Schism: Part One of Triad (8 page)

“Listen. Kurj had to choose his heirs. The Assembly voted on it And his heirs have to be Rhon psions. I’m Deyha’s heir. Our children are the only real choice.”

Eldrinson stared at her. “You knew?” His world was breaking apart. He had nowhere to stand.

“I knew they had voted. I didn’t realize Kurj had done anything until now, when Althor told me.”

He gripped the banister. “Soz told me.”

Her forehead furrowed. “About Althor?”

“No! Herself. Kurj chose them both.”

“Gods above. That was what Althor meant.”

“Meant by what?”

She exhaled. “That it was Soz’s decision what to say.”

Eldrinson didn’t know where to put his dismay, his anger, all this pain.

“Where is Althor?”

“Outside, in the courtyard—”

He pushed past her, taking the stairs two at a time.

“Eldri, wait!” Roca caught up with him. “You have to calm down. You’ll have a seizure.”

He kept going, unwilling to hear, unwilling to acknowledge that he owed his life to the doctors of her people, to hated technology he barely understood, to the Skolians who were stealing his children.

At the bottom of the stairs, he strode through the house until he reached the archway out to the courtyard with the potted plants. Shoving open the doors, he saw Althor talking to Del by the fountain. Arches of blue water spouted into the air and fell in sprays back into the round basin.

Eldrinson walked over to them. “Althor.”

His son turned. He started to smile, then stopped. Eldrinson didn’t know how his face looked, but given the way Althor stiffened, he doubted it was pleasant. He heard Roca nearby, but he kept his attention on his son. “Soz says she is leaving with you tonight.”

Althor let out a breath. “She talked to you, then.”

Eldrinson strove to keep from clenching his fists. He wouldn’t threaten his own son. “I have forbidden her to leave.”

“What did she say?”

“That she will go anyway.”

“Father, I’m sorry. But she has to make her own decision—”

“No!” Eldrinson was losing the battle to stay cool. “She is a child. She does not have to make her own decisions.”

Althor regarded him, his metallic eyes and face glinting in the sunlight, so much like his mother. Like Kurj. “She is seventeen. Twenty-one, in octal.

Here that makes her an adult” He spoke quietly. “If she is old enough to marry a man more than twice her age, she is old enough to decide her own future.”

“According to Skolian law, she is a child. They break their own laws to take my daughter?” He couldn’t believe Althor would do this. “If you take her against my wishes, you will violate the basis of every trust I have ever put in you.”

Althor spread his hands out from his body. “Father, she is a genius. A technological genius. A military genius. You can’t cage her spirit here. She would be miserable.”

“Miserable?” He gave Althor an incredulous look. “Miserable to have a happy life with a good, decent man? Instead I should send her to war, to gods only know what violence?” His voice was shaking. “What if she were taken prisoner by the Traders? Could you live with knowing you had made it possible for them to torture and enslave your sister? Are you out of your mind?”

“The choice isn’t ours to make,” Althor said. “It is hers.”

Eldrinson ground out his words. “If you take her on that ship tonight, you are no longer my son.”

Roca stepped forward. “Eldri, stop.”

Eldrinson swung around to her. “You would let this happen? You, my wife?

Their mother.” His voice caught. “You put your loyalties witii a man who once sought my death?”

A tear ran down her face. “It isn’t that way. We need time to talk. Soz will be in school for four years, perfectly safe. A lot can happen in that time.”

“That’s right.” He wanted to smash his fist into the wall. “Skolia could go to war against the Traders.” He swung around to Almor. “I mean it. If you take her, don’t ever come back here.”

A voice came from beyond the fountain. “Father, no!”

Startled, Eldrinson turned. Shannon stood in an archway of the courtyard with his hair disarrayed from running in the plains.

“Don’t send Althor away.” Shannon came across the courtyard, his dismayed gaze on his father.

Althor spoke quickly. “Shani, it’s all right.”

For a long moment Eldrinson looked from Althor to Shannon and back again.

Then he said, “Shannon, go inside.”

“But, Father—”

“Now!” Eldrinson pointed at the house. “You will do as I say, young man.”

Shannon swallowed. He went on, past them, into the house.

Althor spoke in a low voice. “Father—” .

