Shrouded: Heartstone Book One (20 page)

“This is our personal house loom,” Murrel explained. “Rexr asked me to design some tapestries for myself.” She blushed outright and shuffled her feet again. “My sketches were rough, but I thought you might recognize this one.” She pointed up to the warp, where the design hung and shifted only slightly between the reeds. The majority had been finished, and only a small gap at the bottom still showed empty lines. “The workers did a great job from my awful drawing.”

Vashia did recognize it, but she couldn’t quite remember where she’d seen it. Two shadow cats posed on either side of the thick fabric. They faced off with a low Eclipsan moon setting behind them and a half circle reflection below. The design registered as familiar, and she stared at it and tried to imagine where she’d seen the black cats before.

“The original is in bronze,” Murrel said, “but I always loved the design, even as a child.”

“The library.” Once she pictured the piece in metal, she knew it. “The Wraith library has a frieze of this.”

“Yes.” Murrel reached up and ran a hand over the nearest shadow cat’s looping tail. “My father was the janitor there.”

Vashia blinked and frowned. The tone of voice Murrel used flowed naturally and without any bravado attached.

“I went to live with him when my mother died. She worked in the brothels, so it probably worked out better for me, you know? I got to play in the stacks all day, and I learned to read.”

“That’s where you learned all that stuff? About the Shrouded?”

“Yeah.” Murrel nodded and turned a smile on her, wistful, soft and totally unlike herself. “I read my whole life, Vashia, and I filled in stories where the books left off. So I always wanted to come here, to be a bride, but I never once could’ve imagined anything as wonderful as the bond for real.”

Murrel sighed and turned back to the library symbols, and Vashia couldn’t bring herself to speak at all. She would have bet anything that Murrel’s father really was a janitor, and that she really had grown up fantasizing about getting chosen as a Shrouded Bride. And if Murrel was now telling the truth, Vashia could almost believe her bonding had turned out the way it was meant too, that for Murrel, the Heart had actually done its job.

She could almost believe. The doubt whispered back to her. Murrel had painted the Shrouded in such a heroic light. Of course she hadn’t been disappointed. She’d been able to swallow the fairy tale hook line and sinker. It didn’t change the fact that Vashia was completely screwed.

S
yradan watched
the message scroll across the comm and fought to keep his hands from shaking. He was on his way to the throne room and only dropped in as a precaution. He might have missed the woman’s message completely. Worse, someone else might have wandered in and checked the screens.

He read the words again before sending his own message, not to the sender, but to the man now controlling everything on Moon Base 14. He punched the keys quickly and kept one eye on the door, one ear cocked for any sound of a visitor. Jarn should have had things fully in hand by now, but somehow, Madame Nerala had slipped his attention. Somehow, he’d left the woman in possession of a transmitter.

The bastard had damn sure better find it before she tried her distress signal again, before someone read it who might actually find it distressing. He watched his warning send and then toggled to Nerala’s call for help. The switch flipped under his touch, and her words shifted frequencies, blaring their message out into the empty atmosphere now, where they couldn’t do his plan any harm.

“
S
o tell me the truth
.” Tarren hung back with her as they crossed the hover pad. Lucha walked with Murrel ahead, leaning close and continuing their discussion of the tapestries the queen would order for her new, more modest, home.

Vashia happily let them chat. She’d enjoyed seeing Tarren more than she would have guessed, and a knot lodged in her chest the minute Lucha announced that the time for their departure had arrived.

“Is it like they say?” Tarren whispered. “Or is Murrel as full of shit as ever?”

Vashia stopped walking and looked at her. She let herself imagine, just for a moment, the two of them in a little, Shrouded house, selling at the market or opening a shop. It looked like the fairy tale now—that missed opportunity. Why rob Tarren of it just because she’d been snatched away by fate.

“Well,” she sighed and tilted her head from side to side. “Let’s just say, I wish I’d stopped bathing when you did.”

“I knew it.”

“Yeah, you did.” A weight lifted and something in Vashia’s chest relaxed, letting the tension, the effort of withholding the lie, wash away for a moment. “You called it.”

“He’s not hurting you?” Tarren’s voice turned hard. She had no doubt the woman would take on the king bare handed if the answer was yes.

