Indranan powers almost overwhelmed the senses he’d trusted for a lifetime.
The arena that housed the battle Cage was huge. It looked even more impressive in its stone housing than from his usual vantage in the center of the action. He veered away from it, intent on finding the source of his sizzling awareness. The sensation was hot and sputtering, pressing out from his forehead and temples. Something was coming. Violence.
The moment he realized Silence’s footprints had gone missing was the moment he glimpsed the source of that sizzling crackle. A small device on top of a generator at the rear of the squat building was blinking
Yet he wouldn’t let himself retreat into maudlin. Whether scent or sound, something gave Silence away. He wasn’t surprised to find her crouched on one of the slim eaves, two stories up. Any warrior who didn’t admire her elegant balance was a fool. She was looking down at the explosive device that had skittered cold up Leto’s spine —a cold very different from the newfound snow and ice.
“What is it?”
Silence shook her head, cracked the knuckle of her right thumb, and mouthed, “Boom.”
¦ ¦ ¦
Tallis of Pendray leaned lower over the handlebars of his snowmobile. Dark goggles protected his eyes. He left no skin exposed to the elements. Riding three vehicles deep on either side of him were the Honorable Giva and five members of the nameless underground. Tallis wasn’t a member of that secret network. He didn’t want to be. His missions were personal. Perhaps that’s why he pursued them so doggedly.
For more than a year, he’d suffered guilt so strong and potent that sleep was nearly impossible. The strength to hold back his rage—the berserker rage he’d suppressed when living among the humans—was beginning to ebb.
He’d killed and he’d done worse. And he regretted none of it.
Except for what he’d let happen to Nynn.
She’d been just another step toward the Sun’s prophecy of uniting the Five Clans—steps he’d taken since murdering a Pendray priest. Only after leading the Asters’ guards to Nynn’s home had Tallis realized her identity, and that some means were too sickening to stomach, no matter the noble ends.
He needed his conscience washed clean of her pain. And he needed revenge against the Sun, the living goddess whose dreamtime deceptions had guided his life for too long.
The snow was beginning to blend into dreamtime. Predictions and prophecies were streaked by each new spray of crystals. He shook free of those dreams’ seductive hold, only to find himself back in the light of a waning sun and surrounded by his own kind. Despite his appearance at the Council, rumors insisted he was dead or some crazed myth. That was for the best.
He tightened his mouth. His resolve was unshakable; his course was set as if by the Dragon. He still had work to do on this earth.
Tallis could barely see the massive complex on the horizon. They had no Garnis among their number, but that was no surprise. Leto and his siblings were the only ones of the Lost that Tallis had known, even in his far- ranging travels. They could’ve used the amplified senses and speed of a Garnis warrior. The elements conspired with the gathering dusk to obscure even the defined outline of the huge arena’s walls, let alone potential threats.
The Giva sped to the front of the triangular formation and motioned toward another distant spot. Not the outpost.
Smoke.
They had no need to signal one another to converge there first. The seven snowmobiles turned in a wide arc to cover the last few miles of the loud, chilly trek. Through what must’ve constituted years of work, the rebels had located this desolate Canadian stronghold. A thousand miles of tundra seemed appropriate when tasked with hiding the secret of conception.
Dark clouds rising into the snow blue sky reminded him of the day, months earlier, when Nynn had inadvertently revealed the outpost’s exact location. Nynn had destroyed part of Dr. Aster’s lab. That had been the proof the rebels had needed to convince Tallis, and the proof he’d taken to the Giva.
Throttling down his vehicle, Tallis pulled alongside Malnefoley. The man’s hatred for Tallis had been banked only long enough to rescue Nynn. But they were both caught up in bigger events than the Giva realized.
A female rebel lifted the visor of her helmet. “What is that?”
They looked at a smoking, blackened swath of earth. Falling snow melted even before it touched the surface that radiated waves of heat.
“GPS says that we’re above part of the complex,” said another.
He was Pendray, although he claimed no association with any of the Five Clans. It was the nature of their loose network that those who wished to remain unaffiliated were allowed that right.
“I recognize this.” The Giva’s words were strong, although blunted by the wind. He wiped his mouth with the tail of a scarf pulled from his parka. “This is my cousin’s work. I haven’t seen it in . . . Dragon be, I haven’t seen it since the day Leoki died.”
“Should we look for an entrance?” Another rebel. Another nameless face. “We know the Cage warriors live and train in a secret facility. They won’t be at the outpost.”
“But Nynn will be,” said the Giva. “Or else she was killed in creating this. Either way, the lab is my first priority.”
“What about the Dragon Kings down there?” The Pendray man nodded to the cooling slag. Only hours before, it must’ve been covered by the same endless snow. “They could be trapped, collared, and at the mercy of human guards.”
“I’m not the Giva in this place.” Even wrapped in gear to protect against the cold, Malnefoley’s exposed features were striking. He was as classically handsome as the gods portrayed in Greek art. Symmetry and strong grace. Optimism and light to Tallis’s darkness. “If you want to find an entrance and save what warriors you can, the choice is yours. I’m going to find my cousin and learn what the Asters know.”
With that, he affixed his goggles and sped toward the outpost. Three of the rebels stayed behind, while the rest followed Malnefoley’s snowmobile. It would remain a mystery whether they did so by rational choice or because, even there, Malnefoley was still the Giva.
Tallis revved the machine’s engine and tore through the snow in pursuit.
They closed in on the outpost, which was more like a coliseum of the Tigony’s ancient reign. Made sense. The men and women who fought in the Cages were latter-day gladiators—just as powerful and just as powerless. Playthings of the richest people on the planet.
Playthings of the cartels.
Tallis was a man of sideways steps and measured moves. Riding headlong into any situation was just wrong, and yet he needed to do it. His all-weather suit felt infested with lice and the slithering tails of rats. He wanted to be gone, but he battled his destructive temper and stayed the course.
He would atone for the hell he’d brought down on Nynn. And he would have his revenge against the Sun, who’d convinced him that twenty years of murder was in the service of a higher calling.
Maybe then he might be able to forgive himself.
Nynn of Tigony was trudging through the blinding white, seemingly alone on the endless, icy tundra. Dragon save him, his niece was returning to the laboratory where he’d handed her over to Dr. Aster.
¦ ¦ ¦
Nynn was no more than a quarter mile from the complex when she felt an ominous drone. She slowed. That same droning hummed beneath her feet. Her vision was whitewashed, her lungs burned, and sweat glued the protective layer of silk to her skin. Only that threatening vibration made her stop completely.
Two pairs of snowmobiles roared past her, then circled back in wide symmetrical arcs. She had no weapon other than her gift, although the thought of using it made her breath hitch in short, shallow gasps. Not out of fear. Out of pure fatigue. She could gather and amplify energy, but that process seemed to leave her weaker each time. If the figures on the snowmobiles had weapons, if they were loyal to the Asters, she would need to take her chances.
