Heir of Shandara (Book 4) (9 page)

“Your Grace, there have been more inquiries into your whereabouts,” Darven said.

Rordan eyed the former Elitesman. The man had been paired with Mactar for a number of years and was an apprentice of sorts. Mactar hadn’t been seen or heard from since their army had been defeated. Many believed the old Dark Master had perished in the battle. Rordan didn’t believe the rumors until Darven had sought him out and confirmed it for him.

“Well, I have been drawing attention to myself,” Rordan said. The power was in him now, loitering beneath the surface. The amulet that Mactar had left him had opened the door and taken his abilities to another level. He could reach out with the energy and stop a person’s heart almost instantly. The one caveat was that he needed to be close to his intended target. He didn’t know why, and Mactar wasn’t around to ask. Another ability had manifested itself within the past week.

“Have you practiced the meditation exercises that I taught you?” Darven asked.

“Of course. How else do you think my father’s former staff at the palace met with unfortunate ends?” Rordan said. In deep stages of meditation, he was able to focus upon a single person and use the energy to nudge their thoughts. As he learned to focus more, and with the help of the amulet to focus his power, he was able to do more than just nudge a person’s thoughts. Some he could bend to his will, while with others he turned their dreams into nightmares.
 

His skin had become a pasty white, a side effect of the amulet, but he didn’t care. Even the Elitesmen within their midst gave him a wide berth now. He supposed he couldn’t blame them because they had become his practice targets while he honed his abilities. It was good that they feared him now. Fear was something these Elitesmen understood, and it was that fear that would make them useful for what he had in mind.

“Do you think she will come?” Rordan asked.

“Sarah will come. Your sister will never let the deaths you’ve caused go unanswered,” Darven said.

Rordan nodded and resumed his pacing. His thoughts were clearer if he kept moving. “Do you think
he
will come as well?” Rordan asked.

“Probably; I bet he hardly leaves her side.”

His gut clenched at the thought, and Rordan kicked over a chair. “I need to get them separate.”

“You should remember that Aaron Jace is, in fact, human. He can be beaten. He can be outwitted. One just needs to find the right leverage to keep him at bay or a distraction to keep him looking in the direction that you want,” Darven said.

Rordan stopped his pacing. “Why does he hate you so much? I remember his reaction to you when we first saw him in Shandara. He knew who you were, but how could that be?”

Darven stopped sharpening his blade. “I was with your brother, Tye, when he tried to capture Aaron. He killed your brother but not before my dagger found its home in his mother’s chest. That’s why he wants to kill me.”

Rordan’s eyes widened. “You killed his mother… So that’s how the rest of you escaped.”

Darven nodded. “There wasn’t much time for a better plan. Aaron wasn’t nearly as battle tested as he is now. Taking him on alone now would be a path to a quick death.”

“I don’t need to take him on. At least not directly. It’s my sister that I will kill first. Then the throne of Khamearra will be mine as it should have been,” Rordan said, wiping his hands upon his pants. People always gave him strange looks when he did this, but Darven was too smart for that. The skin on the back of his hands always felt as if there were tiny things crawling on them. The release he had was when he took a life, but the feeling always came back. Slow at first, but steadily building over time until he gave in and went on the hunt for his next victim.

“Have you given further thought to my proposal?” Darven asked.

“The one where we reach out to the army of Hythariam that we’re not sure exist? No, I haven’t,” Rordan said, and resumed his pacing.

“They exist. Mactar was aligned with them. At least he told me himself before he died. Regardless, I’ve seen a report come in from one of our remote encampments. They’ve been contacted, and there was talk of aligning against a common enemy,” Darven said.

“They approached us? How did they even know that they were one of ours? And what do they want in return?” Rordan asked.

“All good questions, my Lord,” Darven answered. “They’ve given us a means to contact them,” Darven said and set down a small black oval object on the table in front of him.

“What is that?”

“It’s a means to communicate with them. All you need to do is touch the top.”

Rordan frowned in thought for a moment and crossed his arms tightly in front of him. “Why me?”

Darven glanced at him with a slightly amused expression. “Because they said they wanted to speak to you.”

Rordan tilted his head for a moment, considering. “Me specifically?”

“You are the prince and heir apparent to Khamearra’s throne. That is, of course, unless you want to submit to the rule of your sister?” Darven asked.

Rordan glared at the former Elitesman. “You know I don’t.”

“I wasn’t advising one way or the other. I was merely pointing out the options. Now, are you going to contact our potential allies or not?” Darven asked.

Rordan unclenched his jaw, and his gaze returned to the small black oval object on the table. He slowly reached out and pressed his thumb onto the center. The metallic surface beneath his thumb glowed. Small legs unfolded themselves and pushed the device up. After a few moments, a face with tan skin and golden eyes appeared above the glowing object. Rordan glanced at Darven, who nodded for him to speak.

“I was told you wanted to speak with me. I am Prince Rordan of Khamearra.”

C
HAPTER
9

COUNSEL

Bayen sat hunched over, glaring at the small holographic display above the bracer on his wrist. Matrix alignment estimate read 86 percent. He had been here less than a day. How had the matrix alignment decreased so much since then? He’d looked at the estimate, expecting it to be near 93 percent. He had fourteen days until the temporal matrix was pulled out of alignment and he was forced to go back to the future. That meant that there should have been a steady decline of 7 percent each day. It was more than double that.

