smells that came with death clung to him. The palace had to be convulsed with battle for him to be here, looking like this.
And yet, ridiculously, the only thing she thought was that she’d never been kissed, that Hirianthial was kissing her, and that it was better than anything she’d ever, ever, ever felt and blood in the soil but the twins were going to crow, and did she mention he was good at kissing?
She became aware that the kissing had stopped and that he was shaking, his brow against hers and his mouth… he was smiling. He was trying not to laugh. Her own lips were trying to turn up too. “What?” she asked. “What is it?”
“Thank you,” he said, and the husk in his baritone almost distracted her from the words. “For the evaluation of my performance—”
Reese flushed. “Ah, I didn’t mean for you to… well… um—”
“Given how long it’s been since I last practiced, the endorsement is appreciated—”
“Hirianthial!” she exclaimed before he could keep going and make her light-headed from blushing, and now she was laughing. “Blood, would you stop that?”
He grinned against her cheek and gathered her into his shoulder. “Ah, God and Lady, Theresa! You aren’t harmed? They didn’t—”
“Nothing. They haven’t done a thing to me except throw me down here to entice you to come, and you have and, oh freedom—”
He touched his fingers to her lips. “Enough. I know he’s waiting. Our allies are clearing the palace, but all their efforts will be meaningless if we leave Baniel free.”
“He’s a killer!” Reese blurted.
“Yes.”
“No, you don’t understand.” She gripped his arms. “He can do some of the things you can do, I saw it—”
He was staring at her, frowning. “Wait. What is it that I see in your eyes, that is not you?”
Reese froze. “W-what?”
“Sssh. Be still.” He touched his fingertips to her brow and she felt something… pulling, stretching, an ache like a splinter being tugged from her body. It dragged and then suddenly was gone, and Hirianthial rocked back on his foot, eyes wide. When he focused again, he said, “Val. The man who contacted us. You trust him?”
“He died for us.”
“For a dead man he’s remarkably mobile,” Hirianthial said. “And clever, to put a warning in you.”
“He did what!”
“Later, Theresa. Reese.” He ran his fingers down her cheekbone. “Later for everything. If… you are willing?”
“Oh, God, yes,” she said, catching his hand. “Please?”
“Then let us deal with our Queen’s enemies, and make the time.”
“Yes,” she said. And then, because there was every possibility they might die, she finished before she could lose her nerve, “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to, but oh, I’m in love with you—”
That made him very still, but not one of those bad stillnesses. This one was like… like… someone who’d seen a unicorn in a forest, caught fast by something unexpected but longed for, something beautiful. Hirianthial brought her fingers to his mouth, kissed the back of her hand, and the warmth of his breath on her skin raised all the hair up the back of her neck. “Oh, Theresa. I love you also. And I find I am not sorry for that, so do you not apologize. Never apologize.”
Did she squeak? She might have squeaked.
“Now come,” he said. “We have work to do. Do you have a weapon?”
“A what?” She shook herself. “No… I… no.”
He pulled a knife from his boot then and offered it to her, mouth twitching into a partial smile. “Another then, to replace the last.”
“I keep losing your knives,” she said, rueful. “And you’re a single-dagger man—”
That pause was startlement, and then he kissed her hair quickly. “This time, I think, you may be ready to keep my offering.” Folding the haft into her hand, he said, “Now, we go, ere it is too late.”
Blushing, she said, “Yes.”
He pulled her along by her hand—held on to her hand!—and it was sweating. Strange to think that Eldritch could sweat. She’d never observed him to sweat.
“You have never observed me in a fight this hard before either,” he said, and for some reason his reading the thought seemed more like a way to save time, and a pleasing intimacy, than anything else, and that was all she had time for before she was outside the cell finally, the damned cell she was very ready to never see again, and maybe she would ask Liolesa to burn the thing down as a liege-gift or something. You could burn stone if you made the fire hot enough, couldn’t you?
“BOSS!” Sascha wrapped his arms around her. “Angels damn it all! Reese!”
“Here,” she said, fighting tears. “Here, one piece, promise.” She looked past his shoulder and found Bryer, and if the Phoenix wasn’t smiling exactly, his crest eased down and spread a little in the way she associated with his pleasure. “Where’s Irine and Kis’eh’t?”
“We left Kis’eh’t with the Queen. Allacazam too. Irine’s up there somewhere with some Eldritch boy….” Sascha pushed back to look at her with frantic golden eyes.
“I promise,” Reese said. “One piece.” And added, “I love you too.”
“Aw, battlehells. Save it for your prince.”
“Different kind of love!”
“Damn…!”
She fought her laugh, afraid it would come out hysterical. “You haven’t changed at all.”
“It hasn’t been that long. Narain? How’s it looking?”
“We’re good for now,” a stranger said, another Harat-Shar with a gray pelt and a uniform that looked like something out of Fleet and had probably been prettier before being streaked with gore. “Unless you sense something, Lord Hirianthial?”
“No. But we mustn’t tarry.”
“Right. Lead the way.”
“You behind me,” he said to her, his eyes very grave and very intense. “And not to part.”
“No,” she promised.
He nodded once, a sharp jerk of his chin that set his hair swinging around his neck. “Then we go to cut down my brother and have done. This way, now, with a quickness.”
Baniel felt the violence pouring through the corridors like sweat from a straining body. He closed his eyes, face lifted, then went down the hall. The door he wanted was unlocked and he did not knock to announce himself, but strode in to sweep the suite with his gaze.
