Rebel Prince Read online

  “Convinced now it’s only a legend, a myth?” he asked. “I won’t deny Arellia is ripe with them.”

  She finally stopped, came back, and sat down again. He knew their follower was still safely distant, so that wasn’t the source of her restlessness.

  “In some quarters, Trios was long thought of as a mythical place that did not really exist,” she said.

  “Then you think the treasure is real?”

  She lifted a brow at him. “I was merely making an observation, Cub, not assessing validity.”

  He managed to keep his grin directed inward. This was more like it. This was their old way, speaking of esoteric things, teasing and jabbing at each other with humor.

  “Whoever hired those thuggers must not have been pleased,” she said, changing the subject. “They weren’t exactly the best at the job.”

  “I think they just hadn’t counted on you,” he said, giving her her due.

  She threw him a smile, and blasted to crumbs all his thoughts about being safely back in their old ways.

  “But,” she said, “that doesn’t explain who’s behind us now. I don’t think it’s them again, and it’s not Theon.”

  He was still reeling from the impact of that smile. It was a potent warning. He simply could not be with her like this and fend off these feelings. The longer this went on, the more he realized he wanted everything from her, or nothing. And explaining that was going to be one of the most difficult things he would ever do.

  “Then maybe,” he said quickly, grasping at anything, at the first thing that popped into his head to say, “we should go back and ask whoever it is for the explanation.”

  Shaina blinked. “You mean go confront who’s following us? Why, Cub, that’s an idea worthy of . . . me.”

  He couldn’t deny that. And couldn’t help grinning at her. “Exactly what you’d do, were it up to you. Isn’t it?”

  “Exactly. I don’t like being followed,” she said.

  “Then perhaps we should turn the tables.”

  “Perhaps we should.”

  WHY COULDN’T they talk a little louder?

  Mordred crouched in the shadow of the large boulder, the closest he dare get to them, straining to hear.

  He was getting mightily tired of skulking after these two, out in the open, without any comforts. He would have been better prepared, had he known they would climb so high. But he’d assumed this trek had been some whim, and that they would give up when it got rough. The woman especially; the whores of Akasen Court were not known for toughness, and inventiveness was usually left to their customers.

  And yet they had picked the perfect spots each time they had stopped, places where he’d been unable to get close without being spotted. And that annoyed him. Trios might have temporarily defeated the Coalition, but they’d only been lucky, not good.

  “We will take you down, Darian,” he muttered into the growing darkness. “Your head will be on a pike at the gates of Triotia, just as your father’s was.” He stared at the couple atop the rock. “And your son’s beside it. Perhaps I’ll add that skypirate as well. What a fitting ally for such as you, Wolf.”

  He felt better using the slave’s name.

  He wondered when they would start moving again. Soon, surely. It would be dark on this accursed mountain in a few hours, and he didn’t relish spending another night huddled in the cold. But it would be even colder up on that rock; the wind was picking up, so even they wouldn’t be foolish enough to stay up there.

  Even as he thought it, they moved, and he felt a spark of satisfaction at his judgment. It turned to annoyance when they dropped down over the far side of that rocky promontory they’d been perched on, and out of his sight. He could not see from here which way they were going, and he dare not emerge from his hiding place too quickly. They had not spotted him yet, and he intended to keep it that way until they had led him to their goal. The only thing better than handing the Sovereign the prince’s head would be to hand him a pile of treasure along with it.

  But if this turned out to be nothing more than a fanciful story, he would settle for the just the head. And the destruction of Trios.

  He allowed himself the small pleasure of picturing that planet’s destruction. The famous world would be blown into fragments too small to even walk upon, and the seat of rebellion destroyed completely and for all time. He still had a few friends in the High Command, so he knew the Coalition had the capability, but only used it to rid themselves of planets—and people—that no longer served any useful purpose for them. Only planets that had been scoured of all things of any use, and provided what slaves were of any use. But in the case of Trios, they might make an exception.

  He leaned forward, peering into the growing gloom of twilight. He should be able to see them by now, if they were back on the path up the mountain. But there was no sign of movement. Were they on the other side, perhaps making camp early? He himself was weary, and this was hardly the kind of activity he would have expected from a spoiled prince. And again the thought pricked him, that perhaps this prince was not as spoiled and soft as he had assumed.

  More time passed with no sign. Perhaps he should look about himself, determine where he would settle for the night. Or perhaps he should work his way ahead of them; the higher they went the fewer choices of direction were open, and they seemed to have settled on this path. Perhaps he could even find this legendary treasure first. That thought made him smile.

  He pondered that idea as he continued to watch.

  They had to be settled in for the night. Perhaps they were out of food. He himself was running low, as he had not expected this to take so long. But then, he was no scavenger; he was above eating such things as they did. Why, they even hunted for their food, an idea that disgusted him.

  But then he realized that such activity was perhaps what Trios had been reduced to by the Coalition, and the thought warmed him.

