CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

KYRION

A fter Vesper headed to Asterin's workshop, I prowled through the Collier estate, once again checking on the guards and making sure everything was as it was supposed to be. I eavesdropped on some servants and learned that Aldrich, Verona, Asterin, Beatrice, and Wendell had gone to the mineral exchange to discuss more specifics about a potential alliance between House Collier and House Zimmer.

Beatrice and Wendell being that close to Vesper worried me, so I checked on her through the bond, but a familiar hum of happiness surged back to me. Vesper was working on some project, and the Zimmers didn't seem to be bothering her, so I didn't send a thought to her. After everything that had happened last night, I was glad she had found some peace.

I just wished I could do the same.

Talking about my mother had dredged up even more old memories, and my dreams had been filled with images of my younger self shouting at Desdemona. Even when I was unconscious, I couldn't escape that shameful moment.

I wanted to know if Siya had any news about Esmina or Pollux, so I went to the training ring. Siya, Rigel, and the other Hammers were sparring again, this time with long spears, and they had a new audience member. Zane was leaning a shoulder against the castle wall, checking messages on his tablet.

I stopped beside him and crossed my arms over my chest. "You're still here."

"I can hear the word unfortunately on the end of that sentence," Zane chirped, scrolling through more screens. "Really, Kyrion, do you have to be so dour? So doom and gloom all the time? You're like a storm cloud, always raining on my parade. It's a beautiful day, the sun is shining, and we are at a fabulous estate. What more could you want?"

"You on a spaceship back to the Imperium. Or at the bottom of one of the mountain chasms, never to be seen or heard from again. I'm not particular."

My tablet buzzed, distracting me from Zane, and I pulled it out. Vesper was back on the estate. Good. I'd sensed her arrival through the bond, but I still appreciated the message.

"Is that my dear sister?" Zane asked.

I ignored his prying gaze and slid the tablet back into my pocket.

Ding!

A shrill chime erupted from Zane's tablet, making him grimace. I leaned forward just like Zane had so I could see the sender. Callus Holloway. Of course.

"Keeping an eye on Vesper and me for your boss?" I asked in a snide tone.

Zane shoved his tablet into his pocket. "Some of us don't have the luxury of throwing caution to the wind and running away from our responsibilities."

"If I didn't know better, I would say you were jealous."

"I'm absolutely jealous ." Zane spat out the words. "Do you know what a gigantic bloody mess you've left behind? The awkward, dangerous position you've put me in? All because you had to go and fall in love with my sister."

I stepped toward him, my chest inches away from his. "The position I've put you in? What about the position you've put Vesper in? All you've done the last few weeks is brag about how you're going to drag us back to Corios."

Zane huffed. "You should know by now that I don't mean half the things I say on the gossipcasts."

"And yet you say them anyway. Why is that?"

"You wouldn't understand," he muttered.

"Try me."

Zane opened his mouth, but Siya stepped over to us, a spear propped up on her shoulder. "Would you boys care to settle your differences in the training ring?"

"I would love to, but I doubt Kyrion has the guts for it." Zane held his hand up beside his mouth as though he was about to reveal a secret to Siya. "The great Kyrion Caldaren doesn't like it when I kick his ass."

"You have never kicked my ass."

Zane tapped his index finger on his nose. "You're forgetting how thoroughly I broke your nose during the marriage mart last night."

My eyes narrowed. "You ambushed me in the dark. That's hardly a fair fight."

He grinned and gestured toward the training ring. "Then let's go find out who the better warrior really is."

Siya rolled her eyes. "Are the two of you going to fight, or are you just going to talk all day?"

I had opened my mouth to tell Zane that I was going to enjoy grinding his face into the dirt when a faint tremor swept through the ground. "What was that?"

"What was what?" Zane asked. "Quit stalling, Kyr."

I stepped away from him and glanced around. Two Hammers sparring, the other warriors watching them, servants and guards moving along the bridges and stairs that connected the main castle to the rest of the estate buildings. Everything was normal, but my psionic senses kept pinging. I turned around, trying to find the source of the disturbance.

Something was wrong.

"What are you doing?" Zane asked in an annoyed voice. "You're spinning around and around in circles like a child's toy that's been wound up too tight."

I ignored him and stretched out with my telempathy, scanning the training ring in front of me. Nothing unusual there, so I stretched even farther out with my power . . .

Dozens and dozens of presences flared to life, all zooming this way. Before I could shout a warning, a buzzing sound filled the air, quickly growing closer and louder, and a violent wind current shrieked, whistled, and battered up against the estate's energy shield.

"What is going on?" Zane yelled over the roaring noise.

A transport zoomed up out of the chasm a few hundred feet away from the training ring. The transport hovered in midair, then dipped down. For a moment, I thought it might crash into the energy shield, bounce off, and tumble back down into the chasm. But then the shield dimmed, flickered, and vanished altogether, and the transport zoomed to the right and dropped down onto the lawn beside the garden where I'd had breakfast with Lady Verona yesterday.

