Chapter 3 #3
“You alright?” Raider asked, steadying her as she pushed up onto her hands and knees.
Kira nodded distractedly, busy checking on Jin’s status. The tight feeling in her chest relaxed at the sight of him, uninjured and unharmed. If still unconscious.
Seeing Dylan hovering nearby, Kira stepped back, allowing him to erect a ki shield and place it over Jin.
Her friend protected, she could finally take in the situation.
Jin’s maybe mother was barely visible behind the other oshota. Two thick ki shields obscured their figures and Kira could sense a third one being created as she watched.
Glass lay scattered all over the floor. Sariah and Jarek had gone out onto the balcony in what Kira considered to be a monumentally foolish act.
Several more booms sounded.
That sounded like pulse cannons, Kira thought, listening closely.
Deciding the risk was worth it to see what was going on, she joined the inquisitors outside.
Guess they weren’t the only fools here.
Jin’s suite of rooms was extensive. His balcony wrapped around the side of the palace, giving him a view of both the forest at its back and the city.
Not seeing Jarek and Sariah immediately, she followed the balcony around until she found them.
A hazy film spread over the palace and surrounding grounds. A golden hue that Kira could tell was some sort of energy barrier. Not far from their balcony, she could see fine golden lines radiating out of what looked like an impact zone.
Even as she watched, the barrier pulsed. Tiny waves of light made their way to those cracks, repairing the damage at a visible pace.
The palace wasn’t the only place hit. Smoke rose from Kashori’s stronghold. A crater had taken out part of one of its exterior walls on the right side. Singe marks marred the stone around it.
Smaller fires could be seen throughout the city.
Light flared from Roake’s Fortress of the Vigilant.
“Brace,” Jarek roared.
Finn grabbed Kira and twisted until his back was between her and Roake’s fortress.
The air screamed as a pulse of fire arced across the sky.
A loud boom sounded a second later.
When Kira peeked around Finn’s shoulder, it was to find smoke trailing from House Asanth’s fortress.
Isla stared at it in horror. “Why didn’t their barriers activate?”
Feeling sick to her stomach, Kira looked up at Finn. “That was from Roake.”
Their House had just attacked not only the palace but two other Major Houses.
Finn nodded grimly. “I saw it.”
“What do you want to bet that those orbs we found in the Nexus caused this?” Kira asked.
There must have been a replicating feature installed in the event someone discovered their presence before they’d had a chance to do what they were there for. That would explain the delay in the attack and how they’d managed to take over Roake’s offenses. One must have been missed in the search.
Finn tapped his comms, opening a channel to Roake. A second later he shook his head. “Something is blocking the signal.”
“Damn it.”
Disrupting communications was one of the oldest tricks in the book to cause chaos and fear. With Roake unable to warn other Houses of the issues on their ened, it made it more likely for those Houses to retaliate in kind.
Kira was betting the same issues that Kashori and Asanth just experienced with their defensive barriers had infected Roake as well.
She hated to admit it, but whoever had planned this knew what they were doing.
With one attack, they could deal a devastating blow to a majority of the Major Houses. As well as disrupting the already uneasy alliances that currently existed.
There was a pit in the bottom of Kira’s stomach as she watched smoke trailing from the fortresses and city. Once again, she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. A bystander in someone else’s tragedy.
Out of the corner of Kira’s eye, she saw Sariah drop back a step, placing herself between them and the room.
Finn noticed too, a subtle tension invading his body.
“Raider,” Kira said in an even voice.
Her friend peered over the balcony to the ground far below. After a moment, he nodded. “It’s doable.”
Kira released the breath she was holding, nodding once.
Now for the bigger problem.
Kira turned her attention to Finn.
Anger flushed his features and his eyes widened as he figured out what she and Raider planned. “No. Absolutely not.”
“It’s the only way.”
Unobtrusively, Raider withdrew a device that looked like two magnets from his pocket. One, he stuck to the balcony railing before nodding at Kira.
“This isn’t what an oshota does,” Finn argued.
“It’s what my oshota does.”
Roake needed them. As heir, she had to remain behind to act as hostage and answer for their crimes, but that didn’t mean Finn was bound to the same rules.
“Jin was right. Danger follows wherever you go,” Raider murmured with a resigned look.
“What does it say about you that you’re always standing right next to me when it shows up?”
Sariah’s suspicious gaze moved from Kira to Raider. “What is he doing? Tell him to step away from there.”
Raider placed the second magnet against his chest. It stayed in position despite no evidence of any harness keeping it in place.
Sariah etched a complicated symbol in the air. Power built as her ki funneled into the pattern that she had created, slowly meandering along the predetermined lines. When it reached the end of the pattern, it would act like a circuit, closing and kicking off whatever working Sariah had planned.
Kira equated it to something like a pre-written computer program. The symbol acted like a piece of code, giving the ki its commands.
