Rebel Prince (The Coalition Rebellion Novels Book 3) Page 21

  Chapter 28

  SHAINA DIDN’T question him when he suddenly veered off the path and dove through the trees on the right—she merely followed. Even when she’d thought him wrong—a rare enough occurrence that he should likely prize her unwavering trust more as well—if he was determined, she would follow. Someone, she’d always said, had to protect his back.

  He wondered if on some subconscious level she had known—had sensed—that protecting him would fall to her. His mind recoiled at the thought. He’d always known it was the job of the flashbow warrior to protect the royal family, but when he’d thought of it, he’d always thought of Dax. It was part of the tradition over the centuries, and he’d never questioned it.

  Until now, when he realized that the next flashbow warrior, the one who might one day have to die to protect him, was Shaina.

  That she would do it even now was not at issue—as he would for her without hesitation, if it came to that. His discomfort was over the idea that it would one day be her responsibility. That it would be expected because she would be the flashbow warrior, not simply because of who she was, and who he was to her.

  That she would have no choice. He knew how having no choice made her feel.

  That she didn’t want to discuss it right now had been made quite clear. And he understood that as well, although it was not like her to sidestep an issue.

  A heavy branch whacked his chest, nearly took him off his feet, and he made himself focus on the task at hand. He pushed through the thick stand of trees. He couldn’t explain the pull that had made him change direction, but he could not deny it was there.

  Something snapped. He stopped short midstride. For a moment he thought the tingling sensation was from the memory of that kiss. But then he realized it was something outside, something that had begun at his skin and shot through him.

  He heard an odd, muffled sound from behind him. He whirled, hand on the disrupter they had agreed whoever was in the lead would carry. He heard the sound again, faintly, like a distant cry.

  Yet Shaina was there, barely ten feet behind him.

  She was darting back and forth, looking, searching. For what? And why was she looking past him even as she called out his name? And it was too distant, too far, that cry. It sounded as if it were coming from halfway back down the mountain. He started back, running toward her. Felt that tingling sensation again.

  She stopped dead in front of him, looking as if he had materialized out of the moonlit air.

  “You’re all right,” she said, eying him warily. There was something odd in her voice, a touch of something he didn’t recognize.

  “Yes. What happened? Did you see something, hear something?”

  Her brows rose. “You disappeared.”

  He blinked. “I what?”

  “One moment you were pushing aside that large branch, the next you were . . . gone.”

  It was still there, that odd undertone, and he suddenly realized what it was. Something he had never heard from her before. Fear. And since she seemed incapable of fearing for herself, he had to assume it was for him. He added that to the growing heap of things they had to address, later.

  “Shay—”

  “I was right behind you. And then you were gone.”

  It made no sense, but he couldn’t doubt she meant what she’d said. He wondered if it had something to do with that strange sensation he’d felt twice now.

  “Well, come.” He turned to retrace his steps upward, taking her hand. The oddness, and her distress, had rattled him more than he cared to admit. “I think I’ve found something.”

  He felt the sensation again, although less this time.

  Shaina muttered something under her breath—he suspected one of those unladylike words she wasn’t supposed to say. She rubbed a hand down her arm, and he realized she must be feeling the same thing he had, that sharp snap, followed by that odd tingling sensation running over her skin.

  Then she seemed to forget that. They both stared for a long moment. He was aware for the first time that they were in what, in daylight and in normal circumstances, would probably be a pleasant mountain meadow, half-ringed by a semicircle of the mountain itself. To one side was a narrow waterfall, its rushing sound a soothing, natural counterpoint to the oddity of what had just happened.

  Shaina looked around as well, then turned to look back the way they had come. She frowned. Studied . . . something, he couldn’t tell what. She moved then, taking a step back down the path. Then another.

  She reached out. Something in the very air sparked, snapped, and she jerked her hand back with a cry.

  He covered the distance in two long strides. He collided with her. They steadied each other, barely managing to keep their feet. There was a split second when their gazes connected, when he knew they were both acknowledging things yet to face, but in this instant there was something immediate to deal with.

  “What is it? Are you hurt?”

  She looked at her fingers, which he could see were reddened.

  “It . . . burns.”

  Thoroughly puzzled now, he lifted a hand. He felt the same tingling sensation, but nothing more. Shaina lifted her own hand again, and the spark flashed again, and she yanked it back.

  “Enough of that,” he said sharply.

  He knelt down, picked up a fist-sized rock. Tossed it down the trail.

  The air sparked again. And the rock bounced back and landed at their feet. Lyon’s brow furrowed.

  “That’s not the main thing,” she said. “You . . . vanished. The moment you went past this, you weren’t there. And I couldn’t see this meadow, the waterfall, none of it. There were just trees.”

  He blinked. “Wait,” he said. He walked down until he felt the sting. Took one more step, then turned back.

  “Can you see me?”

  “Yes,” she said, “but you sound muffled.”

