Chapter 3
“SOMETIMES I hate him.”
Kye looked at the girl who sat beside her on the rock overlooking the pond. She wasn’t really sure why she had followed her, except perhaps that she hadn’t wished to look anymore at Drake. The hollow, agonized expression in his eyes had told her how his sister’s strike had stabbed home. And yet since she herself had made the same wish, she had nothing she dared say to him.
“You don’t really mean that,” she said.
“All right, then I hate who he’s become.” She had no answer for that. Eirlys gave her a knowing sideways look before adding, “And you do, too, don’t you?”
“I admire what he’s sacrificed for his family,” she said carefully.
“Don’t dodge.”
She turned to face the girl then. “It is not a dodge. Do you realize that when your mother died and he had the responsibility for three children below the age of ten descend upon him, he was barely a year older than you are now?”
Eirlys blinked. Kye guessed that while she’d known how young he’d been, she hadn’t really put it in those terms before, terms of her own age.
“Yes,” Kye said. “How would you like to be accountable for a nine-year-old girl and a pair the likes of Nyx and Lux at four, right now?”
“I wouldn’t.”
“Neither did he. But he did it, because he loves you. He’s your brother, and he takes that very seriously.”
“I know. He’s so protective of me I want to screech to the sky.”
“He is very aware you are becoming a beautiful woman.”
“That’s what he said.” Eirlys couldn’t have been more glum about it if Kye had said she was starting to look like a blowpig. She smothered a smile at the girl’s reaction, but she was grateful she had apparently successfully turned the subject.
“He’s afraid Kerrold will attack me,” Eirlys said.
Kye took in a quick breath. So much for grateful. She had long suspected that Kerrold wished a daughter of Davorin to be his conquest for very particular reasons, but she did not wish to go into that just now. “Not an unfounded fear,” she said. “He has always had an eye for you.” And better him than that torturous muckrat, Jakel. Maybe.
Again Eirlys gave her a sideways look. “As you always had for Drake.”
Not so successful on the subject turn after all. “We are friends.”
“But you once wanted more. Don’t deny it; I used to spy on you when you were together.”
“And you think we did not know this?”
That took her aback, Kye thought. But she knew Eirlys well enough to know when she was fixated on a subject, and true to expectations, she recovered quickly.
“Can you truly say that you do not wish—”
She interrupted before Eirlys could say something Kye had no answer for. “I wish many things. Or did, before I grew up and realized the futility of wishing.”
“‘Wishing is nothing without action,’” the girl quoted.
Her father’s words, Kye thought. Famous words. Words from the speech that had rallied a town, then a region, then an entire planet.
And had brought the fiery wrath of the Coalition down upon them.
“Can you truly say,” Eirlys repeated, clearly determined to say the words, “that you do not wish he was more like my father?”
“Your father,” Kye said, “spoke out against Coalition tyranny. He was dead within months.”
“And we could all be dead tomorrow, if the Coalition decided it. The fusion cannon would see to that. But my father is remembered as a hero still. His name could unite, if only Drake would use it. If only he would stand against them, instead of serving them like a—”
“He does not have that luxury.”
She had to stop this. She could not bear anymore. It was truth that she admired and respected Drake for how he had stepped into a parent’s role when he had to, but she, too, wished he had stepped into his father’s huge footsteps as well. No matter that the two paths were mutually exclusive, for following the one would surely get him killed and thus make the other impossible, not to mention putting those he was supposed to protect at even greater risk. She knew that too well; had she not had to do the same with her helpless father, before that random Coalition bomb had finally put an end to his misery?
But she knew Eirlys was right, the son of Torstan Davorin could rally the people of Ziem like no other, even the Raider. Just the spark of his name would light a fire that even the Coalition would pay a high price to extinguish.
Eirlys stared at her. The bright intelligence and perceptiveness she knew the girl possessed shone in her eyes.
“Are you not saddened by what he has become?”
Kye had no answer for her question. The real answers were too grimly depressing to be faced. For she had once loved Drake Davorin with all the fervor of her young heart. They had been of one mind, similar in all things.
