Born of Betrayal (31 page)

Gasping, Galene went pale. “The League and her allies just bombed the Andarion palace. The heaviest strike was made against the royal family wing.”

“Where's Nyk's family?”

Dancer appeared to be one step away from hurling. “They came in for our wedding and have been staying at the palace with Cairistiona ever since … even Nyk's father.”

With tears in her eyes, Galene handed Fain the link.

Fain cursed before he passed the link to Dancer so that he could see the photo that had been sent to Galene. “They didn't just strike the palace,
drey
. They leveled it. No survivors.”

 

C
HAPTER
12

While Galene had held Fain's utmost respect before, he truly saw the depth of her mettle as she kept herself together in the wake of this news. Her spine went straight and her chin lifted defiantly. She met Talyn's gaze. “Tough times never last.”

“But tough Andarions do,” Talyn finished for her as if it was something she'd said so many times that he knew it by heart.

She inclined her head to him. “We secure our family here. And we move forward with a retaliatory strike. Kyr has to have something he cares about. I want that weakness found and destroyed.” She met Dancer's gaze. “Has the tahrs been informed of this?”

“No. They're flying dark so that they can reach us without The League picking them up.”

“Then let me know when he lands so that I can inform him.”

Dancer indicated him and Jayne. “That's our job. We're his family and he'll need us. I owe it to him to tell him personally.”

Galene choked on a sob. “And Cairie and Tylie were my family.”

Talyn started for her, then paused as Fain gathered her in his arms.

Galene patted him on the back before she stepped away and took his hand and Talyn's. “I'm fine. Until bodies are found, we will hold hope sacred in our hearts and pray that they made it to shelter. It's possible they had warning and evacuated.”

A slim possibility. But it was one that allowed her to move forward and function.

She narrowed her gaze at Fain. “How many Tavali can you muster?”

“How many you need?”

“A hundred thousand.”

His eyes widened at the number. “I can do it. But it'll take some time. Maybe as much as a week to get them mobilized to one place.”

“Rendezvous them at Qaris and let me know as soon as they're all there. A group that large will draw notice, so they need to arrive within an hour of each other. Once amassed, I want a strike force with them from the north and us from the south. Every Leaguer in this galaxy is about to get a taste of Alliance vengeance.”

Venik let out an evil laugh. “I like your female, Hauk.” He saluted Galene. “I'd like to put dibs on the salvage of whatever remains from this.”

“If there's anything left of their ships, it's yours to raid.” She stepped back. “Now, if you'll excuse me, I have research I need to do, and a battle to plan.”

Fain started after her only to find Talyn in his way. The expression on his face said that he was one breath away from ruining the rest of Fain's life.

Or ending it.

“Is there a problem?”

“Don't leave her alone, Hauk. She's not as strong as she pretends to be. She had a very close and strong kinship with the tadara. When no one else was kind to her, Cairie was. They've been best friends for thirty years. Please help, Mum. She has to be dying inside over this.”

Cupping Talyn's head, Fain pulled his cheek to his son's. “I love you both,” he whispered in Talyn's ear. “And I won't leave her alone.”

“Thank you. And for the record, I'm glad you weren't in my bed tonight when they attacked. It's my honor to fight by your side.”

Fain tightened his hand in Talyn's braids as those words brought tears to his eyes. Unable to speak past the fierce wave of love that surged inside him, he released his son and went after Galene.

He found her in her office outside the command center. True to Talyn's words, her hands were shaking as she made notes and researched data.

“Stormy?”

Tears glistened in her eyes as she looked up at him. “I was only three the first time I met her. Did you know that?”

He closed the door and crossed the room to stand beside her. “No.”

She sniffed back her tears. “It's the first real clear memory of my life. I was in the palace with my paka, who'd gone to give her a physical to make sure she was still fit for military duty while pregnant. I was sitting on the floor, playing outside her suite, when I heard the clicking of sharp boot heels against the marble floor. I looked up and saw the most beautiful female I'd ever seen in my life. Tall. Strong. Proud. Her head high, she wore her red battlesuit like the mythic goddess Kadora. She stopped by my side and smiled down at me.”

