Chapter Twenty-Six

The numb detachment that had gotten Maricela back to the palace had settled firmly around her, making it hard to focus. Gideon and Ashwin were deep in conversation, but she couldn’t hear what they were saying. Some of the other Riders were arguing. Zeke was bouncing out of his skin, Deacon glowered from the corner, and Nita was clinging to Hunter, sobbing as if her heart would break.

At least everyone had stopped staring at Maricela.

It was all happening very far away. When Ana tried to press a glass of water into her hand, she was far away, too, her words echoing and dreamy, like they’d drifted to her ears from the other end of a long tunnel. There was an odd sort of safety in that distance, and Maricela clung to it even as she shoved the glass away, just like she’d shoved away Ana’s attempts to get her cleaned up.

There would be time for that. Later.

In another room specifically outfitted for life-threatening emergencies, Kora was taking care of Ivan. She literally held his life in her hands, and Maricela wasn’t ready to deal with the tension and fear lashing through the room. It had all been so clear in her head--if she managed to give Ivan enough time to take down his attacker, then he would be okay. But the thought of winning the fight only to have Ivan succumb to his injuries...

It didn’t make any sense. It had terrible narrative flow. Even defeat could carry a measure of glory, tragedy that still managed to sing triumphant. Those tragedies became songs and murals and tattoos and epic poems whose recitations were reserved for the holiest of days. Things worthy of Ivan.

A win that slipped, whimpering, into loss was just sad.

She knew she was being stupid. She knew. She was fixating on this because she needed it to make sense.

She needed it to make sense.

A sharp, vicious curse from the other side of the room drew her sluggish attention. Even braced for the worst, she wasn’t prepared for the next word to penetrate her haze of confusion.

Makhai.

“What are you saying?” Deacon demanded.

“I’m saying the dead man in the back of your truck is Wyatt,” Ashwin answered in a firm, sure voice. “A Makhai soldier two classes ahead of me.”

Reyes drove both hands through his hair. “Does this mean there’s going to be a squad coming in behind him?”

“I don’t know. It seems unlikely that the Base would send another Makhai soldier into Sector One to execute a mission objective when I’m already here, but I can’t rule out the possibility, either.”

Deacon stepped forward. “Then get in touch with your buddy on the inside and find out, because that’s necessary information, goddammit.”

Gideon spoke for the first time, his voice rigidly controlled and somehow still dripping ice. “And ask them why they sent an assassin after my sister.”

No wonder it was taking Kora so long. A Makhai soldier, someone seemingly trained in every kind of deadly combat that existed, had tried to kill Ivan. He could have done more damage with his bare hands than a group of heavily armed bandits.

And he’d tried to kill Ivan.

“No,” she said, her voice still rough from screaming. “Not me.”

“I can send a message. It won’t take him long to get here.”

“Do it. Deacon, until we know what’s going on, put the royal guard on alert and send a message to Bishop. I want all of my sisters under Rider protection.”

They didn’t even hear her. She was eight years old again, eavesdropping on the balcony while Gideon discussed important things with important people. She was traumatized and shaken, blood on her hands, babbling madly as she tried to explain that she’d killed Donny. She’d held the knife, she’d taken his life--

No one ever listened. They soothed and petted and reassured and sedated her, and then they kept talking right over her.

Not this time.

“I said no.” She rose, swaying on her feet. Ana reached for her, and Maricela shook her off. “That’s not what happened.”

Ashwin stopped talking mid-sentence. Gideon turned to look at her, his face already softening into his concerned-big-brother expression, the one that meant he was about to assure her everything would be all right. “The details aren’t important right now, sweetheart. Why don’t you let Ana take you to get cleaned up?”

She stared back at him. He’d be horrified to know what sort of prison he and Isabela had created for her. It was warm and luxurious and safe and loving--

And she was dying in it.

“The devil’s in the details, Gideon.” She turned to Ashwin. “That man--Wyatt. He was trying to kill Ivan.”

