Gods bless Safir. If anyone ever learned that he’d helped them, he would be torn into pieces. “I’ll make sure he’s reimbursed.”
“He doesn’t want the money. He only wants to do the right thing.”
“Then he needs to surrender his commission,” Nykyrian said bitterly. “Trust me. It’s a dangerous game he’s playing. The bad thing about the League, every assassin is out for themselves and they’re real quick to throw you to the wolves if they think it’ll advance their rank even a single decimal of a point.”
Maris nodded. “I know. I was raised with the head asshole himself.”
Nykyrian clapped him on the back. “And for that I’m infinitely sorry.”
“Yeah, most days, me, too.”
Syn closed his laptop. “All right, then, folks. We have a location for attack. Give me an hour and I’ll have the facility mapped, then we can plan our next move.”
Darling nodded. “I’ll try to rally my troops.”
“And I’ll get the Sentella scrambling,” Nykyrian said.
Ryn finally stirred from the sofa he’d been lying on for so long that Darling had assumed he’d gone to sleep. “I’ll go motivate the Tavali.”
Grateful for that offer, Darling knew it took a little more than just the promise of a good deed to motivate the pirate brigade. “Tell them any who fly with us will get a full pardon from the Caronese Empire for any past crime, except murder, pedophilia, or rape. And I’ll give them a free pass to fly through our territories for the rest of their lives, so long as they don’t prey on our people or ships.”
Ryn gave him a cocky grin. “You are by far the better politician. That’ll motivate their sorry asses in a way I could only dream. Even without the Sentella and Caronese Armada, you’re about to have one hell of an army, ready to lay down their lives for you.”
“Let’s hope they don’t have to.” Darling gave them a short nod before he made a sharp military about-face and headed for the door.
Maris fell in beside him. “She’s going to be fine, Darling.”
He wished he had Maris’s faith. But that had been kicked out of him when he’d told himself every day that his friends would find him and release him from hell. Meanwhile weeks had gone by while he’d hung in his cell in utter agony.
Now…
Darling didn’t believe in much of anything, except the universe’s willingness to screw him over.
Please let her be all right. Thoughts of her being brutalized tortured him even worse than his own memories. Every hour they didn’t rescue her had him living in fear that she was being raped and beaten while calling out for him to help her.
Just like Lise when she’d been shot…
His panic rose so high that for a moment, he couldn’t breathe. Please don’t let my eyes start jerking. Though there was no real rhyme or reason to when they’d start, they seemed more inclined to do it whenever he was stressed.
He glanced askance at Maris. “Did Safir give you any information about her condition?”
“No. He tried his best to find out for you, but he couldn’t access that. He did say that he’d cautioned Kyr against raping her when they’d taken her into custody.”
Darling clung to the thread like a lifeline. “Do you think Kyr listened?”
“Honestly? I don’t know. I hope and pray for her sake and yours that he did.”
Darling’s throat tightened. “Did he know if she’s one of the ones being tortured?” The League had bragged to the media every night since they’d raided the Resistance’s HQ that they were “interrogating” the Resistance leaders in an effort to find the rest of their members.
“He couldn’t answer that either. Sorry.”
Darling ground his teeth as pain shredded his gut. “As bad as Kyr hates me… I hope he’s not taking that out on her.”
“You know, he’s not so—”
“Don’t lie to me, Mari,” he said, cutting him off, “and tell me he’s above that. We both know better. I have the scar to prove just how bad his temper is. He didn’t get to the top of the League high command by showing mercy to those he perceived as enemies. He got there by carving his way through a mountain of bodies.”
Maris winced at the truth. “He wasn’t always like that, you know. He was a kid once, too.”
“I know.” Like Maris, he remembered when Kyr had been in possession of the soul he’d sold to the League for vanity and glory. Granted Kyr had never had much of a sense of humor, but he’d been fair.
Decent.
Until something had happened shortly after Kyr turned seventeen. In one summer, he’d turned from being an insecure, average teenager into a cold-blooded soldier.
I guess my father’s old adage was right. “Whenever you take the shot, Darling, two men die. The man you targeted and the man you used to be. Once you draw first blood, you can never go back to the way you were. It will always change you, and never for the better.”
After that summer, Kyr had locked up emotionally, and had never been the same. For the longest time Darling had felt sorry for him.