Chapter 19 Rathal
nineteen
Rathal
After a grueling ten hours and more than a few broken bones, the motion passed.
Dark was reduced to sixteen hours. A resounding victory for the denizens of the Light that was sure to cause a celebration that lasted several rotations and would leave people passed out in the streets for twice that length.
He didn’t feel any particular way about it this time.
His mind was fixed on the glaring problem of his standoff with Callie.
He was beginning to feel like he might, possibly, maybe, perhaps, be in the wrong.
He was pacing in his room, something that was wildly out of character for him, as he was never unsure of his actions. He usually slept soundly during the Light, assured that he was superior in every way and that his actions were the only right ones.
Now? This was his twelve hundred and forty eighth journey across his quarters.
At this rate, he was going to wear the expensive fibers of his rug.
He’d taken Callie back to her room after the Assembly and left her to her sleep, as she’d had an eventful Assembly to say the very least. That willful female had enjoyed herself and had been the cause of a few of those broken bones by the end of it.
He’d had to pluck her off a poor battered Oca who’d seen her smaller stature as a sure win and had one of its wings torn off for that wrong assumption.
Callie had taken yet another ride thrown over his shoulder, her shaking fist and shouted challenges still ringing in his ears as he’d exited the Assembly floor.
She’d had blood spatter on her grinning face when he’d finally sat her back on her own feet and he’d had to beat a hasty retreat lest he snatch her up and kiss her senseless.
The heated challenge in her gaze hadn’t helped things.
It had proven impossible to sleep and he’d only managed to stare up at the mural on his ceiling until the paint had seemed to run together and swirl into an incomprehensible jumble.
So he’d thrown his covers off and started pacing. It wasn’t just his push-pull with Callie that was keeping him up. He also had his promise to keep and contacting Anu was something he dreaded worse than a burn at ten gravities into an unstable atmosphere.
He couldn’t put it off forever. He was many things, a thief, a murder, but a liar? That was something he tried to avoid, if at all possible. He might have started this whole courting on the wrong foot with Callie, but to lie to her was to crush it completely.
He curled his lip and threw himself down onto his overstuffed chair with a groan of resigned dismay and opened the first relay that would connect him with the others that spread across multiple galaxies, through various wormholes, and eventually to Korsal and Anu.
It took a lot more work than spying on the Unity ships.
Anu’s security was sophisticated and ever changing.
Her firewall was more like a vast, empty ocean, the currents shifting every minute to keep you off course.
That he could navigate it was a testament to his skill…
a skill that Anu herself had helped cultivate when he was a young male.
The accursed Elder had been one of his teachers and a hard one at that.
That she was good humored only made it worse.
There was nothing quite like being laughed at after a stunning failure to see her trap during a lesson in firewall hacking.
And she was such a busybody, even worse than Hella.
Godsdamned females, always in his business.
He ruthlessly smashed the flare of familial affection that tried to rise as the ghost of their laughter echoed through his mind.
He couldn’t show any weakness, or she’d pounce and start asking personal questions.
He grunted as he successfully passed through her final security measures and pinged her, a proverbial knock at the door, and waited for her to answer, his fingers knotting into fists.
My little Rathal, whatever brings you to my door at such a late hour?
His eyes closed at the familiar growling pitch of her voice.
It brought up a mental image of the former Empress.
With a golden pelt and her imposing aura, Anu was a towering giant even by Rijiteran standards, her muscular bulk standing well over nine feet in height, and those golden eyes smiling at him from his memories had a knot forming in his throat.
“Hello, Anu. I have news I would like to share with you,” he told her, his voice steady despite the tumbling trip down memory lane as the humans would say.
Ah, but I want to know how Callie is doing first. Tell me, have you won her over yet? You were always skilled at wooing anyone but these humans are stubborn. Did you bite off more than you could chew?
He sneered at the laughter in her question. “That’s none of your business.”
The thunderous disembodied echo of her glee added a throbbing just behind his eyes.
I knew it! Ah, Callie is the most stubborn of the group. You should have chosen Sam. She’s sweet.
There was a sly edge to the way she said that and he had the distinct impression that there was a trap laid there ready to spring on whoever believed it.
“You believe me a fool, don’t you?” he asked dryly. He’d seen the way Aga the Deathless watched the small human female. He liked his hide attached, thank you very much. Besides, as lovely as Sam was, Callie had captivated him from the moment he first saw her. To him, there were no other females.
You’re no fun. Very well, child. Tell me your news.
“The Unity moves…” he explained, telling her the plans he’d seen. Anu listened intently, only asking a few questions here and there and once he was done he heard her sigh.
Yes, I’ve been monitoring them as well. They are trying a multi front approach, the idiots, trying to split our forces and leave us vulnerable, but that leaves themselves open as well.
Ah well, let them march themselves to their doom.
We will intercept. Thank you, Rathal. I look forward to seeing you rejoin us. I have missed you.
