Shadowstorm (Sorcery and Science Book 6) (16 page)

“The Selpes and the Avans both came to Marina Bay to upstage the other…” King River paused to gauge Davin’s reaction. “…with their Elition projects.”

“Elition? Projects?”

“They are experimenting on Elitions,” King River said. “Like the Xenens did.”

Shock flared inside Davin’s eyes, followed by outrage.

“I thought you might know something about this, considering that your best friend certainly does.”

“Aaron hasn’t said a thing about it.”
 

He wouldn’t have. Aaron Selpe was a wicked man, but he was no idiot. He was too smart to spill any details of the Selpes’ experiments to Davin.

“Ok.” King River looked calmer now; he must have feared that Davin was somehow a part of the Selpes’ scheme. “The Elition the Selpes are using is unfamiliar to us. She could be a rogue captured by the Selpes.”

“That’s against the terms of the alliance,” Ariella said. According to those terms, Elition criminals had to be turned over to Elitia and human prisoners to the Selpes.

King River set his hand on her shoulder. “I think we are far beyond that point now.”

“You’re right. Of course,” she said.

The shock must have made her stupid. The finer points of the alliance were irrelevant next to the atrocities being committed. The Selpes were hunting Elitions. They were hiding them away. And then they were conducting who knows what sorts of vile experiments to brainwash them into weapons.

“We need to figure out how deep the Selpes’ experiments go,” King River told her.

“Where do we even begin?” she asked.

“You don’t.”

Someone stepped out of the shadows. He flipped down his hood, exposing the face of Jason Chanz. Beside her, Davin tensed, his back going rigid.

“We’re allying with
him
?” Davin said, his tone checked.

Davin frowned when King River nodded. Jason ignored them both, his eyes trained on Ariella. He was studying her as though her face held the world’s greatest secret. She didn’t think she knew anything that would interest the assassin, but she did know a few things that could embarrass her. She wasn’t very good at masking her facial expressions either.

So Ariella turned her face toward King River instead. “What’s going on?”

King River took his seat. Davin remained standing. So did Jason. The atmosphere in the room was as friendly as a wartime skirmish.

“Jason has been investigating the Selpes’ and Avans’ experiments,” said King River. “It’s from him that I learned about what happened at the Summit.”

“What do we do about the experiments?” Ariella asked.

“We obliterate them,” said Jason, his words laden with pure ice.

“Jason has knowledge we do not,” King River said. “And he can act in ways that Elitia cannot. At least not officially.”

Davin was shaking his head.

“We need to work together,” King River continued. “Because only united can we hope to defeat this. It’s gone too far. It’s already spread beyond rogue Elitions. Two of our people have gone missing.”

“When?” Ariella asked.

“They were last seen a few days ago, but I only received the reports this morning. One Elition from Giantswood, the other from Sunset Tail.” King River looked at Jason. “We need these experiments gone. Not covered, not reduced. Completely wiped out. And the Selpes cannot know we had a hand in it. Not if we’re to outmaneuver them. Jason can make this happen.”

“And what do we do?” Ariella asked.

“We do whatever we can to assist Jason. But we must be discreet. We can’t let the Selpes know we’re on to them. Don’t even tell other Elitions. There’s no knowing who’s listening. What has been spoken here must not leave this room, at least not until we know our response.”

“What response could we possibly have to this?” she gasped.

“We’ll tackle that problem when we get to it,” replied King River.

Five hundred years ago, the Elitions of that era had expelled the Xenens for this very crime against them. They didn’t have that option anymore. Today, no one knew how to create portals in this world, let alone portals to another one. Silas—he might have known. But he was gone. According to one of the assassins who had tried to kill them, the portal Silas had jumped through after Hayden and Ian Selpe had brought them to another world.

“What do you need from us?” King River asked Jason.

“Terra.”

“I thought she was with you,” Davin said, frowning.

“Not anymore.” Jason’s eyes phased obsidian. “She’s taken it upon herself to go chasing conspiracies. I need to find her and bring her back to Eclipse, where she’ll be safe behind our portal. She’s in danger out here. The Selpes and Avans are both hunting her.”

