Hotter on the Edge (36 page)

She sighed and sat up, turning away from him as she did to pull the sheet around her—the first time she'd ever covered herself from him. "You know I don't, or I wouldn't be here with you." The swirls of the crystal around her spine shone in his peripheral vision like a distant galaxy. "But the l'auralya who offered that bargain no longer exists."

What was she saying? "You are right here."

She glanced over her shoulder at him, her jewel-toned eyes shadowed. "Yes."

In frustration and desperation, he reminded her, "Qv'arratz owes me for saving you."

"You haven't saved us yet." She held up one hand. "But I don't doubt you will. After all, you are an undefeated soldier, Captain Deynah."

"Captain again?" He almost choked on the words.

"It was you who spoke of payment." She rose with a faint wobble that betrayed some inner weakness and grabbed the gown she had discarded earlier. "But for all that, I think you will not try to collect."

Bitterness swept him. "You know me so well now?"

She nodded. "You fought for your own freedom as you are fighting now for ours, but more than a good soldier, you are a good man. I won't burden you with…with battles that can't be won." Her fingertips traced the inner curve of the torque where the barrier sealant preserved the facets.

So why did those sharp shining fangs feel as if they were gnawing through him?

"You think I am such a good man?" His voice broke on a harsh note. "A mercenary would hold you to what you once proposed, and shred your change of heart."

"It wasn't my heart that changed." She turned away to slip the gown over her head. The fabric skimmed down past her breasts and thighs, veiling the silvery lines where his tongue had roamed. "It's too late. For us, if not Qv'arratz. Goodbye, Captain. You are freed and needn't come back. I'm sure the final outcome will be clear to all of us by tomorrow."

He jack-knifed to his knees, careless of his nudity, and grabbed her arm to yank her back. "I'm not leaving you."

"You will eventually. You need your stars too much. And I..." With a smooth spin, she twisted out of his grip. "I didn't understand that need, but now I think I finally do."

Some wild, reckless rejection—the same that had welled in him when told to burn through an innocent planet—forced him to his feet. "You're not giving me a chance here."

"No, I didn't give you a choice. There is a difference between the two that you made clear to me. I'm sorry we forced you to come here, but I will never forget our time together. Never. I can't, because I'll never be the same again."

The soft music in her tone—like a song both tender and sorrowful—distracted him, so he was slow to react when she reached up and tugged the torque from around her neck.

Cupped between her silvery hands, the a'lurily crystal glimmered with the icy beauty of Qv'arratz's rings. She sighed and the crystal sighed back at her with a mournfulness that nearly broke his heart.

"Princess..." He took a short step toward her. "What are you doing?"

She edged back and swallowed hard, the pulse leaping in her naked throat. Red lines grooved the sides of her neck; if they survived, she'd be bruised tomorrow where the crystal circlet had resisted letting her go.

When she shifted her grip on the torque, the blunt finials disappeared, one into each clenched fist. "That is why we brought you here, after all, so we would all be free."

The muscles in her arms bunched.

"Etta, no!" Reaching for the torque, he jumped through the space she'd opened between them. With his cry still echoing, he knocked her one hand loose from the finial. The crystal, skin-warm against his fingertips, chimed a response to his voice.

But she yanked away with a hard snap.

Leaving just half an arc of crystal in his hand.

Benedetta's gasp went through him more sharply than the thousand jagged edges of qva'avaq that sliced into the meat of his palm.

The sealant had shattered, and the tiny barbs of crystal clung to his skin as he jerked back in a spray of blood. He cursed, more in shock than pain, though the sting reverberated through his nerves.

The remnant of the torque slipped out of his blood-slicked hand. It spun through the air, shining once even in the darkness.

But gravity was inevitable. The crystal fell, hit the tiles, and in a spray of scintillating light, splintered with a peal of silvery bells.

Chapter Thirteen

The half circle of crystal in Benedetta's hands crumbled to dust. She staggered, stunned—her head strangely light, as if the weight of the crystal around her neck all those years had held her down. She dropped to her knees, and the jagged shards of qva'avaq bit through the fine mesh of her gown.

