The Destiny (Blood and Destiny Book 4) (20 page)

The next morning, Larissa awoke to an
empty bed. She dressed quickly and discovered the bath had been used at some
point; a layer of water glistened on the white porcelain, and a few strands of
beard hair remained caught around the plughole. She cursed at the missed
opportunity to watch Holt bathing. The case containing the weapons was missing
from beneath the bed. She raced down the stairs, taking two steps at a time,
not really wanting to believe Holt had left her to continue the mission alone
but frightened to find that was the case.

In the tavern, the
group sat around the same table as they had the night before. She breathed a
sigh of relief as she saw the back of Holt’s head and forced herself to at
least appear calm and serene. They all smiled as she joined them, slices of
cold toast sitting in a pile on a plate in the middle.

“Where is our
suitcase?” she asked Holt. The barman served her a cup of hot coffee, and she
asked for fresh toast if only to get him out of the room for a few minutes.

“The weapons have been
distributed,” Holt said, gesturing to the others.

“And mine?”

He smirked and slipped
a dagger across the table. She tucked it into a belt, hiding the blade in a
fold in her skirt.

“Is that all?”

Holt proceeded to hand
more items over one by one. Two pistols, two more daggers and a set of throwing
knives.

“No sign of Kerrigan?”
she asked, though she already knew the answer. By virtue of the fact that Holt
had handed out the weapons, he was subtly suggesting they set out right away.
Or perhaps the suggestion wasn’t so subtle. Either way, she felt inclined to
agree with his sentiment.

“No. The Colonel has
not arrived.”

“Are we not waiting for
him?” Cid asked.

“No. Today is the day.
There is no sense in delaying. We’ll leave a message with the barman, but I
think our time is up. No more waiting, no more hoping for a miracle to resolve
our worries for us. This is what we are here to do.”

“What’s the plan when
we enter the palace?” Cid asked.

“Um, go kill the
President?”

The table fell silent.
Sandy concealed a smile behind her cup of coffee. Clearly, they had been
expecting something more detailed than her rather non-specific strategy.

“I can get us to the
presidential offices,” Holt said. “We will need a distraction.” He looked
directly at Cid.

“Bloody hell,” Cid
said. “What if we get caught?”

“I think the idea is
that you let yourself get caught…” Larissa said as she caught the drift of
Holt’s plan.

“Eventually, after
keeping the guards busy for long enough to allow Larissa and I to get past
their security measures, it doesn’t matter if you are caught or not.”

“It might not fucking
matter to you,” Cid said.

“We’ll get you out of
whatever cell they throw you in, one way or another,” Larissa said with a
smile.

“I can’t believe I’m
about to agree to this.”

“It’ll be fine. It’ll
be fun!” Sandy chirped up. “Besides, if Larissa can’t get us out, I know my
cousin and the Colonel will do whatever they can to assist us.”

“That’s if they haven’t
been thrown into a cell of their own.”

The conversation
stilted as the barman returned with a plate of fresh toast and a dish of
butter. Larissa’s stomach grumbled.

“What if we fail?” she
asked, her voice growing quiet.

“Then we die,” Holt
said.

Silence surrounded
them. The threat of death had been hanging over their heads for some time.
There was no denying the sense that this was a final step in their journey, but
to hear the danger stated out loud and so plainly made the bubbles of
excitement in Larissa’s stomach turn to churning threats of vomit. The fresh
toast and butter seemed far less appealing now. She glanced at the faces of
everyone at the table, pensive frowns etched on their brows.

“Listen,” Larissa said,
pausing to take a deep breath. “Our plan is dangerous, illegal, arguably
immoral, and quite likely to get us killed. I can’t ask any of you to come with
us. If you want to stop now and disappear back to your lives, no one will wish
you ill. In fact, I think it might be best if Holt and I go on alone from
here.”

“No,” Cid barked. “I’m
not leaving you now.”

“The gods will decide
my ultimate fate,” Narry said, “but this path has been clear to me since I
found you people in Meridina. I will continue to do what I can.”

Sandy lifted her coffee
cup as a sign of agreement, a curious smile on her face.

“That settles it,
then.”

“You folks staying another
night? I’ll need payment up front again, I’m afraid,” the barman asked.

“No. Thank you. I don’t
think we’ll be back tonight,” Larissa said as the others made their way towards
the door.

“Going home after
you’ve voted, are you?”

“Something like that.
Will you be able to deliver a message to our friends if they show up?”