“Enough!” Eldrinson clenched his fist. “You have my final word. You will leave your sister here and you will bring back a wife the next time you come home. Or don’t you ever come back again.”

Althor stared at him. “What?”

“You heard me.”

His son flushed. “What does a wife have to do with anything?’

Eldrinson knew he should stop, that he should go on doing what he had always done, letting himself believe what he wanted to believe about Althor, loving his son for the good in him, leaving unspoken what he didn’t understand. But he couldn’t do it any longer, not with so much betrayal. “You think I’m stupid? I’m an empath, damn it. You never look twice at tiiose beautiful girls who vie for your attention. But you can’t keep your eyes off your own brother.” His voice shook with anger. “Come home with a wife, Althor. Or don’t come home at all.”

With that, Eldrinson strode back into the house, leaving his sons and his wife in the courtyard.

5

1 Harbor Lost

hey gathered on the tarmac under a sunset that smoldered red and purple across the sky. Soz stood with Althor, and they hugged their family good-bye. Their mother had come, also Del. Chaniece, too, who had returned when she received news that Althor had come home. Chaniece resembled their mother most of the Valdoria daughters, though she had violet eyes and lavender-streaked yellow hair. It hurt Soz to see her older sister’s dismay now, knowing Chaniece had arrived just in time to tell them farewell, possibly forever.

Denric stood with Chaniece. He was a youth of Lyshriol rather than of Skolia, with his yellow curls, violet eyes, and slender build, so much like the people of Dalvador. None of the younger children had come; their father had forbidden it. He also stayed away. Nor had Ari come, though Soz had looked for him in town and his home this afternoon and left messages. She knew the truth; her siblings and friends belonged here and she didn’t.

Tears ran down Roca’s gold cheeks. Soz’s own eyes filled with moisture. This had been so much worse than she expected. For all that she had known her father would be angry, she had never thought it would end this way. She couldn’t turn back. No matter how hard she tried, how much she wished otherwise, she couldn’t be what he wanted. She would have given almost anything to keep him from being hurt, but if she didn’t go now, she might never leave.

Colonel Tahota stayed back while they said their goodbyes. Even through Soz’s mental barriers, she felt the colonel’s subdued mood. Tahota had the unenviable job of dealing with the aftermath of yet another attempt by the Assembly to control the Ruby Dynasty, in this case by forcing the matter of Kurj’s heirs. It didn’t help to know they were right.

That night Soz left the home, the place where she had known so much joy and love—and that was now forbidden to her.

Shannon sat in a curtained alcove on the third floor of the house. He pushed into a corner where the stone bench met the wall, pulled his knees to his chest, and laid his forehead on his knees. The roar of die departing Jag had long since faded. Nothing could fix this wound. Father had sent Almor away.

Forever.

It was his fault

Shannon knew the truth. He hurt people and they left. He gave nothing. He had nothing. Loneliness was breaking him apart.

The door of the outer room scraped open, glasswood on stone. Shannon raised his head. He looked through the crack where the curtain didn’t quite meet the wall and saw his fattier shut the door. Eldrinson walked heavily to a table in the center of the room and sat in one of its high-backed chairs. Resting his elbows on its surface, he put his forehead in his hands.

His shoulders were shaking. He was crying. Shannon had known many moods from his father, but never this heart-deep anguish. It was his fault. He had seen his father’s anger, heard him banish Althor. Because of him, Shannon. He never meant to cause pain. He had simply gone to Althor. It had done so much damage.

He couldn’t bear to be the cause of this. Nor could he bear more rejection, more anger, more pain.

The door opened again. Roca came inside, but Eldrinson didn’t look up as she closed the door. She went to the table and sat in a chair near him.

He lifted his head. “Are they gone?” Tears streaked his face.

Her face was wet as well. “Yes. They left.”

His voice cracked. “They are dead to me.”

“Eldri, don’t do this.” Roca reached for his hand.

He pushed her away. “You could have helped me. You didn’t.”

“It is wrong to make her stay.”

Eldrinson stared at her. “But it isn’t wrong for her to go? To show so little respect for her parents?”

“She is no longer a child, no matter how we may feel. We must respect her wishes.”

