Chapter Forty-Nine
Saphyra
T he high grass thrashed in the wind, whipped into a frenzy around my legs.
Something was coming. Something bad.
I picked up my pace, heading toward a small postern door. The side entrance led to the kitchen, rather than back the way we’d come. It was a more direct route to the corridor that connected to the control room. I didn’t know how I knew that, but I did.
“Saphyra.” Lex’s voice rang out above the rustle of oncoming weather, but I didn’t stop.
“Something’s wrong,” I called over my shoulder, unsure if they could hear me over the wind.
Maybe I was reading too much into it, but this storm felt like a warning. What was it warning me about, though? Was it trying to tell me that I’d got it wrong? That I misunderstood what I’d seen in the tomb?
I had the records now. The truth would be in there. I was certain of it. There’d be time to research. So why did I have a pit in my stomach gnawing at what should have been a triumphant moment?
I ducked through the dark entryway into the scullery and hurried past more ash and ruin. There was a hallway that ran along the back of the palace. It was open to the gardens on one side through lofty arches before connecting to the passage that descended below the curtain wall. I remembered spending time here with my mother. The shade from the sun and the view of the gardens made this one of my favorite places in the castle. It was secluded and serene, and a shortcut to the tower where the control center was located.
When I stepped into the colonnade, howling wind screamed through the broken stonework and between the pillars as if warning me away. Trees and weeds clawed and the arched openings that framed the storm-buffeted garden below, but I continued on.
The stench of smoke and something metallic hit me. The sky flashed with light and my vision stuttered.
I blinked.
The wind stopped, and the trees froze in place. Cheery light filled the pristine hall overlooking a perfectly manicured lawn.
My mother’s sweet voice, full of panic and pain, shattered the perfect stillness.
“Run.”
That was all she managed to say before crimson blood bubbled from her parted lips. Her soulful, soft eyes were wide with terror.
The last remaining spark of life fled from her face. She went limp, and her body tumbled to the flagstone floor. The fabric of her green gown billowed, obscuring someone standing behind her.
My eyes refused to turn away, no matter how hard I tried. I didn’t want this memory. I didn’t want to see Titus standing in the shadows over my dying mother.
Before I had the chance to run, the smiling face of Edeth rose from behind the fluttering fabric, looking back at me with a scowl of hatred. Sunlight flashed off a blade soaked in blood, glittering as it fell. The clatter of metal on stone jarred me into action. I spun but my tiny legs were no match, and Edeth’s bloody hands clutched at my flailing arms. The scent of anise with a hint of stale omega pheromones filled my lungs.
She shoved me into the grasp of a soldier in an unfamiliar uniform, and I screamed. “Take her to the ships. The deal is done.”
I thrashed, and cried, and kicked as he lifted me off the ground. “No! Put me down!”
My feet touched the floor, and my vision cleared.
Titus trusted her. Lex’s stepmother had betrayed us all. She is why our mothers were murdered and why Shadow was an orphan. She had taken everything from us.
Lex stood over me with a scratch on his cheek, and his brows pulled together in confusion. “Are you alright? You were shouting.”
Fear painted Grey’s features, and his emotions in the bond quivered with tension.
I gulped cold, wet air into my lungs. My eyes darted around, searching for the unknown soldier, even though I knew he wasn’t there. It felt all too real.
Concern etched my mates’ faces, but when they reached for me, I stepped away. I didn’t want to be touched. Not yet. The memory of Edeth’s bony fingers was too fresh.
The wind was cold, biting at the tears rolling unneeded down my cheeks, and nausea burned the back of my throat.
“Edeth killed…” I choked on the sound. My stomach heaved, and I ran to the arched window, emptying its contents over the ledge into the garden below. I hung there, bent over the stone sill, saliva dripping from my numb lips.
How could I have missed it? How could I have been so stupid? She’d been there under my nose, pulling the strings all along. I should have known.
Soft hands lifted my hair from my face and rubbed my back as I gasped for breath. I allowed the comfort of Grey’s touch, but was still reeling after my recent revelation.
The words wouldn’t come, but now I knew what I’d tried so hard to forget. The drugs they’d given me to erase my memories may have been a blessing more than I’d given them credit for.
Moments ticked by as I drew in the courage to say what had to be said. I eased myself into a standing position, wiping my nose and mouth on the back of my hand. “I remember what happened. It was Edeth. She did this. I think she’s doing it again.”
Lex looked stunned, but didn’t question my words. I hoped that meant that he was starting to trust me. Or at least trusted that I wouldn’t make up something as serious as that. He’d only ever presented her to me as his father’s wife and not much else. Maybe he never really liked her, anyway. I certainly never had.
