Through the Veil (37 page)

Dais turned just in time to see Arnon step up behind as Char continued to erect the small, temporary gate.

“My lord,” the Sirvani murmured. A warning whisperedthrough the air and Char tensed. But it was too late. The bloodied tip of a deadly torq-metal knife appeared through his chest. Stunned, Char lifted a hand to touch the blade, but his hand fell to his side, slack, before he could even lift it to his waist.

Char tried to turn, ending up stumbling and falling to his knees. He could see the Veil flickering. Energy snapped through the air. Char could no longer direct it into the forming gate, and the gate fell. Right before Dais’s stunned face disappeared, Arnon said, “You’ll have to live like a primitive awhile longer, Dais.”

Char fell, landing flat on his back. Pain arced through him. He screamed, but it ended with a wet, garbled sound. He tried to say his servant’s name. “Ar . . .”

“I imagine you want to know why,” Arnon said calmly. He stood by the door with his hands linked behind his back, his face expressionless. So at odds with the fury that burned in his eyes. “Present me to your daughter, my lord?” Arnon repeated. “That was the last time you will ever see her.”

Betrayal had a bitter taste, Char realized. Very bitter. He wanted to push the knife out—the icy pain seemed to burn through him. It hadn’t pierced his heart, but already the deadly metal was spilling poison into his veins. Char could feel it. His limbs were already cold and his hands were clumsy as he struggled to reach behind him for the hilt. “Why you, Arnon? Why you?”

Char had battled so many assassination attempts, and yet this caught him completely unaware. Before he died, he’d know why.

A faint smile appeared on Arnon’s lips. He bowed his head, that deferential nod he’d given Char so many times, but now Char saw the mocking hatred hidden behind the mask of respect. “Why, my lord? Because of Neve. You see, there was one woman that intrigued me. Your mate. We loved each other.” Arnon moved closer and crouched by Char’s side, a bitter smile on his face. “It was laughable, an offworld woman truly loving a man of the enemy. Me, truly understanding that love. But there you have it. We loved each other. Then you got her with child. When the girl child was born, we knew you would never let Neve go. You’d force her to your bed time and again until she bore you more and more children. You’d force her to pleasure so that she was filled with shame and self-hatred for days.”

The ice-cold of the torq-metal’s poison spread more, filling his lungs and making each ragged breath as painful as if Char breathed out slivered glass. He choked on each breath, struggled to get it out and take another. He had to keep breathing until he could get help.
Help . . .
A tiny seed of hope grew inside him. The body slave, she was still there, watching everything with wide, dumbfounded eyes. Char gave her a desperate look.

The little seed of hope withered and died as she met his gaze and smiled. Hate blazed in her eyes. A ferocious, pleased smile, the first true smile he’d ever seen from her.

“Hurts, doesn’t it? Having a poison eating away at you inside?” Arnon murmured. He crouched down by Char’s side and studied him, a nasty smile on his face the entire time. “That is what I had to live with, every night you sent for Neve. But you were my poison, not a piece of metal. You’re lucky, that metal will end your suffering. My suffering has been going on for more than twenty years now. I loved Neve—would have died for her. But dying wasn’t going to save her. The only thing that would save her was getting her away from you. After she healed from childbirth, I knew what we had to do.”

Understanding dawned slowly. Thinking was difficult, and Char still couldn’t believe that Arnon had betrayed him. “You stole Neve away.” He had spent years trying to discover who had helped his Tiris escape, but he had never imagined it had been Arnon. Never once had that occurred to him.

Char had always believed that she had seduced one of the younger Warlords. One that had managed to open the gate long enough for them to escape. Arnon hadn’t that power then. Somebody had helped, then.

“Yes. I stole her away. But I couldn’t go with her. If I did, you’d know that it was me who had betrayed you. As your sworn servant, you could find me easily enough through the blood bond I gave you when I entered into your service. I couldn’t risk it.” A smile tipped up the corners of his mouth. “However, there was another whom I had a blood bond with. One whom you had no control over.”

