Encrypted (38 page)

His grip loosened, and she voiced a muffled
protest, but his lips smiled against hers, then he knelt. He gazed
up at her as he unlaced her boots, and her breath caught at the
adoring tenderness in those gold-flecked eyes. She recovered and
dug into the buttons of her uniform jacket. Her fingers didn’t seem
to work as well as they should.

“
I miss my dress,” she
muttered.

“
Me too.” Rias’s eyes
crinkled as the first boot clunked to the floor.

She shucked the jacket, annoyed when her arm
caught in the sleeve. By now, he knew she was no graceful gazelle,
but it would have been nice to undress competently.

She started to tug the shirt over her head,
but hesitated. It was silly—he had already seen her naked and was
clearly interested—but a self-conscious twinge stilled her hands.
With Parkonis and those scattered few before, she had shared bench
space in the cute-but-not-beautiful part of the arena. Even before
Rias turned into some legendary Turgonian hero, she had known he
belonged up front, in the I-could-have-anyone-I-want seats.
Tonight, he wanted her, but if by some miracle they made it out of
here, would that change? When there were more attractive options
available?

“
Tikaya?” Rias asked
gently, concern in his tone. The second boot had joined the first,
along with the scratchy wool socks, but he still knelt, face tilted
up, watching her.

“
Sorry, it’s nothing.” The
future was a murky incorporeal place; best to enjoy what was real,
what was now.

Rias stood, body solid and warm between her
legs, but tense. “Please, tell me. I don’t want any more secrets,
any more misunderstandings. I’m on your side out here, above all
others.” His eyes probed hers. “Do you trust me?”

She blinked. “That wasn’t what I was
doubting. I mean, I wasn’t doubting. I was just wondering if...if
you saw me, back when you came to Kyatt to talk to our president,
if I’d been in your path somewhere along the way...would you have
noticed me?”

“
Ahhhh.” Rias grinned and
the tension melted from him. “Indeed so.” His eyes grew hooded,
sultry, and he leaned into her. “Especially if you’d been wearing
that dress that so nicely accents your curves.”

He slipped his hands beneath her shirt and
massaged his way up from her waist. She shivered at the sensations
those callused but gentle fingers stirred. He kissed her mouth, her
jaw, and down to her neck, and she closed her eyes, arching into
him.

“
You do know...” he
murmured against her throat, lips sending spirals of heat to her
core. “Those dazzling blue eyes are rather rare in Turgonia.
Exotic.” He spoke slowly, lazily, kisses punctuating his words.
“And it’s always a challenge to find a lady of sufficient
height.”

She would have laughed, but his mouth
returned to claim hers, and she met him with equal intensity, humor
forgotten. He broke away only long enough to say, “You’re a
beautiful woman, Tikaya, and I love you.”

She gave him a fierce hug before turning to
other matters. There was not much talking after that, and
fortunately he proved more adept than she at removing military
uniforms.

* * * * *

Tikaya woke with a start. The soft light of
the room left her confused as to the time. She was in the sphere,
with its shelf of air acting as a mattress. Though she had no
blanket, a cocoon of warmth kept the alien bed cozy.

Rias sat next to her, head cocked, ear
toward the window.

She touched his bare back. “What is it?”

“
I think I heard a
scream.”

“
Not one of
mine?”

“
Not this time.” He smiled
and kissed her before crawling past her and out of the sphere. He
reached the window before she maneuvered off the air
cushion.

“
Better get dressed.” Rias
jogged to their piles of clothing and tossed hers on the
bed.

“
What’s going on?” She
tugged her shirt over her head and tied her hair back.

“
I can’t see. There’s some
kind of fog out there.”

As soon as Tikaya had trousers and boots on,
she hustled to the window. A gray-blue haze made it impossible to
see more than a few feet. She could not make out the reservoir, the
walls, or the ground where the marines camped.

Rias belted on his sword and checked the
rifle.

“
Wait,” Tikaya said as he
headed for the lift. “What if it’s poisonous? What if everyone is
already...”