The transport thumped to the ground, flattening a couple of topiary hedges, along with some peony bushes, and green needles and blue petals whipped up into the air like shrapnel. A door on the side slid back, and mercenaries clad in black polyplastic armor spewed out of the vehicle. Each man was clutching a blaster or a hand cannon, and shock batons and other weapons dangled from their belts.

"Fuck," Siya muttered. "Those are Serpens Corp mercenaries. Hammers, Hammers, to me!"

She spun away to rally the other warriors, but I kept watching the mercenaries. The enemy fighters formed a protective ring, then stopped, and two more people hopped off the transport.

Esmina and Pollux looked around as though they were a queen and king surveying their future home. Esmina glanced up at something, and a smile spread across her face. Then she shouted a command I couldn't quite make out over the transport's continued roar. She and Pollux strode forward, with their men spreading out in all directions.

"Where are Lord and Lady Collier?" Siya yelled into her tablet. "Secure them immediately! Estate security has been breached! We are under attack! Repeat. We are under attack!"

Siya grabbed a war hammer from a hoverpallet of weapons, crossed the training ring, and sprinted forward, trying to cut off the mercs before they reached the main castle. The other Hammers followed her, but Zane and I stayed by the training ring.

Pew! Pew! Pew!

The Serpens Corp mercenaries snapped up their blasters and hand cannons and fired at the Hammers. Siya ducked down behind a low stone wall for cover, as did Rigel and the other warriors.

"What is going on?" Zane repeated. "Who are those people?"

I ignored his questions and watched the battle. Siya used the lunarium head of her war hammer to deflect a blaster bolt back into the chest of a mercenary, who screamed and tumbled to the ground. Rigel and the other Hammers did the same thing with their own weapons, dropping one enemy after another. The Serpens Corp mercenaries would take heavy losses trying to breach the main castle—too many losses to justify such a brazen, reckless charge—so what were the mercs really doing here? What was the point of this attack?

In the distance, Esmina and Pollux broke away from the main group of mercenaries. Dozens of men followed them, and they all sprinted toward the guest wing.

Zane spotted them too. "Where are they going?"

Once again, I ignored him, my mind racing. If Esmina and Pollux were here to destroy House Collier, they should be storming the main castle with the other mercs in hopes of killing Lord Aldrich and Lady Verona. So why were they headed toward the guest wing?

As soon as I asked the question, the answer came to me, and icy dread flooded my body. They weren't here for the Colliers. All the mercs were just a distraction so that Esmina and Pollux could capture their true target, the person they'd been after all along: Vesper.

F or a moment, I stood there, frozen in place. Then my mind kicked back into gear, and I stabbed my finger at Esmina and Pollux.

"Vesper!" I yelled at Zane. "The mercenaries are here to kidnap Vesper!"

Siya and the other Hammers were still deflecting blaster bolts back at the mercenaries, but I yanked my stormsword off my belt and sprinted in the opposite direction.

Zane let out a curse. At least, I think he did. Hard to hear anything over the roar of my heart in my ears, but his footsteps slapped on the stones, and he surged up so that he was running alongside me.

Do you have any sort of plan? he yelled in my mind.

I growled back at him, Kill everyone between me and Vesper.

Zane's annoyed huff rippled through my mind, but I shut out the distraction and kept running, moving from this stone walkway to another one—

Boom!

Green cannon fire ripped through the air. I darted to the side, and the energy blast slammed into the wall beside me instead of into my chest. Chunks of stone flew out in all directions, and dust choked the air, making it hard to see and breathe, but I kept running. Zane cursed and slowed for a moment, but he quickly caught up to me.

The dust billowed away, revealing a mercenary standing at the end of the walkway, his finger already curling back on the trigger to fire his cannon again.

I flung my hand out, and my telekinesis ripped the merc off his feet and tossed him back into a nearby wall hard enough to crack his polyplastic armor. The merc flopped down onto his belly, a low groan escaping from his lips. He tried to get back up onto his hands and knees, but I kicked him in the head, then rammed my stormsword into his back for good measure. The merc screamed and collapsed to the ground, blood pooling under his body.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

My head snapped around, and I looked through an archway. Serpens Corp mercenaries had crossed the drawbridge and were firing hand cannons at the House Collier guards defending the courtyard in front of the main castle. Esmina and Pollux had sent men to infiltrate the estate from multiple sides to do as much damage as they could as quickly as possible. Smart.

"We have to get to Vesper!" I yelled at Zane. "Now!"

Zane scooped up the dead merc's hand cannon, and we started running again.

I didn't know exactly how many mercenaries Esmina and Pollux had at their disposal, but a veritable army of them had invaded the estate. Everywhere I turned, another merc popped into view, and streaks of cannon and blaster fire zipped through the air like fireworks. Stone walls exploded, while permaglass windows shattered, and the resulting pieces of debris tink-tink-tinked across the walkways like old-fashioned piano keys playing a merry, lively tune.

Servants ran everywhere, trying to escape from the mercenaries, who calmly strode forward and cut people down as though they were firing at plastipaper targets. Screams and shouts tore through the air, and the coppery stench of blood mixed with the acrid aroma of fried flesh and the electric burn of the blaster and cannon fire.