Everything she’d done since I’d arrived had stalled my efforts. She kept my mates busy with work. Kept us from sealing the bond. Installed her daughters to watch me and tempt Ghost away. The soap, the poison. She had access to all of it, even if it wasn’t delivered directly from her hands. Titus trusted her, and she had used him. Or maybe he helped her.
Edeth, I could believe this of easily. But it hurt to think that the man who’d taught me to ride a horse, and gifted me my first pony, might have conspired to destroy my whole life.
“She had a deal with the Imperatrix to kill the queen and hand me over to them.” Based on my memory, that all made sense. I still had questions, but it was becoming very clear. Edeth wanted control of Verden.
Lex held out a bottle of water for me and I took a sip, swished, and spit it over the windowsill. His hand shook when I gave it back.
“Are you sure?” His face was void of color and his jaw was as hard as granite.
The only thing I could do was nod in reply. I snatched the datapad up off the floor where it had fallen and headed back toward the control room. “Shield or no, Altaira is already here.”
Our steps held urgency as we raced down the ancient rock-walled passage. A storm crashed in the distance, rattling dust from the crumbling mortar. The air was heavy with the scent of rain in my starved lungs.
Edeth would know I wasn’t off planet, not with the magnetic field growing in intensity. If she was working with the Imperatrix, they may not have been diverted by our decoy for very long. My only hope was that they didn’t know for certain where we were yet.
If we were lucky, she’d check the hunting lodge first, assuming we’d gone there after shaking the pursuers. They’d still be looking for a ship, not a handful of horses.
We had to get that shield working before the rest of the armada arrived.
It was our only hope, small as it was.
I burst through the metal bound door into the tower. Eddies of swirling wind whipped through the roofless stone cylinder, sending my hair rioting around my head.
“Did you fix it?” I panted.
Grey and Lex filed in after me, their breathing much less panicked and labored than my own.
Our attention was on Ghost, who was sitting on the steel floor fiddling with a black box, but it was Shadow who spoke. “Ax rewired it. The mechanism moves the platform, but nothing’s changed.”
Ghost’s light brows bunched in concentration as he tapped codes onto the screen of the box. “Fuck, where is everyone?”
“We’re right here?” What was he talking about? We were all back.
“Sorry, princess.” He lifted his icy blue eyes to me. “I’m trying to contact Albion, but she’s not answering. No one that we left in charge is replying, either.”
The bitter taste of fear crawled up my throat.
“Isn’t there anyone else you could try? What about Violet or Robin?” If Edeth was responsible for this, surely she wouldn’t have seen my maid or a common citizen as a threat.
“No one’s picking up on the encrypted channels. This unit is shielded, but we can’t risk unsecured comms with the Imperatrix ships so close. That would lead them right to us.” Ghost got to his feet, scrubbing a hand through his wind-tousled hair.
Encryption. That reminded me of the note Yannix slipped me at the ball. “Where did you put that scrap of paper that fell out of my book earlier?”
Lex fished through his pocket, pulling it out. “I still have it.” He held it out to me.
I took it from him, but hesitated. Was it worth the risk? My enemies wouldn’t spend much time looking elsewhere before checking here. If this was a trap, the outcome would be the same.
“The Duke of Spectre gave me this and asked me to give it to you.” I handed the note to Ghost, careful not to lose it in the strong draft.
He scanned it and looked at me, then back at the paper, then back to me. “This is an encryption key for a secure comms channel. Why would he give this to you?”
“He said he regretted that he wasn’t able to help my mother, but if I needed anything, I shouldn’t hesitate to ask. It could be a trick, but if you want to contact the city…” I let the suggestion hang heavy in the humid air.
Shadow stepped forward, his midnight eyes fixed on the code in Ghost’s hand. “We didn’t, but now we might.”
“That’s true. Initially, I’d only wanted to check in, but there’s no response. Now I’m worried. Maybe he can tell us if something happened.” The concern was obvious on his face. He was my most optimistic mate. If he was troubled, it was a bad sign.
Ghost’s words lingered until Grey broke the silence. “Saphyra had a memory on our way back. It might shed some light on the situation.”
He paused, giving me time to decide if I wanted to share what I’d remembered. I didn’t. I never wanted to think about it again, but they needed to know. It affected all of us. Especially now.
My voice shook. “Edeth killed the queen. It was part of some sort of deal she had with the Imperatrix. She handed me over to the enemy soldiers with my mother’s blood still on her hands.” Hatred pulsed across my skin, constricting my heart like a steel band.
