Crystal Tomb (Starfire Angels: Dark Angel Chronicles Book 3) (17 page)

Atia stood, resigning to face her
sister and whatever she felt was more important than
rest.

With Suki's help, she changed from her
sleeping gown and dressed in a light garment flattering to the
figure of a woman much younger. Unlike Akarin, she had regained her
youthful figure after bearing only one child. Two had given Akarin
a permanent slouch to her belly that she hid beneath her blouses
and suits.

While Atia finished securing the skirt
around her leggings, the door of her chamber opened and a young boy
rushed to her. ["Momma!"]

The slam of the small body against her
legs knocked her off balance. She opened her wings around herself
and took a step back to rebalance.

A man hurried into the room after him
but stopped a step inside the doorway. ["My apologies, Lady. He
insisted."]

["No apologies needed, Nakkil."] She
always had time for her son.

After peeling Lantis from
her legs, she knelt down and combed locks of gold from his beaming
face. In her private quarters, she was permitted to show her
affection, but beyond that door, she was the
Devu ti Anoroun
, the heir-apparent,
since she'd been replaced by her lesser sibling for failing to bear
a female heir while her sister had two. Her position now was simply
advisor but with the privileges of the royal house of Mikael, the
dominant nobility of the Inari Provincial Consortium.

Lantis's hug squeezed all her problems
away.

Emotions and sensations passed through
Raea as if Atia were her. She loved the boy, or Atia loved the boy,
while resenting him for taking so much away from her. He should
have been a she, but Atia intended him to be an educated and noble
man admired by others.

["Can we go to the Pools of Arroko
today?"]

["I'm sorry, Lantis. Maybe Nakkil can
take you, but I have meetings today."]

The boy's lip dropped with his
wings.

Raea wanted to laugh yet hold him. She
knew that look from growing up with her cousins—what a little
manipulator.

["Lantis."]

He turned away and crossed his
arms.

["Lantis…"]

[Don't do it,]
Raea tried to tell her. Her younger cousin Eric
had tried it on Debbie more than a few times to no
avail.

No such luck. Atia was a
softy.

Atia turned him around to face her,
her hands firmly on his shoulders. ["I'll make it up to you another
time. This is important work I must attend."] Which Akarin could
have done herself, but she decided to inconvenience her sister.
["We'll have fun together afterwards, but today you'll have to ask
Nakkil to take you."]

She ruffled his golden hair with a
smile and pulled him into a hug. ["I love you, Lantis. There's
nothing I want more than to be with you, but I have to help Akarin.
All right? I'll miss you very much. I wish I could skip this
meeting and spend the day with you, but I can't."]

The boy relaxed his arms and wrapped
them around her. ["I don't want Nakkil. I want you,
Momma."]

["I know, my love. A little longer you
must be patient. I'll be with you later…All right?"]

He stepped back, his bottom lip stuck
out in a pout while he nodded his head.

Atia kissed his forehead and stood.
["Go with Nakkil, Lantis. I'll come for you later."] She watched
him go, a pang in her heart that the beautiful boy would never
realize his full potential. He would be no more than someone's
consort, overshadowed by the women who would use him only to
further their own lines and gain favor with House Mikael. Her job
was merely to groom him to serve, but she would educate him in
other matters, teach him to think for himself.

Unlike Akarin, Atia had loved the
father of her child until his end. Lantis represented all that
remained of what she held most dear.

No more. She wiped away a small tear
as the boy disappeared through the door with his caretaker. She was
requested on matters which Akarin felt important enough to disturb
her rest and interrupt her life.

All right. If that's the way her
sister wanted it, she was ready.

Suki tied back Atia's hair and stepped
aside.

After a quick scan, Atia studied her
holographic image rotating before her. ["Very nice,
Suki."]

A quaint smile touched the attendant's
lips and her wings shifted. ["Thank you, Lady."]

Now for her sister. Atia marched out
the room and through halls shining brightly in the sunlight pouring
through tall windows. Clouds occasionally floated by like thick fog
obscuring the light and left droplets running down the glass to
shimmer with rainbows when the sun caught them.

She passed through a darker, inner
chamber of intricate designs of stonework, most of it imported from
off world. Guests passed her with nods or stepped aside stiffly and
with concerned faces. Tension thickened in the air.

Through an open doorway and a short
corridor, her feet carried her, until she arrived at a closed door
requiring confirmation to open. She put a hand to the pad next to
it and the door clicked and swung aside on its own.

Near a holographic projection of their
world floating in the air in the center of the room stood Akarin
with four of her advisors. All turned as Atia stepped in and the
door closed behind her.

Atia bowed her head in respect to the
leader of their world. ["Lady Akarin. You summoned?"]

["Away with formalities, sister. We've
no time for them. The Risaal now threaten us."]

["What?"] That couldn't be right. Atia
hurried to the hologram. Cities and islands outlined in blue
floated over the ocean world. In orbit around the world stretched a
network of satellites. Beyond them drifted a fleet of ships.
["Why?"] She stepped closer, her eyes fixed on the cluster of red
shapes.

["I don't know. Ambassador Nafeir
Elisha indicated she left in peace."] Akarin bowed her head for a
second to a stately woman in maroon leggings and a matching light
jacket with gold buttons. Gold strings glittered upon her head from
the simple headdress she wore.

Raea recognized the ambassador from
another Starfire vision as the one who had accepted the Starfire.
The Risaal who had wanted Raea to decipher the Atlantis stone had
wanted the Starfire and claimed the Inari stole it. Was this a
trick? A political ploy? What did it mean?