But she was a woman now, and other things were more important to her than a handsome face and a wicked grin. When that Coalition bomb had finally ended her father’s torment, proving once and for all that toeing the Coalition line did no good, kept no one safe, her life had been shattered along with the blinders she’d been wearing. She knew then the only recourse was to fight, for expecting the Coalition to leave you alone if you behaved was a fool’s notion.
She had expected Drake to see it that way too. That the time had finally come to fight, that the only thing to do was join the Raider. Instead, he had withdrawn, pushing her away as if he feared her newfound commitment to the freedom of Ziem might be catching. He made excuses not to be with her, and no longer smiled as he once had the moment he spotted her anywhere. And so she saw little of him, only when the ache became too much, and then later she regretted it because seeing what he was now, that man too frightened of the Coalition to even speak ill of it, bore no resemblance to the man she’d loved. And so she had accepted the wall now between them.
“Do you still love him? As he is now?” Eirlys’s voice was barely above a whisper now.
She could not answer. Despite it all, including the obvious fact that he no longer cared for her in the same way, she still did. How could she not, when she saw so clearly what it was costing him to protect his family, and yet he kept on? If her father were still alive, would she not still be there herself? It tore her inside, twisted her up. It made no sense, but nothing in this world had truly made sense since the day twelve years ago when the first Coalition battleship had slipped into orbit and begun the conquering of Ziem.
And suddenly an image rose in her mind, fierce and undeniable. Drake, young Drake, younger even than Eirlys now. Eleven years ago, sixteen to her own fourteen, he had been the personification of everything her girlish heart longed for. Eleven years ago, when his father had been practically obliterated in front of his eyes, only his head left and placed on that pike as reminder, he had joined the battle with a passion that both thrilled and frightened her. He had picked up the gauntlet dropped by Torstan Davorin, and had charged into the fight like someone possessed. And even at sixteen he had won the admiration of those many times older, surprising them all with his courage and sometimes unusual tactics.
And then his mother had thrown herself from Halfhead and it had all ended for him. Drake Davorin was finally beaten, cowed, and turned to a life so ordinary and inconspicuous that eventually even the Coalition had almost forgotten whose son he was. He was just the servile taproom keeper seen most often in an apron. She’d heard Barcon belittle him often enough to realize they considered him properly broken, and no longer a threat.
And for over a decade now, she’d seen or heard nothing to show they were not right.
Drake Davorin could not more thoroughly appear a coward if he tried.
It ate at her, and, after parting from Eirlys, she felt compelled to do something, anything. And when she later saw a Coalition guard chivvying along two citizens who had dared to exchange more than a passing greeting on the street, leaving his sheltered guardstand momentarily unmanned, she could not resist.
“YOU COULD HAVE been killed.”
Kye lifted her chin. “I was not.”
“I weary of saying those same five words to you.”
Kye gaped at her commander. “You? You of all people, wish to confront me about risking my life?”
If the Raider was taken aback by her boldness, it did not show. But something else did. She knew he had been injured in the last raid, and she could see the pain in his slightly off-balance stance, favoring the leg that had been carved by a laser pistol. It made her ache inside with the worry she always felt for him.
“We are not,” he said evenly, “discussing me.”
“We should be,” she retorted. “For you risk your life all the time.”
He held her gaze steadily. “Yes. For a reason, not for the risk itself. I don’t want to die, I want to live to fight.”
She forgot to breathe for a moment. She hadn’t expected him to see that deeply.
“I want to fight,” she protested.
“I know this. You could not fight as fiercely as you do, were it not in your blood.” There was admiration in his voice, and it made her shiver. As did the way his Ziem blue eyes lingered on her face. The way his gaze made her feel was strange, yet familiar, and the paradox only added to her turmoil.
“Then what are we talking about?”
“I believe it is called a death wish.”
She spun away, unable to meet those steady eyes. Eyes that sparked something in her that she’d only felt once before, for Drake. And no amount of telling herself she was a fool and worse, that she should be ashamed that this man stirred her so easily when she knew little about him outside his courage, and his brilliance as a warrior and planner, seemed to quash it.
She stared at the far wall of his quarters, as if there were something more than his ceremonial Ziem saber there.