The color drained from Ghost’s face, and Shadow’s brows pinched together in anger. Lex had been silent on the subject, probably blaming himself for not seeing it when she’d been right under his nose all this time.
Stupid alpha pride.
I collected my hatred and pain and directed it at the immediate problem. “It changes nothing. We have to get the condenser to work or we’ve already lost.”
We couldn’t defeat the armada. We’d discussed that. If the ships got past the shield, that fight would be over before it started. The only way to stop them was the defense field. Without it, there was nothing stopping Edeth or the Imperatrix, and we might as well surrender.
I wasn’t ready to give up.
Ghost went back to the panel and pressed a few buttons. “The controls don’t initialize the shield. It just raises and lowers the hole’s cover, or whatever it is, and lifts a bunch of rods out of the grid in the center.”
A metallic clang echoed from the steel lined pit in the middle of the tower. The sound of gears and unseen chains rattled.
I held my breath.
From deeper than the light could penetrate, a flat gray platform rose. When it was even with the floor, it stopped. Ghost moved something else on the panel and a grid-work of hexagonal rods shot up from the middle.
“But now what?” I asked.
“We can send it down, but that’s all it seems to do.”
I motioned for him to wait before Ghost did just that. “Hold on. You’ve already tried sending it back. We’re missing a step somewhere.” I lifted the datapad that had been all but forgotten in my hand. It pinged cheerfully when I pressed my thumb to its cool glass surface.
“Search… control panel?” I asked, unsure of how this thing worked.
A lilting voice replied, “Search parameters have yielded unclear results. Please rephrase criteria.”
I glanced around at my mates. “Um… Search planetary shield condenser.”
An image of the tower we were in lit up the screen. “Selection displayed.”
I scrolled down. The first entry was the history of the defense field. It had an image of a blond girl sitting in a meadow of wildflowers with her back resting against a low cobbled wall surrounding what looked like a well. That picture morphed, displaying a slideshow of images over the ages. The well evolved into a tower as a castle was built around it. The pit was dug deeper with high-tech drills. Metal cladding was added, and then the grid and machinery to raise and lower the platform was installed.
That didn’t explain what I was supposed to do with it. I scanned down the length of the screen, past the history section, and found what I was looking for.
After everything that had happened; the blood locked tomb door, and memories of my tears falling into the Pit where a tree sprung to life, I wasn’t surprised by what it said.
When this was a well, the queen’s DNA, when dropped into the water, would trigger the shield to condense. Technology progressed, strengthening the power and magnitude of its effect.
I slipped past the barrier and out onto the platform. My mates shouted and rushed to snatch me back, but I waved them off. “I know what to do.”
The tip of each hexagonal rod was sharpened to a point. The rods would take my DNA deep beneath the mantle of the planet and deposit it into the very being of Verden. If we had more time, this would’ve been done by a physician drawing blood, but that was one thing we were out of.
I placed my hand over the sharp point of the first rod and pressed down, hissing as it broke skin. The wound hurt, but nothing could ever hurt as much as watching my mother murdered in front of my eyes. This was easy in comparison. A small sacrifice to keep the people I loved safe.
Shadow grabbed Lex around the waist as he charged forward, holding him back from interfering, and Grey’s anxiety sizzled along the bond. They didn’t stop me when I moved to the second rod with blood oozing from my hand. When each one was coated, I stepped off the platform.
“Send it down.”
Lex was growling, but stood back from the edge of the platform. The others eyed me warily, but Ghost went to the control panel, inputting the instructions. We all watched as the rods locked in place and the grid descended out of sight. It felt like ages before the metallic clang echoed up from the depths.
Nothing happened at first, and my heart clawed at the inside of my ribcage. I lifted my eyes to the sky with a silent plea to the Stars.
Protect my people.
Beyond the crenelated rim of the tower, the empty air swirled. Ribbons of rainbows danced and slowly coalesced into a pattern. Delicate, shining hexagons fell like domino tiles from one side of the sky to the other, flipping in sequence, one right after the other, blanketing the entire breadth of blue expanse overhead. The colors pulsed in a brilliant flash of multi-colored wonder as it connected, joining into a whole.
The pattern looked fragile, like the suns’ light catching mist, not strong enough to keep out anything solid, and then it faded to the shadowed indigo of a stormy sky.
“Did it work?” I asked, in shock from what I’d witnessed.
Lex glanced up once more. “I don’t know, but we can’t stay here. Everyone on-planet, or off, would have seen that. We just broadcasted exactly where we are. We need to move.”