Invaded (Alienated, #2)(64)
Aelyx had found that suspicious from the beginning. “What’s the man’s name?”
“No clue. All I caught was Sergeant. He mumbled the rest.”
If there were a “mole in the ranks,” as the saying went, Aelyx had an idea to draw out Grimes and finally capture him. “Let’s have Colonel Rutter feed false information to the unit—tell them I’m going someplace easily accessible to Grimes.”
“And have a trap waiting for him,” Syrine finished. “I like that.”
“Me, too,” David said. “I’ll talk to the colonel about it in the morning.” He checked his watch. “Which is technically now, since it’s past midnight. Guess we should turn in.” Then he and Syrine rose in unison from their seats.
Aelyx had a feeling somebody’s bedroom would be vacant tonight. “Be careful,” he warned. The ambassador had returned from his meeting, and he wouldn’t approve of their bodyguard mixing business with pleasure. “It won’t help if you get reassigned.”
Syrine stood on tiptoe to glance toward the ambassador’s bedroom, then lowered her voice to a whisper and produced a tiny key from her pocket. “I locked my room from the inside, just in case he decides to check on me.”
“And I’m up hours before he is, anyway,” David said. “If you need anything, text me or knock twice on my door.”
As the pair strode hand-in-hand to David’s room, a familiar surge of envy churned inside Aelyx’s stomach. He did his best to tame the sensation, but it wasn’t easy. Maybe talking to Cara would help. He couldn’t share his fear that Grimes would eventually succeed in killing him, not without worrying her. But simply hearing her voice would make it easier to sleep tonight. He returned to his room, hoping to catch her between classes.
But when he summoned her, she didn’t answer—a fitting end to a terrible day. Aelyx slumped on his bed and tossed aside his com-sphere. He missed Cara more than ever, and the thought of spending another month apart made his insides feel raw.
He wondered what she was doing right now. Was she thinking of him, too?
Chapter Sixteen
Cara paced the waiting area to Alona’s private-audience chamber, wishing more than anything that Aelyx were here. He’d know what to do. He’d remind her of the eleventy dozen rules for proper behavior during a hearing with an Elder—when to sit and stand, whether to pick up the speaker’s baton for a one-on-one meeting, how to ask sensitive questions like, You’re not going to execute me for this, are you? Aelyx would demonstrate the slight nuance in pressure and timing that marked the difference between a greeting and a grope when touching the left side of the throat. And more importantly, he’d hold her close and kiss the sweet spot behind her ear and whisper, Don’t worry, Elire. You can do this.
Cara wasn’t sure she could do this.
She’d only been here fifteen minutes, and already she’d stained the front of her tunic with her sweaty palms. The Aegis guard was inside with Alona right now, no doubt filling her head with tales of Cara’s sociopathic hijinks. Silent Speech could save Cara, but what if she opened her mind and all her secrets came flooding out? She’d harbored some traitorous thoughts against The Way, especially about Jaxen and Aisly. Cara hoped Alona wouldn’t punish her for that, but she didn’t know what to expect.
The chamber door whispered open.
“Come,” the Aegis guard said, waving Cara inside the small, dim chamber. He narrowed his eyes and touched the iphal holstered at his side.
Message received. He didn’t trust her alone with the head Elder, which kind of stung. Cara had never hurt anyone. Well, except that one time she busted Marcus Johnson’s knee with a baseball bat, but that didn’t count. He’d aimed his rifle at Aelyx’s chest, and she’d had to skew his shot. Besides, he’d used that same rifle to smash her face. Under normal circumstances, Cara wouldn’t even bait a fishing hook because she found it cruel to the worm.
“It’s all right,” Alona’s droning voice called from inside. “Come and be heard.”
Cara crept into the chamber, flinching when the door shut behind her. Unlike the vast hearing room aboard the transport, this enclosure wouldn’t accommodate all ten members of The Way. Only two seats stood on the beige-carpeted floor: a plush ottoman Alona occupied and a simple stool about five paces from her. A slender skylight provided the only illumination, casting a beam over Alona as if she were a deity. Which she was, in a way. No one on L’eihr wielded more power than this graying slip of a woman.
“Sit,” she instructed, and Cara obeyed. The warmth—for lack of a better word—Cara had detected in Alona’s gaze on Sh’ovah day was gone, replaced by cold indifference. It seemed the guard had succeeded in blackening Cara’s name. With a hurry up motion, Alona ordered, “State your grievance.”
Cara swallowed a lump of fear. “I’m here to defend myself from false accusations. Someone at the Aegis has committed a series of crimes and made me look like the guilty party.”
“The evidence against you is damning,” Alona said. “How do you refute it?”
This was it. Time to bust out the big guns.
But Cara had never used Silent Speech from so far away. She wasn’t sure she could project from her seat to Alona’s. She lifted her stool and scooted nearer, practically giving the guard a stroke in the process. He gasped aloud and moved to draw his iphal. Alona seemed startled, too, stiffening in her seat.