In my mind, I pushed the Grand Ballroom back. It slid deeper into the expanse of the inn, the hallways leading to it stretching to maintain the structure of entrances and exits. Ten feet, twenty, fifty… Good enough. I reached deep below me. The core of the room pulsed and I pulled it up. A deep rumble shuddered through the inn as the chamber slid into its new place directly behind my parents’ portrait. I felt the cables sliver through the walls, anchoring the room’s equipment. The wall under the portrait split, pulling apart as if it were liquid to form a doorway. A wooden tendril caught the portrait before it had a chance to fall and carried it into the new chamber. I followed it.
The new space was a perfect sphere, its walls a smooth beige. In a time of need, the inn would send the feed from the outer cameras to it, giving me a 360-degree view of the inn’s grounds. In the center of the room, a section of the wood lay exposed, its telltale striped texture reminiscent of mahogany and bristlecone pine. A living branch of the inn, an artery to its heart. This was the war room, the heart of the inn’s defenses.
I stepped onto the wood. Magic waited, expectant. I closed my eyes and let it permeate my senses. My power stretched, connecting, flowing to the furthest branches of Gertrude Hunt. If I had wings, that’s what it would be like to spread them.
The bond between the inn and the innkeeper was far greater than the bond between a servant and master or pet and its owner. We existed in symbiosis. When an innkeeper died, the inn went dormant, falling into a deep sleep. With each passing year without a bond, the inn would slip further and further away, until finally it petrified and died. When I had found Gertrude Hunt, its sleep was so deep and it had gone so far, I wasn’t sure I could wake it.
The bond went both ways. Few innkeepers survived the destruction of their inn. Some died. Others lost their minds. The inn would do anything for the innkeeper, and the innkeeper had to protect the inn with their life. And that’s exactly what I would do.
The inn’s defenses shifted, as I realigned them. The last time I’d used the war room, I had configured Gertrude Hunt to repel a small army of bounty hunters after Caldenia arrived at the inn. The bounty hunters were truly an army of one – despite their number, every one of them was in it for themselves. They didn’t trust each other and hadn’t been interested in coordinating their efforts. The metal inlay on the Draziri leader's forehead meant he likely led his own flock, a clan. Flocks were highly organized and disciplined. The Draziri would attack as a team. And they likely wouldn’t try to snipe the Hiru the way the bounty hunters tried to snipe Caldenia. Murdering the Hiru would be a religious triumph for them. They would try to breach the inn’s defenses and close in for the kill.
I tested the feeds from the cameras, turning slowly. Night had fallen, but the inn’s tech needed only a hint of light to present a clear image. The view of the orchard, the lawn, the oaks, the street, Sean’s Ford F-150 truck…
Sean’s truck. He’d said something about getting an overnight bag and left shortly before Mr. Rodriguez and Tony had taken off.
It was a short move, since his house was just down the street, but the truck was fully loaded and covered with a tarp. The truck springs creaked as he maneuvered it up the driveway and behind the inn.
Sean got out of the truck. He wore black pants and a skintight ballistic silk shirt, dark gray and black, designed to stop both a kinetic impact from a bullet and a low-power shot from an energy weapon. This was worth a closer look.
I waved my fingers half an inch and the inn zoomed in, expanding the image to the entire wall in front of me. The ballistic silk clung to Sean like a glove, tracing the contours of his broad shoulders and powerful back. Some men had muscular backs but a wider waist so they looked almost rectangular. The difference between Sean’s shoulders and his narrow waist was so pronounced, his back tapered into an almost triangular shape. His legs were long, his arms muscular. I liked the way he moved, fast, sure, but with a natural grace that very strong men sometimes had. There was something dangerous about him and his spare, economical movements. Something that said that if violence occurred, his response would be instant and lethal, and idiot that I was, I could stare at him all day…
“So what’s with you and the werewolf?” My sister asked next to my ear.
I jumped.
