Torn Sky (Rebel Wing Trilogy, Book 3) (Rebel Wing Series) (17 page)

As Dysis trudged toward the secret monitoring station, she couldn’t get her mind to focus on anything beyond the horrifying knowledge that Pallas was a spy, that she was going to expose their plans for saving Aris and Major Vadim, and that they’d lost their one link on the inside. Alistar had been shot, right as she listened.

“I’m sorry,” Calix murmured as he trotted beside her. “I shouldn’t have gotten in your way. I didn’t realize . . . I thought I was helping.”

Dysis wanted to be angry with him, but he couldn’t have known any of it. And her anger had a more deserving target. This was
her
fault. She’d let Pallas get away.

She didn’t slow down. “It’s done. Now we have to fix it.”

Dysis and Calix reached the monitoring station just as Dianthe arrived.

“What’s happened?” Dianthe asked. “I came as quickly as I could.” She took in Dysis’s expression and shooed Calix away, before pulling Dysis into the room.

Inside, Commander Nyx was pacing, and the last few minutes of the feed were playing over the speakers. She paused when she saw Dysis. “Did you get her?”

Dysis shook her head and slammed her palm against her thigh. Her stomach burned. “She . . . somehow she could tell that I knew. She ran. I tried to apprehend her, but she made it into an invisible wingjet. I’m so sorry.”

A vein bulged along Nyx’s temple, and her eyes turned sharp as razor blades. Before she could reply, the final gunshot echoed in the room, and the feed went dead once more.

Dianthe stood by the monitor, her own expression filled with venom. “So, we’re completely blind.”

The room vibrated with silence. Dysis looked at the monitor, but there were no sound waves. Just a solid, straight black line cutting the blue in half.

Commander Nyx stared at the screen as well, her expression unreadable.

Dysis fought the tears burning at the back of her eyes. She couldn’t lose it. Not in front of these women.

Finally, Nyx straightened. “Move up the timeline. The mission begins now.”

“Not all of the diatous veils are complete,” Dianthe said.

“I don’t care,” Nyx replied. “We have enough.” She turned her gaze to Dysis. “Go find your brother and get him up to speed. I need to inform Ward Nekos of the change in plans. Remember, Latza: Every second that passes, our window closes.”

“Yes, sir,” Dysis said, and she went to find Jax. There was no point in apologizing again. Pallas was gone. All she could do now was make sure they got Aris back.

***

Calix watched Dysis pull on her body armor, his expression a mixture of concern and sadness. They were in her bedroom, alone for the first time since their kiss. “It wouldn’t make a difference if I told you not to go, would it.”

“You already know the answer to that,” Dysis replied. “That’s why you didn’t ask.”

She was due on the landing pad in five minutes. As soon as all the troops were assembled, a small squadron of invisible wingjets would leave. Their job was reconnaissance first, then, once the rest of the force was on its way, they’d land and begin the rescue attempt, veiled as Aris for misdirection. If all went well, S and R would be on the ground just after midnight, and the rest of the troops, including Castalian reinforcements, would arrive before dawn. If they were lucky. With the schedule moved up so much, no one knew if the Castalia reinformcements would arrive in time.

Dianthe didn’t get a chance to finish Dysis’s diatous veil, so she’d be skipping the disguise. But when Jax had suggested she
not
be part of the initial rescue team at all, she’d laughed in his face. Calix had held his tongue . . . until now.

“You might have reinjured yourself today with all that running.” He stepped closer to her and slipped his fingers along her lower back, under the armor. “You should let me examine you.”

She stared into his eyes, letting herself really look at him. She could appreciate the beauty of his full lips, the vibrant green of his eyes, his strong jaw.

“What are you thinking?” He drew her closer, until her armor pressed against his chest. Still, she didn’t touch him.

“I’m thinking about the end of the world,” she said softly. Her gaze dropped to his lips and clung there. “And how we’re supposed to share that moment. You said we’d be there for each other at the end.”

He leaned his forehead against hers. “That was our worst-case scenario, you know.”

She closed her eyes. “That’s what makes it the most likely.”