“Sam,” Bayen whispered. “Why has the alignment decreased so much?”

“Calculations are adjusted based upon new input,” Sam replied.

Bayen cursed inwardly at the designer of this simple-minded artificial intelligence that he was forced to contend with.

“What has changed?”

“The plague has been released,” Sam said.

“But we were able to contain it,” Bayen said.

“As instructed, I’ve been monitoring communications.”

“Right, communications between Hathenwood and Shandara.”

“I’ve expanded my parameters to include communications from the group known as the Zekara,” Sam said.

“You were able to crack the encryption on their communications channels?” Bayen asked.

“No, sir. I already have the keys that unlock their comms channels,” Sam said.

“Do you have system access?” Bayen asked, fighting to keep his voice down. If his little AI could get system access to the Zekara, then they could cripple their forces and perhaps turn the tide of this war before it had a chance to really begin.

“Negative, sir.”

Bayen swore and drew a few glances his way. Aaron was speaking into his own comms device and didn’t hear him.

“Is keeping Halcylon alive still our only hope of curing the plague?”

“Keep General Halcylon alive. Fifty-five percent success probability rate.”

Bayen pursed his lips in thought. The answer hadn’t changed. Still, he had less time to stop the plague from getting out of control.
 

“Sam, what happened? Why do I have even less time than we thought?”

“Infiltrators are moving into position around the continent. Should they be destroyed, then their self-destruct mechanism will release the plague,” the AI said.

“Is there any way to stop them from self-destructing?” Bayen asked, and after a moment added, “And disable them at the same time?”
 

Never trust an AI to not state the obvious, and allowing the infiltrators to roam free wasn’t really an option.

“The self-destruct is engaged automatically upon catastrophic failure of the host or if the host chooses to engage it,” Sam said.

“There must be a way to prevent the sequence from starting. A design flaw of some kind,” Bayen said.

“Accessing known infiltrator design. One moment please,” Sam said. “There is a sequence that can be followed that will both disable the infiltrator and stop the self-destruct protocol. It requires close proximity to the infiltrator,” Sam said.
 

The holo display showed a few images of the actions required to disable the infiltrator. It wasn’t your typical hack-and-slash until it stopped moving, but precise and targeted hits carried out in just the right order.

“Can you get this information into the hands of Free Nations Army? Particularly”—Bayen paused for a second, trying to recall the name of the Hythariam general that served in the beginning—“Gavril Sorindal?”

“It would require leveraging the nearest comms device to send the information. This communication could later be discovered, and our presence would be detected,” Sam warned.

“It’s a risk we need to take. If we can get the FNA to neutralize the infiltrators, that would buy us some time to prevent the plague from spreading so rapidly.”

“Confirmed, sir. Data packet sent.”

Bayen frowned for a moment. “Whose comms device did you use?”

“T-thirty-one-H,” Sam replied.

Bayen rolled his eyes and shook his head. “A name, Sam. I’m looking for the user of the device.”

“Apologies, sir. I gave you the device’s unique identifier. The current user of the device is known as Tanneth.”

Bayen glanced over at the Hythariam and cursed inwardly. Tanneth was clever enough to know if his comms device had been tampered with. It was only a matter of time. Bayen glanced back over at Aaron. He was so different from the man he knew, but some things were the same.

“Planning your next argument?” Verona asked, approaching from behind him.

Bayen quickly covered up his bracer with the sleeve of his cloak. “With who?”

Verona’s lips curved in a half smile. “I understand why you wanted to kill me.”

“You were very lucky. Anyone else would have been dead.”

“Still, you seem hell-bent on challenging Aaron at every turn”

Bayen clutched the haft of his bladed staff. “Someone should. If you don’t, then what he does could doom us all.”

“Aaron wouldn’t let that happen. You know, when I first met Aaron, he had secrets that were weighing him down. They constantly ate away at him and almost became his downfall.”

“Really, and what did he do?” Bayen asked.

Verona met his gaze. “Well, he trusted me, for one. Eventually, he shared his burdens with the rest of us. Friends help each other, and right now you look like you could use a friend.”

Bayen looked across the way at Aaron but didn’t say anything.
Success means death. Failure means the end of the world,
he thought.

“Another time perhaps,” Verona said, and took a few steps away. “Just remember: Bearing a burden alone is the surest path to defeat. Aaron taught me that.”

Bayen’s breath caught in his chest. “What if my burden is meant to be carried alone?”

“Carried, perhaps, but you don’t have to stand apart from the rest of us to do so. Just think about what I said.”

***

“They don’t think we’re infected,” Aaron said. The holo display above his comms device showed a miniature depiction of Sarah from the shoulders up.

“That’s good. Roselyn pieced together what happened to Verona. The fact that he has the Nanites in him didn’t sit well with Iranus,” Sarah said.

“They saved his life,” Aaron said, and suppressed a shiver at just how close he had come to losing his friend forever.

“What is it?”

Aaron frowned. He should have known better. If he denied anything, she would see right through him. “I keep thinking what if it had been you.”