Sword of the Gods: Agents of Ki (Sword of the Gods Saga) (30 page)

"Leave us," Jophiel said. Her heart beat loudly in her ears. She averted her gaze from the eager laboratory assistant so Congmin would not witness the glisten of tears.

"Yes, Sir," Congmin said. His throat-pouch harummed with disappointment at her rudeness. With an injured sigh, he shuffled out of the room and shut the door behind him.

Jophiel stared down at the four-star general whose foolish actions had lit the fuse to the trap Lucifer had set out like a master demolitions expert. Last in a long line of highly-decorated Centauri stallions and mares, the thirteen-foot tall cavalry general didn't look so fierce now, pacing back and forth as he clutched his tiny foal to his chest, born five months premature, and willed his foal to stay alive.

The room took on a bit of a faraway, ethereal feel. A lump rose in Jophiel's chest, settled in her throat, and threatened to erupt past her icy exterior into a wail of misery. So acutely could she feel what the Centauri stallion was going through that her lips moved as Kunopegos did, breathing along with his foal. Breathe. That's a good little girl, just one more breath, and another, and another. Don't stop breathing, please! Don't forget to take the next breath! Jophiel wiped her nose. Her hand came away drenched with tears.

Why, oh why, had the Emperor sent
her
to ask these questions? She, who could in no way remain unbiased? She forced her emotions behind the icy mask of the Ice Princess. Wings flared like a raptor, she descended down the steps and yanked open the door.

Kunopegos did not whirl, agile on his hooves to salute her. No. The Centauri stallion placed his enormous hooves carefully so his steel-clad war-shoes did not clang against the floor and disturb his foal.

"Sir," Kunopegos whispered.

He'd unbuttoned his uniform so his foal's ear could rest against his heart. Unable replicate the gentle rocking of its mother's womb, the Emperor had strapped the medical equipment which kept the foal alive to its father's equine back as he paced, trailing IV's, wires, and all the other hardware across the floor. Other than one tiny black hoof which peeked out of the convergence of IV's, tubes and wires into a pink blanket, Jophiel might as well have stared at a trans-dimensional alien.

"As you were." Jophiel forced her features to remain hard.

"We have to keep our voices down," Kunopegos said. "If Dierdre startles, the increased adrenaline makes it harder to process oxygen."

The breathing machine hissed as pure oxygen flowed into her impossibly immature lungs, enriched with the Emperor's elixirs. A second machine ran tubes filtering toxins from the foal's blood, a job her
mother
had done until Aigharn's renal system had failed. Jophiel's lip quivered. How many tubes had they run into Uriel before they'd given up and told her to just hold him as he died?

Only Uriel
hadn't
died.
She
had kept him alive. She and Raphael. By doing the exact same thing Kunopegos did now. Out … in … here … take my breath … take my life … I'll do anything if you'll just take one more breath … please … just one more breath … anything … take me, goddess! I'll do anything, just please don't punish my child!

Her hand inadvertently brushed across the one medal Abaddon had allowed her to keep, the one she had gained by birthing her fifth child right on the battlefield. Duty. Honor. Service to the Emperor. It had all been a mistake. That entire
battle
had been a mistake.

Compassion forced her to soften the Ice Princess mask.

"I'm here to find out what you know," Jophiel said.

"I have confessed to every crime," Kunopegos brown eyes were filled with anguish. "I will take any punishment, including death. Just don't let the Emperor give up on my filly."

How many times had
she
made the exact same plea as Uriel had lay dying from the wasting sickness?

"It's not a confession I seek," Jophiel said. "But information."

"I told the Cherubim everything I know."

"It's not what you
know
you know
,
" Jophiel said, "but what you
don't
know. What
we
don't know."

"You want to know how I deluded myself into doing something so stupid?" Kunopegos guessed.

"Yes."

"I don't know!" Kunopegos burly shoulders dropped lower as he cradled the sleeping infant closer. "I just … I guess I just heard what I wanted to believe."

"Lucifer testified he had no recollection of ever telling you it would be safe to harvest the foal at eleven weeks premature," Jophiel said.
Eleven weeks. Not twenty-six…

"That's what he claimed when I confronted him a few weeks before Aigharn died." Kunopegos voice rose in anger. Immediately an alarm on Dierdre's breathing machine cast its shrill warning into the room.

An eerie sense of déjà vu settled over Jophiel and made her feel lightheaded and weak. Both fell silent, listening for the foal to regain her equilibrium. Finally the beeping ceased and the alarm went away. The tiny black hoof wriggled deeper into the soft pink blanket as the foal fell back to sleep. Jophiel realized she'd been holding her breath.

"When we first intercepted the
Syracusia
," Jophiel spoke softly, "you said it felt as if Lucifer had spoken inside your head?"

"That's crazy talk," Kunopegos said. He mashed his face into his shoulder since he had no hand free to wipe away his tears. "It was just as Parliament said. I deluded myself into believing what I
wanted
to believe."

"What if I told you Lucifer had the ability to make people see what they wanted to see," Jophiel said.

Kunopegos stopped his pacing.

"I'd say you were crazy," Kunopegos said. He started pacing again, then paused as he reached the end of the floor and turned to pace back again. "But then, that makes me crazy too, doesn't it? Because the bastard made me
see
this foal before she'd even been conceived."

"Really?" Jophiel asked. "I mean … he made you see the future?"

A hint of a smile lit up Kunopegos face as his eyes turned into the past.

