This was the one contingency I hadn’t run. The guild had decided thejunversyrup operation was worth direct action after all. They hadn’t come to help. They’d come totake. I had traded one armed force for another, I didn’t know where Maive and the others were, and I had a bad feeling the guild did. AndIwas the one who drew them here. Me and my foolish emotional attachments. My ribs felt like they were going to squeeze the life out of both my hearts.
A voice came from inside the shuttle. Afemalevoice. Afamiliarfemalevoice.
“Move. I saidmove.” An exasperated sigh. “Out of my way, right now.”
The mercenaries at the top of the ramp parted, yielding to the orders of a woman who burst through the wall of armor, muscle, and enough weaponry to take out a city.
The mercenaries watched her as her gaze swung around until it landed on me. Then, she let out a little cry and ran toward me, which I knew she’d consider undignified under any other circumstance. For my part, I stood there looking like a vacant room, not quite believing my own eyes. I had a weapon in each hand, which I’d fully expected to use, and no idea what had triggered the fresh reality switch I’d just found myself in. Perhaps we’d gone through a dimensional transference field. Any number of possibilities seemed likely until she slammedinto me and I felt her arms come around me. I wrapped her in mine, breathing in her sea and bread scent, with both weapons still in my hands, because I still had nofleckingidea what was going on.
She pulled back, cupped my face in both hands and looked at me directly. Her brows knitted as she took stock, checking for injuries. “Are you hurt?”
“No.” My voice came out like a croak. “Are you—?”Real, was how I would have finished that if she hadn’t waved me off.
“I’m fine. Is Aila with you?”
“Yes.” Finally, a question I could answer. “She’s safe in my shuttle.”
Her body sagged. “Thank thestars. She’s the only one unaccounted for.” Then, she turned to the mercenaries who’d assembled behind her and gestured to Morra as if he were an overturned rubbish bin. “Don’t stand there. Seize that man.” Ambassador Yeaven Morra had made it to sitting but was still blinking. “And find the others who ran.”
Two mercenaries stepped up and heaved Morra to his feet. The rest fanned out into the village.
I squinted at her. “What is happening right now?”
She started to answer. Boots on the ramp cut her off. I looked past her as a mercenary came down toward us, helmet under one arm, grinning before he reached the bottom. I knew that face. Younger than most of the others. Green and reckless. Mouthy. The last time I’d seen him, he’d made a dig at my age. He’d had plenty to say on my last day at the guild, and he looked prepared to have plenty to say now.
“You,” I said darkly. “I’m surprised you’re still alive.”
He laughed. “Could say the same about you, old man. But here we both are.”
Chapter
Twenty-Seven
Hope is lousy strategy (until it isn’t)
“Krax,”the mercenary said with a grin. “You remembered me. Glad your memory hasn’t failed you in your?—”
“Don’tfinish that sentence,” I growled.
“…old age.” He broke into laughter.
I sighed. “You’ll be lucky to live to my age.”
That was actually true, and he knew it. The laughter stopped. “Right. Well, good to see you vertical, Gilrox.”
So he knewmyname. Around us, the aftermath was proceeding with the efficiency I would have expected from a guild operation. Morra’s people were being walked in groups toward the landing shuttle, hands secured, with two or three mercenaries to each cluster. Somewhere behind the east buildings, suppression equipment was running over the remaining fires. The air was starting to smell more of foam than smoke.
“What will happen to those people?” Maive asked, watching the Rivonok forces being led away.
“They’ll be escorted to their vessels and told not to come back,” Krax replied. “They won’t.”
I looked at Maive. I looked at Krax. I looked at the warship still sitting above us and pinched the bridge of my nose. “Start from the beginning.”
“Which beginning?” Krax asked.
“Just pick one.”
Maive and Krax looked at each other. Maive crossed her arms and took a deep breath.
