Chapter 37
“THIS IS CRAZY,” Brander said.
“Yes.”
“You think a truce flag is going to stop a Coalition officer from taking out the Raider the instant you’re close enough?” Kye demanded.
“I don’t know,” the Raider admitted. “I’ve never had a Coalition officer ask for a meeting before.”
“So you’re thinking this makes him different?” Brander asked incredulously.
“You said yourself he was.”
Brander grimaced. “I didn’t mean softer. Harder, colder if anything.”
“Agreed.”
“So doesn’t that make him more likely to blast your head off? Especially if taking you out is why he’s here?”
“Possibly.”
“But you’re going anyway,” Kye said, her tone sour.
“Yes.”
“And not so that you can kill him?” Brander asked again, as if he still couldn’t believe what he’d said when he’d first told him he was going to go. “I could understand that, at least, we could take him out and—”
“No. I have good reason to want him to leave alive.”
Brander let out a sound that was half growl, half snort of disgust. “And just what am I supposed to do after he kills you?”
He turned to look at the man pacing the room then. The man who had stood beside him since childhood, and whom he had more than once trusted with his life. “You must take my place.”
Brander scoffed. “As if anyone could.”
“No one man is irreplaceable.”
“The Raider is,” Kye insisted.
He shook his head. And began to pace himself, Brander stopping now, as he tried to find the words to explain to them. “I’m not sure when I realized,” he said slowly. “In the beginning, I was blind with anger, and wanted only to strike out, fight back as no one seemed to be doing, until they killed me. And I expected that to happen quickly.” He hesitated, glancing at Kye. “I think I wanted it to happen.”
“Explains some of your insane moves back then,” Brander said dryly.
Kye said nothing. But she looked away, as if she did not want him to see her face.
“But when it did not,” he went on, “I began to think that maybe, just maybe we really could fight back. Not beat them—I never expected that—but perhaps get to a point where they decided it wasn’t worth it.”
“Our planium is worth a great deal to them.”
“And,” Kye added, “they don’t consider it ours anyway.”
He hated that she sounded so bitter, but he understood. He went on. “At some point, I realized the Raider wasn’t just a man. He was an idea. He stands for everything they have taken from us, and everything they still wish to take.”
“What is left to take?” Kye asked, that bitter note still there.
“The idea of Ziem itself. Our history, the truth of where we began, who we became, who we are. Why our world works, why we have avoided war for centuries. Why we have never resorted to war with each other. And now the Raider stands for those who have died by Coalition hands, and for those who yet will. He stands for those who fight, those who cannot, and even those who will not. He is a symbol, an idea. And as long as he exists, the soul of Ziem will survive.”
For a moment, both Kalons were utterly silent. Then Brander said, his words teasing but his voice soft, “If I’d known you were going to give a speech that inspiring, I would have dragged you out to the gathering room so everyone could hear it.”
Kye said nothing, but when she looked at him, the bitterness was gone from her face, and that alone was worth much to him. So much.
After a moment, Brander coughed pointedly, then grinned at them and spoke again. “Never mind. I’ll just go and . . . do something.”
“Do that,” Kye said, never even glancing at her cousin.
He headed for the door, put his hand on the handle, then looked back over his shoulder at them. “I know everyone respects you too much to just walk in, but you might want to think about a lock on this thing anyway.”
“Just walk out?” the Raider suggested, his eyes never leaving the woman before him.
He heard Brander laugh as he did so, pulling the door securely shut behind him.
“I am glad he doesn’t mind. Us, I mean,” she said.
“He was for us long before I admitted to myself it was . . . inevitable.”
Kye smiled at him. “I am more than glad you finally did.”
And then she was in his arms, and all thought of what this battle was about, of what the Raider stood for, vanished from his mind. In these moments, and in these moments alone, he was simply a man who had found something he had never dared hope for.
And who tried not to think, at least while she was in his arms, while they were wrapped around and in each other, about how easily it could be taken away.
Much later, when he lay temporarily sated—for with Kye, it was ever only temporary—she stirred against his chest and asked quietly, “You feel you must do this?”
“I cannot explain—”
He stopped as she laid a gently finger over his lips. “I did not ask for an explanation. I only need to hear that you are certain you must.”
“I am.”
“Despite the risk.”
“I must know who this man is, if we are to fight him.”
“Then so be it.”
He tightened his arms around her at her simple acceptance. “I’m sorry, Kye.”
“I knew it would be like this. I knew before you warned me.” She shifted then, lifting up to look down at him steadily. It struck him anew that she had never asked him to remove the mask, the scars, in these times, touched him as if they did not matter. And he felt a sudden jolt as he realized she would be the same if the mask was real.
“But this,” she said, stroking her hand over his body in a way that set his pulse pounding and had him surging to readiness all over again, “you and I, us . . . we are worth any price.”
Her words echoed in his mind the following morning as he settled the silver helmet on his head, readying himself for the meeting ahead that could well result in them both paying the ultimate price. He knew how he would feel were she to die, and he supposed she would feel the same if he had guessed wrong and this was all an elaborate ruse to lure him out to take him down.
But the other part of their bargain took precedence now. Nothing, not even this glorious thing between them, could interfere with what had to be done. For all the love they had found, both physical and of the heart, would mean nothing if Ziem was in the end crushed.
And so, after checking the scars one last time, the Raider left his quarters and headed out to meet the man whose supreme mission was to end him.