Rex Aftermath (Elei's Chronicles) (30 page)

Kalaes sat back down, rubbed his eyes, grabbed the bottle. “She’s running away, fe.” He poured them both another glass. “So, I’m asking you, what do you have to lose?”

***

The aircar convoy had set off toward Artemisia more than two hours ago, and the discussions they’d had with Mantis and the new government still buzzed in Hera’s head. It was odd, not driving, not shooting, not running.

Simply living. Thinking. Making decisions for a future that did not involve visions of death.

But that was not the only novelty. Her eyes strayed to Sacmis who sat by her side, her ash-blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, silver strands brushing her slender jaw.

“Are you sure it’s a good idea?” Sacmis was fiddling with her longgun and Hera watched her nimble fingers toy with the magazine and the settings.

Strange to think she had time to simply enjoy observing her lover. “What idea?”

“Exploration.” Sacmis sent her an exasperated look. “You have not heard a word I said, have you? Since we left Dakru City.”

“Well, I...” Hera’s face warmed. “I was distracted.”

Sacmis put down the gun and reached out for Hera’s hand. She winked, her gray eyes sparkling. “Are you saying I’m distracting you?”

“Maybe.”

Sacmis grinned. “Let me summarize, then. Why did you turn down the position? You never told me.”

As the head of the Gultur. A twin presidency, representing both mortal and Gultur, an attempt to cool the spirits and bring peace.

Hera tangled her fingers with Sacmis’. “I could not.”

“And why is that,
hatha
? Mantis thought you were the best candidate.”

“Mantis does not know me well.” Not like you do. “I do not have a mind for politics.”

“Really?” Sacmis’ brow scrunched up. “Why?”

“I am not a diplomat, Sacmis. You surely know that.”

Sacmis thought about it for a moment. “True,” she admitted, looking down at their joined hands. “You can never keep your big mouth shut.”

Hera cuffed her lightly on the head. “You are the one with the big mouth.”
Big, pretty mouth.
“I take action. I do not mince words. I say what I think. A head of the government should be careful. And Pandia seems capable enough.”

“You think?”

Yes, Hera thought so. She recalled the regal young woman who had shaken her hand and smiled. Mantis had vouched for her, said she’d worked with him from the start, that she was calm and moderate. That she would do just fine.

“Yes, I can see it now,” Sacmis said slowly, still looking down. “You, appearing on the newsfeed with your gun propped at your side, glaring, yelling at the people of Dakru to kindly extract their heads out of their asses and experience some goddamn peace.”

Hera started at the mental image. Oh gods, she would have. What a close call. If she’d accepted... She opened her mouth, then closed it.

Sacmis’ shoulders shook. What in the hells?

Sacmis was laughing.

Hera’s lips twitched. “Yes, well, now you see why. I’d probably shoot anyone who disagreed.”

“Oh you would.” Sacmis laughed out loud, grabbing Hera around the shoulders. “You’re wise as well as beautiful, senet.”

“Compliments will get you nowhere,” Hera said, trying to scowl and failing.

“Oh, Kalaes is good. He gave you a sense of humor.”

“I always had a sense of humor.” Hera licked Sacmis’ cheek, making her yelp. “It’s dry.”

“Like the slopes of the mountains,” Sacmis agreed.

Hera snickered.

It felt so damn good, holding Sacmis and not worrying about betrayal, about making a wrong decision that might get people killed or change the path of fate.

“It’s more than that, you know,” Hera said. “More than failing at diplomacy. I think... I’m done carrying the weight of the world on my shoulders. I cannot do it anymore.”

She could tell these things to Sacmis. Sacmis would not think her weak. Or if she did, she also thought her strong, contradictory as it might seem, and she was not running away.

“And what about the exploration?” Sacmis whispered. “Do you think it’s a good idea?”

Hera thought of the hive where people had been left asleep for hundreds of years. She thought of the strange underground garden with its unknown animals and plants. Of the endless miles of tunnels, of the weapons hidden below. Of the riches and the knowledge.

