Whispers of the Skyborne (Devices of War Book 3) (16 page)

What had he thought? That he could change the world and no one would strike back? That Nix wouldn’t want to destroy his Family as she’d destroyed the Bahrains, or the Fursts, or the Umira? Yes, Keeley had heard Iszak Tokarz claim responsibility for the crimes on the El’Asim, but he was a bottom feeding leech. The man could be cruel, but he wasn’t smart enough to blow nearly an entire fleet of ships out of the air without a single cannon, a single gun.

It had to be Nix. It made sense, too, why the Hands had agreed to sign the treaty. Queen Dyna was many things. Stupid was not one of them. No. She’d turned Nix over to the League of Cities as a bargaining chip to be allowed to align with the league.

The Hands of Tarot. The destroyer of tribes, of
her
tribe, aligned with the League of Cities as a beacon of hope?

Keeley wanted to vomit.

And Nix? Why was she still alive? Her war crimes against the tribes was undisputed. She should be dead.

Keeley missed the days in Sky City when things were simple. She’d worked in the laboratory with her brother, studied with her best friend, Yvette. Back then, there had been no danger, no worries.

The Hands of Tarot weren’t all bad, she guessed. No. She knew. It was only Nix. Nix who had killed Synn’s father. Nix who had destroyed the Umira tribe, burning them alive. Alive. Nix who had bound Synn to her somehow. Nix who had made Keeley fear for her life all spring.

Nix, who was still among the living.

It had been months since Keeley had seen her brother, and her best friend had disappeared before the games.

Keeley felt like a stranded stranger in this odd world where the rules no longer made sense.

“Dear sky!” Carson slammed his fist against the table and launched himself to his feet. “Miss Bahrain, grab that flask of the purple liquid. Quickly.”

Keeley pulled herself out of her reverie and did as Carson directed, running after him.

He stopped at Oki’s cot and grabbed her wrist to take a pulse. He shook his head and grabbed the bottle from her. “Quickly, now, grab the intravenous tubes. We need to get this directly into her bloodstream, but be careful.”

She ran to their shared office where all the supplies were and grabbed the tubing system. Frowning at him, she hooked the flask holder onto a rack she pulled over and prepared to inject the tube.

He grabbed her hand. With a blink, he relaxed his grip and took the tube from her. “She won’t be able to stop bleeding. This must be done very carefully.”

Keeley stepped back. “What is it?”

“An anticoagulant that’s a nasty little beast. If we don’t stop it now, it’ll not only make her a bleeder for as long as she remains alive, but it’ll also damage her organs.” He shook his head, kneeling beside the cot, draping Oki’s arm over his knee. “We might already be too late.”

She didn’t want to see Synn or Ryo if Oki didn’t pull through. Synn terrified her through the fire of his soul and the rage of his Mark. Ryo had survived more than any man should have. She’d helped save him. She’d helped bandage him and clean him.

It hadn’t been pretty. It had taken all of her resolve. Being a doctor like Carson was much different than being a healer. As a doctor, he could disconnect himself from the people he healed. He had to approach them scientifically.

She’d had to be there heart, mind, body, and soul. She hadn’t been able to hide behind a mask of professionalism.

And Ryo scared her. “Do you think she’ll be all right?”

He concentrated, poking the tube carefully into Oki’s arm. “It’s too early to tell, Miss Bahrain. She could wake up in an hour and seem fine, get a minor cut that won’t stop bleeding and die. Or she could survive for months while her liver gradually shuts down. The poison has been in her system for too long, though.”

“If we’d acted sooner?”

“We acted as quickly as we could.” He looked up as Kenta walked into the hospital, a horn mug in his hand. “A cool face until we know anything for sure.”

Keeley nodded, swallowing. She didn’t know if she could do that, but she would try.

Carson stood, his thumb pressed down on the insertion point. He grabbed a piece of gauze and handed to it her. “Keep this pressed over her wound and do not let up.” He moved so she could take his place.

The small opening oozed blood. Keeley did as she was told, perching on the cot and looking up at him. “What do we tell Kenta?”

Carson pasted on a smile and walked away. “Nothing. You tell him absolutely nothing.”

Keeley closed her eyes and kept pressure on the wound without pinching the tube. “You’ve got to be all right, Oki,” she whispered. “You have to.”

T
HE DOOR TO MY ROOM
burst open and Ryo stormed inside.

I sighed and pulled myself to my feet. “Brother.” I hadn’t really been sleeping. I’d slept off and on for a few hours, but I had a feeling I should be doing something. But what? I wasn’t a real leader. I didn’t know what I was doing, what I was supposed to do. The Ino needed to go through the vetting process, but…I didn’t need to be a part of that. And after that? I couldn’t dump them on Neira. It wasn’t fair to her. I’d taken them. They were my responsibility.

Yeah. So, what was I doing?

I had no idea.

Ryo stopped in the middle of the room and glared at me. Half of his face was covered in burn scars. The other half looked perfectly fine. His hair grew in clumps along his skull, but was pulled back in a short pony tail. “Our sister is in danger and you lie in bed?”

That didn’t help my frustration at all. “There’s nothing I can do for her except to allow Keeley her space to work.”

Ryo paced three fury-filled steps away, spun and came back. “We need to do something.”

I agreed. “Like what?”

So much anger. As much as I wanted to help him, there was nothing I could do for him, either. He had to work it out on his own. The only thing I could do was guide him on a path of the least damage.

Yes. Because that was something I was so adept at. I should probably enlist some help.

