Elei's Chronicles (Books 1-3) (47 page)

***

The aircar sped along the narrow byway, much narrower than the intercity highway, past small hamlets, the house windows dimly lit. Algae ponds sometimes phosphoresced and vapor rose from their calm surfaces as the night deepened and grew colder.

Cat slept on Elei’s shoulder, twitching from time to time. Hera dozed, head propped against the window frame. With the fine features of her face relaxed, her small mouth pursed as if to blow a kiss, she was beautiful.

Beautiful
. Alendra’s face surfaced in his thoughts, delicate brows drawn in a frown, eyes burning bright like the embers of a fire, her mouth soft. Her shoulders were slim but her arms strong, her waist small, her legs long.

He drew a sharp breath, desire inflaming his body, the heat rolling up his neck in a scorching wave.
Great. Way to go
. Desiring the one person who hated his guts.

And since when did he desire Alendra?
Hells
. He glanced sideways at Hera, to see if she was watching him, wondering if he’d given himself away somehow — not that he knew how — yet Hera slept on, oblivious.

He sighed in relief.

It was just physical attraction. He’d get over it.

His body took some time to get over it, though, and it didn’t get any better when Alendra strode back into the cabin some time later to wake Hera. The way her hips rolled slightly with each step, the way the material of her soft blouse molded on her breasts —
gods...

It had to be a curse, to be aroused so easily. Stupid teenage hormones. As if he didn’t have enough problems as it was.

“Everything okay?” Hera stood with a yawn, stretching her legs. “I swear I feel like I just fell asleep.”

“I’ll drive with you.” Elei stood as well, Cat shifting on his shoulder and cracking a blue, uninterested eye. “Kalaes has to be dead tired.”

He followed them into the cockpit. Kalaes looked up as they entered, his eyes bloodshot. “Hey, where’s the party?” he drawled. “Did you bring any drinks, fe?”

“I’m going to grab a wink,” Alendra said, her voice oddly quiet.

“You too, Kalaes,” Elei said. “Go on, I’ll take your place.”

Kalaes hesitated, glancing at Alendra, and his eyes darkened. “I don’t know, fe. What if I wake up...?”

...screaming?
Elei tapped a hand on his chest. “I’ll be checking on you. Don’t worry.”

Alendra frowned and made as if to say something, but Kalaes nodded, a flash of relief going through his gaze. He got up without further protest, which told Elei just how tired the older boy was. Between the nightmares and driving half the night, he had to be beat.

Shaking his head, Elei settled in the driver’s seat, Hera next to him, methodically checking the instruments and consulting her map. He peered at her profile as she bent over the crinkly map, waiting for a break in her concentration.

He pounced the moment she looked up, a furrow between her brows.

“So, how exactly are we going to do this?” He had to look away, focus his attention on the road as he maneuvered the aircar around a hillock, but even so he felt her gaze, a hot beam on his face.

“This? You mean enter Dakru City?”

“Yes, that’s what I mean.” He’d thought it obvious, but maybe Hera was just being sarcastic.

She took so long to answer he turned to meet her gaze, calculating, analyzing, doubtful.

“If we manage to enter the sewer pipes at Gortyn,” she turned back to the instruments, “the tunnels will lead us beneath the center of Dakru City. I know the codes for opening the security doors leading outside, if they have not been changed. From there, it’s a short stroll to the Palace, if the guards do not intercept us. I have...” She inhaled, drawing out the moment. “A schematic of the Palace.”

“Where?” Elei frowned.

“Seared in my brain.” She smirked. “I lived there for a year, like all Echoes.”

He kept forgetting she was a princess, a Gultur, the enemy — though not anymore.

Then something caught his eye in the rearview mirror and he leaned forward for a better look. Oh shit, they had a tail again? “Hera...”

“I have an idea,” she went on, bending again over the map. “About how to enter the Cupola, where the safety boxes are. I am not sure it will work, but the one thing I know is I cannot let important information lie around undiscovered, intel that could help us bring down the regime for good. We must find out what Pelia intended us to know.”

