Rebel Prince Read online

His parents’ story was indeed legend; it had all the elements of the stories handed down over generations. War, death, tribulation, love, and finally triumph. His own life, lived in relative peace, seemed dull by comparison.

  A peace, he reminded himself, bought for Trios by eternal vigilance. And the constant guardianship of her king.

  A yawn overtook him, and with an effort he rose and began to gather wood—enough to keep the now banked fire going—as much to keep those suspected animals clear as for warmth.

  “Alternate?” Shaina asked when he returned.

  “As usual,” he agreed; they’d done this so many times, it was a routine. They would take turns checking the fire, so neither of them had to stay awake for too long.

  She began to pull the thermal envelope out of her pack. “I suppose I should be thankful for your father’s law about preparations,” she said as she spread it out. “I was able to just grab this and run.”

  “There’s reason for it,” Lyon agreed as he pulled his own out of his similar pack, but left it folded and sat atop it as it warmed. He wondered if finally he was going to learn the truth behind Shaina’s sudden, unexpected appearance here.

  “Still, every year at the gathering, there are grumblings it’s no longer needed.”

  “People feel safer now, at least enough to envision the future again. That Corling is long dead, and his lieutenant cast out of the High Command doesn’t hurt.”

  The Butcher of Trios had been executed by his own, for failing to crush the Triotian rebellion. To this day his father regretted not having had the chance to handle that task personally. And Corling’s lieutenant had failed to capture her father, the skypirate who had not only plagued the Coalition into a frenzy, but had come back to haunt them when he helped lead Arellia’s own rebellion.

  “Mordred should have fallen to the blade as well. I’m surprised he did not,” he said.

  “My mother says he knew someone, or was related to someone.”

  “That would be typical, for the Coalition.”

  “And now they’ve retreated to the very edge of the system.”

  “Are you saying you believe it is over?”

  “Of course not. I’m my mother’s daughter,” Shaina said wryly.

  And there it was again, the absence of her father in the equation.

  “She knows Trios is the biggest prize in the galaxy,” she said. “And the Coalition will never accept their defeat. She firmly believes they will one day return to regain all they have lost. From Daxelia to Trios.”

  “Trios would be the hardest to retake”

  “It might not come to that. Arellia might fight, this time,” she said.

  “With your father to lead them once more?”

  He said it without thinking. It was something he would have said before, when she’d been so proud of her father she would have near burst with it.

  “Oh, he will lead them again, if necessary,” she said, bitterness adding a slice to her voice. “They, at least, can trust him.”

  Lyon stifled a sigh. He was through letting her go at this sideways.

  “Out with it.”

  It was not only worded like an order, but even to his ears his voice had a ring of command that eerily echoed his father’s. For a moment Shaina looked startled, as if she’d heard it as well. Something flickered in her eyes, something he couldn’t quite name, but he liked it.

  “Do you remember your Selection Ceremony?” she asked.

  “Of course I do.”

  It was one of the longest-held traditions of Trios, that every child that became of age would go through the rite. Every year those who qualified would gather in the square of Triotia, the capital, near the ceremonial stone. One by one they would approach, lay a hand on the cool, smooth rock. And wait. Most years, nothing happened. It had been so his entire lifetime. The last time the stone had awakened, the selected child had been slaughtered along with most of the population of the city in the invasion. And the time before that the stone had lit with a brightness no one had ever seen before, heralding the strongest in many generations. It had been for Dax Silverbrake, the greatest flashbow warrior ever seen.

  “No one expected it to awaken to you,” she said.

  “Of course not. You know it never goes to a member of the royal family, any more than it goes to a member of the current warrior’s family.”

  “Exactly. Yet you participated.”

  “Of course,” he repeated. “It’s tradition.”

  And the royal family of Trios was different than others he knew of; they ruled only by the consent of the people, and were granted no special treatment or benefits they had not earned. And so their children always took part, as did everyone’s.

  “Then why is it not tradition for the current warrior’s children?”

  His frown deepened as he wondered where she was going with this. “Because it would not work, everyone knows this. But for us it is . . . a gesture. Necessary to show that the royal family does not hold itself above the people who have chosen them to rule. Shaina, what is it?”

  She drew in a long, audible breath. He found himself holding his, waiting.

  “I was at the arena, watching the airspeeder races.” She shot him a sideways glance. “Macario won, without you there to trounce him.”

  “Don’t remind me,” he said. “Go on.”

  “I cut through the square to go home. Kalila—you’ve met Fleuren’s great-granddaughter?—her pet leecat got away from her and was hiding under the notch of the stone.”

  He knew where she meant, it was the spot on the stone where the first flashbow bolts had been carved out, before the main lode the stone had come from had been discovered to produce even more powerful bolts. But that stone in the square was still the center of the flashbow legend, the once-in-a-hundred-year-generation warrior who could use the crossbow that glowed with a strange energy, could fire those incredible, explosive bolts that were more powerful than even most modern weapons.

