Haelo Rising, page 12
Dagger finally spoke up. We don’t know that. Though he looked calm, his aura continued to burn. I saw flashes of his thoughts: a heated argument with the general over wedding security, even an image of Massáude grinning from above him. The last image must have been from his time in captivity.
My hands fisted together. What about my father?
He and his humans were above the city, President Specter tried to reassure me. They might not even know what’s happ—
No, he was there in the ballroom. I saw him. I whipped my attention to Dagger, who must have felt Jade’s aura. He was yelling at Wingo seconds before you rushed us out. He knew Massáude was coming and he tried to warn us.
Yes.
Do you know what happened to him?
Not for certain.
But you have an idea?
Dagger’s tense exterior didn’t soften. He shook his head. I didn’t track his aura. There was too much going on. But he’s not inside the palace anymore. Meaning my father had escaped, or was dead.
Dagger ran a controlled hand over his shaved head. As of my last pola communication with General Stratos, he and Alcaeus are trying to call home as many kryptes stationed abroad as they can, but there aren’t many. We called most of them in for the wedding. Dagger’s last thought carried with it a tinge of spite.
Griffin found his voice. Twelve hundred strong in the Krypteia’s ranks, and Massáude brought down the palace with only his mercenaries. How did that happen?
I don’t know! Dagger burst, then calmed and added, Your Highness.
Griffin didn’t look affronted; he was being more understanding than I would have expected.
Only twelve hundred soldiers for an entire empire? I guess you didn’t need many for a small, scattered race of people. How many candeons were there? Twenty thousand? Thirty thousand? Grandpa Aaram had once told me that our population hadn’t grown much beyond the few thousand left at the end of the horrific civil war two hundred years ago. Was this the beginning of a new war?
No, the war had started four weeks ago in Atlantis.
With an edge of lethality, Dagger looked to the prince. Massáude was smart. He separated us from the Lóchos reserves. He got in before we even knew he was nearby. I don’t know how he did it, but I can assure you, I will find out.
Dagger looked to Hank, gesturing to his pack. Captain Abrams. Hank passed it over and Dagger ripped it from his grasp. He quickly sorted through the contents of the front water pocket of the standard-issue pack: the flashlight, thin rope, knife, thermite rod, a strange-looking pen, and various syringe vials of what appeared to be anti-poison. Finally, he pulled a little plastic container from the bottom. He opened it and scooped out a fat dollop of a dark green sludge on two fingers. It was thick, not dissipating in the water.
Dagger lifted his shirt. Just below the chiefly tribal tattoo on his right ribcage was a nasty-looking gash. The salt of the ocean water had stopped most of the bleeding, but it looked quite uncomfortable.
Zeta pounced to his aid. We’ll need something for a bandage. She looked to the white shirts of the men in the alcove. A pectoral show was the last thing I needed.
Your Highness, she asked. How attached are you to your dress?
Dagger tried to wipe the thick, sticky substance—like muddy silly putty mixed with super glue—to his wound while Zeta looked my dress over.
I’d like to stay clothed if that’s what you’re referring to. But here. I hitched up the train in my hands, took the bottom edge, and without pause tore a thick strip clean off. It felt like tearing through paper. The muscles in my arm tingled, rejuvenated.
Griffin, President Specter, and Dagger all looked wide-eyed. Zeta’s eyes grew narrow, an impressed smirk playing on her lips.
I moved to Dagger and held out the fabric. He took it by the edge, careful not to touch my hand. We shared a quick glance before he pressed it against the sludgy wound on his side. Zeta grabbed the two fabric ends and pulled them into a tight knot on his other side, right on top of an old bullet wound scar from the battle at the Yellow Plumeria.
Thank you, Dagger thought to me alone. He lowered his shirt. I’m glad you are safe.
You, too. I moved back to Griffin’s side.
Griffin gave me a supportive nod. He squeezed my hand once then thought to the group, We need to formulate a plan to go back for my mother.
Vernado stepped in. Your Highness, we would be wise to wait for word from Basileus Alcaeus.
