The Destiny (Blood and Destiny Book 4) (2 page)

It was a very tidy prison. Larissa could
appreciate that much about it. The spotlessly clean brig of the
RDS Eagle
even had miniscule portholes in the walls to let in some light. It would almost
be comfortable if it weren’t for the fact her cell was really only big enough
for one person, and for some reason, their captors had seen fit to stuff Sandy
and Larissa in together. Each of the cells had thick iron bars leading to the
next in two rows down either side, located at the base and rear of the ship.
They could see through to the cell beside them, though not reach out to touch,
for the gaps between the bars were barely big enough to squeeze fingers
between.

The men all had cells
of their own. They’d placed Cid in the farthest cell, which she only knew
because she could hear him griping about it loudly. Kerrigan sat in the cell
opposite, Saunders beside him. Holt had been placed in the cell next to
Larissa. She peered between the bars and saw him looking back at her. He’d
already turned pale, the boost from the poison in his veins wearing off
rapidly.

“I suppose they think
us less deadly than the men,” her cellmate Sandy said with a derisive snort.

“I guess so.”

She watched Sandy pull
her hands free from the rope tied behind her back then grip her wrists, rubbing
each in turn. With a slight wriggle, Larissa realized how easily she could
escape the binding rope. It made her smile for a moment to know Kerrigan hadn’t
sold her out completely—until she remembered where they were. Their plan had
fallen apart at the first step.

“At least we’re all
alive,” she said as she pulled her arms apart and discarded the rope.

“For all the bloody
good it’ll do us,” Cid yelled to her. Private conversations were going to prove
tricky in this environment.

“Why would the
President declare you dead, Colonel?”

“I don’t know. I’m
guessing I’m not in his favour any longer.”

“This is a problem. He
won’t want word to get out that you aren’t actually dead, not when he’s made
such a display of your death. He might just order Admiral Vries to kill us all
and dispose of the bodies.”

“I doubt it. Vries may
be a curmudgeonly bugger, but he’s the sort of man who will do everything by
the book, even at card games from what I’ve heard. There’s no protocol in the
military for allowing the unsubstantiated murder of civilians. The President
only has a few people in his confidence who are willing to operate outside of
those rules, and for good reason.”

“You being one of those
people?”

“Not any longer.”

She sighed and allowed
her head to thump on the bars, giving a satisfying clank of noise. She looked
over at Sandy. She’d hardly spoken two words to her new female companion since
they’d met, being too afraid and slightly in awe of her. Larissa had developed
a fairly reasonable fear of people who wore robes and practiced illusions for a
living. Sandy glared at the length of rope in one hand and wriggled as she
rummaged about in her robe with the other hand.

“What are you doing?”

“One moment… Ah, there
it is.” She pulled her hand out of what seemed to be a dubious place to have
been rummaging about and presented Larissa with a small, smooth stone.

“Very nice?”

“It’s the invisibility
stone I told you about.”

“Oh!”

“It won’t make you
actually disappear so you can walk through walls, of course. Not like your
boyfriend over there. But no one will see you for a time once it’s activated.”

“How long?”

“Not long. I haven’t
had a chance to test it completely, I’m afraid, but I’m sure you can use it
somehow. It’ll only work once, and then you’ll have to bring it back to me to
be recharged.”

Larissa took the stone
from Sandy. It felt utterly smooth and cold to the touch yet had a sort of
clammy coating. She rubbed her thumb over it, crinkling her nose.

“Where have you been
keeping this, exactly?”

“You really want me to
answer that?”

“Probably not.”

“Right. Time to start
work on getting us out of this cell.”

“You think you can do
that?” Larissa said, a pang of hope striking her heart.

“Better to try than to
sit around waiting for some burly Marine to come down here and collect us for
execution, don’t you think?”

“Sure. Hey, Sandy?”

“Yes, Cap’n Rissa?”

“I’m glad you’re here.”

“Thanks.”

Larissa watched Sandy
fiddling with the rope, tying it round one of the bars beside the lock. She’d
never watched the Cleric working on his illusions and had no idea how any of it
actually worked. It would be fascinating to see.

“Larissa.” Holt’s
voice, soft and low, caught her attention. He had moved up close to the bars.

She stood beside him,
so close they were almost touching, save for the bars separating them. “Yes?”
she whispered back to him.

“I know Admiral Vries.
I was a Captain on a ship under his command.”

“Oh? He didn’t seem to
notice you.”

“I guess he didn’t
recognize me. I expect he’ll come down here soon and speak with each of us, one
by one.”

“That’s the protocol to
follow?”

