Heroes Return (10 page)

“Hell,” I heard from Fiona.

“What else is wrong?” I asked, and I cringed at the waver in my voice. Damn it, couldn’t I at least appear calm?

“I can’t find the rope.”

“The rope that’s supposed to lead us out?”

“That’s the one.”

No no no no. We were stuck in here. We’d never get out of there. “How is that possible?”

“Hold on. I’ll keep looking,” she said, but she sounded like she had no real hope of success.

“What if you can’t find it?”

“Calm down, Dunleavy. It will be all right.”

“You have no way of knowing that.”

She didn’t answer, which I took to be a very bad sign. There was some more scuffling, and then I heard her back at my side. “I can’t find the rope,” she said. “We’ll have to wait until the others come to look for us.”

“That could be hours,” I complained. I was ashamed of myself, but I couldn’t help it. We were stuck there in the middle of a mountain with no way out. The whole thing could collapse in on us and smother us.

“Aye, it could,” said Fiona. “But we’re safe in here. Nothing can happen to us in here.”

Oh, I could imagine all sorts of things. And the very fact that she had said nothing would happen made it a certainty that something would.

And wasn’t that a foolish thing to think? Not to mention superstitious. So I would stop thinking that way immediately.

“Here, we’ll sit down right here,” said Fiona. “Dane knows where we are. When we don’t show up, he’ll come looking.”

I sat down. The rocky floor bit into my behind. It was impossible to get comfortable. “Is there no way we can find our own way out?” Because I hated the thought of just sitting and waiting.

“No,” was her immediate answer. “With neither a lantern nor a rope, we’ll get turned around and we’ll go the wrong way and no one will be able to find us. Dane knows about this cavern. He knew this was where I was bringing you. He’ll know to come here.”

“All right.” I sighed.

“Just sit tight. It’ll be fine.”

Aye. It’ll be fine. Wonderful.

Chapter Seven

“So,” Fiona said after a few moments, “Shintaro’s manner is unexpected.”

I stiffened. “Taro’s a fine man.”

She chuckled. “I have no complaints, Dunleavy. He’s just much more serious than I expected.”

“Really?” I couldn’t imagine anyone calling Taro serious, but then, he had been pretty grim since coming to Flown Raven. “There are things he is serious about, but overall he’s fairly vivacious.”

“Vivacious.” Fiona sounded out the word as though testing it for suitability. “I didn’t really know what to expect. There’s what we heard before Shintaro went to the Source Academy, and what we’ve heard since.”

“What did you hear of before he went to the Academy?” I knew what they would have heard after he was released for field training. The same that the rest of us had heard. That he drank and gambled and slept with anything on two legs. I’d also heard that he was shallow and arrogant. I’d heard all of this before being bonded with him, and I’d believed it all, which had led to some real difficulties between the two of us, to my shame.

But what rumors were passed among his extended family? I had no idea. I was almost afraid of finding out. It was sure to infuriate me.

“That he was a half-wit, mostly,” Fiona said with an ease I disliked. “That for his own good he was kept in a room in the cellar, for significant exposure to others exacerbated his imbalanced sensibilities. That he didn’t have mind enough to speak properly, never mind reading and writing or moving about in the open world.”

“That’s appalling.” I felt sick. Who had spread such foul ideas?

Well, I knew who had started those rumors. His own parents. The Dowager had once said in my hearing she didn’t want people knowing about Taro’s peculiarities, because they embarrassed her, but who else could have told everyone about Taro?

Then again, the servants could have spoken out. I always forgot about the servants.

Did that mean I was a bitch?

“Aye, I know,” said Fiona. “When we learned he’d been taken to the Source Academy, I remember wondering why they even wanted him, no matter what his talent. He surely couldn’t be useful as a Source. But I’d assumed it was something legal, that the Triple S had to take him no matter what was wrong with him.”

Actually, they probably did. I’d never thought about it, but it made sense. And I remembered seeing at the Shield Academy some people, children and adults, who never mixed with the students and never went to the classes. Were they damaged people who just happened to be Shields?