“Sure. What sort of
friends and what sort of message?”

Larissa thought for a
moment. Her mind raced with cryptic thoughts and hidden meanings. Did she want
Kerrigan to attempt to follow? Would he even do so if asked? She still wasn’t
sure of his loyalty. It might be all too tempting for him to slip right back
into his old role if offered the opportunity for full reinstatement.

“A Colonel and a
Lieutenant,” she said. “Tell them we couldn’t wait.”

With that, the group
headed out toward the citadel.

. . .

The promised briefing
with General Gott never came. After cleaning up and finding new uniforms,
Kerrigan and Saunders discovered the General had left the fort, leaving
Kerrigan in charge of the remaining soldiers by proxy as the highest-ranking
officer left behind.

The two men had spent
most of the night questioning soldiers regarding the General and his visitor to
no avail. It seemed the secretive nature of the chain of command held true, and
their efforts were entirely wasted.

Kerrigan stood in his
commanding officer’s office, staring out the window into the courtyard, feeling
utterly dejected and abandoned. A knock at the door barely snapped him out of
his depressed musings.

“Come.”

Saunders entered,
saluted, then pushed the door closed. “Sir, I’ve spoken with the last of the
men. I haven’t learned anything we didn’t already know.”

“Damnit.”

“Do we attempt to go
back to Miss Markus and the others?” Saunders asked.

“Gott left me in charge.
I can’t abandon the fort now. If something were to happen…”

“What? What do you
think will happen? The Eptorans aren’t going to attack, not when their Empress
believes Larissa is over here trying to put a stop to the war. Even if they did
launch an attack, they’d have to get through the coastal defenses. It would be
a long time before they made it this far inland, and then—quite frankly, sir,
if they got that far, we’d be screwed anyway.” Saunders slumped down into one
of the high-backed chairs.

Kerrigan remained by
the window, staring out at the dull grey walls of the fort. “I’m not expecting
an attack by the Eptorans,” he said.

“The pirates? Covelle’s
pirates?”

“Yes. I believe they
mean to take the city, and with it, secure control of the country. We cannot
let that happen.”

“Agreed. So what do you
intend to do?”

“Without knowing
exactly what their plan is, there isn’t much action I can take. I do know they
have airships… I’m sorry, Lieutenant, I know you want to see your cousin is
safe, but I’m afraid I need you with me here. Larissa and the others are on
their own for now.”

“Understood, sir.”

The morning air held an unpleasant
dampness. The cloying atmosphere tasted of smoke and oil. Larissa took a deep
breath, tightness in her lungs making the job of breathing difficult. The
streets were already bustling with people going about their business. Men in
smart suits pushed past grubby workmen on the streets and women in fine dresses
heading to the shopping district. Some of them carried their voting cards in
hand, heading towards the polling stations. None of them paid Larissa and her
strange collective any attention. Who would have guessed their plans, their
intentions? It all seemed too surreal, like a bizarre dream that made little sense.

She glanced up at the
cloudy grey sky, expecting to see the balloonless airship pop into her vision
above, but the skies were clear—save for the smog. She considered that perhaps
Covelle had already beaten them there and completed the mission for them. Were
they heading out to murder the President, or her father? She wasn’t sure which
was more terrifying.

The citadel had yet
more soldiers stationed at the entrance, and only a couple of elite people
passed by the guards, being allowed access to go and say their prayers upon the
presentation of some form of card. An identity card, Larissa presumed.

“Shall I go in first?”
Cid asked.

“No, we’ll all go in
together.”

Larissa turned to Holt,
who held up a syringe filled with silvery liquid “You melted it already?”

“Yes, while we were
waiting for you to come down to breakfast.”

“I hadn’t decided we
were going to go straight away at that point. Are you telling me you would have
gone without me?”

“No. I’m telling you I
knew what you would want to do, and I made sure to be ready to enact your
orders.”

Larissa scrunched her
nose up at him, not entirely convinced at his reasoning. “That’s a lot of
presumptions, Mister Holt. Here I was thinking I’m in charge, and there you go
pre-emptively guessing my plans.

“I was using my
initiative,” he said as he rolled up his sleeve, revealing the bulging muscle
beneath, though there was no tone of teasing in his voice. He glanced directly
at Larissa, the needle hovering above a thick blue vein in his forearm, one
eyebrow raised, awaiting her final instruction.

Larissa pulled the
stone from her pocket and rubbed her thumb across the smooth surface. A slight
tingle trickled across her hand to her wrist. “How long did you say this will
last?” she asked Sandy.

