Haelo Rising, page 24
My gaze swept through the dark, green-tinted water to the other turbine shafts. The crowd had dwindled. We’d almost gotten everyone through!
In a bright flash of assaulting white light, I jerked back, flinching at the intensity of three industrial spotlights. Beyond the cage, behind the lights, the savage auras of more than thirty men waited, ready for violent orders.
Go! I yelled at the two people left in front of my shaft. Now! Crossbow darts shot through the water. A few of them pinged on the steel cage bars.
Everybody out! Dagger yelled, pulling his own crossbow forward. I felt the auras of the escape leaders duck into their shafts just as another round of the Enforcers’ darts sailed forward. The first through the shafts was the stranger woman, then Lieutenant Fia and Cora together, then the delegate and Corporal Wood and Lieutenant Day. I covered my head and hovered below the nearest shaft, blocked from escape by the arrows flying over me and into the turbine blades within.
Zeta’s aura disappeared into a shaft.
Sergeant Jake and Judge Diskas seemed to disappear as well, until I caught sight of their limp, aura-less bodies sinking to the seabed below.
It all happened in seconds.
Blaring sirens blasted the water with their deafening screech, then, above us, the electric lights of the upper city flickered and went black. The water around the glaring cylinders of spotlights went even darker in its emerald hue.
Above me, the pipe shaft groaned, the noise like stone grinding upon stone. I launched myself away—toward the shaft to my right—just as my original shaft collapsed, crushed beneath an avalanche of stone from above it. The noise was a nightmare sound straight out of my childhood memories. The turbine in front me collapsed as well. Then a third.
Massáude was here. And he was using his power to bend, crack, break the stone under his will to close off our chances at escape. This wasn’t a weapon or any other technology. This was magic. Loud, brutal magic. One by one, the north turbines caved in, obliterated under the weight of thousands of pounds of stone.
In a rush of currents, someone snatched me by the torso. Dagger!
We shot through the water toward a western turbine, my eyes and senses picking up on the form of Princess Hyacinth, hovering tall, halfway between the collapsing turbine shafts and the Forçadores, her body unmoving, her aura rippling with both courage and disappointment.
Instinctively, I kicked back a rogue mercenary that had snuck through the cage and come upon us. A half second later, Dagger pulled me into a shaft, his current subsiding in the enclosed space. He pulled a dart from his shoulder—blood dispersing like smoke—and slid through the propeller blades to where I could sense Zeta and Hank waiting on the other side. I was halfway through myself when I felt the auras of five or six Forçadores racing toward the princess.
I jerked my hand from his and pulled back inside the blades. What about Hyacinth?
Haelo! Now!
A loud clank reverberated through the shaft. Someone had unlocked the turbines.
Haelo! Dagger yelled as Hank and Zeta pulled him to safety.
I backed away, determined to save Hyacinth. Seconds later, the turbine propeller revved to life and I was swept back into Pankyra.
My body tossed like a dead fish in the propeller’s wake, eventually coming to a stop against the safety cage in front of one of the enormous spotlights. I couldn’t see. I clenched my eyes shut against the harsh, piercing light.
Miriam. His empty soul called out to me.
The blaring siren from the power plant had cut, and the red flashing lights on its foundational column stopped pulsing. The hum of five turbines churned the water behind me.
Miriam, you’ve failed.
I clenched my fists around the steel bars and pushed away from them. My spine lengthened, stretching me into a proud, queenly column.
Clank. The spotlight in front of me went black. Gradually, my vision adjusted and cleared the not-really-there strobing pops of light that my eyes were imagining. My hair had pulled free from its hair tie and now danced around me in the swaying current.
Massáude’s cape also danced in the current. Like a provocation.
My fury magnified. Let Hyacinth go. You don’t need her.
Massáude came forward into the shaft of light from another spotlight. The Forçadores funneled into the cage, surrounding Hyacinth and me.
The princess stays, he thought. I could hear the smile in his gravelly tone. I have a feeling you’re going to want to hear what she has to say.
My eyes shot to Hyacinth, a question in my brow.