Char closed his eyes. The sense of betrayal was painful, though not quite as painful as the poison ripping through his system. “You were the one feeding them information about pending raids.” He started to cough, something thick, bitter and metallic bubbling up his throat. He choked on it and realized with horror that he was coughing up blood. “Taise was not wrong after all. We did have a traitor.”

Arnon shrugged. “I had my loyalties, Char. You were not one of them. You merely thought you were.” He rose and nudged Char’s side with a booted foot. “You look as pathetic now as the High Lord must.”

“Fuck you.” Another coughing fit seized him, and by the time he was able to breathe again, he knew death wasn’t far away. The lingering shadow of death he had sensed this morning had been his own.
Arrogant fool,
he thought bitterly. So certain of his men.

“All this to keep her safe—you’ve killed her surely enough, Arnon. She is as good as dead now. She doesn’t understand her power, can’t control it. She’s vulnerable. Another Warlord—” Another fit of coughing overtook him and that icy darkness pushed ever closer. Desperate, Char fought it back, fought to think, to function. “Another Warlord will find her, Arnon. One that cares nothing for her.”

Something flashed through Arnon’s eyes. For a man who had always been so unreadable, the Sirvani was certainly showing an excess of emotion now. Char wasn’t certain, but it looked like doubt, combined with anger.

He couldn’t fight the poison inside him. Even now, the pervasive weakness made it all but impossible to even wipe the blood from his mouth. His voice faltering, weak, he rasped, “She’s dead now, boy . . . thanks to you.”

The taste of defeat was even worse than the taste of betrayal, and if Char could have hurried his death along at that point, he would have gladly done so.

Lenena wouldn’t evade capture. The wild, uncontrolled power inside her would call out to the Warlords and the Sirvani like a beacon. She would be captured or killed, but it all added up to the same anyway. She was the daughter of a Warlord. Even if she didn’t understand all that that entailed, Char did. She would kill herself before she’d submit to slavery.

How is it possible?
After all this time, after coming so close, he’d failed her. She would never be safe, never have a chance at happiness. Her last hope for safety had been him . . . and he’d failed.

No. He couldn’t accept it. Even as death drew ever closer, he wouldn’t let himself admit it was over.

The answer, when it came, was faint, offering a hope so small, so slim, he never would have grasped at it—if it wasn’t his last hope. Her last hope.

Her brothers . . . With the last bit of energy he had inside him, he reached for them. Even as his body shut down and death edged nearer and nearer, he reached. He’d feared there might come a time when they would need to know of Lenena. He’d feared . . . but prepared.

Those preparations just might save her.

“Daisha . . . ” His words were so faint, so thick, he couldn’t even understand them. “Forgive me.”

Breath rattled in and out of his lungs. Trying to focus on Arnon’s face, he realized he could no longer even see. The world was graying out on him, slowly deepening to black.

And the cold, bleeding hells . . . He was so cold, icy cold, all over his body and deep inside his heart. His breathing grew more and more shallow and he could even hear his heartbeat beginning to falter.

I failed . . . but perhaps they won’t.

TWELVE

“I never would have guessed it was you.”

Dais cut off his tirade abruptly as the low, familiar voice interrupted. Slowly, he turned and watched as Morne ducked under the low-hanging doorway. The tall man’s eyes were dark against his skin and they glowed with the promise of death. “Morne, if you are here to check on your patient, she is still resting.”

Morne glanced her way. “She doesn’t rest. She is unconscious. I am a healer, Dais. I know the difference. I smell the roots of the kifer weed so I imagine she had a bit of help getting unconscious.” A smile curled his lips, and Dais felt a ribbon of unease slide through him. “I wonder what Kalen will do to you when he learns that you have been spying for Anqar.”

“Have you gone mad, Morne?” Dais asked, trying to keep his voice level. The spit in his mouth had dried up and his voice was just a bit shaky. Too shaky. The ribbon of unease grew into a bloody flood. “I’ve fought at Kalen’s side for as long as the boy has been fighting. I fought at his father’s side.”

