Relinquish: Book II of the Rising Trilogy (4 page)

I try to nod but clench my eyes shut as bile rises swiftly into my throat, tainting my mouth with its acidic taste. I stare up at the stars, amazed at how beautiful the cloudless sky is. I blink, fighting to remain conscious as I wonder what happened to all of the clouds.

“Is he gone?” I croak, coughing up blood. It bubbles from my lips, coating my tongue. I gag, trying to swallow it back down.

“I think so.” Carleon darts a cautious glance around the charred courtyard. There is little left that hasn’t been singed. “I don’t see him.”

“Eamon?”

“Kyan is taking care of him. A broken leg and a nasty bump on his head, but it could have been a lot worse.”

I dig my nails into the dirt, fighting to still the wild spinning of my head. “Then you’re going to have to do it.”

“What? Oh no, no way!” Carleon looks between me and the two-foot metal spike protruding up from my stomach. His face takes on a decidedly green tint. “I do minor healings, like headaches and ingrown toenails. You know I’m not good at big repairs.”

I close my eyes and fight to breathe around the pain. “You have to. I’m too weak to heal myself and Kyan is busy. Besides…” I lift up and a hiss of pain passes my lips as the metal slices deeper into my flesh. “You owe me.”

“How do you figure that?” I can see his pupils are dilated with fear as he leans over me, brushing hair out of my eyes.

“You didn’t run.” I blink rapidly to clear my vision. It does little to help.

“You knew I wouldn’t.”

I start to speak, but a scream bursts from my throat as the spike shifts enough to cut deeper into my flesh. The pain is overwhelming.

“Please, Carleon,” I beg as I grip my friend’s arm. “There’s no time.”

Carleon’s hand shakes visibly as he moves to grasp the metal. He winces at the heat radiating off of it but doesn’t let go.

“You can do this,” I whisper as my eyes flutter closed. I can feel the pool of blood growing around me as it seeps beneath my fingers, moistening the earth.

“I should get Kyan,” he says, almost as an afterthought.

“No need,” a new voice calls, emerging from the shadows. “I’ll help her.”

My vision is dim as I struggle to see the approaching figure. I know by his voice that he is a man. It sounds strangely familiar, but I struggle to place it.

He drops down beside me and I flinch as he takes my hand in his. Startling sapphire eyes stare down at me with such intensity that my breath catches. “Bastien?”

His eyes look the same. Even the rugged stubble that has grown upon his chin is recognizable. The minty scent that clings to his breath is deliciously familiar, but it isn’t until he smiles that I begin to trust my eyes. “Are you really here?” I whisper.

His deep, throaty laugh nearly makes the pain worth bearing… nearly.

It has been nearly a year since I last saw him in the alley down from the Shard. An eternity since he turned his back on our love and gave me up for the sake of a destiny I did not ask for, nor was able to deny. It took months for the sound of his name not to feel like a knife serrating my heart, and several more months for the numbness to come and steal away the ice he left behind. I have tried to tell myself I no longer care for him, that I have moved on. It was a lie, oh such a terrible, foolish lie.

“Yeah,” he whispers as he places a hand to the side of my wound. I flinch, but his touch is firm, demanding. “Don’t move.”

“I can’t believe you are actually here. Kyan never said—” My words cut off with a groan as Bastien presses around the edge of my wound.

“Maybe you two can reminisce after Illyria is done hemorrhaging.” Carleon grunts with disapproval.

I bury my teeth in my lower lip as Bastien lifts my side to blindly examine the exit wound.

“This is a pretty nasty deal you got yourself into,” Bastien mutters, rubbing his jaw with bloody fingers as he sinks back onto his heels. “I think the only option is to just pull it straight out.”

He turns to Carleon. “You need to find a stick, something large enough that she won’t bite through. Then I’m going to need you to hold her down.”

I offer my friend a brief nod of approval as he rushes away and watch as Bastien eyes him up. “He’s a friend,” I say, surprised to find he still cares enough to be jealous.

“A very protective friend,” he mutters.

He looks tired. I can see it in the lines drawn heavily around his eyes. A laser gun has been set down beside him, forgotten. Why didn’t I know he would be helping with this attack? “He’s just worried about me.”