[What's going
on?]

No one acknowledged her
shout.

Atia recognized the emissary, often
sent as the first contact with new races. Hers was a job Atia would
never want—going into the unknown. She preferred the familiarity of
her home province.

["What do they want?"]

["We don't know,"] the ambassador
said.

["They appear to be intercepting all
incoming and outgoing traffic."] Akarin touched the area where the
ships hovered, and the image grew and shifted to become the focus
of the hologram. In the midst of the red ships lingered a familiar
curved shape highlighted in green—one of their own.

["A blockade?"]

["An illegal blockade and search of
all outgoing and incoming vessels."] Akarin's lip curled up in a
scowl.

["Why? What are they looking
for?"]

["I don't know."] Akarin touched a
different area and the ships shrank until the hologram looked as it
had upon Atia's arrival with the planet as the central focus.
["They haven't said."]

["Are they letting ships
through?"]

Akarin's lips hardened into a cold
frown. ["No."]

["No shipments…But the
people—"]

["We will suffer,"] Economic advisor
Burien Satiri said. She brushed aside a loose brown curl from the
stiff lines of her face. ["We will be reduced to what we can obtain
from the Ahben in the oceans and them from us, but our population
is too great to sustain at the levels the Ahben can
supply."]

["Our ships are ready."]

["Not enough, General."] Akarin's
wings tightened and, in the soft glow from the hologram, Atia
noticed the dark circles under her sister's eyes. How long had she
been bothered by this? Atia made a mental note to ask her later in
private. Her sister should have told her sooner.

["Diplomacy is our policy, by the
Covenants of Jaerla. The wisdom of our ancestors was set down to
guide us in the future and avoid the mistakes of the past. We have
contacted these Risaal to open negotiations and await their
reply."]

["Then we can do nothing but wait."]
Atia spoke with a confidence she far from felt, but her sister
depended on her support, and the faint hint of a smile confirmed
Akarin's gratitude.

["Should we not be ready?"] General
Shotoral Kaira's dark wings tightened like her face. Her job was
the defense of their world. She was good at what she did, but Atia
had always felt she was a little too eager to prove
herself.

Akarin let out an audible sigh.
Apparently the argument had gone on for some time. Atia almost
pitied her sister for the responsibility placed on her shoulders;
their entire world hung in the balance of her decisions.

["You're right to avoid fighting,"]
Atia said. ["Our world is fragile, and the defense grid will
protect us."]

The general stiffened, pulling her
dark brown wings tight to her back.

["As I've already stated many times."]
Akarin straightened, an unconscious act of accepting the general's
unspoken challenge, probably because she had her sister's alliance
in the matter. The other woman relaxed, and Atia released the
tension she in her shoulders, which she hadn't noticed until then.
A fight amongst them was the last thing they needed in this
situation.

[Is this how it all
began?]
Raea listened and watched, eaten
away by Atia's anger and conflicting emotions about her sister, her
son, and a million other concerns. As the day moved on, the tension
among the advisors thickened.

[Why am I seeing this? How
is this possible?]
She couldn't be in the
past. Time travel was impossible, unless there was another secret
the Starfire kept from her until now. That couldn't be right,
though. How was she experiencing all of Lady Atia's emotions and
sensations?

Okay, so she saw how it all began. So
what? She could wake up now.

Anytime…

[Hello? Can anyone hear
me?]

Nothing.

Great. She was stuck in some sort of
delusion of the Starfire or a hallucination from studying the
Atlantis monolith.

Better than the pain of losing
Elis.

Elis…
A spear thrust through her emotions.

The scene shifted. A violent quake
rocked Atia and the boy tumbled away from her across the cracking
palace floor like a child's doll. ["Lantis!"]

End of the World

For a moment, Atia's heart stopped in
panic. The stone cracked and groaned. If the generators shut down,
the palace would plummet from the sky and sink into the ocean
depths far below.

A small ship shot past a glassless
window, which had shattered moments before the boy rolled to the
wall beneath it. Glass sparkled across the floor between them, but
she didn't care. He was her son. No amount of danger would separate
them.

["Lantis!"] Atia regained her feet and
ran across the floor, which trembled from another hit. They had to
get out of there, where she could spread her wings and
fly.

Glass pieces crunched beneath her
shoes. Blood on the boy's bare arms hurried her feet. To her
relief, he moved to sit up and groaned. ["Momma."]

She reached his side and fell to her
knees to cradle him in her arms. ["I'm here, my love. I'm
here."]

Small arms wrapped around her neck,
inspiring a wave of peace calming her heart, despite the battle
outside. ["I'm scared. Don't leave me again."]

["I won't."] His words twisted her
emotions like a knife in her gut and the grip of tiny arms pleaded
with her never to let go. She wouldn't. She loved him and would
give her life to save him.

The sound of an explosion
somewhere outside made her cringe and hold tighter to the boy.
["We'll be all right."] The practice of her upbringing gave her
words more conviction than she felt. She
hoped
they would be all
right.

The tromping of feet halted
nearby.

["Lady Atia."]

She looked up as three palace guards
in their green flightsuits reached down for her and helped her and
Lantis to their feet.

["We've been trying to reach you. I'm
glad to see you alive."] The relief on the woman's face sank into a
frown as her eyes passed over two guards lying dead in the
corridor.

["See me alive?"]

Lantis relaxed his arms slightly, but
refused to let go of her waist. While his blood smeared her
clothes, she breathed easier seeing the slow beading of fresh blood
from the handful of small cuts. He hadn't been badly
injured.