CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
VESPER
I twisted a knob on the control panel. In response, the camera hovering over the forest biodome lowered, giving me a better view through the swirling leaves.
Kyrion towered over Roderick, who was clearly dead. Good riddance. Kyrion exhaled and lowered the Erzton lord’s war hammer to his side, and an answering knot of tension loosened in my own chest.
By this point, I had figured out most of the buttons and switches on the control panel, and I used them to shut down the psionic dampeners and other sensory-deprivation devices, disarm the traps, and open the maze exits.
I also gave Jeffrey another vicious kick in the ribs, but he was still out cold, so I grabbed my trident and left the control room.
I should have gone slowly, just in case any more Hammers were lurking in the facility, but my steps quickened, and within seconds, I was running through the corridors. I raced down the stairs to the ground level and plunged into the maze.
Without the psionic dampeners, I was able to sense exactly where Kyrion was, and it didn’t take me long to reach the forest biodome.
He was sitting on the bench watching the leaves twirl up and down in the man-made breeze.
Roderick’s hammer was now laid out across Kyrion’s lap, like he didn’t have the strength to hold it any longer, and the lunarium was barely glowing with his dark blue magic.
Tiredness rippled through the bond in continuous waves, along with the discomfort of the gruesome blaster burn on his left hand. The psionic shield Kyrion had used to wall off the injury was slowly cracking, allowing more pain to seep back into the Arrow’s body and reverberate along the bond to me.
“Kyr!” I rushed forward. “Are you okay?”
It was a silly thing to ask, since I could feel just how much he was hurting, but Kyrion smiled at me anyway, and it was as warm and welcome as the sun breaking through a dark, stormy cloud.
He set the hammer aside and slowly hoisted himself onto his feet. He smiled at me again, but his shoulders slumped, and the sticky cobweb of him ached. “More or less. You?”
“More or less.”
I put the trident down, and Kyrion stepped forward and cupped my cheek in his uninjured right hand. I stood on my tiptoes and pressed my lips to his. The air in the biodome was chilly, but Kyrion’s lips were warm and firm, and I drank in the solid, quiet strength radiating off him.
Kyrion’s hand drifted up into my hair, and he wound his fingers through the tangled locks and drew me closer.
I curled my hands into his ruined jacket, relishing the steady beat of his heart underneath my fingertips.
I drew in a breath, and his spearmint scent sank deep into my lungs, sharp and sweet, just like the blue-moon peonies in my mindscape.
The sticky cobweb of Kyrion in my mind vibrated with pleasure and relief. I hummed in response and deepened the kiss, my tongue flicking against his—
“I told you they were fine,” a familiar voice said.
Kyrion and I broke apart.
Siya was now standing in the forest biodome. She lifted her war hammer and propped the weapon on her right shoulder, then jerked her chin at Kyrion and me. “They’re well enough to kissy-kiss, so I’m assuming neither one of them is particularly close to dying.”
Asterin stepped into the biodome, still clutching her silver blaster. She glanced back and forth between Kyrion and me, then sighed with relief.
“Any more Hammers in the facility?” I asked.
Siya shook her head. “No more Hammers are roaming around, and no guards are stationed outside. Looks like Roderick kept his inner circle pretty small. Not surprising, considering the circumstances.”
Asterin walked over and stared down at Roderick.
Her face paled, and her eyes darkened with grief.
Thanks to Kyrion’s telempathy, I could feel exactly how much she was hurting.
The bumps and bruises the Hammers had given her were small stings compared with the spears of shock that kept lancing through her chest.
“I can’t believe Roderick did this to us, to me. I thought he was . . .” Asterin’s voice trailed off, and she shook her head in a violent motion, making her long black hair whip around her shoulders. “I don’t know what I thought he was.”
Siya stretched out a hand to comfort her stepsister, but Asterin skirted away. She didn’t even see Siya’s hand or the concern that creased the other woman’s face.
A bitter laugh spewed out of Asterin’s lips, and Siya, Kyrion, and I all grimaced at the harsh, caustic sound. “Yet again, I was completely wrong about someone,” Asterin muttered. “Sometimes I think that’s the story of my life.”
The shock on her face quickly vanished, replaced by a disgusted sneer, although I couldn’t tell if she was angrier at Roderick for his horrid crimes or at herself for not seeing the charming lord for the cruel beast he had truly been.
