Elei's Chronicles (Books 1-3) (50 page)

He stared at the two braids, left on a stool in the corner of the stall.
Dammit
.

A rap on his door broke through his thoughts.

“Clothes,” Kalaes said and there was the rustle of something draping over the handle.

With a sigh of relief, he opened and reached out blindly to snag the uniform. He hadn’t had the time to think about it, but he didn’t want anyone to see the extent of the marks left by parasites on his body. Between the snakeskin covering most of his back, twisted into strange shapes by cronion, the marks of Rex trailing around his neck and shoulders and down his spine, and the smaller scars left behind by other, non lethal parasites, he’d probably scare Alendra so much she’d run away screaming.

He picked up a towel hanging from the hook, a fluffy, white thing, and rubbed his head. Maybe he should go out naked, scare her half to death. Maybe then she’d drop this stupid plan and return to the safe house.

With a snarl, he grabbed the uniform and pulled it on. He filled it in fine, his shoulders wide enough now to stretch it, but the rest of his body was bare muscle and bones and the thick cloth fell in folds past his hips. He glued the straps together up the front and patted the symbol of a star or flower over his heart. Probably the symbol of the city. A cloth belt cinched at the waist, and he was good to go. He pushed Kalaes’ braids into his pocket and stepped out barefoot where the others were trying on socks and boots from the lockers.

Alendra sat in a chair, pulling on a pair of black combat boots, the tip of her tongue sticking out of her mouth in concentration.
So pretty
.

He stomped to the lockers and rummaged for something his size.
Idiot. Stop it
. But it was as useless as telling himself not to breathe. Even from there he could smell her fine scent.

His sprained wrist throbbed in time to his heart. He shook it, wondering if he should wrap it. A med kit lay on a chair; he opened it, extracted a bandage and stared at it, wishing he knew how to wrap it one-handed.

“Here, let me,” Alendra said, and he almost jumped out of his skin. Without waiting for a reply, she pried the bandage from his fingers and efficiently started wrapping it. “Sprained?” she asked.

He nodded, his eyes fixed on her slender fingers, his mind fizzling. Then Alendra secured the gauze with a clip she fished out of the med kit and turned away without another word, leaving Elei to stare after her, unable to form a coherent sentence even to thank her.

Pathetic
.

Still reeling, he wiggled his fingers, making sure the bandage wasn’t too tight. Then he grabbed his things and sat down to get ready. Finally socked and booted, he got up and made as if to pass his Rasmus through his belt, but he stopped and frowned.

“They’ll notice if I carry the gun with me, won’t they?” he asked.

Hera nodded. “It will raise suspicion immediately.”

Oh hells
. He stroked the barrel with the registration number. Leaving it behind was out of the question, even if he managed to remember the number. “Alendra will take it.”

“She already has a longgun, a Gultur weapon.”

“Then she’ll have two.” He bared his teeth, daring Hera to say anything.

She shrugged. “Carrying two guns is not uncommon, I believe.”

Alendra reached out for the Rasmus with her bandaged hand. He held onto it for a moment longer, repeating to himself this was the best solution. If he said it a thousand more times, he might believe it.

He reversed it, placed it handle-first into her narrow hand. “Take good care of it.”

A small smile lit her face, a fine brilliance like the lights of a distant city, and it took his breath away.

He didn’t hear if she answered anything.

“So.” Hera cleared her throat and he blinked, realizing he’d been in a sort of daze. Worse, he’d been staring at Alendra like some moonstruck boy.

Fantastic
.

“Yeah.” He resisted the urge to rub his eyes. “Let’s have a plan.”

Kalaes stopped in the process of gluing shut his uniform. His broad shoulders stretched the material across his chest to the point of bursting. He opened again the straps with a curse, baring his torso. Scarred as he was from old wounds, and with the marks of his recent torture by the Gultur, dark bruises and cuts, he still seemed unconcerned about showing his body. The tattoo over his heart, the circle with a star inside, was barely visible, lost among the contusions. His old
palantin
scar, a white web high on his left forearm, caught Elei’s eye. He thought it looked bigger than last time he’d seen it, but couldn’t be sure.

