Shrouded: Heartstone Book One (26 page)

T
he shouting drowned
out Vashia’s protests. Dolfan stared at Tondil’s body, at the one person no one could possibly have disliked enough to kill, and tried to sort it out. How? Who? It all bounced back and forth between Peryl’s sobs, Syradan’s pleas, and the king’s calls for order.

Vashia hadn’t done it. Peryl’s accusation aside, she’d been with him the entire time. He saw it on her face besides, the horror in her eyes, the terror. She shook her head and backed a step further from the scene. He didn’t miss the Security standing in the doorway, but he had enough faith in her innocence not to worry.

“Why?” Peryl sobbed again and crumpled over Tondil’s still torso. “Why would you?”

“I didn’t. I couldn’t have,” Vashia pleaded with him. Peryl shouldn’t even have suggested it. Weren’t he and Tondil only days earlier looking after her welfare? Why would she harm her most staunch supporters?

“She’s been with me this whole time.” Peryl’s head snapped in Dolfan’s direction, but Haftan spoke before Peryl could utter a response.

“The lute was poisoned,” he said, as if that made a damn bit of sense.

“What lute?” Dolfan stepped closer to Vashia, realized how that looked and didn’t care. How could Haftan stand there and not defend her? It only proved what he already knew.

“Vashia asked Tondil to tune it. They found poison on the strings, chemicals that matched the ones from her recovery room.”

“That’s a lie,” Vashia defended herself. “I never asked him to do anything.”

The silence after her speech could have smothered worlds. Vashia wouldn’t understand why. She couldn’t know that no bonded had ever accused their mate of anything. The entire room now chewed on the biggest piece of blasphemy in the history of the Heart. Her eyes darted to Dolfan’s, scared and seeking answers.

“The Heart made a mistake,” Dolfan declared. “Haftan hasn’t bonded—”

“Liar!” Haftan jumped at him. “The Heart gave the Kingmaker to me.” Haftan’s face flamed red and his lip curled into a snarl. He came forward, arms lifting, as Dolfan put his body in front of Vashia’s. He raised his fists as well.

“Stop!” Pelinol bellowed and stood up. Haftan paused, but his feet shifted and there was murder in his eye. The king’s command wouldn’t hold him for long.

“The Kingmaker belongs to me,” he spat.

Dolfan opened his mouth to argue, but another voice interjected. It carried through the room as if amplified, though the man speaking made no effort, hardly even moved his mouth.

“She’s not the Kingmaker.” Shayd’s eyes drilled into Dolfan’s. He’d said it before, too, he and Mofitan both. Now he settled back against the wall and looked back to Tondil’s immobile form, as if he’d settled things.

“Everyone stop!” Pelinol stamped a foot against the dais. “We’ll never sort this out at one another’s throats.” The king left his place on the throne to join them, followed closely by a harried looking Lucha.

Syradan appeared at Dolfan’s elbow. The Seer tugged at his sleeve, dragging his attention away from Haftan and the battle at hand. Pelinol continued to holler from the other side of the room, but Syradan had Vashia by the arm and pulled him another step away from Haftan before whispering, “We should get her out of here, before they get ugly.”

“I didn’t do it.” Vashia’s voice sounded so small, Dolfan felt like hugging her.

“I can take her to the Temple,” Syradan continued. “She’ll be safe there while things calm down.”

“I have to warn them about the moon.” Dolfan looked to Vashia instead of the Seer, tried to reassure her with the glance. They’d fix this, somehow, but she’d be safer with Syradan, and he had to stay here if they wanted any chance at coming out on top.

“What about the moon?” Syradan’s voice cracked.

“The Eclipsan government has taken control of Base 14.”

“What’s that?” Haftan moved in again. He pushed them back another step toward the doors. Everyone else had eyes on them as well.

Dolfan kept half his attention on Vashia and the other on Haftan’s approach.

“Her father has taken the moon?” Syradan asked. “Kovath has come here?”

“What?” Dolfan saw Vashia’s face fall. She’d left that bit out earlier, but he hadn’t given her much time to explain. “Your father?”

“What’s this about?” Haftan demanded. “What are you saying?”

“I have to warn them.” He tried to catch her eye before turning, but she stared at the floor and refused to look up. He pushed Syradan back, got between them and the mob again and growled, “Get her to the temple.”

Syradan could get past the guards. He could keep her safe. Right now, Dolfan had to get the rest of the men to calm down long enough to warn them. He faced off with Haftan and cringed. How could he convince any of them like this? They were enraged, confused, and he had to explain that the father of the woman they had just accused of murder had committed an act of war against them. Convincing them she was innocent might prove impossible after that.

