Sword of Dreams (The Reforged Trilogy) (56 page)

"Good." Captain Felsus rose, too, with a creak and a grunt. He did not bow, but inclined his head to Maeve. "I hope you won't be offended when I say that I hope you leave soon, princess."

"No," Maeve answered gravely. "We cannot afford to waste time here."

"We'll be in the air tomorrow afternoon, after the funerals," Duaal said.

Captain Felsus nodded. With final heavy farewells, he limped out of the Blue Phoenix.

________

Duaal stood in the cockpit. He traced the deep scratches in the back of the pilot's chair with one finger. Outside, the sun had long since set behind the Kayton Mountains. Only the faintest trace of violet twilight lingered between the high peaks.

"He was proud of you," Xia said from the door.

"I know."

Duaal sat in Tiberius' chair. The ship had been untended for a long time while they were up in the mountains…

"It's getting late. Are you coming to bed?" Xia asked.

Duaal turned on the computer. Screens flickered to life across the cockpit. "I've got a lot of work to do. There are a lot of checks and preflights to do before I even think about taking her back into the core," he said. "Go on to bed. Don't wait up for me."

Xia stood in the door, watching the young captain of the Blue Phoenix for a long moment, then turned and slowly made her way back to her own room.

________

Logan Coldhand stood on the skypad and stared up at the Blue Phoenix. It was late. He had thought that everyone would be asleep, but the cockpit remained lit. Someone was still awake. Was it Xia? Duaal?

Two days had done nothing to clear the hunter's head. Two days of wandering Pylos and then Pine Spire, even contemplating returning home to Highwind. He could go back to Vorus, tell his teacher that he had been right all along.

But Vorus knows. He always knew.

And then what? Felsus was not looking into the bounty hunters identity, but how long would that last? Logan's Raptor was gone, buried under tons of stone up in the Kayton Mountains alongside the Pylos Waygate. He could get a ship – buy or steal one, if he had to – or pay fare for one of those rare ships leaving Prianus for the brighter lights of the core.

But I don't want to. I don't… I don't want to go. I don't want to leave.

I don't want to go alone.

Everything ached: mind, body and soul. Since waking up in the hospital room with a mechanical heart six years ago, all Logan wanted was to feel again. Anything. Pleasure or pain, joy or terror… And now he felt. He felt everything and it was too much. Logan had no idea what to do. The flood of feelings was too alien and strange. What was he supposed to do now?

The Blue Phoenix's airlock was closed, but Logan remembered the entry codes. No one had changed them. The thick fibersteel door thunked open. Logan stepped through and sealed it behind him. With luck, whoever was still awake in the cockpit would not have noticed the breach.

The Blue Phoenix had not changed much. The hold was empty of cargo. Gripper's planter garden still hung from the ceiling, overgrown now after weeks of inattention. There was a heap of NI pallets along the wall, straps and webbing hanging from hooks, but none of the archeologists' equipment had been salvageable. It was all gone.

Logan climbed the stairs quietly and crept through the darkened ship. The only lights were the pale amber strips running along the floor on either side of the small corridor. System displays and network ports glowed green and blue in the bulkheads, but cast so little light that Logan could not see his own feet underneath him. That was fine… He knew where he was going.

Logan was in the aft of the ship, the row of rooms where Tiberius had kept the captive bounty hunter almost eight months ago, as the Blue Phoenix hurled itself into the corona of Axis' sun. Just two doors away was his destination – Maeve's room. Logan touched the glowing orange sensor square and the door slid open. The hunter slipped inside.

The same amber lightstrips ran around the edge of the room, around the joint of the floor and walls. Maeve was asleep on her bunk, lying on her side with wings tucked tightly against her back. Her sleep had been restless and her sheets were twisted around her knees. Maeve had certainly been through more than enough to give her nightmares for a lifetime, even a long Arcadian lifetime.

