6.0 - Raptor (2 page)

After listening to the rain spilling off the red clay roof tiles into the gutters overhead for a few more seconds, Cas opted for knocking. It had been too many years to presume she could walk into the house, too many years since she had visited. Besides, the last time Cas had seen her father, she had tried to stop him from his mission while her commander shot him.

Several moments passed without an answer. Maybe the rain had drowned out her knock. She leaned to the side and tugged on the rope, and a bell gonged inside. She always hated that thing. It had made her feel like a monk living in a Temple of Tharon.

As the reverberations faded, she wondered if her father had gotten rid of the staff, deciding he didn’t need help since he lived alone now. Or maybe he hadn’t yet returned from Owanu Owanus. She felt a twinge of guilt that she hadn’t come by the house to check on him. He’d been
shot
, after all. But he had chosen to be there, working for the enemy, damn it. It wasn’t her fault. And when had there been time to visit? She had been sucked into Colonel—
General
—Zirkander’s self-appointed mission as soon as she had returned to the country, where she had been possessed by an ancient sword and killed Apex…

She closed her eyes. In the weeks since then, she could have come by, but she’d been too busy mourning. Sulking. Feeling utterly and completely lost.

Despite the long delay, when the door opened, Cas wasn’t ready. She lifted her chin, doing her best to wipe the conflagration of feelings off her face, to be the logic-driven creature her father had always thought she should be, a calculating sniper who never let feelings factor into a mission. Or relationships.

He stood before her, wearing black trousers and a high-necked gray shirt, his sandy hair neatly combed to one side. He gazed blandly at her, his fine-boned features recently shaved, his blue eyes as cool and emotionless as ever. The several weeks that had passed since he had been shot probably had not been enough for a complete recovery, but she couldn’t see any lingering signs of the injury, except perhaps a hint of stiffness in the way he held his left shoulder.

“Father,” she said.

“Caslin,” he said.

They stared at each other, each waiting for the other to continue the conversation. Cas did not have many childhood memories of long conversations, certainly none that had involved frivolous subjects. Reminding herself that she was the one who had come to him, she groped for something to say, a way to ask what she had come to ask. Perhaps she should just do that. But it seemed awkward to come right out and ask for a job when they had last met as enemies.

“Has your wound healed?” Cas asked.

“Sufficiently, yes.”

Should she apologize for the part she had played in giving it to him? No, he had made his choice, just as she had made hers. Just because he had tried to warn her to stay out of that ancient pyramid, that didn’t mean she owed him anything.

“Have you heard about…” Cas waved vaguely in the direction of Harborgard Castle, the top towers of which were visible from their elevated vantage point above the city. As far as she knew, what had truly happened there had never come out in the newspapers or even in official military reports, but her father had a way of knowing things.

“You resigned your commission.”

“Yeah.”

Cas didn’t know if that meant he knew everything or not. “I can’t go back. Are you… At one time, you wanted me to work for you.”

For some reason, she had a hard time asking the actual question, asking if he would hire her now. She had thought this was what she wanted—or rather, the life she deserved. Now, however, with the question on the tip of her tongue, she doubted her decision. Her father worked for money, assassinated people for the highest bidder, not questioning whether the target deserved that fate or not. Of course, she had never questioned if the Cofah soldiers she’d shot had deserved their fate, but somehow working for the military and the king made it all seem much nobler. She was always certain she was defending her country, her people. But that was an honor reserved for those who could be trusted to guard their comrades’ backs.

“Father, I would be interested in working for you, if you’re hiring.” The words sounded odd, as if she were somewhere outside of her body and hearing someone else speak them.

“You’ve run out of money?” he asked coolly.

Cas clenched her jaw. He thought she was coming to him as a last resort? Because she would be living on the streets, if not for him? She wasn’t
that
poor. She’d never spent lavishly, and she had money in the bank, plenty to cover the modest room she had rented. All right, maybe it
had
crossed her mind that she didn’t know what else she could do for a living. She shot things. She was a pilot, too, but ninety percent of the fliers in the country belonged to the military, so civilian jobs were nonexistent. She didn’t have the skills to get a
normal
job.