“Maybe she’d be safer with us,” said Davin.

Jason’s dark eyes glared at him, burning with cold malice. “With the people who sold her to the Selpes? No. I won’t allow it. She comes with me. She’s safer with me.”

“If she was so safe with you, then why are you here asking for our help to find her?”

“Enough.” King River jumped up, putting himself between them. “The Selpes tore us apart once. We cannot allow them to do it again.” He looked at Jason. “We’ll help you all we can, Jason. Unfortunately, we haven’t seen or heard from Terra.”

“That’s not entirely true,” Ariella said, pulling out Terra’s note. “I just got a note from Terra. I know where she’s headed. But we’ll have to make a stop first.”

“What kind of stop?” Jason asked her.

“Terra asked me to convince one of my allies to help her. We need to pay my friend Marin a visit.”

Davin took Ariella’s hand. “I’m going with her.”

King River’s eyes dropped to their linked hands. “Is there something you wish to tell me?”

“Yes,” Davin said. “That I’m going with her.”

“You are of more use to me here than you would be to her out there.”

“She needs someone to watch her back. You can’t send her out there alone with
him
.”

“I won’t be alone. I’m going to see Marin,” Ariella said.

The question was whether Marin would be willing to come out of hiding to help them.

* * *

527AX January 12, Laelia

Ariella and Jason were halfway down the abandoned hallway when Davin came running up after them.

“I need to speak to you.” He looked at Ariella. “Alone.”

“All right,” she replied, following him.

As soon as they were outside, he pulled her aside into the grove of cherry trees. With a layer of luminescent pink between them and anyone in sight, Davin began to talk.

“I don’t trust that man.”

“Your father seems to,” she said.

“Allying with a rogue assassin? He’s allowed desperation to cloud his judgement.”

“That doesn’t sound like him.”

“No, generally not,” he said. “But you’ve never seen him face a situation as dire as this. He isn’t always the king of rationality everyone thinks him to be.”

“Even so, King River wouldn’t ask Jason to work with us if he didn’t believe our goals were aligned.”

“Jason told him he is doing this for Terra.”

“I actually believe that.”

Davin sighed. “So do I. But I still don’t like this. I especially don’t like that you’re working with him.”

She grinned. “Jealous?”

“Of
him
? Please.” He intertwined his fingers with hers. “I’m just worried for your safety. Danger follows him wherever he goes.”

“That’s kind of the gist of being an assassin.”

“You and your jokes. Never taking anything seriously.” He flipped her hand over and gave her a kiss to the wrist that sent warm tingles up and down her arm. “Not only is he a rogue, he’s an assassin. And not only is he an assassin, he’s an assassin my father is paying to help us.”

Surprise snorted out of her nose. “King River is paying him?”

“Yes.” He didn’t look amused.

“Well, then you have nothing to worry about. Jason Chanz has a reputation for upholding his contracts.”

“That’s not the reputation I’m worried about.”

“The Selpes came up with the rogue label, and they are the reason Jason’s family and yours aren’t friends anymore,” she said. “We both want the same thing: to figure out the truth behind these experiments and end them for good. It’s just like what happened with the Xenens, and we cannot allow it to continue. I’m with your father on this one.”

He dropped her hand. “I thought you might be.”

“Davin.” She set her hands on his shoulders. “Terra trusts Jason. So can we.”

“She trusts him too much. She went rogue with him.”

“She went rogue to save herself from the Selpes. You wouldn’t want to see her as one of Lord Adrian’s weapons, would you?”

“Of course not. I just wish… I don’t know what I wish.”

“She’s safer with him, out of the reach of the Selpes.”

“You’re right.” He wrapped his arm around her and kissed her atop her head. “Of course you’re right.”

She leaned into him, the feeling of his closeness warming her skin—and her heart.

“Ariella?”

“Mmm?” She snuggled in closer, trying to soak in every moment before she left. Who knew how long she would be gone.

“Do you think Terra will ever forgive me?”

She looked up at him. “Yes. I do. Just give her a reason to.”

“By playing nice with Jason?”

“That would be a good start.”

His eyes glazed over for a moment, then he looked back at her. “Do you think she’d settle for a box of chocolates instead?”