“It would have been one of his objectives,” Ashwin confirmed, his tone making it clear he still didn’t understand. “Ivan was the dominant threat. He had to eliminate him in order to reach his target.”

“If he had been trying to kill me, I’d be dead.” If they kept going around in circles, she’d start screaming again, and then they’d never hear her. “They were fighting, and Ivan was down. I stepped between them.”

“You did what?” Gideon’s voice rose until the final word was a roar that had all the Riders on their feet.

Maricela didn’t flinch. “You heard me.” She pinned Ashwin with a questioning look. “Would you have hesitated to take that shot? Would you have moved around me at that point to get to the dominant threat?”

Ashwin studied her for a moment. “No. I would have shot you, then him.”

“Precisely.” She turned back to Gideon, who was still flushed and damn near trembling. “I wasn’t the target.”

“It may have seemed that way--”

“Gideon,” Ashwin interrupted in a quiet, firm voice. “If she stepped in front of Wyatt’s gun and he didn’t shoot her, there’s no way she was his intended target. If anything, he had to be under explicit orders not to hurt her. Makhai soldiers rarely attempt to avoid collateral damage.”

Gideon held up both hands. The room fell silent, and her brother drew in a slow, measured breath before exhaling. Then he turned to face Maricela, and it wasn’t her overprotective big brother staring at her now. He was looking at her the way he looked at Isabela--like she was one of the grownups who had to make the hard decisions. “He was targeting Ivan.”

She nodded. “Ashwin, when you’re asking your Makhai contact questions, make that one of them. Why Ivan? Is someone still trying to kill Riders...or just him?”

Ashwin inclined his head and took a step toward the door. But he hesitated until Gideon waved him away. “Go. We need to know.”

When Ashwin was gone, Gideon turned to study her again. His gaze roamed her face forever, as if he were seeing her for the first time. She was a mess, covered with dirt and blood and God only knew what else, but she felt strong.

Without taking his eyes from hers, he raised his voice. “We need the room.”

When Gideon spoke, the Riders obeyed. Within moments, they scattered, with Nita sparing her one worried, red-eyed look before her brother herded her through the door. Then they were alone, staring at each other across two feet of empty air.

“Why did you do it?” Gideon whispered. “Maricela, why?”

Part of her had been so afraid of telling him the truth for fear that he would be hurt or, worse, disappointed. But that part of her was gone. She knew now that she would face death itself for Ivan. Next to that, a little familial disapproval was nothing.

“I had to,” she admitted. “I love him, Gideon.”

Most of the sector viewed Gideon as all-knowing and infallible, a wise man who could stare into their souls and read every sin they wanted to hide. A man who could tilt his head and listen to truths no one else heard, as if God himself passed his time by whispering in Gideon’s ear.

She doubted anyone had ever seen him gape in wide-eyed, open-mouthed disbelief.

“You--” He sputtered. Stopped. Stared at her for another endless moment as his eyes narrowed. “You’re serious.”

“Yes. Ivan and I are--” No, that wasn’t right. “I mean, we were--” That was even worse, because her throat tightened, and tears blurred her vision. “Not anymore.”

“Oh, Maricela.” He gathered her into his arms, as solid and comforting as when she was a child.

But this wasn’t a skinned knee, something he could soothe with ice cream and a trinket. She stepped back, shaking her head. “I don’t know what to do. I asked him to marry me, but Isabela says he’d wind up like Carter--hated and forgotten. I can’t do that to him. I won’t.”

“Shh, shh.” He reached for her hair, smoothing it back where a blood-soaked lock had dried to her cheek. It wasn’t anger or disappointment that clouded his eyes. It was hurt. “Why did you tell Isabela and not me?”

“I didn’t want either of you to know, not until I figured some things out. But Isabela brought me another marriage proposal, and I had to tell her.”

“And she said that Ivan would end up like Carter.”

Something about the way he phrased it was so strange that she had to ask. “You think she’s wrong?”