“Yes. Do you wish me to
withhold information from him, or would you prefer I took your honest
approach?”

“You’re asking for my
decision on what our course of action should be?”

“This is your mission,
Larissa. I will follow your orders.”

“You trust Vries?”

“You know me. I don’t
trust anyone. But if you’re asking me for an assessment of his character, I
concur with Kerrigan. He does things by the book.”

“You think he would
help us if we told him the entire truth?”

“If he believed you, he
would help. Making him believe is a different matter. It would be easier to
convince him that everything is simply a case of mistaken identity and that you
are completely innocent. He may let you go.”

“I don’t think I can
convince him that
everyone
here is completely innocent.”

“Agreed,” Holt said.

“We all go together or
not at all. I’m not going to abandon people to their fate now.”

“It would be helpful to
know his intentions. It is unlikely the mass of vessels lined up along the
coast were a welcoming party just for us.”

“You think they were
getting ready to go to war?”

“That was my first
assumption. As formidable a foe as you are, I doubt the President would order
the entire military to take you down. If he truly believed Kerrigan to be dead,
it would follow that he believed us to be dead also. If the
Eagle
has
been called to the front line to launch an attack on Eptora, I doubt Vries will
take his best ship all the way back to the Capital just to deal with a handful
of prisoners. It doesn’t feel like we’re moving at speed anywhere.”

“I don’t know that I
can get those kind of answers out of him. I’m no good at interrogation,
especially when I’m supposed to be the subject of the questions.”

“Just be yourself. You’ll
do fine. For now, we need to get our story straight.”

She took a deep breath
in and blew it out slowly. As simple as it would be to tell everyone what they
should say if asked, she still didn’t trust Kerrigan completely, or his men. If
their stories didn’t match up, it would only add to their troubles. She hoped
Vries wasn’t a bloodthirsty man willing to extract information out of people by
torture. If he wasn’t part of the President’s circle of men who were willing to
follow the most diabolical orders, that seemed like a good sign. She cleared
her throat and called out down the line of cells. “If you’re taken for
questioning, share only the basics of our journey. Try not to embellish the
story and inform the Admiral we were heading to the Capital to speak with the
President in the hopes of clearing our names.”

A few voices sounded
their agreement with the plan, though she couldn’t quite tell who they belonged
to. She peered between the bars on the gate, squinting to look across at
Kerrigan’s cell, only to find darkness.

“I think I can break
this open if you want me to,” Sandy said as they stood shoulder-to-shoulder, a
little too cramped in the space.

“Leave it for now. Thanks,
Sandy.”

“All right.”

“Fuck sake,” Cid yelled
in exasperation.

“What’s wrong, Cid?”
Larissa called back.

“Bloody Kerrigan tied
my rope so tight I can’t get my hands free.”

“Well that’s the idea,
Cid,” Kerrigan yelled back to him.

“Well it’s no fucking
use when a man needs to take a piss, is it? I can’t even get my…thing out of my
bloody trousers.”

A snorting noise came
from somewhere nearby, followed by Friar Narry’s distinct, booming laughter.
Before long, the entire brig filled with snorts and chuckling. As Larissa
glanced through the small gap in the bars, tears of laughter filling her eyes,
even Holt smiled and shook his head.

The sound of laughter quickly
dissipated with the thumping of boots down the steps towards them.

“Would someone like to
explain why my prisoners are laughing?” Admiral Vries boomed. Silence descended
throughout the brig. He appeared in the corridor, flanked by two thickly built Marines
with scowls on their faces. Larissa rolled her eyes; she’d had enough of
scowling guards with their excursion in Eptora. Sandy had a horrified
expression on her face. Larissa almost laughed; it seemed she had become so
used to violent and threatening situations that they were more irritating than
frightening these days.

“Who is in charge of
this group?” Vries called.

“I am.” Larissa pressed
her nose to the bars, voice strong and determined, as if there had never been
any doubt.

Vries turned to face
her, a questioning look in his pale grey eyes. “Very well, you first.” He pointed
to the lock, and one of his Marines pulled out a key. As the door swung open,
Sandy took a step back, looking all too happy to let Larissa out alone. She
gave her cellmate a reassuring smile and stepped into the corridor.

“I’d appreciate it if
you could untie the ropes binding my men, please, Admiral. It seems excessive
to tie them up when they’re locked in a cell, and they have certain biological
needs to tend to which require the use of their hands.”

The Admiral looked down
his nose at her, his moustache wriggling side to side slightly. Clearly, he
didn’t know what to make of a woman half his size making such a request of him,
let alone declaring herself to be in charge.

