The Consort (Tellaran Series) (30 page)

Alari’s honor guard had their blades at his throat before he’d taken two steps after her. Her advisors and the courtiers followed as she swept from the room and the disgusted looks they gave him made it clear he had no allies here.

The guard’s eyes, men who only this morning had met his eye with respectful regard, were black ice. Looking past their swords Kyndan saw only one whose face revealed shock and grief.

“Elder!” Kyndan cried.

Sechon stopped and turned to face him, her posture stiff.

“Mezera is lying!” He shook his head. “I didn’t do this. I didn’t betray Alari!”

Her gaze remained steady, but unyielding to one who she thought a traitor to her beloved regent, to the Az-kye.

“Whatever you believe of me,” he said hoarsely, “believe that I love Alari.”

Sechon’s mouth was still tight, but there was hesitation in her eyes.

“Tell her for me—that I told her the truth, that I loved her from the very first moment I saw her.” Kyndan swallowed hard. “Tell her that I always will.”

The elder searched his face, then she gave a scant nod.

“And please . . .” Kyndan wet his lips. “Take care of her for me.”

Now she did soften and wordlessly Sechon inclined her head. Then she too turned away.

They took his sword and, blades at his back to get him moving, ordered him into the hall.

Kyndan’s jaw was so tight it hurt.

Mezera faked the data. Somehow she added a Tellaran energy signature. But it was the comm call that really damned me. She must have been watching me, waiting for something she could use against me—

“Cons—Commander!”

“Your Eminence,” he said. Even the guards at his back stopped respectfully as High Priestess Celera made her way to him, leaning heavily on her jeweled cane. From the opposite direction one of lesser priestesses of Lashima came at a run.

He reached out a hand to steady Celara, her white hair a bit windblown, her aged face flushed from her hurry. She waved the priestess forward to offer him a wooden box.

“What’s this?” he asked.

The young priestess opened the lid. Within, supported by a pillow of fine cloth, was a small, stoppered bottle. It looked very old and instinctively the scent that rose from it made his gorge rise.

Kyndan recoiled with sudden, horrified understanding. “I don’t want it!”

“Commander, you and Princess Alari must be unbound,” High Priestess Celara said hurriedly. “The empress has sent me to you.”

He pulled up short. “The empress? How could she know already? She wasn’t even
in
the audience chamber!”

“Please, there is little time for me to tell you all you need know!” Celara gestured toward the case. “To be unbound you will—”

He remembered how Lianna once argued—successfully—with High Priestess Celara to keep Tedah.

“Since when does the empress get to make Lashima’s decisions for her?” Kyndan interrupted. “She’d put it in my heart, wouldn’t She? If I were meant to be unbound Lashima would decide. Not the fucking
empress
!”

“Commander, please, I would spare you the agony of being bound to one no longer bound to you—” 

“Do you know what they’ve done? They
lied
to her!”

“Commander—”

His fists clenched, his eyes stinging. “They
took
her from me!”

Celara put her hand on his arm, her dark gaze calm, compassionate.

“No one speaks for the Goddess but Lashima herself,” she said quietly. “Not even I, though I have served her these many years. Only you and She truly know what is in your heart.”

“I was told no one could be unbound. They said you would never do it,” he said, his tone accusing. “Damn it, I don’t want this!”

“In all my time serving the Goddess I have never agreed to do so.” High Priestess Celara closed her eyes briefly. “Now I have no choice.”

“Please.” He blinked against the tears blurring his vision. “I love her.”

“I believe you,” Celara said softly.

He swallowed, his heartbeat picked up with sudden hope. “Will you help me?”

“I am trying to, Commander.” She nodded to the bottle. “It will be painful, but do not underestimate the suffering if you do not do this. I would not have grief and longing drive you mad.” High Priestess Celara touched his cheek gently. “Trust that the Goddess will not abandon you.”

What did I expect? Of course she’s talking spiritual matters, she’s a priestess.

“What happens . . . what will I feel when it’s done?”

“Peace,” she promised. “Your heart and mind will be clear again.”

“I don’t want them clear,” he said hoarsely. “I want to stay just as I am. I want her just as she is.”

“Commander,” Celara urged. “There is little time.”

Numbly he took the box. She finished the instructions for an unbinding that he didn’t want, then laid her hand on his head—he had to bend down so she could reach—to give Lashima’s blessing.

The guards pushed him into the courtyard and Utar met him there with the bag he’d brought from Rusco. A quick check when he put the wooden box in it showed his Tellaran uniforms neatly packed inside.

“I was proud to serve you, Kyndan Maere.”

“I don’t know how Mezera managed to pull this off but this is not over, not by a fucking long shot,” he snarled, slinging the bag over his shoulder. “I’m going to get back here, I’m going to get her back.”

Utar regarded him silently and Kyndan realized he must sound like he was raving. The guards still had their swords at the ready but they were a half-dozen paces away.