“I don’t think she would ever consider a gift of chocolate as ‘settling’.”

“As long as it’s dark chocolate.”

Ariella grinned at him. “Exactly.”

“Maybe I’ll do that then.”

“But only if you get me a box too. White chocolate.”

He caught her finger as she tried to poke him in the chest. “I know precisely what you like, Ariella.”

She didn’t know why that made her blush, but it did.

“When this experiment mess is cleaned up, we should go away together.” He stroked his hand up and down her arm. “Just the two of us.”

“I’d like that.”

“What do you say to Wellspring?” Davin suggested with a crooked smile.

She punched him in the arm. “That’s not funny.”

“I promise to protect you from all the horny half-naked Diamond Edges.”

He really didn’t know what was good for him. She nipped him once on the lip.

“Do you really have to go right now?” he asked, pulling her closer.

She couldn’t hear Jason waiting beside the palace, but she knew he was still there. And she was pretty certain he could hear her and Davin.

She pulled away. “I’ll come back soon.”

“If you don’t, I might just decide to go looking for you.”

“Is that a threat?”

“You bet it is,” he said. “Come back safely, or I’ll be forced to fight my way to you.”

“Well, when you put it like that.” She kissed him softly. “I’d best not get myself into trouble.”

If only it were as easily said as done.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

~
Riposte ~

527AX January 12, Laelia

ARIELLA JOINED JASON beside the palace. Davin threw her a final furtive glance, then went back to the Assembly Chamber to discuss strategy with King River.

As she and Jason passed Chimera beneath the cherry blossoms, he winked at her. Ariella puckered up her lips and blew him a kiss, which the crazy Phantom caught and slapped to his arm, as though it were as real as he was. One of these days, his whimsical side was going to get him into trouble.

The afternoon was waning. There were only a few hours left of sunlight. If they wanted to make it to Beechwheat before dark, they’d have to hurry. There was no portal that connected Laelia to the hometown Marin and Leonidas shared, which wasn’t surprising. Portals outside of Elitia were extremely rare.

So the portal system was out. As was going by foot. Under normal circumstances, covering the distance between Laelia and Beechwheat would take days; considering that a mountain range sat between them, weeks was more likely.

That left only less conventional means. Ariella and Jason circled around the cherry blossom grove, following the path until it stopped at the foot of a large wooden barn. Strawberry-red and propped open by a few head-sized rocks, the barn doors shuddered in the breeze. Beyond them, two cars, a sloppy row of motorcycles, and an old airplane sat inside the open bay. The collection of odd vehicles looked as out of place in Laelia as Ariella’s magic glowing sword was in Orion.

Laelia was far enough outside the Wilderness that human technology worked here. And that was what Ariella was afraid of.

“Wait here,” she told Jason.

He gave her a cool look.

“You tend to startle people,” Ariella explained, leaving him at the barn doors.

She squeezed between two lopsided motorcycles, which were just a sneeze away from falling on top of each other, and followed the ear-splitting cry of screeching metal to the back.

An Elition woman popped out from behind a wall of boxes piled twice as high as Ariella. She brushed her twin side braids, each one a perfect color match to the barn doors, off her shoulders and said, “King River mentioned you’d be around.”

She slid up the dark visor that covered most of her face, staring out at Ariella with eyes that were aquamarine. And familiar.

“Riposte,
you
are my transportation?”

Riposte spread her lips wide, showing off that same grin Ariella knew from her years at Rosewater. They’d never been friends, but they had been in the same class. And though they’d run in different circles, Ariella had always liked Riposte. She’d been basically the only one with the nerve—and the verbal flair—to give Trinity the telling off she so very much deserved.

“Just think of me as your guide to the world of exotic vehicles,” said Riposte.

“And what sort of ‘exotic vehicle’ will be trying to kill me today?”

“I’ve heard you have a phobia for tech.”

“So would you if a gang of driverless motorcycle robots had tried to splatter the walls with your blood.”

Chewing on her lip, Riposte gave her a long, assessing look. “A pile of motorcycles fell on me last week. They were driverless, but not robotic. I hadn’t lined them up properly.”