“I don’t know.” He laid his hands on her shoulders. “But neither does she. The people can be fickle, Maricela. If you marry Ivan, they might turn their backs on you both. Or they might embrace him. Your sister and I have lived our lives for the whims of the people, but I don’t want that for you.”

She didn’t care--but Ivan did. “I would leave the sector if that was what Ivan wanted,” she confessed. “But all he wants is to create a decent legacy for his family. That’s one thing I can’t risk.”

“I know, sweetheart.” Gideon pulled her close again, mindless of the blood drying on her clothes, and his voice dropped to a whisper. “I’ve tried to make the world easy for you, to protect you from what it really means to be a Rios. But you’re a grownup now, and this is the hard truth. Sometimes the kindest thing we can do for someone we care about is not bring them into this world.”

“Yeah.” She leaned her head on his shoulder. “It doesn’t feel very good, does it?”

The door opened, and Deacon leaned against the jamb. “Ashwin heard from his contact.”

Gideon looked up without releasing her. “Already?”

Deacon snorted. “The guy was having some dinner in the market district. Ashwin says he’ll be here as soon as he finishes his steak.”

“He’s already in Sector One?”

“Guess so.” Deacon bumped his fist against the wall and shook his head. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence. Whatever he knows, it must be big.”

“All right. We’re going to get cleaned up. When he arrives, put him in the old audience room to wait for us. I want every Rider there. And the royal guard.”

“How many?”

“A Makhai soldier just tried to kill one of us, so I’d say all of them.”

“I’m on it.”

As Deacon shut the door behind him, Gideon gripped Maricela’s shoulders again and met her eyes. “There are a lot of downsides to being a Rios. But we have one very, very important power.”

“What’s that?”

“We can find the people who hurt the ones we love.” His eyes went cold and hard, and Maricela shivered. “And we can make sure they never hurt anyone else again.”

»»» § «««

Gideon preferred to call it the audience room, but the thrones on the dais told a different story.

There were three now, a gradual change from the Prophet’s singular seat. Even his wife, Ana, had been forced to stand beside him while he held court. No one had been allowed to claim equal status with Fernando Rios.

The rest of the room was unchanged. Marble pillars rose from the stone floors to brace the arched ceilings, which were painted in rich hues of blue and red and gold. Those same colors were replicated in the single strip of carpet that ran down the center of the room, from the oversized double doors to the dais.

Isabela sat, unmoving and regal, on Gideon’s right side. On his left, Maricela fidgeted in her huge chair. She’d showered and changed, and her fresh white dress cut a stunning contrast against the gilded wood and deep red upholstery. But she felt like she was going to jump out of her skin, and she didn’t know whether to blame the events of the day, the events still to come, or the fact that dozens of people were watching her sit on this dais for the first time.

Del had come up from the palace temple with a complement of guards. She ignored the ornate chair reserved for her near the foot of the dais and stopped next to the cluster of Riders. She folded her fingers together in front of her and offered Maricela a gentle smile of sympathy.

She almost returned it but had to press her lips together at the last moment when Ashwin came through the wide doorway. A sandy-haired man walked beside him, and the knot of Riders on the left-hand side of the room tensed.

It was odd, not seeing Ivan’s steady countenance among them, but not as odd as the other missing Rider.

She touched Gideon’s arm. “Where’s Reyes?”

Gideon scanned the room again and frowned. “I don’t know.”

Maybe he was still with Nita. Maricela didn’t have time to wonder, because the man who had come in with Ashwin stopped in front of the dais and bowed his head.

Gideon straightened in his chair, his frown vanishing. He studied the Makhai soldier for just long enough for the silence to turn heavy. “Samson, is it? Ashwin told me I can trust you.”

“No, he didn’t.” Samson shrugged. “But you can, for what it’s worth.”

“I suppose I’ll have to.” Gideon’s pose stayed casual, but Maricela was close enough to see his muscles tense. “Why did the Base attack one of my Riders?”