Asterin sneered at Roderick’s body a moment longer, then spun around and stalked away. Siya watched her leave, but she didn’t call out to her stepsister.
In the distance, shouts sounded, along with a high, piercing whistle. Kyrion and I both tensed, but Siya waved her hand.
“That’s Rigel giving me an all clear,” she said. “I used my tablet to send him a distress call, but he was already on his way here, thanks to you, Vesper. I should go find him and the other House Collier Hammers. And Asterin too.”
Siya nodded at us, then left the biodome.
Kyrion looked down at Roderick’s body, and the sticky cobweb of him pulsed with even more weariness, along with an icy rage that took my breath away.
“If I could, I would kill that bastard all over again for everything he’s done,” Kyrion growled.
“To me, you, Asterin, Siya, and all the people he hunted and murdered in here.”
I laid my hand on his upper right arm, careful of his injuries. “I know. Me too.”
At my touch, Kyrion shuddered, and some of the icy rage thawed in his body. When he looked at me again, his eyes were calm, although his body sagged with exhaustion.
“Let’s get out of here,” Kyrion muttered. “I never want to see this place again.”
I slipped my arm around his waist. Kyrion leaned on me, and together we left Roderick’s body behind to be covered up by the swirling, falling leaves.
We returned to the control room to find Siya and Asterin talking to a man in his fifties with light brown hair and ruddy skin.
The man was wearing the emerald green of House Collier, and his jacket stretched across his broad shoulders and stocky chest. Even though the battle was over and our enemies were dead, the lunarium hammer clenched in his fist was burning with a bright golden light.
Rigel’s dark brown eyes flicked over Kyrion and me. No emotion showed on the other warrior’s face, but the angry glare on his hammer dimmed in what I could have sworn was relief.
“I thought the two of you were going to do some simple training,” Rigel rumbled. “Not dig up a scandal big enough to bring down a major House.”
Kyrion shrugged. “Vesper and I are overachievers that way.”
Rigel barked out a laugh and clapped Kyrion on the back, making the Arrow wince and wobble on his feet.
Rigel and the other House Collier Hammers quickly took control of the scene. First, they made sure all the House Battis warriors were dead and then gathered up their tablets and weapons. Rigel also sent some Hammers to the garage to see if any more explosives were attached to Siya’s transport.
Meanwhile, Kyrion and I followed Siya and Asterin into the locker room. Siya opened the locker, and Kyrion and I fished out our stormswords, blasters, and tablets.
Kyrion plucked a skinbond injector off his silver bandolier of supplies and stabbed it into his upper left arm.
The healing chemicals flooded his system, and some of the tense lines of pain eased in his face.
He slowly curled his left fingers into a fist and opened them again, although the gruesome black blaster burn remained on his palm.
“You want to go into the infirmary and get healed by a medtable?” Siya asked.
Kyrion shook his head. “No. The medtable will make a record of my injuries, and the less House Battis knows about what happened, the safer we will all be. I can wait until we get back to the Collier estate.”
Kyrion used a second skinbond injector on himself. He offered the other ones on his bandolier to me, Siya, and Asterin, but the three of us had minor injuries that didn’t need immediate attention. None of us was in the best shape of our lives, but we would live.
The four of us returned to the control room. Jeffrey was still unconscious on the floor, but Siya cracked her hand across his jaw several times, and he finally jerked awake.
Jeffrey blinked and blinked, as if he didn’t know where he was or what was going on. Slowly, his eyes sharpened, and he glanced from me to Kyrion to Siya to Asterin. The technician jerked back again, but he was trapped against the control panel, and there was nowhere for him to go.
“Listen closely, Jeffrey,” Siya said in a deceptively light, pleasant voice.
“You have two options. You can keep quiet and allow me the pleasure of breaking all the bones in your body with my hammer, or you can start talking and hope that I only leave you to rot in a House Collier detention facility. Your choice.”
Jeffrey sucked in a breath. “It wasn’t my idea. None of it was my idea. Roderick was behind it all, I swear! He’s the one who lured people into the maze, not me . . .”
Jeffrey spilled his proverbial guts like the spineless coward he was. According to the technician, Roderick had been using the maze as his own personal playground for the last three years, and he’d lured dozens of people to the facility, locked them in the maze, and hunted them after hours.
“We used the lava to incinerate most of the bodies, but Roderick ordered the Hammers to bury a few of them,” Jeffrey said. “In the flower beds in the garden biodome with the House Battis castle statues.”