“Yes, I think it’s a good idea. I want to know. Always wanted. What is below. What is beyond. Where we came from. If there are more people out there.” Hera pulled Sacmis closer, inhaling her clean scent, relaxing. “Toppling the regime, finding peace, that’s the first step. We have been kept in ignorance for too long. But...”

Sacmis looked up. Her clear eyes were like mirrors, flecks of bronze floating on their surface. “But?” she prompted.

Hera gazed out at the fields the road meandered through. “But I’m not sure I’m ready yet.”

In one week the first team was leaving. They’d try to repeat the journey Hera and her group had made, from the island of Ert down, to check the hive and the garden and everything in between. Rogue groups of Gultur might be roaming below. They’d go prepared.

“I feel I should be leading them,” she said, stroking Sacmis’ back. “I know the way. Most of it. And it’s like I have a rope around my neck, a leash, pulling me back there to know more.”

“It’s called curiosity,” Sacmis muttered. “You’re curious as a cat, Hera.”

Hera could not deny it. Curiosity called her back to the tunnels, but also a sense of responsibility. “Yeah.”

“Then what’s bothering you?”

That was the problem. “I do not know.” Just a feeling that it was too soon. That she was needed here for a while longer. She remembered Elei squeezing her hand as he lay at the hospital, his words. We missed you. We love you.

And gods help her, she loved them, too, and had missed them beyond words when they’d been away.

***

Elei didn’t see much of Alendra in the next three days. In fact, he didn’t see her at all. He made up his mind to talk to her, but she was never there, as if she calculated her comings and goings to avoid him.

It worked.

He buried himself in the work and in fixing the orphanage. He only went home to shower and change, then headed back out, came back late at night to sleep. Hera and Sacmis were away again, having meetings out of town. Kalaes kept sending him worried looks, kept trying to draw him into a conversation, and Elei felt guilty for worrying him. After all, everything was okay. They were healthy, safe, fed and clothed and kept out of the cold.

And if Hera, Sacmis and Alendra wanted to leave and explore the underworld, it was their right. Not their fault he’d longed so much for a family he’d give up anything to have it. You couldn’t buy families, or force them to exist. He knew that.

For all the good it did him.

He was getting used to opening the door to an empty apartment, so the voices rising as soon as he went in that night startled him.

Hera and Sacmis sat at the table, Kalaes leaning back on the sink, arms folded over his chest. He couldn’t help a smile when Hera rose and gestured at him to join them.

“You look good,” she said and gave him a long, appraising look.

“He finally got some meat on those bones,” Kalaes chimed in, grinning. “A change from the skeleton look.”

The warmth was seeping into his cheeks, as it usually did when he had all pairs of eyes trained on him, boring holes into his skull. “Um,” he said. “You’re back.”

Sacmis snickered.

“So.” Elei tried to hide his shaking hands under the table. The world had a gray tint; a layer of sadness. “When are you leaving?”

“Leaving?” Hera plucked a K-bloom from a plate on the table. “You mean the exploration?”

He nodded, heart in his throat.

“In six days,” Sacmis said.

“Six days.”
Shit.
And he hadn’t even talked to Alendra yet.

“But...” Hera glanced at Sacmis, frowned. “Maybe not.”

“Maybe not what?” Kalaes asked.

“Maybe we’re not going,” Sacmis said, sweeping a strand of sandy hair behind an ear. Something glittered there.
An earring?

“And Alendra?” Elei blurted.

Hera shrugged, uncomfortable. “She said she wanted to go.” She pursed her lips. “I haven’t seen her in some days.”

He swallowed hard. He was glad Hera and Sacmis might stay. He ought to be happy — or satisfied — even if Alendra didn’t stay. Something was much better than nothing, right?

 “What’s with the earrings?” Kalaes drawled, crossing his long legs and tilting his head. He smirked. “They look like a matched set.”