But she only had eyes for Raul, the Forçadoro I’d kicked unconscious at the palace’s servants’ entrance. Hector—I recognized his aura from the palace and his face from Dagger’s memories—hovered just behind Raul, something sinister in his intentions, as if he were hoping for a chance at brutality.
Hyacinth, what is he talking about?
Put them in the same cell, Massáude ordered with a flick of his hand.
The Krypteia Colonel destroyed the dungeon wing, Hector thought.
I held back a grin, again impressed by Dagger’s wiles.
Massáude’s own grin fell. The day that I wipe Karchardeus’s entire bloodline from the sea will be a very good day. He looked me over like a piece of chattel. Find someplace that will hold them, and leave them there. For now.
Four mercenaries approached Hyacinth and me. They reached for my knife. I elbowed one in the face and shoved another before finally putting my hands up. The hands of two mercenaries wandered over my body, checking—or pretending to check—for weapons. I seethed. But I wouldn’t be any use to Hyacinth dead. So I kept my hands, elbows, knees, and feet to myself.
When they were done, they pulled our hands forward. Hyacinth, I thought to the princess privately. Hold your hands like this. I tried to show her how Zeta had taught me to offer my hands when being tied up, but she didn’t watch. Hyacinth?
I jolted as Raul slammed a hand on the shoulder of one of the men holding me. The man backed away. Raul, his eyes red and swollen from my earlier attack, reached for my hands and slipped my warm pola ring from my finger. No! I thought to myself. He’d taken my only way of reaching Dagger or Zeta. Surprisingly, he slipped it into his brown dive suit pocket instead of taking it to Massáude.
Someone kicked us from behind and muttered, Move.
Massáude glided through the city like a king. He made it a point to look through windows at anyone who was curious enough to watch. They dragged Hyacinth and I along behind like caravan supplies. I tried to read her aura, so heavy with defeat, but I didn’t know her well.
Once we approached the last canal near the piazza outside the palace—the same canal Zeta had previously led the hostages to—Massáude ordered his mercenaries up the steps and out of the water. They pulled us up the underwater stairs by our zip-tied wrists onto a cobbled street. Before I could breathe, I had to cough up water from my lungs, a generous gift from the turbine that had pushed me back into the island. I fell to the street, retching.
“You’re going to lose, Massáude,” I spat, still sprawled out on the cobblestones, gagging on water. “You’re outnumbered.”
He laughed, then whipped his stupid dark green cape of its clinging water droplets and squatted down to my level. His expensive dive suit dripped tinkling patters onto the street. He tilted his head, his golden eyes mocking me. “You mean the famous First Pankyran Lóchos Homeguard still out there trying to open Pankyra’s Gate?”
I panted for air.
“It’s pathetic, watching you.” He brushed a wet, wavy lock of my dark hair from my cheek. I went for his face with my tied hands; he dodged me. “I should enjoy this moment,” he said, standing upright and stepping back. He looked down at me. “Rather, I find myself feeling sorry for you. For both of you. Tsk,” he sighed, giving Hyacinth a brief moment of his time. “Pity.”
He walked away, beckoning to my handlers to haul me upright. I watched him go and plotted the many ways I could end him. Just beyond him, a cowering woman with a yellow bow in her hair caught my attention. Massáude stopped at her, patted her on her quaking head, and said, “Thank you, Julia. You may go.”
She squeezed her eyes shut in shame.
“Massáude!” I called out to his retreating back. “What delusion in your head makes you believe you can win this?”
He stopped, paused, and then looked to the watch on his wrist. “I already have.”
To my left, Hector smiled. His skin was smooth but for the welt on the top of his head from Dagger’s missed bullet and the semi-transparent skin on his neck that showed the blood pumping through his veins. His teeth were white and straight. His eyelashes curled in the way that made women jealous. His hands, his face, his body frame didn’t look especially intimidating. He looked like the kind of neighbor you’d want to ask for a cup of sugar. But his soul felt like the devil himself. “Too bad we’ll miss the show.”