  “As do you.” He came back.

  “I don’t understand. When I was down there, when you went past that point, I could no longer see you. Nor any of this,” she said, gesturing toward the meadow. “But you can?”

  He nodded.

  “And once past it, I apparently cannot go back. But you can.”

  Lyon drew back slightly, thinking. He turned, searching the area around them. All looked normal, natural. He looked at Shaina, who was watching him.

  “I think . . . maybe . . . take my hand.”

  She did, although she was still frowning. He started walking back down the hill once more. She came, but when they neared the spot, the screen or whatever it was, she held back, hardly surprising after what had happened when she’d merely brushed it.

  “Trust me,” he said.

  Immediately she stopped resisting. He felt a tug inside at her instant trust. Her hand in his, they walked through the screen.

  She stopped on the other side, staring at him, then back the way they had come. Keeping her hand in his, he led her back.

  “So . . . I can come through, but only if we are together?”

  “Touching, I think,” he said.

  He looked back toward the meadow and waterfall he could see as clearly as if there were no barrier at all. Yet she could see none of it.

  “‘The spirits are thick on this mountain, and they only bare their secrets to those who are of the blood,’” he quoted the old man softly.

  “Home to myths and legend and magical ideas indeed,” she muttered.

  He took her hand and once more they walked through the barrier. He stopped, and stared. “The waterfall.”

  “What about the—”

  Her words broke off and he saw her remember the old man’s words.

  “Just as he described,” she whispered.

  “Yes.”

  He walked to the edge
of the pool at the base of the falls, where the water gathered before spilling over and continuing down the mountain. Shaina joined him, stood beside him staring at the misty fall of water. It dropped a great distance, widening from a narrow stream at the top to a wide cloud of spray at the bottom, where the fall hit a boulder taller than both of them. The huge rock was split, as if the soft spray had been some sort of giant’s hammer, cleaving it nearly in two.

  “‘The cavern of the waterfall shall open when the two halves have joined. . . .’”

  He was barely aware of having said it aloud until Shaina responded.

  “We’re supposed to join the two halves of that rock? How? Either half must weigh more than the ceremonial stone.”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m not even sure that’s what it means.”

  She studied the rock. “It does make sense, if you accept that any of it makes sense. Do you suppose . . . the cave is behind it?”

  “It is not uncommon, a cave behind a waterfall. There is one at Lake Geron, remember?”

  “Are you even sure this is the place?”

  He glanced at her, gave a half shrug. “Yes. Do not ask me how, but I am sure.”

  “Well, then.” She shrugged off her pack and looked around. “I think over there is the best place to set up camp.”

  And just like that she accepted his word. His Shaina, of most logical and practical mind, asked for nothing more from him than his own certainty. Odd, how he was thinking so much of loyalty and constancy since they’d been on this mountain. Before, he had always taken her presence, even with all her flash and fire, for granted. He should not have. For even now, when the weight of her own future had to be pressing down on her, she was with him in all ways.

  Except one . . .

  His traitorous mind answered his own words with resounding emphasis. And that swiftly, the ache rose in him anew, until he despaired of containing it. He had thought, a couple of times on the trail when he had turned to look at her, that her face had betrayed a similar heat. But he could not be sure.

  Better to be thinking of how they were to be moving the two halves of this real rock, he told himself.

  “—the boundary.”

  He snapped out of his frustrating reverie. “What?”

  “I said we should see if that . . . barrier, whatever it is, is still in place, and check the boundary of it.”

  He nodded. “Good plan.”

  They returned to the spot, found the mysterious visual and auditory obstruction still in place. They separated and went in opposite directions, testing, until they had reached opposite sides of the waterfall and had determined that the barrier enclosed the entire area from the trees to the precipice the waterfall tumbled over, although they could not tell how far up it went. What they could tell was that anything within that perimeter was both invisible and unheard from the outside, by her and they guessed by anyone not Graymist.

  “Do we trust it?” she asked.

  “I feel we can,” he said slowly, “though again I could not tell you why.”

  “It fits with the rest of this insanity,” she suggested.

  There was wry humor in her tone, and he felt a spark of that admiration again. No matter what life threw at her, Shaina would always cope.

  They set up in the place she had suggested, falling into old, familiar ways. He built the small fire they had decided to risk, since Shaina lacked the knack—or the patience—for it, while she gathered wood for fuel. A little food, and perhaps even some sleep in the hours remaining before dawn, then in the light of day they would examine the rock. Perhaps some way they had missed in the fading moonlight would be obvious then.

  He only wished the rest of their path would become obvious as well.

  Chapter 29

  “IT’S TRUE, THEN?” Hurcon asked.

  Dax looked at the burly Omegan, short, stout, and thickly muscled as most from his world were, thanks to the heavy gravity of the huge planet.

  “What is?” he asked as the man slung his bag onto his old bunk. He was the last to arrive, recalled from his home. The call had been voluntary for all offworlders, but every one of them had responded immediately.