That pesky knot reformed in his throat and he had to clear it several times before it dissipated.
“Yes, well, as you should. Goodbye, Anu."
He closed the relay, cutting off more of her laughter. He wished they still used a physical Link so he could throw it across the room. There was something deeply satisfying about that sort of ending to a conversation.
He stood and stretched his arms overhead, trying to loosen the tension in his shoulders when a knock came at his door. He snapped his head to glare at whoever dared, his mouth open to bark orders, when the door opened and the twins entered, their bodies stiff.
His arms dropped to his side and he collapsed back into the chair to stare sightlessly at the ceiling.
“She’s escaped again, hasn’t she?”
“Yes,” Hassa growled. “We don’t know how she got out of her room. We were standing right outside her door.”
“We heard a noise and entered, but she was gone. No trace.”
He grinned at the ceiling, his heartbeat picking up speed as the anticipation of the impending hunt seeped through his melancholy and he thought maybe this time Callie might be playing, rather than simply trying to escape.
She’d been in a fiery good mood after the Assembly, laughing as he’d hauled her to her room.
That look she’d shot his way as the door had closed her away from him had been a challenge, he was sure of it now.
He turned his head to the side to give his cousins a baleful glare, though his grin was ruining the effect. “I do believe we have some holes in our security, dear ones. You should be thanking Callie for pointing them out.”
Rixa’s head came up in affront, her hackles rising but Hassa’s wheezing laugh cut off whatever scolding he’d been about to receive.
“She is clever. A good match. I like her,” Hassa chortled, coming to bump her large head against his shoulder.
He raised a hand and stroked it over her ears and neck, chuckling along with her.
“So do I.” He gave her a last affectionate pat and hopped to his feet, pulling his robe off as he went.
“You two can go home and rest. I’ll hunt her down this time alone. ”
Rixa brushed against him as she passed to stand next to her sister. “Very well. Don’t be too hard on her. She fights with herself still. Good hunting.”
He waved goodbye over his shoulder and left the room.
When he got to Callie’s he raised his nose in the air and breathed in deeply, scenting her out.
The air filtration and recycling on Erral was very good, so only a lingering trace of her was in the hallway from when he’d brought her this way earlier.
Inside her room it was of course, stronger, but the very last place she’d stood was in her washroom, right in the center.
He stood there with his hands on his hips and looked around.
It was a decent sized room. There was only the single door and no windows. Where in the hell did she go?
He crouched and ran the soft pads of his fingers along the floor, feeling for any seam and trying to think back to the blueprints of the palace.
The plumbing wasn’t overly large, certainly not wide enough to fit a person through them so she hadn’t somehow found a pipe to escape through.
He cocked his head at the ceiling, rising to reach up and feel along the smooth stone. There was nothing up here, either.
He dropped to all fours and sniffed, following her scent trail to the wall that held a closet for her drying cloths.
It was a narrow structure, no wider than two feet.
It was floor to ceiling in height. He pulled open the door and looked inside.
Folded drying cloths and hair oils greeting him, answerless.
Her scent was stronger towards the bottom though, so he bent down and looked at the bottom shelf.
It was empty. Ah, but she’d made a mistake.
He grinned and reached out a claw to set the shelf properly.
One corner had been just slightly ajar, and it easily wiggled in place.
His grin widened as he pulled the shelf out and the whole back portion came out with it, revealing a small square tunnel.
“Taking the Grel passages are we? Sneaky, sneaky.” He hadn’t even known it was here, but then he’d never questioned how the Grel got around much.
He couldn’t fit into the tunnel, so there was no following her that way, but he could figure out where she was headed and cut her off.
He spun and jogged out of the room and sped down the hallway towards the upper portion of the palace where the security hub was.
They’d have all the Grel routes marked down somewhere.
He passed a few of the maids and other workers on the wide staircase, some of them calling out cheerful encouragement as he swept by and by the time he pushed open the metal door into the palace security room, all of his fatigue had evaporated in the adrenaline flush from the hunt and he all but bounded around the room until he found his head of security, a small female with mottled gray fur and curling leathery wings that went by the name of Tedo.
Her round face held wide set eyes that blinked at him with dual silver pupils. “Lord Rathal, what do you need?”
He bounced on his toes and cracked his neck. “I need to know where the Grel tunnel into my prize’s room lets out. She’s crawled into it and I mean to catch her before she makes it out of the palace.”
Tedo’s pupils split as she brought her arm up to tap at the holoscreen projecting from her Link. “It goes down, my Lord, to the old palace. These plans indicate the tunnel she’s using will split. One leads to the old library, and the other to the ballroom.”
He felt his grin develop a devious edge.
A hunt through the abandoned lower levels?
With no one to interfere or witness whatever conclusion Callie and he came to?
Oh, it was almost too good. His ears curled along with his tail and Tedo took a step away from him when he started tapping his claws together and laughing.