The Hero Strikes Back

Table of Contents

 

 

With a mother like this . . .

Karish was never meant to be the Duke. His older brother had had the title, and, from what I learned, had been thrilled to indulge in the aristocratic lifestyle, but he'd ruined everyone's expectations by dying before marrying or having children. That left it to his mother, the Dowager Duchess, to choose the new titleholder. For some reason, she'd chosen her second son, the Source she'd been happy to send away to the Academy, the son who'd never had a moment of training in the duties of being a titleholder and a landlord, when there were several more qualified cousins clambering to take the title.

Karish hadn't wanted the title, for which I'd be forever grateful. He couldn't be both a Source and a Duke, with all the Duke's responsibilities. If he had taken the title, he wouldn't have been able to work as a Source, which would mean he'd have no use for me. Bonded to him, I wouldn't be able to work with any other Source. I would have been left with nothing to do.

Karish pulled back and straightened his shoulders. “The Empress obviously misunderstands the gravity of the situation and merely needs instruction.”

“And the fact that pursuing the title could get you hanged, what about that?”

“That's just the law. What is the law to her?”

Marvelous. The blasted woman was going to get us both killed.

RESENTING THE HERO
THE HERO STRIKES BACK

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THE HERO STRIKES BACK

 
An Ace Book / published by arrangement with the author

 
PRINTING HISTORY
Ace mass-market edition / September 2006

 
Copyright © 2006 by Moira Moore.

 
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Special thanks to

 
In addition to the usual suspects . . .

 
The people of O'Flynn Weese Tausendfreund LLP, for being the best group of people I could ever imagine working with, and for being so supportive of my writing.

 
And Grecos, my favourite restaurant in Kingston, for letting me take over one of their tables for hours while I wrote.

Chapter One

I was not drunk, but I had every right to be, considering the circumstances. I was on the small side and I'd had little to eat all day. It was cold in the middle of summer. My married mother was on the other side of the room flirting with the new Captain of the Western Runners, and the too-good-looking brother of the hostess was trying to charm me. So, all in all, I deserved a drink or four, and I thought I was doing pretty well. I was still upright, my words weren't slurred, and I hadn't done anything to embarrass myself. Yet.

I couldn't work because my partner, Source Shintaro Karish, was still in Erstwhile, attending the Empress, whatever that meant. I hated not working. I hadn't spent seventeen years of my life in an academy training to be a Shield just to sit around doing nothing. But I couldn't work without my Source, and that was that.

“Can I have another of these?” I asked Erin Demaris, the aforementioned brother of the hostess. I held out my glass, which until a few moments before had held the remnants of a dangerously tasty concoction involving strawberries, rum and crushed ice.

“Certainly,” he said, taking the glass and twisting in his chair to hold it out to his sister. “Another berry frost, Risa.”

His sister, Risa Demaris, turned from another conversation, her earrings chiming lightly as she moved. I looked at her with envy. Tall, leanly muscled, with tightly braided red hair, she enjoyed an air of power and fierce elegance. Her gorgeous brown skin glowed against her orange and gold sarong. I'd always hated the color orange, but she made it look tasteful and joyous. There was no way she could ever pass unnoticed in a crowd.

I'd met her the previous year, when my Source had gone missing. She'd been one of the Runners assigned to find him. She hadn't, because no one would have ever suspected a Source could be abducted away to another city by another Source. I'd found him myself, but only because I'd been deliberately led to him by one of the abductor's followers.

Many of the Runners I'd encountered upon our return to High Scape had seemed offended by my interference. Runners investigated crimes. Shields protected Sources while said Sources calmed earthquakes and tornadoes and all the other intense natural disasters that constantly threatened our cities. Never the two shall meet.

Risa had invited me over for dinner. She was that sort of person.

She glared at Erin. He grinned back at her, a wide uninhibited display of even white teeth. She snatched the glass from him. She pointed at me as she looked at him. “You're lucky I like her,” she informed him before heading off to the kitchen.

I watched him turn back around in his chair. Once upon a time blue eyes had been my preference. Not so long ago, the preference had somehow slid over to black. Erin had just the kind of dark come-drown-in-me eyes that had become so dangerous to me. Short black hair coiled close to the head, creamy brown skin, and that easy white smile. He was, I thought glumly, beautiful. He was also a good deal older than his sister, and he had the comfortable, settled confidence of the mature man. What was he doing talking to me?

He was telling me about the law. He was a solicitor, of all things. But he wasn't boring about it. He'd had me laughing, earlier, telling me about ludicrous obscure laws no one remembered, but for which people could still be prosecuted. Like it was illegal to hang one's laundry outside on sevenday in Darkenwood. Or it was illegal to pretend to practice—though not to actually practice—witchcraft in Red Deer. And my personal favorite, in Gathering Place it was illegal to walk a pig on a leash on the street. Erin couldn't tell me whether it was the pig, the leash, or the city street that was objectionable, though he did claim there were no similar restrictions on any other species of livestock.

“So how long are you staying in High Scape?” I asked him, trying to keep him talking so I wouldn't have to. He was a resident of Erstwhile, the Empress' City. Where Karish was right then.

And could I please stop thinking about Karish? Just for a moment? Please?

Erin shrugged. “However long it takes us to patch together the Bill. There are only eighteen of us.” He rolled his eyes. “So it shouldn't take more than a few years.”

The Bill. Meant to create a new quota within the Imperial Council. Once it was passed, at least a third of the seats would have to be held by members of the merchant class. Or so said the rumors. Mother was very excited about it, and sometimes I suspected the real reason she was visiting me was to somehow watch the Bill being created. That or Prince Gifford's visit, scheduled for later that summer.

I still didn't understand why the Bill was being drafted in High Scape instead of Erstwhile. High Scape was the economic center, but Erstwhile was the seat of political power. Then again, most of the merchants, the powerful ones, lived in High Scape. Were they actually being consulted?

I'd heard most of the High Landers were spitting nails over the Bill. They had no interest in sharing power, or the Council's Chambers, with merchants. The Empress was insistent on shoving it through. Her son and heir, Prince Gifford, hated the idea, and had declared his opposition so loudly that even I, generally ignorant of politics as I usually was, had heard of his views.

Risa reappeared, a fresh drink in hand. “Here ya go, kid,” she said. “You're lucky I like you, too. Do you have any idea how expensive ice is this year?”

I was sure my stare was quite blank. “Expensive? Ice? It's just frozen water.”

Erin chuckled. “Sure, plenty of that in winter. Not so easy to come by in summer. Even one as cold as this one.”

I looked at the drink in my hand. “Where does this come from, then?”

Risa shrugged. “I buy it from the ice man, who delivers it in a big cube wrapped in burlap. It's good for only a few days.”

“And this costs money?”

“Everything costs money, Dunleavy.”

Well, aye, I knew that. Sources and Shields didn't use money, as we were given free goods, services and shelter in exchange for our unpaid labor. Everyone else had to pay for things, though, and I understood the necessity of it.

Still. Ice? Ice was something created by nature. It was like asking people to pay for air.

And this was my third berry frost. I wish I'd known there was a cost associated with it. Because I didn't want it anymore.

But I didn't dare say that. “Thank you, Risa. I really appreciate it.”

“No worries,” she said with a wink. “Is the music all right for you?”