  “Rox said the Coalition is gathering again.”

  “We have a very reliable source. Heard you nothing on Omega?”

  “Rumors, nothing more,” Hurcon said. “Although the whisperings did seem more active than usual.”

  “Were they being taken seriously?”

  “By some. Others called them crazy.” Hurcon looked up at him. “Your source is not, I gather?”

  “He is not.” Hurcon had been with them, in the battle for Galatin, so he would understand, Dax thought. “It’s Bright Tarkson.”

  The Omegan’s eyes widened, and he let out a low whistle. “Reliable indeed,” he said. Then he frowned. “But I thought he was dead.”

  “We all did. Rina found him alive shortly after she arrived on Arellia.”

  “Well that bedamned bark-hound,” Hurcon exclaimed. “He could have let us know. I’ve regretted his loss for an age now.”

  “As have we all,” Dax said with a grin. “But I decided to forgive him, since he was still alive after all.”

  Hurcon grinned back. “I will still give him a load of snailstones when I see him.” He arched a brow, an expression that looked exaggerated on his broad, squarish face. “And Rina found him, did she?”

  “Yes.”

  “And he is the one who put out this alarm?”

  Dax nodded. He didn’t explain further, curiously waiting to see the old warrior’s reaction.

  “Then it’s in the vault,” he said with certainty. “I’ll make ready for departure.”

  Again Dax nodded, but this time with satisfaction. His men had not forgotten Tark either, and his word, his instincts, were as gold for them.

  He left the crew to their preparations, and went up the narrow stairway behind him. For a long moment he stood at the top in silence. He thought of the old Evening Star, and the glory days of flying her. This new incarnation was stronger, swifter, and even better armed. And soon Califa would join him, and it would be a taste of that glory anew.

  He couldn’t deny he felt a growing thrum of excitement. He stepped forward. He was on the bridge, most of his old crew was now here, supplemented by Triotian volunteers he’d barely had to ask for. The word had gone out, and they’d been lined up at the skyport doors within hours.

  The skypirate would fly again.

  “I SHOULD LET you return to your sleep.”

  Rina said it more because it seemed polite than because she wanted to leave. If she had her way, she would stay forever in his company. And the thought no longer frightened her; it merely helped her to understand. For years she had watched Dax and Califa, and even the king and queen, with a sense of puzzlement. That they loved, fiercely, was without doubt. She even understood why, since she admired all four of them more than anyone she had ever known—it only made sense that they would feel the same, and the shift from that to their kind of love was not so hard to fathom.

  She just couldn’t picture it for herself. For there had never been a man she had even begun to feel that way about.

  Save one. And she was with him now.

  They had been seated for some time on his cushioned stone bench before the fire he had stirred back to full flame. She had asked him for a more detailed assessment of the defense situation on Arellia. His answers weren’t promising, but she knew they were honest. There were a few hundred, perhaps, who truly believed in the coming threat. A few thousand, perhaps, who would respond quickly when it came. The rest had convinced themselves the Coalition was forever beaten, and had let themselves lapse into a lazy, unconcerned existence.

  “I will not sleep now,” he said in answer to her suggestion she leav
e him to his rest.

  “I should have waited until morning,” she said, regretting even more that she had disrupted his sleep, since it seemed he got far too little. She wondered how much of her poor choice had been rooted in her desire to simply see him again. She felt as if she were floundering in uncharted stars. Even an exact navigator was of no use in unknown reaches.

  “No,” he answered quickly. “It was good news. At least, as good as any can be, if I am right.”

  “You are,” she said.

  He looked at her then, straight on. He’d donned the patch, and she had to admit it made a difference. She wondered how long it had taken him to get used to seeing that twisted scar on his own face. Perhaps he had yet to get used to it. Perhaps the patch truly was as much for himself as for the sensibilities of others.

  Could she get used to it? Could she ever look at that ridge of thickened, distorted tissue without thinking of how he had once appeared, young and strong and impossibly handsome?

  “You put a lot of trust in my instincts.”

  “I always have. I always will.” She grimaced. “Well, except for the one that told you to keep the fact of your survival hidden.”

  “Rina, I—”

  She waved a hand, cutting him off. “I understand. I merely wish you had felt you could trust me. Us,” she corrected quickly, her cheeks heating enough that she was grateful he had turned off the too-bright huntlight.

  He looked away, toward the fire. She wondered what he did not wish her to see. “I never doubted I could trust you,” he said softly. “But I did not want your pity.”

  “Of all the things I feel for you, pity is completely absent.”

  He went very still. Without looking at her, he spoke again, in that same low voice. “Were I a bigger fool than I am, I would ask what those things are.”

  She forgot to breathe. She felt as if she were standing on the precipice of the Rift of Rycross, that yawning gap that Coalition explosions had caused in the floor of the Valley of Rycross, southwest of Triotia. She gathered her breath and her nerve, and answered him.