Born of Legend (71 page)

Kneeling down, he placed a kiss where they frolicked. “I hate the thought of leaving my girls.”

She brushed her hand against his cheek. “We hate the thought of you going.”

He pressed her palm to his cheek before he rose to kiss her lips. “I will be back as soon as I can.”

“I know.” This was a new chapter in both their lives. But as he led her from their home, toward the landing bay, she couldn't get the image of his new files out of her head.

Jullien eton Anatole was dead.

It was in the official League records now. In the back of her mind, she couldn't help fearing that they might have turned that into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Especially given how many enemies he had.

He was going out today as a true ghost.

The more she thought about it, the worse it seemed.

What have we done?

She was sending him out there without Nation. Colors. Harbor.

And if anyone ever learned he was still alive, he would be instantly killed. Yes, he'd been alone before. But she didn't know him then. This time, he traveled with her heart.

This time, he was chasing after the devil for vengeance. Terror filled her. As he said, never before had either of them had so much to lose.

 

C
HAPTER
27

Jullien cursed in frustration.

Thrāix turned in his chair to look at him as they flew dark through League-controlled space. “Problem?”

“No … yes. Not
our
problem. Someone else's. But something I can't seem to let go of.”

By the expression on Thrāix's face, he could tell the Trisani was using his powers to read his thoughts. Irritating, but he was getting used to it. He just wished Thrāix was more like Trajen and would respect his privacy and leave his mind alone.

“Don't take it personally, Andarion. They didn't listen to your brother, either. Nykyrian couldn't get a stay of execution, any more than you could. So it's not just you the Garvons are being assholes with.”

“Doesn't make me feel better. Damn shame, no matter how you look at it.” Jullien rubbed at his chin. “At least tell me Dagan deserves to die.”

“Not really. Definitely not for this. He didn't even do it. Caillen's taking the death sentence for his sister. But you knew that without anyone saying it. It's why this has been eating at you.”

Jullien looked away as Thrāix said a truth he didn't want to hear spoken out loud. Yeah, he'd known it. Caillen was always taking the rap for his sister Kasen. He always had. “No good deed goes unpunished. Damn.”

“Do you really want to help him?”

“Bad blood between us aside? Yeah, I do.” For whatever reason, he hated to see anyone unjustly punished.

It was his worst genetic defect.

“Then make sure the DNA for Caillen is run through the Exeter database
before
his execution. Don't let them backlog it, like they normally do capital cases.”

Jullien scowled. “Why?”

“Trust me. Use your newfangled powers, and run it through their system today …
if
you want to save his life.”

Jullien had no idea what difference that would make, since they only ran the samples to see if the convicted felon's DNA matched any other unsolved crimes on file. It was one of the reasons why they weren't in any hurry to run them before execution. Since the felon was about to be out of circulation, what difference did it make if he or she had committed other crimes? They wouldn't be committing any future ones. At least that was
their
philosophy.

But … who was he to argue with Thrāix?

Screw it, he'd do it. At least this way, if Caillen was guilty of something else, he'd die for a crime he'd actually committed and not one his sister had dragged him into.

Small consolation, that. Still, better than nothing, he supposed.

His link went off. Jullien pulled it out to see Ushara's image smiling at him. His heart and mood instantly lightened. How weird that it took so little to brighten his day. Worse? Just the thought of hearing the sound of her voice made him hard and aching, especially since it brought to mind an image of her wearing that lacy confection she'd surprised him with on their anniversary.

Smiling at the cruel dichotomy while hoping Thrāix was completely out of his head right now, he answered it. “Hey, beautiful.”

“Where are you?”

He checked his coordinates. “Still in the Solaras System for a few more. Why? You need me to head back?”

“No. The League is locking down the Garvon Sector hard. I wanted to make sure you weren't near it.”

“We're headed to Oksana to rendezvous with Jupiter.”

“Good. Opposite direction works very well for me. Although, knowing you, you could still find utter disaster, with both hands tied behind your back and blindfolded.”

He laughed. “So what's going on over there that I need to avoid?”

“Oh, you know. You're the Tadar of Politics, and usually understand these nuances better than the rest of us. Anyway, the Summit's about to meet, so the Caronese Resistance is revving into high gear for their attacks while their Grand Counsel's away. The Sentella's backing them, as they always do. The Qills are trying to start a war with the Trimutians, and for some reason I can't learn, they've got Septurnum help—see if you can find out from Jory who that idiot is. If that's not enough to make the hair on the back of your neck stand up, your grandmother's running loose in the streets, doing who knows what. I have a hangnail, and Vas drank the last of my juice this morning and didn't tell me. He stayed late at school and forgot to remind me, so I thought he'd been kidnapped again. Then he left his backpack in his locker without thinking, so we had to find his teacher to let us back into school after hours to get it. World is coming to an end. I'm telling you. See what you miss when you leave? Oh, and the toilet seat was left up again, and I fell in, in the middle of the night! And you're right, you didn't do it. I raised a thoughtless beast of a son.”

He laughed. “Well, I'll kill Vas as soon as I get home, and hide his body. For now, I'll give him a stern lecturing when I hang up from you. In the meantime, I can do absolutely nothing about anything else. I'm feeling grotesquely worthless as a husband and Androkyn.”

Laughing at him, she shook her head. “I miss you so much.”

“Miss you, too. But I am willing to take the bathroom heat for Vas if it'll spare him your wrath until I get back.”

She gave him an adorable grin. “I have to say, you do endure my wrath with much more grace than he does.”

“Only because I'm used to being yelled at.”

Gasping, she touched her heart. “Now, that hurts.”

“I didn't mean for it to,” he said quickly. “Just stating a fact, and I wasn't implicating you. You're not the one who insults or beats me. You merely speak about certain subjects with great passion. That doesn't bother me at all.”