Rias hesitated, one foot on the blue
circle.

A yell of pain pierced the walls and was cut
off.

“
They’re not dead yet,” he
said.

But he did retrace his footsteps and find
the towel he had used earlier. He tore it lengthwise, handed half
to her, then wrapped the other half around his head to cover his
nose and mouth. She tied hers and followed him down the lift.

Rias slid the door open and paused to listen
before venturing out. “Stay close,” he whispered.

They slipped outside. The haze stung
Tikaya’s eyes. Even through the cloth, she smelled an odor
reminiscent of burnt coconut.

Rias led her toward the camp. Visibility ran
only a few feet in the dense fog. They reached the first prone
form, Agarik, still under his blanket.

“
Is he...” she
started.

Rias knelt and checked for a pulse. “He’s
breathing.”

“
Sleeping?”

Rias shook Agarik’s shoulder, which elicited
a snore, but nothing more wakeful.

“
Not the type you can be
roused from apparently,” Rias said.

They crept farther and found more sleeping
marines. None of them could be shaken awake, and Rias stopped
trying.

At the edge of the fog, a hint of green
clothing appeared on the ground to the right. Tikaya stepped over a
marine to find herself staring at an unknown face with blood still
streaming from a slashed throat. She struggled for detachment—and
to keep from stepping in the spreading crimson pool. The dead
person was small and thin-boned with a green shirt and brown
trousers that lacked any hint of military uniformity. Definitely
not Turgonian, but she was not sure of the nationality.

“
Rias?” she
whispered.

He had disappeared in the fog. She walked in
the direction she had last seen him, but tripped over one of the
marines. Her reaction was too slow and, almost as if she floated in
water, she toppled face-first to land on the man. He grunted but
did not wake.

Confused at the heaviness of her limbs, she
pushed herself up. It felt as if a hundred pound rucksack burdened
her. The cloth covering her face might delay the fog’s effects, but
she would be snoring alongside the marines soon if she did not get
away from it.

“
Rias?” she called a
little louder.

“
Tikaya?”

She nearly tripped again. That wasn’t Rias.
That wasn’t any Turgonian. It sounded like...

She put a hand to her chest. It couldn’t
be.

“
Tikaya?” the voice came
again. “Are you here?”

She closed her eyes. The voice, so familiar,
was speaking in her language.

“
Over here,” she said. She
did not say his name. She still did not believe it could be him.
How could it be? He was dead, his ship sunk over a year
before.

She held her breath as the fog stirred. A
shape coalesced.

“
Parkonis,” she croaked,
lifting a hand.

He was a slight figure in comparison with
the Turgonians, and he looked even thinner than she remembered. His
curly red-blond hair, always a mess, had grown and stuck out in
every direction, much like the beard hiding his chin and neck.
Anxious blue eyes looked her up and down. He was the one who had
watched from the opposite side as the marines entered. Oh, Akahe,
if she had been close enough to identify him earlier, would she
have...

She glanced behind her shoulder. Where had
Rias gone?

Parkonis started toward her, arms wide, a
white toothy grin escaping the beard. But his toe bumped against
the fallen green-clad man.

His smile faltered. “Tatkar, no.” His gaze
darted a dozen directions. “One of them escaped the gas. We have
to—”

A dark shape slipped out of the fog behind
him.

“
No!” Tikaya shouted
before she even saw the bloody dagger.

She lunged forward, knowing she could never
stop the assassin in time. He, too, wore a cloth across his face,
but it did not hide the intent in his cold, dark eyes.

Rias stepped out of the fog behind Sicarius
and dropped a hand on the assassin’s shoulder. The dagger
froze.

Parkonis whirled, took in the tableau, and
stumbled back. Eyes still fixed on the assassin, Tikaya stepped
forward and gripped Parkonis’s hand.

“
I have no idea how he’s
here,” she said, talking to Sicarius who seemed to be deciding
whether to finish what he had started or not, “but this man is a
gifted archaeologist, and if anyone can help you get your weapons,
he can.”