  He leaned forward farther, risking being spotted. He still saw no sign of movement. He didn’t think they could have made it to the trees beyond the outcropping without him seeing them, and they had no reason to veer into the forest on either side of the path, so they had to be hunkered down on the far side of that rock. Although it made little sense, given that the wind was coming from above and would make such a spot a chilly proposition.

  Perhaps they weren’t as clever as he was thinking they might be, after all. Perhaps they were just possessed of that dumb luck Triotians seemed blessed with. He liked that idea. They were nothing special. They were merely lucky. They were—

  “Looking for something?” a cheerful voice called out.

  They were behind him.

  Chapter 22

  SHE WAS, RINA thought, in a difficult place.

  She had come here with a purpose. A purpose she was little closer to accomplishing than when she had first landed. She knew only that a couple matching Lyon and Shaina’s descriptions had headed up the mountain. An adventure into the mountains was exactly like something they would do. At home their wanderings were far-reaching.

  But now she had another purpose, and it loomed even larger than her initial goal. While nothing was more important to her than her family, she couldn’t deny the simple fact that if the watchers were right, storm clouds were once more gathering. Were, perhaps, imminent.

  She sat now in silence, listening to the reports from various places, made with grim certainty by those gathered in the gloomy room. They had used the gathering of tens of thousands for the celebration as cover, coming in from worlds across the sector once owned by the ruling Coalition. They pretended to be merely revelers, although Rina had her doubts as to how effective that pretense was, given the unrelenting bleakness of their expressions.

  From what she observed, it was clear Tark was second only to Kateri herself in influence. And first in strategy; usin
g the celebration as cover had been his idea, and had allowed them all to gather unnoticed.

  She wondered fleetingly what would happen if they disagreed, but the thought vanished as the reports ended with a man from Clarion reporting the sighting of one of the Sovereign’s personal advisors, a man responsible for the running of Ossuary on Daxelia, the pit of Hades for slaves deemed too uncontrollable for use. The place where Dare, then known only as Wolf, had ended up, near death, to be saved only by the stubborn courage of the woman now his mate and queen.

  In the end, the consensus was unwavering, and unanimous. The Coalition was coming back.

  Rina had no illusions about what the goal would be this time. The Coalition did not take defeat graciously, and took embarrassment even less graciously. They would destroy Trios, Rina knew. And this time there would be nothing left to rebuild, nor anyone to do it. Rumors heard through the telerian, that underground network of communication, of a Coalition device that harnessed the very power of the sun and could reduce planets to splinters, had made all of Trios even more grateful for the endless power supply for their sensors and weapons. Thanks to the discovery old King Galen, Dare’s father, had made—and to Lyon and Shaina for finding the pieces of the puzzle—Dare had been able to order the long-range scanners at full power day and night. They would have warning and options.

  If such a device existed, she had no doubts the Coalition would use it. Trios must be crushed to rubble at all costs, if what the watchers suspected was true, and the Coalition was on the path to return to power. Her instincts told her it was true.

  The shadow of war was looming. Again.

  Her priorities were clear.

  MORDRED FROZE. How had they done it? How had they moved so silently?

  He resisted the urge to turn. He could not reveal his face, he was too well known. Especially on Trios, where they blamed him, as well as that idiot Corling, for the death of King Galen. He pulled his hooded cloak tighter around him, both to conceal his face and to cover his movement as he pulled his disrupter from his belt. He wanted to present the prince alive, but if necessary, his head would do.

  “What is it you’re after?”

  The voice rang out again. They were still in the trees behind him, he guessed, so turning around would do him no good; he wouldn’t be able to see them while he himself would be fully exposed. He smothered a curse, angry at himself for underestimating his prey. Or the luck of Triotians. The woman he dismissed. He would deal with her later. Right now his mind was racing.

  The whelp had asked what he was after, so this princeling had no idea who followed him.

  “A pleasant ramble up the mountain,” he said, adopting the rather drawn-out, provincial tones of an Arellian. His face was hidden—they couldn’t see his eyes weren’t blue.

  “Why aren’t you in town for the party?” the woman asked.

  He barely managed to stifle a sniff of disdain that the whore would even speak to him. To him!

  “I will be, when the real party begins.”

  It was all he could do not to laugh at his own clever remark, but he schooled his expression to bland ignorance, so as not to betray there was more than one meaning in the words.

  “Why are you following us?” the woman demanded, and her tone required even more restraint on his part. Were she close enough to strike down, he wasn’t sure he could stop himself.

  “I merely follow a path. You do not own the mountain.”

  “Don’t be so sure of that,” the woman said, and he heard the tinge of laughter in her voice. It infuriated him.

  “Very well,” he said, putting on the most affronted tone he could manage. It was not difficult. “I shall choose another path. Be on your way, and I will be on mine.”

  He turned and started to the east, all his attention focused to his right, where they were still concealed in the trees. Cowards, he thought. Not enough nerve to come out and face him.

