Tempt the Devil (The Devil of Ponong series #3) (29 page)

The waiting Ponongese looked back at him with uninterested
gazes. He had no idea what their opinion of him was, but they didn’t seem to
fear him. Why had that worried him earlier but comforted him now? Nothing
changed in Levapur, ever; only the way he saw it changed.

As soon as their car crossed the intersection with the
road, the jungle canopy arched over the rails again and he couldn’t see the
harbor road.

“It’s a huge problem,” Voorus said.

It took a moment for Kyam to remember what they’d been
talking about. “I wish you hadn’t told me,” he admitted. Playing politics made
him sick. The truth should always come out. People of honor didn’t cover up
evil, especially when the government was the source of it. Expediency was moral
corruption. He liked the Ponongese. But…

“What will we do about it? Keep it to ourselves and mull
it over until we think of the most advantageous way to use the information? Do
we keep letting people die, or do we risk giving the Ponongese reason to murder
us in our beds?” Voorus asked.

“Not now!
We’ll discuss this later.”

Voorus
looked queasy. “Are we bad people?” he asked plaintively.

Kyam wished he had the answer to that too.

~ ~ ~

Kyam and Voorus
rushed
out of the funicular the moment their car was unlocked. They ran across the
white sand on the narrow beach to the militia’s dock. The afternoon wind was
rising, and with it white caps formed on the waves beyond the breakwater.

“Is that–” Kyam frowned at the rowboat crossing the
harbor.

Voorus shielded his eyes from the sun and peered across
the turquoise water. “Ma’am Zul was at the fortress again?”

Kyam was more surprised that she’d already met with Voorus
than he was to see her in the rowboat coming from the fortress. He was a bit
jealous to see her accomplishing so much while he foundered. “I’m sure she had
her reasons.”

“I escorted her home. She was safe.”

“What danger do you imagine she was in at the fortress?”

“I– Well– It’s no place for a woman,” Voorus
said.

“No,
indeed, especially if she’s Ponongese.” Kyam paced the dock. “Could they row
any slower?”

“I think
she’s trying to tell us something.”

Nashruu was
waving her hands frantically over her head. She cupped her hands around her
mouth, but her voice was swept away in the breeze. She gestured emphatically to
the fortress and pointed somewhere upslope, but they couldn’t guess the
message. She tried to grab an oar from one of the soldiers. They easily shoved
her away, but they moved a bit faster.

“She’s
something, isn’t she?” Voorus grinned.

Kyam turned to him slowly. It only took a little slip to
reveal the truth. Voorus and Nashruu. His half-brother and his wife. His gaze
lifted to the sky as his mouth set in a grim line. The only swear word strong
enough was a guttural, “Grandfather.”

He wasn’t
even sure why his temper snapped. He knew when he’d married Nashruu that any
child she bore wouldn’t be his. But the way Thampurian men saved face when
their woman cheated was to kill her. He hated that way of thinking, but years
of being told that real men wouldn’t allow her to live if she shamed him were
hard to ignore.

“It wasn’t
her fault. I seduced her. Please, don’t hurt her,” Voorus begged.

Kyam
clapped his hand on Voorus’ arm. “I won’t. You’re a good man to try to protect
her.”

Voorus
still looked worried. “She’s entirely innocent.”

“Oh, ho!
I doubt that. Now look here, don’t panic. It’s okay. She’s not in danger. Not
from me. You have my oath on it.”

“You’re not just saying that? Don’t hurt her.”

“I’m not going to hurt her.” Kyam realized his raised
voice wasn’t making his case. He motioned for calm. “We need to have a long
talk about Grandfather and this clan, and why you have to believe me when I say
that I will not harm Nashruu.”

“You looked angry.”

Kyam would not lose his temper. He would not. He set his
jaw and patiently explained. “I’m sorry if you misread my facial expression. It
had nothing to do with her.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m–” He had to bite his tongue and soften his
voice again. “I’m sure.”

“Then what were you thinking about?”

Why wouldn’t Voorus let it go? Now he had to lie. “I was
thinking about Lady QuiTai.”

Voorus
chuckled. “She will do that to you. Make you a bit crazy.” He rubbed his chin. “Are
you and Lady QuiTai…?” He made hand gestures that might have implied sex,
although Kyam found them incomprehensible.

