Hotbloods 5: Traitors

“Is that the message?”

He nodded, with a smirk. “This should get someone’s attention.”

After a long pause, a blue light lit up the screen, a ringtone peppering the silence. Then a voice crackled through the tiny speakers.

“Who is this? This is not a public channel,” the voice reprimanded. To my surprise, it was one I recognized.

“Iskra, is that you?” I asked, feeling hopeful.

There was a slight pause before a video feed flickered onto the small screen, a familiar face peering through, prompting Ronad to duck out of sight. It was Iskra—the coldblood female who’d been my sparring partner during training.

“Riley?” Iskra gasped.

“What are you doing in the control room?”

She glanced off to one side. “I’m training in intelligence ops.”

“Congratulations!”

“Thanks… Anyway, what are you doing calling here? Where are you?” Iskra pressed, looking nervous.

“I’ve been captured by enemy soldiers, but I managed to escape them to send this message. I stole a private comms device,” I explained, thinking fast. “Can I speak to Navan?”

Iskra raised an eyebrow. “I’ll see what I can do. Stay on the line!”

With that, she disappeared, leaving me to stare at an empty chair. I tapped my knees, knowing that time was ticking away. All the while, every worst-case scenario raced through my mind. What if it was a ruse? What if Navan was imprisoned? What if Angie, Lauren, and Bashrik were being punished, too? What if the soldiers were trying to pinpoint my location, the way detectives did in crime thrillers?

I was about to give up, knowing we had to race back to the Idrax house before someone noticed we were gone, when a figure appeared on screen. I gaped in shock as the haunting eyes of Queen Brisha herself stared back.

She did not look happy.

“Now that you’re here, would you mind telling me what in Rask’s name happened to Pandora?”





Chapter Ten





I stared blankly ahead at the video feed, having lost my voice. Queen Brisha was the last person I’d expected to come face-to-face with so soon, and the mention of Pandora left me frozen. The queen might as well have been an ambaka.

“What happened to Pandora?” Queen Brisha repeated impatiently.

“Forgive me, Your Highness, but where are my friends?” I countered, finding my courage. “Are they safe? I need to know they’re okay!”

The Queen’s striking, near-white eyes narrowed. “Answer my question, Riley. My patience has been tried enough, as I’m sure you can imagine!” Her tone was cold, her demeanor just as icy. Somehow, she looked older than the last time I’d seen her. There were more lines on her forehead and darker circles under her eyes. War appeared to be pretty stressful.

“My friends, Your Highness—are they safe?”

“My advisor, Riley—what happened to her?” Brisha demanded, mimicking me.

I held her gaze through the monitor, feeling slightly ridiculous that I was speaking to her through such a tiny screen. Neither of us wanted to back down, but I knew it would be me who broke first. She held the upper hand; she had news of my friends, and I sensed she was only asking the question to make sure my story matched what Navan, or one of the others, had told her.

On the journey back from Zai, we’d settled on our cover story: Pandora had died in a temple cave-in, after a pillar collapsed and crushed her to death. It was simple and easy to remember. Regardless, I felt nervous about telling the tale out loud. With my friends’ lives hanging in the balance, I couldn’t bring myself to take the gamble—not if my story didn’t quite match up with what she’d already been told.

I remembered something Roger always used to say: “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.” Never had those words felt more poignant.

I took a deep breath, steeling myself. “I could lie to you,” I began, hoping I wasn’t doing something even more risky, “but I respect you enough, Your Highness, to tell you the truth. I know it might get me in more trouble than a lie would, but at least my conscience will be clear.”

“Are you saying somebody has already lied to me?” Queen Brisha’s tone was challenging.

“I don’t know what you’ve been told, Your Highness, but I’m going to tell you what really happened. If my story doesn’t match up with what you already know, that’s because my friends didn’t think you’d believe them if they told you the truth,” I explained. “Right now, I’ve got no idea if you’ll believe me, either.”

Brisha arched an eyebrow. “You have my attention, Riley.”

“Pandora wasn’t who you thought she was, Your Highness. To you, she was a most-trusted advisor, to whom you confided everything, but all of that was a ruse,” I said, my heart thundering with each word. “It was a way of getting close to you, and Pandora wasn’t afraid to play the long game. You see, her true loyalty was to a group of rebels. I overheard her contacting a coldblood named Orion, who seems to be the leader of this rebel faction. She was giving him secrets—about the elixir, about the failing truce between you and your sister, about everything that went on within your queendom.”

For a moment, a heavy silence formed between us. I could tell my words were sinking in, but her face was impossible to read. Her pale eyes remained unblinking, staring straight into mine.

“Lies,” she said simply.

“They’re not lies, Your Highness. We discovered the truth while we were on Zai. I’ve got no idea how long she’s been contacting this Orion, but they seemed close,” I replied, keeping a few half-truths in my story for good measure. If she knew how long we’d been aware of Pandora’s traitorous behavior, we’d be risking our necks, too.

Brisha shook her head defiantly. “These are poisonous lies, to divert me from the facts. Pandora would never betray me. She has been my sworn friend and advisor for years. I have known her far longer than I have known you, Riley,” she hissed, her eyes burning with rage.

“I knew you’d react like this, Your Highness. This is why it would’ve been easier to feed you a lie,” I countered firmly. “Pandora fooled all of us. She made a mockery of your friendship and your trust. I know that hurts, but the truth does, sometimes.”

My words appeared to make Brisha pause for thought. To be honest, I was just glad I’d managed to get through a sentence without stumbling or needing a fresh set of underwear. She looked pretty freaking scary, with her strawberry-blond locks plaited in the same shieldmaiden style as her sister and dark green patterns drawn across her pale skin, giving the impression of two elongated fangs beneath her bottom lip.

“Then what happened to her, in the end?”

I sighed. “I killed her, Your Highness.”

“You dealt the final blow?” She seemed surprised.

“I had to. She’d given information to Orion and promised to bring him back a vial of Draconian blood, to assist in his immortality elixir experiments. She was always rooting for them, not you.” I knew the last sentence would cut through her like a knife, but she needed a dose of tough love.

A tight laugh barked from Brisha’s throat. “Not that it would have done him much good. Maybe we should have let him have it, to set him back a rebel or two in the testing phase.”

I realized she knew about the blood being unusable. So, she’d definitely spoken to at least one of my friends. Now, all I had to do was convince her to let me speak to them—even if it was just a few moments with Navan, so I could ensure he didn’t come rescue me.

“I suppose that would explain a few puzzling incidents that arose in the past few months,” she mused, seemingly appeased by my explanation. “I could never find her when I needed her, you know?”