“I didn’t. A few minutes,
perhaps. I never got a chance to test it.”

“Oh.”

“Now or never,” Holt
said.

“All right, let’s go.”

Holt nodded and slowly
pushed the sharp silver tip of the needle into his skin. He pressed on the
syringe, plunging the last of the silvery liquid directly into his vein.

As he pulled the needle
out, and pressed his thumb to the bloody hole, Larissa held her breath.

“If we are separated,
where is the entrance to the palace?” Holt asked.

“There is a long
staircase leading to the lowest level. Follow it down until you find the boiler
room. There is a single brazier burning at the end of the corridor, and that
wall is an illusion. You can walk straight through,” Cid said.

“Sounds simple enough,”
Holt said. A shimmer ran over his body, a slight smile played on his lips,
though he hid a grimace of discomfort in his eyes, then he disappeared.

Larissa wrapped her
fingers around the stone, pressing it deep into her palm. An unnatural heat
emerged from the rock, and a slight green shimmer covered her wrist.

“Gods,” Cid said.

She had intended to ask
whether or not anyone could see her, but from his reaction, the question seemed
pointless. “Let’s go,” she said. “We can’t waste any time.”

Cid set off down the
street, Narry and Sandy walking on either side of him, their pace determined
compared to the lazy calmness of the pedestrians sharing their path. Larissa
followed behind, not quite believing she was no longer visible despite how many
times she’d seen illusions in action. She could only assume Holt was by her
side, as she didn’t dare speak.

“Oh, you’re back,” one
of the soldiers barked at Cid the moment he caught sight of him.

“Seems that way. I hear
the boiler is still playing up.”

“The damned thing is
spewing smoke into the entire lower level. They had to evacuate everyone and
shut half the citadel down. The damned priests have been complaining about it
all night… Apologies, Father,” the soldier said to Narry.

“No bother, I’ll fix it,”
Cid said.

“Make sure you do. If I
have to see your face again, I’ll be making a complaint to your employer.”

Cid gave a half-hearted
salute, then headed inside. Larissa side-stepped around the soldier, her pulse
thumping, but he simply looked straight through her.

“Hold on,” the soldier
called as the group was about to head down the staircase.

Cid turned; Larissa
could tell from the look on his face that he was fighting off an outright panic
attack. Perhaps if anyone could see
her
face, she would look the same.

“What?” Cid said.

“Who is your employer?”

Larissa bit down on her
lip. Something brushed her upper arm—a hand. The sense of fingers looping
around her arm felt strange considering she couldn’t see anyone doing it. With
a slight tug, Holt pulled her to Cid’s side, edging her away from him towards
the staircase leading down. The sensible part of her brain knew what Holt was
doing; there was no sense in hanging around to watch if Cid could come up with
a reasonable response to the question and thus dig himself out of potential
disaster. But the emotional part of her brain wanted to stay, to help, to do
something other than leave Cid to his fate.

“Why do you ask?” Cid
said as she was torn away, taking the first few steps reluctantly.

“It’s a simple question,”
she heard the soldier say.

A slight whimper
escaped from her lips. If they couldn’t even manage to enter the citadel, what
hope did they have of getting anywhere near the President?

Narry and Sandy
remained with Cid, although they weren’t under interrogation. But she supposed
if Cid were going to get in trouble, they would too as the people responsible
for bringing him in. Still, Holt pulled her further away until she could no
longer hear the conversation clearly.

“What are we going to
do?” she whispered.

“Continue.”

She did as instructed,
all notion of her position as leader of the operation flying from her mind. The
air became thick with smoke as they descended further. She covered her mouth
with her hand, trying not to choke in case some nearby priest heard the noise
and wondered why there was no physical body to match the coughing. When they
reached the bottom step, Holt jerked her arm downwards, and they navigated the
corridor, half-crawling to escape the billowing smoke from the boiler room.

When they reached the
wall at the opposite end, Larissa worried they’d taken a wrong turn. Holt
ploughed onwards, dragging her straight through the wall.

No smoke hung in the
air on the other side, the illusion acting as a barrier. She wasn’t entirely
sure how that worked, but they hardly had the time to go looking for someone
who could explain it to them. She glanced behind, hoping beyond reason that the
others had managed to slip past the soldiers and were hot on their heels. The
grip on her arm refused to loosen, and she stumbled as Holt dragged her
directly toward the door at the opposite end.

“I hope you’re good at
picking locks, Holt,” she said.

