She admired their spirit, but for the moment she was entirely focused on the Armati wielded by the boy.
“Everyone hold!” Mira snarled, hands out as she strode forward.
She locked eyes with the boy. “If you even slip with that, and hurt my man, it will be the last thing you … or your sister … ever does.”
He looked between her and the now motionless guard, the Armati glowing just slightly in his hands. Part of Mira’s mind wondered at that, recognizing the glow signified a particularly strong link to the ancient weapon. Stronger than she had with her own Elan, in fact.
Who is he? Who are they?
“Lights,” she ordered, waving.
Two men stepped forward, holding up bright spotlights that they leveled on the teens. Mira squinted, her eyes still accustomed to the shadow of the Great Island, trying to determine just whom she was dealing with. They looked familiar, but …
“Burning skies,” she whispered. “Turn the lights off. Now!”
The lights snapped off as Mira stood there in the temporary dark, considering the two she now knew to be the Scourwind twins.
“Secure arms,” she ordered, then set her gaze on the boy. “That goes for you as well. You’ve no need of killing my man, and I’ve no need of hurting you or your sister. We didn’t come here for you.”
She saw him take a shuddering breath and slowly slide the Armati back and away from her man’s throat, retracting it back to its nondescript pommel.
“Everyone back on task,” she ordered. “Go on, Kennick, I’ll speak with them alone.”
“My lady …”
“Go. I’ll be along shortly to show you where the cache is,” she said. “See if there’s anything else worth taking.”
He nodded unhappily but followed orders. Mira nodded to the guards. “You too. Go on.”
They hesitated, perhaps to their credit, and didn’t move. Unfortunately, Mira didn’t have patience for them at the moment. “Unless you think that four teenagers are a serious threat to me?”
There really was no good way to answer that, and finally they reluctantly broke rank and left her alone with the four teens. Mira looked them over slowly, then handed the blaster back to the girl she now recognized as Lydia Scourwind.
“You’ll probably need that,” she said gruffly, not sure if she should be offering them allegiance, or if she even wanted to.
They may be the heirs of the empire, but the twins were notoriously spoiled and generally acknowledged to be full of mischief. She gave them some credit for not flinching much, and for raiding an Imperial depot for food and water to give to refugees, but the Scourwind empire had fallen. They were just a pair of children in over their own heads, even if part of her longed to see them prove her wrong.
“Thank you,” Lydia said softly, accepting the weapon and sliding it out of sight.
Mira looked over at Brennan Scourwind, her eyes falling to the collapsed form of the Armati in his hand. “Your brother’s, I assume?”
He nodded jerkily, clearly unhappy with the memory she’d evoked. Mira wasn’t surprised. The only way his brother would have given up his Armati would be if he expected to be dead shortly thereafter.
“My condolences,” she offered.
It wasn’t much, but it was what she had to give.
“Who are you?” Lydia asked.
“Mira Delsol, formerly of his Imperial Majesty’s Cadre,” she answered. “I’ll see you two out of here safely, if you like.”
Lydia’s eyes skipped up, looking to the sky. “Your ship could carry far more food.”
Mira almost laughed out loud. Oh, this one has nerve.
“I’m not a delivery service, nor am I Cadre any longer.”
“People are starving,” Lydia countered, “and it wouldn’t take you far from your path. The camp is only a few miles from here.”
Mira considered that for a long moment, shaking her head.
I amgoing to regret this; I just know it. Mira knew that feeling all too well, but she’d never quite mastered how to resist the urge to walk right into the trap she saw springing.
“Come on, then. I’m not letting either of you two out of my sight,” she scowled. “I’ve heard about the trouble you can get up to. Never believed it ’til now, but I’ve heard stories.”
The twins just shrugged, unrepentant, while their companions exchanged confused looks.
“They don’t know?” Mira nodded over the twins’ shoulders, entirely unsurprised by the shake of their heads. “Probably for the best. You all may as well come with me. We’ve work to do before the empire figures out that this place is being raided”—she laughed dryly—“again.”
Corian looked over the central table display of the Imperial war room, noting the disposition of available forces carefully. While the issues with the rapidly dwindling “loyalists” were still pressing, he was more concerned with the far reaches of the empire at the moment.
The Scourwind legacy had left the empire as the undisputed top power in the known world, but it wasn’t the only power, despite many attempts to remedy just that, and the unknown world was calculated to be much, much larger than the empire by many times over.
That meant that he had to be careful with his available forces, particularly those on the downspin of the Great Islands, where the empire had an open border with several smaller kingdoms that occasionally erupted in disputes. Mopping up any one of them would be easy enough, but they banded together quickly whenever the empire showed an aggressive stance, so Scourwind had been happy to set up a large buffer area between the empire and them and leave them to their own devices.
It had been a surprisingly effective strategy, Corian noted. He’d have been impressed if he really believed that the old man had planned it that way. In the absence of an Imperial foe, the kingdoms had largely turned to squabbling among each other and kept their strength solidly in check. None of them at this point, even all together, were a threat to the empire.
However, what lay beyond them on the downspin was largely a mystery.
On the upside, the empire was secure. The immense God Wall that composed the final border of the empire went for thousands of miles in either direction and climbed up beyond the atmosphere itself. Nothing could breach it. Generations of Imperial explorers had tried, and so it was as secure as could be imagined.
To the north the empire was bordered by the Great Desert, a wasteland so large that despite traveling for months with some of the best equipment available, no explorers had found the other side … or returned if they had. The only reason anyone had constructed a track into that forsaken place was due to the valuable Redoubt discovered there.
Three navigation points, all secure.
Corian had spent thirteen cycles in deep cover infiltrating the south, and he knew that beyond those squabbling idiots there was a foe that even the empire needed to respect. Edvard hadn’t listened, no matter what evidence Corian had brought back. He’d been satisfied with posting pickets and tripwires and leaving the kingdoms as a buffer.
Edvard, you blasted fool. What you’ve forced me to do in the name of the empire …
Corian pushed away the momentary regret. He had set his course and he would now sail it, whether to the salvation of the empire … or to its ruin.