“The captain saved us. She didn’t have to,” Lydia reminded her brother.
“We didn’t need her. We could have gotten away clean without engaging a destroyer squadron.”
“Not if we wanted to help the refugees.”
Brennan sighed. Maybe she had a point. He didn’t know.
“Look, I’m not going to insult her or anything,” he said finally. “I loved Kayle. He was my brother. I just didn’t like what he did with his life. For all that, I want to understand him. I won’t put on that uniform, but he gave me this … Bene. I’ll listen to what she has to say.”
“It’s time.”
Kennissey looked up, surprised to see his old friend standing there, but only slightly.
“You’ve found them?” he asked, leaning forward eagerly.
“I know where they are, one of them at least,” William Everett said. “Start the gathering. I’ll track them down now that I have a lead.”
Kennissey frowned. “Are you certain? It’ll expose some of our operations. If you’re wrong …”
“Mira Delsol has them,” William said. “She’s Cadre. They’ll be easy to find now that I know what I’m looking for.”
“How do you know?”
“She flew the Scourwind colors beside her own preferred banner.” William smirked, considering how iconic the black banner with the crossed Armati and blaster had become, since the battle had been witnessed by thousands.
It was a black mark on Corian and his new administration. Copies of the flag were already appearing across the empire, fired by the victory over Imperial destroyers as much as by Mira’s relief supply delivery.
Dropping the supplies in the midst of a battle at the wrong side of two to one odds was a nice touch, William admitted to himself.
Crediting the act to the twins (or one of them, at least in his mind) had gone a long way to destroying the fragile illusion that Corian was still answering to the Scourwind legacy. People wanted to see the emperor, and the pressure was mounting. In one move, Delsol had accomplished more than he and the loyalists had in months. If William weren’t so impressed, frankly, he’d be beyond pissed and frustrated.
He still rather wished that she would check in with someone in the loyalist network and start damned well coordinating with the others. She was making all kinds of waves on her own, but if his allies had a little warning, they could turn those waves into an alluvion flood that would swamp everything in their path.
Particularly as she held the final key he needed to launch the counteroffensive.
“Delsol is a Cadrewoman of some reputation,” he added after a moment. “She wouldn’t fly the Scourwind colors lightly. She has one of them, at least, if not both.”
“Then you’re right; we need to find her,” Kennissey said, “and before Corian does. He’s put a significant reward on her head, if you hadn’t heard.”
“Last I checked it was ten thousand dinars.”
“You’re out of date.” Kennissey smirked. “He bumped it to a hundred thousand a few days ago, presumably after that stunt. Do you think he knows?”
“That she has the twins?” William considered that, wondering himself. “I think we have to assume that he does.”
“Then it’s a race.”
“One we cannot lose.”
“Sire, the unrest is growing stronger.”
Corian ignored the man. He wasn’t telling him anything that he couldn’t see for himself. The Scourwind colors had been flown in battle, against his forces. That was enough to open a wedge of doubt that he’d been struggling to close.
It’s too early for this!
He only had solid support from perhaps a third of the Senate. Another third was still cleanly in the loyalist camp, and their names were on his lists … oh yes. The rest were unknowns. Either they were far enough from the center of the empire that he had little intelligence on them, or they were sneakier and more cunning than the rest of their peers.
And one damn woman was giving him more trouble than the combined legions of the empire, the rest of the Cadre, and the emperor himself.
The one thing that gave him some hope, however, was that she’d slipped up.
Oh, she probably didn’t see it that way.
No Cadreman would fly the Scourwind colors unless a member of the family was on board. Even he’d not been willing to bend his honor to quite that level, and he’d personally assassinated Edvard Scourwind in the very room he now occupied.
It came from the old laws, a set of guidelines not enforced in generations, because there’d been no need. You didn’t break those laws, no matter what else you might do. Not once you’d sworn your oath, at least.
No, she had a member of the family on board her ship.
By revealing that, she’d cracked the surface of his control, but she’d also exposed herself and the heir to the empire’s gaze.
Corian had legions scouring the empire for them. They could not hide. He would bring that ship down, personally if need be, and use the heirs to fully legitimize his position.
CHAPTER 18
Brennan threw himself to one side, narrowly avoiding the razor-sharp blade that swept through his previous position.
“Don’t dodge,” Mira yelled. “Block!”
“With this?” he asked incredulously, holding up the stubby item in his hand.
The Armatis all had several forms, starting with the one that he was currently holding. Unfortunately for Brennan, that first form was referred to as the sheath. In the case of Kayle’s Bene—now his, he supposed—the sheath was little more than a foot long with a slight curve that he pocketed easily in his palm.
Good for common carry, yes, but not great for blocking an attack.
Mira was entirely unsympathetic.
“You’ve linked once. Do it again or I will cut you. Badly.”
She backed her promise with a lunge that neatly sliced his shirt as he again dodged out of the way, leaving a swash of fabric floating to the ground in his stead.
“Hey!” He scowled, clutching at the ruined fabric. “Do I look like I have a huge wardrobe? We escaped the palace with just the clothes on our backs!”
“Pfff!” Mira blew him off. “You’ll wear coveralls from my crew’s supplies, and you’ll like them.”
Lydia laughed outright from the perimeter of the circle Mira had drawn out. The idea of Brennan dressed in anything as close to a uniform as those garments struck her as hilarious.
“Oh, real funny, Lyd—Hey!” Brennan barely skirted a sweep that cleaved the air where he’d been, whistling with the force of the swing. “Come on, crazy lady! I wasn’t ready!”
“In a fight, that’s code for you’re dead.”
Brennan had had about as much of that as he was willing to take. He dropped the Armati to the ground with a clatter and turned his back on Mira.
“I’m done.”
Mira’s eyes narrowed, first at the blatant lack of respect for the Armati Bene he’d been holding and second for the similar lack of respect for herself. She lunged, only stopping the blade just before taking his head off. A trickle of blood ran down Brennan’s neck where the razor-fine edge of her Elan had sliced him. He just turned to look at her evenly.
“Are you?” she asked.
Mira seethed inside, though part of her was mildly impressed that he’d not flinched.
The boy has the Scourwind steel, no doubt of that, but he’s so antiauthority it sets my teeth on edge.