Elei leaned back in his seat, worry churning his stomach. He didn’t want to say anything about the vehicle following behind them, not until he was sure. Chances were, more people were out and about, going about their business in the early morning hours. Besides, it was quite a ways back, a speck on the mirror.

“How do we enter this Cupola, then?” A sudden suspicion sneaked up on him. “Does it involve grenades and lots of killing?”

“We’ll do what we must.” Her mouth tightened. “You killed many at the hospital.”

He held a hand up, his heart hammering, his thoughts filling with blood. What if there was a less violent, a less dangerous way in? He only had to find it.

She dropped her gaze. “All our faces are on the wanted list. Nobody will expect us to go to the Palace, that’s in our favor, but our luck can hold out only so long.”

Cat mewed, and he reached up to stroke it. Cat bit his finger and he yelped, pushing the creature off. It bounded off and curled in a corner, licking itself.

“Dammit!” Cat’s teeth had drawn blood. He saw in his memory the cats swarming the Gultur and their guard dogs, saw blood flow. He remembered, if vaguely, how Rex had protected him, helped him enter the hospital.

He flexed his fingers. As much as he hated to admit it, Rex had saved his life.

“Hey.” He glanced in the mirror. The damn aircar was still there, but something else had been on his mind and he wanted to know. “You said we’re friends, right?”

“Yes?” She threw him a suspicious, narrowed-eyed look. “If you do not kill me, we shall remain so.”

Heat seeped into his cheeks. “Yeah, okay. I’ll try not to. Listen.” He pushed hair out of his eyes. “That woman, the Gultur at the hospital, the one who let us pass, who had information about Rex. Sacmis.”

She scowled. “What about her?”

“Who is she? She’s more than a friend, isn’t she?”

Hera shook her head. “Why do you ask me this? Perhaps there’s someone else you want to talk about?” Her shrewd look made him want to hide under the chair. Instead, he squared his shoulders.

“No. Just Sacmis.”

Hera grinned, all teeth. Then her expression softened. “Sacmis is a friend from childhood. We fell out long ago.” Hera sighed. “I was in love with her, if this is what you’re asking. She’s beautiful and strong-spirited. I often wondered what it’d be like — to hold her, to kiss her. To be with her.”

Elei nodded, trying to imagine Hera kissing anyone and his whole body tingled and heated. He had a split-lightning memory of Sacmis, light eyes and hair like Alendra’s, a pretty face and a determined jaw. “Why do you prefer women?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Why do
you
?”

Alendra’s face flashed through his mind, her curves, so soft, and more heat seeped into his face. “I don’t know. Most men do.”

“They do?” She shrugged. “Good for them. Well, it’s a hormonal predisposition.”

“Predisposition.” They hadn’t covered that in biology class at the monk’s factory.
Go figure.
“Do all of you,” he swallowed down the word
Gultur
, “prefer women?”

She frowned. “It depends on the strain of Regina, but the variation is much smaller than with mortals. I mean,” she waved a hand in the air, “than with you. Your kind. Studies have shown that very few Gultur prefer men. Many of us, though, appear to like both sexes.”

Interesting
. “I just thought it was a choice on your part. To like women, I mean.”

“There’s never a choice in this, Elei. The choice is not in who or what you are, but in what you do with it.”

He chewed on his lower lip, driving the aircar through a crossroads with an abandoned-looking control post standing sentinel. There was so much in her words to think about. About accepting oneself, accepting Rex, perhaps, like she’d told him before. Were his urges and desires, his fears and worries caused by Rex or himself? Would he ever know? Did it really matter? Maybe all that mattered was what he decided to do about it all.

“If Sacmis came to you, would you be happy?”

She froze. “You’re asking far too many questions, boy. You never did before.”

