Kael's POV:
He had the intruder pinned against the wall before the footsteps were in their second step.
It was a child.
Lean. Sixteen, maybe. Hands up, breathing fast, eyes wide, in a panic. No arm. No marker Kingdom on armor Just a dirty jacket, and a red strip of cloth tied around the left wrist, which Kael recognized before he recognized anything else about the situation.
Undercroft .
He backed away. Kept his hand up - not menacing just there. The kid's eyes flicked past him to Lyra, already standing with her system screen open, and to Dex, who had somehow slept through the whole thing and was now blinking at the scene like he'd woken up in the middle of a film and missed the beginning. "Who sent you?" said Kael. No doubt.
The kid's chin tilted up a little. Trying to look braver than the hands that trembled showed. You know who.
Yes, he did. He'd known the moment he'd seen the wrist marker. He spun around and looked at Lyra. She was already giving him an expression that said she had sent him that system message, that she had been awake while he slept, that she had been one step ahead of him in his own operation.
He put that back in. Looked after the kid."Tell Vera we're coming," he said. "Tell her to seal off the east tunnel. Kingdom changed patrol grids last night."
The kid nodded, and was gone before Dex was fully awake.
- At first light they moved.
Kael set a hard pace and neither of them complained, which he liked and noted. Most were grumbling. Most people he'd passed through this city had required slowing down, coaxing, reassurance. These two just walked. Lyra had her system up and he could see her processing information in real time – slight adjustments to her step before she hit obstacles, micro changes in direction that mirrored what his own instincts were telling him a half second later.
The bond was sending her city data like it was sending him. He had suspected it from the collapsed building yesterday. Now he knew.
He was passing water bottles back without looking, when he heard Dex's breathing change."Thank you, Dex. Then, two seconds later, "Thanks, seriously. And then, because two apparently wasn't enough: "I really appreciate it."
Kael didn't know what to do with that. And he continued to walk.
Lyra picked up her bottle and said nothing. He respected that a whole lot more than he was supposed to."Kael," she said, about twenty minutes in.Yes . "Where to go.Somewhere safe." ""That's what you said yesterday."It was true yesterday. Still true."That's not an answer."
He looked at her again. She was looking at him with those dark eyes that took in everything and gave nothing away for free and he felt the bond doing something quiet and annoying, a little nudge, like a hand on his shoulder, pushing him toward honesty he had not yet decided to offer
He turned forward once more."Underground," he said. Network of tunnels under the city. People dead, the Kingdom has announced. They've been building something down there for the last three years."What are you building?"Some way of living without the King's leave."
Dex made a sound of interest behind him. Lyra did not speak for a moment."Why are you taking us there," she asked. "Exactly."
His truthful answer sat in his chest like something heavy. From the moment I touched you, the bond was made, and I haven't been able to think straight since. Because Director Solen called me on my personal frequency and he talked about my mother and I felt that something broke open that I had spent fifteen years sealing up. You stared at seventeen dead strangers and they deserved to be stared at, and I haven't stared at anyone like that in longer than I can remember."It's the safest option," he said.
She made a sound that told him she knew that wasn't the whole answer.
He went on.
The bond kept on doing what it did, running underneath everything, quiet and constant, giving him information he didn't ask for. She was weary. She hadn't slept well, maybe an hour at the most, because she'd been awake cataloging him in the dark. She was still mad. Not at him, really, but at the situation, at the system, at the designation on her screen that had turned her into a target before she even knew what she was.
He knew all this, just as he knew the temperature of the air.
He fucking hated it.
He hated it because it was useful, and he'd spent fifteen years valuing only the useful, and the bond was useful, and that meant he couldn't dismiss it as neatly as he needed to.
His mother hadn't said it was any use. She had said it was the truest thing she had ever felt.
He'd been twelve and he hadn't known the difference.
He was beginning to understand now and the timing was catastrophic"You knew my designation before you grabbed my arm," Lyra said.
He said nothing. "The scanner in your left-hand pocket. "I saw you look at it just before you crossed the street." A pause. You knew what I was and you lied to your unit anyway. I want to know why."
The bond pushed him once more. This time it was harder.
He ceased walking.
He turned slowly around. She was three steps back, waiting, her arms crossed, her chin level. Dex had fallen behind her and was looking back and forth between them with the look of someone watching a very tense game without quite understanding the rules.
He looked at Lyra's face and the bond gave him one very clear piece of information that had nothing to do with her emotions or her system data.
She knew already about his mother. She had located the file.
She wanted him to say it himself.
Something about that -- the way she was doing it, the way she was giving him the choice instead of just using what she knew -- got him somewhere totally undefended.
He opened his mouth.
His comm popped.
Reth's voice, close and sharp. "Dravn. You know where we stand. Step back.
He spun toward the noise.
Before him three soldiers of the Kingdom came out of the passage. Then two more in the rear. They would come through the underground access points, known only to senior enforcers.
Someone had given Reth the map of the tunnel.
Someone who knew where Kael was going to run to.
He turned to the soldiers. He looked to Lyra. He reached one stark, cold conclusion.
This person who'd sent Reth that map was someone Kael would have trusted with his life.
And that person was already in the Undercroft.