“No need.”

His pace increased, and
she was compelled to go with him, assuming perhaps the door was just as much of
an illusion as the wall they’d just walked through.

A pair of arms wrapped
around her upper body, and the heat of Holt’s chest enveloped her back. As they
approached the door, she reached out instinctively toward it, her hand finding
solid wood.

“Holt, this isn’t an
illusion.”

“I know. This might
feel…strange.”

Before she had a chance
to ask for an explanation, he lurched forwards, his arms gripping her tight.
She flinched, expecting her face to mash into the wood. Instead, the structure
of the door seemed to dissolve into a pliable sensation, like walking through
water. She stepped forward
through
the door, emerging in the corridor on
the other side.

“You’re right. That did
feel strange.”

Larissa turned and put
her back to the nearest wall. Her body felt funny, as though it didn’t really
belong to her. Ribbons of nervous energy tingled up and down her spine. She
couldn’t see Holt, but there was no doubt he was there with her.

“The stone is no longer
in effect,” Holt said. His voice was close on her right side; he spoke quietly
as if whispering in her ear. It was the oddest sensation to know he was there.
She opened her palm, the invisibility stone no longer emitting heat. A slight
twinge of annoyance struck her. The Cleric’s stone had lasted far longer in
comparison.

They had emerged into a
small alcove leading directly to a narrow spiral staircase enclosed in old
stone blocks. Larissa blinked in the dim light emitted from further above,
giving her eyes a moment to adjust.

“Do you know your way
around the palace?” she whispered.

“The upper rooms, yes.
I never spent much time in the lower areas. They were off-bounds to all but the
highest-ranking officers and most trusted men, and I wasn’t in the elite guard
long enough to be trusted that much.”

“They trusted you
enough to protect the President but not enough to roam the palace freely?”

“There are different
levels of trust within such an organisation. I didn’t last long after my
brother’s death. Come.”

Although she couldn’t
see him to follow, she climbed the stairs, presuming he had taken the lead. The
spiral steps were barely wide enough to fit one person—an uncomfortably tight
space and certainly no place within which one would want to fight. Her hand
instinctively found the handle of one of the daggers hidden in her skirts.
There was no sense keeping weapons hidden any longer. If they were seen now,
the intent was clear enough; they were trespassing with intent to assassinate.
If the list of charges against her name weren’t already enough to condemn her
to death, that final indictment would seal her fate for sure.

The stairway came to an
abrupt end with yet another closed door. She opened her mouth to speak, not
really wanting to be shoved through another solid object. Her stomach still felt
unsettled from the last experience. Something clamped down around her mouth—his
hand? Whatever it was did the trick; a nervous flutter in her stomach awoke at
his touch. She closed her lips tightly and nodded a show of understanding at
thin air.

Time passed slowly. She
stared at the door, listening carefully for any signs of someone standing on the
other side, or perhaps people walking down a corridor. A brass keyhole beneath
the handle afforded no view to the other side. Her shoulders itched with
impatience when nothing of note happened. Her mouth popped open as she
considered speaking, and then she faltered and simply chewed on her lip.

The door opened
slightly inwards, the wood far thicker than it had seemed when closed, and a
layer of steel covered the other side of the door. She tightened her grip on
the dagger and shifted her feet, ready to attack—or defend—if need be. Holt
came into view through the gap in the door. He beckoned her to follow with a
single wave of a finger. She blew out a shaky breath and tiptoed up the last
few steps, squeezing through the gap in the door, and Holt pulled it shut
behind them.

They emerged into an
enormous room, at least one hundred feet wide and more than double in length. Larissa
was torn between marvelling at the impossibly large expanse and trying to not
to trip over the body laying prone on the other side of the door. It took her a
moment to notice the dark burn marks across the man’s neck.

“A guard?” she
whispered to Holt. He nodded once in response and crouched down to scan their
surroundings.

“Is he dead?”

“He is.”

“Did you kill him?”

“I did not.”

“Then who did?”

“Unknown.”

Larissa switched her
gaze to the rest of the room, wondering if they faced a single assassin or a
whole group of people who had broken in before them. They stood on a metal
walkway halfway between the floor and ceiling of the room. The mesh walkway
stretched all the way around, with steps at regular intervals leading to lower
and upper levels. The middle of the room was utterly empty save for a strange
square block in the center. Long lines of gas lamps hung from the ceiling,
lighting the area, strange shadows marked along the wooden floor—shadows which
seemed to have no cause.