  That he had not wanted them to was beside the point.

  “YOU SHOULD have let me take him,” Shaina grumbled as they followed from a distance, to assure the man was indeed taking a different path.

  “And do what?” Cub asked.

  “Roll him down the mountain?” she suggested, half meaning it.

  “Feeling bloodthirsty?”

  “At least we would have seen his face, to be on guard.”

  “It is enough that he knows we know he’s there.”

  She grimaced. “Do you believe him? That he was just out for a ramble?”

  “Do you?” he countered. “You’re the one with that flashbow sense.”

  She blinked. Stared. Then felt silly for not having put that together herself, that the ability she had always had to sense such things as people silently following, or the nature of a threat, was part of being the flashbow warrior.

  Yet another thing to hate her father for keeping from her.

  She shook her head sharply, made herself answer his question.

  “I don’t know.” She cast about for an answer that would make sense, then shrugged. “There was just something about him.”

  “Yes. There was. And . . .”

  “What?” she asked when he trailed off.

  “There was something familiar about him.”

  “But that hood shadowed his face.”

  “Yes, but I feel as if I’ve heard that voice before.”

  “Perhaps down in Galatin?”

  “I don’t think so. I don’t think it was in person.”

  “A recording?”

  “Perhaps. But I can’t place it.”

  They followed the man until he was well along the eastern path. When he stopped and went calmly about the business of making camp, they stopped as well, watching. They pulled back, well out of earshot, and crouched in the shelter of a huge, old groundsweeper tree.

  “If he knows we’re following, he seems unconcerned,” Cub said.

  “Or that’s what he wants,” she suggested, her mouth twisting downward at one corner.

  “You’re such a pessimist.”

  “Realist, you mean.”

  For a long moment Cub just looked at her before saying gently, “Do not let what happened with your father turn you sour, Shaina.”

  “I have not changed.”

  “But you have. And I miss your moments of sweetness.”

  “Sweetness?” she scoffed. “Me?”

  “Yes,” he said. “You have them. You used to have them more.”

  “Most would laugh themselves sick at that idea.”

  “Then I’m lucky, if you save them just for me.”

  She stared at him for a long, silent moment. Everything she’d been feeling welled up anew inside her. It seemed to force out words she otherwise never would have said.

  “Always for you,” she whispered.

  “Shay,” he said, his voice as hushed as hers as he whispered the childhood name he’d not spoken since she’d declared herself too mature for such things, even as she continued to call him Cub. Hearing it now, his voice sounding like this, made her feel as if all pretense had been stripped way.

  When he leaned toward her, she wanted to shout “No!” but perversely that word wouldn’t come. Nor could she seem to move, even as her body tensed and her breath stopped in her throat.

  Her last thought before his lips reached hers was “Inevitable.”

  And then he was kissing her, and all thought was seared away.

  Chapter 23

  DARKNESS HAD FULLY fallen, but it seemed to have no effect on the revelers. They were determined to get their fill of this week of endless celebration, and it made progress through the crowded streets difficult.

  “At this rate it will take until dawn to get to the skyport,” Rina muttered, dodging a reeling celebrant who
had clearly imbibed too much lingberry, but seemed intent only on drinking more.

  “You’re leaving?” Tark asked.

  He sounded . . . something, Rina thought. Since he usually betrayed no emotion at all, it was hard to tell what. He hadn’t always been that way. When she’d first met him, she’d been drawn by the reckless joy he took in living—something that, coupled with sheer courage, made him a fearsome warrior. He’d reminded her of Dax in that. He still did, but now it was a Dax of grimmer moments, when he’d been on trial for his actions and thought his fate sealed, when he expected nothing less than death by order of the king.

  She couldn’t imagine what it was like to live feeling that way constantly.

  “No,” she said. “Not leaving. I have a room at the billet there.”

  “Not in town?”

  “Amid this chaos? No, thank you. Besides, everything is full.”

  “The Council Building has quarters.”

  “For visiting dignitaries,” she said with a laugh.

  He shrugged. “It is by tradition also open to all who fought there.”

  She stopped amid a gap in the crowd. A half step later he stopped as well, and turned to look at her with that lifted brow.

  It amazed her that the revelers, even drunk as many of them were, could be so oblivious to the simple fact that the man who more than any other had made this celebration possible was standing in their midst.

  “Then why are you not there?” she demanded.

  Again he shrugged. He looked toward the large white building visible in the distance even in the dark. “If pressed, I suppose they would make room. But I make them uncomfortable, which in turn makes for unpleasantness. But you would be welcomed.”

  “I clearly have a different definition of welcome. Mine includes all that matter to me.”

  His head snapped around with a sharpness that betrayed him. She met his gaze levelly. If he did not know he mattered to her by now, it was time he did. That he mattered more than most, and in a most different way, was something she herself wasn’t quite ready to face.