What show?
I jolted at the sound of thunder behind me. The cobblestones beneath my feet vibrated and shook with each bang of the deep, echoing sound. Everything in me wanted to believe that Colonel Dimitrios, Captain Abrams and the reserve troops outside were finally busting open the Gate. They’d be here soon! All Hyacinth and I and the rest of the residents left in Pankyra had to do was hold out.
But Hector’s smile deepened. His aura sent chills down my spine.
“What show, Hector?”
He looked behind me to the southern wall of Pankyra’s cave. Somehow, even his Zeta-like Atlantian accent scared me. “The destruction of your Krypteia reserves. And every single candeon you led out through the hydro turbines.”
19
And All The Devils Are Here
They put us in my old suite. I didn’t know why. Maybe it was one of Massáude’s twisted, psychological games. A half hour after they tossed us inside, iron bars went up outside the windows. Princess Hyacinth and I didn’t say much. Angrily, and still handcuffed with a zip tie, I fished through my ransacked bathroom for scissors, or even nail clippers, but anything that could have been used as a weapon (along with all the fine jewelry) had been removed. After slamming the last drawer, I headed into the closet, grabbed a pair of sneakers, and used the laces to break Hyacinth and myself free of our binds.
But neither of us celebrated that freedom. We were both in shock.
Had Massáude really wiped out the Krypteia? Or had he been lying to hide his fear? I cursed myself for not having the presence of mind to reach into his thoughts.
The sound of whatever had shook the foundations of Pankyra replayed in my mind over and over, as if I could eventually determine the difference between blasting a hole through the island and. . .
Don’t go there, I thought to myself. I couldn’t think about what might have happened to the hundreds of soldiers who were gathered outside Pankyra Island. I didn’t have the luxury of guilt or pity right now. I had to think. There were still hundreds in Pankyra. And worldwide, there were thousands, tens of thousands of candeons vulnerable to this madman. I would not wallow myself out of helping them. Dagger’s earlier coldness suddenly made sense.
Hyacinth stood at the window in silence. Her aura draped itself in jaded defeat—I didn’t intend to feel it; it permeated the room.
I paced. And paced. In my anxious energy, I launched a full assault on my pillows and threw a chair into a wall. My injuries lit my body with pain, but I couldn’t stop. I’d been moving, moving, moving for days. For weeks, if you counted the intense training I’d put myself through before the wedding. Running, chasing, escaping, sneaking, fighting, saving . . . going.
And now, nothing.
Hours passed.
“Are you sure you’re not hurt?” I asked Hyacinth. She was still staring out the window. Watching her made my restless body inexplicably more restless. “Why don’t you shower? Or sleep?”
She ignored me.
I continued pacing (slamming drawers and hitting upholstery), trying to see a plan through the haze of the unknown. Remembering the carved talisman necklace I’d left in a small drawer of my closet, I rushed in, found it, slid my wedding ring off my finger and onto the old leather cord, and then lowered the necklace over my head. I then tucked the carving and wedding ring into my top, hiding them from any Forçadores who might take them from me.
I slammed the dressing room door so hard it cracked the doorframe. Breathe. Just breathe. I kicked a wall. When I dropped to the floor to do angry pushups, I collapsed in pain.
My adrenaline was gone. Burned off by my anger. The broken rib on my right side struggled in a pain competition with the massive, swelling welt on my left thigh where a Forçadoro had shot my gun holster.
I should have died too many times. Instead, Fate had left me alive, battered, and broken.
I stayed on the cold floor, fighting through the pain, until I fell asleep.
Days passed in silence. Hyacinth eventually caved to showering and sleeping, but she wouldn’t speak. Probably wise anyway; who knew if the Forçadores had bugged the room. They’d bring us a meager meal twice a day, which got worse every day, but never any news, which was what I craved most.
And Doritos. An unexpected symptom of recovery.
At night, Hyacinth cried. She tried to hide it, but I could feel the bed quiver with her silent sobs. I still didn’t try to see into her aura; I couldn’t bring myself to invade her privacy and discover whatever burdened her.
