Born of Legend (72 page)

As they approached the run-down remains, Unira let out a slow whistle at the annihilation that spoke of extreme violence and fury. “What happened? The League?”

“No. My brother. The mother of his daughter, Driana, was murdered here, and his wife was held as hostage. Aksel wanted Nyk to come for a visit.” Jullien shook his head at the burned-out walls that had been obviously bombed. “Needless to say, Nyk was a bit perturbed when he arrived. This is a prime example of
be careful what you wish for.
”

Thrāix snorted as they picked their way through the debris to enter the rusted-out remains. Cast against the harsh desert landscape, the building looked like some giant skeletal beast.

As Jullien started for the rickety stairs, he froze the instant he picked up the subtle sound of someone else near them.

Before he could warn the others, he heard the click of a blaster being switched from kill to stun.

“Don't.”

He held his hands up slowly. “We mean you no harm.”

“Then why are you here?”

Jullien hesitated at the odd question. Before he could answer, Thrāix used his powers to disarm his attacker and pin him to the rusted wall. As his friend went to snap the man's neck, Jullien stopped him. “Wait!”

“For what? A fucking invitation?”

No, there was a strange prickling he didn't understand until he faced the man.

Jullien's breath caught as he instantly recognized the ragged dreg there. Though he was in bad need of food, a bath, shave, and clothes that fit and weren't worn out, this was his once-proud cousin.

Bastien Cabarro.

Son of a bitch.

I thought you were dead.
Those words were almost out of his mouth before he could stop them. Luckily, he bit them back before he betrayed himself.

Sympathy for Bastien poured over him. What the
minsid
hell? How sorry was their family that they could cut their children loose to suffer and die so easily?

“Set him down.”

Growling low in his throat, Thrāix obeyed. “A living enemy makes for a dead you.”

Jullien gave him an amused stare. “I see you've been reading the
Book of Harmony
again.”

“Fuck you, Andarion,” he snarled under his breath.

“And another lovely quote from your peaceful scripture.”

Bastien scowled at them before he glanced to Unira. “Who are you people?”

“We're just passing through.” Jullien shrugged his survival pack off his back. It contained medical supplies, water, and dehydrated emergency food rations. He held it out to Bastien. “Let us look for what we came after—has nothing to do with you—then you can grab a shower on our ship. I'll leave you with some clothes, food, and water.”

Bastien raked him with a suspicious glare. “Why?”

“Because you look like you could use it.”

Bastien, who bore enough of a resemblance to Jullien's father that it made him want to punch him, took the pack with a grimace. “Do I know you?”

“No,” Jullien answered honestly. Six years younger than him, Bastien had never really hung around much the few times their families had forced them together. Bas would head to a corner with his handheld in an attempt to avoid his obnoxious siblings while Jullien would do the same.

For the same reasons.

Bas's human family had been its own special kind of hell, as evidenced by the man's current shitty condition.

Thrāix glanced to Jullien before he spoke to him in his head.
Who is this asshole, and what's he to you? Don't waste my time by saying “nothing” or I'll smack you. I know better.

Jullien let out a tired sigh.
He's my cousin, Bastien Cabarro.

Thrāix arched a disdainful brow at the name. “You're that Kirovarian prince who slaughtered his whole family?”

Fury darkened Bastien's eyes. Slamming the pack down, he started for Thrāix only to have Thrāix throw him against the wall again with his powers.

Aghast, Thrāix glared at Jullien. “You would really spare a snake this treacherous?”

“I didn't do it!”

Thrāix scoffed. “That's what they all say.”

Jullien exchanged a glance with Unira, who was remaining oddly stoic and silent. “I believe him. They never had any evidence against him, other than the word of his own uncle, who now sits on the throne he inherited after he testified against Bastien.”

Thrāix laughed bitterly. “Oh, okay, 'cause the younger son
never
murders the older one for a throne.”

That bitter accusation, which had been leveled against him more times than he could count, ignited Jullien's own rage, and if anyone else had said it, they'd be searching the ground for their teeth. “Yeah, and sometimes the second son just makes a ready-made patsy for others to pin their own crimes on. Because everyone
but
that second son is smart enough to figure out that when the entire family dies, he's going to be blamed for it. Funny, he's creative and ambitious enough to remove the direct obstacles to his succession, yet doesn't ever consider that in the obvious chain of suspicion, he's suspect number one and that either jail or death is a much more permanent hurdle against his ruling. Yeah, right.… That thought
never
occurs to him, until it's too late. Now, put him down.”