Bastien’s gaze hardens as he turns to look back down at me. “Does he do that often?”

I look away, afraid if I meet his gaze I will betray myself. “I can take care of myself.”

Bastien’s chuckle sends ripples of warmth along my body, stealing away the creeping cold that has gripped the lower half of my body. I feel stiff, wrong. “Not really proving that point too well right now. What were you thinking to take on that man by yourself?”

I wince. “I had no choice. Vikesh tried to kill Eamon…” I cut off the instant I speak his name, but the damage is already done.

An emotion crosses Bastien’s face, fleeting but pained nonetheless. A veil falls over his eyes as I turn to look at him. All emotion is wiped clean by the time Carleon returns with a branch in his hand. “I got it.”

The branch is hardly more than a stick. One end is badly charred, as if Carleon snatched it out of the fire and beat the flames away. “Good,” Bastien says. “Now I need you to hold her shoulders. She will buck when the pain starts.”

“No, I won’t.”

Bastien’s gaze flickers toward me for a split second before looking away. He rises onto his knees, getting into position. His biceps flex as he grips the metal, showing no hint that the heat still clinging to it bothers him. He looks down at me one more time. “Yes. You will.”

With a tug that feels as if Bastien has removed all of my intestines, I feel pain as I have never known before. I hear a distant shriek of agony and then darkness floods in as a wave of pain sucks me under.

Three

I reach for the hand resting beside me. It is warm and strong, gripping back tightly as my eyelids slowly flutter open. “Bastien?”

The texture of the hand feels wrong against my fingers, the palm soft instead of roughened by callouses. “Sorry to disappoint. It’s just me.”

I jerk upright and the room tilts on its axis. “Easy,” Eamon whispers, firmly pushing against my shoulders until I am lying prone on the bed once more. I don’t put up much of a fight.

“Where am I?” I draw my hand away from my forehead and squint against the brilliant fluorescent light overhead. I never have liked false lighting. After we took control of the City, Kyan moved our entire camp into the heart of the brick-and-mortar prison. Some people were thrilled by the change, but I was not.

It held too many new things: electricity, toilets that gushed water that wove through pipes in the walls, vents in the ceilings that pumped out heat that dried my skin into a flaky mess. I miss the cool damp of the cave, the flickering of flames as we sang around the campfire. I miss the waterfall and the delicious privacy that I could always be sure to find in one of the blacked-out tunnels.

I can’t be alone here. Thousands of people live within the city perimeter now. Entire streets are lit up like blinding stars. Sometimes I go to the rooftop and sit alone, staring beyond the borders of the City to the dark and familiar heights of the mountains.

Repairs are still underway in the far reaches of town, but even now, with my hands pressed against the soft mattress, I can barely make out the rumbling of the subway cars passing beneath the surface.

A name was voted on for this place not long after we began to settle in: Thalar. It means peace in Caldonian. An ill-fitting name in my opinion since we have seen little peace since we began our rebellion.

If only Bastien were here to see the changes. He would love to see the subway in action
, I think, remembering how he had spent months living within the lifeless hull of a subway car, in the dark and alone.

“We’re home?” I ask, suppressing those memories.

I should have known from the first instant I caught the scent of smoke that seeps in through the open window beside my bed. It puffs in black clouds from the spider drones’ exhaust as they roam the streets, ever alert for attack. They make it nearly impossible to keep a window clean.

“Yes. Kyan thought it best for us to return after—”

“How?” I cut him off, rolling my head to the side to stare at the inky black of night on the other side of the window. I have never liked the medical wing. It is too white, too clean. Not to mention it is in the heart of the Shard and I don’t exactly have fond memories of the last time I was here. “How did we travel so quickly?”

Eamon clears his throat, fiddling with his fingers in his lap as I turn to stare at him, demanding an honest answer. “You were out for nearly a week.”

“A week?” I whisper, aghast at the amount of time that has been stolen from me.

“Why?” Heat stains the tips of his ears and I know the answer without him answering. “Because Kyan knew I would refuse to leave on my own.”

“It was for your own good,” he insists, but we both know it’s a weak excuse and one that I’ve heard countless times before. I’ve lost count how many times in the past year they have done “the right thing” for me instead of letting me make my own choices.