I didn’t hear her come in. I didn’t feel her come in, which was so much worse.
“Nothing.”
“Mhm,” Maud said. “That’s why you’re ogling him here on a giant screen.”
“I wasn’t ogling.” Yes, yes I was.
“You were holding your breath, Dina.”
“I wasn’t.”
Maud studied the screen. “He is kind of hot.”
“Kind of?” There was no kind of about it.
“There needs to be more…” Maud held her hands wide apart.
“More what?”
“Muscle. Bulk. I like them… oversized.”
“He’s big enough.” He was over six feet tall. “And he’s very strong.”
“Oh I don’t doubt that he’s strong and really fast, too. But… bigger.”
I squinted at her. “I thought you were over your vampire fixation.”
“I didn’t say anything about vampires. I just like larger men.”
“Sure, aha.”
Sean pulled back the tarp, revealing crates and weapons. He swung a long slender weapon onto his shoulder and picked up a black crate that seemed to swallow the light.
Maud squinted at the screen. “Is that a specter sniper rifle he’s packing?”
“Mhm. Looks like a recent model, too.”
Specter weapons used an electromagnetic field rather than a chemical reaction to launch projectiles. Jam-proof and almost completely devoid of moving and potentially malfunctioning parts, specter sniper rifles fired bullets at just below 300m/s, under the speed of sound, avoiding the sonic boom better known as the crack of a bullet. They were completely silent.
Maud was studying a twisted shape in the truck. “You don’t have a HELL unit?”
“I have two and some smaller solid lasers linked by a computer into a defense net. But he doesn’t know that.”
“Aw,” Maud said. “He brought a High Energy Liquid Laser to protect you. Twue love.”
“Shut up,” I told her.
“Seriously though, that’s some expensive hardware.”
She was right. Liquid lasers were like computers. The smaller they were, the more they cost, and the portable unit in Sean’s truck was way out of my budget. My two units were each the size of a medium-range sedan, and both were at least two centuries old. Compared to Sean’s sleek modern beast, they were antiques, but they packed a hell of a punch.
“Envirosuit, camo cloak, pulse sidearm… He’s got enough weapons to finish a small war. How can he afford all this? Is he secretly a prince? Are you dating a galactic weapon-lord? Does he have a rich father or possibly brother?”
“No! He isn’t a prince, he isn’t a gun runner, and his father isn’t rich, he is a lawyer, and Sean is the only child. He did some highly paid mercenary work.”
“So you are dating him.”
“I didn’t say that.” Technically going on a date once didn’t strictly qualify as dating.
“Sean and Dina sitting in a tree. K-i-s-s…”
“I will so punch you.”
Sean looked up. I could’ve sworn he heard me, except that the inn was soundproof. I concentrated and projected my voice.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” he said. He didn’t jump, even though I just spoke to him from seemingly thin air.
“Do you need a hand with all of that equipment?”
“Oh sure, he totally needs your help with his equipment,” Maud whispered.
I stomped on her foot, but she was fast, and I only got the edge of her toes. There was no way to just project my voice. I also projected the sounds around me.
“Do you have an armory?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Can
I have access to it?”
“Full access,” Maud whispered and batted her eyelashes.
“Yes,” I told him, opening a tunnel in the ground next to him. “Enter…” if I said tunnel, Maud wouldn’t be able to contain herself. “The path I just made. Underground. The inn will move the weapons there.”
“I thought I’d visit Baha-char after I’m done settling all that in,” he said. “I need to talk to Wilmos.”
“Sure. I’ll open the door for you, but could you take Orro with you? He wants some sort of weird spices and I don’t want him to go by himself.”
“Will do.”
He grinned at me, the look on his face positively evil, and went down into the tunnel.
I watched the inn swallow the truck whole, pulling it into the garage, and turned to my sister. “I hate you.”
“Did you see how he smiled?” Maud asked. “Do you think he heard me? I wasn’t projecting.”
