Heroes at Odds (25 page)

That sounded callous, but it was true. What could we do about it?

“One of the rumors about your absence for that year,” said Mika, “was that you were sent by the Empress to assassinate someone.”

I choked and my nose became clogged with wine.

“And you brought back their daughter to be brainwashed by the Triple S and crafted into an assassin in her own right.”

I couldn’t speak. I almost couldn’t breathe, the shock was that intense. I mean, what the hell? Where did that trash come from?

It had been idiotic, I supposed, hoping Aryne would escape everyone’s notice. She was the grandchild of the Empress’s deceased sister, a sister most people hadn’t known existed. But we’d had to take Aryne to Erstwhile, she’d met the Empress, and people had known she was there. But I was sure no one else had known she was a relative of the royal family, and I’d really believed everyone had forgotten about her.

Taro’s eyes were wide with surprise. He looked as incapable of speech as I felt.

“That’s not true, is it?” Dias asked almost diffidently.

That got my voice working. “Of course not! How could you think it was?”

“You weren’t saying anything!”

“Let’s just say I’m just a little dismayed that people might think I’ve murdered someone.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I wanted to cringe. Because I had murdered Creol.

“Only stupid people,” Mika tried to assure me.

Still, it wasn’t Creol they were talking about, and . . . “The fact that anyone—”

“There are a whole slew of rumors about you two,” Dias interrupted. “All kinds of incredible things.”

“I can’t believe this.” Assassins. My gods. “Why the hell—I mean—why us?”

Dias smiled. “You’re famous, big sister. Or infamous, at least.”

“That makes no sense. There are actors and writers and politicians and notorious ’ristos.”

“And the Stallion of the Triple S.” Dias grinned at Taro.

Taro growled.

I looked down at the floor so there would be no possibility of sending an accusatory stare Taro’s way. I’d known this was going to happen. Well, not that anyone would ever think I was some kind of assassin, because that was ridiculous, but that complete strangers would be talking about us, because it seemed everyone knew who Taro was and found him a fascinating topic for conversation. I’d known that catching people’s interest as Taro’s Shield was inevitable, from the moment we bonded. I’d been worried people would claim that I was sleeping with Taro. Well, I was sleeping with Taro. Couldn’t we go back to rumors about that?

“The problem is,” said Mika, “that there are all sorts of rumors flying around about the Triple S, not just you two. Rumors that Sources and Shields are learning more than just how to settle disasters. There are rumors that some Pairs can actually start them and are using that ability to blackmail cities and villages into giving them money.”

“Pairs don’t need money,” Taro reminded them in a voice still hollow with alarm.

“I didn’t say the rumors made sense. Rumors often don’t. But those are the stories that are circulating. And they’re causing people to question the motives of the Triple S. People are thinking that the Triple S isn’t as neutral and benevolent as we’ve been led to believe.”

I just couldn’t understand it. How had all this happened?

“So our concern,” Mika continued, “is that you did perform some special task for the Empress, and the Emperor will use that as a reason to do something to you. Like arrest you.”

“Only the Triple S can sanction us,” I murmured.

“And only the Triple S can decide where you’re posted. Isn’t that what you told us?”

Yes, I understood. If the Emperor was willing to ignore one custom, he’d ignore another.

Zaire. I couldn’t believe any of this.

“There’s more, you know,” said Mika. “Pairs seem to be disappearing. Some dismiss it as a rumor. They say the Pairs have merely been transferred and people have just lost touch with them. But others are not so sanguine. It seems to be happening a lot more frequently as time goes by, and the Pairs that go missing are reported to be among the most talented. I can’t think it’s normal for talented Pairs to be taken . . . what do you call it? . . . off the roster.”

“Only, you two haven’t disappeared,” Dias added. “So we don’t know what to think. You’re very talented, right?”

Taro said nothing. I shrugged.

“And we’re just saying it might be safer if the two of you weren’t the only ones to know the truth.”