  But what he didn’t know, still, was what this had to do with her mood, her fight with her father, or anything else. He waited. She stared into the embers. He should stir up the fire, he thought, but he wasn’t about to interrupt her now that she’d finally gotten to it.

  “I went to retrieve it for her,” she said. “She couldn’t reach.”

  He barely managed to hide his exasperation when she stopped again.

  “And?” he finally prompted.

  “And I touched the stone. I never had before.”

  “I know. There was no need, the ability isn’t hereditary.”

  “Wasn’t hereditary.”

  He blinked. “What?”

  “It wasn’t hereditary.” She lifted her head then, and met his gaze. “Until now.”

  It was so unexpected, it took him a moment to get there. When he did, the impossibility of it made his brow furrow with doubt.

  “What are you saying?”

  “It awoke, Cub. The stone came alive and glowed, the moment I brushed it.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t say it. It’s impossible. It’s never happened. I know all that.”

  “Maybe it’s some sort of . . . bleed over, from your father. He is that powerful.”

  She laughed. It was a harsh sound. “That’s what I thought. But the moment I confronted him with what had happened, it was obvious.”

  “What was?”

  “That he already knew.”

  “You’re guessing, Shaina. He couldn’t have known, it’s never—” He broke off before he repeated what she’d asked him not to say.

  “No. He admitted it, finally. That he’d always known. Since I was a baby, and he’d found me playing with one of the bolts, and it was live. He tested it, different ways—removed himself to be sure it w
asn’t just him. But it always happened.”

  “My God,” Lyon breathed. She took heart from the fact that he sounded almost as distressed as she felt.

  “I’m the next flashbow warrior, Cub. And my father has been lying to me all my life.”

  Chapter 5

  “WHAT ARE you doing?”

  Rina Carbray paused, looking over her shoulder at Dax.

  “Unless you’ve gone starblind, you can see what I’m doing.”

  She went back to stuffing clothing and gear into her pack. More gear than clothing; she had, after all, spent her formative years on the infamous Dax Silverbrake’s Evening Star. Prepare for everything, and enjoy it if none of it happens.

  “Why?”

  “It’s what you do, when you’re going somewhere.”

  “Where are you going?”

  She turned on him. She might be nearly a foot shorter, but she faced him fearlessly, shoving her bangs back so she could glare at him more thoroughly. “Your legal guardianship of me terminated long ago, brollet-brain. I go where I please.”

  For an instant pain flashed in his jade-colored eyes, and she regretted her sharp words. But he was acting as if he were no smarter than that ubiquitous creature, so he had it coming—even if she did owe him her very life and adore him as if there were blood between them, not merely the connection of choice.

  And she had, she realized, jolted him out of his preoccupation. He was studying her now, as if that discordant note had snapped on his tactical brain.

  “You’re going to Arellia.”

  “Give the man a withal,” she said, barely resisting the urge to flip one of the rare Romerian coins at him as she stuffed her small navigation projector in her pack’s outside pocket, if for no other reason than she felt off balance without it. She added the small hairbrush that was all she required for the blonde locks she kept defiantly short, in tribute to the days she’d flown with the man she was facing down now.

  “Rina—”

  “It’s the biggest celebration in the system, given Trios isn’t in the habit of throwing huge, interplanetary parties. Why shouldn’t I go?”

  He ignored the obvious feint. “You’re going after her.”

  She snapped the outside flap closed with a flick of her wrist, and with perhaps a bit more energy than was required.

  “Someone has to, and it can’t be you.”

  “I—”

  “She wouldn’t even talk to you right now.” She glared at him. “And I don’t blame her one curlbug’s worth.”

  Dax sighed. “I was only trying to protect her.”

  “You protected me when you didn’t always tell me what idiotic scheme you were hatching, when you denied what was obvious to everyone, that you were trying like Hades to get yourself killed. If you can’t see that this is different, that you had no right to deny her this knowledge, then there’s no hope for you.”

  He was pacing now. “She’s my little girl.”

  “She’s nearly the age you were when the Coalition finally took Trios.”

  “And we all know how well I handled that.” His voice was sharp.

  “You did the only thing you thought you could do,” she said. “And no one knows that better than me, because I lived it with you.”

  “I thought you were angry with me.”

  “I am. That doesn’t change the truth.”

  For a long moment he simply looked at her. Then, at last, he said softly, “You’ve become all I knew you could be, Rina. And more.”

  She flushed, unable to stop the rush of pride that filled her. This man had once been her world, the only stable thing in her life. He’d rescued her from death and worse; he’d kept her safe, and brought her home to Trios. And then, as her guardian, he’d given her a home, seen to her education, and taught her how to live a normal life even as he struggled to relearn it himself—as normal as life could be, after years flying the far reaches with the most infamous skypirate in the galaxy.

  And when the time had come, she’d fought alongside him in the war for the liberation of Arellia.