“Then you’d better get yourself back here. Don’t leave me hanging, okay?” Before she could answer, he tipped up her face and pressed his lips to hers.

Her arms wrapped around him, pulling tighter and tighter. And for just a second, she embraced all of the fear she tried so hard to deny.

Aris spent her last hours with Milek holding his hands through the bars of her cage. He’d worked one eye open, and he stared at her as if memorizing every tiny detail of her face.

“Don’t do it, Aris,” he said again, for the hundredth time. “I’m not worth it. They’re going to kill me anyway.”

She wanted to tell him that she knew that. That she had no intention of dropping the bomb over Panthea. That she was going to sacrifice him—and herself—to destroy the weapon instead. But there’d be no chance for that kind of honesty tonight. Soldiers stood at attention outside their cages, well within earshot.

“I love you,” she said, sticking to the truth she could share.

He squeezed her hands tighter. “Please, Aris.”

She wished he could see what she meant to do just by looking at her. Leaning her forehead against the cold bars, she closed her eyes and listened to the dance of their ragged breath.

“Tell me what you wish for our future.” She wanted their last moments together to be as precious as they could make them.

Milek sighed. After some thought, he said, “I wish for a small house in one of Atalanta’s crazy raised villages,” he began, a rasp in his voice. “A couple of wingjets and a pretty place to fly, so you’ll be happy, the sky there for you whenever you need it. I wish for a child, maybe two. A placement as a town protector, where I help old women home from the park or find someone’s lost pet. A life that is quiet and serene.”

Aris forced back tears and smiled at his lies. He didn’t want that kind of life, not really. It would be boring for him, small. But that’s what he thought she wanted, and he wanted to give her peace.

She swallowed around the lump in her throat. “I wish for—”

With a clank, her door slid open. Vik stomped in with two guards. “It’s time,” he snarled.

Aris tightened her grip on Milek’s hands and tried not to let her grief show. He could barely move, and she wasn’t sure he
could
recover from his injuries, even if it were possible to get him to a mender.

“I love you, Milek,” she said, her heart straining against her chest. She could barely hold back the sob. “I’ll be back soon.” She tried to make it sound like she meant it, but he could see through her lies, too. He knew, as she did, that there would be no coming back. Not for either of them.

“I love you, Aris. I always will,” he said, his voice breaking.

Then he let her go.

***

Aris didn’t let Vik touch her as they passed through the endless dank hallway toward the lift. She walked with her head held high. This was her final act for her dominion—she would meet her fate with pride. Still, she threw in a whimper now and then. She didn’t want them to suspect she had a different plan in mind.

The lift sped upward, crowded with Aris, Vik, and her two guards. She could smell their sweat, the faint scent of the fried fish they’d had for dinner. She’d been offered nothing to eat since the morning. Instead of making her hungry, the thought of food sent nausea roiling through her. Finally, the chrome box slowed and bounced on its cables. With a shiver and a clank, the door slid open.

There was a flash of green. Before Aris’s brain could catch up to her eyes, one of the soldiers slumped to the ground, his throat pouring blood. Vik grunted as he tried to yank his gun from its holster. The green-uniformed figure whirled and the second guard fell, coughing and gasping as he bled to death, throat slit just like the first.

Green uniform . . . an Atalantan soldier.

Before hope could buoy Aris, she got a good look at the soldier’s face: pale skin, haunted blue-gray eyes, high cheekbones. With another graceful whirl, Pallas disarmed Vik and turned the gun to his head before anyone could say a word.

“What are they making you do, Aris?” Pallas asked. Two spots of pink spread across her cheeks. Her eyes glittered, almost feverish. When Vik shifted, she swung her elbow in a crushing arc at his face. He grunted, hands up to stanch the blood that flowed from his nose.

Aris stood there, mouth opening and closing like a dying fish.

“Tell me. Quickly.” Pallas stared at her, and Aris couldn’t find any hint of her former friend in the girl’s too-bright eyes.

“They . . . they’re making me fly the flaming scorpion over Panthea. It’ll kill everyone,” Aris admitted.

Pallas slid Vik’s gun into her waistband and jerked him out of the lift, her knife pricking his throat. “Find Major Vadim if you can and get the hell out of here. I’ll worry about the bomb.”

