Rex Aftermath (Elei's Chronicles) (25 page)

Shaking his head, he went to take a seat across from them. Rex was relaxing, his leg hurt and besides, he didn’t think Dain would stress Kalaes now. In fact, Dain helped Kalaes back to the seat, where Zoe pulled his head in her lap and stroked his wild hair.

Alendra filled Dain in on what had happened and why Kalaes was ill.

Elei rubbed his eyes, starting a little when the other gang leaders appeared at the aircar door and filed inside to sit cross-legged on the floor of the cabin. He nodded at them, and when Iset made sure everyone was there to they could leave, he nodded again, too tired to talk.

He had the whole seat for himself. He placed his hands by his sides, splayed his fingers on the old, creaking
nepheline
, and bowed his head, feeling as if he was a thousand miles away.
Alone
. Drifting in the cold.

Coming down from the Rex-induced high, the adrenaline leaving his system. His hands shook. His head pounded.

Everyone’s okay.
His fingers curled against his thighs.
Everyone’s fine.

But he couldn’t shake off the fear that it was all a dream. Damn Rex, messing with his head.

“Is the seat taken?”

He looked up. Alendra smiled and waited, probably for an answer. He just stared, not knowing what to say.

Thankfully she seemed to understand because she sat by his side, looked right into his eyes and said, “I’m here.”

He nodded, hoping the sob caught in his throat wouldn’t escape. How had she known he had trouble believing it?

Perhaps she had the same trouble herself. Or else she read him like an open book. He didn’t mind.

“Elei,” she said, then louder, “I’m right here,” and her arms looped around his neck, her soft curves pressed to his side. “Gods, you scared me so much.”

“I’m so sorry, Ale,” he whispered.

“You’re here,” she said, head on his shoulder. “We’re both here. That’s what counts.”

All his breath left him and he clutched her against him, slipped his hands under her jacket and sweater, under her blouse to touch the warm skin of her waist. Not a dream, he told himself over and over again, not a dream. She wasn’t leaving, Kalaes wasn’t leaving. He hadn’t lost everything, hadn’t lost them.

Oh gods...
He tried to remember the words of the prayer the monks had taught him at the factory before Pelia had found him. But they slipped through the cracks in his memories like fire sparks.

Gods, if you exist
, he thought,
I just want to say... Thank you
.

***

Dakru city burned. Hera watched black smoke billow over the spires and roofs, engulfing the city in a dark mist. Flames jumped from windows and among crumbing walls.

Seleukids had fallen, hit by the war machine cannons, crashed into buildings and streets. Bruised metal wings jutted over the ruins. People —
Gultur
— ran in the avenues, their long hair loose and streaming behind them like colorful pennants.

Hera observed it all with a detachment that should have scared her. Not even Regina whispered inside her head. It was deadly quiet. It was as if she herself was absent from her thoughts — as if her mind was not her own.

As if the destruction around them was not real.

But the fires burned and the war machine ground over debris and rubble, heading toward the gleaming Palace which still stood, white and pristine, glowing proudly against the fumes and explosions.

“Tear it down,” Hera whispered, her own raspy voice startling her with its vehemence. “Gun the damn Palace down.”

Mantis glanced at her over his shoulder, his eyes narrowed. “They’ll surrender. The loss of Bone Tower has broken the regime, as you said it would.”

Hera felt broken, too — the pieces so small they might never be put together again.

Drones swooped over the city, spitting bullets. Sacmis growled as she turned the cannons on them and methodically shot them down, one after the other.

What did it matter?

Snatches of talk came over the speakers. Someone had turned the transmitter on again. Mantis fiddled with the switches, going through the frequencies, his head bowed in concentration.

Then he pulled out a microphone from the console and spoke into it. “This is Mantis. The gates are down. Dakru city has fallen. I repeat, Dakru City has fallen. Get your asses here, soldiers.”

Sacmis gave soft snort.

Hera wished she could feel something, anything at all.

The war machine trundled through the main avenue with its slender trees, their silver foliage trembling. Mantis drove again and steered them between the tall facades of stately buildings, mostly untouched by the battle.

Aircars rushed into their path. Mantis never hesitated, driving on, the huge wheels of the war tower shoving the vehicles aside, onto the sidewalks.

The flower beds would need months to recover, Hera thought randomly. She tugged on her hair. The braids she’d wrapped around her head had slipped, hanging over her brow. She pulled out the hairpins, undid the knots with her fingers.

Drew a deep breath.

Snap out of it,
hatha
. You can get into shock after the battle is over. Then you can grieve. Not now
.

Mantis’ machine gun was propped by the driver’s chair. She grabbed it, checked the ammo and grabbed a full magazine from his duffel bag. The emptiness inside her chest was filling with heat.

Anger. Blinding fury.

They’d killed her friends. They’d pay for this. Damn them to the five hells.

Bullets zipped past her head as she leaned out of a smashed window. So high up, towering over the trees, over some of the buildings. Cold air slapped her cheeks, sharpening her focus. A bullet stung her cheek and struck the window frame, ricocheting off into the night.

A miracle they were still alive, Hera thought as she aimed and fired on drones and tanks down below with cannons mounted on their tops. Why some lived and some died, and why you chose peace and therefore brought on war — all these questions... Unanswerable. Burning.

She fired, letting the anger pour through her hands, rain on anyone who tried to stop them. That was her only answer.

That’s for Elei, for Kalaes, for Alendra. For the peace you stole from me so many times over. In exchange I give you death.