  She was grown now, long an adult, and strong enough to stand without him. The question was, was she strong enough to stand against him?

  “Do you not see how she feels, Dax? I do. You’re the closest thing to a father I have. And I think of how I would have felt had you kept something like that from me. If, perhaps, I had been too young when you found me to remember I was Triotian, and you had kept it hidden from me.”

  “I might have,” he said, rather grimly. “It was a dangerous time to be Triotian, no matter how far from home.”

  “And if you had put it off until I discovered it on my own, how do you suppose I would have felt?”

  His mouth twisted. “About how Shaina is feeling now?”

  “Exactly.”

  It was a moment before he asked, “Have you talked of this trip with Califa?”

  Rina held up a pocket-sized disrupter. “She loaned me this, just in case.”

  Dax smiled. And Rina smiled inwardly. The tough, ruthless skypirate, now once more the heroic warrior of Trios, was soft around the edges when it came to his mate. She sensed the moment when he gave in.

  “She will listen to you.”

  “She always has.” She tucked the disrupter into her belt. “And if she’s with Lyon, you know he’ll see to her.”

  “Yes. He will.”

  “At least he’s always known who he was,” she said, unable to resist a last jab.

  Dax winced. “All right, stop, I accede.” He sighed. “I didn’t want to face reality. Heredity had never been a factor in the selection before, and I did not want it to be true now. Not my child.”

  “Why is it, this time?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. It shouldn’t be. That’s half the reason I never told her. I kept thinking it had to somehow be a mistake.”

  “That,” Rina said, “was not the mistake.”

  She shouldered her pack; the transport she meant to catch left the skyport in less than an hour. But she had one more thing to say to him.

  “Perhaps you were chosen because of what you would do, when the time came. Trios had become lax, complacent, content with our place in the system, never thinking anything could overtake us. There was no way we could have stood against the Coalition, weakened as we were. So who is the chosen warrior at that time? Probably the only man who would do what you did. So perhaps Shaina is the only one who can do what will be necessary in the next generation.”

  She could feel his surprise washing over her. “When did you become so wise? You truly have grown up, little Rina.”

  “And so,” she said pointedly, “has Shaina.”

  He let out a heavy sigh. His mouth quirked upward at one corner. “Come, then. I’ll take you to the skyport.”

  “In your airspeeder?” she asked hopefully.

  He laughed. She had always been able to give him that, and it warmed her that she could still.

  “I’m glad to see you haven’t completely grown up.”

  “No more than you have,” she said.

  “Come, then.” He gave her a sideways look, and the grin that he had passed on to his daughter. “I’ll let you drive.”

  She let out a whoop of excitement. And ran.

  SHAINA BREATHED easier, the knot she’d carried in her chest since the moment her father had admitted the truth loosening for the first time. As usual, unburdening to Cub relieved her tension. It didn’t solve the problem, but it made her feel better. And it was clear by his expression that he was truly shaken. More than she’d even expected. He looked almost as shaken as she had felt when her father’s admission had blasted her every perception of herself—and destroyed the future she’d hoped to build on her own choices. So many things she’d wanted
to do, to try in her life, that now were lost to her. Because now she had no choices.

  When Cub pulled her into a hug, she drew both warmth and strength from this, her dearest and oldest companion.

  “Why?” he asked simply.

  She sighed heavily. “He said that being the warrior came with a cost he didn’t want me to start paying before I had to.”

  “It does come with great risk,” he said, sounding as if he were keeping his tone neutral with an effort.

  “He still had no right. If this is to be my life, my birthright, I had the right to know. How can I be prepared if I don’t even know?”

  “He would have told you, eventually.”

  “When? When an attack comes and it’s too late?”

  “I’m sure he wanted to protect you. You can’t blame him for that.”

  “Can’t I? My mother, at least, trusted me,” she said. “She wanted him to tell me as soon as I was old enough to understand. He wouldn’t.”

  “Your mother,” Cub said, “would not be an easy person to stand fast against.” His voice was tinged with admiration and respect, and while she agreed about her mother, right now she didn’t want to hear it about her father.

  “In this, she gave in. She had no choice. Because he is the flashbow warrior, it is his decision when the training begins for the next one.”

  “Your father is in his prime. He will remain the warrior for decades yet. Madoc stood with the flashbow into his hundredth year, and lived fifty more.”

  “And he had trained his successor for thirty of those years,” she pointed out.

  “Contention valid,” he agreed. “What happened when he told you?”

  She sighed. “We fought. Loudly. Long. And I . . . hit him. Pounded on him, really.”

  “And he did?”

  “Nothing.”

  She grimaced. The idea of someone striking any flashbow warrior with impunity sounded ludicrous. And striking Dax Silverbrake even more so.

  Her lying father, however . . . “He just stood there and took it. So he knows how wrong what he did was.”

  “Or it speaks of how much he loves his daughter.”

  She sat bolt upright in her anger, forgoing the comforting warmth of his arm around her. “Are you defending him?”