He spun on me. “We had Tokarz right where we wanted him. We let him go.”

“Yes, brother. You’re right. We are men of war. Our sister needed our help, was poisoned and likely dying, but our main focus should have been the destruction of Tokarz.”

“He killed Zara.”

“I’m aware of that, Ryo.”

“And you let him live.”

I couldn’t talk to him while he had these blinders on.

He shook his head and turned away. “You’ve changed. You’re soft,” he said with a sneer. “That priestess has made you soft.”

I ground my teeth. “You leave her out of this.”

“I don’t trust her. She’s a priestess of the Hands of Tarot. They destroyed how many of the Great Families?”

“You should check your facts, brother. Nix—
Nix
—destroyed two. Umira and Bahrain. Haji’s and Keeley’s people. Do you see them throwing tantrums that I didn’t kill Nix?”

Ryo pulled his teeth back in a feral grin that lacked all mirth.

“Furst? The Hands were blamed, but who do you think really killed them? You really think Nix did that, too? She wasn’t even queen yet.”

“All the more reason to not trust—”

“It was that fucking whore of a woman you call mother,” I shouted. I clamped my mouth shut. I shouldn’t have said it, especially that way.

Ryo stilled. “How could you say that?”

I walked slowly to the window and pulled aside the gauzy curtain, buying myself time. Curtains. They certainly hadn’t been my idea, but I didn’t control every aspect of my life. There were certain things I had no wish to. I could see nothing outside the glass. Not that it mattered. I was stalling. Ino Nami had raised him. How would he react to the knowledge that she’d—Well, that he was related to that?

“Tokarz destroyed our home, murdered our sister. On her wedding day.”

I nodded. “So, he says. Do you believe him?”

“He confessed.”

“Do I kill him, then? When I do, who will take his place? How many will do so?”

“You are a powerful man.” His tone soured towards the end of that sentence. He shook his hands, loosening his fists. “You will draw many enemies.”

“I would rather cut the true head from the snake.”

He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it. He stepped closer to me, the blind anger slipping from his expression. “You know something.”

“I had thought, as you did, that Nix was the mastermind behind the attack. After all, look at the lengths she was willing to go to in order to get me back under her control. She has destroyed cities before.”

A frown flickered between his brows.

“Egolda City. A
letharan
trade city, and after that, there were others. She left a trail, showing us the extraordinary lengths she would go to get me back.”

He jerked his head back with a shake.

“And, let’s not forget how she destroyed the Bahrains, the Furst, the Umira. We thought she’d destroyed the Shankara and the LeBlancs.”

“Then it is easy to see she would have no compunction whatsoever to destroy your fleet.”

“You’re right. And had I followed my intuition, my gut, my hatred, I would have killed her.”

“And good riddance. The world would be better without her in it!”

“Except, that in this case, she is the wrong woman.”

Ryo curled his lip in consternation. “Dyna, then. Tarot’s Queen of Swords.”

I shook my head.

“The high priestess.”

I shook my head again. “This person has nothing to do with the Hands of Tarot, Ryo.”

His frown deepened. “Then it is the Han and his tribe. He has raised his attention to the air. His greed knows no limits. Simply ask Haji.”

“Ryo.” I held up a hand to stop him. “It is our mother.”

“Our—” He interrupted himself, blinked several times, then turned away in a slow, aimless step. “She would not.”

“She did.”

“She could not.”

I didn’t know what he was feeling, what he was going through. “I heard her admission.”

He pressed the butt of his hand to his forehead. “She told you?”

“She
bragged
to someone else. I was merely there to hear the conversation.” I didn’t know how to help him. “I could have killed her, then and there, our mother. After she confessed, I had every right to. But look at this woman. Look at what she’s done. She set Tokarz as bait to get us out in the open.”

Ryo held out his hand, his face overrun with a wild mix of emotion.

“And to what end? What does she want?”

“To see your ships.” His voice sounded dazed and lost.

“Then why imprison Oki, set her execution, and then poison her?”

Ryo met my gaze with a startled light.

“Think about it. Why two baits?”

“You’d been hiding for so long? She’d become desperate.”

“For what?”

“To…” He shook his head. “To get you back?”

“After what she said to me?” I drew the corners of my lips down and raised my hands. “I don’t think so.”

“Then…what did she say?”

I shrugged. “Something about blood.”

“And how we’re blood bastards.” He rolled his head on his neck and took a step away. “I’d heard her say something similar another time, but—she’s the one who agreed to unite the Ino and El’Asim.”

“Or so they’ve always told us.”

“This doesn’t make sense.”

I let my head fall forward, then brought it up, meeting his gaze. “I don’t have the luxury to be rash, brother.”

“We need revenge.” His tone said even he realized the weakness of his argument.

“Ino Nami is a ruthless tactician, better, I think, than even Nix. She has aligned herself with Shankara, the Han, and LeBlanc. Those are the four most powerful tribes our world knows. They far surpass the might of the Hands of Tarot, which I defeated.”

His gaze met mine. “The League of Cities.”

“Was built on their retirement. Ino Nami, Balbir. Their refusal, their withdrawal from the treaty could very well break it.”

Ryo’s face turned ashen as he looked away. “Then we stand, but we’re powerless?”

“We don’t have the numbers they do, or at the very least, our numbers are nomadic. The Ino is a tribe. They’ve grown together. They work together. They fit. They have their traditions. The Shankara, the same. The Han, the same. The LeBlancs, the same.”