S
yradan talked
the guards at the door into letting them leave. No one moved to stop him, even though they all thought she’d killed Tondil, even though they all looked at her with hate in their eyes. She didn’t understand how Syradan knew who her father was, but he’d dropped the bomb in front of Dolfan, and she’d seen the damage explode across Dolfan’s face. She should have told him, should have made him slow down and listen.

He’d never believe her now. How could he, when her father had overtaken his beloved moon base? What was the penalty on Shroud for killing a prince? A Council member? A friend? She tried not to imagine Tondil’s face, dark and empty on the throne room tiles. Of all of them, he should have been animate, laughing and full of music. Why Tondil? What kind of monster could snuff out that bright of a life?

She let Syradan guide her down the Palace steps, putting on her breather as she did so. He led her across the plaza to the head of the steps and supported her at the elbow when they started down. They’d nearly reached the bottom before she realized they hadn’t gone to the Temple. Syradan had led her directly to the hover pads.

“Where are you taking me?” She planted her feet as the Seer pulled at her arm from a lower step. “Syradan, Dolfan said to go to the Temple.”

“It’s not safe.” He pulled harder, with more strength than his age would suggest, and Vashia stumbled down a step to stand beside him.

She braced her feet and shook her head. “Where are we going?”

“Well,” he said, looking out over the canyon and squinting. “I’m getting off this planet, out from under the Shroud, and as far away from
them
as possible.”

His finger stabbed at the horizon as she turned to look. The heavy silhouettes in the distance, familiar and completely out of context, turned her blood cold. More than a dozen ships slid over the crater. Vashia tried to shake off Syradan’s grip. She kept her eyes on the horror drifting toward them just below the Shroud.

“Those are transports.” As she said it, the nearest vehicle dropped a stipple of black shapes from one side. She saw the chutes open, and recognized the tactic immediately. “Mercenaries. My god. We have to warn them.”

“Warn them?” Syradan’s tone shifted. A warning alarm rang in the back of Vahia’s mind. Her eyes refused to budge from the invasion unfolding as the rest of the transports began raining mercenaries over the valley.

“Syradan!” She pulled again, but his grip had turned to iron. They didn’t have time to argue. There had been no warning from the rim, and the Palace would be completely unprepared. The prick against her arm came from nowhere. Pain, sharp and cold, tore her eyes from the invasion and brought her attention screeching back to the madman holding her arm in a vice-grip. “What have you done?”

He stretched his lips wide and sneered at her. His whole face shifting, turning into a Shrouded version of the sort of man she knew far too well, the men her father surrounded himself with. “I’ve bought myself a ticket out,” he said. “I’m leaving, and you, my dear—”

Vashia’s legs buckled. She fell again, this time into a crumple at Syradan’s side. His arm still clung to hers, lifting her torso and preventing a second knock to the head. His face loomed over her, blurry and fading in and out. He looked like someone else from that angle. He looked like Jarn. His mouth twisted and he dragged her painfully down the last few steps.

“You,” he said. She hung limp in his grasp. Her body refused to fight him, refused to answer her brain’s commands at all. He laughed and shook his head. “I have no idea where you are going.”

M
ofitan wouldn’t stop shouting
. The king, the real king, tried to regain order, but Pelinol was grossly outnumbered. He ended up holding a sobbing Lucha and watching the insanity unfold along with the rest of them.

There were too many questions. Dolfan’s announcement about the moon had earned him three seconds of stunned silence, three seconds to stare at Tondil’s still form and at Peryl beside himself with grief. He tried to sort out a million warring thoughts in those three seconds. Then they exploded again.

“The Heart was wrong!” Mofitan hollered, joining with Dolfan in his blasphemy.

“You’re mad!” Haftan countered. He stood like a board above Tondil and clung to his future throne with vulture’s claws. “The Heart is never wrong.”

“Perhaps we should be focusing on Dolfan’s news,” Pelinol tried again. He’d waved madly at the officers inside the door, and now both men flanked him. One held a comm device to his ear, shaking his head repeatedly at the other. “What? What is it?” The king turned to them, leaned in and listened to what the man whispered.

Dolfan’s world tilted to one side. He saw them all from a distance, as if for the first time. They were terrified, angry, unorganized, and completely vulnerable. None of them would listen to him. They didn’t know how. When one of the guards sprinted for the doors, he followed. He backed down the throne room’s wide aisle. He passed close to the Heart, the dark stone that had deceived them all—him perhaps more than anyone—and he wondered if he’d ever step foot in that room again.

