Goner #3
The room was dark, the blue flames snapping in the grate the only illumination in the room, Hurley’s soft snores from the floor on Tanyn’s side of the bed accompanied the soundtrack of the fire.
And Tanyn and I were wound together in the middle of the bed, fucked out, sated, naked, and for my part, drowsy.
“Safe to say, we topped up the sex thing,” I mumbled.
“Indeed,” he replied.
“We didn’t talk much.”
“We’ll have more time over the weekend.”
I struggled against sleep claiming me to tip my head back and catch his eyes in the dancing blue lights.
“I’d like to know what’s happening with Gayle.”
He sighed and said, “I’ll get a comm confirming success. The operation isn’t going down until two in the morning.”
“Ah.”
“I’ve gone over their plans, Cat. She’ll be okay.”
“But Cormac will be pissed.”
Tanyn’s tone was very different, not replete and peaceful, but steely when he said, “The male has two choices. Claim her or let her go. He can’t have both.”
“Agreed,” I said soothingly. “You’re doing the right thing, no matter the consequences.”
He made a noise that was like a quiet, satisfied grunt.
Like I was discovering about him, what wasn’t hot, was sweet.
And that was both.
“Word on Tatra?” I asked.
He sighed again. This time it was heavier.
Then he said, “There was a sighting.”
I shot up in bed. “Seriously?”
He pulled me down to him again before he confirmed, “Seriously.”
“Where?”
“The Center.”
“A sighting. What does that mean? Obviously, she isn’t in your custody, or I hope you would have shared that before having your way with me…four times.”
I saw the shock of his white teeth in the dark before he said, “Yes, I would have shared that with you before I fucked you…four times.”
“And?”
“And, by the time a unit was sent in to get her, she was gone.”
“But she’s in the Center.”
“She was. Yesterday. And where she was seen was the home of a suspected Arnaud, or perhaps it’s just Tatra, sympathizer. He isn’t out about it, as he’s a rep to the UCR from Dawn’s Break.”
The UCR was the United Council of Realms, which oversaw the laws that pertained to all the Four Realms. Each realm governed and policed their own, but the UCR, formed by a treaty ages ago in order to facilitate peace, trade, economic stability, things like that, had hierarchy.
“A rep from Dawn’s Break?”
I was shocked.
“Arnaud, or perhaps Tatra, isn’t the only one who wants to revert back to the old ways.”
“Sacrificing animals?”
“And virgins. And warriors. Mandatory tithes to temples and shrines. Ritual torture. The selling of females to make alliances or settle debts.”
“And you’re telling me this isn’t just Arnaud being an extremist to cover his penchant for criminally underage females. This also isn’t just among his supporters in the Edge. This is beyond the Edge’s borders?”
“This is the theory we’re working on as to who supports Tatra, because Tatra may be wily and sly, but she didn’t go to Sigil to beat my mother to death.
She has resources. It’s becoming clear that she was the one behind the troll attack, so she knew of them, when they were kept the strictest of secrets.
My father would know of them, but he was married to my mother for three years, courting for two before that, and he spoke freely to her about his duties as king, and its challenges, something she shared with me to prepare me for my time on the throne. And he did not share about the trolls.”
This made sense.
“Tatra could also access the drug she used on my father, which even he shouldn’t have been able to access without serious questions being raised. And she’s evading hundreds of agents from four realms, all of whom are looking for her. This means she must have help.”
“And this traditional movement has been clandestine?”
His head moved on the pillow in an affirmative nod.
“Arnaud had vocal support. But not much. And obviously, the Red Watch and their equals in the other realms keep an eye on extremist groups. So yes, to answer your question, as we dig deeper into this, we’re theorizing that Arnaud was set up to be the face of it, to see what kind of support he could garner.
And what we fear is, his behavior unearthed many beings across all the realms who think this way, and a deeper faction is mobilizing to garner this support. ”
“To…what? Take over?”
“To dethrone Niall, Fillion, Dagsbrun and me, to dissolve the Center. To make each sovereign realm strictly sovereign and not answerable to the Council or any unified governing body, and to throw us all back four, five hundred years.”
One could say my post-great-and-copious-sex glow had faded.
“By all the levels of the hells, Tanyn,” I whispered.
He pulled me closer. “Should I not have told you?”
No.
No, I wanted to know.
That wasn’t true. I didn’t want to know.
I felt I needed to know the things he was wrestling with, the weights he had to carry, so I could be informed enough to help him through it.
“I want you to tell me what you feel you need to tell me, or what you feel the need to talk about. I can’t say I’m not shocked, and a little freaked, but I’m glad you told me.”
I felt him relax against me.
“That said, even if all we’re learning about her is not good, I’m surprised Tatra is behind this,” I remarked. “I mean, she’s no longer a virgin, but she could be sold to settle a debt.”
“We have another theory.”
Oh boy.
I didn’t like the way he said those words.
“What’s that?”
“That Tatra isn’t the leader. That Tatra is only a cog in the wheel.
They could tell her what she wants to hear.
They could offer her what she wants to have.
They could keep from her the totality of their plans to use her as a tool, or a weapon.
Our biggest weakness right now is that we have very limited intelligence about what’s going on.
We could even be wrong about our suppositions. ”
“I’m going to point out what I hope is the obvious for my peace of mind, but you all are scrambling to alleviate that weakness, am I right?”