Raed waited—either for the Prince to agree or perhaps to reveal that he had recognized the Young Pretender. Instead, the interior door popped open, and the heavily pregnant woman they had seen in the audience chamber the day before appeared. She was older than might have been expected to be a mother, but very beautiful. Her brown eyes, like those of a doe, widened further.
“I am sorry, Majesty,” she murmured, circling her hand protectively around her belly, and turning back as if to slip away.
“Japhne.” For the first time, raw emotion crept into the Prince Onika’s voice. “You do not need to go.” He held out his hand, and the woman grasped it immediately. She was elegant even while so large. Raed did not have much experience with pregnant women, but he knew that had to be rare.
The love and tenderness the two shared was immediately obvious. That, Raed knew full well, was a rarity in aristocratic unions—especially royal ones. Seeing the way Japhne looked down at the masked Prince made the Young Pretender ache a little. He doubted he would ever be free enough to look at Sorcha in that way.
“This”—Onika reached out and rested his hand against Japhne’s belly—“is the future—this is my son.”
Certainly for a Prince there could be nothing more important than an heir, but there was some other note in Onika’s voice—it was awe.
“I have had few other children in my life, honored Deacon, all of them girls—but this, this will be my very first son.”
Japhne’s smile at him was radiant.
“If they are in fact killing my blood,” the Prince of Chioma went on, “this is what they will come for.”
The look on Japhne’s face was calm—so she must have already heard this. It was the confidence of love.
Sorcha got to her feet. “We will try our best, Your Majesty. My partner has been called away for a short time, but I will give this investigation all of my attention.”
“Called away?” Japhne’s attention abruptly broke free of the Prince. “Is everything all right?”
Sorcha’s mind was already on the path of investigation, so she didn’t see the stricken look on the other woman’s face, but Raed did, and it didn’t make sense.
“Yes,” the Deacon said, already standing up. “He will be back.” She sounded so certain.
“Then find the truth.” The Prince held out a scrap of paper with his wax seal stamped on it. “This gives you freedom to roam anywhere in the palace.”
They made their bows and were about to exit the privy chamber when Raed spun about. “Your Majesty, one final question. Have you had any recent additions to your harem of late . . . any blonde women?”
Onika frowned slightly but shook his head. “No, I have made it clear that there will be no more women added to my Court. Not until Japhne wishes it.”
The Young Pretender’s shoulders slumped, but he managed a “Thank you, Your Majesty,” before following the Deacon from the audience chamber.
Raed caught Sorcha’s arm and then, hidden by her cloak, squeezed her hand.
“I am sorry,” she whispered to him. “We have both lost people we care for, and both of us will get them back.” Raed nodded, fearing she might crack if he didn’t agree. She threaded her fingers with his. “We will get Merrick back, find your sister and hunt down whatever is responsible for these deaths.”
“Indeed,” he replied with plenty of conviction. He was tired of being chased and always losing. With Sorcha at his side, Raed felt more optimistic. They had already done incredible things together—defeated a Murashev and gotten Raed out of an Imperial prison. After that, surely everything would be easy.
Sorcha glanced at him, and he wondered if that Bond she talked of so often let her see into his soul—or maybe read his mind. Then, in a daring gesture, she raised his hand quickly to her lips, depositing the lightest of kisses on his knuckles.
“On to the Chancellor’s quarters, then,” she said and waved the Prince’s edict in one hand.
EIGHTEEN
Familiar Faces
The Ehtia.
The name echoed and bounced in Merrick’s head as he tried to keep up with Nynnia. The world was falling down around them, and yet he could not keep a foolish grin off his face.
He knew for fact things scholars of his own time would have killed to know—and he was with the woman he loved—the one who had died in his arms. But she wasn’t dead. It was almost enough to make him start believing in the gods of his childhood again. If he had time to stop and consider such things.
Nynnia’s hand was wrapped tightly around his, and she pulled him on as the rocks twisted under their feet. The smell of the loamy earth filled his nostrils, and they stumbled together a few times. Merrick smashed his knee into a jutting piece of rock, but the pain was a distant thing in the tumult of noise and fear. Blood poured down his shin, filling his boot, but there was certainly no time to stop and bandage it.
The Temple of Ehtia was tumbling in a roar of carved marble above them. As they scrambled down the hill, bits of it rolled and bounced past them. Merrick clutched Nynnia, yanking her back just as a piece of a carved column went flying past. The dust and rock pelted them, but they ran on.
Suddenly she grabbed him, wrapped her body around him, and rolled with him under an overhang as a rain of gravel poured down the side of the hill.
The roar of the earth beneath their feet filled their ears, yet all Merrick was aware of in that instant was her warm body pressed tightly against his. Her breath panted against his cheek, and despite the situation, it took a will of iron to stop him from kissing her then. It was not the rumble of the earth that stopped him—it was the knowledge that this might be Nynnia, but it was not the Nynnia who had fallen in love with him.
“We’re nearly there,” she said, her eyes dropping away from his. Still, she took his had, and once more they were running. Merrick cold see no destination, because the foothills of the mountain looked much as they were in his time, barren and rock-strewn.
Something snapped behind them, and he managed a quick glance over his shoulder. Half the mountain had slumped away completely, and a wave of rolling rocks was thundering toward them. It was Nynnia who saved him.
Without so much as a look behind her, she dodged a tumbling stone with the kind of accuracy that could not belong to a normal human. Merrick, attached to her hand, followed after.
It was an impossible feat, and Merrick wondered if she was using some version of his own Sight to accomplish it. If he had tried to use the rune Masa, it would have taken so much focus he would have been squashed like a bug while concentrating. Just as he was contemplating that mystery, Nynnia came to a complete stop.
