Fated Blades (Kinsmen #3)(31)

“Yes. We thought there were twenty-four Vandal ‘asylum seekers’ in Dahlia. We were half-right. Drewery had managed to push the second group through two days ago. It took a while for them to process, but they made planetfall this morning.”

“How many are waiting for us in Adra?”

“Fifty-four.”

His expression went blank.

The moment the Vandals recognized her and Matias, they would attack. They would hesitate to murder a senator’s daughter in public, but if she and Matias showed up, all bets would be off.

If the two of them boarded a vessel crewed by fifty-four people, Ramona wouldn’t even pause. In the crowded confines of a ship, they would go through any number of combatants like they were practice dummies. At the festival, out in the open, in front of thousands of bystanders, they would be overwhelmed and massacred. The Vandals wouldn’t even have to close in. They could just catch them in a crossfire. The seco shields weren’t omnidirectional. They could shield their front, but not their back.

Going to Adra was a death sentence. Even if they tried to hunt down the Vandal patrols to winnow their numbers, killing them without being noticed with thousands of tourists on the streets was impossible. And as soon as a patrol failed to come back in, the Vandals would go on full alert.

They could mobilize both of their families. Well, they could try. They’d have to explain that the research got stolen, how it got stolen, and who stole it, and then they would have to convince the families who had been enemies for centuries to work together. They’d have to beg, cajole, make promises, convince, and threaten, all of which would take too long, and in the end they would fail, because Matias was a Baena. If he convinced his family to work with hers, the Adlers would never accept that alliance.

Even if they succeeded by some cosmic miracle, their net gain would be six secare, only two of whom had recent battle experience. It would be a slaughter. And while the civilian authorities turned a blind eye to kinsmen disputes, the moment civilians got hurt, they would have a lot to answer for.

“We need more intel,” he said.

“I called Karion. If the Vandals are in Adra, he will find them.”

“Will he do it quietly enough?”

She turned her head and looked at him for a second.

“A dumb question,” he said. “Forget I said anything.”

Her brother would do it quietly. Karion was subtle, meticulous, and merciless.

The rain stopped. The last drops rolled off wet leaves, falling to the ground. The sky turned clear, and above them a universe glittered in a spray of stars. The Silver Sister, the smaller of the two moons, slipped out from behind retreating clouds, spilling a gauze of white-gold light onto the forest.

The temple turned transparent, the blue of its walls vanishing into the darkness. Only the silver web remained, glittering seemingly suspended in empty air. Under the trees, hundreds of rukta flowers unfurled, their translucent red petals revealing whorls of glowing white petals within. A delicate, sweet scent spread through the air. The forest turned ethereal, a magical place from one of the fairy-tale shows she used to watch as a child. She breathed in its fragrance, merged with its magic, and felt herself relax, muscle by muscle, as if inhaling the night air had purified her, purging fatigue, stress, and worry.

So, that is the glory of the temple. We give the ancients so little credit.

Matias rose and came to sit across from her, leaning on the other side of the doorway. He moved completely silently, his terrain suit shifting with blue and indigo as it mimicked the forest. His face was calm. Everything she knew about him told her that he was chewing on the problem, trying to dissect it into manageable pieces. But none of that effort was reflected in his expression.

She wondered if he felt the woods the way she did. If their beauty touched him.

There were only ten meters between them. She could get up, cross the distance, and kiss him. It would be worth it just for the look on his face. But if she did that, she wouldn’t stop. He wouldn’t stop. They would have each other here, in this holy temple, with only flowers and trees as their witnesses. Nobody would ever know. But they could never do it again.

Why did it have to be you, Baena? Why couldn’t she have met someone like him but without the poisonous last name?

The answer came to her as if the forest had breathed it in her ear. She wanted him because he was secare. He was sharp, smart, and thoughtful, and yet when the occasion called for it, he acted without hesitation. On the entire planet, nobody but Matias would do.

She had to say something, or she would walk over there and do something she’d regret. “What’s the deal with you and the Vandals?”



She wanted to talk.

Matias glanced at her, perched against the wall, her gray athletic suit draping the contours of her body. The light from the fire tinted her right side with warm orange, the moonlight painted her left with bluish silver, and the nearly weightless fabric of her suit shimmered slightly. Her dark hair fell loose on her shoulders, and her eyes were blue like the leaves of evaners. She looked beautiful and alive, as if the planet had exhaled its magic and conjured her from its breath to taunt him. He wanted to touch her to see if she was real.

The woods spread for many kilometers around them, steeped in night shadows and glowing with delicate color. The temple sat within them like a tiny man-made island, and their fire was its heart.

It felt like they were the last two people on the planet, just him and her.