My father has enough on his plate. Let him plan an attack. I’m only asking that we sneak in for one person. We’ll save my mother; my father can save our city.
Griffin, I soothed. We don’t have all the information. What if Alcaeus and General Stratos are already strategizing to save Cora? We could ruin their plans.
Your wife is right, Zeta thought.
At that, Dagger’s aura changed again. We’ll get Cora, he said, latching on to the idea like it was the only thought that anyone needed to be thinking about.
What? Hank, Zeta, Neo—everyone except Griffin—thought in unison.
Dagger didn’t back down. We’ve rescued dozens, if not hundreds of hostages. High-risk special ops is what Alpha Agema was trained for. Why should this one be any different?
Zeta folded her arms. Because Cora is a queen. And she’s being held by a heavily defended psychopath. And we don’t have enough intelligence on the situation. And because we have not received the orders to do so. Take your pick. She tilted her head, her eyes tight with suspicion.
Dagger brushed her comments aside. Alcaeus and General Stratos don’t have all the information either. There will be no orders; the enemy is destroying our communication. And as second-in-command of the entire Krypteia, I am giving us orders. Alpha Agema would be the ones to carry out Alcaeus’s plans anyway. Vernado will stay here with Prince Griffin, Galana Haelo, President Specter, and Neo. He looked to the sleek black watch on his arm. He was the first and only to call me Galana Haelo and he hadn’t even realized it. Zeta, Hank, we leave in three hours.
That’s four in the morning, Zeta thought.
Exactly.
But we don’t have a plan—
You have three hours to rest. Those are your orders. Dagger pushed off the stone bottom of the alcove and moved into the lava tube. I’ll keep watch. For now, rest.
Málista kýrie, they both replied. Yes, sir.
We hovered there in the alcove, dumbstruck. I like you and all, Neo yelled after him. But the douche-canoe act is getting old.
He was right.
I waited over two hours until everyone around me dreamed, their auras slumbering not-so-soundly. Griffin and Zeta had taken the longest to fall asleep: Zeta had been concerned (understandably) over Dagger’s behavior, and Griffin waded through scenarios and possibilities to save his mother and find his sister Hyacinth. I’d felt it in their auras. But it had been a long day—they were bound to succumb to sleep eventually.
Slowly, so as not to disturb the water around anyone else, I crept out into the ancient lava tunnel and turned on my light. Dagger stood watch fifty yards or so past the far edge of the alcove. I approached carefully, thinking over my words.
I made sure the light marked my approach and didn’t speak until I was next to him. His eyes were closed, but by the way his aura moved and pulsed, I knew he was awake. I’m surprised you’re still here, I thought.
His aura turned a bit, like a metaphysical scowl.
I moved closer. I thought you might have given up waiting and gone on ahead alone to gather intelligence on Massáude’s captives. You seem a bit of a lone wolf these days. It was a gentle accusation.
That would be rash.
I came a bit closer. But you thought about it. I waited for him to deny it, but he didn’t. Dagger? He remained still, eyes still closed. We need to talk. Please? I came around to face him, pointing the light to the floor beneath us. It radiated off the narrow walls and cast us in a faint glow.
Yes, Your Highness.
I pinched my lips. Are you okay?
It’s a surface wound.
I’m glad. But I’m not talking about your torso. Are you okay?
I am here guarding you as my duty requires; that does not mean you are privy to my thoughts.
I’m not asking you as a Galana. My eyes stung. Please let me be your friend. Something about him had changed, and I needed to hear what had happened to him to understand that change. I wasn’t sure when I’d ever get another chance like this.
I felt his hard, tactical, darker-edged aura soften, just slightly.
What happened? When you were captured?
He laughed darkly. You don’t want to know.
I really do. And I think you need to talk about it. Something about this conversation felt familiar, though reversed.
He huffed and slowly sank to the floor. I followed, sinking to the floor just two feet away. I wasn’t dead, he thought. Under the Makole shield at the Yellow Plumeria. When you tried to get me into the helicopter, I knew you’d never make it out if you waited for me. So I hid my aura. I wasn’t really dead. His last thought sounded like he was thinking to himself.
