CHAPTER SEVENTEEN #2
Disgust crinkled Kyrion’s face. “So that’s why some of the flowers in there were so much larger and more colorful than the others.”
Siya shook her head. “More trophies,” she muttered.
Asterin shuddered, her face pale and tight. Siya shot her a sympathetic look, but Asterin was too distraught to notice it.
I looked at Siya and raised my eyebrows in a silent question, and she shook her head again.
Siya might have told me about Roderick cheating on Asterin all those years ago, but she wasn’t going to reveal the information to her stepsister.
At least, not tonight. That was probably for the best. Asterin didn’t need any more heartbreak right now.
By the time Jeffrey finished talking, Rigel and the other House Collier Hammers had completed their sweep of the training facility.
Rigel stepped back into the control room. “We’re clear. No other personnel are on-site.”
Kyrion stabbed his finger toward the corridor. The bodies of the House Battis Hammers I’d killed were still sprawled across the floor. “What are you going to do with them?”
Siya swiped through a few screens on her tablet.
“No idea. Right now, Aldrich and Verona think the best course of action is for us to quietly slip out of the facility, but I don’t see how we’re going to explain what happened to Roderick and his people.
We can always claim they were alive when we left, but I doubt anyone will believe that.
” She sighed. “Either way, the story about Roderick’s death will be all over the gossipcasts by morning. ”
“Is that a bad thing?” I asked.
Siya looked up from her tablet. “House Battis is arguably the most powerful of the Erzton Houses. They’ve never been particularly friendly to House Collier, but this will officially make them our enemies.”
Kyrion frowned. “Even though you have footage of the Black Scarab and Roderick attacking Vesper and me in the maze?”
Siya shrugged. “We’ll keep a copy of the footage, but I doubt it will be much help.
Even if we release it to the gossipcasts, Lady Battis will probably claim it’s fake and that her darling son would never do anything so horrific.
She’ll do her best to discredit and undercut House Collier at every turn.
Even if this incident doesn’t boil up into an all-out war, Lady Battis still has enough money, influence, alliances, and resources to make life very, very difficult for us. ”
Rigel nodded, agreeing with Siya’s assessment. Asterin’s face paled again, and she clutched her stomach like she was going to be sick. Kyrion’s forehead crinkled with concern.
“Then give everyone a different story to tell,” I said, breaking the tense silence.
Rigel frowned. “What do you mean?”
I gestured over at the black box of explosives sitting on a nearby table.
One of the House Collier warriors had retrieved it from the corridor and brought it into the control room.
I also pulled the detonator out of my pocket and showed it to my friends.
“Roderick was planning to blow up Siya’s transport to explain away our deaths.
I say we use his own trick against him.”
Siya and Rigel exchanged a look. Asterin chewed on a fingernail and glanced back and forth between them.
“Roderick and his people dying in a transport crash would be a much more palatable story,” Siya said. “The unexpected and tragic death of an heir to a major House.”
Rigel tilted his head in agreement. “And no one in House Battis could point a finger back at House Collier and claim we were responsible for either the crash or Roderick’s death.”
The two of them stared at each other a moment longer, then both nodded. Asterin let out a soft sigh of relief.
Kyrion nudged me with his elbow. “Have I told you lately how brilliant you are, seer?”
I nudged him back with my own elbow. “You can never say it too often, Arrow.”
He laughed, but then his eyes narrowed. “Why do I get the sense that smile on your face isn’t just for me?”
“You’re right. It’s not just for you.” I rubbed my hands together in glee. “I’m smiling because I’m finally going to get to blow some shit up.”
Siya forced Jeffrey to download the footage of our battles in the maze onto our tablets, along with all the information he could access from the House Battis servers.
Next, she made the technician erase all traces of us from the training facility, like the main control panel had malfunctioned and accidentally deleted all the surveillance from the last few hours.
Rigel and the other House Collier Hammers quickly cleaned up the blood and erased all the physical signs of a fight on the control level. Then they took the bodies, including Roderick’s, down to the garage and loaded them onto the large House Battis transport I’d seen earlier.
Two hours later, it was like we had never been here at all.
I planted the black box of explosives on the ship and made sure the detonator I’d confiscated earlier was still working. I also engaged the transport’s autopilot and synced it to Siya’s ship so she could control both vehicles at once.
Once that was done, the Hammers loaded Jeffrey onto their ship, along with the lifeless Black Scarab from the maze, and headed for the Collier estate.
Siya and Rigel wanted to blow the machine up along with the House Battis transport, but I’d convinced them to spare it.
Studying the Scarab might tell us where it had come from, or more importantly, who had given it to Roderick and Jeffrey.
When everything was set, I boarded Siya’s ship. She was at the controls, along with Rigel. Kyrion and Asterin were standing behind them. I joined my friends on the flight deck, and we left the transport garage.
Lucky for us, the training facility was located at the top of a rocky ridge, so no other businesses or homes were nearby. Siya steered her transport away from the facility, then set it in hover mode. She flipped some switches, took control of Roderick’s ship, and also steered it out of the garage.
Siya maneuvered Roderick’s ship so that it was drifting over a wide, deep chasm on this side of the mountain. “You’re sure this will work?” she asked.
