25. CHAPTER 25
Kira
The Capital
Kallum, Ciondo
The solace from no longer awaiting constant danger allowed Kira to calm her body.
The fear sharpened in her mind, though. Knowing she'd never return to her old life, even if that didn't feel real yet, hurt in the same cruel way as the last time everything changed.
After losing her mom, Kira waited and waited to be reunited, and to return to warm days in the woods with her, or late nights reading with a flashlight under the blankets.
Eventually, Kira understood that life died that day, but her heart never stopped waiting.
So, she needed little time to recognize losing her whole world a second time. This wasn't something a person came back from in the empire.
That bottomless grief only fueled her determination to fight against her captivity and the plan to slaughter the Followers.
So, while Kira felt acutely aware of the pain, she also regained the mental clarity to plan and evaluate.
Finally feeling it meant she was processing it.
Resisting requires taking care of herself, and all of this was part of that.
Adelle loved long walks outside, so Kira strolled with her any time the woman offered. Inside, Ms. Pumpkin became a constant companion, last night curling up with her while she slept. While Kira soaked up their comfort, she also took inventory of everything she saw in the house to make her drone.
The security team stripped the house of weapons, even removing pens from the rooms Kira used.
No one knew to hide the remote-controlled car left in a box of memories, a relic of the Riven children before war consumed them.
In fact, Kira hoped the classes she purposefully failed in the last few years of her schooling adequately hid previous records so no one realized she ever studied drones.
Becoming invisible in the capital of Ciondo as a woman without a family, especially one who didn't offer great benefit to society, wasn't that difficult.
Doing so as the sole prisoner of the Riven household was completely different.
She hoped she raised no suspicion lying on the ground to play with the cat, secretly tinkering with circuit boards under the couch.
The third day after Zayne left, Kira wandered outside for a nap in the sun.
She laid a blanket out on the grass and pulled another over her for warmth.
The covering also hid the paperclips she straightened and wove together to create weights for her drone.
Not her most elegant work, but also not the hardest to explain if any of the security guards in the distance noticed.
Her mind ruminated on her friends and whether the Phaedra might target them next, or how she hoped Zayne had actually delivered the letters, or if Elijah could let her go without searching.
The warmth of the sun brought comfort while she worked. The time alone carried in pain, too, and she accepted both. It was okay. She and her friends were okay in this moment.
The edges of the paperclips scratched against her fingertips repeatedly until they all felt sore to the touch. She wasn't sure how many weights she may need, so she kept crafting more.
Soft footsteps drew her attention, and she hid everything as she sat up, the smile already warming her face at seeing Adelle. Only it wasn't her.
Alarm cut through the peace of the last several days and shredded any sense of security. High General Riven approached, his inhumanely cold eyes on her. Kira stumbled up to her knees, heart racing. What if he found the paper clips? Nervous habit. She needed something to do with her hands.
How could he suspect anything worse?
Her heart raced faster with every step the High General took toward her. Zayne's warning repeated in her memory. Do whatever his father says. Whatever.
“High General,” Kira said, now on her feet.
“Ms. Stiles. I'm pleased to see you're feeling more comfortable here than in the prison.”
She glanced down at the blankets. “Thank you for your hospitality.”
Those eyes. All gray. All ice. She saw Zayne in them, if someone ripped out every shred of his conflicted spirit and left him with nothing except duty.
This man stood at the Phaedra's side and led the war that massacred innocent people all over the empire.
He personally signed orders sending young teenagers to the front lines to die.
Never had Kira stood in the presence of someone so powerful and heartless. A war criminal. The worst kind.
It wasn't hard to imagine Luke becoming this man, but for all Zayne's faults, she couldn't see him with eyes like that. Was he really going to lead at the Phaedra's side one day?
She saw the hints of softness beneath Zayne's uniform, but also all that his father expected him to be.
And she also saw that boy drowning in the freezing tank.
This man did that to his own son.
Heat rolled across her body. Actual waves of hot anger. What else had he done to Zayne? Had he ever hurt Adelle?