“No.”

“It’s
just, sometimes it seems you two are…” Voorus shrank back from Kyam’s grim
look. “Oh, look. The rowboat is almost here.”

~ ~ ~

Kyam stood back as Voorus leaned over to reach for the
rowboat’s sturdy bow. It rocked violently as Nashruu rose. He helped her up
onto the dock as one of the soldiers tossed the bowline to Kyam.

Nashruu gestured frantically toward the fortress. “We don’t
have a moment to spare. Cuulon’s there, and he’s taken Lady QuiTai into the
torture chamber. I ordered Colonel Hurust to stop him, but he simply ignored me.”
She gasped as if this outburst had used the last of her breath. “You wouldn’t
happen to know where I can find a farwriter, do you?”

Kyam put a foot on the bench in the rowboat but kept the
other on the dock. “Try the Harbor Master’s office at the end of the wharf.
Contact Grandfather and see if he has any soldiers hidden in Levapur. If he
does, gather as many as you can and bring them to the fortress, quickly. If he
doesn’t, warn Intelligence that we have a situation here and the colonial
militia may have gone rogue.”

“Oh no! You’re not going to drag Intelligence into this!
Grandfather won’t stand for it,” Nashruu said.

Voorus stepped between them. “We need help right now. Don’t
be picky about who sends it. You two can work out credit for her rescue after
she’s been saved.”

Nashruu made a face, but she nodded.

“Go now. I’ll do what I can at the fortress.” Kyam
finished boarding the rowboat. “Go with Nashruu, Voorus. Persuade people to be
helpful to her.”

“You may need my help.”

Kyam reached over to remove the rope from the cleat
holding the boat to the dock. “That’s why I need you to join me at the fortress
as soon as you can.”

“Oh!”
Nashruu clasped her hands over her mouth. Her eyes were wide. She pointed at
the fortress with a trembling hand.

The boat
rocked wildly under Kyam as he turned to see what had frightened her.

A
prisoner convulsed at the end of a rope beneath the fortress rampart. The legs
kicked frantically as the prisoner tried to get her hands free. The body swung
and twisted, bouncing against the stone walls with each kick.

Kyam
staggered back a step. Horror silenced him as a tsunami of hopelessness engulfed
him. He sank to the bow bench as his knees weakened.

QuiTai
didn’t have one last scheme up her sleeve. She was gone.

Despair punched his gut. Nothing felt real. He wanted to
claw back time and do it over again. He wanted to go to the fortress instead of
going to see Lizzriat again. Why hadn’t Nashruu stayed by QuiTai’s side and
protected her? Hadn’t she understood the danger QuiTai had been in?

A wave of disbelief hit him. It couldn’t be her. But hope
died in his heart. Who else would they have killed? Cuulon had gotten to her.

You could drown in despair, he thought. It was heavy water
that seeped into your clothes and pulled you under the surface. Even if you
managed somehow to stay afloat, the misty misery clogged your lungs and made
you breathe in great sobs.

Hopeless,
he tried to find something to grasp onto. All he had was anger. This was all
QuiTai’s fault. She’d made him arrest her. She’d tricked him into it, and now
it had backfired on her. She wasn’t as smart as she thought she was. She
shouldn’t have risked this much. And for what? He’d never know.

How could
she do this to him? She’d promised freedom and then snatched it away. She was a
cruel devil, a demon. For years, he’d made it clear that all he wanted was his
old life back. She knew that. She knew it and she took it away from him again.

Kyam pursed his lips and drew in a deep breath.

He hated her.

“Are we going or not?” one of the soldiers asked.

He turned away to hide the tears brimming in his eyes. Why
had she insisted on going to the fortress? She should have let him know what
she was up to. Maybe he could have helped her.

But why would she have confided in him? He’d done nothing
but sulk since the rice riot. It was his fault they’d grown apart.

Damn her. Damn her to hell. She shouldn’t have let him
treat her like that.

Kyam forced himself to look at the fortress, but couldn’t
make his gaze go to the body dangling, lifeless now, from the rope. Soldiers were
leaning over the ramparts to watch the hanging. He was too far away to see
their faces, but he imagined them smirking.

