The Destiny (Blood and Destiny Book 4) (19 page)

“I can hardly believe my eyes,” the rotund
General Gott said as he entered the room. He marched straight over to Kerrigan
and clapped his hand across his shoulder. Kerrigan bit his cheek, stifling a
pained groan at the brutal assault on his wounded shoulder. “And the Lieutenant
too.” Gott gave Saunders a grunt of approval.

“I hear we are dead,
sir,” Saunders said.

“Yes,” Gott said, the
word drawn out. He pulled a cigar from his jacket pocket and struck a match to
light it, then offered the cigar case to both Kerrigan and Saunders. Kerrigan
politely declined, as did the Lieutenant, although from the look on his face,
Saunders would have preferred to smoke the entire pack. The atmosphere between
the three men was unmistakably uncomfortable. They stood in the General’s
office, a large room with only one small window looking out to the training
courtyard at the center of the fort. The dim, early-evening light showed the
outside to be virtually empty. Where there would usually be men training or
running errands, the grounds were now devoid of all but a few soldiers. It was
a pitiful contingent of men to defend the city.

Kerrigan opened his
mouth to speak, since the General hadn’t made any effort to begin the discussion;
the sound of the door opening behind him stopped whatever words he might have
said. As he turned, a familiar face entered the room. His blood ran cold as he
locked eyes with none other than Solomon Covelle. The gentleman waltzed into
the office as though he owned the entire fort and had every right to be there.
Kerrigan couldn’t quite reconcile the idea of him as the descendant of Emperors.
Perhaps the man did indeed deserve to walk around in such a manner. The
scratchy white beard seemed at odds with the tanned skin of his face. A man
who’d clearly spent a long time in the arid climate of the Blue Mountains in
Eptora, he was no stranger to Kerrigan, though his true status as the missing
Professor Markus and the last descendant of the deposed Empirical line were
both new pieces of information. He had clearly been playing the devil’s
advocate for a long time, convincing the President that he had been working
with him for many years.

“Colonel.” Covelle gave
him a terse nod as he walked directly to the General’s side.

“Sir?” Saunders asked.

“This is Solomon
Covelle,” the General said as he took a step away from Covelle.

“The Covelle you
ordered me to murder last time we spoke, sir?” Saunders asked, his voice cool
and determined. If the atmosphere had seemed awkward a moment ago, now it was
positively dangerous.

The General glanced
down at the table and took a deep breath, a moment later recovering his usual
neutral poise. “The very same,” he said as he picked up a glass containing a
liquid which looked suspiciously like whiskey and took a sip.

“Oh?” Covelle asked,
drawing to stand beside the General.

Kerrigan instinctively
reached toward his belt as though to draw a weapon before remembering that he
had no weapon, and even if he had a pistol, he wasn’t sure which man to shoot.

“I had a Presidential
aide in the room with me at the time, Solomon. I had to make some form of a
show to cement my loyalty.”

“Still playing for both
teams?” Covelle asked, clearly not convinced.

“Did this young man
follow that particular order?” The General waved a hand toward Saunders.

“He did not, though not
for lack of trying.”

“Precisely. If I wanted
you dead, I wouldn’t have sent an inexperienced pup of a Lieutenant to do the
job.” He took another sip of whiskey and shot a look of determination at
Kerrigan and Saunders.

A myriad of comments
entered Kerrigan’s mind, none of which managed to spill from his lips. He
considered what might happen if he leapt forward and snapped Covelle’s neck. Might
the General send him to the gallows in response? Would launching such an attack
now endanger the plan for Larissa and the others? He had so many questions, and
the muddy mess of whom to trust and which side he belonged to only grew worse
the further he allowed things to go on.

“Colonel, you look like
shit. You and Saunders go get cleaned up, then come back here for a debriefing
in twenty minutes. We have work to do. Dismissed.”