There was a flicker in the High General's eye like he saw the change in her, but if it upset him to see her anger, he didn't show it. Rather, he looked as if he had calculated a math equation. “Your mother knows you're here with us now, and she knows what information we expect her to provide.”
“Can I talk to her?” Kira asked.
Hope and desperation collided in the pit of her stomach, the two fighting for dominance in a war ripping her heart wide open. A tremble started in her fingers. What if her mom sacrificed innocent people for her?
How horrible did she feel realizing the danger Kira faced?
A chilly night crept into her memory. Snow had collected along the edges of the windowsill in the children's home the day she accepted that she'd never see Mom again.
At one time, the thought of it eviscerated Kira's heart.
Time wore away at child-like trust until it faded to faith, and from there hope, and finally a dream.
A dream until the last year at the home when she prepared to enter Kallum as an independent adult, and the reality of the empire dissolved whatever remained of that idea that Mom might find her.
The death of her dream did not arrive unexpectedly or in stabbing pain. The hurt, long buried beneath years of normal, dimmed over time into an ache. An incredibly deep ache.
Today, the thought that Kira may see Mom again plunged her into that young mind who knew with certainty she'd never survive without the mom she adored.
If Kira thought it may help, she'd drop to the ground and beg.
High General Riven didn't seem the type to appreciate anything like that.
Instead, Kira stared into his steely eyes with the faith and hope of a child, so desperate that she refused to yield to the fear of looking directly at the Phaedra's second in command.
“Please,” Kira said.
“It may be good for the two of you to talk, but the United isn't cooperating right now.” He nodded once. “If I can arrange a talk, I will.”
A breathy gasp squeezed from her constricted lungs. “Thank you. Thank you, I'll—”
“You'll tell her what you need to in order to thank the Phaedra for his kindness.”
Right. Right.
The Ciondo that chiseled away at her innocence dropped onto her shoulders and knocked her back into the present, into the mind of an adult who knew too well this empire gave nothing for free.
Zayne's warning entered her mind. His father was one of the most powerful and dangerous men in the world.
Regardless of whether Kira planned to say what he wanted her to, she didn't need to tell him that.
So, she dipped her head slightly. “I understand, High General.
Can you tell me if she's safe? Or where she is?”
Discerning eyes studied her. “Your mother is safe and well. Concerned for you.”
Disappointment stung that he didn't even share the country where she stayed, though Kira expected nothing else. If she managed to send a drone out of here, she needed to include as much information as possible to help her allies find her mom and send Kira's message to her.
“Your mother will do anything for you. I'm sure she'll find a way to help us.”
The heat of her anger returned in a swift spike, and the intensity of her emotions overwhelmed her. “Yes, she loves me. She'd never let anyone hurt me.”
That was exactly what Zayne didn't want her to do. Without pause, Kira discovered what the true attention of the High General of the Ciondian Empire felt like. Cutting in every way, from his shoulders to his sharp look, he transformed the atmosphere in a second.
“Do you need to say something to me, Ms. Stiles?”
Growing up, they said not to even look into the eyes of a Riven, because of the power the Old Ones bestowed on their bloodline. Though Kira knew that was ridiculous, she expected to die on the spot.
But strangely, he didn't look infuriated like she expected. He seemed curious.
Swallowing down the bitter regret of losing her temper with him, Kira struggled for breath. But then she couldn't muster any words.
A brow raised. “Well, go on.”
In her memory, blood drifted through water, clouding her view of a young Zayne. The isolation and horror of the tank overcame her. When she blinked, she saw Zayne sitting in the kitchen, eyes still filled with that icy water. Body still scarred.
Kira met the High General's eyes again, and though her voice sounded low and frightened, the words came easily this time. “You never should have left Zayne with Dr. Cooper.”
An amused smirk quirked the corner of his lips. “Is fifteen minutes in the tank all it takes for you to understand suffering and sacrifice?”
The anger burrowed deeper inside her. “Is that what you raised Zayne to do? Suffer and sacrifice sufficiently for you?”
His head tilted ever so slightly. “For me?” A low hum. “This is not the life I would choose for myself or my family. It's the life we must live.”
“I would burn the empire to the ground before giving my child to Dr. Cooper.”