The Diatous Wars 1: Rebel Wing (16 page)

“How did you
do it? How did you give that imposter my face?” Galena asked, the next time Elom came to free her from the bed.

He grunted, jerking his finger toward the washroom door.

“The electrodes, that awful hum under my skin? Was that it?” She moved her legs to the edge of the bed but didn’t stand. When he didn’t say anything, she continued, “It’s really quite clever. Why assassinate me and risk someone with similar ideals being elected when you can just transform me into an ally, with no one the wiser?”

Still no response. And what did she expect, that he’d reveal his entire devious plot?

She dropped her feet to the floor with a slap. “Clever, maybe, but stupid, too.” She slid toward Elom, as close as she could stand, and growled, “It takes more than a face and a voice to be Ward. To be
me
.”

Elom turned, finally, and smiled at her, teeth gleaming. “Of course it does. That’s why you’re not dead yet. Why we won’t kill you as long as
you’re
Ward. You’re going to tell us all your secrets. You’re going to help us make the deception work.”

Galena glared at him. “No chance.”

The corner of his mouth twitched, as if he were about to laugh. “We’ll see.”

“Who’s ‘we’? Balias?”

“
We
do not have to share
our
secrets.” With another disturbing smile, he pointed to the washroom again.

When she emerged, he waited until she sat before placing a tray on her lap. This morning, breakfast was dirty yellow custard and a glass of milk that smelled strongly of goat.

It had to be Ward Balias. Galena’s shoulders sagged. And now Fake Galena was recovering at home, Josef—who might have seen through the disguise—conveniently dispatched. Now that imposter could support Balias in his effort to destroy Atalanta. Galena had been elected only a year ago; that meant four years of wreaking havoc before the next election.

And there was nothing she could do.

She handed Elom the tray and paced her cage, her body shaking. All would think she, Galena, had betrayed her country. And the trust of Atalanta. Of Pyralis.

The world would fall to ruin at her hands.

She paused in the corner of the room, leaned forward to rest her forehead on the cold, smooth wall. But they hadn’t found her son. If they did, Elom would gloat, show the footage on his digitablet, make her watch. So they hadn’t found him. Yet.
Don’t go home
, she prayed with every fiber of her being, as if just by willing it, he would be able to hear her.
Don’t go home. Keep fighting.

Elom could threaten her all he wanted; she wouldn’t tell him anything. Someone would see Galena had changed.
Someone
would guess.

Pyralis would know.

A trail looped
around the Spiro stationpoint. It curved through the dusty, open plain and up into the scrubby woods that surrounded the grounds, and every morning the S and R unit ran it together.

In the quiet twilight after dinner, when all the other men went to check comms or play cards in the rec room, Aris found herself pounding along the dirt track. Three months ago, she never could have imagined running willingly, but now it was the only thing she could do to be alone and think. Her feet pounded, her limp finally gone. It had disappeared so gradually she’d hardly noticed.

The evening was cool and smelled of dying leaves and earth. She missed the salty scent of the ocean, the sound of the waves. As she ran, she imagined the ebb and flow of her breath was the lap of water on sand.

Phae had finally written her back. But her words provided no comfort or absolution. Instead they dogged Aris; she couldn’t outrun them.

You’re right. I don’t understand. How can you think so little of our friendship that you couldn’t be bothered to come to my wedding? Because you’re so busy and important now in Panthea? Is that it? I never thought you’d abandon me. I wish even more now that Calix hadn’t left. You’ve become a stranger without him. The old you would have been here, no matter what. Who in the world have you become, Aris?

It was colder
in the long shadows of the trees. The air burned against her cheeks as she pushed herself faster, felt sweat slide down her back in the groove between her shoulder blades. Phae’s words, her parents’ worry . . . it had all worn a spot of pain into her heart that twinged and ached like a sore muscle each time she thought of home. But what bothered her more than the pain was the size of it. It was so small, a pebble in the groundswell of anger she’d felt since she’d seen that murdered girl.

She pumped her arms harder as she flew up a rise in the path. Her life in Lux had become a pleasant dream that lingered with the scent of basilis and wine upon waking. It was nothing like the nightmares that drove her forward now.

Sweaty and trembling with exhaustion, she swept onto the hard landing pad and slowed to a walk, slipping into the building just as night fell.

“Evening,” Pallas said as he passed her in the corridor. She nodded, continuing to her room. Dysis would be wondering where she was. She’d been out later than she’d meant.

She touched her key to the wall beside the door. “Sorry Dysis, I’m . . .”