“Here it is,” she panted, and for a moment he had no idea what she was talking about. Then a great chunk of the earth’s surface slid away to reveal stairs going down. Merrick didn’t need an invitation to follow her.
As soon as they were inside, the door closed behind them. It was suddenly very silent. By the strange green light Merrick could make out they were in a small chamber, and when he touched a wall, it was made of slick metal.
A deep frown etched itself between his eyes—he could not identify the metal.
He turned to Nynnia. “Are you some sort of Tinkers?”
A soft smile flitted across her lips. “If you mean do we create and build things, then yes, we started that way. Our ancestors were curious people, and soon we became our own separate tribe of seekers. The knowledge we’ve collected has been passed on through the generations.”
“Until you were able to make this,” Merrick whispered. He thought of that lost knowledge—the kind his people were only just rediscovering. He swallowed hard. “Will we be safe down here?” he gestured somewhat futilely up.
“For the moment.” Nynnia let out a long sigh, tilted her head and then put her hand on his shoulder. “We must talk to Mestari—he will know what to do with you.”
The light in the chamber was kind, softening the lines, and wiping away the gray, tired pallor of her face he had seen in the Temple. Under these conditions it was easy for Merrick to imagine that she was his Nynnia. The possibility that he might lose her again drove the Deacon to the point of recklessness. He clasped her by the arms. “Whatever your plan is, we have to hurry.”
She opened her mouth to reply, paused, and then touched his face. “I see you are a good man, Merrick, and if you say I fall in love with you in the future, I believe you—but there is nothing to be done.”
The resignation in her voice broke his heart. So her kissed her again.
She pressed her hand against the Deacon’s chest. “I don’t know what sort of religious orders they have in the future.” She chuckled. “But I think I like them.”
Merrick opened his mouth to tell her how the Order had transitioned from a religious community to something else after the arrival of the Otherside—but he stopped himself. Talking to someone from his past was rather confusing.
Nynnia was looking at him with the same piercing gaze she would level at him in the future. “You don’t need to tell me anything—what we have to deal with ight here and now is more than enough.” She brushed a curl back from his face. “But I don’t think you can help but give me hope. I must live to know you—now, mustn’t I?” The smile she gave him was wicked and beautiful.
As always with her, Merrick was quite vulnerable, so caught unawares he fell back on the truth. “I don’t know what is safe to tell you.” And he shook is head. “And I don’t know if the place I come from is worth saving.”
“Don’t fret,” she replied softly, turning to the flat surface of the metal wall. “We have come to the end of our time. I do not expect the Ehtia can be saved by one man alone. It’s too late for that.”
Before he could answer, a rattle of gears announced something working out of sight. The wall slid aside; Nynnia took his hand and led him through the opening.
They went down a set of metallic stairs, which rang underfoot, and into a vast room of which there had been no sign aboveground. Merrick’s mind was now whirling faster. Nynnia on the Otherside had said she was sending him back to learn something and to plant a seed—whatever that meant. If he could only stop to take notes on the marvelous etched walls they were passing, or at least to copy the towering cogged wheels, then perhaps all would be well.
Yet Nynnia was not slowing down. They passed a few other people who were of the same small stature as the woman at his side—but their skin coloring was as diverse as that in his own Empire.
So many questions were bubbling in Merrick’s head, but he managed to hold his tongue. This was borrowed time. He shot Nynnia a look out of the corner of his eye—she seemed to be well aware of that.
They reached yet another door. This one was wooden and, as with everything in this place, etched and carved with symbols. Nynnia flung it open with great vigor. Tugged after her, Merrick found himself in what appeared to be a war room.
A long table ran the length of it, and seated around it were ten harried-looking individuals—well, at least nine harried-looking individuals. Merrick’s Sensitive training helped him take in the gray faces, the lost looks, and the air of despair. However, his immediate focus was on the one person he recognized in the room.
Or rather he recognized the sparkling mask. Merrick stopped stock-still for a second drenched in a sudden chill, and then his logical brain caught up. The Prince of Chioma was indeed the only Prince who could be at such a meeting before the Break. It was one of the most powerful principalities in this time, so the man sitting before him must be Onika’s ancestor.
Still, it was very eerie to be confronted with that strange swinging mask—the very one he had seen only a day earlier in the Hive City. The Deacon gave his head a little shake in an effort to clear it and turned to the person who Nynnia was introducing him to.
Though this man was short in stature, he had an aura of instant command around him. His long salt-and-pepper beard was neatly trimmed, but the eyes above were deeply shadowed, even if their icy blueness conveyed a determination as steely as the walls they were surrounded by.
“Mestari”—Nynnia gave a little bow—“this is Deacon Merrick Chambers.” And then, horrifyingly, she added, “From the future.”
The older man did not call her a liar or even laugh—he merely nodded his head and then held out his hand.
Merrick took it reflexively in a clasp of hands that even iis time must be a sign of friendship. Immediately his senses leapt, and the world blurred for a long, terrifying moment.
For a Sensitive to be blind was a terrible nightmare of an idea, but before the Deacon had a chance to cry out, the sensation passed. Now the man Nynnia had named as Mestari was looking at him differently.
“You have our blood in you, lad—but you have traveled so far to reach us. Truly amazing.”
Rune Kebenar, Fourth of the Runes of Sight, allowed Sensitives to see the true nature of things—yet this man had done that without any visible sign of using it. Once again Merrick’s curiosity was piqued, and it was particularly difficult to hold his tongue.