“They didn’t. It wasn’t an official op.” He gestured to Del’s ignored chair with an upraised brow, then dragged it around to face the dais and dropped into it. “Here’s the thing. I’m not sure you’ve noticed, but Makhai make excellent mercenaries. We don’t ask too many questions, and we’re not overly encumbered by conscience.” He paused. “Someone hired Wyatt to take out your boy. Could have been off the books, could have been approved by his CO. That, I don’t know.”

Gideon glanced at Ashwin, who inclined his head. “Makhai soldiers are generally deployed on long-term, solitary missions and given a great degree of autonomy. Even if his CO didn’t issue the command directly, they wouldn’t necessarily disapprove if Wyatt could make a case that his freelance activities furthered his active mission.”

Samson scrubbed a hand over his face. “Jesus Christ, you still sound like a robot when you talk.”

Ashwin’s brow furrowed. “And you’re still irritating.”

Maricela clenched her hands on the gilded arms of her throne. “Who hired him?”

One of the doors slammed open, causing the guards to close ranks as Diego Reyes stumbled through, followed by his son. Maricela had never seen Reyes in the heat of battle before, but she’d seen him angry. This was something beyond that, a rage so cold and boundless it could freeze the world.

He snapped at the guards nearest him, then pushed his father toward the dais. “Go on. Tell them what you did.”

Diego jerked away from his son, his spine stiffening as his gaze landed on the dais. “This is inexcusable behavior.”

“Confess, and I’ll let you live,” Reyes growled. “Or you can test me. I’m already damned, remember? What’s a little patricide on top of that?”

Blood pounded in Maricela’s ears, almost blotting out the older man’s haughty protests. “Diego?”

His chin came up as fury filled his eyes. “I killed no one.”

“Rafael was their last chance with Maricela.” Reyes dragged a hand through his hair. “Ivan was in the way, so Dad decided to get rid of him.”

It was unthinkable. Even in her worst moments, Isabela had never made the issue of marriage seem this vital, something serious enough to kill over. And yet, Diego Reyes had tried to murder Ivan because he was in the way. Because of her.

Or maybe Isabela had tried to tell her, and Maricela simply couldn’t fathom it.

On Gideon’s other side, Isabela had transformed from a warm, exasperated sister to the intimidating high priestess of the Prophet’s true religion. Ice dripped from her words as she delivered each one like a blow. “If this is true, then you’ve presumed too much, Diego. Maricela’s hand in marriage is her own to offer or deny. If you thought you could entrap her by murdering--”

“I didn’t murder anyone!” he exploded.

“Murder,” Isabela repeated harshly. “There are no loopholes when you take a life. Your weapon may have been money instead of a blade, but you wielded it with the cruelest of intentions. The fact that you failed to achieve your objective earns you no amnesty.”

Flushed with rage, Diego spat at their feet. “You disgrace your grandfather’s legacy. You are unworthy to sit where he did.”

“Probably,” Gideon said in a deceptively mild tone. “Of course, my grandfather’s legacy has some very specific things to say about murder. It doesn’t look kindly on it.”

“And what of my legacy?” Diego demanded. “You take our sons and turn them into killers, too.” He flung an arm out, pointing at Reyes. “I lost my heir to your precious Riders, but you’ll let that traitor’s son put his hands on your sister. Will you let him join your family, too? Are there any rules you won’t break if it suits you?”

Maricela started to rise, but Gideon grabbed her arm. “Diego Reyes, you are accused of paying someone to take a life. The life of one of my honored Riders, the son of a revered saint. Now would be a very good time to unburden your soul in confession.”

Diego wasn’t even trying to pretend anymore. “So what if I did? I will not stand here and be judged by the false heir of the Prophet.”

“I’m afraid you don’t have a choice.” Gideon glanced at Maricela, then Isabela. At her tight nod, Gideon sighed. “It is our judgment--”

“Eleven lives,” Samson cut in. “For accuracy’s sake.”

Gideon blinked at him. “What?”