Achieved through countless years of study and experimentation, the symbols were personalized to each Tuann. Though some runes ran through family lines. Their secrets guarded with dogged fanaticism.
However, even those contained slight flourishes based on the user.
Only extremely powerful Tuann like Kira’s lover, Graydon, and her Uncle Harlow were capable of forcing their ki into shape without the symbol or its more physically intensive and complicated cousin, the katta, which involved the use of the entire body and a series of martial arts moves.
Kira had never used either the rune shapes or kattas until she came to Ta Sa’Riel. But that was because she never received proper training. Her application of her soul’s breath had always been more like brute force.
Sariah gave Kira a triumphant smile as her ki reached the end of its circuit. The air vibrated with restrained power. “Comply or die.”
“That’s your cue, Raider.”
Sariah’s gaze darted between them. “This is not a bluff.”
Kira smiled at her. “I never thought it was.”
Raider caught Finn in a bear hug from behind. “Try not to die, Phoenix.”
Kira kept her gaze steady on Sariah as Raider tipped himself and Finn backward. The two dropped out of sight. There was a hum as the device Raider had attached started working, slowing their descent to a controlled fall.
Sariah released her ki. Pressure built. Kira’s ears popped and then it was like an avalanche as shards of ice shot toward her.
Kira blocked the first part of the wave, ducking under some, but not fast enough as one of the ice blades sliced through the top of her trapezius muscle.
Freezing cold invaded the wound, numbing the area around it.
Then Kira was through it, next to Sariah, and sweeping the other woman’s legs out from under her.
Sariah toppled backward, hitting the ground with a cry.
“Nice trick,” Kira growled, stomping her foot down onto one of the woman’s arms to prevent her from performing a second. “But maybe not the best choice in close quarters.”
She would have been better served with her pretty dagger.
A mask of fury wreathed the inquisitor’s face. “You’ll pay for this.”
Kira winced as she touched her shoulder, rolling it to assess the extent of the damage. “I’m pretty sure you’re the least of my worries right now.”
As if to punctuate that statement, Asanth fired on Roake’s fortress. And like Asanth and Kashori’s barriers, Roake’s failed to activate.
“Much bigger worries indeed,” Kira whispered.
Like the possibility of a war that left no victors. Only weakened prey, ripe for the plucking when the Tsavitee’s masters moved in.
“Are you really going to let her act like this?” Sariah demanded of Isla.
The oshota quirked an eyebrow. “What exactly do you expect me to do?”
“Apprehend her. Arrest her and her companions.”
Isla considered Kira with pursed lips.
Kira waited, wanting to see what the oshota would do.
Isla smirked as she moved her gaze back to Sariah. “That is not within the scope of my orders.”
Sariah’s eyes widened incredulously. “Her House attacked the palace!”
“I’m not here to protect the palace. My duty is to the emperor’s son. No one else.”
With a respectful nod at Kira, Isla prowled back into the room to check on Jin.
“Sucks when no one listens, doesn’t it?” Kira put a little more weight into the foot resting on Sariah’s arm, letting the other feel the pressure and how easy it would be for her to break it before letting up and stepping back.
“I’ve never seen an oshota abandon their sword in a situation as dire as this,” Jarek observed from the balcony, his attention on Finn and Raider’s retreat across the avenue.
“And you still haven’t,” Kira corrected.
“Is there some other way to describe what just happened?” Jarek inquired, sounding honestly curious.
“There’s a saying among humans. Retreat to advance.”
Better for Finn to go where he could do some good rather than join Kira as a prisoner.
A deafening explosion drowned out Jarek’s response.
“No,” Kira whispered, forgetting Sariah and Jarek as she rushed to the balcony to stare in disbelief.
Smoke billowed from a massive hole at Roake’s heart. A portion of one of its towers had collapsed into the crater. As had several of the surrounding structures. Flames licked the stone of the Fortress’s walls.
Behind her, Sariah laughed. “Looks like someone destroyed Roake’s Nexus.”
Bile filled Kira’s throat.
Oh, God.
Her family. The oshota standing guard.
All gone.
“That sounded more like a self-destruct. Not a lucky shot from one of the other Houses.” Noticing Kira’s shock, Jarek wiped away the analytical look on his face as a trace of sincerity replaced it. “I’m sorry.”
“This isn’t real,” Kira whispered.
That sick feeling was back. Only this time, it was worse.
This was a nightmare. It had to be. One that sprung from the deepest parts of her subconscious. A place formed by past scars and heartbreak.
This couldn’t be happening. Not again.
Preoccupied with the devastation in front of her and what it meant, Kira forgot for a split second about the danger lurking behind.
It wasn’t until the temperature abruptly plummeted that she realized the magnitude of her mistake. Ice froze the breath in her lungs. Black spots danced across her vision. Then all went dark.