Dragon: Allie's War Book Nine (76 page)

He closed his eyes, feeling his jaw harden. “No more rumors today, sister…please.”

She smiled at him though, caressing his face and jaw.

“I just wondered which part of them were true,” she said, her voice a smile. “I know some are outrageous…about the rooms of gold. The labs filled with Elaerian hybrids, with enough food to last through to the end of the world…”

Revik blinked up at the ceiling, fighting confusion.

Replaying her words, he frowned, even as his mind cleared slightly.

“What?” he said finally. He turned his head. “What are you talking about?”

“The underground compartment, brother,” she said, her voice still cheerful. Smiling, she rubbed his stomach with her hands, feeding him light. “They say it stretches farther than the City walls…so deep that none knew it existed. The stories are wild. That there are horses down there. Seer children with pale white eyes who can manipulate objects with their light…rooms and rooms of jewels and organic computers that can think and reproduce…”

It took a few seconds for her words to penetrate.

Then he opened his eyes, fighting his light back around his body.

He looked up at her, and saw her smiling at him.

The Chinese seer had light blue eyes, tinged with enough green that they gave him a hard-on the first time he’d seen her. By then, he missed his wife so badly he was picking out unwillings almost exclusively according to how much they reminded him of her, either in terms of their light or some element in their physical appearance.

This one was kind-hearted, too…and more understanding than most about his desire to open to them but only under certain conditions.

He didn’t want to think about how many of these consort seers might have known Allie.

He didn’t want to do know if this one did…or if that was the true reason for her kindness towards him in relation to his wife. He’d told them not to tell him if they did know her. He’d told this one that…or he was reasonably sure he had.

But then, he didn’t sleep with any of them more than a few times.

He’d assumed his wife would prefer that.

He fought to think back on what she’d just said, if only to distract himself from his current train of thought, where his mind still wanted to go. It felt like a repeating loop lately, like his own form of self-torture, like some kind of masochistic itch he could never scratch. He fought to remember what caught his attention.

In playing back her words, his mind clicked on for real.

He sat up, rubbing his face with a hand as he propped his weight up with his other arm.

“What?” he said. He blinked at her, fighting to get his mind working again, to push past the effects of the alcohol, past the feelings that had been crushing him since that morning.

“What did you say?” he said.

“The underground chamber,” she said, smiling faintly. He felt a pulse of relief off her light, could feel that she was glad that her distraction was working. “That’s where those other soldiers went, isn’t it? The ones you brought here?”

Revik’s jaw tightened.

He scanned her light, doing his best to keep the evidence of his scan off his face and expression. He couldn’t get much. Not because he was drunk, but because she didn’t seem to know much. He got images of her eavesdropping, hearing soldiers of Shadow’s talking while they visited the consort chambers. He saw them talking, laughing, oblivious to the consorts below them, sucking their cocks…or their cunts in some cases.

Seers could be such fucking idiots when it came to sex.

“Where?” he said only.

“Under the City,” she said. Her voice and eyes grew puzzled, even as she slid closer, massaging his shoulder with practiced hands. “You know about this, brother. Surely. You are the leader here…you sent them there, did you not?”

Revik let out a half-humorous snort. “Right.”

Still fighting to get his brain moving again, he rubbed his face a second time, blinking against the low light.

He met her gaze again. “Did you hear them talking about the entrance to this place, sister?” he said, more to direct her light so he could read her than because he expected an answer. “Where did they find it?”

She clicked softly, a lulling, nearly purring sound.

“I do not know,” she sighed, pulling on him sensually with her aleimi again, massaging his back. “…Only rumors. But Voi Pai is very angry, I hear. They laughed about this, too. She did not know the extent of this underground chamber, although it seems she knew something was there. I heard them say that Voi Pai would not grant them access to some parts…that she claimed its presence here is some condition of their alliance…and that this alliance that was broken by your leader…and then by your invasion here.” The unwilling’s voice grew apologetic. “They brought her down there to force her to open this chamber in some way…”

Revik nodded, fighting to keep his reactions out of his light.

Unlike Shadow’s grunts, he knew better than to underestimate the infiltration skills of the consorts here. He knew most of them were trained in those arts even more extensively than they were in sex. He also knew they’d used those skills for centuries to protect the sovereignty of the Lao Hu, including through blackmail and related intelligence matters.

Apparently a good number of Shadow’s people didn’t get that memo.

Then again, most of them weren’t married to an ex-consort of the Lao Hu.

Fighting that out of his light as well, Revik continued to study her light.

“Will you show me, sister?” he said politely. “Where this entrance is rumored to be?”

She looked nervous now though, wary as she studied his light.