"Etta!" Corso's hoarse call sounded distant through the roaring in her ears.

The room tilted. Was she falling?

No. Corso lifted her up out of the broken circle of crystal, his arms wrapped around her in a full embrace. His bleeding hand left a dark blur on her pale skin.

"It broke?" Her own voice was fuzzy. She sharpened the note. "Did it truly break?"

"It broke. Benedetta, I'm sorry. I didn't mean—"

"I wasn't sure I could do it." She straightened unsteadily. "The crystals don't break."

He swore again as he deposited her on the bed they'd so recently enjoyed. "Why did you take it off? Why did you want to break it?" He knelt beside her and snapped open a lume stick, defying his own blackout order. "Let me see your knees."

"It's nothing."

He lifted back the hem of her gown and brushed gently at the shards of crystal speckling her skin. He winced as the sharp facets shredded his fingertips—silver shining through his blood—but he did not stop. "Benedetta..."

"I don't feel it. Not at all." Maybe she'd never feel anything again. Perhaps that was the price of shattering the qva'avaq bond. She blinked hard against the chemical glow of the light stick that left halos in her teary vision.

But the bond could never have been completed because she would not allow Corso Deynah to be compelled through crystal or tears or the looming threat of death.

It should be by his choice alone. As she'd made hers.

"Etta?" He gave her a light shake. "Talk to me. Is the crystal connected to you? Will breaking it like this hurt you?"

"I don't know."

"How can you not know?" His voice rose. "How could you break it without knowing?"

"No one's ever broken one before."

He raked one hand over his hair, leaving more bloody streaks and a few sparkling shards of crystal across his forehead. "I need to get you up to the
Asphodel
. Jorr can do a full scan."

"It doesn't matter now, Corso. There's nothing you can do." She pushed herself to her feet.

"Princess—" He dropped to his knees in front of her.

For a confused moment, she stared down at him. Then the roar reached her ears and a flash of hellish red outlined the door and windows. Her knees had been shaking so badly, she hadn't even felt the detonation that knocked the captain off his feet.

Corso was yelling—not at her, she realized, but at his distant crew—his hand cupped over his ear comm. "It's not the mortar drop. Wrong blast size. There's a ship up there, playing with us. Find it. I want the
Asphodel
in position before they contact the planet. We need negotiating space."

Benedetta struggled to focus, but all her crystal lines seemed vague and strange, like the icy dust of the planetary rings drifting outward. The qva'avaq had never felt so far away. She edged toward the door and put her hand out.

Behind her, Corso was still talking.

"Injuries unknown. First strike was aimed at the temple, but there aren't enough l'auraly here to be the target. The raiders are eliminating infrastructure, not people. Probably trying to wipe out any alternate sources of the crystal."

Benedetta laughed, a hollow sound in her ringing ears. "I got a start on that tonight, didn't I?"

Corso looked up and met her stare. "Etta, do not go out there."

She'd already begun the destruction. What could be worse? She swung open the door.

The main temple building was ablaze, the Hall of Mute Crystals a jumble of broken sticks. She couldn't tell which had taken the brunt of the strike, but flaming debris had scattered all around.

Once, a brazier had tipped over, setting a curtain afire. Yecho had rung the temple bells and the villagers had come at a run to fight the fire. The temple bells were melting now, and no one was coming.

Well, not entirely true. Corso charged out the door behind her, pulling her under his arm as if the width of his shoulders could keep all harm away.

But truly, though she had done the breaking, he had caused the pain, and somehow, the crack of the crystal had freed them both. She shrugged away from him and bolted across the temple grounds.

She knew he followed but at least he didn't try to stop her. Instead, he pointed across the yard. "Yecho and the girls were in there."

Side by side, they raced toward the smoldering building. She fought the sense of having lived this before, but she and Corso worked in perfect harmony to wrench open the door, swing through the smoky interior, and retrieve the disoriented old man and the terrified girls.