He thought about that. “I wanted to. But you were” —
scary
— “hard to read. And when I tried, you” —
tried to kill me
— “didn’t seem happy. I thought that” —
that you were fed up, done with me
— “that you...” He faltered.

A hand on his arm startled him. He looked up into her warm dark eyes. “I like you, Elei. I do not know how to be a friend, but I’m doing my best. I hope you know that.”

He nodded, not trusting his voice, and turned away. Even as his mouth wanted to smile, his eyes burned. “You haven’t answered my question,” he said, not sure why he wanted to know. Alendra’s eyes flashed before him, bright like sunlight. “Would you be happy?”

“Is this some sort of friendship test?” Hera growled.

“Maybe.” He shrugged. Something occurred to him and he leaned toward her, worried. “Does it hurt when you’re being friendly with me? Does Regina hurt you?”

Hera shrugged. She jabbed at the controls for a while, and silence ebbed and flowed like the sea. Then she paused and snorted.

“It hurts but I’ll take it,” she said. “And, since you want to know, if Sacmis came to me,” she gave him a sideways glance, “I swear, I’d kiss her.”

And despite everything, the crazy mission ahead and his jumbled feelings, Elei smiled.

Chapter
Seventeen

D
awn whitewashed
the landscape, fields and hillocks and hamlets turning pale gray. In the far distance, something bright stabbed at Elei’s eyes — the reflection of the sea. The road wound on and on, bypassing an aircar cemetery and driving along barbed wire fences that rolled for miles.

“Military camp,” Hera said to his inquiring look. “Firearm and combat training.”

He unscrewed the lid off a bottle and took a swig of water. “Did you train here, too?”

“For two years. First to third grade. Then we moved to another camp to the west for hand to hand combat and infiltration, and then on to sonic weapons and use of fire. I was about twelve at the time.”

It made Elei realize just how different their lives had been, him scavenging in trash piles, her training with the latest tech weapons. She’d grown up hating mortals, while his world had been confined to finding food and water. Then Albi had died and his world had shifted to the monk factory, drills of prayer and hard manual work, assembling machines and sewing clothes, studying and trying to understand how one got along with other people, especially when they picked on him for having the twin stigmas of telmion and cronion.

No matter that they were all flotsam, orphans with nothing to their name and nobody interested in keeping them. Even then, there were division lines, sides taken, parties formed.

A scream of fear jolted him out of his thoughts and brought him to his feet in a single movement. “Kalaes.”

Heart pounding, he rushed into the cabin, to Kalaes’ side. He found him curled on the seat, eyes screwed shut and teeth grating. He seemed to have difficulty drawing breath.
Not good
.

Elei took a cautious step closer, mind churning. Talking to him had seemed to work better than shaking and shouting, so he gripped Kalaes’ wrists. “Everything’s fine,” he said calmly. “It’s me. Elei. Wake up.”

It took a few tries, but finally, thankfully, Kalaes’ eyes snapped open and he drew a sharp breath. Then he stared wildly about, his gaze catching on Elei and sharpening. “Hells, fe. You’re okay.” He squeezed Elei’s hands. “You’re all right.”

Inside Elei a ball of misery began to unravel. “Yeah.” Had Kalaes been afraid for him?

“Thanks for waking me up.” Kalaes’ voice was hoarse, and there was something dark and terrified in his eyes, but it was slowly fading. Then, unexpectedly, he smiled, an unguarded, trusting expression that shook Elei. “I’ll be fine.”

Elei wanted to ask him what the dream had been about, but from the corner of his eye he saw Alendra, curled up on the other seat, gazing at them with wide eyes, and kept silent.

“Any time,” he said, looking Kalaes over to make sure he was indeed okay. He looked haggard, his eyes bloodshot, his cheekbones sharp in his gaunt face. Elei placed a hand on Kalaes’ shoulder, and then turned around to head back to the cockpit. He froze.

Alendra stared at Kalaes, eye shining.