The General stuck the
cigar between his teeth and levelled a cool glare at the two men. Covelle moved
towards the window, pointedly putting his back to them. The discussion—such as
it had been—was over.

Kerrigan left the room
with a furrowed brow and headed towards the dormitories, intending to do as
he’d been told and get cleaned up. Hopefully, he would locate a uniform to wear
as well…and weapons.

“Colonel?” Saunders
asked as he walked at his side.

“Yes?”

“There was no
Presidential aide.”

“What do you mean?”

“When the General
ordered me to kill Covelle, we were in the room alone together. He didn’t need
to show his loyalty to anybody.”

“Interesting. I’m not
sure that clarifies whose side he’s on,” Kerrigan said.

“Agreed. What now?”

“Now we will do as
we’re told. Get cleaned up.”

“And then?”

“Then, we will press
the junior men who have remained stationed at the fort for information. I don’t
trust the General, and I certainly don’t trust Covelle.”

“I wondered if you were
going to kill them.”

“The thought crossed my
mind. It may yet come to that. I need to know how Covelle got here and why he’s
being allowed to walk around freely. They must have told the remaining men in
the fort some story. I want to know where those other pirate airships that
escaped the battle have gone and what their final play is. There is only one
thing I know for sure...”

“What’s that, sir?”

“Be it Larissa, Holt,
Gott, or Covelle,
someone
is going to assassinate the President.”

The lamb pie tasted as delicious as it
smelled. Larissa savoured every bite as though it were her last meal in the
world. Perhaps it
would
be her last meal. The others ate in silence
around the table, their small group of would-be assassins enjoying the food
their purloined gold had bought. Larissa tried not to think of the dreadful
acts the group of women at the brothel must have been through in order to earn
that gold—gold which now existed in the form of a delightfully crusted chicken
pie. She made a silent resolution to personally press whomever ended up in
charge after the death of the President to make pimps and brothels illegal.
That was presuming they could survive and win and that whomever took the
position of power would be a halfway decent person.

“You’re scheming,” Holt
said. He looked at her suspiciously from the other side of the table as he blew
a line of steam from his forkful of chicken pie.

“Just wondering…” She
glanced around the tavern nervously; a few more people had entered since the
sun set, but it was still quiet inside. “If the President…weren’t an option…who
would replace him?”

“I believe there is a
man named Swifthe in opposition,” Friar Narry said. He had already devoured his
dinner and was busy scooping up the last drops of the gravy at the bottom of
his dish with a crust of bread.

“Do we know anything
much about him?” Larissa asked Holt.

“Ex-military,” Holt
said.

“Oh?”

“Used to run the Elite
Guard…”

“Huh. Most likely in
the President’s pocket?”

“Indeed.”

“The President really
has set himself up nicely. He can’t lose. Even if all of his vote-rigging goes
horribly wrong and Swifthe wins, he’ll still be in control.”

“Swifthe will be
nothing more than a figurehead,” Holt said, confirming her assumption.

“And I’ll wager that,
were the President to meet an unfortunate demise, we’d end up with just another
version of him with that man in power.”

“We can’t kill
everyone,” Cid whispered in her ear.

Larissa dropped her
fork. It clanged loudly against the china pie dish and made her jump. Her
appetite dissipated as she rubbed her hand across her aching brow.

“We need to discuss
what you learned in the citadel,” she said quietly. Planning whom to replace
the President with seemed one step too far into politics and not something she
felt able to entertain at the same time as all their other troubles.

“I thought we were
going to wait for Kerrigan?”

“I don’t think he’s
going to show up tonight,” she said, glancing out at the dark night sky.

“If at all,” Holt said.
It hadn’t been a vicious comment. From the dark look on his face, he was deadly
serious.

“Should we wait?” Cid
asked.

“Let’s give him ‘til
morning at least. In the meantime, the citadel…”

“It’s as you
suspected,” Sandy said with a grin. “An illusion hiding a true path into the
palace.”