It was chaos, confusion, and carnage.

I cut down any merc who got within sword's reach and used my lunarium blade to send blaster bolts shooting right back at the people who'd fired them. Beside me, Zane wielded his stolen hand cannon with expert efficiency, coolly pulling the trigger and dropping one enemy after another.

Despite our mutual hatred, Zane and I had fought together countless times as Arrows, and we worked as an efficient, deadly team, killing anyone stupid enough to attack us.

Vesper? Vesper, where are you?

Even as Zane and I fought our way from one walkway and archway to the next, I reached out through the bond, searching for Vesper. The velvety ribbon of her in my mind whipped back and forth with a combination of fear and fury, and I couldn't quite get a grip on it to locate her. Icy dread rushed through me, making Vesper seem as if she was even farther away.

Zane blasted another mercenary out of the way with his stolen hand cannon, and the two of us finally made it to the courtyard in front of the guest wing. Several House Collier guards were lying on the ground, black curls of smoke rising from their chests, their sightless eyes staring at nothing. My gut twisted, but these people were already dead, and I couldn't do anything for them.

I started to step into the courtyard, but Zane grabbed my shoulder. "Wait," he whispered. "Listen. Do you hear that?"

In the distance, screams and shouts still tore through the air, along with sharp staccato bursts of blaster and cannon fire. But this courtyard was eerily quiet, and the only sound was the crackle of energy bolts still eating through the skin, muscles, and bones of the dead guards.

"I don't hear anything."

"Exactly," Zane muttered, his gaze sweeping back and forth. "This screams trap to me."

He was right. It did seem like a trap, but for whom? And why bother to set a trap when you had already stormed onto the estate?

"I don't care. I have to find Vesper."

Zane stared at me for a moment, then jerked his head in agreement.

Together we entered the courtyard, weapons ready. Instead of rushing forward, like we had before, we moved slower, taking care to make our footsteps as soft as possible, although it was hard to do, given the stone rubble and broken glass that littered the ground like a carpet of diamond shrapnel—

Crunch.

Zane and I both spun toward the sound, which echoed out of a nearby archway.

"Show yourself!" I commanded.

"Yeah," Zane chimed in. "Before my trigger finger slips, and you have a tragic accident."

"Okay, okay!" a familiar voice called out. "Don't shoot me!"

In the archway, a hand appeared, clutching a small silver blaster. More footsteps crunched, and Asterin stepped into view.

Zane hissed out a tense breath and lowered his cannon. "We really have to stop meeting like this."

Asterin's eyes narrowed. "I rather enjoy having my blaster aimed at your chest."

Zane grinned. "Your murderous urges have been duly noted, my lady."

Asterin harrumphed, but she lowered her weapon and strode over to us. Her silver gaze flicked from one body to another, and fury, disgust, and sadness surged off her and punched into my chest like arrows. "The Serpens Corp mercenaries did this?"

I nodded. "Esmina and Pollux sent squads to attack the main castle, front and back, but they're just a distraction. Esmina and Pollux broke off with another squad of mercs and came here to the guest wing."

Asterin frowned. "Why would they do that? Verona and Aldrich are always in the main castle."

"Esmina and Pollux are trying to kidnap Vesper again," I replied. "We need to find her. Now."

Zane shook his head. "No, Esmina and Pollux aren't after Vesper. At least, not right now."

"How would you know?" I growled. "You didn't even see the mercs before they landed on the estate."

Zane hesitated. "I just . . . have this feeling. I don't have time to explain it right now, but for once in your bloody life, trust me. Okay, Kyrion? I don't know what Esmina and Pollux and their men are doing here, but they are not targeting Vesper."

I had opened my mouth to growl that we were wasting time when a couple of quick, crunching footsteps rang out, quickly followed by dozens more, all headed in this direction.

There was no time to run for cover, so I snapped up my weapon and whirled around, as did Asterin and Zane. In an instant, the three of us were standing back-to-back-to-back in a loose triangle in the center of the courtyard.

One merc appeared in a nearby archway, then two more popped into sight in another archway. Then three more . . . four . . . five . . . six . . .

A dozen mercenaries flooded the archways and streamed into the courtyard. More footsteps crunched, and another dozen mercs appeared on the second level, all armed with hand cannons pointed at me, Zane, and Asterin.

"Fuck," Zane muttered.

We were surrounded and outgunned, and the three of us had no choice but to lower our weapons.

One of the mercs touched the comms device nestled in his ear. "Target acquired and courtyard secure, just as you predicted."

More footsteps crunched through the rubble. Pollux strode into the courtyard, clutching a hand cannon, and Esmina followed him, her long red cloak rippling around her body like a river of blood. Something silver glinted in her hand. For a moment, I thought it was a weapon, but then I realized it was an injector. What was she going to do with that?

Esmina stopped in front of us. Her green gaze flicked over Zane and Asterin before settling on me. A cruel smile spread across her face, and my gut twisted with dread.

Zane was right. For once, the mercs weren't after Vesper.

"Hello, Kyrion," Esmina purred. "I've been waiting for you."