Xia's work had erased most of the physical marks of the Nihilists' torture. There were pale scars on her smooth white skin, but nothing livid. Maeve's long, sooty lashes rested against her high cheeks. Her black hair was much shorter than it had been on Stray. The inky locks lay softly across her small, fine-featured face.

The hunter stood now at her bedside, staring down at her. Maeve did not stir. She was… what? Beautiful? Logan supposed she was.

She is beautiful. The most beautiful woman I've ever seen
.

Alone in her room and sealed away from the Prian cold, Maeve wore little. Just the light, filmy dress of her temperate homeworld – a wisp of pale blue cloth tied around her narrow hips. Every smooth, svelte line of her slim body was bared to the hunter's gaze.

I don't know how to feel this way. I don't know how to feel at all.

But finding her in Pylos had kindled something in Logan, a hot ember inside him that made the blood rush in his ears. He felt it even now. The sight of her, the memory of her kiss… It made the whole world feel tilted on its side and feel full of… of…

I can't do this anymore.

I need to be like I was. Something has to die again.

Logan slid his Talon-9 free of it holster. It was Maeve. It was all Maeve. She had been a mark, but she wasn't even that anymore. She was just… just some fairy woman. Why did she make him feel anything at all?

Somehow, Coldhand knew that no one else would ever make him burn like this. He pressed the barrel of the gun to Maeve's temple, just above her delicately pointed ear. It would be so easy. That was what Maeve said back on Axis, as she held his gun and tore his clothes. It would be easy. All he had to do was pull the trigger to remove this problem, this confusing and confounding woman. His trembling finger tightened. Kill her and it would be done.

It… it would be easy. Easier than feeling all of this… But I don't want to… I want… I want…

Logan's thoughts chased each other like moths around a flame, closer and closer to the bright, lovely danger. Logan dropped to one knee beside the bed. He still held the Talon against her temple, and pressed his lips against Maeve's. She tasted sweet, like honey or some rosy nectar. The ember inside Logan flared.

Maeve stirred in her sleep. Storm-gray eyes fluttered and opened. Logan knew he should stop. This was a bad idea. Worse than stupid. Logan pulled away – even with the kiss broken, he still tasted Maeve's sweetness on his lips – but felt her fingers curled around the back of his neck.

"I thought today that you had gone again, Logan," she whispered.

"I should have," he said in a thick voice. Everything seemed to rush and echo inside himself. "I can't do this. After all this… After what Hallax took from me… He killed me. But now… What I feel now burns me, Maeve. I want to rip my heart out, but I know it won't stop."

Logan's voice failed. His computer-regulated pulse beat too hard, too fast. Had the mechanical pump broken? He pressed the gun harder against Maeve's head. Her staring silver eyes were bright as stars. Her fingers twined into his hair.

"I remembered you, my hunter," Maeve said quietly. Her lips brushed his ear and a chill raced down Logan's spine. When had she gotten so close? "In the darkness, I armored myself in thoughts of you."

Logan's metal hand clenched, denting the bunk's welded frame. "But Gavriel got what he wanted from you. He hurt you, Maeve."

Her hand trailed along his tight jaw, down his throat and across his chest. "You hurt me. What does it matter to you if another man touches me?" she challenged.

"I had to find you," Logan whispered so softly, as though trying to keep the secret even from himself. "I… I thought of you every day. I want… I need…"

"Illa enarri eru,"
Maeve sang under her breath. None of the delicate Arcadian words were ones that he knew. "I need you, Logan."

The fairy seized a fistful of his shirt and pulled him close again, kissing him deeply. The ember inside Logan burst into flame at her touch. His blood was on fire and every inch of his skin felt feverish. It was heaven, it was hell and he was burning. The Talon tumbled from Logan's nerveless fingers, forgotten.

Maeve's hands trembled as she grasped the hem of his shirt and pulled it up over his head. It was not cold in her room, but Logan shivered. The pale scar left by Hallax's sword stood out bright white even in the dim light. Maeve's feathered wings rustled, trembling in anticipation. Her fingers traced the line of the Prian's shoulders, down his tensed arms, over the joint of metal and flesh just beneath Logan's left elbow. The sensation of her touch was suddenly distant. He started and pulled away.