Now that he said it, Elei noticed a similar earring — a design made of fine wire in the shape of a bird — in Hera’s ear.

Hera’s cheeks turned red. “This, um...”

Hera, at a loss for words. Elei couldn’t believe it.

“You can’t tell me this isn’t as it looks, not this time.” Kalaes’ grin reached his ears.

“Sacmis gave it to me,” Hera said, not looking at Sacmis.

“And Hera went and bought a similar one for me.” Sacmis looked happy, eyes glowing.

“Tokens of love.” Kalaes tsked and grinned. “It’s so sweet my teeth hurt.” He winked at Elei, who stared at the one, then the other, confused.

Elei ran a hand through his hair, a headache pounding behind his eyes. People did that. They bought each other... things. As tokens of their feelings. Well, now that he thought about it, Pelia had given him the gun, hadn’t she? Though he didn’t know if she’d meant anything with the gesture. The Rasmus had, after all, been given to him with the express purpose of opening Hecate’s box and finding out what lay underground.

Still... What if he gave Alendra a gift, too, as a way of telling her he wanted her to stay? He couldn’t spend much — his first salary had already been invested in fixing the orphanage — but maybe something small...

“Elei.” Hera leaned toward him, her sweet smell reaching him like a caress. “My friend.”

He tried to smile, but his eyes stung, and he just couldn’t. “I wish you luck with all you want to do,” he whispered. “And if you stay, I’ll be even happier. Because... because...” He clamped his lips shut, trying to regain his composure.

Hera took his hand, squeezed it. Her eyes were brilliant, colors shifting in their depths. “I want you to be happy,” she said, her voice soft. “Let us think about this some more. And...” She glanced at Kalaes who gave a slight nod. “Tell Alendra this as well. You rarely speak your thoughts and your feelings. Your feelings mean a lot to us.” She smiled then, and a light kindled in her gaze. “You mean a lot to us.”

He had to look away, but her hand stayed on top of his for a long while.

***

The next day he tried to catch Alendra on her way in or out of the apartment, but failed. He left later, came back earlier for his shower, waited as long as he dared before heading out to help at the orphanage.

Time was flying, and the day the exploration team was due to leave was almost there. That morning, he’d almost dropped a crate he was carrying at work, earning a good scolding from his boss, and on the way to the orphanage he’d almost got run over by an aircar in the main avenue because he was so lost in thought.

Kalaes was repairing a sink when he arrived at the orphanage. He straightened and wiped sweat off his brow with a grimy hand, leaving a black smudge.

“Good thing you’re here. I need to go out for a while and I don’t want to leave them alone.” Kalaes gestured at one of the rooms. Elei saw two small forms lying on the floor, wrapped in blankets.

“They’ve started to come in?”

“Yeah.” A small, rueful smile hovered at the corners of Kalaes’ lips. “Damn, I never thought I’d be doing this again.”

“Taking in strays?” Elei said quietly, his chest knotting up, because Kalaes had said he wasn’t taking any more strays, but he’d taken Elei, and he’d been to the netherhells and back because of it.

Kalaes sent him a startled look. “Well, yes, I...” His eyes narrowed. “Hey. About what I said back then...” He slung an arm around Elei’s shoulders. He smelled of cigarettes and sweat, but also of home, so Elei relaxed. “When we first met. I’m sorry, okay?”

“Don’t be. I only brought you trouble.”

“Not only.” Kalaes squeezed him once and let go. He ruffled Elei’s hair affectionately, the blue of his tainted eye luminous. “I don’t regret it for one moment.”

It made Elei smile, despite himself. He patted his pocket, as he’d been doing all day. He’d bought a small bundle of her favorite tea herbs. She seemed fond of the stuff, kept drinking it. He figured he couldn’t go wrong with that as a present — although he’d been known to go wrong. Way too often. “Where’s Alendra?”

“She’s out buying a couple tools I need to fix this place.” Kalaes blinked at Elei. “For the sink and the bathrooms. I have to go and help her carry the stuff.”