Maybe I was too tired or had had too much wine, but that seemed to make a lot of sense. There had been so many secrets, and I was weary of keeping them. This wasn’t what I’d wanted or planned for myself. I’d always valued honesty. I’d always hoped to be an honest person. I’d lost all ability to be that.

I suddenly felt like I’d been carrying an invisible weight on my shoulders for years, a weight that grew heavier and harder to stand up under as time went by. A weight I wasn’t sure I could carry on my own for much longer.

I was so tired.

To my disgust and dismay, I felt tears coat my eyes.

“Hey, no, no.” Dias put a hand under my chin and raised my face. “This was meant to ease you, not make you feel worse.”

Taro took my hand.

“That bad, are they?” Mika asked.

“What?” Taro laced our fingers together.

“The secrets you hold.”

Neither Taro nor I responded to that. I had no idea what to say, really. I blinked my tears away and struggled with making sense of what I’d been told.

“You both look exhausted.” Mika rose to his feet and Dias followed. “Just think about it, all right? We might be able to help.” He kissed my forehead and clasped Taro’s shoulder, Dias echoing his gestures, and they both left.

They left the chocolate behind. I popped one in my mouth in the ridiculous hope it would calm me as it had just a short while earlier.

We sat in silence for a few moments, Taro rubbing my arm. “Are you all right?” he asked. “This isn’t you.”

“I really want to tell them,” I admitted.

“We can’t,” he said.

“I know.”

“We promised the Empress.”

“I know.”

“And I fully believe she left people with orders to, well, deal with us if we spoke to anyone even after her death.”

“I agree.”

“But you still want to tell them.”

“Yes.”

“But—”

I shrugged. “I have no sensible reason.”

“So let’s hear your insensible one.”

I hesitated.

“I already know you’re not logical all the time. Admit to your foolish fantasies.”

Foolish fantasies. Aye, they were. “It’s just what Mika said. We have secrets that only the wrong sort of people know.” And after having that pointed out, I felt vulnerable. “It feels like we’ve been separated from everyone else, like we’re all by ourselves in forces I don’t understand and maybe don’t even know about, and I never expected to feel that way.”

“Think how it feels to—” Taro cut himself off.

“To what?”

He shook his head. “Nothing that makes sense. I was just thinking out loud.”

I suspected it was something more than that, but I couldn’t imagine what, and I wasn’t going to push. I chose, instead, to complain. “All I wanted to do was Shield, you know. Be a Shield, be a good one, and in my free time bench dance and read history texts and go to plays. That’s all I wanted.”

“And that’s what you would have gotten if I hadn’t Chosen you.”

I forced myself to chuckle, and I had no doubt it sounded fake. “Think highly of yourself, don’t you?”

Except he was right. Our first assignment had been High Scape, such an important city with such an impossible number of natural events that a newly minted Pair would never, under normal circumstances, be posted there. I was dead sure it was because of Taro that we were, and from that situation all of the crazy aspects of our lives flowed.

Sometimes, I heard about other Pairs, stories about saving settlements from vicious disasters just at the last moment, stories about neglect and licentiousness, stories of arrogance and demanding from merchants the best of luxury items. I’d never heard any accusations of them being assassins, though. That was reserved for Taro and me. We were just that special.

I had killed Creol. Deliberately. A rogue Source who could create natural disasters and had been using that ability to try to tear High Scape apart. He’d had no concern for the people he’d killed. He’d had no concern for anything, from what I’d seen. I hadn’t been able to think of any way to stop him, and there hadn’t been a lot of time to devise or execute any options, so I’d killed him.

Was I as bad as an assassin? Worse?

There were people who knew what I’d done, but they were people so discredited that no one was prepared to believe what they said. Almost no one. The Triple S council was suspicious that something strange had happened. They just weren’t sure what, and neither Taro nor I were about to tell them.

I could never tell my brothers that. They couldn’t help but see me as some kind of monster. That was how I saw myself. There had to have been a better way to deal with Creol.