"What have I done?" Maeve asked.

"I'm not a whole man." For the first time, the hunter felt not anger or loss at his maiming, but shame. "I haven't been able to be with a woman since this happened. I don't know if I can do this."

Logan remained on his knees beside her bed with his unfeeling illonium hand curled uselessly at his side. Maeve stood. She was so small…! Even kneeling, Logan was almost eye-to-eye with her.

Maeve was naked to the waist. She tugged once at the knot of her skirt and even that fell away. The fairy raised her wings high. She stood proud, lovely and defiant before Logan, but when she spoke, her voice shook. "Then I will show you such pleasure that you will never again doubt your ability to feel."

She took both of his hands in hers and pressed them firmly against her nude body. The cold metal of his left hand raised goosebumps on her pale skin, but her breath caught. Logan caressed the impossible silky perfection of her, trailing his fingertip over her belly and the curve of her hips, then up her arched spine and between her wings. Maeve gasped and a rosy flush spread across her breasts.

She wants me to touch her…

He wanted it, too, Logan realized. He was on his feet in an instant, pressing the fairy back against her bed.

________

There was one last journey to be made into Pylos. Captain Felsus gave Duaal clearance to set the Blue Phoenix down in the Raptor landing field. Even Gruth limped down the cargo ramp, leaning heavily on a borrowed crutch and dressed in the best of his clothes that could be salvaged from the ruined camp.

North Pylos Police Station Three was crowded as before, but subdued. Word had spread about the events in the mountains and even the hardened Prian criminals seemed to retreat for the moment. Perhaps they were afraid, but Duaal liked to think that it was out of respect.

The funerals were held in a back lot, behind the precinct station. The cracked concrete was still wet from days of rain. The crew and passengers of the Blue Phoenix – including Logan Coldhand, Duaal could not help noticing – stood with the other black-clothed Prians, those families left behind by officers killed in the Waygate battle. Most of the hard blue eyes were sad but remained dry.

Of thirty officers, only four had returned. Two more had died of their wounds in the following days, leaving Felsus and a young female officer, Mell Savorse, as the sole survivors of Captain Cerro's force.

The bodies of the dead were wound in clean white cloth and lay atop twenty-four biers set up in a long line. Those claimed by the Devourers left no remains, but empty shrouds stitched with the fallen officer's name were folded neatly on the wood. Duaal and the others gathered at the end of the line, where Tiberius' body rested on a pyre under a white-barked birch tree. Orphia sat in the branches over her master, keening softly.

An iron torch burned in a tall black stand. The red-gold flame jumped and sizzled in the rain, but did not go out. Uniformed officers snapped to attention as the tall, weathered Pylos police chief strode across the concrete to stand beside the torch. He squinted at the gathered mourners and raised a fist to the center of his chest in salute.

"Our lives are only the last sacrifice we make in the line of duty," he said. The wind whipped the torch flame dangerously close, but he did not flinch. "The men and women of the Prian Police Force chose hard lives for themselves and their families, lives of honor and struggle in the face of overwhelming odds. There is no higher calling. We gather now to thank them for all they have done and bid them farewell. May God welcome them into the heavens as honored sons and daughters."

With his short speech finished, the tall Prian lifted the torch from its sconce and lit each of the pyres in turn. When he reached Tiberius, he paused. His voice was quiet, only audible to those gathered around the bier. "Hell of a thing to make it all the way to retirement, only to come home and die. But we thank you, Tiberius Myles. You served and protected Prianus long after your due. God welcome you, brother."

He touched the torch to the wooden pyre and flames licked up all around the shrouded body. The Pylos chief nodded to Duaal and the rest before moving on to deliver curt condolences to stoic widows and dark-clad children. There was warmer wetness on Duaal's cheeks than the Prian rain. He bowed his head beside Tiberius' pyre as smoke rose up into the clouds.