“Yeah, he heard you. My neighbors across the street heard you. Don’t you know how to whisper?”
“Are you blushing?” Maud asked.
“Here!” I opened a ladder to the battle attic and dropped it into the hallway. “Since you butted in, you can check the pulse cannons instead of me. Make yourself useful.”
“Yes, Mother.” Maud paused in the doorway and took in the war room. Her voice turned quiet and wistful. “Brings back memories.”
Yes, it did. When I had called up the war room from the depths of Gertrude Hunt for the first time, I had reshaped it to mirror the war room in our parents’ inn. Mother made us do countless drills in a war room just like this one.
“We’ll get them back,” I said.
“Yes,” she said. “We will.”
Maud climbed the attic ladder. I huffed and went to splash some cold water on my face. I was blushing, and my whole face felt like it was on fire.
* * *
Twenty minutes later I watched Sean and Orro walk through the door into the bright sunshine of Baha-char. Sean had pulled a tattered cloak over himself, hiding his face within the depths of a hood. Orro, on other hand, held his head high, but all his spikes shivered slightly, ready to be raised at a moment’s notice. I seriously doubted the Draziri would jump them there, but if they did, they would regret it.
I went back to the kitchen. In Orro’s absence, Arland had brought down a grey bag, which now lay beside him in a chair, and spread his armor on the dining room table. He’d turned off the lights. Only the two table lamps were on, their warm radiance soothing and buttery yellow. A kit similar to the one he’d sent to Maud rested on the table, opened, its contents backlit by a peach glow. The tiny vials of various liquids shone weakly with borrowed light. A quiet melody was playing from the kit, the sounds of silver bells and the measured chant of female voices soothing but mysterious, as if they were weaving some secret magic.
Helen sat in the corner, quietly fascinated.
“Isn’t it past your bedtime?” I asked.
“No.” She yawned. “I’m not sleepy.”
“Let her stay,” Arland said, his voice quiet. “I remember sitting just like that watching my mother. The smells and the lights, it’s comforting.”
I sat in the chair. It was comforting to watch in a way. There was a meditative, unhurried quality about his movements, as if he were going through a ritual he’d done hundreds of times before. The light played on his profile and the strands of long blond hair that had escaped his ponytail. He was right. Helen probably watched her father or my sister check their armor just like this.
For a while he worked quietly. Helen’s head drooped. She sighed and put her head on the table onto her arms. Her eyes closed. She wasn’t quite asleep yet. I could see her eyelashes trembling. A few more minutes and I would let the inn carry her to bed.
“How well do you know Sean Evans, my lady?” Arland asked quietly.
“As well as I know you.” Actually, I knew Sean better. He had shared his secrets with me. Arland hadn’t.
“I don’t believe he is who he presents himself to be,” Arland said.
“What makes you think that?”
Arland raised his hand with a small tool in it and drew an imaginary line. It started low, climbed upward, and evened out in an arc. “This is a standard planet-to-orbit shuttle trajectory.”
He moved his tool low and drew a second line. This time it kept going low, accelerated, and curved sharply, shooting up. The trajectory was almost completely inverse. “This is what Sean Evans did.”
“I don’t follow.”
“The second trajectory sharply accelerates the craft before the drastic atmospheric climb. It’s less comfortable for the passengers and it’s harder on the shuttle.”
I could testify to it being less comfortable. At the time, it felt like a rhino sat on my chest.
“There is only one place where that trajectory is absolutely necessary. The atmospheric anomalies there make flight unpredictable and unsafe, so it is necessary to attain the proper speed and acceleration at low altitude before punching through the atmosphere as fast as possible while at the same time ascertaining that the way is clear and you’re not taking the craft straight into an anomaly that suddenly formed above your shuttle.”
“And where is this place?” I knew the answer.
“Nexus,” Arland said.
That’s what I thought.
“I don’t know what he told you he did, but I asked him where he’d learned to fly.”
