Chapter 15
PALEDAN HID HIS distaste at the obvious preening of Barcon Ordam, who bustled into his office as if he were taking time out of his very busy schedule to meet with the new commander. He knew the type well; they had their uses, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed dealing with them.
He cut off the florid welcome the man was spewing. “Tell me of Davorin.”
Ordam grimaced. “He is to this day the biggest thorn in my side. The people, the ordinary people who refuse to forget, bemoan that there is no one to rise to take his place. They think him the greatest orator in Ziem history, and yet I have given many brilliant speeches myself. He is more than ten years dead and still they cling like lost children to his memory.”
Paledan waited as Ordam droned on, thinking that if there was anything to bemoan on Ziem besides the miserable mist, it would be that this was the man they were forced to work with. A certain amount of cooperation from the locals made things easier in these places where portions of the infrastructure needed to be kept intact. In the case of Ziem, the mines must keep functioning, and thanks to their bedamned mist that wreaked havoc with Coalition equipment, that required the miners be left alive. Planium was tricky stuff, dangerous in its raw form, and no one knew its quirks better than those who had mined it for generations. The material was an essential resource, and for now it required Ziemites to mine it. Their own people were learning the mining, and their scientists were working on adapting equipment, but it would take time.
Ordam knew who the miners were, and who among them might be problems. He also knew about much of the population of Zelos, and, according to the logs, many potential troublemakers had been weeded out in the first passes, based on his guidance.
If the governor were anyone besides Sorkost, who required such sycophants to function, they would have rid themselves of him once they no longer needed him. Obviously he was of no help with the one remaining problem, the Raider, and keeping a traitor around, even if he was one who had aided you, had never seemed wise to him.
“I meant,” Paledan said when Ordam’s whine finally ebbed, “the taproom keeper, not his father.”
“Drake?” The man sounded genuinely startled. “There is nothing to say. He’s a pitiful, cowardly wreck.”
There was so much satisfaction in Ordam’s tone, it spiked Paledan’s curiosity. “Ziem histories show he was not always.”
“Oh, yes,” Ordam said, dismissing his world’s history with a fluttering wave of his hand. “He was as stubborn as his father in the beginning, fighting the inevitable, unable to see the benefit of the coming of the Coalition. And even after his father was removed, he continued, giving those same ridiculous speeches about freedom and self-determination.” Ordam gave an inelegant snort that reminded Paledan of nothing less than a Carelian blowpig. “But what a surprise to his loyal followers when it turned out he was just a mother’s pet. When she threw herself from Halfhead to her death, she might as well have taken him with her. Overnight, he became who you see today, broken, meek, and docile.”
Again the satisfaction, Paledan thought, although that part of the tale did surprise him. While shocking, it didn’t seem enough to dampen the fire of the man he’d read about. “You must have known him before we arrived.”
“Of course. One could hardly help but know of the vaunted Drake Davorin.” The satisfaction shifted to remembered disgust. His lip actually curled with it. “It was nauseating, the accolades poured upon him. Beloved by all, especially foolish females, best climber and hunter on Ziem, leader at the institute in both academics and athletics, being groomed to fill his father’s shoes at the Council.” And then the satisfaction snapped back. “But he is not his father, could not be further from him in fact.”
“And yet it seems to me there is more to him than what appears on the surface now.”
“You’re wrong,” the man said sharply. Then, as if remembering whom he was speaking to, he hastily added in a conciliatory tone, “You just haven’t been here long enough, Major. You will soon see Drake Davorin is nothing more than a coward. He will cause you no trouble.”
“I think you and I might have very different ideas of what constitutes trouble,” he murmured to himself after the man had gone.
He turned his gaze to his viewscreen, where an image of Torstan Davorin glowed. Once he had weeded out the Coalition rhetoric, he thought he had the bones of the man’s story. He had indeed been the flashpoint for what resistance there had been, and it had been unexpectedly strong. Which was to the man’s credit, despite the Coalition spin that it was merely the logistics of this rugged planet and its perpetual mist that had made this conquering take two full years. Paledan was adept at both reading between the lines and combining official reports with battle reports and arriving at something near the truth, which was that Torstan Davorin had inspired his woefully unprepared people to hold on for much longer than the Coalition had ever anticipated.
And his son had seemed well suited to continue that battle, indeed, had picked up his father’s ceremonial saber while it was still wet with blood, and had rallied the stunned fighters into nearly taking the Coalition gun that had arrived to quell the disturbance. And the younger Davorin had fought on, even after the main resistance had ended.
And then he had stopped. Abruptly. Had given up, retreated, become the cowed, beaten taproom keeper who was whispered about and called coward in all quarters. Paledan was somewhat surprised Sorkost had let him live, until he realized the daily presence of the defeated warrior, the sight of him as a lowly tapper submissively serving the Coalition, was worth much more than a death that might have turned him into the same kind of martyr as his father had become.
He knew this had not sprung from any wisdom of Sorkost, but rather simply a perverse enjoyment the man took in grinding people beneath his boots.