Only when he stood on the threshold, when he turned to face the exit across the foyer, did he notice Dielel. Haftan’s shadow slunk against the throne room wall, working his way toward the exit in a more subtle route. Dielel’s eyes darted around the room, and he pressed his spine tight against the wall, sliding along it. Before Dolfan could react, Shayd stepped up on Dielel’s left. The silent prince crossed his arms and stopped Dielel’s journey with one pointed look.

Fine. Let Shayd deal with domestic issues. He could see the security officer on the plaza, and the man hadn’t slowed his pace. He’d be at the stairs in four strides, and Dolfan intended to get there in time to join him. He lunged through the exit, took a step across the foyer and was yanked back by a heavy hand at his shoulder.

“Where are you running to?” Mofitan growled by his ear.

“That guard heard something,” he said. “He’s got a comm.” Dolfan pulled away and took another step toward the exit. He heard Mof follow, heard the heavy footsteps and felt the floor vibrate under his boots. More than simply Mofitan’s stomping had to have caused that flutter.

“Did you feel that?”

Dolfan didn’t answer, just bolted for the stairs and the plaza below, Mof keeping pace beside him. They stopped together below the flags and listened to the roar of approaching engines.

“It’s a damned invasion!” Mof screamed over the noise. “Shroud! How did they get to us?”

They ran to the head of the stairway, sliding up beside the security officer who still held the comm to his ear even though his mouth hung open and silent. His eyes stared across the canyon, where a battalion of transports dropped ground troops like deadly rain.

The lead ships had almost reached the complex, and their engines rattled the plaza tiles, echoed up from the lower levels, and shook the Palace itself.
Invasion.
Son of a bitch.

“Where the hell is
he
going?” Mofitan motioned to the pad below. A shuttle lifted off the pad as they watched, bobbled enough to reveal the pilot clearly before the currents shifted and pushed the vehicle away, straight into the oncoming army with Syradan at the controls.

“Vashia!” Dolfan screamed and grabbed the startled Security officer by his shoulders. She was supposed to be in the Temple; maybe Syradan left her there. Maybe. Why would the Seer leave? Why in the name of the Shroud would he head directly into the approaching forces alone unless… “Was he alone? Did you see?”

The man blinked and shook his head. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out. Dolfan shook him hard until he stammered, “He had the queen, the Kingmaker.”

Dolfan let go before the last word had faded. Mofitan stood in his way, but he pushed him aside and sprinted down the stairs. He hit the bottom as a shadow darkened the pad. The first ships had arrived, and they had nothing—no defenses that hadn’t already fallen at the far rim. He didn’t look up, only bolted for the bikes waiting in their clamps.

He snagged the first one and slid it forward. Mofitan tore up to the line and shouted at him. “We have to defend the palace! Dolfan!”

Dolfan paused for a second and watched the ships come. As the whine of engines howled overhead, he could see the nearest undercarriage spinning, a bright blue circle about to drop a host of trouble on them all. He shook his head and shrugged at Mofitan, shouting over the roar, “With what?”

Mof stared at him, but Dolfan couldn’t wait. Syradan’s shuttle flew farther away by the second. Whatever the Seer had planned, he hadn’t done what he said. Instead of protecting Vashia, he’d dragged her straight into the heart of a war. Dolfan couldn’t think much beyond getting her back safely.

He threw a leg over the bike and kicked away from the rails just as the first merc landed on the pad. The chute billowed away to the side, landing in a plume across the stairway. Dolfan slammed the charge to full and the cushion flared, sending the merc staggering to the side as he fired his bike like a missile straight at the rest of the incoming ships.

A mag gun howled behind him, and he prayed for Mof, for Peryl, and for Pelinol and the others who had to know by now that danger swarmed the skies above. Their officers had weapons, though very few guns that he knew of would be of any use against these invaders.

Dolfan swerved to dodge a falling merc with a readied rifle. He prayed that the mercenaries’ directive did not include slaughter, that their orders didn’t involve massacring the planet’s ruling body en masse.

For the moment, he’d settle for not annihilating him. The ships that had already dropped their troops still headed his way. Dolfan hit the accelerator and tried not to think of what might happen in the streets below, streets that now teemed with enemy soldiers. Beyond the merc ships he could see the shuttle. It flew in a direct line through the enemy forces, and not one of the bastards fired on it. Syradan, it seemed, had earned himself a free pass, and Dolfan had more than a few ideas how.

He rolled the bike sharply to the right, waited for the heavy transport to target him and then dodged back, swerving close to the ship’s hull and sliding down the length of it. Another one held position behind the first and fired before he’d even cleared the cushion. He dropped below the projectile’s path, but skidded off the mag currents and veered toward another ship. At this rate, he’d be jelly before he ever saw Vashia again.