“Easy to get to?”

“Simple enough, but I
think they may be suspicious if a group of us all trudge down there. The
soldiers were wary about letting Cid go down there. I’m not sure we can think
up a good enough excuse to get us all there at once.”

“How about the stone?”
Larissa said, pulling the invisibility stone from her pocket. She still hadn’t
used it.

“That will work for one
of you,” Sandy said.

“Can you make two more,
one for Cid and one for Holt?”

“Not in one night. I’d
need a few days.”

“Friar can you…”

Narry responded with a
solemn shake of the head.

“I can go back down
there to fix the boiler,” Cid said.

“Didn’t you already
pretend you were doing that?”

“Yes, but I might have
accidentally dislodged part of it.”

“So now the boiler that
wasn’t broken before is actually broken and in need of repair?” Larissa asked.

“Something like that,
yes.”

“Have I ever told you
you’re a genius?”

“That works for him,”
Holt said, interrupting whatever response Cid might have had to her praise.
“You have the stone…these two
belong
in a citadel. How do I get in?”

Larissa chewed on her
lip as the barman approached to clear away their plates. She was torn between
wanting Holt by her side and wanting to leave him behind. A shiver worked down
her spine as she considered the path ahead. If the time came, Holt would no doubt
sacrifice himself to save her, or to achieve his final goal. If she could
convince him they had no way of getting him into the palace without
jeopardising the whole mission, perhaps he would wait behind. Safely.
Obediently. She squeezed her eyes shut, knowing, despite his promise to follow
her lead, that he would not agree to such a request. They had come so far; it
really wouldn’t be fair to leave him behind now. All the same, she felt so
afraid to lose him.

Sandy shifted in her
seat as the barman left them in peace, the table cleared. She stretched out her
arm to the middle of the table and laid something in the center, pulling her
arm away.

A small, silvery lump
sat atop the dark wood, wobbling slightly, reflecting in the fiery light.
Anthonium
.

“Gods,” Cid said.

“I took it from the
train engine after I turned off my orb. I thought it might come in handy. It’s
the very last piece.”

Larissa flicked her
eyes up at Holt. Behind his shoulder, the flame in the fireplace cracked and
danced high into the chimney, casting shadows across his features. A rare and
unmistakable smile tugged on Holt’s lips. Larissa shuddered once more. She
didn’t want to inject Holt with
Anthonium
. She didn’t want to infiltrate
the palace. She didn’t want to put her friends through more peril, and yet, it
seemed fate—or perhaps the Gods—had laid out the path for her to follow.

“We should get some
rest,” Friar Narry said as Holt collected the
Anthonium
piece, stuffing
it into his pocket.

“Yes. Big day
tomorrow,” Larissa said.

The others nodded and
said goodnight.

Each had their own
room, save for Holt and Larissa. She ascended the stairs leading to the top
floor, Holt following behind. Cid opened the door to the bedroom opposite
theirs. He grunted something that might have sounded like
goodnight
before rolling his eyes as he realized she and Holt were sharing a room.
Larissa passed the bag of new clothes to Cid, hoping it might cheer his mood.
Instead, he scrunched his face up and rolled his eyes again, then banged the
door shut.

Holt held the door to
their room open for her, a candle in his other hand, lighting the way. Heat
covered her cheeks as she squeezed past him. The double bed dominated the small
room. An even smaller room at the back held a bath and toilet, though there wasn’t
enough space for the door to the bathroom to close properly. Anyone using the
facilities would have no privacy. She checked on their collection of weapons,
which they’d hidden underneath the bed, disguised in a travel case.

“Everything should be
in order,” Holt said as he began to undress.

“How would you know
that? We’ve been away from our room for hours.”

“There is only one
staircase to the top floor, and no one except us has come up here.”

“You’ve been watching
it the whole time? I thought you were watching out the window.”

“I was watching out the
window and in the reflection of the window at the door to the staircase
simultaneously.”

