Toran stepped closer and put his hand on my shoulder. “What is wrong?”
I tried to shake off the memories and failed. “They showed us a training video of a telekinetic using one. It left an impression.”
His mental voice was very, very gentle. “I believe I’ve seen that video. That is not how a nimtowiadwu should be used, but I will leave it behind if you are uncomfortable.”
He would hobble himself for my comfort. The thought steadied my nerves. “No,” I said. “Keep it. It might be the thing that saves your nephew.”
He hesitated a moment longer, as if judging my sincerity, then he nodded. “Ready?”
I lifted my hand and let it hover over the door control. “Yes.”
“Go.”
I pressed the control and relayed the command. Torran swept through the door as soon as it slid open, the nimtowiadwu leading the way. I followed him, my rifle sweeping the left half of the room.
We were in the main area that connected all of the rooms and hallways. The lights were off and it was quiet. Were the kidnappers so confident that they didn’t even post a guard overnight?
Torran led us to the right, down the first hallway. We cleared rooms as we passed. From the peeks inside, it seemed like they were offices and meeting rooms. An undisturbed film of dust coated everything.
My sense of dread grew stronger as we moved deeper into the bunker. Each new doorway revealed a whole lot of nothing. We swept through bedrooms and barracks, rec rooms and a medbay, and none of them looked like they had been used in months or more. Someone must clean occasionally because the dust was a fine layer rather than a blanket, but otherwise, the rooms were untouched.
We turned down the final hall and I mentally crossed my fingers. Maybe they were all holed up in a single room. It would make saving Cien trickier, but I would take it at this point. However, as we delved into the rooms, my hope died. Torran stopped in the final room, his shoulders stiff, and bowed his head.
The bunker was thoroughly, completely empty.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
I shoved down the frustration and focused on the problem. “What did we miss?” I demanded, both over the comm and by directing my thoughts at Torran.
“This should’ve been it,” Kee murmured. “We saw someone in here on the video. Where are they now?”
“We need to check the tunnel that leads to the palace,” I said.
Torran’s head jerked toward me. “No, absolutely not. If the empress catches you trespassing, I won’t be able to protect you.”
“Then we need to ensure she won’t catch us.”
“It’s risky,” Eli warned. “We don’t know what’s down there.”
“We don’t, but it could be a scared child,” I argued. “We owe it to him to at least check.”
“Or this could be Morten’s plan all along,” Lexi said. “Feed us enough clues so that it looks like Cien is here, and then wait for us to blunder into the palace fully armed and start a new war.”
I winced. She made a fair point.
“I think we should check,” Anja said quietly. “We need to be careful, obviously, but if we run into trouble, we can haul ass out. This is the only lead we’ve found. If we don’t check, we’ll always wonder, and coming back is more dangerous than checking while we’re here.”
Eli and Lexi both sighed, but neither of them protested.
Torran should’ve heard our conversation thanks to his earpiece, but he, too, remained silent. “My team is going to check it out,” I told him. “You are welcome to keep your team here while we do.”
“It’s too dangerous,” Torran’s voice growled in my head.
“It’s over a kilometer to the palace. Let’s at least check the first part of the tunnel. If it looks like it’s full of imperial guards, then we’ll head back.”
“Tavi . . .”
“Please, Torran. Your nephew could be down there.”
“If we get caught, stay still and let me do the talking. And if I tell you to run, you run.”
That was easy enough to agree to because he hadn’t specified which direction I should run. So I could run to him and drag him out with me.
After a final pause, Torran led us to the only door we hadn’t opened. Like the doors before it, it wasn’t locked, and I wondered about the palace’s security. Someone knew this tunnel was down here. Perhaps the empress should be more concerned about that.
I opened the door and Torran stepped through. Like where we’d entered, this side also had a short hallway with another door at the end that swung inward on hinges. I checked on my team before swinging the door open.
Torran disappeared through the doorway without a word. I followed him and found myself in a wide, semicircular tunnel. The walls and ceiling were curved, but the floor was flat. At a little over three meters across, it gave our teams some room to spread out.
Far in the distance, a wide double door in a solid wall blocked our line of sight. We approached it cautiously. Unlike the doors before it, this one was locked.
“Kee, Lexi, you’re up,” I said over the comm.
The two of them got to work on the electronic lock. A minute later, I heard the bolt slide back. It seemed incredibly loud in the quiet tunnel.
Torran pulled the door open and then froze in the doorway. “Lights,” he said telepathically.
I relayed the news to my team, then peeked around the doorframe. Sure enough, far in the distance, a doorway set into the wall spilled light into the tunnel.
And there was exactly zero cover between us and it.
Beyond the light, another doorway across the tunnel blocked the view. I glanced back the way we’d come. The bunker was perhaps three hundred meters behind us, which meant we weren’t even halfway to the palace.
Without access to the blueprint, there was no way to know what was behind the door—or why it needed a light. But if I were designing a bunker to protect myself from an invading force, I’d put strongholds along it where soldiers could set up defensive positions.
Torran must’ve decided the same thing, because he sped up until I had to jog to keep up. We were still ten meters from the door when it opened, sending more light into the tunnel.
Torran came to a silent halt, and I narrowly avoided crashing into his back.
“I’ll check it,” a man grumbled loudly in Common. “You lazy bastards keep sitting on your asses,” he continued quietly to himself.
The man stepped out into the tunnel wearing the type of body armor preferred by FHP soldiers, but without a helmet. Plas rifles were relatively quiet, but this close to the door, a single shot would bring everyone else. Still, if we didn’t shoot him, he’d raise the alarm.
I brought my rifle up but before I could draw a bead on him, his head twisted a different direction than his body. When the body gently lowered to the ground, I realized what had happened.
I swallowed, glad that Torran was on our side.
“Kee, can you get me visuals on that room?” I asked.
She pulled out her slate and tapped on it for a few moments. “No, not unless I can find a hardline connection. There’s no wireless network here.”