“I was there. I remember. He said Wilmos taught him.”
Arland nodded. “I did some checking through our databanks. Wilmos isn’t unknown to my House. I give you my word as a knight of the Holy Anocracy that Wilmos Gerwar knows the proper trajectory for a planet-to-orbit shuttle ascent.”
“You think Sean was on Nexus.”
Arland nodded. “The Merchants employed many mercenaries.”
“Would it be such a bad thing if he was?”
“Nexus changes people,” Arland said. “I’m concerned only for your safety.”
“In that case she should be concerned about you as well,” Maud said from the doorway. “After all, you’ve done two tours, Lord Marshal.”
Arland raised his head and studied her.
My sister walked in and put her armor on the table. The inn’s wall opened and the repair kit Arland had given her slipped out. She caught the heavy box and placed it on the table.
“I’m a knight. I’ve been conditioned to handle the rigors of war from childhood.”
Maud spread her armor out, her eyes half closed under her long eyelashes as she surveyed it. “You would be surprised how many knights break under the rigors of war, my lord. They break and they run, as their honor lies dying behind them.”
“I do not run, my lady.”
Maud arched her eyebrow. If I didn’t know, I would’ve sworn she was a vampire. “I have run, my lord. And I would do it again, if the circumstances called for it. Honor can’t keep my daughter alive, but I can.”
“There is a difference between blindly fleeing for your life and a strategic retreat because the battle is lost,” Arland said, spraying pearlescent solution onto his armor.
“Sometimes it is very difficult to tell the difference between the two.” Maud tapped the kit. It unfurled like a flower. She selected a narrow tool with her long elegant fingers and concentrated on some imperceptible flaw on the right shoulder.
Arland’s eyes narrowed. “Although if I wore your armor, I would run, my lady. Is that a manual terminal on your vambrace?”
Maud grimaced.
“Was your crest damaged?”
“It was ripped off my armor when House Ervan exiled me and my husband, my lord. You’ve read the file.”
“You seem very sure of that, my lady.”
She shot him a quick glance. “A knight conditioned to handle the rigors of war, such as yourself, would make sure he knew exactly who he allowed on board his destroyer.”
Arland opened his bag, took out a bl
ack box, and set it by his armor. Square, six inches by six, the box was completely solid. No seam, no line marking the place where the lid fit. Just a solid box that seemed to absorb the light.
Maud’s eyes widened. Arland went back to working on his armor. Maud did as well. Some sort of strange vampire communication was taking place here.
“To exile a child is unprecedented,” Arland said.
“It is,” Maud agreed, making valiant efforts to ignore the box.
“What led to that decision?”
My sister smiled. “Perhaps, one day I will tell you, Lord Marshal.”
“Regardless of the reasons, you’ve been wronged. The child has been wronged. The Holy Anocracy doesn’t have so many children that it can throw them away. Especially one as gifted as Helen.”
“You’re too kind.”
“Perhaps you would allow me to ask for a small kindness in return,” Arland said. “Allow me to correct a small part of the injustice.”
He pushed the box toward her and proceeded to ignore it.
This was better than a soap opera.
Maud touched the top of the box. The lid slid apart section by section. She dipped her fingers into it and withdrew a crest. Unlike Arland’s crest, which showed a stylized snarling krahr in red on black, this crest was solid black and blank. A no-House crest. I’d seen them before. Vampires who’d left their House wore them. They functioned just like the regular House crests: they controlled the armor, sent out signals that communicated with ships and defensive networks, and stored information.
Maud pondered it as if it were a diamond.
“Thank you.”
Arland inclined his head and went back to his armor.
The inn’s magic chimed in my head. The Draziri were on the move.
I rose. “We have visitors.”
* * *
It started as a single ping, an intruder brushing against the boundary. It touched the boundary and burst into half-a-dozen intruders moving fast. The Draziri weren’t playing. Good, because I wasn’t either.