“Why do I still find
myself amazed by you on a daily basis, Holt?”

“Because we have not
spent long enough in each other’s private company for my habits to become
commonplace in your mind.”

“That must not be true
for both of us, otherwise, you’d recognize a rhetorical question by now.”

Holt paused midway
through removing his shoes and opened his mouth to speak. It took a moment for
him to understand that she was teasing. Larissa slumped down onto the bed, the
plump mattress sinking into a large dip.

“Gods,” she said.

“What is it?” Holt
snapped to attention, alert for danger.

“Calm down. It’s just…I
haven’t slept in a proper bed, on the ground, in Daltonia since the night
before…” She faltered and glanced down at her toes. Perhaps having a
conversation with Holt wasn’t such a good idea.

The bed dipped down farther
as Holt sat at her side, wearing nothing more than his underwear. She noted
with silent interest that he’d chosen a pair of black shorts to match his
outfit.

“Go on,” he said softly.
“It’s something involving your Professor, isn’t it?”

“I thought we agreed he
isn’t my Professor…at least, he certainly isn’t now.”

“You never told me what
occurred between the two of you,” Holt said.

“You never asked me.”

“I didn’t want to
know.”

“Do you want to know
now?”

“No…yes.”

Larissa smiled, a
chuckle escaping through her nose, and she shook her head. How could they be so
comfortable battling enemies side by side and yet so awkward simply trying to
talk about the past?

“The Professor promised
me a night to remember. We’d been on a couple of dates before, but that night,
he promised me something special. Gods, Holt, I was so naive. I spent the
entire day dreaming about romance, a quiet dinner for two, dancing. I dared to
imagine he’d propose, and of course I’d convinced myself that saying yes would
be a good idea even though I knew nothing about him. At the least, I thought we
might…” She took a deep breath and gestured to the bed.

“That desperate, were
you?” Holt said, a dark, teasing tone in his voice.

“Not desperate. Just
lonely.”

“Hmm.”

“Had I known what would
happen, I would have told him to stick his promises up his backside.”

“Really?”

“Of course.”

“That would have been
unfortunate,” he said.

Larissa shifted,
crossing one leg under her body and turned to face him. “Why?”

“Because we would not
have met. If you had been the strong-headed woman you are now, you would have
taken a very different path. I would probably be dead by now, having attempted
to pursue my goals alone.”

“Well. Don’t tell me
the unstoppable Captain Holt is admitting he needs the help of others?”

“No. Only you,” he said
as he reached for her hand, covering it with his own. “We should rest.”

“Rest?” she asked,
feeling heat flush her cheeks once again.

“Yes. Rest.” He bent
forward, kissed her forehead, gave her hand a squeeze, then scooted backwards
along the bed.

Larissa tried not to
let out a disappointed sigh, but it emerged regardless. She supposed they
should be conserving energy, not spending the night using up the last of Holt’s
waning strength.

She undressed slowly,
aware of Holt watching her every move, though she refused to feel embarrassed
by it. How funny it seemed; she had begun this journey by attempting to strip
off her clothes for the Professor, and he had cared far more for her precious
necklace than for her body. Did Holt now care more for her than for his list of
people to assassinate? Despite all his promises, she couldn’t help but feel skeptical.

When she finally turned
to face the bed, the solitary candle waving a dim yellow light cast shadows
around the room, and Holt was fast asleep. A smile tugged on her lips. She
tiptoed around the edge of the bed, freezing in place when a floorboard creaked,
then carefully slithered beneath the bedsheet, cringing as the mattress springs
twanged.

Holt’s chest rose and
fell with a peaceful calm. His chin was covered in hair, a beard that never quite
managed to become anything more meaningful, and seemed to poke through his skin
merely hours after he shaved it clean. She scooted as close as she dared
without waking him and lay watching him for as long as possible before
tiredness tugged on her eyelids.