“An upgrade?” He grinned. “I was just starting to enjoy having the whole east tower ruin to myself.”
She didn’t laugh, not that he expected her to. No, his remark only seemed to make the shadows in her eyes go darker, until her expression seemed haunted with private pain. Her voice was quiet, toneless now. “You’ll stay in the chamber Jordana vacated on the fifth floor. It will be easier to keep you under closer watch--and under heavier guard--if you’re here in the main tower.”
Darion didn’t mean to add to her distress, but he had to know. “Why don’t you ever go to the east tower?”
She flinched as if she’d been struck. “It’s a ruin. There’s no reason for me to step foot in that place.”
He lowered his voice, realizing it was sorrow, not anger in her sharp reply. “It wasn’t always a ruin, though, was it?”
She may wish to draw a clear line between what they should be to each other and what they were becoming, but the simple truth was he cared about her. If he had learned anything about Selene since he’d arrived on her shore, it was that she was a complicated woman whose emotions went a hell of a lot deeper than she wanted to admit.
As strong as she was, her heart was weighed down with a heavy burden of pain.
It tore at him to see her struggle to carry that burden on her own.
“What happened, Selene?”
At first, he didn’t think she would answer. “My daughter perished in that tower.”
“Ah, Christ,” he uttered quietly. “I’m sorry.”
“It was a long time ago.” Her reply was toneless, as if it took all she had to keep her voice from breaking. “I should’ve had the damn thing torn down. Anyway, it’s not fit for anyone now, including you.”
It was a small truce, but he’d take it. And it was clear that Selene wasn’t going to give him more than that. At least not now, with the large throne room open to the rest of the palace while he and Selene stood in the open-air shelter of the adjacent solar.
Outside the columned arches and domed roof there was yet another garden. Although Selene’s light washed over the lush fruit trees and colorful flowers, he couldn’t help but notice that today it was . . . thinner. Less golden and vibrant than it had been upon his arrival.
Selene squared her shoulders and made to step past him. “I’ll have Yurec take you to your new quarters now.”
Darion took her arm in a loose grasp. “Wait.”
He took note again of the fatigue in her face. There was no doubting the enormity of her power, but was holding the light for so many days becoming too much for her?
Or did her fatigue have something to do with the sober conversation she’d been having with Sebathiel? Darion didn’t have to wonder what an Atlantean search team might be after, but the knowledge that they had possibly run into trouble was as much a concern to him as it clearly was to Selene and her adviser.
“What happened to the men you and Seb were talking about?”
Her gaze went wide. “Unhand me.”
Darion let go, but continued to block her way. “Talk to me, Selene. Where did you send your soldiers?” He saw the spark of reluctance in her face, the mistrust. “I heard Sebathiel say you sent a search party. I think we both know what they’re looking for.”
“I didn’t send them to D.C., if that’s what you’re thinking.”
It hadn’t been what he was thinking. There was only one place he wanted to contemplate even less than the Order’s headquarters. “Tell me you didn’t send them to the Deadlands to search for the missing two crystals.”
Her face said it all. “I sent soldiers several days ago. They haven’t returned.”
Darion cursed. “Even if they do come back, they won’t have what they’re looking for. The crystals are gone.”
“Gone?” Her cheeks went even paler. “The Order found them?”
“You’ll wish we did,” he said grimly. “This whole fucking world should wish we’d been the first to get them off that wrecked alien craft.”
Selene staggered backward, reaching for a bowl-topped pedestal for support. Darion caught her elbow, steadying her. “I was right,” she whispered. “Their shipwasout there in that taiga all this time. They had it cloaked?”
Darion nodded. “It also had a DNA lock on it. If it was breached, a trigger would detonate the crystals and blow up the ship and everything else on the planet.”
She closed her eyes on an inhaled oath. “There was a detonation. So, if the Order didn’t get the crystals off the abandoned craft, then who did?”