As they exited, Icere pelted across the yard toward them, his tablet clutched to his chest. "I saw the targeting signal and almost had a fix to hijack their code, but I couldn't deflect." Anguish deepened his voice, and Benedetta mourned the adulthood coming too fast tonight.

"We can't go back into the temple grounds," Corso was saying into his comm thread with the
Asphodel
. "Obviously they have the area targeted and locked. Can't head to the village either; same reason. Too obvious to launch the pod under these conditions." He tilted his head as he listened to the response from his crew. "Then that's the best we can do. Keep working on it. We'll stay low."

He glanced over at Benedetta. "We need a place—"

"L'auralya," Yecho said sharply. "Where is your key?"

She touched her neck, as if she'd forgotten. "Gone. Destroyed."

Icere gasped. "In the bombing?"

"I did it," Corso said harshly. "And the rest of us are doomed to the same fate if we don't get moving."

All the l'auraly, even Benedetta herself, started at him with mouths agape.

"He didn't do it," Benedetta corrected. "I did."

But no one was listening to her. Icere sputtered. "Why—why would you do that?
How
did you do that? The crystalline structure is nearly indestructible."

"Not to me apparently," Corso growled. He sounded so harsh, so hateful, Torash and Alolis started to cry in harmony. But Benedetta heard the pain tightening his voice as he took the blame. But why would he feel badly when all along he'd spoken plainly about what he saw as slavery?

She shook off her confusion. "The captain is correct. We need to find a safe haven to wait this out while the
Asphodel
targets the attackers."

Icere straightened. "How can you still believe in them—in
him
—after what he has done?"

"Because we have no choice," she said simply.

Corso paled, and she realized if she'd wanted to hurt him, she couldn't have found a better way than with her distracted words. The captain, who valued his freedom above all else, who had rejected all she stood for, thought he'd taken her choice from her.

Couldn't he understand she was giving
them
a chance?

She wanted to shatter all her ingrained grace and decorum and demand that he see past the silver in her skin…except her thoughts suddenly whirled.

Perhaps the captain thought her fate had always been in others' hands, but she'd been taught that her own touch still had power, a power reflected in the ritualized gestures of the l'auraly. So she'd been taught by…

She turned slowly to Yecho. "Where is Rislla?"

He shook his head. "I haven't seen her since… I can't remember now." He frowned.

Icere gripped the tablet to his chest. "She followed me after we talked at the clearing. I wanted to ask her again about undergoing the key ceremony early, and she told me it was over, that I'd never have my key. She just walked away, and that's when I went to the Hall of Mute Crystals. I didn't see anyone again until you and the captain earlier tonight."

Corso clenched his fist. "Doesn't sound like she had too much faith in our victory."

Benedetta nodded, her body tightening in matching outrage. "Because she thought she already knew the outcome. Why didn't I see it?"

"Didn't see what?" Icere's plaintive voice tried to cut between them. "What are you talking about?"

But Corso, of course, knew what she meant and touched her arm. "Why would you have known? She's one of you."

Yecho shook his head slowly. "Not quite."

The l'auraly stared at him in shock. Benedetta shook off Corso's comforting hand. "What do you mean?"

"She never left Qv'arratz to be with her a'lurilyo."

Icere frowned. "But why? Once Rislla was keyed, she should have stayed with him forever." He blushed a little. "Well, forever until her a'lurilyo died."

Yecho glanced at Benedetta, encompassing Corso with the look. "Rarely—so rarely there haven't even been legends—a keying fails. Perhaps a flaw in the crystal matrix that prevents true resonance. In the last century, we've worried that as the rock vein thins, more of the crystals will be flawed."

Icere pursed his lips. "That explains why the survival rate has declined over time. The quality of the crystals has declined too."

Yecho bowed his head. "We think that could be so."

Corso swore. "And still you exposed your children?"

"It's who we are," Yecho protested. "It's all we have."

Benedetta shook her head slowly. "And that is gone. Or will be soon. Except now we have to prevent the infection of the universe." She paused. "Rislla sent them the location of the qva'avaq mine. That's where she is. That's where she went to send her message."

Corso swore. "They are keeping us pinned down and occupied while they move in and take the crystals."