“No,” she said. “I’m not out of money.”

She had a few months before she had to worry about that. Also, Tolemek had invited her to stay with him, even though she had been avoiding him of late. She didn’t feel she deserved his company any more than she deserved the company of her Wolf Squadron comrades. Nor did she like the pitying look she caught on his face whenever they were together. Logically, she knew she should appreciate his support, and she did, but she didn’t want to be pitied. She wanted to be blamed. Why wouldn’t any of them do that? It didn’t make sense. Even if the sword had held some magical influence over her, it had been her weak mind that had allowed it to gain a hold.

“I’m not hiring currently,” her father said. “I can let you know if that changes.”

The rejection did not surprise her, not fully, but it stung, nonetheless. She had always believed that no matter what happened between them, they were still blood and he would still take her back. Wasn’t that what parents were supposed to do?

“Is this because I sided with my unit out there?” Cas asked, her cheeks heating. Her emotions must be all over her face, but she didn’t care. “You always said that you can’t let feelings or even relationships interfere with doing your duty. I was doing my duty.”

“I understand,” he said.

He did not add,
and I forgive you for it
. She wasn’t sure why she had thought he might. She also did not know why she cared. They had barely spoken for years. If they didn’t have any kind of relationship now, it was as much her fault as it was his. He had never come to her, but she had also never gone to him. She had been busy with her army training, and then with the flight training, and then working with Wolf Squadron. There hadn’t been time to notice her lack of family or to miss it. But now…

It must make her emotionally weak, but a part of her felt like an eight-year-old girl again, standing in front of her father and hoping he would offer comfort over some wound she’d received while playing. When she’d been young, he’d occasionally relented and hugged her. Maybe her mother had insisted. She didn’t know, but she remembered a few hugs here and there, even if it had been fifteen years.

“Caslin.” Her father sighed, ever so faintly. “At this time, I can’t trust you to join in with my business. I believe your loyalties would be to your unit and to those aligned with the king.”

Those aligned with the king? She couldn’t imagine going against King Angulus, nor could she imagine why her father would back his opposition. Surely, he must have suffered repercussions for choosing to take an assignment from the queen, especially when that queen had been responsible for having Angulus kidnapped. Or had her father bought his way out of legal trouble? Maybe nobody had been left alive who could prove that he’d been trying to kill Phelistoth because of the queen’s wishes.

“No, I wouldn’t agree to act against the king, but I fail to see why any loyalty I might feel toward my old comrades would matter.” Unless, Cas realized as soon as the words came out of her mouth, he had been hired to
kill
one of them. Her heart gave a lurch, and she stared into his eyes, wishing she had Sardelle’s knack for mind reading. Unfortunately, she had never been good at guessing her father’s thoughts.

“It’s possible that your loyalty would one day be a cause for conflict,” he said without giving anything away.

One day? Or did he have an assassination assignment
now
?

The sound of clanks came from around the corner of the house, and a sleek black steam carriage with silver piping came into view. A driver she did not recognize rolled the vehicle around pond-sized puddles and stopped in front of the walkway.

Her father plucked a black jacket from the coat rack and stepped forward, closing the door behind him. “It’s good to see that you are well, Caslin,” he said. “I have an appointment I must attend.”

He started past her, but paused, looking down at her.

She tensed slightly, aware that she hadn’t brought any weapons. She had turned in her sniper rifle with the rest of her gear when she resigned from the army, and, despite being her father’s daughter, she didn’t keep a rack of guns under her bed. She didn’t truly believe he would attack her, not here, when there wasn’t a logical reason for them to be at odds, but she never felt at ease around him.

“Perhaps,” he said slowly, “you could come back another time, on a less dreary day, and we could shoot at the range.” He inclined his head toward the expansive backyard that had stationary targets as well as an automated machine that threw up clay disks.