But it would be wonderful if we could tell them something of the rest. “I’d like it if there were others who knew some of what we know. Especially about Aryne. And the Triple S’s interest in your other abilities. It seems those are both secrets that could result in our disappearing in one way or another. If that happened, it would be nice if someone else knew why.” And maybe do something about it?

Were these really the thoughts tumbling through my mind? Weren’t we supposed to be avoiding the melodramatic?

“Do you think they could keep it to themselves?” Taro asked.

“I don’t know. I don’t know them well enough.”

“What about your parents?”

“No.” That answer just shot out of me, no thought required. I had no idea why I felt so opposed to telling my parents while feeling tempted to tell my brothers. There was no logical reason for it.

Maybe because my mother had demanded to know, while my brothers had offered to listen.

“It’s up to you whether we tell them or not,” said Taro.

“Don’t do that,” I objected. “This involves you, too.”

“They’re your family. You know them better than I.”

Not by much. “So you’re not opposed to telling someone just on principle.”

After a hesitation, he said, “No, I suppose not.”

“Huh.” That surprised me. He was almost rabid about not telling the Triple S council anything. I would have thought that distrust would apply to everyone.

“You’re too tired to be making important decisions,” he said. “Let’s go to bed and think about it in the morning.”

I didn’t want to think about it at all. I almost resented the fact that the possibility had been raised. I would worry about it until I made a decision, and then I would worry about the decision itself, and whether I’d made the right one. There was just no way I could forget about it, no matter what I did.

Two days later, my idiotic Source and I were slipping out of the manor in the middle of the night, dressed darkly and carrying lanterns. We were on our way to Kent to destroy some property. I was so proud.

I had been hoping Taro would talk himself out of his insane scheme to visit destruction upon Kent. I was dead sure anything we did would make things worse for Fiona. But Taro had remained resolute and I hadn’t been able to think of a way to stop him. So there we were, doing something so half-witted I was delighted no one who mattered would ever know about it.

We hadn’t gone far, though, when we heard footsteps behind us. We turned around swiftly. Then I had to hold back an oath or two behind my tightly clenched teeth.

“Where are we going?” Dias asked in a low voice.

“You’re going back to bed,” I told him.

“Aye, good luck with that.”

“I’m pretty sure whatever you’re doing isn’t sanctioned by anyone,” Mika added. “Or you wouldn’t be doing it in secret.”

I remembered being that naive. Then the Empress sent us to Flatwell to look for Aryne. No one had been allowed to know about that. “It’s Triple S business.”

“It is not,” Mika objected. “Or, at least, it’s not the usual kind of Triple S business.”

I looked at Taro, waiting for him to say something. He was always more persuasive than I. But it seemed he had chosen to remain silent, possibly out of the misguided belief that I held some sway over my brothers.

We’d have to try this another night. I wasn’t opposed to that. It gave Taro more time to change his mind.

And apparently Mika could see the thoughts in my head, because he said, “We’ll just follow you then, too.”

“Are you watching me?”

“Yes.”

I hadn’t expected him to admit it. I didn’t know what to say. I felt I should be offended to learn he was spying on me, but I wasn’t. It was almost nice to know. How odd.

“So we should get going, yes?” Mika prompted.

Yes. I supposed. I thought taking my brothers along was a terrible idea. I didn’t want any witnesses to what we were going to do. When it came down to it, I really didn’t know them.

That shouldn’t have been so disheartening. I was no different than any other Shield or Source. In fact, I knew my family far better than most members of the Triple S knew theirs. Taro hadn’t seen any of his family the entire time he’d been in the Source Academy, though his example was far to the other extreme of behavior from families. My parents had made a real effort to make sure I knew them. I understood I was important to them.

That didn’t mean I could predict how my brothers would conduct themselves, especially in situations that were not quite legal.

Mika slung an arm around my shoulder. “You know Deacon?”