Kalaes struggled to pull the lapels of the uniform back together, muscles bunching in his arms, until the straps clicked shut. Elei lifted a hand to make sure his uniform was fastened all the way up to his chin, covering the awful snakeskin climbing his neck and curling around his throat to his cheek. He’d always felt self-conscious about the marks, and now that they’d expanded, and with Alendra looking...

Hells. Get your head on straight
. He forced his hand down. What was this new obsession with Alendra? She’d never get over her disgust enough to be friends, let alone anything more.

“Elei?” Kalaes snapped his fingers. “Are you in there, fe? Now’s not the time to get distracted.”

“Alendra with Elei will head west, around the Palace,” Hera said. “Out of the door left, then take the avenue with the small temples on either side and keep away from the Palace square.” Hera adjusted her belt. The uniform hugged the gentle curves of her body in a very disconcerting way. Elei caught Kalaes looking, too. The older boy swallowed hard and turned his gaze away.

Hera gave Alendra instructions on how to avoid being seen by most guards posted on the Palace roof and around the walls, and the code for the door to the Vault. Elei memorized it, too, just in case. Anything could go wrong. Deep inside, he held onto the hope he might go in quietly, open the safety box, get what was inside, and leave the same way, never arousing suspicion, return through the tunnels to Gortyn, to their aircar and to a safe place.

Dream on
. It just didn’t seem realistic, not while watching Kalaes strap on his dagger and pass a gun through his belt, or Hera holster her longgun, their faces set in serious lines.

He patted the small dagger Kalaes had given him. He felt strangely calm and unafraid.

Alendra had strapped both guns on, one on either slender hip, and was now pulling up her hair in a tall ponytail, in the fashion of the Gultur. She could pass for a Gultur, he guessed, slender and beautiful, her symmetrical face catching the light in a play of shadows and delicate curves.

“What about you two?” He turned his gaze away with an effort and looked at Hera and Kalaes.

“Distraction.” Kalaes smirked. “Yeah, baby.”

“We’ll go around the front of the Palace,” Hera said. “We—”

“What?” Elei stepped into her face, the fear finally squeezing his stomach. “You’ll do no such thing. You’ll get killed on sight!”

“Not if they do not see us. I’ll send my pet to hide in Anneke College, quite a tall building, and—”

“Your pet.” Kalaes narrowed his eyes, still grinning like a skull. “Are you by any chance talking about me?”

“Yes.” She spared him a brief, haughty glance. “We’ll shoot. They will not know where the shots come from. They’ll form squads to investigate. By then we’ll have moved to another building. Just follow my lead and we’ll be fine.”

“Why don’t I feel reassured?” Kalaes groaned and tugged at his hair, his fingers automatically seeking the braids. When he didn’t find them, a confused expression crossed his face. His brows lifted and he patted his head. He dropped his hand.

“Ready then?” Alendra said.

“It’s now or never.” Kalaes pulled up his hood and strands of black hair fell over his eyes.

“Cover up,” Hera said and pulled on her own hood. With her hair covered, her eyes looked larger and more transparent, like jewels.

Elei reached behind his head and lifted his hood over his head. He tugged it down, all the way to his mismatched eyes, hoping to hide them in its shadow. He was as ready as he’d ever be. The room flashed in faint lights and colors, phantoms of warmth and different materials painting the world.

Rex was awake, lurking inside him, ready to strike. Knowing that soon the parasite would realize exactly what was going on, Elei clenched his fists, already expecting the pain Rex would throw at him to stop him from endangering himself more.

He’d not really talked to anyone about this.
And now’s not the time
.

Kalaes moved the chair jamming the door and pulled back the bolts. He peeked outside. “All clear. We go first, eh, Hera?”

“Yes, pet.” She grinned.

“I swear,” he growled, “if you call me that one more pissing time...”

