40. Athena
Athena
The moment Dawz said the word Zagrath, my stomach dropped.
I understood, on some rational level, that a battleship closing in on us had nothing to do with me.
But rational thought had abandoned me the moment Zarn had pinned my wrists to a wall and now every instinct I had told me that I could be blamed again.
Icy dread coiled tight in my chest, and I had to fight the urge to wrap my arms around myself to ward off the shivers threatening to convulse my body.
But Dawz's gaze found me, and instead of suspicion, I saw something measured and calm in the tired lines around his eyes. "We have isolated the transmissions. They occurred during fifth watch.”
"She was with me," Lorken said, his voice flat and sharp. "The entire night. She could not have sent anything."
Dawz's gaze slid briefly to the beads of water clinging to Lorken’s neck, and the corner of his mouth twitched, though he schooled it quickly. "I never suspected her, Raas."
Lorken grunted and nodded at his majak. “Good.”
Some of the tightness in my chest eased at that, though not all of it. If it wasn't me, then someone else was to blame. Someone I’d trusted enough to bring aboard, someone I’d bargained for and demanded be saved had betrayed me.
"I should go," Lorken said, and before I could respond, he closed the distance between us and kissed me, deep and unhurried, as though a Zagrath battleship wasn’t hurtling toward us at that very moment.
Then Lorken pulled away, and the two Vandar strode out together, the door sealing shut behind them and leaving me alone in the quiet of his quarters with my racing thoughts for company.
I began to pace almost immediately, my bare feet slapping against the glossy floor.
If it wasn't me, it had to be one of the people I'd vouched for, bargained for, insisted be brought aboard this ship rather than left to die in a burning city.
The thought made me feel sick, but I forced myself to think it through anyway.
Vallia was the only one of us who'd had dealings with the Vandar before Kolt had stumbled into our theatre.
She knew things about them that the rest of us didn't. She seemed to have good opinions of them, but was that an act?
Was it possible she carried some old grudge I knew nothing about, some reason to want harm to come to the very people she claimed to admire?
“It’s possible,” I murmured to myself even as I shook my head. I didn’t want to believe that sweet, delicate Vallia would betray us like that. Then who else could it be?
Ringo and Hatch had always railed loudest against the Empire and had always been the first to volunteer for any rebellious acts.
But when I thought about it honestly, I realized I knew almost nothing about either of them before they'd turned up at the theatre only a few months prior. Where had they come from? What had they done before joining the troupe? Was it possible they’d been Zagrath plants meant to infiltrate us?
I scowled at that thought. If they had been plants, they were extremely convincing.
Did I really believe the Zagrath had talented performers among their ranks and that they’d installed them in our troupe.
That seemed far-fetched, especially since the Empire was known for being heavy-handed.
They’d be more likely to blow up our theatre than play the long game of planting spies.
Hal had been the stage manager for as long as I’d been with the theatre, and he detested the Empire as fervently as any of us.
Not only would he never support the enemy, but he also didn’t have the stomach for deception.
There was a reason he managed the productions and didn’t act in them.
You could read every thought that flitted across his face.
Lettie, at least, I could rule out without hesitation.
Lettie would rather starve than do anything to help a Zagrath, and her loyalty to her brother alone made her incapable of anything that might put Vern in danger.
Then I considered Vern. He’d always seemed too simple-minded to be capable of treachery, but what if he’d been manipulated by the enemy. And what about his friend from prison?
I discarded that thought almost instantly. No one who was being held in a Zagrath jail as an enemy of the Empire would work for them, especially after the Vandar rescued them.
I threw my hands in the air. “Well, I’ve ruled out everyone, which means that I’m wrong about someone.”
I needed to figure this out before Lorken and his majak did, if only to tell my friends so they could deal with the betrayal from one of our own.
Biting my thumbnail, I glanced at the door then at the Raas’s quarters.
I knew he expected me to stay put, but what if I could be back before he knew I was gone?
“I’ll be back here before anyone misses me,” I whispered to myself as I stepped from Lorken’s quarters and paused in the corridor.
I retraced the winding path through the warbird as fast as I dared, hoping I wouldn't run into any raiders eager to ask why the Raas's war bride was wandering the ship alone.
My thoughts whirled faster than my feet could carry me, circling through every conversation I'd had with each of my friends since we'd boarded, and searching for anything I might have missed.
I reached a familiar corridor and pressed my palm to the panel beside the nearest door. It slid open to reveal Hal, his expression shifting from startled to relieved at the sight of me. I glanced past him into the room, expecting to see Dell and Vern, but the space beyond him was empty.
He followed my gaze and shrugged. "Those two are always hungry. Probably hunting down more of that Vandar bread."
I stepped past him into the room, my heart hammering as I contemplated how to handle the conversation. “I need to ask you some questions, Hal.”