A normal father would ask if she wanted to go out for a beer or come over for dinner. Hers asked her to go shooting with him. Still, it was an offering of a sort. It just wasn’t the one she had come for.

“I’ll think about,” Cas said.

“Good.”

She waited under the portico, thinking he might offer her a ride back into town, especially since it was raining. He did not. Was he late for his appointment? Or was he worried she might get a whiff of what that appointment involved?
Who
it involved?

She started walking toward the road as the steam carriage trundled away, spitting black smoke from its stack. But her pace slowed as it disappeared around the trees at the end of the drive. She waited a few minutes, ignoring the rain trickling down the back of her neck, making sure her father wouldn’t forget something and return. Then she turned and went back to the house. She assumed he had more staff inside, so she didn’t knock or ring the infernal bell again. Instead, she went into spy mode.

Ducking low to avoid windows, she sneaked along the front of the house and around the corner to the three-story tower that had once held her room. Whether it still did, she didn’t know, but the place was a mansion, so it wasn’t as if her father would have needed to convert her bedroom to a study after she moved out.

She skimmed up ivy on trellises, smiling slightly as she remembered the day when her ten-year-old self had oh-so-innocently asked the gardener to plant the foliage under her window. It had long since matured, providing a way into and out of her bedroom window. She hadn’t been much for trysts in her teenage years, but she’d sneaked out a few times when she had been in trouble and confined to her room.

As the ivy spattered droplets onto her face, she climbed to the third story. She jiggled the window just so, thwarting the lock she’d made to be thwart-able, and landed on the thick carpet inside without a sound.

Cas had intended to rush straight out the door, down the stairs, and to her father’s office, but the familiar smells and sights of her old room distracted her. Nothing had changed, from the medals hanging from bedknobs to the half-burned lemon verbena candles on the fireplace mantle. Those medals brought back memories of all the shooting competitions she’d won as a youth, where she had been one of the few girls out there among boys who had always been older and taller than she was, most of whom had glared sullenly when she had beaten them. She’d always been the oddity growing up and then in the army, too, until she’d come to join Wolf Squadron, where she’d finally worked with people as odd as she was, people who appreciated her skills.

Cas blinked away moisture forming in her eyes and growled at herself. She wasn’t going to weep during the middle of an infiltration.

“Some soldier,” she muttered and rested her ear against the door.

When she didn’t hear anything, she eased out into the hallway. She ghosted down the stairs, the house familiar and yet no longer home, not after almost eight years without stepping foot inside. A few unfamiliar scents touched the air, including something tomato-based wafting up from the kitchen. That meant at least one person was here.

She made it to the first floor without seeing anyone and hurried when she saw the door to her father’s office was open. She almost turned into the room without checking, but remembered at the last second that he always kept it locked. If it was open…

A faint creak reached her ear, and she reacted instantly. She couldn’t run to the next room without crossing in front of the open door, and she might not make it back to the stairs in time, so she hopped onto a side table that held a vase. If someone heavier had tried this, the table might have wobbled more, sending the vase to the floor, but she barely stirred it as she used the elevation to vault up toward the arched ceiling. She softened her touch as much as possible, thanking the tumbling tutor her father had brought in to teach her as a girl as she landed above the door with her feet on one hallway wall and her hands pressed against the other.

She didn’t have time to inch higher before a maid walked out, carrying a feather duster, a bucket, and a sponge. Jartya. She had been working here for years. Cas sucked in her belly, wishing she had found a perch higher on the wall. Jartya had been a friendly face once, one to sneak Cas cookies and milk at night, after her father had sent her to bed for being too picky about dinner. Jartya might not say anything about Cas’s infiltration, but that wasn’t a certainty after all this time.

Jartya paused, snapped her fingers, and walked back inside. She plucked a spray bottle of cleaning solution from the desk. Cas used that moment to raise herself a bit higher, out of sight, but as she did so, water dripped from the hem of her jacket and splatted to the floor. She cringed, certain Jartya would notice it. What kind of thief tried an infiltration when she was soaking wet?