She stopped short. Her sectormate was standing in the middle of the small room, head tipped back slightly, gazing into Lieutenant Daakon’s eyes. He was very close to her, the fingers of one brown hand threaded with hers.

At the sound of her voice, they broke apart.

“Uh . . .” Aris stood there, still panting from her run, mind whirling.
What the blighting hell is going on?

Without a word Daakon pushed past her, eyes down, the lines of his round face tight. For another second, Aris and Dysis stared at each other, mouths open. Then Dysis moved to close the door, yanking Aris into the room.

“Dysis, what were you
doing
?”

“Don’t look at me like that.” Dysis flopped onto the bed. She propped her head on her bent arms and stared at the ceiling.

Aris sank onto the edge of her cot, still trying to erase the tenderness of Daakon’s expression from her mind. It wasn’t a look she’d been meant to see.

And then she realized what it meant. “You told him about us, didn’t you? How could you!” Her voice shook. They’d lose their positions, be sent to jail.
Gods, not now.

Dysis glared at her. “Of course I didn’t tell him. I’m not stupid.”

Aris relaxed slightly, confusion creeping in. “But then . . . you’re saying he thinks you’re a man?”

“He doesn’t seem to mind, does he?” Dysis’s broad cheeks were flushed red as boiled crawgigs.

“What exactly was going on? Because it looked . . . well, it looked like—”

Dysis sighed. “It was nothing. We’ve been doing extra training together, that’s all. He’s been helping me a lot. He’s actually really nice, you know?” She paused, but when Aris didn’t say anything she continued, “We just . . . started talking.”

“You were
talking
?” Aris bent to pull off her boots. Had she imagined it? No, they’d been holding hands. And Daakon’s dark eyes had been locked on Dysis’s. It had almost looked like they were about to kiss, or they just had.

“Yeah, talking.” The hard edge was back in her sectormate’s voice. “About
Jax
. Lieutenant Daakon seemed okay with me asking, so I kept pushing, hoping he’d have information for me.” She sat up, drumming her hands on her knees. “And then, I don’t know. He seemed interested.”

“You can’t
let
him be interested!” Aris stood. The panic was building again, tight in her chest. “What happens if he touches you? Or takes your clothes off? He thinks you’re a man and you’re not! Do you think he’ll just smile and say that’s okay? Not to mention he’s an officer! If he finds out, we’re
gone
.”

In a flash, Dysis was off the bed and standing nose to nose with Aris. “I know. Don’t you think I know? But he’ll tell me, now, if he hears news of Jax. He’ll—”

“So you’re using him? That’s your big plan to find Jax? Seduce the Lieutenant?” Aris gave her a little shove, forcing more space between them.

Dysis threw up her hands and turned away. “Yes, that’s my plan,” she said, but there was bitterness as well as anger in her voice.

“But that’s . . .” Aris didn’t know what to say.

“What? Terrible? Cold?” Even though Dysis’s voice was soft, it hummed with tension. “I don’t have a
choice
. Jax isn’t safe, like Calix.”

Before Aris could protest, Dysis went on. “And so what if I
did
have real feelings for Daakon? It’s like you said. Nothing can ever happen between us.”

Aris stood in the center of the room and watched Dysis pace. It was like being in a cage with a lion. She had the sense that if she moved, even a little, Dysis would snap. “I’m sorry,” she murmured, trying to calm her own pounding heart.

Dysis didn’t say anything. She moved to the doorway of the washroom and stared at herself in the mirror. Her face twisted, and then she was scrabbling at the back of her neck. There was a click, and as the veil shimmered and melted away, her face crumpled, and tears ran down her soft female cheeks. She turned away from the mirror, her head down. “Holy hell, I can’t do this.”

“Dysis . . .” Aris held her hands up, palms forward, in a placating gesture. Without warning, the taller girl threw herself into Aris’s arms.

“I can’t. I know I shouldn’t like Daakon, but I do. And every single time he looks at me, my heart breaks because he doesn’t
see
me. He’s not looking at
me
that way.” Dysis sobbed against Aris’s shoulder. “And you know what
I
see everyday? I see Jax. Every time I look in the mirror, I see him staring back at me. We always looked alike, but now, with this. . . .” She threw her diatous veil onto her pillow.

Aris led Dysis to her cot. They sat, Aris’s arm still around her sectormate’s shoulder.

Dysis sniffed. “I have nightmares,” she whispered, “Jax is in a hole in the ground, and there are worms crawling on his face, and I’m there, right beside him, and I can feel them, too, against my skin . . .”