Ushara winced at his teasing. She knew he was making light of something that, while it didn't bother him, made her ache in sympathetic pain. She'd often wondered how he managed to stay so calm whenever others began shouting at him.

Now she knew.

Trajen had shown it to her. But she hadn't really made
that
connection before. This time, she did. Shouting and insults were all he'd known for communication growing up. All his family and teachers had ever given him. They yelled and he mostly stayed silent while they did so. Because to speak only escalated their tempers and made it worse.

In that moment, she would give anything to hold him.

Jullien frowned at her over the link. “What's that noise?”

She smiled at the discordant sound. “Your legacy.”

“Pardon?”

“After hearing you play so well so often, it seems your son has redeveloped his interest in music. He's out there practicing … thanks,” she said sarcastically.

He screwed his handsome face up into one of sympathetic pain. “God, I am
so
sorry.”

“You should be.” She winked at him, then laughed. “Actually, it warms my heart to have him diligently practice every night. I'm glad to see the old keyboard put to use again, and that he sees you as a role model.”

Jullien groaned. “Fine, go on and be cruel. Just pile the guilt on. Make it worse.”

“Worse?”

“Um, yeah. I'd much rather our child pick a role model I'd like for him to emulate. God help us both if he ever behaves like me. I can think of no worse curse.”

She rolled her eyes again. “I can think of no greater blessing. I would love to have a son who acts just like his paka.”

Making a noise of protest, he appeared horrified by her suggestion. “Don't say shit like that, Shara! The gods might take you up on it.”

“Jules?”

He paused at Unira's soft voice. “Yes, Matarra?”

“We need to go dark. Immediately.”

Ushara's face paled. “Stay safe. Love you.”

“Itu, munatara.”

Ushara cut the transmission so fast, Jullien wasn't sure she heard him. But then that was what he adored most about her. He didn't have to say it.

She knew.

His safety was more important to her than words. Still, the sight of that blank screen made him ache. He hated to be apart from her.

Another thing he despised his family for as he shut down everything on the ship with his thoughts.

Thrāix gave him an approving nod. “You're getting scary with that.”

“Yeah, I don't even feel it anymore. It's like breathing to me now.”

“That's good. It's what you want. The ship to become part of you. Indistinguishable.”

It was becoming that way. Fast. As were a lot of other objects around him. He wasn't sure at times how Thrāix and Trajen remained sane with their powers. The universe held a whole new scary level when viewed through Trisani eyes.

Such as now …

Jullien frowned as he heard the approach on their port side. “Three League ships are moving in.”

Unira started to reach for the sensors, then stopped as she remembered that Jullien had cut all power except basic life support. “Can they sense us?”

Jullien shook his head. “They're not probing.” He listened to their communications and engines. “They're not slowing.” Closing his eyes, he leaned back in his chair and did what they'd come here to do.

Used his powers to scan through their secured onboard systems for classified information that not even his best abilities could access from outside their lines. As good as he was at filching League info, there were some items not even Syn Wade could access.

No one was
that
good by conventional means.

But with these new psychic powers, there was nothing Jullien couldn't access, because he no longer had to do it through an I/O method. His thoughts connected seamlessly to the binary so that it couldn't detect that he was an outside party. The computer thought he was merely another onboard component, and it accepted him as such.

No questions asked.

By the time the ships moved out of range, Jullien had a headache from it.

“Well?” Thrāix asked.

Jullien rubbed at his temple. “Nothing on Eriadne. Bitch is more ghost than I am. Varan, however, is shacked up with one of his other cousins. Since he's a Morlatte assassin, he's registered with The League. Go, moron. I have his address.” He started the engines for the ship and set their course. “That being said, it got me thinking.”

Thrāix snorted. “Glad something did, Captain.”

Jullien chose to ignore his sarcasm. “Nyk's adoptive brother had a base on Oksana, and back when all that shit broke with WAR's rebellion on Andaria, Aksel had a full dossier on all of us.”

Unira scowled. “Why?”

“Aksel hated Nyk from the moment his father adopted him. To him, it was the worst insult Huwin could give him and his brother. You're not good enough sons to be my legacy for The League and to carry on my Quiakides name. I had to go adopt a male of another species and make him an assassin instead of my two natural sons.”

“Ouch,” Thrāix whispered.

“Exactly. Anyway, because of that hatred, Aksel took the contract on Nyk's life the minute President Zamir made it live. And with that madness, Aksel dredged up everything on my brother's past. More than that, Aksel had approached me about helping him to set up Nyk before anyone else knew Nyk was my brother. No one had figured that out yet.
No one.
Yet somehow, Aksel had put it together. He knew all kinds of dirt on my family that no one else had.”

Jullien pointed to the nav screen, where he'd laid their course in for Oksana. “I'm thinking we should get to that base and see if anything remains of it.… If we can find any of those old files intact.”

“That's a long shot.”

“True,” Unira agreed. “But one definitely worth taking.”

*   *   *

Jullien landed them not far from where Aksel's old Morlatte base was now nothing more than a shambled, hollowed-out wreck of the high-tech assassin's lair it'd once been. Five years of neglect, plus the bombing run his brother had laid down on it, had left its scars on the place. The harsh desert landscape had virtually reclaimed it.

Thrāix manifested his fake, holographic people to watch over their ship while they disembarked to check things out.

Jullien had learned that those mental projections, combined with his lifelike mechas, were what had populated the outpost where Thrāix lived. The surly Sparda Trisani was the only actual sentient creature on that rock. The rest had been his fabrications. Either androids he created in his lab, or those holograms he projected with his powers.

Impressive and terrifying.

Just like Thrāix himself.