She pushed past him, stood at the door opening. “You’ll kill me?”

“Damn Gultur,” Kalaes grunted, sounding exasperated. “Come on, let’s follow your half-assed plan.”

“While your plan is so much better. Oh wait, you do not have one.”

Elei suppressed a sigh.
Like kids
. “Be careful out there.” A knot lodged in his throat made his voice rough.

“Says the one who was about to enter the Palace alone,” Kalaes ground out, but his eyes didn’t seem angry.

“Let’s go,” Hera said, a foot already outside.

“Yeah. Take care, kid. Meet you here when we’re all done.” And Kalaes stepped closer. He reached up, pushed Elei’s hood back and ruffled his hair.

It was such a familiar gesture that Elei’s breath caught. He wanted to say something, but he couldn’t. So he just nodded and watched as Kalaes and Hera left the room, closing the door softly behind them.

“Let’s give them a few minutes before we set out,” Alendra said, her voice hushed. In the light slanting through the high windows, her eyes were the color of honey, and her skin glowed.

Stop. Stop feeling and wishing and expecting
. He stood by the door and inhaled the breath of morning drifting through the door, the fruity scent of thousands of Gultur gathered in one place.

Be the weapon Rex wants you to be
. 

Chapter
Twenty

A
lendra strode
a step before him, her pale ponytail fluttering and breaking into golden strands with the cold breeze. He followed, keeping the small distance as it befit a prisoner, looking at her booted feet rising and falling,
tum-tum-tum
, a drum setting the rhythm of his steps.

Furtive glances to the side showed buildings of white stone like the ones in Bone Tower, small crystals in their surface catching and reflecting the light, torturing the eye. Trees lined the street, thick trunks with holes and protrusions, and then the foliage like tousled hair on top, rustling softly, whispering.

Keep your eyes down
.

Birds flitted from tree to tree and roof to roof with a flutter of wings, chirping and cooing. An aircar zoomed by, a long transport S152 with darkened windows. Pelia’s had been one of those. His heart beat faster, and he clenched his hands, trying to calm and center himself.

No feelings. Not now
. If Rex brought him down, he’d have no chance of making it.

The scent of the flowers growing in long, rectangular pots at the entrance of each building was heady; at times it covered the Gultur scent that permeated the city. Which was just as good, because Rex reacted to the Gultur scent like a dog chasing a cat.

Cat
. He wondered where Cat had gone. He remembered how Cat had attacked Hera when she’d been angry with him. He’d hoped for an ally, small as Cat was, but it was not to be.

Alendra took a narrow side street. As he followed, he looked up and started, shocked into immobility. The tall roofs glinted like silver, reflecting the morning light like mirrors. He’d never seen anything like it and soon he had to avert his gaze, blinded. He resumed walking, blinking white spots from his eyes.

Pissing incredible
. Instead of the stench of urine and rotten trash he’d expected from a back alley, a perfume of flowers and pungent herbs drifted on the air. Instead of graffiti and piles of trash, upturned garbage containers and filthy street kids, he saw a clean floor of white cement that echoed faintly with their steps, pots with flowers lining the walls and a huge painting of a ship taking up a wall.

He thought of Afia’s and Jek’s faces, of all the street kids huddled around them, thin faces and grubby hands, watching, silent.

Afia. I’ll do it
.

Tum-tum-tum.
Alendra’s tread brought his gaze back down, to the soles of her boots, barely stained, their
nepheline
material a soft gray.

They turned into another street, just as narrow, just as beautiful and clean. A bird hopped not ten feet away, a sparrow, fat and fluffy, pecking at a plate filled with crumbs, thoughtfully put out of a door.

Feeding the birds, but not the mortals.
Anger welled in his chest. He pushed it down.
Not now
.

They came out into an avenue. Aircars passed by, elegant and polished, moving in neat lines. A Gultur was crossing, head held high, barely glancing right and left as she did. The aircars halted to let her pass, then resumed their traffic.

