“Come,” I say sharply, eager to end their contact.
She stiffens, still touching him. “I’m not adawhg, Nik.” I don’t know what that is, but my translator supplies something like a trained animal. A pet.
“And I am not your apprentice, waiting on the sidelines until you need your blade polished,” I growl. She frowns at me but drops her hand from Aqen’s, and I can finally relax. More gently, I repeat, “Come. We will search for your friend.”
She scans my face and the stubborn set of her jaw softens. “Okay, then.”
I make sure to stay slightly ahead of her in the passageways, flaring my nares to take in as much fresh air as I can before we reach the comm room. Being shut up in the small space with her will hurt more than Cidro’s unpitying massage. I’d hoped for more respite from her scent after our journey from Olethia, but the quickest way to deter her from assisting with this search is to show her how tedious and futile it really is. Failing that, I will temporarily increase the ventilation rate inside the mountain.
In my peripheral vision, her steps lighten. She’sbouncingin anticipation.And even under a few layers of sveli, her swollen terrakin chest bounces, too. Alioth save me, could this get any worse? I move faster, fast enough that she falls back, blessedly out of my sight.
“Do not expect much progress,” I tell her when we reach the comm room. The old comm scholar is missing from his post, probably sleeping, so the room is empty.
“Don’t be a negative Nikky,” she says, her mouth curving up. All her frustration with me is gone, even though she’s breathing fast from the effort keeping pace with me. “You and me, we’re going to find her.”
I like her smile a little too much. I like the warm scent of her that she pants into the air. I like her stupid name for me, a name I would allow no one else. I like that she groups us together.
Frix, she is so dangerously appealing.
I put as much space between us as I can, crossing the room to where the dark comms are mounted to the stone walls. Her eyes aren’t on me, now, but on the screens as I bring up the Frathik channels one after another. Their voices mingle into something undecipherable, but the comm translates their speech into a string of bright characters on the screen. “See?”
She shakes her head, her smile gone. “I can’t read it.”
“Unimportant. Even if you could read them, you couldn’t monitor all the channels at once. No one can. They are constantly recorded and transcribed, and then my comm scholar and I search them for mentions that could be the terrakin. Lena,” I amend. “Unusual movements, coded language, transports with extra cargo. Anything that is out of the ordinary, we flag and investigate. I wanted you to see that I have not been shirking. You may see me at many tasks, but this one is ongoing.”
She nods. “What about R’Hiza? Can we take a look at the blocks Lyro mentioned?”
“No.”
“What?! Why not?”
“R’Hiza’s rings interfere with visibility of that sector.”
She scoffs. “How do you know?! You haven’t even looked.”
“I checked during our journey here.” I turn away from her, back to the screens with their droning Frathik voices and scrolling lines of text. “We would need a Frathik drone to search there, and they won’t allocate us one. This is the best way to find her. The most likely way. Even if it were possible, an imaging search of that sector would be painstaking and take weeks.”
“So it takes weeks!” She gives a screech of frustration. “I can’t believe you! Lyro was right not to tell you. If he’d given you the information, you wouldn’t have done anything with it, would you?”
“Likely not,” I admit, finally meeting her eyes. “I would not waste my time on the futile errands of a known liar. He is untrustworthy.”
“Well, I trust him. I want to do a manual search,” she says stubbornly. “Show me how.”
“Your efforts would be better spent searching the comm records.”
“The comm records you’ve been searching for months with no results?” Her words are benign, but her tone is pure poison. I don’t care if it kills me. Alioth save me, I want to suck it from her lips. I watch her mouth move, barely hearing her words when she goes on. “For someone allergic to wasting time, seems like you’ve wasted a lot of it. Meanwhile, Lena’s rotting in a Frathik cell somewhere. Or sold to the highest bidder and on her way to another star system!”
“The Frathik delegation assured us that she is still in this star system.” I hope to placate her, though I can’t help being stung by her criticism. She’s right. My search thus far has proven fruitless. I have been given a duty by my Emperor and now my Alara to find this missing female, and I have failed them both.
But it is not for lack of trying. I have neglected many of my other duties in favor of this one. Without my attention, my apprentices have fallen behind in their training. The miners complain that the storage tunnels need maintenance and the geothermal pumps are old, but I haven’t had time to requisition the supplies from Irra to upgrade them. Epylium production has slowed as a result. Less ore means less wealth for the Five Planets. Reduced trading power, reduced ability to defend ourselves against the Eye and other enemies.
Simply put, we can’t afford a war. And everyminuteI spend on the search for this terrakin puts the Five Planets in greater jeopardy. And for what? Empty hands because my wrists are tied without Frathik cooperation.
“You believethoseassholes, but not your brother?”
Mybrother. I want to laugh. What does the word mean when Lyro is the person most likely to betray me? The one who bears me the most malice? Brotherhood is a convenient farce for him, just another thread of power that he likes to tug on.
“Lyrolied.She isn’t there. The sooner you realize that, the faster we’ll find her.”
