Traitor Born (Secondborn #2)(10)
“Yes. Of course,” Firstborn Jenns acquiesces. She’s clearly intimidated, but if I had to guess, it’s more by his presence—the raw power in him—than by his position.
“Roselle, please join me,” Dune orders.
I rise from the chair, sore from not having moved in hours, and leave the room with him. We walk the bland corridors of the security floor side by side. Dune shows me to a lift. Unlike the others, its walls are made of glass. It takes us upward within a shaft gilded in gold leaf. The air feels thinner, but mostly from the awkwardness of spending my entire life with him, only to have been kept apart for more than a year now, unable to tell him about all the devastating events I encountered as a soldier. An invisible wall divides us. He’s a stranger I’ve known all my life—a spy. I don’t know what was real between us and what wasn’t. I feel a mix of emotions—hope, desperation, fear, betrayal, and despair. I struggle to contain it all.
To give the illusion of being unaffected, I focus on the mundane. His hair is pulled back in a tight knot, making him appear younger than his thirty-nine years. Earlier today, he was wearing an Exo uniform—a promotion from the Iono uniform he wore as my mentor at the Sword Palace. Now his formal attire is of Sword aristocracy. He could rival my father, Kennet, in elegance.
He notices my puzzled expression. “I was at a Secondborn Pre-Trial event hosted by a tremendous bore when I was pulled away.”
“You look nice.” I glance away from him, hoping my hero worship isn’t apparent in my tone. “Who was the bore?”
“Firstborn Harkness Ambersol,” he replies. “Have you met him? I don’t recall.”
“No, but I’ve heard of him.” If Harkness had been to the Sword Palace, I wasn’t introduced to him. He’s firstborn and I’m secondborn. I was kept away from most social gatherings at the Sword residence for that reason. “Isn’t Harkness next in line for the position of The Sword, should either Gabriel or I be unable to claim the honor?”
“He is. Your friend was there as well. He asked me about you.”
“Which friend? I have so many,” I lie. I have two—Hawthorne and Clifton. Maybe Reykin. Maybe none. I can’t decide. They all come with strings.
“Exo Salloway. He asked me to tell you that he misses you.”
“Was Clifton holding on to the arm of the loveliest Diamond-Fated starlet in the room when he told you that?” My smile is ironic, imaging the handsome Exo Sword with his movie-star good looks.
“He was quite alone this evening and adamant that I deliver his message.” A definite frown accompanies Dune’s answer. A year ago, I would’ve been devastated by any inkling of my mentor’s disapproval. Now I’m surprised to find that I’m somewhat annoyed. Clifton has done more for me than I can repay.
“I miss him, too,” I reply, wanting to see Dune’s reaction. His frown deepens.
The transparent elevator suddenly exits the opaque shaft and travels through the open air toward the golden halo-shaped crown that hovers over the rest of the Palace. The night sky is glorious with glowing stars. For several moments, all I can think about is how beautifully decadent the city of Purity is at night. From the skyscrapers that hover far off the ground, to those that spiral and change their shapes before my eyes, the city shimmers with opulent extravagance.
The elevator enters the golden circlet of the Halo Palace, and the view cuts off. When the doors open, we enter a magnificent foyer. A grand staircase climbs to a golden balustrade lined mezzanine. More than ten military-grade death drones hover about this lavish room. Several Iono guards in crisp gray uniforms stand like statues at equal intervals in the foyer. “That staircase leads to Fabian and Adora’s private residence,” Dune says, referring to The Virtue and his wife. I peer up. Exo guards in black uniforms stand at intervals along the mezzanine’s curved walls. All of them have fusion rifles. Dune must have cleared my moniker for the visit, because our presence goes unchallenged.
Golden columns support gilded architraves on both levels. Between the pillars, on the mezzanine’s landing wall beyond, hang portraits of The Virtue and his sublime spouse. Adora’s green eyes, wondrous and cold, cast a gaze of emerald ice upon Dune and me. Her long blond hair gently moves on the portrait’s visual screen, held in place by her halo crown—a circlet of pure gold. The difference between the two royal figures is such to make them worlds apart. Where Fabian is dark, Adora is light. His mouth is ruthless. Hers is supple. His face is hard angles. Hers is rounded softness.
Dune and I don’t climb the exquisite staircase. Instead, we turn and head for an adjacent corridor, our shadows stretching beneath the ever-watchful gazes of our sovereigns until we’re out of the foyer.
Dune’s gait is gentle, the pace of a panther whose tail caresses the confines of his cage. He leads me to his private apartments. I’m impressed by the beauty of his drawing room, everything masculine and high tech. I approach an arching glass wall with godlike views of the city beyond the expansive grounds. The world almost makes sense from this altitude.
“Privacy mode,” Dune says.
I huff in disappointment as shutters of thick steel close over the wall, severing my connection with the outside world. Doors close and latch. A pinging high-intensity frequency bursts to life and ascends in pitch until I can no longer hear it.
Dune stands near a luxurious tungsten and black-velvet sofa. Large chairs of the same shiny metal and matte fabric face it. He gestures toward one. I settle into it and feel small by comparison. He lifts a silver orb from a glass bowl on the low table between us, holding it in his palm. It levitates and hovers in the air. Light erupts from the device, shining out in spidery legs that expand into an iridescent bubble around us.