“No.”

“Good.”

“Come to the coronation,” Vashia said. “I’d like to see someone there that isn’t buying all the B.S.”

“Count on it.” Tarren’s face fell and she darted a menacing look toward the waiting transports. “We start the stupid touring again tomorrow, but I imagine if the queen asks for me, I can get away for a visit.”

“Then the queen shall ask.” Vashia stood tall and stiff and waggled her brows at her friend. Tarren dipped into a mocking bow, and all was right with the world—even if just for a second.

Lucha’s voice killed Vashia’s mood. She called from their shuttle and Vashia barely had time to roll her eyes at Tarren before scrambling away. She waved goodbye from the door and then tucked in and took a seat while the pilot closed the hatch. She fussed with her straps and avoided looking directly at Lucha. Part of her wanted to keep that feeling, the free, honest moment with Tarren as long as possible.

“Your Highness,” the pilot addressed Lucha from the cockpit. “The Gauss is a little squirrelly tonight. I’m going to use both probes.”

“Of course.”

The ship bobbled as the cushion flared beneath it. They listed to one side, then the other, and shot forward with little warning. Vashia peered past the cockpit to the strip of the front screen in her line of sight. They headed directly for the Shroud instead of back down the canyon.

“Peryl has already returned to the Palace.” Lucha answered her unspoken question. “Tondil came to fetch him after lunch. Apparently.”

“Oh.” What else could she say? Lucha’s tone left little question as to her opinion on the matter. She didn’t care to fight with the queen directly. Her close-minded ideas about her son just happened to set Vashia’s teeth grinding. “We’ll go straight back then?”

“Yes.” Lucha’s answer hovered in the air.

Vashia guessed she wanted to say more, but instead, a long silence stretched between them. The vehicle rose over the canyon lip, was swallowed by the Shroud before the woman spoke again. In the meantime, Vashia kept her eyes on the distant red blipping of the probes.

“Is Tondil my son’s lover?” The question invaded the cabin, too bold to be voiced out loud.

Vashia looked to the queen. She had no choice, the personal nature demanded it. Lucha’s eyes held hers. They blinked twice, wide and full of parental concern. Lucha’s eyes moved Vashia into answering though she detested the invasion.

“I don’t believe so,” she said. “I thought it, at first, but I’m convinced Tondil prefers women.”

Lucha’s shoulders dropped. She sagged forward and shook her head. “Peryl is in love with him.”

“I couldn’t begin to speak for your son. I don’t know him well enough, but if I had to guess, I would say no. Peryl’s affection for Tondil may have been more once, but now, I think, they are only the best of friends.”

“You think poorly of me.” Lucha waved a hand in the air, even though Vashia hadn’t been about to deny it. “I know. You think I judge him too critically, but it’s not true.”

Vashia remained silent. The queen didn’t answer to her, especially not in relation to the woman’s own child. She thought Lucha’s attitude stunk, but it was hardly her place to confirm that.

“I love my son,” Lucha continued. “I am not so backwards as you might think. I come from a very progressive world and background.” Her tone hinted at things even more personal. No wonder Lucha loved her Shrouded life so deeply. “But Peryl’s life here, his future, depends on a good bonding. Don’t you see that? He should have been the king.”

She stopped suddenly, and her eyes went wide. Her own statement scared her, the idea that the Heart had picked the wrong man, that she’d said it out loud. Vashia could see the self loathing cross the woman’s face. She was ashamed.

“Go on,” she said. “Peryl should have been king. Why not? Why didn’t the Heart choose a bride for him?”

“I didn’t mean to mock the Heart, or your place.” Lucha folded inward. If she could have shriveled into a ball, Vashia guessed she would have. The whole crazy Heart thing possessed them all.

“I’m not offended.” In Vashia’s opinion, Peryl was the only one who had a right to be offended. He’d never want a female bride and his people only brought the one variety. Had none of them the sense to see the flaw in their equation?

“But, of course, Peryl wouldn’t have been chosen. I know that. No bride would fill his soul the way the bonded must.”

“Then why not be happy for him? Why not let him find someone who will?”