"He showed me a chestnut colt," Kunopegos said. "One who looked like me. On my back rode my wife, and at her breast suckled this little girl, right down to her mother's almond-shaped eyes."

Jophiel had not had an opportunity to look closely at the foal, but she took his word for it. Kunopegos brief smile turned downwards as he regained his grief-stricken expression of only moments before.

"Have you ever wanted something so badly you would sell your soul to get it?" Kunopegos asked.

Until she had nearly lost Uriel, Jophiel would have said
no.
Now…

"Yes," Jophiel answered honestly.

"I served Lucifer during the Emperor's absence," Kunopegos said. "Long before you were even born. Do you know why we all served the little bastard?"

"Why?"

"Because he always understood exactly what we wanted," Kunopegos said, "and he always gave us just enough of it that, even when the shit hit the fan, we were always willing to stand behind him."

"The same could be said of the Eternal Emperor."

"The Emperor abandoned us when we needed him the most!" Kunopegos stomped his hoof. "Lucifer was a pompous little prick, but you always felt like he watched out for the good of the Alliance."

Jophiel was wise enough not to let him know she disagreed.

"That day though?" Kunopegos said. "The day he gave me Aigharn? It was like Lucifer was a different man."

Jophiel's pinfeathers stood on end. "Different?"

"He was, I don't know?" Kunopegos said. "It was like there was
more
of him than there was before."

"More?"

"More … everything," Kunopegos said. He stared over her shoulder, as if he stared at Lucifer now. "Lucifer was a cocky bastard. Always knew how to get what he wanted, and make
you
want it, too. But that day?"

Kunopegos tail twitched as though he was chasing away a fly.

"Even before he stepped foot off his shuttle," Kunopegos said. "It felt as though … I don't know how to describe it."

"Try."

"You'll think I'm crazy."

"I already think you're crazy," Jophiel said. She rustled her feathers to get rid of the heebie-jeebies. "That doesn't mean you're wrong."

Kunopegos nuzzled Dierdre, checked her tubes before he finished telling his story. Jophiel waited for him to compose his thoughts.

"You know how sometimes just before the Emperor appears you get that
feeling?
" Kunopegos said. "Like … I don't know … as if you were standing next to FTL drives?"

"I know the feeling," Jophiel said.

"It was like that," Kunopegos said. "Only bigger."

"Bigger?"

"Much bigger," Kunopegos whispered ominously.

Jophiel's skin began to crawl. "You
knew
there was no way a tiny human could birth a Centauri colt. Why didn't you tell Lucifer
no?
"

"I wanted to," Kunopegos said. He glanced down at the sleeping foal. "But then Lucifer offered me the one thing I wanted more than anything in the world. And in that moment, Sir? Well…"

His brown eyes filled once more with tears.

"I wanted it so bad it didn't
matter
if it killed her," Kunopegos whispered. "All I cared about was getting my filly." He bowed his head and kissed the tiny bundle which he cradled to his heart. "But you wouldn't know anything about that, would you, Sir? You, who She-who-is has blessed every single time you asked her for a child."

"How dare you!"

Jophiel whirled, using the shelter of her wings to hide her clenched fists until the shaking subsided. She realized her hand had instinctively drifted down to cover her womb, the womb Raphael had been unable to fill. The womb
Lucifer
had been unable to fill.

Inconclusive…

How many times had she begged them to re-run the tests when it had been Lucifer she'd tried to begat offspring with, praying they had run it wrong, praying that if she conceived, Lucifer would allow her to see him again? She hadn't been the Supreme Commander-General then, but a nameless, faceless cadet. When she'd finally gotten her death-blood, she had cried as though she'd been mourning a death. Her recent failure with Raphael? This time she was determined to accept her failure with dignity. Unlike her failure with Lucifer, at least she had Uriel to seal their union.

The Centauri stallion grew quiet, focused on the child he had given up everything to sire. How many times in his 500+ year lifespan had Kunopegos gone through what
she
had gone through, hoping, praying, only to have his hopes dashed again and again. She, at least, had gone on to bear twelve babies before the next time She-who-is rejected her.

She turned back to finish her interrogation.

"You said the next time you saw Lucifer he didn't know what you were talking about?" Jophiel said.

"It was an act," Kunopegos snorted.

"Are you certain?"

Kunopegos hesitated. His nostrils flared, wide, oxygen-inhaling sensory organs on a broad, brown face. She knew he inhaled her scent, assessing whether she was being facetious.

"No," Kunopegos finally said. He turned and moved back in the other direction, continuing his gentle, rocking pace. "If I hadn't been so angry at him, I probably would have dragged him to sick bay. The guy looked like he'd been chewed up and shat out by a Leonid."

Jophiel remembered how pale Lucifer had looked the day the Emperor had barred him from entering the Garden. Was it possible Lucifer had been possessed by … no! Like Kunopegos said, that was crazy talk. And in any event, Lucifer was dead. Nothing Kunopegos said was of any use to the Eternal Emperor.

"Thank you, General." Jophiel tucked her wings against her back into an Angelic's normal, resting position. "As you were."

Kunopegos continued his gentle pace, his attention already turned back to his foal and not the busted-down private who wasn't any longer his Supreme Commander-General. She'd learned no actionable intelligence here, only disturbing self-revelations. Even
she,
the most stalwart defender of the Eternal Emperor, would sell her soul to the devil if the price was right.

~ * ~ * ~