Each day that passed, the green glow of the cave’s light grew darker, deeper, sicklier. At four days in captivity, the light seemed to brighten; the emerald green cleared into a vague mint and lightened the whole cave for two days of something much closer to sunlight than I’d seen since the day of my wedding. Massáude must have allowed in a mining shipment of bioluminescent enzymes from the outside.
Electric power to the city still worked, but for moments of flickering every few hours. Or at least to the palace. The city itself used little electric light, but I couldn’t know if that was by choice or not.
On the seventh day, the green in the bioluminescent light deepened again. Hyacinth didn’t notice. She didn’t notice anything.
“I can’t take it anymore,” I yelled one morning. “You sit in that chair by the window for hours on end, barely eating, and you never say a thing. You have to talk at some point.” Or so help me I, I would have to renege on my new ethical dedication not to invade the emotional memories of innocent people.
I was going crazy.
Hyacinth had to be going crazy!
“Talk to me, Hyacinth.”
It was the same request I’d been making for days, and I expected the same answer. But that morning, she surprised me. “I met him in Athens.”
I froze. “What did you say?”
“Raul. I met him in Athens.”
I checked my tone. The admission didn't surprise me; the clues had been there. “You met Raul in Athens?”
“Yes.” She turned from the window. Her eyes were gaunt, her skin grey. “But I didn’t know he was part of Massáude’s Família.”
My heart sank, mostly for her. “When did you realize?”
“The day of your wedding. Right after the Forçadores gathered us into the Throne Court. I saw Raul by Massáude’s side.”
“I’m so sorry, Hyacinth.”
“Be sorry for him, too.”
“Excuse me?”
“He didn’t know who I was, either. He was just as shocked to see me in that room as I was to see him.”
I shook my head. “Your Highness—”
“You’re a Galana; I’m just a princess. Please don’t call me that. And don’t tell me that Raul was lying to me the whole time; I know what we had.”
I nodded once, letting her know that I respected her thought. But it couldn’t be true, could it? “How long had you been seeing him?”
A tear ran down her cheek. She sniffled and wiped it away. “Three years.” She looked down to her lap and fiddled with the hem of the blue shirt I’d picked out for her from the closet. “He told me he had family obligations, but he didn’t want to live up to them and was trying to figure out how to get out. I felt the same way.” She smiled tragically. “We were both pretty vague. I didn’t want him to know who I was, and apparently, neither did he. We’d text. Call. Meet in coffee shops and bookstores and parks.” Her eyes rimmed with new tears. “He was kind. A soft soul.”
“And you think he never figured out who you were?” I didn’t want to suggest my true suspicions: that Massáude had sent Raul to bait her.
“I know he didn’t.”
“What makes you so sure? I mean, besides his apparent shock in the Throne Court.”
Her face crumpled with pain. “Because he took a beating from Hector.” More tears. “The second Massáude figured out we knew each other, he ordered Hector to show him what happens to Forçadores who aren’t forthright. Raul pleaded with Massáude, swore his allegiance.”
“That’s why you stayed back when everyone else went through the hydro turbines? You were hoping Raul would come with you?”
She nodded.
“But he didn’t.”
She went back to facing the window. “He didn’t.”
On day ten, Massáude came. Hyacinth had been in bed, I’d been pacing in an oversized white button-down shirt and leggings, and he barged in with four Forçadores behind him, Raul among them.
“Ladies,” Massáude said, grinning. But he didn’t look all that happy. The grin looked forced, his cheeks appeared caved in. Bags hung heavy under his caramel-colored eyes.
“Ready to surrender?” I asked.
He laughed a hollow laugh. “I like the way you try, Miriam.”
My gaze narrowed. “What did you do with my grandfather’s body?” I asked. The question had plagued me for the last ten days.
“Tossed him over the clifftop. Like garbage.”
I lunged, only to be pulled back by a mercenary.
The princess got out of bed, standing tall. “Where is my family?” she asked. I secretly cheered her on for not giving a single glance to her former love, Raul.