“We don’t hear anything for five or so years, and then we start hearing that he’s growing up to be some kind of hellion and everyone loves him.”

I had a feeling not many people actually loved Taro. They’d merely enjoyed his fine form and maybe his talent. However, I had no reason to believe he hadn’t enjoyed the attention. He’d been a young man, after all.

“I’d never seen him, had no contact with him before he sent me the code. Surprised the hell out of me. I’d assumed he would take the title and run the estate into the ground. It had never occurred to me he would ever, in a million years, abjure the title. His letter came out of the blue. I couldn’t have been more shocked.”

“Were you happy to get the title?” I asked.

“Not happy, so much. Dane and I were doing well in Centerfield. Our tenants were successful. But I felt I could do a good job running Flown Raven, and I was the first choice of the heir apparent. I felt a sort of duty to take it.”

I wondered if she still thought she could do a good job. I wondered if the claims of less successful fishing and whaling were true.

“I did feel really grateful to Shintaro for choosing me. I thanked him for his sacrifice several times, but he kept saying it was no sacrifice to him, that he felt nothing for Flown Raven and it would prosper in my hands. I get the feeling he would be happier if he’d never had to come to Flown Raven, and I feel bad about it. I never expected to get your Pair when I told the Triple S we needed one. And I never expected the Triple S to turn the request over to the Emperor. He’s not usually involved in the posting of Pairs, is he?”

“You directed your request to the Triple S?” I asked.

“I understood that was what one did.”

So how did the Emperor learn of the request? I could see no reason for the council to tell him. How did he know that the Triple S council hadn’t already assigned someone to Flown Raven when he’d ordered us here? Knowing him, he hadn’t, and hadn’t cared.

“Then I finally meet Shintaro and it turns out that my cousin is personable and of sound mind, and maybe he should have taken the title after all, if he is going to end up living here for the rest of his life.”

“It’s unlikely to be the rest of his life.” It had better not be. “And even if it were, he’s here as a Source, not a duke. There’s no reason to expect him to take both roles.”

“The people here believe very much in tradition. The Karish family has held the title for generations. And I think they felt it as a personal insult when Taro abjured the title, like he was rejecting them. Some of them have been very vocal about their displeasure at my being here. And the numbers are down.”

I didn’t point out that Dane had claimed to some tenants that the numbers weren’t down. I didn’t blame him if he was lying. “I don’t know anything about it, but couldn’t the numbers fall for reasons that have nothing to do with you?”

“Certainly, but you can understand why they think the way they do, can’t you? And you can see the logic of Taro taking the title, can’t you? If he’s going to be here anyway, why not have him be duke?”

Because he didn’t want it. Because I didn’t want it. Because I hoped we would be transferred to another post in a few years. “Are you thinking of offering to give the position back to him?”

“Oh, no. It would be illegal for him to take it.”

Thank gods.

“It’s just hard not to see that he would be a better fit.”

“He has no training in estate management.”

“All he would need are the right advisors.”

But how could he find the right advisors if he didn’t know what he was doing in the first place? “Well, believe me, he doesn’t think he made a mistake in abjuring, so neither should you.”

She was silent after that, and I wondered if I’d spoken too firmly. Some people found that offensive. I shifted, trying to find comfort on the uncomfortable ground. I couldn’t believe my eyes still hadn’t gotten used to the darkness. I needed to talk to distract myself.

“What’s it like having to make legal decisions?” I asked her. Not many titleholders had to do that.

“It’s horrible,” she said. “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”

That had been emphatic. “How can that be?” I asked. “All you do is listen to two stories and choose the better one.”

“That’s what makes it so horrible. Usually both sides have merit, you know, and it isn’t obvious who is right. And there are some wonderful liars in the world. What if I’m totally taken in by one of them?”

“Surely everyone in your position feels the same.”

“I don’t know. Everyone else seems pretty confident in what they’re doing.”