“I hate it when he messes with my mind,” I grumble and tuck my hand under my head. Kyan’s ability goes beyond just reading minds and healing wounds. He has become rather practiced at inducing comas when they suit him, too.

The thick blanket that covers my lower half feels stifling compared to the chill that clung to my body the night I passed out in Drakon’s base. Suffocating heat pumps steadily from a vent above my bed, staving off the frost that clings to the bottom of my window. My other hand hovers over the bandage that has been wrapped tightly over my abdomen. I grimace as I feel pain swell as I attempt to twist. “Why do I still hurt?”

Eamon’s hand tightens around mine, squeezing my fingers so hard my bones begin to grind together. “Carleon did his best to repair your wound after Bastien removed the shrapnel, but he could only do so much.”

“What about Kyan?”

His jaw clenches and heat rises from the collar of his black uniform. I can’t help but notice the stark difference between Bastien and him, how Eamon’s tousled mane of blond hair glows rich amber in the false lights. Bastien would be dark and coolly indifferent but admittedly handsome in his formfitting uniform. “He has been preoccupied…”

I don’t like the way Eamon trails off. “Were there many losses?”

He scrubs his hands over his face, his mouth downturned when he draws his hands away. A single nod brings tears to my eyes. “Many were lost to the fires. Others when we first infiltrated the base. No one could have known Vikesh would be there.”

“We should have.” I protest, clenching my eyes tightly against the surge of guilt.
How many of those lives could have been spared if we’d had better intel? If Kyan had let me scout it out on my own first instead of insisting I remain behind? Darn his pride!

“And Bastien?” I ask, pinning my arms down by my sides. “He’s gone, isn’t he?”

“He returned to his base after the fighting was over,” he replies. His gaze looks flat, his expression hardened. “He had injured men to attend to as well.”

I knew this was bound to happen. Leave it to Bastien to swoop in at my time of dire need only to sneak back out again before things got too personal. I blow out a breath and roll my head to the side so Eamon can’t see the pain that needles at me, drawing fresh tears into my eyes.

“He saved you, Illyria. For that I am grateful.”

I bark out a bitter laugh and roll back to stare up at him. His jawline is firm and his eyes veiled by shaggy curls that he makes no move to push aside. He is hiding. “I know you better than that. Why not just say it?”

“What?” The muscles along his neck quiver as he swallows. His nostrils flare. “Say that I’m ticked that he was the one who rescued you instead of me? That if I hadn’t been a fool and interfered with Vikesh, you wouldn’t have almost died?”

His pain is visible and utterly raw, as haggard as the lines carving into his face. I place a hand gently on his arm and wait for him to look over at me. His lips pinch tightly as he glances at me. “You came because you cared.”

“He wouldn’t have,” Eamon says. “He would have trusted you, believed you capable of finishing what you started.”

I purse my lips, unsure if I should draw back my hand or if the action would cause further pain. We both know how troubled our relationship has been this past year. In all fairness, I did try to give us a fair shot. I pushed aside my pain and inner torment to try to make him happy, but it was never enough.

No amount of caring and declarations of love were enough to make him believe me. After a while, he simply stopped coming to visit after work and would walk the long way back to his barracks just to avoid seeing me on the street. Losing Bastien is the hardest thing I have ever experienced. Losing Eamon too has nearly crippled me.

The only thing I live for now is the hunt. It used to be bears and wolves that I stalked in the night. Now it is Drakon, only ever him.

“You are not him, Eamon,” I say softly.

He snorts and pulls away from my grasp. I feel cold, awash with a tingly numbness, at his withdrawal. “I don’t need
you
to remind me of that.”

His words hit me like a slap across the cheek. “Hey!” I grasp onto his arm and yank him around to face me, gritting my teeth as I stuff down the pain flaring in my stomach. “That’s not fair. You’re the one who closed the door on us.”

“Really?” The dull monotone quality in his voice makes me cringe. His hands hang limp in his lap. “You’re going to say that when you never even entered the same room as me?”

“I…” I release his arm as if his touch has seared my fingers and cross my arms over my chest, wishing I could roll away from him, could stare at the wall until the
smudged lines of glue that used to hold up a hideous motif of floral wallpaper would blur into a dreamless sleep.