Bastien hit the ground with a solid thud and a loud groan.

“Really?” Jullien said in the same tone an irate parent would use with a petulant toddler.

Thrāix smirked. “You didn't specify
gentle
as a condition of his release.”

Sighing irritably, Jullien growled in the back of his throat while Bastien pushed himself to his feet. He struggled for patience, knowing it wasn't worth a fight against one of his few friends.

Irritated, he tried to ignore Thrāix's pissy mood. “Aksel's office was on the second floor. What we need, if it's still intact, should be up there.” He led them away from Bastien.

As they left the room, Bastien called out to Jullien.
“Paktu, mi kyzi.”

“Estra, mi pleti.”
Jullien silently cursed himself as soon as that automatic response was out of his mouth, and he realized what he'd done.

How slick Bastien had been.

Dammit. He was the one who'd taught Andarion to him when they were boys. Not much of it. Just a few key phrases.

Thank you, cousin
and
anytime, my blood
being among them.

Holding the pack to his chest, Bastien approached him as Jullien turned slowly around to face him again.

His breathing ragged, Bastien swallowed hard. “Tell me I'm wrong. But it's you, Julie, isn't it?”

The sane part of himself said to tell Bas he was mistaken. To deny it, and his cousin, with everything he had.

He couldn't. Not after everyone else in their family had turned their back on Bas. He knew exactly how bad it hurt to be cast out and denied. Be damned if he'd do it to someone else. “Yeah.”

Bastien stared at him as if he were a ghost. Then he laughed and reached out to pull him in for a hug. “Damn, if you don't look good, cousin. Running looks much better on you than it does on me. You wear banishment well.”

Jullien held him close even though he had to ignore the stench of him and breathe through his mouth. “You wouldn't have said that two years ago. Trust me.”

Clapping him on the back, Bastien released him. “Thanks for not cringing when I touched you. Believe me, I know I'm disgusting and it's more than I deserve.”

“It's all good,
m'drey.
”

“No, it's not. And for what's worth, which isn't much, I tried to get my father to harbor you. It sickened me how they did you after your parents threw you out. I'm really sorry.”

Jullien gestured at him. “I'm sorry for
this.
What happened to you?”

“League. I'm a Ravin. Been running since Barnabas murdered my family and stole our throne.”

He cringed in sympathetic pain. “I figured you were dead by now.”

“Same here. Thank the gods for my Gyron Force training. How the hell have you survived?”

Jullien smirked. “Thank the gods for Gyron Force training. Had your uncle and father not been such bastards those times I visited, I wouldn't have lasted a week on my own.”

Bastien snorted. “Ain't it a bitch? Barnabas had no idea he was doing us a favor. One I pray I get to return to him by planting my Gyron axe in the center of his skull.”

“Gealrewe!”
Jullien clapped him on the back. “Well, since you know who I am, you want me to drop you somewhere? Get you off this rock?”

He let out a long, tired sigh. “Yes—but no. Not unless you know how to pull a League chip out of me.”

“No.” Jullien looked to Unira and Thrāix.

“Sorry,” Unira said. “Not a clue.”

Thrāix shook his head. “Beyond my abilities. I could try to do it with my powers, but it's as likely to explode the chip, which could cause internal damage, and depending on where it's located, that could paralyze or kill him.”

The only thing that had saved Jullien from being tracked by Nyran's toy was that he'd discovered how to jam the one in his spine—something Nyran hadn't figured on him learning to do with his new Trisani powers. The beautiful bonus about his being a hybrid, he didn't have the same limitations that Thrāix and Trajen had. But when it came to surgically removing Bastien's or jamming League tech …

That he didn't want to risk. As Thrāix said, he might hurt or kill his cousin.

Eyes wide, Bas held his hand up and backed away. “Rather not chance death. My life sucks enough without a maiming or fatality.”

Thrāix nodded. “Figured you'd feel that way.”

Bastien narrowed his gaze on Thrāix. “Were you really going to kill me?”