Drones spiraled out of the sky, crashing into the avenue in heaps of twisted metal. A conflagration. A sacrifice.

Yes, that’s right. You wanted a sacrifice. I’m giving it to you.

Cannon fire and explosions from the city gates got her attention. She narrowed her eyes. Had Mantis’ army arrived?

No time to find out. They were rolling through the main square, crushing statues of Gultur scholars and magistrates. Ahead, the Capitol caught the powerful headlights of the war machine, a square nondescript cube of a building, and next to it, the Palace.

Its white, curved columns were familiar to her, embracing the glittering core of the Palace, its vertical, delicate towers. She’d lived there, knew the trainers, the cooks, the guards, the cleaners.

She’d thought it an honor.

Anger flared again. Anger and disappointment, disgust and mind-crushing sorrow.

“Ready,” Sacmis said and the motors whined as she flipped up switches and turned every cannon of the war machine that Hera could see on the Palace. “Locked on target.”

Hera held her breath. She pulled back from the window, dragging the machine gun inside. What would happen now?

The silence inside the cockpit grew, made heavier by the continuing booming of explosions and shouts outside. Mantis was hunched forward, staring at the Palace, his hands so tight on the steer the bones of his knuckles gleamed white. Sacmis sat still, a slight tremor in her arms.

Destroy it,
Hera thought, but she found her hands trembling, too. She bowed her head. How would destroying more help? How would it bring her friends back?

“Look!” Sacmis whispered and the awe in her voice brought Hera’s head back up.

The Palace gates were opening. Rather, the Palace itself was opening, the shiny curved pillars lowering, falling outward like a fist unfurling, until the Palace stood naked and glorious in their center; a gem held on a giant’s palm.

Hera’s mouth fell open. “What in the hells?”

Mantis tsked. “My people. I told you.”

His words barely registered when the heavy doors of the Palace began to part, slowly, ponderously.

Visored Gultur guards appeared in the opening. They walked out in stately procession, forming two lines. A small commotion took place in the darkness of the interior, and then more guards exited, dragging between them a group of individuals.

Hera squinted. “Is that...?”

“The High Council,” Sacmis breathed.

Hera could not believe her eyes. “You had... They took...” The words would not come. “You have Gultur allies in the Palace?”

Mantis winked. “Of course I do. How did you think I kept tabs on everyone?”

Oh yes, he certainly had lots of aces up his sleeve. “That’s General Misya.”

“And High Elector Kora.” Sacmis pushed up her visor. Her eyes were wide. “They have capitulated.”

“But why?” Hera tried to wrap her mind around this development. “We only have one war machine. I expected...”
Another battle. More bloodshed. More death.

“You and Sacmis aren’t the only Gultur believing it’s time for a change,” Mantis whispered. “You aren’t the only ones sick of injustice.”

Hera slid down the wall of the cockpit, the machine gun resting between her legs.
Gods.
If only Elei was here to see this... And Kalaes... Alendra...

Was it worth it?

She had to believe it.

***

Dakru City had been caught by surprise. It was eerily quiet, like a ghost town, when Hera and Mantis drove back to the gates, a line of vehicles behind them, to secure them. The war machines outside had already been taken over by members of the resistance who’d been hiding in the city. They now stood dark and lifeless, brooding monument along the walls of the outer city.

They were in time to watch Mantis’ army roll into the city, an endless line of old, battered aircars, their engines groaning and grinding as they filled the long central avenue.

Out of the aircars jumped kids with ridiculously big guns and attitude to match. They blocked the city gates, set up guard on the walls, then rounded up the inhabitants and locked them in the theater hall until the situation was stable.

Would it ever be stable? How long until real peace was achieved?

It was a miracle none of Mantis’ small soldiers went berserk and started shooting indiscriminately. One reason might be exhaustion, Hera thought. The children had been on stand-by for days now, posted in various spots outside the city, waiting for word from Mantis.

The sky was bright, light spilling among the clouds, as Hera returned to the Palace. Under Sacmis’ guidance, most members of the government and the double-crossing resistance council had been rounded up, including Nine. Hera had the pleasure of holding a gun to the woman’s head while Mantis read the true resistance’s demands and terms.

The boy had really been planning this for a long time.

Do not dare be impressed again, Hera. This is Mantis. The one who leads you.
She would not make the mistake of underestimating him again.

The regime accepted their terms, though Hera was certain more battles would be fought outside the capital. It was decided the electric pillars would remain active until every single Gultur station outside Dakru had reported in and had capitulated as well.

That would take time. Mantis directed his tech people to set up camp in the communications room and ‘get cracking’.

Hera left the council room and went to sit in the hall outside. She rested her head on her folded arms. It was over for now.

And it still did not matter.

She had not felt this lost in years. She should be leading the patrols in the city, should be supervising the security measures and meeting with her fellow Gultur who were members of the resistance.

Quicksand. That was what it felt like. Like sinking with no hope of surfacing. She had no idea how long she sat there, her head heavy, her mind dark.

Movement roused her, a stirring in the air. She looked up.

“M’lady.” Mantis stood before her, his face grave. “May I speak with you?”

“You need no permission for that.” She shook her head. “Have they gone back on their damn word already?”

He was fidgeting with the hem of his shirt. “No, it’s not that.”

“Then what is it?”

“The woman who betrayed you. Maera.”

“What of her?”

“Well...” He inhaled. “I took the liberty to ask whether they’d found the bodies. You know, of Kalaes and Elei and Alendra.”