Feeling the nature of her concern, he opened more, letting her look at him. He felt his transparency relax her slightly, but the thread of those nerves remained, vibrating where he could almost see them. She didn’t speak as her eyes slid over his face.

“Are you the leader here?” she said finally.

Shaking his head, he clicked at her ruefully. “Only in some respects, sister.”

“What does that mean, Illustrious Sword?” she said.

“It means they do not trust me,” he said, blunt. He met her gaze, opening his light still more, so she could feel the truthfulness there. “They do not tell me everything,” he added. “I was not aware of this chamber at all, sister.”

A silence fell between them.

“I have a daughter,” she said, a thread of fear in her voice.

Revik felt his jaw harden. Nodding, he withdrew his light. “I understand.”

The fear grew more prominent in her light. “I would not deny you anything, Illustrious brother,” she said. “But I am a prisoner here. So is my child.”

He looked up, meeting her gaze. “I have a daughter, too,” he told her, softer. “It makes me a slave too, sister…so believe me when I say I understand. I will not ask you any more on this.”

He saw the relief touch her eyes, even as his words seemed to touch her. She caressed his face with her fingers, then leaned closer, kissing his mouth.

He felt her fighting back and forth inside her light.

Then her fingers touched his face, caressing his skin.

“By the main horse paddock,” she said softly, kissing his mouth again. “Near the southwest wall, brother…the outer one. That is the place they discussed…”

Wrapping his hand into her dark hair, he kissed her back, sending a pulse of gratitude.

“Thank you, sister,” he murmured. “Thank you…”

He kissed her again, using his tongue that time, feeling a corresponding ripple in her light as she opened, tugging achingly on his aleimi. Fighting back the image of Allie that wanted to rise, he kissed her a last time then released her, climbing up off the sleeping mat.

His mind felt strangely clear as he searched for his clothes, pulling articles on one by one as he found them.

He fought to keep his mind level, to keep his reactions to a minimum.

Even so, he felt the pain coil back up into his light, along with a pale flicker that could only be hope. Real hope. Something he could actually feel…something tangible. Something that even managed to let him delude himself into thinking he might actually go home.

Finally, a fucking break.

He couldn’t think about any of that, though. Not now.

Tugging on his last shoe, he bowed to her again, murmuring his thanks as he backed out through the open door. Closing the sliding panel behind him, he shielded his light for real, clicking into infiltrator mode as he waited for his eyes to adjust to the dark. Once he had his bearings, he began to walk, moving soundlessly across the wooden floors of the consort building until he reached an exit into the nearest stone courtyard.

Walking out into the night air, he heard the fountains splashing water over rocks, the whisper of winged creatures, what might have been bats…but otherwise, it was totally silent.

It had to be three in the morning to be so quiet. Give or take a half-hour.

His mind felt entirely clear now, for the first time in days.

Whatever alcohol remained in his system seemed to have evaporated, too.

Taking a deep breath of the cold night air, he exhaled silently, then began to walk, keeping his light cloaked as he headed west and then south, aiming his feet for the main gate.

He knew exactly where those paddocks were.

Some part of him found it almost humorous that he had been looking so hard with his light for Rigor and Tan and the rest, and they’d been under his feet all this time.

It was the kind of irony Menlim would appreciate, actually.

Shoving all of that from his light, Revik darkened his cloak still more, receding from the Barrier with his conscious mind even as he bounced another portion of his aleimi back at the consort hall, causing it to feign sleep as Balidor had taught him.

He knew it wouldn’t work for long, not here…but it might buy him some time.

He knew the entrance to that underground chamber would be guarded too, especially if this was what he thought it was…but he’d deal with that when he got there.

He didn’t have time to be cautious about this.

He didn’t have time for some elaborate plan, or even the normal precautions.

He didn’t have the time for much of anything anymore.

He fought Allie out of his light as he thought that, too, but a voice in the back of his mind told him exactly where that fear really came from. He knew enough about his own light to know exactly how focused he was…on her, on his wife falling in love with another seer, on running out of time to save his marriage…on running out of time, period.

He had to get out of here.

He had to get the fuck out of here before he lost his family for real.

24

MAUSOLEUM

Revik found the entrance more easily than he thought he would.

They had it hidden through physical means mainly, so knowing roughly where it was in that respect helped immensely.

He sent up another silent pulse of gratitude to that unwilling––Charlie, he was pretty sure her name was, her nickname, at least––and the fact that she’d trusted him enough to tell him about this, even after she realized her mistake in assuming he already knew. He might never have found this on his own, certainly not as quickly as he had with her help. The lack of constructs here, or any kind of Barrier security, made it strangely easy to miss.