Eamon sighs and plunges his hands in his hair. His shoulders slump as he curls his back and rests his elbows against his knees, a broken man before me. I close my eyes, praying for this nightmare to end. Why do we keep doing this to each other? Maybe because we are home, where everything is a reminder of the pain we have both endured over the past year.

Clasping my side, I fight to sit up. For a moment I have to pause and will the room to stand still before the lightheadedness seems to pass and I’m able to rise. Eamon turns and mechanically holds a pillow behind my back, as if the action is expected of him.

“Thanks,” I mutter sourly. I push back the snarl of hair framing my face and wince. Memories of shivering in the dark, drenched from the geyser, and the slashing pain that staked me to the ground swell up within my mind. I remember watching the flames dance along Bastien’s outline as he leaned over me, feeling his hands upon me, cold yet steady. New memories to plague me in the long stretches of night when I am alone. I release a long, slow breath, forcing Bastien from my mind. “Did you at least capture Drakon?”

“No,” Eamon begrudgingly admits. He shifts in his chair and the metal legs squeal against the tile floor. “He was long gone by the time we arrived. Vikesh proved to be an adequate distraction.”

My lip curls with disgust, thinking of the countless lives we tossed away for nothing. “Kyan should have gone after him instead of me.” I bunch my fingers into the pillow beside me and hurl it across the room. It hits the far wall with a dissatisfying puff of air and then tumbles to the ground. I want to break something. No. I want to break someone.

“Easy, Illyria.” He presses back on my shoulders. “I know that look and you’re in no shape to be following through with that.”

“He was within our grasp and we just let him walk again,” I growl, digging my nails into the mattress. I can feel my anger mingled with an equally disturbing feeling:
panic. “What if he is gone for good? What if he buries so deep we never find him again? What if this was our last shot?”

“It won’t matter,” he says, turning away from me. His hands drop back into his lap. “We found something.”

“Something?” I press, sure I’m going to scream if he doesn’t give me more details.

Eamon’s shoulders rise and fall several times before he turns to look at me. I can see him weighing his words, no doubt wondering what I will do with the information once I have it. He sighs and splays his hands atop his thighs, clenching tightly. “We found Drakon’s diary buried in the remains of the bunker. We think Vikesh was meant to burn it all when he was finished with you, but obviously that didn’t happen.”

“I want to see it.”

“I thought you might,” he responds in a flat tone. Reaching inside his jacket pocket, he pulls out a small, rectangular book. It is the color of marble, its leather cover worn with use. If I look close enough, I can see the indents on the back cover where he pressed his writing utensil as he scripted the final page.

I snatch it from Eamon’s hand and rapidly flip through. Each page is filled with sketches, symbols, letters that hardly make any sense to me. “Is this written in code?”

“Yes and no. It is written in a Caldonian dialect that even Kyan struggles to translate. He says it originates from Trilar, one of the nearby planets where Drakon spent time. Kyan’s a bit rusty, but he thinks with time he can decipher it.”

“Time?” My voice rises an octave as I clench the book against my chest. Eamon makes a move to steal it away, but I’m not willing to just hand it back over so quickly, not when we’ve fought so hard for this tiny scrap of insight. “We don’t have time. Drakon is on the run and we need to flush him out.”

“
We
don’t need to do anything,” Eamon snaps, adopting a defensive tone. “
You
are on mandatory bed rest until further notice.”

“No!” I cry, lurching forward, but instantly gasp as pain lances through my abdomen. I swear under my breath
as Eamon easily plucks the book from my grasp, and I sink back into the pillows, blowing out short breaths until the pain eases.

I glare at him, sure he was in on this plan. “That’s why Kyan hasn’t healed me. It’s not because he’s been too busy. It’s because he doesn’t want me to lead this mission.”

Eamon rises slowly, the book held firmly in his grasp. “We thought you might react like this.”

I scowl, clasping my hand against my side. I can feel warm blood oozing through my bandages and a wave of lightheadedness washes over me. “I thought you were my best friend. That you would always have my back.”

His eyes widen for a second and then narrow, his gaze rimmed with ice as he pauses in the doorway. “Some things never change… but some things do.”

I turn my back on him as he turns out the light and closes the door, leaving me alone to fume in the dark.