The soldiers in the rowboat with him laughed as they
imitated the prisoner’s frantic kicking. Kyam came to his feet and grabbed the
nearest one by the collar. He knocked the soldier down and pummeled his face.

Voorus jumped into the boat and grabbed his arm. “We don’t
have time for this.”

He had all the time in the world to wipe the smile off the
soldier’s face forever. The other one huddled against the stern as he tried to
pull the oar out of the oarlock.

QuiTai was dead. The universe had come to an end.

Nashruu shouted from the dock. He ignored her.

Voorus grabbed his arm and held on tight. “It’s a man,
Kyam. Look. A man. It isn’t her.”

Panting, Kyam looked up.

He couldn’t see the purpling face, but he saw now that the
prisoner was a man. So why did his heart still feel as if it were going to
crack his ribs? He knew the hanged man’s tongue was swelling now, his last
breath burning in his lungs. Terrified and desperate, he’d spend his last
seconds in horrible pain.

“From his sarong, he’s Ponongese, but he’s a man,” Voorus
said.

He heard what Voorus said. Part of him understood, but he
was so blinded by grief that he didn’t see immediately. Slowly, the truth
dawned on him. QuiTai was still alive; he wasn’t too late.

Kyam slowly groped his way back to the bench. He licked
his lip, tasted blood, and knew it wasn’t his.

He looked at the corpse. How had he ever thought that tall
man was his QuiTai? Even the sarong was the wrong color. His relief was
short-lived, though, as he realized Voorus was right. He’d let another innocent
person die because it felt like wasted effort to make things right. His stomach
clenched with a new kind of sickness.

“What did he do?” Voorus grabbed the beaten soldier by the
collar and glowered down at him. “Why is he being executed?”

“Don’t ask me. We didn’t have any prisoners except the
Devil’s whore. Not that I knew about. He’s just a damn snake. Why do you care?”
the soldier whined. He shot a fearful glance at his companion. The other man
shook his head hard and gripped the oar to his chest.

“Why did that happen?” Voorus shouted as he pointed at the
fortress.

The soldier’s face scrunched up, as if bracing for a blow.
“I don’t know! Maybe he fanged someone.”

Enraged, Voorus shoved the soldier back down. His nostrils
flared as his chest rose and fell rapidly. Completely disgusted, he shook his
head. “That!” he said to Kyam. “That’s what happens when good men hold their
tongues. Take a good look, Governor, because you know who it will be next time.”

Voorus climbed onto the dock and stomped to the beach.
Hands on hips, he looked up at the cliffs and shook his head several times as
if struggling to keep his temper. He turned suddenly and waded back through the
deep sand. “Okay. We have to stop Cuulon from killing her. But this matter does
not go away. Do you hear me?”

Should he make a promise when he knew he wouldn’t be
around to see it through? Kyam wished he had QuiTai’s talent for bending words
into artful paper cranes. He wasn’t proud of himself for doing it, but he was
politician enough to nod as he pushed away from the dock with one of the oars
and began rowing. One thought of QuiTai at Cuulon’s mercy made him put his back
into it.

Hurust
couldn’t move
his head. He was at the far end of the torture chamber, yet
only a second ago he’d been ten feet away, at the door. He felt as if he were
falling backward, and he tried to use his arms to brace or balance, but they
wouldn’t move. Struggling didn’t help. He’d shackled enough prisoners to the
torture board to know there was no escape. He tried to shout, but only gurgled.
His eyes darted back and forth.

He didn’t know how this had happened. Cuulon had shut the
door to the torture chamber a mere second ago. He remembered a sharp pain on
the back of his hand and looking down to see a thorn in it. Then, suddenly, being
transported across the room and secured to the board. There was nothing
between.

Cuulon was slouched in a chair with a foolish grin on his
face. He had dreamer’s eyes. Hurust didn’t smell black lotus in the stale air
of the torture chamber, so how had Cuulon taken vapor?

He saw two thorns sticking into Cuulon’s cheek and
understood. They weren’t thorns; they were darts. Somehow, that snake had
smuggled a hunting pipe into the fortress.

Hurust flinched as a familiar voice whispered in his ear.