“I do not wish for death,” she finally managed to say.
Not yet, anyway, she silently added. In the end, when the battle was either won or lost, when there would be no fighting left to do, then . . . what would she do with herself? What would she have? Who would she be?
“Feeling you have nothing to live for amounts to the same thing.”
She turned back then, as much because of the suddenly gentle tone of his voice as the words.
“I just . . . wonder what will be left. In the end.”
“And you have not the courage to face it?”
She drew back, stung. Never had he questioned her courage, only her recklessness.
“I understand, Kye,” he said. His voice had softened, into a tone she’d not heard from him before. It made her pulse kick up even as it soothed her roiled emotions. “I once felt the same, that I did not care, that I wished myself dead rather than go on, or face the end of the world I had known.”
“You would never give up,” she declared.
“Now,” he said. “But there was a time when I wished for the decision to be taken out of my hands.”
“Do you understand we who live in constant fear of that happening? That you will die?”
“If it happens, it happens. The fight will go on.”
“You underestimate your importance.”
“You overestimate it.”
“I do not. If you die, the fight ends. It will take the heart, the stomach for battle out of everyone.”
“They will regain it. A new leader will step up.”
She glared at him then. “Only someone willfully blind, or just stupid would believe that. Since I know you are not stupid, it must be willful blindness.”
“And you,” he said, “have managed to once more steer this from you to me.”
For an instant, she thought she saw a hint of amusement in his eyes. He so rarely let anything like that show it nearly took her breath away. A memory, some distant image, sparked in her mind, but it was gone before she could pin it down. She tried to marshal her thoughts.
“Is not the final judge of risk whether or not it succeeds?”
“You’re quoting Torstan Davorin again.”
“And why not? Is he not the father of this fight?”
His eyes closed for a brief moment. “Yes,” he said quietly. “Yes, he is. He is also dead.”
“And I am not,” she said, thinking she’d won it now. “No one saw me, and we now have a copy of the guard rotations for the next month.”
“That is not the point.”
“If you did not want me to take the initiative, you should not have made me your third.”
“You know I value the ability to think for yourself. Do you really think this is because you didn’t clear it with me first?”
“No,” she admitted. “You’re not that way. But I don’t see why you’re so wound up about it.”
When he looked at her then, it was the steely commander who would brook no further argument. His sentences were short, sharp, and rang with authority. “It is a matter of risk versus gain. In this case, the risk far outweighed the gain. You could have been killed. Or badly wounded, with no help. Or captured. Tortured for the information you hold. Would you wish others to die trying to save you?”
“No,” she said, chastened. He rarely spoke to her like this, and it stabbed deeply. “It is of no use, then?”
“I did not say that. Just not worth the risk you took.”
She drew herself up straight. She would not cower before him. But she would give him the respect he deserved, having earned it a hundred times over. She bowed her head and spoke quietly. “Yes, sir.”
For a moment he was silent, as if he hadn’t expected that. But then he said, “And it would be an aggravation to have to find a new third with your skills.”
Her gaze shot back to his face. That bedamned helmet hid so much. Too much. And she could read nothing in his eyes at this moment.
But as she left the quarters, the words that echoed in her mind were not his last ones.
I don’t want to die; I want to live to fight.
She had not thought of it in exactly that way. But she would, from now on. If she had done so this night—and hadn’t been so on edge about Drake—she would not have taken the risk.
And while she had often thought about why he was so able to inspire his Sentinels, she had never dwelt upon the fundamentals of it, the constant weighing of risk against gain, and the cost to him of sending people into situations where they could easily die.
She knew that deep down, he would far rather die himself than send another to their death. But perhaps everyone sensed that, and it was why the Raider was the commander they would all follow into hades, and he would not have to ask.
And yet he did it, because he must.
She had never been more aware of the crushing weight of command than she was in that moment. And her already considerable respect for him grew even stronger.
Almost strong enough to quash the longing she felt. She wanted only to help him carry this load, and instead, she had added to it.
She had learned much in the six months she had been a Sentinel.
But she had much more to learn. And learn it she would. Quickly. For he needed that, and it was the only thing she could give him.
The only thing he would allow her to give him.