No.
Pallas couldn’t get away. Aris grabbed at her arm, but the girl was already moving, one hand holding the knife at Vik’s throat, the other rooting in her pocket. In desperation, Aris said, “I wasn’t going to do it. I had a plan.” Aris made her voice as strong as possible. “
I can’t let you drop that bomb
.”

Pallas stuck something on the back of her neck, and when she turned back, her face was Aris’s, though her complexion was still too pale. “I’m not going to drop it on Panthea.”

Confusion froze Aris in place for a heartbeat too long. “Then what are you going to do?”

Before she could answer, Vik made his move, ducking and trying to sweep Pallas’s legs. She twisted away and buried her knife behind his ear. He sank to the ground, eyes wide, blood pouring from his mouth.

Aris watched, horror etched into every line of her face. The first time Pallas had ever held a solagun, she could barely lift it, her hands were shaking so badly. Was that all an act? Had she been this stone-cold Safaran operative all along?

Pallas stepped over Vik without looking down. “They killed my whole family,” she said, her voice flat. “And they made me into a monster. They did this.” Her eyes focused on Aris for a single, terrifying second. “No.
Ward Balias
did this. And he is going to pay.”

Then she was through the door and running across the tarmac toward the wingjets, and Aris was left gasping, with three dead men at her feet.

The flaming scorpion was already secure within the invisible wingjet. Tia had watched from a hidden spot at the edge of the landing pad as they replaced one of the jet’s missiles with the weapon. No one seemed to be looking for her, or concerned about the soldier who was supposed to be watching her.

Tia’s plan had been to use one of Aris’s guards to get her across the tarmac to the wingjet. But she was grateful the last man had made his move before they were in sight of other soldiers. As it was, she sprinted from the cover of the building to her recon just before the alarm was raised; her borrowed face and the darkness were confusing enough that the first men to notice her didn’t react in time.

She flew through the warm-up sequence, noting that the wingjet’s comms had been tampered with. No messages back to Atalanta, even if she’d wanted to send one. She glanced out onto the landing pad as she lifted off, unnerved to see the soldiers standing still, watching her go. Why weren’t they shooting at her? Or running for their own jets to try to overtake her?

It didn’t matter. Nothing did, except getting high enough to drop the payload. Ward Balias was still here at the prison, still alive in his broken kingdom. And Pallas was going to fix that.

Suddenly, the controls in her sweaty palms jerked. The nav lit with a curving red line. And a voice filled the cabin. “Well done, Aris. You’ve had a last little rebellion, and now you’re ready for your destiny.” Ward Balias’s voice made Pallas want to scream. She couldn’t communicate back to him, not with outgoing comms down, but she couldn’t turn off his slippery, smug voice either. Just like she could no longer direct the wingjet. “You’ll notice the wingjet is not in your control. It’s in mine. Your course has been set, and the bomb’s been armed, in case you were planning to play the hero. Panthea will fall whether you wish it or not. And right now, your scared eyes are plastered across all five dominions on every news vid, so we can watch as you destroy your own people.”

Tia jerked on the controls, hard, but the trajectory didn’t shift. The wingjet turned in a long, graceful arc over the ocean and headed back toward Atalanta. With a shimmer, the cloaking tech engaged. She flipped the toggle, but nothing happened. Everything had been rewired to render her useless.

With the wingjet invisible, Atalantan forces wouldn’t be able to track her or shoot her down. She’d given Balias the last piece of tech he needed to make his plan foolproof.

Now everyone in Panthea was going to die. By her hand.

No. No.

Sweat beaded along her forehead and the back of her neck. She’d only commandeered the wingjet to destroy Balias.

“This can’t be happening,” she muttered, frantically tapping the nav panel, her injured hand aching. Part of her plaster had ripped off at some point. She hadn’t even noticed. “I never wanted this.”

They’d figure out eventually that she wasn’t Aris. They’d figure out who she really was: Tia Pallas, a Safaran spy. She’d be vilified. Her family’s deaths would go unnoticed, just like their disappearances had, and no one would ever know the truth. That she wasn’t
willing
. That she loved her dominion and wanted to fight for it. That the things she did to save her family ate at her, as insidious and agonizing as a cancer.

