Jace’s knee drove into her spine, pinning her painfully in place. Between his knee and the overextension of her arm, she was locked in place.
Jace’s attention seemed to be on the knife. “This is one of Father’s blades.” Anger creeped deeper into his voice. “And you meant to kill me with it.”
She heard the disgust in that sentence. Jace wasn’t mad she had made an attempt on his life. He was disappointed.
All he had feared to be true, was. His sister was the murderous thief Kye had probably painted her as.
“Is this what you used to kill your master? I heard that when the city watch found him he had been tortured. Did you use Father’s steel for that, too?” The anger in his voice was a living thing.
She wanted to argue, but the pain was too great. She cried out, but Jace only tightened the hold, extending her arm just a hair more. It felt like her shoulder was being torn out of its socket.
He ripped the knife away from her with his free hand. He tossed it away, and she watched it clatter along the stone, well out of reach.
“You don’t deserve our father’s work,” Jace said.
If Alena could have sagged, she would have. Jace was right. She didn’t deserve that blade, but how many times had its presence kept her going?
She didn’t deserve it, but it was all she had.
And Jace had taken it away.
It broke the last of her will. She had fought as hard as she could, but it wasn’t enough. She couldn’t get past Jace, and her brother was right. What chance did she have against Kye?
Her best hadn’t been good enough.
She closed her eyes, their tears dropping down and wetting the stone beneath her.
I’m sorry.
63
Brandt felt his life draining from him. None of his wounds bled rapidly, but taken together, he didn’t think he had much consciousness left. He lay on his back, staring at the perfectly smooth stone ceiling.
“What is this place?”
He wasn’t expecting an answer, but Kye provided one. “A home of our ancestors.”
“This is imperial?”
Kye laughed. “No. These caves are many hundred years old. They predate the empire by many generations.”
“I didn’t think anyone had this level of ability.” Brandt hadn’t been a very attentive history student, but before the empire all that had existed were small warring states. None had been as advanced as the state which grew to become the empire.
“Anders I wanted you to think that way.”
Brandt suppressed a groan. Whenever he tried to move, his body protested. He looked up at Kye, studying the governor, who still stood in his defensive posture. Brandt wondered if he would hold that position until the soulwalkers completed their task in the next room.
Then he noticed something from this angle. From his position on the floor, he saw a small bulge in Kye’s shirt, right in the center of his chest.
The gatestone.
The diamond that Ana told him had caused all this trouble years ago.
Kye still kept it close to his chest.
Literally.
The effort of holding his head up exhausted him, and he rested it back on the stone floor.
Kye stood six paces away. Brandt didn’t have a hope of reaching him before the governor reacted. Brandt still had his knife, but it only worked if Kye came closer.
“Why are they right?” Brandt asked.
“What?”
“Why are the Lolani right?”
“Because they will make us stronger.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It doesn’t have to. You’ll journey to the gates soon enough. Then you can watch from the other side, and you will understand.”
Brandt laughed. “You sound like a madman.”
Kye didn’t rise to the bait. “Perhaps. But you know little compared to me. If you saw what I’ve seen, you would believe the same.”
“I would never kill the very people I swore to protect.”
Kye stepped forward, Brandt’s knife forgotten for a moment. He came within a few paces, and Brandt heard the agitation in his voice. “Oh, but you have. You don’t remember, but when we fought the last time in Landow, you killed your friends.”
“You killed them.”
“No. I would have let them be. I had acquired the gatestone and was eager to finish Zane Arrowood and be gone. But you gave the order to attack, even though you already knew your squad wasn’t strong enough to fight me. You sent them against an enemy they couldn’t hope to win against. You killed them.”
Kye paused, then took another step in. “Your orders killed the people you were supposed to protect.”
Kye was almost close enough. Brandt didn’t need to feign a lack of energy. He fought even to keep his eyes open.
Brandt didn’t want to believe Kye’s words, but he did, because they echoed his own thoughts. He didn’t remember Landow for himself, but he knew the man he had been. He would have fought, no matter the odds. And the wolfblades would have followed him.
“I gave those orders because you needed to be stopped.”
“And I made my choice because the Lolani bring something to the empire that it desperately needs. We both act based on need.”
Brandt heard the resignation in Kye’s voice. For the governor, this conversation had reached its conclusion. Brandt still needed to draw the man a pace or two closer. He made himself light, forcing his internal energies into alignment. He just needed to focus long enough for one move.
“My warriors had a choice,” he said. “Many choices. They knew I wasn’t a perfect commander. But they chose to follow. It doesn’t absolve my responsibility, but I wasn’t alone. This thing you do, you do without the knowledge of those whose lives will change forever.”
Brandt took a deep breath. It was getting harder to speak. “You aren’t a leader. You’re a tyrant.”
His guess about Kye’s character proved correct. The governor took another couple of steps forward, a snarl on his face. He
