Echoes in the Dark (50 page)

Alexa
whirled to look at her husband. “Ttho.”

36

J
ikata stared at
Luthan, the shell of her hard-held control nearly crumbling, as she tried to
grasp the plan. She’d studied the Weapon Knot City Destroyer ritual, and had
coolly determined that was possible. But this mountain-gong idea was absurd.

Luthan
met her eyes and she saw his determination. That quality was matched by
everyone else. She’d never met such a group of determined people. A people at
war.

Bastien
strode forward, set his large hands on Alexa’s small shoulders, a fierce smile
on his face. “You think I want you to die inside the mountain away from me when
I die outside? Or vice versa? We’re bonded with the coeur-de-chain, we die at
the same moment, so let us die together.”

Bri
linked hands with her husband, Sevair, looked at him. “The gong will only hold
us.”

The
craftsman was the right one to ask. A smile hovered on his lips. One of
satisfaction. “I’ve made a sled.”

The
women switched their gazes to him. Jikata’s heartbeat spiked as she looked at
Luthan. He wouldn’t be outside, fighting the monsters and evading them the way
he’d done all his life. He’d be inside with them.

“A
sled,” Bri repeated.

“Ayes.
Wooden, waxed runners.” His smile curved deeper. “Marrec lived in the north, he
knew of sleds.”

Koz
cleared his throat, and Sevair glanced at him. “Koz lived in Colorado like you.
He will steer it.”

“Koz’s
body has no muscle memory of sleds. Even as a boy, he didn’t sled much,”
Marian, his sister, snapped.

Tapping
his temple, Koz said, “My mind recalls, we’ve all studied the physics of it,
and I’ve been practicing. We’ll be a seven-man bobsled team.”

Marian
gathered the glances of the women. “All those who have sledded before the last
couple of weeks raise their hands.”

Jikata
joined the rest of the women shooting their hands up, a brief memory of
laughing and tumbling off a toboggan with her mother and father during a winter
holiday coming back to her.

Koz
lifted his hand, Marrec’s stalled halfway up. Not much skill among the men.

Koz
leaned back in his chair. “Good thing you’re all experienced. A saucer is
harder to steer than a sled.”

Marian
snarled. Jaquar took her hand and lifted it to his lips, they locked gazes.
“We, too, are bound together, will die at the same moment. If I must breathe my
last, I want to be looking at you when I do.”

Jikata
met Raine’s eyes. They shared a look. Neither of them wanted their men to
perish if they did, and Jikata was certain the men felt the same way.

Real
discussion stopped at that point and the maps were put away and food brought
out. Jikata didn’t eat much and Raine picked at her food.

As
Jikata ate, she sensed tension winding Luthan tighter and tighter. Or perhaps
he was reacting to her. All the awful visions that she’d put out of her mind,
or those she’d only recalled fragments of, swarmed into her head—the battle,
people and volarans dying outside.

The
women and their men dying inside, or in a terrible explosion.

That
feeling that she’d live to be the Singer surrounded with these women as her
friends seemed a vague wisp of past hope, impossible.

Luthan
rose from the table first and excused himself and her, held out his hand.

A
tiny muscle flicked at his temple. He, too, must be remembering all his
visions. The different fates of these vibrant people. She couldn’t leave the
room quickly enough.

Hope
and Lightning were on the quarterdeck, and Jikata and Luthan mounted in
silence, flew to a stretch of empty beach a mile from the manor, then the
volarans returned to their herd.

Luthan
turned his back on the Ship in the distance and walked south, leaving hard
dents of footprints in the sand. “Sometimes I don’t think I can bear it,” he
said in a nearly conversational voice. His mouth twisted. “Everyone knows I
have flashes of the future. I’ve kept a cool manner so people won’t ask. I’ve
spoken about the battle results once, to Bastien.”

She’d
caught up with him, matched his stride with long lopes. Reaching out, she
caught his hand and he came to a halt.

Pivoting,
he faced her, took her hands. A pulsing conflagration of Song whipped through
her, through them, like wildfire. Not a physical need, but emotional and
spiritual. He needed her, hated his visions, had been punished for them as a
child, felt apart from everyone because of his “gift.” The only one who’d
accepted him unconditionally was his brother Bastien—a man with striped hair
called a black-and-white, with wild Power that usually caused madness. Luthan
had bitterly decided his whole family had been mad.

All
this flared through her and she dropped his hands to take him in her arms,
comforting him as he’d done her the night before. “Sshhh,” she crooned, holding
him, not knowing when the last time it was that she had offered simple comfort,
that anyone had asked it from her.

He
drew in a steady breath and calmed, but she sensed emotions were still dammed
within him and wondered if she could break that dam, whether she should.

“The
Exotique Singer,” he said in a low voice. “So serene, are you so confident of
your place in the world?”

“On
Earth, certainly,” she said. For now, the next few years. Then she’d have to
continually fight to stay on top. “You, too, are serene and confident of your
place.”

“I
know who I am. My wealth, title, nobility,” he bit out. “As a man, I’m loved by
my brother—” he hesitated “—his wife, and the other Exotiques have affection
for me.”

“Great
affection, love. I felt that. Great respect.”

He
shrugged. “It almost makes up for the fact that my father never cared and my mother
prefers to live with her sister instead of her sons.”

“Her
sons are warriors.”

Now
he snorted. “And she prefers to pretend there is no Dark threatening Lladrana.
Because being the best, most famous warrior was my father’s driving obsession.”

Jikata
received a montage of moments with his mother, enough to say, “Her sons weren’t
normal, weren’t allowed to be by their father, and she didn’t understand that.
But she loves you as much as she can,” she said with solid certainty.

“You
think?” His gaze searched hers.

“I
know,” she said.