He glanced at the shuttle. It still shot like a rocket for the far rim, but a shuttle couldn’t outpace the smaller bike, not if he could fly instead of dance. Dolfan dropped even lower. He eyed the passing buildings and watched for the road he needed. Now the troops in the street found him. They fired from all directions at once, and the bike flipped from side to side to avoid them.

When the factory route appeared, he slammed the throttle forward and gave it everything the current could muster. He steered sharply, turning down between the buildings and directly toward the rock wall. The outer road was longer, but away from the fray. He could hug the wall and go full out down the crevasse. If he avoided any more enemy fire, he should reach the security platform in front of Syradan, should see which way the shuttle went from there.

After that, his plan faltered. He had no weapon and no mask. If Syradan continued into the Shroud, Dolfan wouldn’t last long unprotected. If the platform had already fallen to the mercenaries, there’d be nowhere else to go. He leaned forward, gunned the bike and tried not to think about the next step.

J
arn watched
his troops swarm across the flat Plaza. He waited while they took the building, didn’t order his pilot to set down until the unit commander appeared below the flags and signaled that things were well in hand.
In his hand.
Kovath had erred greatly in sending him on ahead. So much for the man’s genius. The governor’s refusal to risk his own hide would give Jarn the advantage as usual.

It meant he would have some time. He could still try to influence the upstart king, try to sway him to favor Jarn as an ally over Kovath. He might already have arranged the governor’s death, though he’d had to let Syradan and the child slip by. He jaw tightened as the ship lowered toward the pad one tier down from the plaza, tucked snug against the stone face. He’d have time to kill them both later, once the seat of power lay in his grip.

“Evan,” he spun around to find the mercenary snapping to attention. The man was fast, and as eager to increase his position as Jarn was. “Stick close to me.”

“Yes, sir.”

They landed, and the hatch opened on a stone-faced merc commander. Evan flicked a salute in his direction, and the man shouldered his rifle and stepped to the side while they emerged. A line of Jarn’s men flanked the ship and two more stood at the base of the long stone staircase leading to the plaza above, the highest point inside the canyon, and both the symbol and seat—according to the traitor, Syradan—of Shrouded rule.

“Report.” He stopped beside the commander and tugged the breathing device from his uniform. While the man talked, he wiggled the small tubes into his nostrils.

“They’re all secured in the throne room,” the mercenary stood at attention, but his eyes flickered between Jarn and Evan, the latter whom he outranked by a mile if his insignia were to be believed. “The men are rounding up staff members, priests, and such, but we have the king and all of the Council members except two.”

“Except two?” Jarn bit back a wave of irritation. “You’ve lost some, Commander Rieordan?”

“Two men on bikes followed the traitor. One was shot. He went down over the factories, and the other most likely ran for it.”

“Most likely does not please me,” Jarn snarled. He didn’t appreciate sloppy work, but he didn’t have time to fuss with the Commander either. “You will radio the ground and see that both of them are found.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, then. Lead on.” Jarn waved impatiently and the merc leader hustled to the stairs. They marched up in formation, with Jarn sandwiched between Evan and the Commander. A cluster of armed men marched before and after them. At the plaza, Jarn paused and let his eyes drift from the flags above to the low Temple and back. He thought of Syradan and tasted bile. How he longed to see that one again. If he could just arrange it, it wouldn’t take him long to deal with the bastard.

He waltzed into the Palace and spared only a cursory appreciation of the lush interior, the ornate tiles and gilded ornament. Later, when the place was his, he could admire it fully. At the moment, he had a room full of dignitaries to deal with.

More mercenaries stood guard at either side of the throne room doors and they saluted as their leader led Jarn through the entrance.

The remainder of the Shrouded government huddled below a dais on the far wall. Jarn had to dodge around a glass dome set in the main aisle, but he could see them clearly enough over it. They clustered in a pathetic circle around a body. Jarn frowned. Kovath’s murdered prince, no doubt. He counted heads and ignored the hostile stares. Only one of them mattered to his purpose.

He stopped and let them get a good look. Adjusting his gloves, he waited long enough for them to fidget, for Commander Rieordan to clear his throat rudely, before he looked up at the group with a neutral expression. “Which one of you is the king?”

“I am.” Two voices answered. Two men stood up. Interesting. Helpful, even.

The younger man would be Haftan. Syradan’s chosen ruler, but would he still follow the man’s advice, now Syradan had fled the scene to save his own neck? Jarn turned directly to him, ignoring the older man, no doubt the rightful king.

“Your Highness,” he addressed the upstart, forced himself to manage a curt bow, and saw the idiot’s smile spread. “I am here to discuss the future of your throne.”