“Of course it will work.” I waggled the black detonator at her. “I blew things up all the time in the R&D lab at Quill Corp.”
“I didn’t realize brewmakers needed to be tested in an explosive capacity,” Rigel replied in a wry tone.
I grinned. “Well . . . they don’t. At least, not so many times. But it was an excuse for me, Bodie, and the other lab rats to have a little fun. Explosion day was always the best day in the lab.”
Siya and Rigel exchanged a look like they thought I was a few solar batteries short of a full charge. Kyrion let out a soft laugh at my dark humor, but Asterin stared dully at nothing, just as she had been doing ever since we left the control room.
I waggled the detonator at Siya and Rigel again. “You sure you want to do this? Destroy the evidence instead of revealing Roderick’s crimes?”
Siya and Rigel exchanged another look, and they both nodded.
“We’re sure,” Siya replied in a firm voice. “House Collier can’t afford to make an enemy of House Battis. Especially not now, when we’re still recovering from the attack by the Serpens Corp mercenaries.”
“Roderick should be punished for his crimes,” Asterin muttered. It was the first time she had spoken in several minutes. “They should all be punished. They shouldn’t just get away with it.”
Siya hesitated. “Roderick and the others have been punished,” she replied in a gentle tone. “They’re dead, and we’re not.”
“What about all the people Roderick killed?” Asterin asked in a low, tense voice.
“Jeffrey gave us a list,” Rigel chimed in.
“He kept records of everyone Roderick lured into the maze just in case Roderick ever turned on him. We’ll figure out a way to quietly notify the victims’ families and tell them what happened.
I don’t know what else we can do, especially since Roderick and his people destroyed most of the bodies. ”
Asterin reluctantly nodded, but she didn’t look at Siya or Rigel.
I know what I’ll do, Asterin’s voice muttered in my mind. I’ll leak the story to the gossipcasts as soon as House Collier is free of suspicion.
Siya and Rigel didn’t react, as though they hadn’t heard Asterin’s thought. I glanced at Kyrion, who shrugged. He’d also heard Asterin’s vow, but he wasn’t planning to do anything about it. Neither was I. Roderick should be held accountable for his horrific crimes, even in death.
Kyrion gestured out the window at Roderick’s transport, which was still drifting over the chasm. “Won’t the House Battis technicians comb through the wreckage to figure out what really happened?”
Siya shrugged. “Let them. Thanks to Jeffrey, there’s no footage that we did anything wrong, and Roderick’s explosives can only be traced back to him, not to House Collier.
Our story is simple. You and Vesper trained in the maze, and then we all returned to House Collier.
Roderick and his people left sometime later, their ship malfunctioned, and they were killed in the explosion. ”
“And what if Lady Battis realizes there’s a body missing and that Jeffrey wasn’t on board?” Asterin asked.
This time, Rigel shrugged. “Given the amount of explosives on the transport, it’s going to be hard for anyone to find any remains in the wreckage. Besides, the techs will be focused on recovering Roderick’s body. I doubt they’ll search too hard for Jeffrey or anyone else.”
It wasn’t the neatest or cleanest cover story, but Siya and Rigel were right. With no security footage and decimated wreckage, it would be difficult, if not impossible, for Lady Battis to find any evidence, point a finger, and accuse us of any wrongdoing.
“Okay, last chance to change your minds,” I warned my friends.
Siya and Rigel glanced at each other, then nodded. Asterin also nodded, although she still didn’t look at anyone.
“Do it,” Siya said.
I flipped the red switch.
BOOM!
The transport exploded in a massive fireball that lit up the night sky like a miniature sun. For a moment, the ship hovered in the air, burning brightly. Then it began to fall like a meteor dropping through the atmosphere . . .
BOOM!
The transport slammed into the bottom of the chasm. Another, larger fireball erupted, and within seconds, the entire ship was engulfed in flames.
Asterin spun around on her heel and left the flight deck.
I wouldn’t have wanted to watch the ship burn either.
It was hard to realize that someone you had cared about, someone you had trusted with your heart and body, wasn’t the person you thought.
I’d experienced that same pain when I realized that Conrad Fawley had not only cheated on me but also agreed to help Rowena and Sabine Kent get rid of me.
“You should go check on Asterin,” Rigel said.
He looked at Siya, who chewed on her lower lip. After a few seconds, she shook her head. “No, Asterin will think I’m gloating and saying I told you so about Roderick. You should do it.”
Rigel nodded, then got up out of the copilot’s seat and headed after Asterin.
Siya took hold of the controls and steered her ship away from the chasm. I kept staring through the windows. Maybe it was a quirk of my seer magic, but I could have sworn I saw Roderick’s bloodred armor burning in the heart of the fire. I shivered.
Kyrion threaded his fingers through mine. “It’s over. He can’t hurt us anymore.”
I squeezed his hand and leaned my head against his shoulder, drinking in the comforting warmth of his presence. Kyrion was right. Roderick Battis was dead, and he would never hunt—or kill—anyone else in his maze.
But I couldn’t quite ignore my seer magic, which kept whispering that this wasn’t the end of our problems—and that Roderick wasn’t the only enemy who’d been behind this latest attack.