“Perhaps
when this is all over, I’ll go visit her again, take Bastien.” His eyes widened
and he looked away.

“What?”

He
tried to step away from her hold. She hung on. He subsided.

“I
never got used to my gift. Never wanted to when it mostly showed events I
didn’t want to know of in advance.” He smoothed her hair. “You should return to
the Abbey.”

The
words echoed in her head and sparked the memory that Ishi had said the same
thing to her last night in a dream, a continuing refrain of her
great-grandmother’s. “What have you seen concerning me?”

He
stared over her head. “You don’t want to know.”

Didn’t
she? Or did she? She’d lived with
her
gift all of her life, though had
allowed it to be dulled by hectic years.

She
swallowed. “Tell me.”

Taking
two steps away from her he stared at her with eyes that had gone the color of
bitter chocolate, his jaw flexed. “I give you a survival rate of approximately
sixty-five percent.”

Jikata
caught her breath, surprised. “So low?” she rasped.

The
twitch of his mouth was bleak. “Much better than most of the other Exotiques.”

Her
pulse pounded in her temples. She shouldn’t ask. Back off now. A strangled,
“Most?” fell from her lips and as if the word was a trigger, the air shimmered
in front of her and the sunny beach vanished.

Instead
she saw a horrible scene in black and grays and too much blood-red. She stood
at the foot of a broken, black mountain. The Dark’s Nest volcano. Hardly more
than a crater. The day was gray with clouds and smoke and ash. Red with ember
and blood.

Before
she could shift her glance aside, she saw fragments of an entwined Alexa and
Bastien.

Jikata
gasped. Shuddered.

Luthan’s
hands clamped hard on hers, she felt every callous. The flashing energy of like
minds chained them together. She turned away from the carnage of broken bodies,
volaran as well as humans. The mass was too many for her to count. Sickening.

Other
mounds showed pieces of horrors. There were more of them, but that was no
comfort.

Her
gaze fell on a woman in a green sorceress dress. Since her hair had leached
from vibrant red to mostly silver, it took several seconds for Jikata to
recognize Marian. Her left hand was mangled. Blood was a ribbon from her
forehead to the sterile ground. Then her eyelids fluttered and opened.

A
sob snagged Jikata’s attention and again she turned, weightless, to see Calli
wrapped in a stern Marrec’s arms. His hair, too, was silver. Their volarans
were crumpled and dead at their feet, in a pile with other singed horse flesh
surrounding the couple.

What
do you see?
Luthan’s voice prodded in the here and now, pulling at her. Gratefully she let
herself be swept back. Blinking damp lashes, Jikata drew in a shaky breath,
focused on Luthan’s serious face. She’d never been so glad to see anyone in all
her life. She grabbed his biceps to steady herself.

Her
insides were trembling.

Shit,
her whole body was trembling.

“We’ll
get you back to the manor.”

“Ttho.”
She wouldn’t let what she’d seen shake her so. Better get used to it, more
visions would come. She would have to handle them. Better start now.

“What
did you see?” Luthan squeezed her fingers, eyes resigned. “I don’t want to let
go of you.” His words hung in the silence and she heard more, she heard his
Song spiraling to intertwine with her own.

She’d
think about that later. “Let’s walk.” She wanted the warm sun, the pretty
beach.

Nodding,
Luthan let go of her hands and she felt colder.

She
took a wobbly first step, straightened her spine. She could and would handle
these visions.

A
breeze whipped around them, bringing the scent of brine, the taste of salt,
sand sifted into her shoes. That was fine. It told her she was alive.

Safe
here on the beach, walking to the manor. For the moment.

Luthan
watched her, brooding. She sensed he was calculating what to say. She kept
placing one foot in front of the other, calling on tai chi, thinking of her
balance, inner and outer.

“What
did you see, and who?” His tone was abrupt.

She
hadn’t seen what had happened to Bri, or Raine, their men or Koz. She hadn’t
seen Luthan’s fate. If she probed the feeling of the vision she might know. She
breathed in the air instead, concentrated on putting a glide in her step.

“Shall
I tell you of my visions?” he asked evenly. “They happen too frequently, one
every couple of weeks, and are ever changing, have plagued me for months.” She
stopped, turned so the sun warmed her back, so she could see the beautiful
green land above the dunes.

Luthan’s
lips curled. “The only constant in them is…” He lowered his voice so even the
wind couldn’t catch it. “Calli and Marrec live. One hundred percent of the
time. That is a given and true.”

Jikata
jerked a nod. “Yes, they were alive, thank God.”

“Thank
the Song,” Luthan agreed. “Thirty percent of the time I see my brother alive—”

Which
meant Alexa was alive since they were bondmates. Jikata blinked hard, tears
stinging the back of her eyes. She’d grown so close to these women already…as
if she’d always known them, their Songs, in the back of her mind, always
expected them to show up in her life.

She
held up her hand. “That’s enough.”

Luthan
stared at her and for a moment there was a disconnect, and he appeared strange
and alien. She shook her head to jar memories of their loving back into it, and
everything settled into place.

“What
did
you
see?” he asked.

“You
do
want to know.”

He
inclined his head.

“Why?”

His
jaw clenched, he looked away. “I like to be prepared.”

“If
the visions haven’t prepared you by now—”

“Your
Power is stronger than mine, your visions may be truer.”

“I
hope not. Remember the ninety percent error of meeting with the Exotiques.”

“I
bless that fact. Was the mountain whole?” he asked.

“Almost
a crater.”

He
looked surprised. “Good.” His shoulders settled a little lower, giving up
tension. “Who—”

“I
didn’t see all the Exotiques. Calli and Marrec lived, I think maybe Marian.”
The words bulleted from her, and she forgot gliding and began to stride. Luthan
kept pace, silently.