Civilized. Controlled. Perfect.

Dammit, stop thinking. Stop feeling
.

Easier said than done.

They crossed, weaving among the aircars. The vehicles slowed as the two of them made their way across, and he hunched his shoulders, trying his best to look meek and submissive.

It was a relief when they vanished inside another narrow street with the now familiar pleasant smells and sounds. A cat strolled by, but it wasn’t Cat. This one’s eyes were green and its fur white like the walls of the houses.

They walked street after street, and Elei’s heart calmed, lulled by the monotony of their actions.

Then, they exited into a wider street and he gasped, looking up and up, at the Palace of the Gultur.

“Holy shit.” He’d never seen anything remotely like it. Not even the temple of Bone Tower compared to this. Huge columns, white and shiny, curved inward, toward the jewel-like building at their center. Like the skeleton of a beached whale, like the bars of a cage, they only focused the eye on the Palace, a tower made of metal sheets, vertical and undulating like enormous ribbons, like a sea anemone he’d seen once in a book. It glittered and seemed to move.

Scent of Gultur. Danger
. Rex stirred inside his head, drumming against his possessed eye. The parasite was aware. Of the danger. Of the Gultur women’s scent. Of potential death.

He thought he was prepared, but when blinding pain shot down every nerve, it almost sent him sprawling. He staggered and fought to keep upright as hot needles tore through his bones and muscles.
No, gods, no
. He couldn’t fall. He had to make it. He couldn’t let Alendra see—

“Hurry.” She grabbed his arm and dragged him along, so that they entered together through an arched gate made of shimmering black stone.

Alendra paused, and he was grateful for the moment to breathe through the pain. “Are you all right?” Her limpid eyes looked concerned.

Or maybe Rex was twisting everything in his head.

“Yeah.” But fire speared his lower back and he clenched his teeth.

“Come on, Elei.” Alendra tugged on his hand, her face set in serious lines, her small mouth pursed.

He nodded and she released him, striding away. Through the storm of pain, he forced his feet to move and he stumbled after her, his vision tunneling, the only light her lithe figure. They walked alongside the street surrounding the Palace, to what he guessed had to be the back. Hard to tell with such a strange construction.

Shuffling his feet, focusing on Alendra’s boots, he realized they’d entered the Palace grounds when he heard more voices and smelled Gultur, many, together, a wave of scent drowning his senses.

“
Em hotep
,
senet
.” a gravelly female voice said from his left, but he dared not raise his gaze to look. “
Imeyer ra
?”

Gods, he’d forgotten that inside the Palace one spoke a different language.

“
Em hotep
,” Alendra said and paused. Had Hera taught her enough to get by?

Yeah, when?

Silence stretched, confirming his fear.

“You are not Gultur,” grated the guard, annoyance clipping her voice. “Who are you working for?”

Elei chanced a glance up at the guard. The Gultur was elderly, still strong, with wide shoulders and a lined face. 

“Phoebe.” Alendra’s cool voice repeated the information Hera had given them. “I arrived a week ago, on orders of the House of Delphon.”

“Phoebe? Only yesterday she told me that she had no mortals in high positions in her House.”

Shitshitshit
. Life forms in the periphery of his vision lit up with deep orange and red — Gultur and humans. A cat jumped from the fence, its body flashing crimson, then vanishing, dismissed as unimportant. Guns in Gultur guards’ holsters blinked, cool blue and outlined in white.

“Maybe so. My position is only temporary,” Alendra said, coolly.

“And it will remain so, seeing your lack of etiquette,” spat the Gultur. “I know Phoebe likes her girls young, but you have no manners!”

“I never—”

A slap cracked and Elei’s gaze snapped back up, his heart slamming against his ribs. Alendra held her cheek with her bandaged hand, her eyes wide. The Gultur smirked darkly.

“Shut your mouth until I ask you something. And your slave here needs to learn respect. He’s looking at you. Teach him.”

He didn’t know what he expected at that point, but he was unprepared for Alendra swinging her hand back and cracking her open palm against his cheek.