“What is it you want?” the Chatcaavan said without interest from the divan. Under his arm, Surela turned her face away.
“Our enemies have arrived,” Baniel said. Where had the alien put the woman? He’d parted her from the pack he’d had trussed in the audience chamber; Baniel had seen him do it. Hopefully the creature hadn’t killed her yet. “If you wish to partake of the battle, you should finish what you’re doing. I’ll be in the ballroom.”
“Is it likely that we will lose?” the alien asked, amused.
“Not very, though anything is possible.” A muffled noise from the bedroom. Ah, finally. “Your presence is not required if you wish to remain here with your divertissement.”
“Oh, I will come. I am almost done.”
“Good. I have need of some of your property.”
“Ah?”
Baniel strode into the bedroom and found Araelis bound and gagged in a corner. He drew his knife, slashed the ties hobbling her, and pulled her roughly upright. “You may die,” he said to her. “Or you may come quietly. Or you may struggle, and I will put this knife through your abdomen. Many choices. Pick now.”
Her eyes widened and then she snarled at him, lips drawing back around the fabric in her mouth.
“I thought you would make the wise choice.” He took her by the elbow and dragged her in his wake.
“Leave her intact,” the Chatcaavan called.
“If she does not remain intact, it will be her own doing.”
The Chatcaavan snorted. Baniel left him to his pleasures, judging that Surela would keep him for long enough that it wouldn’t matter. If the oldest texts were right, the alien would have just long enough to resume his pleasures before the link Baniel had been fostering so carefully emptied him of everything useful. But first, the trap wanted baiting.
He’d thought he had power enough, in his intellect, in the stupidity of others that made them so ripe for manipulation. The brushes he’d had with the power he’d borrowed from the Chatcaavan had acquainted him with a force far more potent. He was amenable to the notion of stealing that ability permanently, though if the exchange failed he would not be sorry. Corel’s legacy came with significant pitfalls, if Val’s little story was any indication. Himself he knew he could rely upon.
Pleased that everything was working as arranged, Baniel repaired to the ballroom to await his brother, bringing a furious Araelis with him.
Irine and Sascha’s reunion wasn’t pornographic only because there wasn’t enough time for them to strip, Reese thought. As it was, their kiss was enough to scandalize everyone who caught sight of them, except the other Harat-Shar who (true to form) watched with a big grin and commented when they’d finished, “Finally, something worth seeing on this trip.”
“Who’s this?” Irine asked, wide-eyed.
“A man I like,” Sascha said. “Maybe you should marry him.”
“Hmm.”
“Hey, Narain, got any wives yet?”
“I’ve been a little busy.”
“He looks likely,” Irine said, and leered at Narain.
Reese shook her head and went to see the ghost. Val was standing to one side, looking gaunt and exhausted… a lot like a corpse, in fact. She wondered why he was holding position so avidly… and then saw the body behind him. She stopped.
“Belinor,” Val said, hoarse.
“Not.…”
“Not yet, no. But soon, if we do not win this thing.” He drew in a breath, shaking. “So we should win this thing.”
She nodded and said, soft. “We will.” Then added, because it was beyond belief that she’d seen him die and yet he was standing here, looking at her with tragic eyes, “Did Corel resurrect himself or is that trick specific to you?”
Behind her, Hirianthial said, “Corel?”
Val managed a weak smile. “I’m no deity, Lady, I assure you. I just wasn’t quite as dead as Baniel believed.” He looked past her. “Lord Hirianthial.”
“And you are….”
“Valthial Trena Firilith,” the other man said. “Former priest of the Lord.”
“And dire enemy of my brother, it would seem.”
“And all his works.”
“Where is everyone?” Sascha said, pulling Irine after him by the hand. “I thought you were going to free Olthemial and the Swords?”
“And we have,” Val said. “Along with everyone else… that would be the noncombatants, whom we’ve sent through the servants’ halls, and Asaniefa’s guard, whom we sent to kill pirates for taking their lady.”
“You freed Surela’s minions?” Reese asked, appalled.
Val met her eyes. “They’ve taken oaths to protect their liegelady and the last time they saw her she was being manhandled by pirates at the behest of the high priest. They don’t want us. They want them. And I have to say they were doing a pretty fine job of getting them last I looked around the corner.”
“It’s a bloodbath out there,” Narain said, trying futilely to wipe his uniform. “Knives are rhacking messy.”
“So we have two sets of Eldritch fighting the pirates,” Reese said. “Just because things weren’t hard enough to figure—”
Hirianthial’s face jerked toward the wall.
“—out?” Reese finished. “Hirianthial?”
“Araelis,” he hissed. “He has Araelis.” His eyes narrowed. “Nearby. The ballroom.”
“And you are not going to dash off in there alone!” Reese exclaimed, fretful.
That brought him back, though his eyes remained disturbingly flat. It made their color look more like blood than wine. “No.” He smiled lopsidedly. “I think I’ve had my lessoning about attempting these things alone.”
“That’s the trap,” Reese added, to make sure he understood.
“Indubitably. But he is there to be taken, and he must be.” He shook himself, and said, chagrined, “And here I have said we shall not be parted. But I need you to go find as many of our allies as can be spared and bring them to the ballroom. And if you can find the Chatcaavan and dispatch him… it’s unlikely he is apart from Baniel, but if he is, then he must be dealt with. Captured, preferably, or killed if he resists.”
“And while we do that, you go after your brother,” Sascha said, ears flat.
“Don’t worry,” Val said. “I’m going with him.”