“Very well. Roper, see
to it. You, come with me.” He turned and marched up the steps, and she followed
behind. The voice in her head reminded her that she had successfully negotiated
with the Empress of Eptora. A curmudgeonly Admiral would be far less
intimidating.

Larissa had hoped she would be ushered to
the Admiral’s cabin. The
Eagle
was so large and meticulously laid out, she
would have loved the opportunity to have a peek at the place where the Admiral
got to spend his nights. She doubted he had to curl himself into a ball in the
foot well of his desk or sleep scrunched-up in a dusty old chair which smelled
like death. Instead, he led her on a long walk through the bowels of the ship,
passing white-painted wooden doors either side, probably leading to the furnace
room and storage rooms, though she could only guess. When he finally reached a
plain door at the end of the walk, he pulled a key from his pocket and unlocked
it, leading her inside.

No light greeted her on
the other side of the door. The room lacked portholes around the sides or candles
on the wall. The Admiral grabbed a lantern from the corridor and brought it in
with him, the door clicking shut behind. The Marine who had followed remained
outside, leaving her and the Admiral alone. As the light from the lamp
illuminated the small enclosure, she saw a table butted up to one end, an array
of shining implements laid out across it—knives, pliers, a saw, pincers, and a
line of long metal bars of varying length all filed to a sharp point. She
presumed it to be a carpenter’s workspace until she spotted the chains and
shackles attached to the walls. Her pulse quickened at the realisation of the
room’s purpose.

The Admiral grabbed a
small stool from under the table, placed it in the center of the room, and
gestured for her to sit with a stiff arm and pointed finger. She did so, not
wanting to risk angering him before they’d even started. She had no idea if
Imago still followed her around or not and didn’t want to rely on a phantom
ghost cat to protect her in every potentially violent situation. Her ability to
withstand a great deal of pain—and heal almost instantly—didn’t diminish the
fear of having any of those implements used on her body. She could only hope
the apparent threat of being tortured would not be acted upon. Maybe the
Admiral didn’t have the stomach to actually harm a defenseless woman.

“Your name?” he said,
perching his hip against the table.

“Larissa Markus.”

“Your occupation?”

“Retail Clerk.”

“That’s what you want
me to believe. You’re a wanted criminal, responsible for the destruction of the
Sallarium City Hub, the Aditona Hub, and the
RDS
Falcon
, along
with the majority of her crew and a number of civilian casualties. You are
accused of colluding with the Eptoran enemy, the capture and murder of Colonel
Gabriel Kerrigan, Professor Maximillian Watts, and a man named Doctor Orother.
There is a nation-wide order to capture you and those among your crew.”

“Orother destroyed the
Sallarium City Hub and was responsible for the death of the Professor. Colonel
Kerrigan is alive and well in your brig. The Empress of Eptora was kind enough
to let me leave her country after my crew and I had been forced to travel there
under duress. I will admit to having a part to play in the death of the Doctor,
but if you knew anything about the man, you wouldn’t mourn his loss. No one in
their right mind would,” she said, trying to bury the shock of hearing of her
public labelling with such crimes.

“And the Aditona Hub?
The
RDS Falcon
?”

“A mistake,” she said,
turning her face away from him only to catch sight of the shackles. Perhaps she
deserved to be tortured for her part in that. Perhaps she even deserved to hang
for it. “Are you going to torture me, Admiral?”

“I don’t think there
would be much point. I’m not overly interested in civilian affairs, and I have
an ear for lies. Stands me in good stead for betting games. You’re being honest
with me.”

“I am.”

“That was a statement,
not a question, Miss Markus.”

“So what
are
you
going to do with me? With my crew?”

“I haven’t decided yet.
As I said, I don’t tend to concern myself with anything outside of my orders.
The airship you acquired has interested me greatly, though.”

“Ah.” Her heart
fluttered a little. She’d forgotten about Cid’s amazing handiwork on completing
the engine and using the
Anthonium
to power the rotors, absolving the
need for the canopy. Of course that would interest the Admiral; the idea of a
fleet of ships with such power and speed at his command would weaken the
resolve of any man. Perhaps he was worried the Eptorans had such a fleet. If
she could convince him of that piece of information, it might be enough to
delay the offensive strike. Surely they would have to pause and rethink their
strategy in light of such news.

“My engineer can
explain how it works,” she said, her mind racing as she tried to hatch a plan
with all this newfound information. “I’m not sure he’d like to do so if she
thought he would simply be hanged for his efforts, though.”

“Are you trying to
bargain with me, Miss Markus?”

