Fenturi Fate (Spacestalker Saga Book 1) (25 page)

Zebram didn’t know what to make of the tense undercurrents he could feel swimming through the room.
He motioned for Cyka to have the doors sealed and waved everyone toward a large table to the side of his throne.
He watched the Mari curiously.

Garen held her by the arm and practically dragged her to the table.
When she would have sat, he sighed loudly and held her upright until Zebram took his seat, then Ren shoved her into her chair.

Her eyes glowed with anger as she stared at his brother, but then something interesting happened.
Garen grinned at her.

Zebram could feel his mouth gape in shock at the sight of his taciturn brother smiling.
Not wanting to spoil the moment, he turned to find Myla watching the pair intently.

“Welcome to Bylar,” Zebram said.

The woman fixed her bright gaze on him, and he found himself helpless to look away.
Fascinated by her dazzling eyes and obvious sensuality, he stared at her before he heard a low growl just to the right of him.

“Simmer down, Mra,” Garen said.
The noise subsided, and a sudden shimmering alerted Zebram to the cat’s presence.
Koneru immediately stepped closer, but Zebram motioned him to stop.

They all watched as the cat sniffed Zebram, her large teeth white and menacing as she neared Zebram’s face.
Then she stepped away and walked back to the Mari’s side.
By the Goddess, a guidecat!

“Ah, Garen?
Perhaps introductions are in order?”
Zebram tried to still his pounding heart.

“Sure thing, your highness,” Garen said dryly.
“The Mari, as you call her, doesn’t believe she’s the Mari.
Her name is Dare.”

“Dare, a pleasure to meet you.”
Zebram tried to contain a grin when she looked from him to Garen questioningly.
“Yes, he is my brother, though he’d rather cut out his tongue than admit it.”

Castor chuckled but covered the sound as a cough when Garen’s eyes narrowed on him.
 

“I see you’ve met Castor as well as the rest of Garen’s crew.
This is Myla, a Fenturi witch.”
Zebram introduced the older woman.
“Beside her is Thela, her charge.
Cyka is my advisor, Koneru my personal guard.”
He pointed everyone out.
But his focus remained on the female who’d made his brother smile.

Dare studied the man sitting so calmly across from her.
He looked much too young to be king, though she knew he’d assumed the throne upon his father’s death.
His dark hair and similar facial features easily proclaimed him kin to Ren.
But the king’s eyes were a darker green than Ren’s.

King Zebram had no problem announcing his ties to Ren, and she liked him for it all the more.
She wondered how he managed to look so young and yet seem so mature at the same time.
Before her sat the leader of the Legion, the most powerful man in the System.
He had the capability to sentence her and her friends to immediate death, something she knew old King Zedrax would have had no qualm about doing.

“About my crew,” she began when Ren interrupted her.

“I told her,
King Zebram
,” he emphasized their relationship to one and all, and Dare could have sworn she heard Zebram sigh, “that you’d deal with the pirate vessel and her crew after you tell her exactly why she’s here.”

“Perhaps Myla can explain it best.”
Zebram nodded at Myla.

Ren tensed and narrowed his gaze on her. Interesting.

“Yes, I can in fact.”
Myla’s eyes shone with a hidden wealth of feeling.
The old woman seemed inordinately pleased to see her, and Dare had the feeling she should know why.
Something about Myla was vaguely familiar, but when Dare searched inward for the memory her head began to pound.

“Easy, young one,” Myla said in a foreign tongue.

How Dare could understood the words and command behind them, she didn’t know, but her head stopped hurting. Then
Myla reverted to common tongue.

“A millennia ago, the System fought the Ragil Horde and won.
Using the Thrax, a weapon created by the Nexians and Ocaians, the Mari destroyed the Horde’s superior fleet.
In the time since, thoughts that the Horde was destroyed prevailed.

“But the Horde did not vanish, instead using the time to rebuild and grow.
In the years since, the Thrax was put aside and all but forgotten, save for those of us who were there.”

At her words, even Zebram looked astonished.
“You never did say how old you were.”

“No, I didn’t, did I?”
Myla gave a sly smile.
“The point is, the Thrax sits now in Ocaia, the exact location known only to Aranthe.
He will not submit it for study to the Nexians, convinced that only a Mari can power it.”

“But what is all this ‘Mari’ talk?” Dare asked with frustration.
“I’m Fenturi, yes.
But so are you, and so is she.”
Dare asked Thela,
“Why don’t you make it work?”

Myla shook her head.
“It doesn’t work that way.
Once a generation, a Fenturi is born under the Mari moon.
The sun shines off the moon like magic, and that light settles on the chosen child.
You, Darel N’Alen, were chosen long before you were born.
Shalyl and Radilen knew it.”

Dare stared at the woman in shock.
“How do you know my parents?” Once again, panic unfolded as the past intruded upon the present.

Ren put a calming hand on her shoulder, and when she tried to shrug him off, he pressed firmly. “Calm yourself. Nothing will hurt you here.”

Dare did her best to regain her sense of balance, though she studied Myla, wondering what secrets she hid and why.
Dare didn’t like talking about the past.
She desperately wanted to know more about her parents, but the part of her that had helped her survive an early trauma warned against it.
The past was dead, and those connected to it could only bring more harm. Or so she’d always thought.