But nowhere in all the voluminous Coalition records and reports could he find any clue that told him why. Why Davorin had suddenly given up, why he had turned his back on his father’s legacy, laid down his sword, and changed into a very different sort of man practically overnight. It had to be more than the mother’s suicide. Wouldn’t that have inspired him to even further resistance? That the Coalition had taken both his parents from him?
It had been Paledan’s experience that there was always a reason when a man changed so radically. And when it was the man who had once so rallied opposition to the Coalition, it was not in his nature to give up until he had an answer he was satisfied with.
And so his questions about the quiet, inhibited taproom keeper remained.
THE LINGERING intoxication of the successful air rover raid, plus a bit of brew the Raider had okayed, was still carrying them. When Kye arrived at the ruin, she was greeted cheerfully with grins and back slaps. And one slap on her backside from Maxon, because he was slightly inebriated. She smiled at him, but not before she’d put him on the ground on his own backside. She also accrued several approving comments on her stenciled artwork, still scattered about the city, and the beautiful irony that the Coalition was having trouble wiping it out because they were short of paint.
“We’re not,” she said blithely, earning another round of raucous, cheering laughter, and calls that the Spirit had surely been with her. She might have to broach the possibility of another round, she thought. Perhaps with a new design.
But first, she had something else to do. Something it had taken her far too long to work up to. But now that she had, she would let nothing divert her.
When she entered the Raider’s quarters, Brander was with him, and they were laughing. It took her aback; she did not think she had ever heard him laugh in the six months she had been with him.
But when he saw her, he went still, and half turned away, settling that blessed helmet. It would sting, if she let it, but she could not. She had worked up her courage on the trek up the mountain in the darkness, and she would not let it fail now.
“And we could all be dead tomorrow, if the Coalition decided it.”
Eirlys’s words had rung in her head and the image of that huge cannon, looming over the city, had haunted her every step of the way. And by the time she got here, she was convinced the worst fate of all would be to die without ever having told him how she felt. And she would never have a better time than now, when all had gone so well. She had to know if she was alone in this, because if she was, she needed to start building some kind of wall around her heart.
Maybe Brander could teach her about that. He seemed to do it well enough.
“Could you give us a moment, please?” she asked her cousin.
Brander’s gaze shot to the Raider, who, after a moment’s hesitation as unlike him as the laugh, nodded. Only then did Brander leave them. It was another moment before he turned to face her, one brow lifted in query, barely visible below the rim of the helmet.
And then she did not know how to start.
“Do you never remove it?” she asked, eying the ever-present silver covering.
“You would not like it if I did.”
“Wrong. I would not care.”
His mouth twisted. Bitterly? She couldn’t tell, given how little she could see of his face.
“Oh,” he said, “you would.”
“I would be saddened at your injury, and the pain you must have endured. Angry that it happened. And even regretful that I did not know you before. But nothing could change how I feel now.”
There. It was out. She met his gaze, held it, daring him to deny he understood what she meant.
“Kye,” he began, and stopped.
“We could all die tomorrow,” she said, “and I must know. Even if it is to learn how big a fool I am.”
“It does not matter. It can’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
For the first time, the Raider lowered his eyes. “We cannot.”
Kye lifted her chin. “Nor can we pretend this does not exist.”
“I know.”
Kye sighed. “Then what would you have me do?”
“What would I have? What you will not do. Stay safe.”
“And leave you to fight this war for me?”
He looked up then. She stared at him for a long, silent moment. She had only his eyes, dark-rimmed blue ice, to judge by. But she saw a knowledge there, understanding.
“You know what I feel,” she whispered.
“I know,” he repeated. Then, as if it were against his will, he added, “I know it exactly.”
Because he felt the same way? Her heart gave a tiny leap in her chest.
“It cannot be. For so many reasons.”
“Name them,” she demanded.
“Kye—”
“Name them,” she repeated, “for that is the only way I can abide it, if I have it in my head, in your voice.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, leaving her only the scars, the helmet, for her to focus on. When they snapped open again, it only emphasized the power of them, of his steady, unwavering gaze. And when he spoke, it was sharp, rapid-fire, like bursts from a blaster.
“In this kind of war, you can’t care. I’ve told your cousin I consider myself already dead. It is not a death wish,” he said even as she began to object, “because I think of each day I am still here to fight as a gift. But caring means you can no longer do what’s necessary. Especially if it means using one you care about as a tool or a weapon. And caring gives your enemy the most powerful weapon that exists.”
She was wincing inwardly as if each word were a blow. Not because they were harsh, uncompromising, but because they were true.
“What most powerful weapon?” It was all she could manage.
“A lever.”
A lever they could use against him. And she had no illusions that the Coalition wouldn’t do exactly that, were they to discover the Raider had a vulnerability. No, she could deny none of it. And yet she clung desperately. “And if this battle ended tomorrow?”
“It will not.”
“But if it did,” she insisted.
“Ifs, and wishes,” he said softly, “are for children in a sane world. You are not a child, nor is our world sane.”
So he would not give her even that much.
She turned on her heel and left without a word. And set about walling off her heart.