“Because a mother wants her son to have the best. Because I want my son to feel the perfection that I share with his father. Is it wrong to hope for that?”

“Only if it makes him miserable, I suppose. Peryl seems fairly happy with himself.”

“How could the Heart possibly make him miserable?”

They stared off. The cabin rocked and danced as the Gauss shifted and fluctuated below them. The pilot kept his eyes on the gauges, though Vashia assumed he’d heard at least a portion of the conversation. That irritated her as much as Lucha’s attitude. Peryl’s choice in partners was his own private business, not something to be discussed like this, like some quirk that might be remedied by the great and mighty Shrouded crystal.

Vashia sat there and fumed for the rest of the trip. Occasionally the vehicle would bounce or list to the side, but she ignored the turbulence and let her thoughts boil freely. When their transport ducked down, back into the canyon and the safety of fixed roads, Lucha sighed and cleared her throat.

“I imagine you might understand someday,” she said. “You’ll have children of your own, and you’ll want them to have what you have.”

“I don’t want children.” Vashia watched Lucha’s face pale. She hadn’t meant it, certainly hadn’t meant to say it, but Lucha’s condescension grated. If she did want offspring Vashia had no intention of admitting it. And if they would have to be Haftan’s, then she hadn’t lied at all.

When they reached the royal complex, the hover car pulled gently into its home pad, settled as the cushion released it, and waited to be secured again. Vashia watched the door. She waited for Lucha to speak, to challenge her rough treatment of the most sacred thing on Shroud, but the door opened without further comment.

Vashia unsnapped her restraints and leapt from the vehicle. The winds smacked her back into the shuttle’s side, swirling and howling loud enough to drown out whatever the pilot shouted to her. She pulled her wrap up and ignored him, darting for the staircase without pause.

The Shroud frothed overhead. The force of the storm rippled her wrap and slowed her progress. She reached the hewn steps and started climbing. Leaning forward to lessen the force of the wind, she pressed each step up and kept her eyes on the stone.

She heard Lucha’s shout, heard her name wash away in the gale, but she didn’t understand why until her chest fluttered. She didn’t remember the breather, the device that rested under her shirt, until the fire bloomed in her chest. Her eyes flew up to the flags at the same instant her legs wobbled. A wave of vertigo tilted the staircase, and she fell forward into the dark.

J
arn crushed
his boots against the gravel, marching through the courtyard with two merc guards flanking him. The thick plants slapped against the mercenaries’ armor, echoing his footsteps with a wet staccato. Someone had slipped his noose and she’d almost ruined his plan without even knowing it.

He flipped open his scanner and waved it back and forth in the air. The signal warbled and then pinpointed the saboteur’s position. The bitch had an emergency transponder. She’d hidden when his mercenaries rounded up the brides. Now she relayed her distress signal from some ferret hole in the women’s quarters.

Not for much longer. He followed the machine’s screech and turned left toward the nearest glass panel. The door slid open noiselessly, and he slipped into the room, waving the guards in and pointing to the interior door. One of the mercs remained fixed beside the glass, while the other crossed the room gingerly to take a post by the other exit. Jarn stood stock still and pointed the hand-scanner this way and that.

The room only had one other door; it sat open revealing the lavatory beyond. Yet the scanner whined and flashed a rapid succession of lights that swore his spy hid somewhere in the room. He stepped closer to the table, swung the scanner around toward the couches. There. A swath of wrappings draped over the farthest lounge, and he could have sworn they’d just jerked closer to the ground.

“You might as well come out.” Jarn sniffed and considered stooping to peer under the furniture. He didn’t care for the idea of catching a face full of whatever weapon the spinster might have snatched. “I know you’re there, and the boys don’t intend to let you leave the room.”

The fabric shifted. His eyes caught the movement this time, and he stepped sharply past the first lounge and slid between the next two. “Madame,” he said. “I’m certain you’d prefer to emerge with some dignity intact?” He pointed the scanner at the last lounge. It howled and flared like a supernova. “No? Fine.”

He kicked his foot out and pushed the couch over onto its side. The silk spilled into a pool against the carpet, and the scanner continued to sing. No one hid under the mess, however, and Jarn frowned as he reached his toe out and shifted the pile away. A transponder lay under the silk, abandoned, but still sending its useless message into the void.