It was mostly shock that sent him staggering back. The hit was muffled by his hood, and besides, nothing compared to the pain Rex regularly dealt him. His hood slipped backward, though, and he pulled it deep over his mismatched eyes before the Gultur got a good look at his face.

“Keep your eyes down,” Alendra barked at him and he jerked his gaze down to the flagstones of the yard, away from her reddened cheek.

“Now.” The Gultur sounded pissing smug. Damn her. “What’s your business here?”

“Kitchen duty for him,” Alendra snapped, her angry tone sounding genuine. “He lagged behind the others. Needs to be put in his place in more ways than one. Doing dishes in his lunch time will teach him to work faster.”

Lunch time? Had they been walking for so long? A quick glance to the side showed him the short shadows of a tree and the fence. Midday. He wondered if Kalaes and Hera had begun with their distraction.

“I do not see anyone marked for dish washing today.” The Gultur’s voice turned shrill. “This is suspicious. I’ll call my superior.”

Danger, danger
. Impulses went through his body, warning signs — his leg muscles stiffened, ready to run. His stomach twisted. Cold sweat ran down his back, trickling between his shoulder blades. 

“Listen, I did not enter his name in the list.” Alendra’s voice sounded a little out of breath. Elei hoped the Gultur wouldn’t notice. “Last minute decision.”

“We do not do things this way around here.” A pause. “I must check with your owner before letting you in,” said the Gultur. Her head flashed a blinding yellow, on and off, on and off. His Rasmus in Alendra’s belt was outlined in white light. Rex was making it easy for him —
grab the gun, shoot the Gultur, run
.

His hand was already reaching out for the gun, when shots rang in the distance. Alendra’s gaze flicked to him.
Kalaes and Hera. The distraction
.

Alendra leaned toward the guard. “What’s happening?” she asked, her voice careful but also somehow eager.

The woman drew her longgun, longer than Hera’s, with double barrel and a sound suppressor attached to the front. That silent bullet might hit Kalaes or Hera and kill them, and they wouldn’t even know where the bullet came from. The Gultur’s outline sparkled, silver, and the pulse of her heart flashed golden in her chest.

A touch on his shoulder, and he glanced aside to see Alendra. He hadn’t realized he’d started toward the Gultur, a hand on the hilt of his hidden dagger.

Right. Not now
. The guard was moving toward the gate they’d come through. Others were pouring out of the Palace, guns at the ready. His chest was a tight knot of tension. He pressed his hand to his diaphragm, trying to ease his breathing.

“Who are you? What do you want?” another Gultur asked, longgun pointing to the paved ground.

“Taking this mortal inside for kitchen duty,” Alendra said smoothly and he envied her self-control when his hands were shaking.

“Go then and stay indoors until we know what the matter is.”

Alendra nodded and gestured for Elei to follow her along a path of flat, black stones set in the white pavement like islands, slightly raised and polished.

Every muscle in his body trembling, Rex hammering on the back of his eye, he stumbled along, his gaze flicking between the Palace and the gathering Gultur. The headache slithered down his clenched jaw, down the crown of his head, gathering at the back of his neck, tensing his shoulders.

They entered through the arched door and stood in a high-domed hall. Heavy-set women hacked meat into pieces with broad knives, white fish and red whale or seal flesh.

“Hera said to cross the kitchens to the main halls,” Alendra whispered. “Beyond the kitchens are offices, and then the Ceremony Hall.”

All heavily guarded
. “Fine,” he pushed the word out through gritted teeth. Rex screeched along his nerves and a streak of pain rushed down his legs.
Hells
. His pulse jumped, then sped, pounding at his temples, echoing in his ears. He took a step back.

From behind came the sharp crack of a knife on stone, jolting him.

“Stay off my table, boy.”

He turned. A woman, probably a mortal, held the knife raised, her face and clothes spattered with blood.

Blood, gore, dismembered bodies, a stench of burnt flesh and loosened bowels.