“Kurj will destroy us. He will tear apart our family. Gods know, I’ve never done anything to him. But it will never change his antipathy toward me.”

She exhaled. “It is true, he will probably never accept you as his stepfather.

But he no longer tries to destroy you.”

“No, now he does it through our children.”

“He didn’t want to name any heirs. The Assembly forced him.”

“I was so happy today.” Eldrinson’s voice caught. “So proud of Althor, so overjoyed to have the family together.”

“Eldri, give this time. It will heal.”

“That woman, Colonel Tahota—why did Kurj send her?”

‘To answer our questions.” Relief at his quieter tone showed on Roca’s face.

“She has much status within ISC. They did honor by sending her.”

His anger sparked. “Your son couldn’t come himself?”

“Would you have wanted him to?”

“No.” Eldrinson grimaced. “When he comes here, I feel his aversion every moment. He loathes Lyshriol. He judges everything I do and say.”

Shannon strained to understand their currents of emotion. He felt how much they hurt, but he couldn’t interpret their complicated moods. He hardly knew Kurj; it had been over six years since his half brother had visited Lyshriol.

Shannon’s life had been even more an ocean of moods then. He remembered Kurj as huge and taciturn. Imposing. But not hostile. Shannon had liked him.

“I talked to Tahota this afternoon,” Roca was saying. “Kurj intends honor by Althor and Soz.”

Eldrinson shook his head, his face drawn. “My children have—” He stiffened, the rest of his sentence lost.

“Eldri?” Roca leaned forward. “What—ah, gods, no.”

A strange static crackled in Shannon’s mind. His father’s gaze turned vacant, a frightening lack of person. Roca stood up suddenly, grabbing her husband as he went rigid and sagged to the side. She caught his arm, but his weight was too much. He fell out of his chair, pulling Roca with him, and they crashed to the floor, knocking away the chair. Shannon soundlessly cried out when his father’s shoulder smashed against a table leg and his mother’s head struck the chair. Roca recovered immediately and leaned over her husband, moving fast, laying him on his side.

Then the demons came.

Terrifying spasms wracked his father’s body. He convulsed as if invisible creatures shook him with violence. His arms and legs hit the floor, and his head jerked back and forth.

“Father!” Shannon jumped off the bench and swept aside the curtain.

His mother snapped up her head. “Shannon, good gods, where did you come from?”

Shannon came to them and stood over his father’s body, staring in horror, his hands out from his sides.

“Shannon!”

Her voice penetrated his shock. He looked at her, silently pleading with her to make it all right, to fix this new shock. His father continued to convulse.

She spoke fast. “Go to the master suite. Bring me the holotape and air syringe in the top drawer of the nightstand by the bed. Can you do that?”

Help. She needed his help. He focused. The master suite. Air syringe. “Yes.” : “Hurry,” she said.

Shannon ran outside and down the halls, his hair flying back from his face. It took ages to reach their suite, but finally he was there. He raced through its entrance foyer and slammed open the inner door. Night darkened the room inside. He ran to the stand and rummaged in the drawer, sending trinkets, memory cubes, and disks flying. He found the syringe immediately—but no tape. He searched frantically, throwing a necklace on the floor, a timepiece, a cluster of strings for his father’s drummel. No tape!

Shannon dropped to his knees and scrabbled through the debris on the floor.

There! He grabbed the glimmering spool and jumped to his feet, the syringe clutched in his hand as well. Then he tore out of the suite and ran back through the house.

He found his mother still kneeling by his father. Eldrinson had gone limp—no, his father couldn’t have died—

Eldrinson’s chest rose, slow and shallow as he breathed.

Shannon crouched next to his mother. “Here.” He pushed the tape and syringe into her hands.

“Thank you.” Her voice had a gratitude he didn’t deserve.

Unrolling the tape, Roca laid it along Eldrinson’s neck. Holos appeared above it, diagrams and statistics. For a moment she studied them, her forehead furrowed. Then she released a breath. She adjusted the syringe and dialed in a prescription. Shannon watched anxiously. Had he caused this, too, bringing demons to his father’s body?

As Roca set the air syringe against Eldrinson’s neck, she spoke softly. “He will be all right.”

His voice shook. “Why do they come?”