“Had you not been his cousin? Yeah. And I still might. If you give me any reason to.” Thrāix headed for the stairs with Unira.

“Duly noted.” Bastien ripped into one of the meal packs as he followed them through the base. “So what brings you here. Really?”

Jullien decided there was no reason to hide the truth. Besides, if Bastien lived here, he might be a resource who could help them with the search. “Looking for the files Bredeh ran on my family back when he was trying to kill Nyk. I'm hoping I can find something to lead me to my grandmother and the rest of my cousins who've sided with her.”

“To what end?”

“Theirs, I hope.”

Bastien swallowed a bite of his bar. “I thought you and Grandma were always tight?”

Jullien froze and gave him a bone-chilling glare that caused him to take two steps back.

“Sorry,” Bastien said quickly. “That's what your father always said whenever he came around. He thought it showed an utter lack of judgment on your part.”

“What in the Nine Worlds could
ever
make him think that? I never could stand the old bitch.”

Bastien shrugged nonchalantly. “No idea. But he was fully convinced of it.”

Jullien snorted. “Anyway, I love my grandmother as much as you do your uncle, for about the same reasons. Had my father ever bothered to have a conversation with me, he'd have known that. And if I don't stop her, she will find some way to kill my mother and brother, and retake her throne. I didn't wipe out an entire portion of my family to put my mother in power to watch that happen.”

Bastien scowled. “No. Wait … what?”

“You heard me.”

“WAR and your aunt put your mother in power.”

“Yes,” Jullien said slowly, “with the information
I
gave them over the years. And particularly at the end. Trust me. No one else could have brought down Eriadne. It's why I'm the only one she put a hit on.”

Bastien's jaw went slack. “Do
they
know that?”

“They never bothered to ask. But one would think with their brilliant intellects, they'd have discerned it by now. Again, doesn't take much to figure it out, since I'm the only one my grandmother has come after with a vengeance. Everyone else was spared her wrath. Kind of makes you wonder why, huh?”

“Damn, brother. You got screwed.”

“Don't we all?”

Bastien nodded. “So why you want to help them?”

Jullien shrugged with a nonchalance he really didn't feel. “She's still my mother. Nyk's still my brother. My grandmother's done them enough harm in their lives. I'm not about to let that bitch do any more. Be damned if I'm going to let her win after everything else she's done. I'm a bastard that way.”

“And here all this time, I thought you were nothing but a vindictive asshole.”

“Oh, you were
not
wrong about that. I am vindictive asshole. This is all about payback to the whore. Just the whore, in this case, isn't my mother.”

Bastien sucked his breath in sharply. “That's harsh.”

“I am the callous bastard they raised me to be.” Jullien scowled at Aksel's system, which Thrāix hadn't bothered to touch. Rather, he stared at it with a bemused grimace that matched the one on Unira's face.

One quick glance over it, and Jullien understood their reservation. “It's booby-trapped?”

Bastien stepped around him to enter in his password. “Yeah … sorry about that. I did it. First thing when I found this place and moved in was secure everything so that if one of the League bastards happened upon it, they couldn't use anything to figure out if it belonged to me or not.” He opened the files. “There you go.”

While continuing to eat his way through the supplies Jullien had given him, Bastien drifted back to watch.

Jullien took over and began searching through Aksel Bredeh's database with an expertise Bastien had never realized his cousin possessed. This was not the useless piece-of-shit prince the Triosans had railed against. Bastien couldn't count the hours he'd listened to his father and Uncle Aros as they discussed what they needed to do to block Jullien's inheritance.
“I don't know what to do with his sorry ass, Newell. It's not like I have another heir to choose from. But you've seen what I'm talking about. He sneers at me as if he could rip out my throat, and he's large enough to do it. Plus he's Andarion. And he's high most of the time. I'm so terrified of being alone with him. I never know when he's going to decide he's had enough, and go for my crown. The way he looks at me scares the shit out of me. I know he's plotting with his grandmother to invade my empire. Why they've waited this long, I have no idea. Why else would he keep begging to come live here when it's obvious he's more Andarion than human? Hell, he can barely speak Triosan or Universal coherently. I only understand every third word out of his mouth. Can you imagine him as the emperor of my people? My father would roll in his grave. I know he's only after my crown.”