“Yes and spied on him as well. You’re a clever one, Dais. I’ll give you that. Whatever you received in compensation spying on these people, you kept it well hidden. You kept under the radar. I’ve seen you choke up at funerals and rage over the fallen body of a child. You’re possibly one of the most accomplished liars I’ve ever met,” Morne mused. He circled around the lodge, moving ever closer to Dais.

Dais turned with him, keeping Morne in his line of vision. “Have you hit your head, Morne? You’re talking like a raving maniac.”

A smile came and went on Morne’s face. “Do not waste your time lying to me. You were seen, Dais. You aren’t the only one living a double life, you know.” His voice dropped to a low, almost hypnotic lull. “But
your
double life is killing people. Killing innocent people. People who share your blood. Your homeland. People who are simply struggling to live out their own lives without fearing raiders will steal away their daughters and sisters. You should have been out there shedding blood with them, and instead you have been stabbing them in the back.” Morne stopped his circling and moved toward Dais, so fast his movements seemed to blur. “I wonder how they will react when they learn you’ve been betraying them for longer than some of them have even been alive.”

Sudden, gruesome images filled Dais’s head. He had a good idea of what their reaction would be. Bloody. Painful and merciless. It had always been a distant knowledge, what could happen if he was discovered, but he’d always had a quick escape plan. There would come a time when he could no longer continue his life as it had been for the past thirty-six years, and he had planned for it. But his escape route had been the Warlord. With Char dead and the High Lord on his deathbed, Dais’s choices were limited.

Very limited. For the past hour, he had been working his way through those limited choices and discarding most of them. The only viable option was to get to the gate. Char was dead, and while Dais knew other Warlords, he doubted any of them knew of his connections to Anqar. His usefulnessto Char had been in part because few knew anything about him. Keeping it that way had seemed wise, and lucrative on Dais’s part, but now . . . now he wished he had at least a few other choices. Another Warlord he could call.

“Heavy thoughts, Dais?” Morne whispered.

Dais pulled back, getting a couple of feet between him and Morne. Angling his body so Morne couldn’t see, Dais touched the pulsar at his side. If he had to, he’d cut Morne down. He had to get away—if at all possible, he needed to take Lee with him. If she was valuable to one Warlord, daughter or no, she was likely valuable to another. At the moment, she was the only bargaining piece he had.

Morne’s gaze dropped, as though he could see Dais’s weapon. That sly, taunting smile returned, and Morne said, “You going to use that on me, Dais? Have you got the spine for it?”

Oh, yes. Dais had the spine for it. But before he could draw the weapon, nature decided to shake things up a bit. The quakes hit hard and fast, and thunderheads stacked up in the sky high overhead. Static electricity built in the air, charging it until Dais could feel the hair rising on his arms in response.

The earth shuddered and pitched, and Dais hit the ground rolling. He kept rolling until he came up against the sturdy, ugly fabric that made up the temporary medicon. He used his pulsar to burn a hole in it and crawl out. From the corner of his eye, he saw Morne, but the healer wasn’t coming after Dais. He was crouched over Lee’s body, protecting her as the earth shook around them.

Dais would have a few minutes. It just might be enough. He wouldn’t be able to take Lee with him, but perhaps the knowledge of her existence would be enough.

One thing was certain, his time here was done. Morne had seen to that.

From behind, Morne watched as Dais disappeared through the hole. He slithered away like the snake he was, and Morne was trapped there, protecting Lee’s body with his own as supplies went flying around them. The waterproofed canvas fell down over them as the support poles shook free from the earth.

One of them struck him low on the back, and he grimaced, braced his weight on one hand and reached behind him to grab the pole and throw it aside. Then he went back to shielding Lee’s body. To his left, small glass vials came raining down from the shelves. Outside he heard a tree branch break and he swore, bracing for the impact, but when it hit, it hit far off to the west. A faint smile curled his lips. Maybe they’d gotten lucky and the tree limb had fallen square on top of Dais’s head.