Parkonis’s Turgonian was as good as hers,
and she had no trouble reading the incredulous look he gave
her—helping the empire was the last thing he wanted to do. She
squeezed his hand, hoping he would recognize the don’t-say-anything
signal. Rias’s gaze fell to the hand hold, and guilt washed over
her at his pained wince. He closed his eyes for a long moment.

Tikaya lifted her free hand and spoke as
much for him as for the assassin. “Let’s figure out what’s going on
before we do anything else.”

Rias pulled a mask over his face, but
instead of responding he released Sicarius and disappeared into the
fog.

“
Brace yourself,” Parkonis
whispered in Kyattese.

Tikaya opened her mouth to warn him the
assassin understood their language, but the hairs on the back of
her neck leaped to attention. A heartbeat later, blinding whiteness
engulfed the cavern, and a thousand cannons roared in her ear. Her
feet floated from the floor, and someone—Parkonis?—wrapped his arms
around her. She had the impression of weightlessness, of her body
moving toward the chasm.

“
What’s going on?” she
yelled, but she could not hear herself over the clamor in her
ears.

With her senses overloaded, it took a moment
to realize what was happening: Parkonis was rescuing her. And she
did not want to be rescued, not if it left Rias to wonder if she
had scurried off with her old lover.

She thrashed. She had to escape before they
reached the chasm. Her elbow caught Parkonis in the gut, and she
felt rather than heard his pained exhalation. Regret mingled with
desperation—she did not want to hurt him.

Parkonis shouted in her ear, but she could
not hear words above the roar. She squirmed again, determined to
free herself. He let go with one arm, and she thought she had her
chance, but something cold and coin-sized pressed against her
temple. The world blinked out, and she knew nothing more.

CHAPTER 19

Tikaya woke slowly, mind groggy. She lay on
her back, her head in someone’s lap. Rias? No, concerned blue eyes
peered down at her. Parkonis.

She struggled to sit up. A woman and a man
in marine blacks stood above her. Colonel Lancecrest had not
bothered removing the name tag from his wrinkled jacket, though she
would have guessed his identity without it. Greasy salt-and-pepper
hair stuck up in spicules, bags haunted his dark eyes, and furrows
creased his weathered face. He looked like a man with nothing left
to lose.

The woman had straight blonde hair and pale
skin, so she might be Kyattese. Crow’s feet lined her cold green
eyes, and her thin lips flattened further under Tikaya’s
scrutiny.

“
Where are Tatkar and my
men?” Lancecrest asked.

“
Dead or captured,”
Parkonis said. “Sorry, we—”

“
Idiots.” The colonel
clenched a fist and stalked away, back rigid.

“
Hate that man,” Parkonis
muttered.

Tikaya rubbed her face and tried to clear
the wooziness from her brain. Another cavern stretched around them,
this one with cracks and buckles marring a floor decorated with bat
guano. Its pungent smell tainted the air. Stalactites hung from a
ceiling far overhead. No sign of a camp or recent habitation marked
the cavern, but her spine tingled with the telltale sense of nearby
practitioner work.

A fifty-foot-high butte rose in the center,
a natural formation with a steep, jagged face. A single chamber
with transparent walls took up the space on top. Lit from within,
the bright interior revealed dozens, maybe hundreds, of bristling
rockets. Similar to the one in the fort, they stood upright, their
outsides loaded with dense strings of colored cubes. Larger black
cylinders stood in the middle, and Tikaya had no idea what they
might do, but she doubted anything up there existed for a purpose
other than devastation.

There was no obvious way to get to the
chamber. Two broken pillars and the remains of a ramp had crumbled
and collapsed. A cool draft whispered against her cheek. If bats
were living in the cave, there must be access to the outside
nearby. Several tunnels led from the cavern.

“
Thank you for your help,
Gali,” Parkonis said, addressing the woman. “I thought that
sleeping gas would be enough, but you were right: one of their
guards was too alert.”

“
Tatkar was my colleague
for years.” Gali turned icy green eyes on Tikaya. “You better be
worth it.”