“Come with me,” Kyndan urged, pitching his voice low so the guards wouldn’t hear. “You’ll be free in Tellaran space. Just as I promised.”

“No.” Utar’s glance slid away. “I cannot.”

“You might never see them again,” Kyndan said. “Your children. They wouldn’t look at you if you did.”

“But do I look upon them, I will see them safe and living in honor. And know all I have suffered worthwhile.”

“There’s no godsdamn way it could be worth—” The breath rushed out of Kyndan’s lungs. “This is for
them
? You became clanless for their sake? Why?”

The former warrior regarded him with dark, pained eyes.

“You want to tell me but you can’t, can you?” Kyndan breathed. “You can’t tell anyone because if you do . . . gods, your children will be cast out too.”

Kyndan wet his lips. They were bringing the shuttle to return him to the
Dauntless
, still in orbit around Az-kye. He had a minute, maybe less, to figure this out. Utar couldn’t tell him but the warrior
wanted
him to know.

“All right, you were cast out but they wanted you to keep silent even after you were dishonored, so they threatened your kids. That means what you know can still hurt them. Something really bad that you saw or heard—”

There was the tiniest of flickers in those dark eyes.

“You overheard something, something that your clan leader had to shut you up about and quick. But clan leaders are powerful, so who does Helia of the Az’shu fear so much she’d cast out a warrior who didn’t deserve it?”

The shuttle was landing; something Kinna had once said about having to lead the Az-kye forces—

“The empress,” Kyndan said. “Because the empress can destroy a clan.”

The shuttle doors opened, and the warriors moved in, pushing him that way.

“Utar!” he cried. “What did you hear?”

Utar turned his face away, then, so low he could scarcely hear it, the disgraced warrior said, “I am sorry, Kyndan Maere.”

Six hours later Kyndan sat in the command chair of the
Dauntless
, the blue and green of the Az-kye homeworld spinning below as the last of the shuttles docked.

It was a mad scramble to locate and get everyone on board. They were going to have to push the
Dauntless’
engines to the breaking point to make it across Imperial territory and back to Tellaran space in the thirty hours of safe passage they had left.  As it was they’d be lucky not to wind up on the wrong side of the Badlands and target practice for the Az-kye ships. With the new weaponry they might be able to fend off one warship, maybe two, but Kyndan was willing to bet there would be a bunch on hand to make sure the disgraced Consort left Imperial space.

The bridge lift doors opened and Kyndan’s brow furrowed.

“Nisara? What are you doing here?”

Nisara came to attention. “Permission to come aboard, Sir.”

He gave her a searching look. “I thought you were going to remain on the Imperial world and become Dael’s mate, become Az-kye.”

Her face tightened. “That isn’t the plan any longer.”

Guilt tightened his throat. The lengths the Az-Kye were going to in order to get rid of him were hurting a lot of people.

It was ultimately going to hurt them all—Tellaran
and
Az-kye.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

Her eyes showed pain for a moment, then she gave a short nod.

“Permission granted,” Kyndan said.

Nisara took up her position at the helm and from her movements he could see she was as grateful to have something to do as he was.

His eyes were drawn again to the image of Az-kye on the screen. He was aware of the movements of the bridge crew around him, the reports coming in, Nisara running her final checks before breaking orbit.

Even now he considered trying to stay behind, though it would be insanity. Kinara had offered to hide him, to find some way to conceal him within her clan, but he wasn’t about to put his little sister and her new baby in any more danger than they were already in.

His gaze narrowed on the image of the planet, trying to plan, trying to think this out.

He hadn’t altered those records, which meant someone else there
had
. Someone who didn’t know a festering thing about Tellaran engines because they chose to add a signature that could only belong to a smaller ship, not a Fleet cruiser—the signature read like a civilian freighter. But it
couldn’t
have been real. There was no way in hell a Tellaran freighter could go up against an Az-kye warship and survive.

He had to force himself to nod when Nisara asked permission to get underway. 

He could almost feel Alari, alone in their chambers, kneeling on the hard floor, her heart hurting so much that death seemed easier . . .

Think, godsdamn it! Think!

If a ship with that small a signature had attacked an Az-kye warship—especially one deemed worthy to transport Princess Saria, Heiress to the Empire—they wouldn’t have had the firepower to
dent
her ship’s plating, let alone destroy the vessel. A ship that size would have been blown to dust in seconds by the warship’s pulse cannons.

The
Dauntless
broke orbit and sped away from the Imperial world. Clenching his fist, Kyndan forced himself to focus past the sick, tearing feeling in his chest, past the agonizing terror he might never see her again.

Someone added that ship to make the Tellarans look guilty, to make me look like a traitor.

The question is who. I certainly made my share of enemies.

That palace was a nest of vipers.

And someone had just forced him to leave Alari in the middle of it.