He bent down and snatched it from the folds of cloth. The device blinked in his hand. He smiled, pressed the off switch and started to stand back up. Pain lanced through his calf. He stumbled with it, fell forward and rolled to the side as the blade flashed from under the couch behind him. The second swipe missed, but his pant leg hung open over a deep gash, and his blood dribbled to the carpet. He stared into the face of his attacker and snarled.

She’d pressed her old body under the couch, and now she growled back at him, showing the teeth between her wrinkled lips. Jarn snatched his leg out of range and rolled into a squat. One hand pressed against the wound and the other scrambled for a purchase on the overturned lounge. He pulled up to his feet with the wounded leg bent and bleeding.

“Sir?” The merc at the glass took a step toward him.

“Back.” He shook his head and tested the injury, placing partial weight on the offended foot. “She’s armed.”

“Damn straight she is!” The woman under the couch hollered, muffled and in a voice crackled by her age.

“I suggest you come out of there,” Jarn said. “Without the weapon would be preferable.”

“I’m quite comfortable right here, thank you.”

“Fine.” He pulled his gauss pistol from the holster on his belt and tried to get an angle on the woman. The lounge pressed against his calves. He leaned back, as far out of her blade’s range as he could manage, and then lowered the hand holding his weapon to the ground. He pulled the trigger without hesitation, heard the crack and the snap as the projectile exploded inside the narrow space. “Fine.”

By the time he stood up, the blood had already pooled, spreading in a dark stain around the couch. He circled wide, just in case, and found the mercenaries staring watching him, openmouthed. Jarn straightened and raised an eyebrow. “The bitch stabbed me.” He crossed to the door and scowled over his shoulder as he left the room. “See that you clean it up before anyone finds her.”

He limped back down the courtyard path. He needed to get to a first aid kit before he drizzled blood trails all over the damned base. Still, with the saboteur out of the picture, he needn’t worry about any more unauthorized transmissions. Things were firmly back in hand. Jarn smiled and brushed a palm frond out of his way. The moon was his, and, thanks to Syradan’s warning, no one on the planet would be the wiser.

D
olfan’s heart stopped
. He leapt the stairs down and stumbled to a halt beside the body lying across the stones. The wind howled over the sound of Lucha’s screaming, over the steps of others coming down behind him. He squatted beside Vashia and sent up a prayer to the Shroud that her pulse still beat.

Lucha loomed on the stairs below, touching her hand to her nose and shouting against the gale. He caught the word “breather.” The flags in the plaza indicated high toxicity. Panic twisted in his gut as he rolled her over and found her nose bare. He didn’t think, just slid his hand under the shirt collar and tugged on the breather strap. When the device appeared, he fit the tubes to her nostrils.
Please.

Dielel squatted on the stair and leaned over his shoulder. He shouted in Dolfan’s ear. “Is she breathing?”

He placed a hand on her chest, leaned close and waited to feel the signs of life he needed to find. When her chest moved against his hand, he blinked hard against the relief and nodded slowly. “We need to get her inside.”

“I’ll help.” Dielel took Vashia’s legs and lifted.

Dolfan slid his arm under her shoulders and pulled her up into his arms. They stood together, with Vashia’s limp body supported between them, and turned to face the top of the stairs again. Haftan stood there, outlined against the Shroud with his arms crossed and a nasty grimace on his face. He moved to the side and they carried Vashia past him.

“Is she alive?” He shouted after them.

Dolfan let Dielel answer. He pushed through the wind, taking the last few stairs as fast as he could without dropping her. He pulled Dielel, stumbling, along with him. How long had she been in the storm? Lucha had only been a few steps behind. She couldn’t have been exposed more than a few minutes. He let his eyes fall on her once they reached the level plaza. Her eyes remained shut and her signs of life far too subtle to be noticeable while on the move.

Mofitan met them at the flags. He slid in without comment and took Dielel’s place. They reached the Palace stair trailing a line of royalty—Lucha, Dielel, and Haftan bringing up the rear. Mof most closely matched his stride, and they reached the foyer in a few seconds. Tondil, Peryl and Pelinol appeared, summoned from the throne room by Lucha’s shouts and the stamping of booted feet against the tiles.