Galene wiped at her eyes. “I dropped my gaze to her blaster. I'd never been that close to one. ‘Are you afraid of me, little one?' she asked. I shook my head no. And she smiled so beautifully and asked if I wanted to touch her weapon. When I said yes, she took it out, ejected the charge cartridge, and handed it over. I was beguiled. My father horrified. He started fussing at me for wasting the tizirah's time. But Cairie quickly shushed him and told me that she wanted me in her armada when I grew up. That she respected my courage and fire.”

Covering her face with her hands, she wept as if her heart was broken.

Fain knelt on the floor by her side to gather her into his arms.

“I loved her so much, Fain. You just don't know.”

“I'm so sorry, Storm. But you said it yourself. It's possible she wasn't there.”

Galene held on to him and to those words. She let his strength melt into her and was grateful to have him here. It was the first time since childhood that she'd had someone she could lean on. While Talyn had done his best to fill that role, she'd always been extremely aware of the fact that she was the parent and that she was supposed to be strong for him. Something that had been so incredibly hard at times.

But with Fain …

She could be weak and needy. She didn't have to pretend that this didn't hurt her to the core of her soul. And as that thought went through her mind, she remembered that Fain had also been close enough to the tadara that she'd adopted him. That he was a lifelong friend of others who'd perished.

They
were
his family.

“How are you doing?” she breathed.

He looked away, but not before she saw the heartbreak he was holding inside. “I just keep thinking about the kids. Cairie's lived a long, full and good life, and I'm Andarion enough to appreciate that and be at peace with it. But the kids … Zarina's only a few months old, and Thia's just entering the prime of her womanhood. She looks older, but she's just a baby. So full of life and wonder … like her brothers. The twins are a wrecking crew of disaster. Jayce and Adron would make Saint Sarn a cursing atheist, and yet I love spending time with all their annoying questions. And Kiara … she's the gentlest soul I've ever known.” He shook his head. “I refuse to believe they're gone.” He spoke between clenched teeth. “I won't accept that.”

Galene bit her lip as she sniffed daintily. “Thia's the same age you were when Keris died.”

That succeeded in wringing a single tear from him. Angry, he wiped it away. “Did you know Keris's last words to me were ‘
titana tu, giakon'
?”

She cringed at words that were basically
go fuck yourself, you castrated coward.
“Why would he say that to you?”

His red eyes glistened with grief-stricken agony. “I'd just found Omira in bed with a man and I'd tried to go home. My parents slammed the door in my face and threatened to call the enforcers on me if I didn't leave, so I went to Keris's. I just wanted five minutes of shelter. Instead, he sucker-punched me, insulted me, and left me in the rain on his doorstep.”

“I'm so sorry, Fain. Did you never try to speak to him again?”

Shaking his head, he sighed wearily. “I took what little money I had that night and bribed a ride from a Tavali to Rook, hoping I could find work on someone's crew. Since I was Outcast, I had no papers. No Andarion could hire me, and no one else would touch me without legal documents and a birth registration. So I was left scraping for whatever illegal crew was willing to pay me under the table and not ask questions about my background. A week later, I went into a bar for a job prospect, and ended up getting drugged and enslaved. Ven liberated me right before Keris took Dancer on his Endurance. I was planning to talk to Keris to make amends once he was back from it … never had the chance. Never was able to say that I was sorry, for everything.”

He blinked back his tears. “I was the only one there when they cremated him. All I kept thinking was that I should have been there for Dancer when he fell during his climb, and for the years after that when everyone blamed him for Keris's death. That he was alone in that house with our parents' hatred, and with no brother there to help him through it.”

“You were always there for him.”

“No. I was only there to help piece things back together after everything fell apart. But I was never there when he really needed me. Anymore than I was there for you or Talyn.”