Elei took a step back before he realized it, and stopped. His nails dug into his palms. So what if she liked Kalaes and not him.
Get over it
.

He dropped back his shoulders. The moment her eyes flicked to him, he forced his gaze straight ahead and strode out the door, back to the cockpit. Easier to worry about how to enter the Gultur Palace than think of Alendra.

Hera looked up at him and he nodded, answering her unspoken question — Kalaes was okay.

He took his seat, not in the mood to talk, and checked the systems. Everything looked okay. They were well on their way to the Gultur Palace. Hera wanted to use grenades to enter.

Grenades
. Images morphed before his eyes — mutilated corpses and pools of blood, and he wondered if he was about to lose his lunch yet again. He blinked the horrific images from his eyes and decided to ask Hera for more information on her plan, but she seemed lost in thought, barely blinking.

No, there had to be another way into the Palace.
Rex
. Rex would find a way. He remembered how Rex had helped him enter the hospital, all the tricks the parasite had pulled to ensure his survival. Changing his smell, lowering his temperature, urging the cats on. Surely it could do it again.

If he didn’t try to suppress Rex again. If he went in alone.

At least nobody expected them to head into the center of Gultur power, Dakru City itself. He hoped Hera was right about that, because someone else seemed to be suspicious of them. They had to do something about the vehicle tailing them. A glance into the rearview mirror showed him the vehicle was much closer now, not bothering much to keep a distance.

No use putting this off any longer. He shook Hera who’d been staring ahead as if hypnotized by the silver light of morning. “Hey. Hera.”

“What?” She shot him an annoyed look and Elei wondered if he’d interrupted some very private thoughts — maybe involving Sacmis.

“We still have a tail at our back,” he said.

She hissed and studied the image in the rearview mirror. “Sobek’s balls.”

“We can’t lose them here. They’re right behind us.” He gripped the steering lever tightly, scanning the relatively flat landscape. If they veered to hide behind a hillock, there was no chance their pursuers would miss them.

“Damn.” Hera thumped her fist on the panel, barely missing the cooling button and frying the system.

Elei gripped her wrist to prevent more damage. He had an idea. “I’ll stop them.”

She turned her narrowed gaze on him. “Really.”

“Just pretend you trust me, okay?” He got to his feet, testing his leg and finding it strong enough for what he planned to do. He tapped the handle of his Rasmus. “Slow down and keep the speed steady.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Shoot the fuel reactor.”

Light seeped into her eyes, making the greens and yellows in them glow. “It’s an old model aircar, like this one, so it’s probably a liquid reactor. If you spill the sulfuric solution...”

“Uh-huh.” No reaction, no combustion. He patted her shoulder and left her driving. Passing through the cabin he found Kalaes asleep, quiet now and seeming more relaxed. Alendra cracked an eye, turned over, and for all appearances went back to sleep.

He didn’t bother saying anything. If he failed to stop their pursuers, both Kalaes and Alendra would find out soon enough.

On the deck, he breathed in the cold, salty air blowing from the sea and whipping strands of hair across his eyes. The scent of red winter flowers mingled with the powdery smell of fungi fields and the rotten-egg of algae piled on the beach by off-shore storms.

He moved around the deck to the back, and crouched down. The other aircar was less than thirty feet away, but to hit the lid of the reactor he’d have to have the eyes of an eagle.

Then again, he had Rex.

His lips peeled back in a snarl as he lifted his Rasmus and squinted over the barrel, taking aim. His heartbeat hitched, then accelerated, the blood pumping faster through his veins, and Rex obliged by highlighting the reactor with an intense purple. Taking a deep breath, holding it, he fired.

He lowered his gun. He was close enough that he’d heard the impact of the bullet, but had he hit the reactor?

The pursuing aircar didn’t stop, and for a moment he thought he’d missed. He waited, watching, his heart rate slowing, the cold seeping into his bones with every gust of wind.