I figured as much, I thought softly.
Though I was one of the very few people who knew he could hide his aura, the evidence had mounted up that he had, in fact, died. I didn’t believe you were dead until I tried to send you a pola. It didn’t work. I didn’t tell him that his grieving ex-fiancé Rebecca had been the one to explain that harsh reality to me. It wasn’t until I saw him with my own eyes during the Battle in Atlantis that I knew he’d survived the battle at my father’s beach house on the southern tip of Hawai’i’s Big Island.
He opened his eyes. The Makole’s paku shield destroyed my pola ring. When I fell, my hand slipped through the protection of its walls. Something about the Makole’s magic destroyed the abilities of the ring. I didn’t realize it was cold and useless until Karchardeus dragged me into the tide.
I pictured the bloody photo Massáude had sent me and shivered. Dagger didn’t seem to want to explain further. He twisted the new pola ring around his finger, once again useless.
Where did Karchardeus take you?
First, to a health clinic. I wasn’t dead, but close enough. They held a human nurse at gunpoint.
You were in pain?
He shook his head once. His aura betrayed the lie.
I put my hand on his arm, but he politely pulled back. He was right; I shouldn’t be touching him. And after the clinic?
Karch took me to where Massáude was waiting a few hundred miles east of the islands. He was surprised that Karchardeus had brought me back.
It wasn’t the ethical thing to do, but I melted my senses into his aura to see what he spoke of. His mind flashed with memories: Massáude speaking like the livid snake that he was, threatening to kill Dagger in front of Karchardeus, then Karchardeus trying to convince Massáude that Dagger was worth keeping around. And through it all, a weakened Dagger trying valiantly to remain conscious and upright. In the visual of Dagger’s memory, it seemed as if only one eye was working properly; the scene was doubled and blurred.
And after Massáude got over his . . . surprise?
We crossed the Panama Canal at night and then dove east through the Caribbean and south to their compound in Brazil. His aura tensed with brief flashes of being dragged through the shallows of a reef in chains; a cloudy, moonless night riding in a boat across the canal; blood; pain.
I shut my eyes. How did you travel so far in your condition? It was more a question for myself.
He didn’t answer. Instead, he rubbed his forearm; it seemed like a subconscious gesture.
What happened when you got there?
His mind flashed with so many images I couldn’t make exact sense of them all. From what I could tell, he’d been locked up in their community, then eventually pulled from the ocean into a boat and driven to a desert island where they threw him in a concrete cell. There were others in other cells—candeons slowly drying out, or humans starving to death? Muffled sounds of others being beaten. Dagger’s clenched fists in his iron chains. Abuse, torture. His broken arm, mangled feet, pounding head. He watched his own fingernails dig marks into the wall as a whip tore gashes in his back. Massáude’s voice. “He won’t break this way. Make him watch the others.” Being kicked and forced to watch unspeakable acts of violence and degradation.
I pulled myself from his thoughts. I couldn’t see anymore; my whole soul shook with sadness and disgust.
You see it, don’t you? He asked.
Yes.
I can’t talk about it, Lo.
I know. I sat quietly off to his side for the next few minutes. When I felt we’d both had enough time to calm down, I asked softly, How did you escape?
He bowed his head for a moment, then looked up. Karchardeus.
Your uncle? The man who captured you and brought you to Massáude? The man who killed both of your parents?
He nodded. There must have been some small part of him that was still loyal to his family. I was nearly dead—the driest I’d ever been. Karch came into the cell with two guards and slapped me across the face. He bent down to yell a threat in my ear, and then whispered, “I didn’t mean for it to go this far.” Dagger smiled in dark disgust. Seconds later, both guards were dead and Karch was pulling me up.
He led me down the cell block and into a field. He handed me a canteen of seawater and pointed to the North. I could smell the ocean. He told me to run; he’d blame the two guards’ deaths on me. I asked him if this meant he was done with Massáude. He laughed, spit, and then told me one day he would be Massáude. Karch had plans to overtake his leader; he was just biding his time.