Aris tightened her arms around Dysis, trying to banish the awful image called up by her words. “Shhh . . . shhh . . .”

“I’m here to
find
him, blight it, and then I’ll catch myself making moon eyes at Daakon and wishing I really
was
a man!” She choked back a sob. “I don’t know who I am anymore.”

“Dysis, you’re Jax’s sister. And you’re a gunner. That’s who you are.” Aris swallowed her own sob. “It’s all going to work out, remember? You’re going to find Jax, and I’m going to find Calix, and in the meantime, we’re going to keep on saving lives. Remember what we said?”

“About winning the war?” The bitterness in Dysis’s voice was an ugly thing. “Grow up.”

Aris gave her a little shake. “Stop it. What we’re doing here
matters
. You know that! We found that family in Tarik, didn’t we? Because of us, Ward Nekos has proof that Safara is killing innocent people. We’ve already made a difference.”

Dysis pulled herself slowly from Aris’s arms. Her face was red and streaked with tears. She shook her head, as if clearing it. “They would have found that family, that whole village, without us. You’re here for Calix, and I’m here for Jax. That’s all. We’ll stay until we find them, fight with them as long we can, but when they go home, we’ll give this up. Go home with them. That’s all this is.”

“Is it?”

“You know it is.”

Aris twisted her hands together. Would she really leave her unit, just walk away, if Calix returned to Lux? “I forget sometimes that we’re not real soldiers.” She glanced at Dysis. “We’re not, are we?”

Dysis heaved a deep breath and wiped at her face. With a final sigh, she straightened her shoulders and carefully replaced her veil. In a moment, she looked like the Dysis Aris knew—square jaw, steady brown eyes. “Well, we are for now.”

Pyralis sank onto
the edge of his bed with a sigh. The meeting with his advisors had run long—hours and hours too long—and he wanted nothing more than a hot shower and the oblivion of sleep. Not that he’d find oblivion.

He kneaded the perpetual sore spot at the base of his skull. These days, when he finally closed his eyes, all he found were endless parades of numbers. Numbers of soldiers dead. Numbers of villages razed. Refugees. Civilian victims. The months it would take Tech engineers to develop new, more effective weaponry. The number of times he thought about comming Galena, only to change his mind before hitting send.

She was back in Ruslana now, buddying up to Ward Balias. Letting Atalanta burn.

What he couldn’t figure out was why. What could possibly have happened to make her change her views so completely? Was it the memory loss her menders spoke of? Some other, more nefarious design? Was she being coerced? Threatened?

He kept playing their last conversation in his head, wondering if he’d missed something. Her blank politeness. Her shock when he’d touched her hand. Was it all some kind of message? Was he meant to know something from what she
didn’t
say? How she
didn’t
act?

But his spies had found nothing suspicious. And his feelings were just that. Feelings. No proof that she’d done anything but change her mind.

He dragged off his clothes and stepped into the shower, his thoughts as tangled and elusive as a basket of writhing snakes.

He’d thought he could trust her, that their past connected them. When she’d been willing to help Atalanta, he’d hoped she might even have forgiven him. But she’d made it clear her support had nothing to do with him. The sanctions and all the rest were because she believed it was the right thing to do. She wouldn’t make his dominion pay the price for his transgressions.

When he’d moved to Ruslana so many years ago, he’d just been selected for Military. He was young, Promised, and bright-eyed at the thought of learning Military strategy from some of the most influential officers of the Ruslanan Military.

He’d met Galena in a park. It had been freezing, snow was falling, the world was white and gray. She was dressed in a yellow coat, like a bolt of sunshine. When he’d said hello, that’s all it was meant to be. Just a short conversation among strangers enjoying the chilly afternoon.

It was never supposed to go as far as it did.

Pyralis let the hot water run over his face and rush in his ears. He’d thought he was doing the right thing, leaving her. He had his commitments back in Atalanta. Bett was waiting for him. He’d thought it was the noble, honorable thing . . . ripping out his own heart for his dominion. And the Promise he’d sworn to keep.

But he hadn’t thought about what his decision would do to Galena, or what would become of
her
heart. And he never guessed how his choice would haunt him, what it would cost him, even after twenty-five years.

There had been bitterness in her eyes often enough recently. Perhaps despite her noble words, she’d let the ugliness, the pain, win. It was disappointing. But who was he to pass judgment? How could he expect her forgiveness, when he’d never forgiven himself?