The pursuing aircar decelerated, then stopped in the dirt, raising a small cloud of dust. Elei gripped the deck rail. Someone climbed out, their figure diminishing as distance increased between them. Pale hair glinted in the morning light and the figure raised an arm as if in greeting.

Who the hells was that? A Gultur, his keen eyesight told him, catching the reflection of scales on her arms, on her pale hair.
Could it be...?

He hurried around and entered the cabin. Kalaes and Alendra still slept. When he opened the cockpit, Hera didn’t turn to him but her posture was stiff.

“Good shot,” she said quietly.

He sank in the co-driver’s seat. “Was that—”

“Sacmis?” She drew her lower lip into her mouth, then released it and clenched her fist. “I do not know.” Hera sighed. “She did look like Sacmis. If it’s her, then what is she doing here?”

“Maybe she just wants to talk with you. She did say she’d look for you.”

“Why now, after years of silence?” Hera shook her head. “Why did she not say anything before? She never doubted her allegiance to the Gultur in the past. I fear...” She pressed her lips together, then leaned back. “That she’s a spy.”

Elei turned to the front, checking the rear mirror, although he didn’t expect to see anything. It could be, he supposed. That Sacmis had been sent there to gain Hera’s trust and betray them all. Cruel, but effective.
Yet...

“What if she isn’t a spy? What if she wants to help us? Help
you
?”

Hera shook her head. “Would you risk it?”

Good point
. He bent over the map, tracking their route. They weren’t all that far from Gortyn now. He knew he should eat again, now that he could, to make sure his body wouldn’t fail him in the worst possible moment. Better do it now, before they arrived, before Rex regained its strength and demanded sweet.

Hera’s blood
.

Hera declined his offer for something to eat, barely noticing when he got up and left the cockpit. Inside the cabin, he found Kalaes rubbing his eyes. Alendra was staring out of the window. She nodded at him.

“Hey,” she said.

He opened his mouth and closed it, then tried again. “Hey,” he squawked and busied himself with the bag of food to cover his shock. A glance out of the corner of his eye told him she was staring. He pulled out blue bread and stuffed his mouth, turning the other way. Why in the hells did her gaze make his face so hot?

“Here, fe, pass me some,” Kalaes muttered, reaching out his hand. “What’s happening, where are we?”

“Close.” Elei cut a piece for Kalaes, and thrust another toward Alendra, curious to see her reaction.

He almost fell on his ass in shock when she took it and bit into it. He opened his mouth to make an acid remark, but no words came to his tongue. Mesmerized he watched as she turned toward the window, chewing, yet didn’t turn her back on him.

A day of miracles.

Resisting the urge to shake his head and pinch himself, he finally turned away, heat licking his cheeks even as he chastised himself for his reaction.

“What is that?” she asked then, and he had no choice but to look back at her, at the direction her finger was pointing.

He saw a spire, a needle piercing the sky. The beacon of Gortyn.

The miracles were finished, the respite over. They’d arrived.

***

Hera stared straight ahead, at Gortyn. She’d been there in the past, on geography tours organized by the Cybele Academy for Echo princesses. They’d studied the coast and the network of tunnels, so long ago it now seemed like another life.

Why had Sacmis followed them? What did she want? Once, at least four years back, she and Sacmis had gone out on their first patrol together. It had been disastrous. It had been a revelation. Hera had discovered mortals weren’t the animals the system painted them to be, that they were worth saving. She’d joined the resistance.

While Sacmis had grown angry and distant. She believed in the system, in the laws, in the propaganda of the Central Office.

Or so Hera had thought.

Should she have stopped the aircar, taken the risk, talked to her? After all, Sacmis had stepped aside and let them go free. She could have killed them easily, or taken them prisoners like any good Gultur.

Perhaps she’d contracted Rex through the water of the Sacred Fountain and the parasite had changed her.

Or Hera had been wrong about Sacmis all along. She’d not met with Sacmis in all that time, had managed to avoid even patrolling with her. What if Sacmis had been on her side?