“Maybe everyone is just fooling everyone else.”

“That’s a depressing, pessimistic thought.”

I shrugged, forgetting that she couldn’t see me.

We sat in silence for a while. And it was silence. I couldn’t hear anything. It was like we were cut off from the rest of the world. And then my mind went off in ludicrous directions. Maybe we were cut off from the rest of the world. Maybe the rest of the world had been destroyed by a disaster while we were stuck in the cave. Maybe we were the only two people left alive and there was nothing left but this cave.

That was stupid.

I itched to look for the rope myself, and that was stupid, too. If Fiona couldn’t find it, I certainly couldn’t. I just hated waiting there for someone else to find us. There had to be something we could do for ourselves.

If I were Taro, I could alert him that I was in trouble by starting an event, and if he were me, he would be able to feel that was what I was doing, know I was doing it because I was in trouble, and start looking for me. I hadn’t been thrilled when he had done that in the past, but I could certainly understand the temptation. I would do it right then, if I could.

“Do you have any appointments today?” I asked Fiona hopefully. If she didn’t show up for a meeting, Dane would start looking for her.

“I have a meeting with Roshni but that isn’t until late afternoon.”

Damn.

“Don’t worry. Dane thinks this whole place is a death trap. He won’t wait long to look for us.”

Something about her words made me remember some things Dane had said. “Is he not happy to be here?” I asked, worried that I might be overstepping my bounds.

“He was content at home. I discussed with him taking the title, of course, and he agreed to the move, but now that we’re here he isn’t thrilled with the differences. Or the people.”

“Do you think he’ll get used to it?”

“He’ll have to, won’t he?”

That seemed a little callous. And shortsighted. It was bad enough that Taro and I resented being here. It would make for a miserable household if Fiona and Dane hated it, too.

Time passed. Or I assumed it did. It was hard to tell, stuck in the cave.

I was thirsty. And hungry. And I felt dirty.

I wished I’d gotten a better look at that machine, because I would never be seeing it again. Once I got out of the cave, I was never going back. Ever.

The ground seemed to be getting harder. My knees felt like they were locking up. I shifted in preparation for standing up.

“Where are you going?” Fiona demanded.

“I just want to walk around a bit.”

“Don’t. It’s too easy to get turned around and you won’t be able to find your way back. If you’re not in this chamber, there’s a good chance we won’t be able to find you at all.”

I sighed and settled back down.

We waited some more. I needed to relieve myself. That was too embarrassing.

I couldn’t believe how long they were taking to find us. We must have been gone long enough to be missed. Why weren’t they here?

Maybe they couldn’t find us. Maybe they’d somehow moved or pulled up the rope and they were going down one of the branches of the cave. Maybe they were lost somewhere in the cave. Maybe we were all going to die in this black, silent little world.

All right, now, that was ridiculous. I was scaring myself. I could feel my pulse in my throat. That wasn’t accomplishing anything.

Breathe. In two three four, hold two three four, out two three four.

“What are you doing?” Fiona asked.

“Breathing,” I answered.

“You’re awfully loud,” she complained.

I had a feeling shrieking like a child would be even louder, so I continued with my serenity breathing.

“They will find us, Dunleavy,” Fiona said. “Don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried,” I lied.

“We just have to sit and wait.”

“I’m good at sitting and waiting.” No, I wasn’t.

Fiona chuckled.

I hadn’t been trying to be funny.

I swore the seat of my trousers had to be torn to shreds. I wouldn’t be decent enough to leave the cave. I would have to walk around in front of all those strangers, hanging out of my trousers. They’d lose any respect they ever had for me. They’d smirk every time they looked at me.

“Do you hear that?” Fiona asked.

Finally. “You hear them looking for us?”

“I don’t—” She broke off. “There, that. Do you hear that?”

I listened. I strained to hear something. “I don’t hear anything, but that doesn’t mean anything. My hearing may not be as acute as yours.” Shields tended to have duller senses.