She placed her finger over his lips. “Let it go, Fain. Life is hard. For everyone. We are all warriors fighting our way through it. As I've always said to Talyn, tough times never last. But tough Andarions do. I learned that from watching you as a boy. Your parents, grandparents, and Keris treated you like shit and yet you never once spoke against them. You'd just lift your chin and carry on. ‘Barking dogs don't bother me,' you used to say. ‘Sooner or later, they reach the end of their yard and hit a fence. I'll keep going past it, and won't hear them anymore.'”

“I was young and stupid.”

“Young, yes. Stupid? Never.”

He placed her hand on his cheek and savored the warmth of her touch on his skin. “I weep for every nanosecond of my life that I lived away from you.”

Overwhelmed by his sincerity, Galene kissed him. Like Fain, she grieved for all the time they'd lost. All the years that had been stolen from them.

“Commander?”

Irritated by the intrusion, she pulled back from Fain to see the highest-ranking Andarion officer after Talyn and Gavarian, who'd been left on duty. “Yes, Gheris?”

“Sorry to intrude, ma'am, but you really need to see this.” He moved to the monitor on her office wall while Fain rose to his feet. He turned it to the Andarion newsfeed.

Galene gasped as she saw Cairistiona's mother, Eriadne, on the screen. Ever regal and harsh, and with a frigid beauty, she was dressed in full royal Andarion battlegear as she addressed the media.

“It is with great sorrow in my heart that I stand before my fellow Androkyns once again. As you all know, my daughter forced me into exile against my will. Over the years, I've tried desperately to reconcile. And she would have none of it. When she began this war against the very League that was founded by our own proud War Hauks to protect us from invasion, I begged her to rethink her foolishness. Ever rebellious like her father before her, Cairistiona refused.”

The queen mother gestured to the photos of the leveled Andarion palace. “I have just received word that there are no survivors of the palace attack. Rescuers are working diligently to extract bodies for state burial, but as you can see, there is very little that remains, and we will be lucky if we find any remains at all.”

Eriadne sniffed back tears. “I, like all of you, am devastated by such a tragic loss of lives taken far too soon. But as the War Hauk motto says,
indurari
. Through blood pain, we conquer and endure. Andaria will continue on as she always has. And to ensure that no other Andarion family has to stand over the graves of their children for such a needless cause, I have again reclaimed the throne that was so violently taken from me, and entered talks with the prime commander of The League. Commander Zemin is more than willing to forgive our transgressions so long as we deliver the traitor Nykyrian Quiakides over to him for execution. With a heavy heart, I have agreed to his terms to sacrifice my grandson for the good of our empire. For the good of the families I don't want to see lose another loved one in a futile war that can only end in our inevitable deaths, and the end of our beloved empire and proud families.”

Lifting her chin, she drew a ragged breath. “I am recalling all Andarion soldiers from their off-world posts and severing our ties with the Alliance, effective immediately. Failure to return home, and any who stand with this so-called Alliance against The League, will result in their being declared traitors to the empire. This includes Prime Commander Batur, who is currently overseeing Alliance forces on an enemy base. If she contacts me immediately, and returns, she and her staff will be forgiven for their actions against our race and their treason against The League. But they must go before The League and do contrition, purification, and reeducation for their actions. Once repatriated, we will welcome them home.”

Galene ground her teeth at those words. Contrition, her left foot. She'd assassinate that bitch first.

“From this broadcast forward, Andaria is again part of The United Systems and falls under the protection of The League and agrees to abide by the laws of The Overseer.” She inclined her head to her soldiers, who began burning the tattered Alliance flag they'd taken from the attack, and hoisting a United Systems flag over the remains of the palace.

Eriadne saluted the media. “All hail Andaria. We are forever united in purpose and we will strike with a precise hand.” The queen bitch finished with the national Andarion motto. “Forever forward. Never back.” And with that, she left the podium.