“The best time to hire a Makhai assassin is when no one else will take the job,” Samson elaborated. “After what happened to the Suicide Kings, your friend’s options for contract killing must have been...somewhat limited.”

For an interminable moment, no one moved. No one breathed.

Then Reyes pulled a gun and leveled it at his father’s temple. “You greedy, grasping piece of shit.”

“Reyes!” Gabe lunged and took an elbow in the eye for his trouble. He swore and dragged at Reyes’s shirt, hauling him back a step. Ana appeared on his other side, grappling for the gun. He shoved her away as well, his fingers tightening on the pistol grip.

“Fernando.”

Del’s authoritative voice cut through the scuffle. She stepped up to Reyes’s side, her fingers brushing his shoulder. His arm trembled as she slid her hand down to his wrist with painstaking gentleness. When she reached his hand, her fingers curled over his. “Let go.”

After a few tense heartbeats, he relented, dropping the magazine and clearing the chamber before handing her the gun. “You’ll do worse than burn in hell,” he promised his father. “I’m going to make sure of that.”

Maricela shuddered. The guilt over Ivan’s brush with death--all because of her--still burned like acid in her gut, but now it was joined by anger and a rising swell of something that felt dangerously like relief. She wasn’t the prize here, just a stepping stone. Another pawn.

They couldn’t win if she refused to play the game.

“It’s a coup,” she murmured. “Eliminate the Riders, marry me off to Nita or Rafael or whoever will get you into the Rios family, and get rid of Gideon. Then you step in--favored godson and confidant of the Prophet.”

“His family abandoned him in his old age.” Diego’s voice dripped disdain. “His daughter defied his will, his son stripped away his power, and his grandchildren...” He turned the word into a curse. “You mock the faith. You undermine it at every turn. We should be a power to rival Eden by now, but you waste the tithes you steal from us to feed outsiders. I’m trying to save this sector.”

“No,” Gideon said coldly. “You’re trying to save yourself. You want to restore us to a time when the nobles ruled over this sector as petty tyrants who took as much as they could get and gave nothing in return but promises of eternal reward. I’m afraid I won’t allow that.”

He gestured to the royal guard. Two members hurried forward and caught Diego by either arm. “Take him to the dungeon,” Gideon ordered before smiling poisonously at Diego. “You’ll have to excuse the dust. We haven’t used it in a while. But since you’re so fond of the relics of my grandfather’s rule, you should be very comfortable there.”

“You can’t do this,” Diego hissed. “The other families--”

Hunter stepped up. “The other families also have children you tried to murder. I wouldn’t expect a hell of a lot of support from the Wests.”

“Or the Monteros,” Gabe added in a low growl. “The Kings almost killed me. They broke my bones, beat me half to death. How did you look my father in the eye at that party and smile like you were still best friends?”

“Your father should understand.” Diego lunged toward Gabe but was stopped short by the guards, who jerked him half off the floor. “Gideon stole your future, your afterlife. That traitor killed your brother.”

“No, he didn’t.” Gabe shook off Laurel’s restraining hand and stood face-to-face with Diego. “My brother died of natural causes. But I’m not surprised anymore that the rumors about Ivan spread so fast and far. I’m sure you helped with that.”

“I only did what was--”

Gabe grabbed him by the throat, choking off his words.

Gideon rose. “Gabe...”

“I could kill you before anyone managed to stop me,” Gabe snarled. “But I’m not going to. You’re not worth a raven.”

Gabe released him abruptly and walked away while Diego sucked in a coughing breath. Gideon waved to the guards. “Get him out of here.”

The guards dragged him, spitting and cursing, toward the exit while Reyes watched, his face devoid of all expression. Maricela was mad as hell and more than a little shocked, but he had to be devastated to learn that his own father had tried to have him killed. And Nita--oh God, poor Nita.

As the heavy doors slammed shut, Maricela silently vowed to do everything in her power to protect the rest of the family. The thought made her pause, then stand a little straighter.

She had power. All she had to do was use it.