“Bring her in here.” Pelinol waved them into the throne room. “I’ll send for the doctor.”

“Fetch Syradan as well.” Haftan stepped forward and found his voice. “In case.”

“Oh, don’t.” Lucha’s voice rasped without the strength of a full breath behind it. “Don’t even think it.”

“What happened?” Tondil asked the queen, or maybe he asked Dolfan. He’d lost sense of who was speaking or what was being said. He followed Pelinol into the throne room, and they eased Vashia onto the nearest couch.

“My queen forgot to wear her breather.” All eyes shifted to Haftan, but his face adapted—became grave and creased with concern—a little too late. “Thank god we found her right away.”

“She’s barely breathing,” Tondil answered Haftan with a trembling voice. “Where’s the medic?”

Dolfan let them natter on, glancing up only when the doctor on duty slid in and nudged him aside. He relented, but kept close enough to see the flutter behind Vashia’s lids as the medic fit his filter over her face and secured it. He watched the man’s fingers tap the controls, watched the lights dance on the device, and waited for Haftan’s bride to take a normal breath.

“I need a gurney in the main foyer.” The doctor spoke into his wrist comm. “I should be able to stabilize her. How long was she exposed?” He looked to each of them in turn.

“I don’t think it was more than a minute,” Lucha said. Tears ringed her eyes. “She was only a few steps ahead of me, but she bolted so quickly and the wind was so loud. I tried to call.” She curled into Pelinol’s offered arm and leaned against his chest. “I tried to.”

“No one blames you.” Haftan said. “She didn’t check the flags.”

“She’s new,” Tondil said. “Probably forgot.”

They fell quiet. The machine over Vashia’s face beeped softly, and the lights flickered. Dolfan had no idea what they meant. The face underneath looked too pallid and still for comfort. The seconds ticked by, marked by the bleeps and the dance of indicator bulbs, but Vashia’s chest lifted, but just barely, and fell so slowly he had trouble catching the movement.

“Once she’s stable,” the doctor continued, “we can assess her toxin levels. I don’t want to move her until then.”

Dolfan watched the man watch Vashia. He kept his hair shorn, as most of the staff did, and he wore the long, blue coat of his profession. The medical field had always seemed as esoteric as the Seer’s world to him. If it didn’t have to do with variance or Gauss levels, his interest waned quickly. Now he wished he had a better idea of whether the yellow or blue lights were best for the patient and whether the beeps should be getting slower or quicker as her status changed.

Finally, though he noted absolutely no difference in the lights or sounds, the doctor stood up. He turned to Pelinol and nodded. “I need to move her now.”

Dolfan didn’t remember the gurney arriving, but it hovered just inside the throne room doors, accompanied by two blue-coated attendants. They moved in and shifted Vashia to the sled. The doctor added arm sensors and a chest pad and waved one of the men away.

“Get me a chemical readout on that storm, and bring a sample up too.” He continued to fire off orders, tighten straps, and flick switches as the sled started to move. Dolfan followed with Tondil close behind, but at the doors, the doctor stopped them. “I think, only Haftan, for now,” he said. “Best not to have a crowd until I’m certain the queen is stabilized.”

Dolfan stared at him. The gurney slid out through the doors and the doctor went with it. Haftan shuffled by as well, following his bride.
His bride.

A chemical scan of the storm would help. They could detect how much of the Shroud’s toxins had swirled down to contaminate their little pocket, which gasses composed the storm and in what proportions. The doctor would know what poisons burned in Vashia’s lungs. He’d know how to handle the ones that could be neutralized.

The ones that couldn’t…those were what worried Dolfan the most. Tondil joined him in the doorway, and they watched the gurney vanish into the hall at their left. Outside, the Shroud frothed and sent deadly tendrils down to pierce their artificial atmosphere. It spun in a scarlet swath and set the warning flags snapping.

The palace doctors knew what they were doing. She’d only been exposed for moments. No way would they let the next Queen of Shroud die. No way would Haftan allow them to.

Dolfan turned over his shoulder and eyed the Heart. It sat under its dome, silent and dark. He had to resist the urge to walk over and kick the damned thing.