She stood from the
stool, no longer wanting to sit at the feet of a man who presumed himself to be
better than her. If she’d learned one thing in all the madness, it was that she
had to act strongly and decisively to maintain the illusion of authority. She
wouldn’t get much further in their trials if she remained the submissive and
meek girl she’d started out as.

“I’d be a fool not to
try, don’t you think? Why were you congregating along the coastline? What are
your orders?”

“I am the one asking
the questions, Miss Markus.”

“It’s the war, isn’t
it? You have orders to attack Eptora? I wouldn’t recommend it.”

“Oh? An expert on
military strategy, are we?”

“No, but I have just
come from there. I spoke with the Empress myself, in her palace. I know what
ships they have, the numbers, the type, and their placement across the country.”
She saw his nostrils flare and mentally kicked herself for embellishing. It
might just come back to bite her on the ass later.

“Then I suggest you
tell me all the details before I feel the need to use force.” He tapped his finger
against a pair of pliers. Thinking of pulling her fingernails out, was he? She
almost wanted him to, just so she could show him her ability to withstand pain
and heal instantly. Her heart fluttered again as she thought of it. If she
could show him that ability, he would believe.

“I’m willing to discuss
the details with the President and him alone in exchange for a pardon for me
and my men. If you want to try hurting me, go ahead.”

“You think I won’t do
it?”

“Oh, I think you will.
I’m just not in the least bit afraid of it. Do you know anything about Eptoran
history, their folklore, their legends?”

“I know they believe in
mythical creatures, godlike people, ghosts, and other such nonsense.”

“Interesting.” She took
a step towards where he perched on the table, then another step to the side. He
didn’t flinch. Of course he wouldn’t feel threatened; she was hardly a match
for him physically. It would probably take little effort on his part to snap
her neck. She hoped he would consider the information she’d claimed to know as
too important to just dispatch her in such a manner. Another step brought her
to the opposite end of the table. He watched her carefully.

“Don’t tell me you’re
planning on fighting me, Miss Markus.”

“Not at all. I just
wanted to show you something.” She grabbed the shortest metal spike, slammed
her left hand flat on the table, and plunged the spike straight into the middle
of her hand. The sting coursed through her entire arm up to her shoulder. The
shock of the self-imposed attack rattled through her body like an icy breeze,
and then, almost instantly, the pain subsided.

The Admiral flinched,
his mouth popping open slightly, just enough for her to see his bottom lip
poking out of his moustache. His restrained reaction impressed Larissa, as he
did nothing more than gawp silently. A trickle of blood escaped from the hole
and pooled beneath her palm. She lifted her hand, spike included, and raised it
up to show him, to make it clear there was no trick. Then slowly she removed
the spike. A moment later, the oddly familiar sensation of healing took over as
her skin replenished piece by piece. The blood stopped, wound healed, and she
dropped the metal spike to the table with a clank.

“Torture is not an
effective method to use with me, Admiral. Or any of my men.” She held his
stare, dark brown eyes glaring at her as though she were a madwoman. Perhaps
she was. She hoped the Admiral would accept the display and not question whether
the others in her group possessed equal abilities. The thought of any of them
enduring torture made her feel sick.

“I see,” he said after
a period of silence. “You wish to see the President?”

“Yes.”

“I will send him a
message and see what he says. In the meantime, we will head toward the Capital.
The fleet has not yet fully assembled. I can spare the time for a detour. Will
you agree to return to the brig and spend the time not causing trouble?”

“I will agree to that,”
she said. Seeing as he hadn’t defined what he meant by
causing trouble
,
it didn’t worry her too much. Their definition of
trouble
might vary
markedly. She stifled a grin as he exited the room and led her back along the
ship.

“I will question the
others,” he said.

“Of course. You’ll find
they’re a generally nice enough group of men. They won’t fear your torture
threats. You could try offering them a nice lunch—they’ll be more amenable to
your questioning.”

“Are you suggesting I
offer treats to my prisoners?”

“Yes.”

“You are an odd woman.”

“I’ve been told that
before. You might want to start by speaking with the man in the cell next to
me. You may remember him.”

“Oh?” As they reached
the staircase leading down to the brig, he turned. The corridor narrowed,
barely enough space for two people to stand side by side, and with his
impressively broad body, it made for an uncomfortable squeeze.

“Captain William Holt,”
she said, looking up at Vries.

“Oh.” The moustache bristled,
rocking side to side on his face for a moment as he physically chewed the
information over. He held out his arm, indicating she should go ahead, and she
did so, returning to the brig below.