Just before I took off, he told me he was sorry. He said he never meant to kill my mother. He said he loved her. I, I didn't know. I asked him about my father and he grew angry. I asked him if he was done hunting you and the rest of the monarchy. He assured me the royals deserved to die and that he was going to be the one to bring them down. He told me if I valued my life, I’d stay out of it. He rubbed his forearm again. It was the one that had broken beneath the boot of a mercenary Forçadoro. So I left.
I swallowed. Where did you go?
To the Krypteia station off the Liberian coast. The two kryptes stationed there weren’t there, probably out on patrol, so I packed what I could and left for the Mediterranean. Back on the desert island, I’d overheard two Forçadores talking about how Massáude was making his way across the Atlantic. He wanted to hit Pankyra with the force of every disgruntled clan he could pick up along the way. I didn’t want anyone to know I was alive—I wanted to surprise Massáude when I killed him.
His aura turned dark again. It made my stomach twist uncomfortably. How did Dagger live like this day in and day out? His heart was stained with vengeance. Zeta said she saw you outside Atlantis the day before the battle.
He looked away. We were both trailing Massáude’s cult as they marched to the city. I let her sense my aura and she came quickly. She was with Wesley, Temo, and Andreas—other members of Alfa Agema. We shared information and planned our next moves. Massáude was going to try to take Atlantis; we weren’t going to let him do that. We had a plan. Massáude was going to die. But it didn’t work.
The sound of Dagger’s spear slicing through the water and into Karchardeus’s side replayed over and over in my mind. Dagger’s massive spear gun had saved my life. Karch had saved his, then Dagger killed him to save mine.
The image I’d seen that night through Dagger’s eyes—of his hand on Karchardeus’s chest in a solemn moment of prayer—seemed easier to understand now. Did Dagger realize I’d been so connected to him? That it wasn’t just flashes of memories that I could sense, but at one time our auras were so in tune with each other that I’d actually seen through his eyes as it was happening? Did he know I had seen what he was seeing in that concrete cell despite us being thousands of miles apart?
My thoughts went back to that terrible night in Atlantis. I threw off your plans, didn’t I? You had to sidetrack your mission to come save me. Twice.
He didn’t respond.
I don’t regret it, Dag. Those kids. . . .
I know, he thought. You did the right thing. If only Karch had left you alone.
Dagger had done what he had to do. He’d killed his uncle. For me. For Griffin. For Alcaeus and Cora. My friend was in more pain than I could truly understand. And you could have gone after Massáude tonight. But you saved Griffin and me instead.
He didn’t respond, didn’t acknowledge my thought at all.
I played with my fingers, intertwining them, twisting them. Eventually, I folded them in my lap. Do you know why Karch left the Krypteia in the first place? It was the polite way of asking why Karch had killed Dagger’s father, Sideron—his own brother.
That’s a story for another day.
Please, Dagger? He needed to say it. Share it. Maybe his pain was all the worse because he kept it bottled up. Maybe we could find reason in the chaos.
Dagger stayed silent for a long while until finally, the story burst free. Jealousy. As children, their parents never let them forget Sideron would one day be chief of our Dema clan, and that’s why he was given more training and attention. He became chief and that should have been the end of it. But when Karch joined the Krypteia to make a name for himself and represent our clan to the candeon world, so did my father—against the counsel of the Elders. Karch never could get out from under my father’s shadow. When Sideron was appointed Krypteia General, Karch didn’t even show up to the ceremony. He stopped heeding Sideron’s orders; he started going out on his own missions. Eventually, my father had him court-martialed. When he showed up to take Karch away, Karch shot him four times in the chest.
I was speechless. Maybe saying the story out loud wasn’t a help at all. Dagger’s aura only burned darker.
I’m so sorry. I reached out to put my arm around his back, but pulled back. He tensed. Though it chafed to be shrouded in the dark vibes of his aura, I took comfort knowing that maybe he was feeling mine. Hopefully, my aura would be a light for him.