They’d only see the monster.

You can still fight.
The soft, clear voice in her head almost sounded like her mother.

Tia stilled. She had a knife and a solagun. Balias hadn’t expected her to be armed, to have tools.

She released herself from the harness and contorted her body sideways, until she was wedged under the nav panel in the footwell.

Ward Balias’s voice slithered into the cabin, a shade less smug. “What, do you think you can split the machine with your bare hands?”

Tia unsheathed her knife and held it up for an instant before using it to pry off the panel housing the controls. A nest of wires fell free.

“What are you doing?” Balias’s voice vibrated with fury. “You realize you’re putting Major Vadim’s life at risk every moment you defy me.”

With shaking hands, Pallas explored the tangle, holding it up to the glow of the nav, looking for recent splices.

There.

“You touch those wires, Milek dies.” The ice in Balias’s voice crackled through the cabin.

Tia ignored the words and the shiver they sent down her spine. He was getting nervous. That meant she was on the right track. She picked out a cluster of three wires with silver shining through gaps in the darker outer casing. Holding her breath, she wrenched her knife through the wires. A shower of sparks filled the footwell. The wingjet jerked and fell, and her head slammed into the underside of the dashboard with a thud. Mini fireferns exploded in front of her eyes.

Fighting back a wave of nausea, Tia dragged herself into the seat with white-knuckled hands. Then she tapped the pedals and pulled up on the controls, and
oh Gods . . .
the wingjet steadied
.
No more free fall.

She pressed forward experimentally, and the jet changed course.

She’d done it.

A sliver of a smile twisted her lips as she sent the wingjet into a wide arc. Back toward the prison.

Ward Balias was silent. She didn’t know if she’d cut the comms wire, or if he had nothing to say now that he’d lost control of the wingjet.

She didn’t care.

On the nav, the red line of her trajectory disappeared. The veiling tech faltered, and the wingjet’s nose shimmered back into visibility in the darkness before her. But there was one thing she couldn’t reverse.

The bomb was still armed. Which meant she had to get back to Ward Balias. The flaming scorpion was
his
prize. His
right
.

She sped back to the prison, every sense focused on her mission of vengeance. No doubt Balias would send a team of flyers to intercept her; she’d have only seconds to drop the bomb.

But as she approached, niggling doubts began to pop like bubbles in her mind. Killing Balias meant killing Aris and Milek, too. And the family that had been coerced into pretending to be hers. All the other prisoners Balias had locked up.

Everyone at the prison would die.

Tia shook her head, trying to dislodge her sudden hesitation. She didn’t want to kill anyone, but she hadn’t wanted to be a spy for the enemy either. Ward Balias had taken everything from her. If killing him meant others had to die, too, that was a price she was willing to pay.

Are you willing? Truly?

She didn’t know if the internal voice was her own or her mother’s, but it dug down deep, shoving aside bone and muscle and organ until it reached her beating heart.

Tia closed her eyes, just for a second, and saw her mother’s soft, pale skin, her blond hair, her blue eyes that were just the same shade as Tia’s. She felt her mother’s arms around her, holding so tightly, all her determination and pride there in her embrace. If her mother was here with her now, what would she say?

Are you truly willing to kill your friends? To kill innocents, men and women with families just like yours?

The realization broke over Tia, as steady and irrefutable as the tide.

Balias had made her a monster. But she didn’t have to die one.

The lights of the prison rose from the darkness, just as a fleet of wingjets lifted into the air. They made a beeline for her but didn’t engage. Not yet. She dipped and spun, evading them for the few precious seconds she needed.

Moonlight illuminated her path, glittering against the black hole of the ocean. She didn’t know if her revised plan would work, but she had to try. By degrees, she gave up her hatred of Ward Balias. She gave up her need for blood.

With the first easy breath she’d taken in months, Tia sent herself up to the stars, up to her mother, her father, and to her brother, even as the wingjet dove, deep deep deep into the silent water.

And when the bomb blew, all she saw was light.