“Get on with it, witch-woman,” Ren said coldly.

“I mean no harm,” Myla apologized.
“But you must know I speak the truth.
We’ll talk of it when you’re ready, Dare. Not now.
But to answer your question,
you
were born under the Mari moon, and only
you
can power the Thrax.”

Thela spoke up.
“Shouldn’t we be more concerned just now to find the weapon? Where is Aranthe?
Who is Aranthe
?”

“Yes, Myla.
How will we find this man?
W
ith the Horde so close, so threatening, how can we afford to wait at all?” Zebram asked. “Why did we not send Garen and Dare straight away to Ocaia?”

Apparently he listened to more than Cyka. Dare again took the young king’s measure, curious that he’d take the word of a Fenturi woman and that he seemed to trust her.

“I know fear invades us as deeply as the Horde once did.
But the cycle must repeat itself.” Myla sounded…off.
She turned to Ren, her gaze flittering between him and Dare.
“You will find Aranthe, an Ocaian ocean dweller, in the heart of Isus.”

Dare needed a little more.
“Isus is the biggest storm in Ocaia.
How do we get through that considering none of us can breathe underwater?
And I don’t swim,” she said firmly.

Ren glanced at her in surprise but said nothing.

“The
Eyshan6
is equipped to handle such an environment,” Castor said, almost apologetically.
“We had the modifications done last year.”

“We did?” Ren asked.

“Yes,” the twins said as one.

“Oh, right.” Castor shrugged. “You were taking care of that thing on Meklen with B Squad. It, um, well, it was per King Zebram’s insistence.”

“And you never felt the need to tell me about my own ship?” Ren then turned to his brother, and Dare had the feeling things were about to get ugly.

“Okay, so the
Eyshan6
can get us into Isus, only the biggest water storm on the planet,” she said quickly.
“Even if we find it, I still don’t know how to power the thing.
By the Dark World, I don’t even know what it looks like.”
 

“Yes, you do.” Myla nodded, her words kind.
“But you’re not ready yet.
I suggest, King Zebram, that I speak with Dare alone. Your brother’s crew is tired, and there are things she and I must discuss.”
She ignored Ren’s firm “No” and continued.
“You have other matters more pressing right now than you know.
With Thela and Castor’s help, I believe you will have audience with the man you seek.”

Dare saw Zebram perk up.

“Truly?”

“Yes, Zebram.”
Myla rolled her eyes. “I do not think your brother is a good influence on you.
Before you always trusted me.”

“It’s not that, Myla, it’s just—”

“It’s of no matter.” She cocked her head, as if hearing something none of the others could. “We have no time.
Apparently Dare and I can wait.
Castor, Thela, my king, please come with me.
I think Garen can care for Darel in our absence.
I’ll find you later, dear,” she said to Dare.

Zebram gave Ren an odd look, and she saw the affection brighten his face before Ren’s glare dimmed the joy. “Yes.
Make it so. Unless my brother has any objections?”

“None.” Ren moved closer to Dare, but as the others left, he shouted after them, “Have a care with my Second. He’s got memory issues.”

Castor responded with something profane.

Ren looked down at Dare with a smile on his face.
Then he sobered and said, “Come, let’s leave this place.
I know where we can rest and not be seen.”
He left instructions with the twins to rejoin him in a few hours, then took Dare by the hand and departed the stone room.

Dare felt his need to be free from the palace and went with him without question.
In
stead of returning to the shuttle, they walked away from the royal houses and into the village.
They moved past curious eyes and respectful if fearful nods toward Ren, into the woods bordering the Vinopol kingdom.

Dare followed on sure feet as Ren took her deeper into the forest, through twists and turns until they ended at a wall of rock.

Ren moved a swath of vines aside to reveal the entrance to a small cave. “The grotto used to seem much larger,” he murmured.
“Come.”
He motioned for her to follow him.
They walked through the darkness with ease before the light found them again.

Ren waited until Dare caught up to him.
She gasped when she looked around her.
Three holes in the ceiling of the cave allowed light to stream through the mid-sized area like magical fingers of radiance.

Around them on the walls of rock, lush vegetation grew like fancy wall-covering, softening and warming the space.
The ground was part sand near the large pool of water in the corner, and part grass away from the pool.

A stream of sunlight illuminated the green pool in the corner into an incandescent, almost fantastic spot. Like bathing in a dream world.

“What
is
this?”

“My secret place.”
Ren smiled before his face was leeched of joy.
“When I was younger, I felt almost suffocated by the harsh reality of the palace.
I spent much of my time looking for an escape.
Somehow I found this place, almost as if I was drawn to it.” He ran a hand over an abundant vine lacing the stone wall.
“I’m not a fan of the water, I’ll admit. But it’s so calm here, and the sound of the water lapping against the rock around it is soothing.”

She could feel the draw of the place, calling to the wildness inside her. “It’s beautiful.” She read what remained unsaid.
An outcast in his home, not loved or wanted by the butcher king, Ren had needed—if not to be with the Fenturi—to be around nature, salving that inherent desire to heed the call of the wild.