“I will live on within you.”
He was right. He’d live as a part of her, like Tyr, but not only in her troubled imagination. Everything he was lay encoded in her cells, never to fade or vanish until her own death.
It wasn’t good enough.
“Very well,” she said with a fierce new calm. “I will survive.”
His jaw worked, and he whispered shaauri words like a prayer. She held up her hand to silence him.
“They’re coming,” she said. She couldn’t hear the enemy’s approach, but her brain’s own proximity alarms told her that Kinsmen had sensed the mental turmoil within the cell.
Ronan lunged across the deck and pulled her close. She wrapped her fingers in his hair. They kissed with frantic urgency, but it was as if she embraced him through the unbreachable layers of an environmental suit.
The cell’s door opened. Four Kinsmen entered, two aiming weapons while the others dragged Ronan and Cynara to their feet.
Artur Constano VelRauthi was waiting on the bridge. Two other high-ranking Kinsmen stood with him beside the captain’s chair. A pair of the guards took posts just outside the bridge door.
“Ah, Ronan,” VelRauthi said. “I hope you appreciate the privacy we granted you and Captain D’Accorso.” He smiled at Cynara. “Sacred Kinsman law forbids entering an unwilling mind. Unfortunately, your shouting was impossible to ignore.”
Ronan stared through the Kinsman as if he had chosen to keep silent rather than grant VelRauthi a single word in response. But he had no defense, and soon his enemy would know. He had become a hollow man, a creature stripped of the only strengths that made him VelRauthi’s equal.
But he still had some small worth. Cynara’s anger ate at him like the corrosive sap of a kek plant, but he was glad of it. Anger would keep her alive. And if hatred failed her, Sihvaaro’s wisdom would teach her acceptance, as it had once taught a small and very frightened boy.
Sihvaaro would be avenged. Cynara would live.
Ronan smiled.
“I apologize for the disturbance, Ser Constano,” Cynara said. “I agree to your terms. I’ll tell you whatever you wish to know.”
VelRauthi and his Kinsman aids gazed at her intently. One of the subordinates gave a stiff half nod.
“Very wise, Captain. I can see that you did not wish to surrender Ronan to our less tender ministrations, but it was inevitable. There is always a chance he may survive.”
“I will not fight you,” Ronan said.
“Also very wise. I misjudged your mutual affection when we first met. Still, there was no other reasonable conclusion you could—”
“Get on with it,” Cynara said coldly.
“This is hardly the place. However…” He conferred silently with his aides. “Very well.” He signaled to the guards, who flanked Ronan to either side. “Please sit, Mes D’Accorso. Make yourself comfortable, and this will be far easier to endure.”
Cynara sat. Ronan maintained the stance of Watchful Stillness. The silence was absolute. Ronan sensed nothing of what passed between VelRauthi and Cynara, or between the Kinsman traitor and his aides. He was deaf and nearly blind. All was in Cynara’s hands.
It was a testament to her skill that he knew the precise moment when she had her Kinsman interrogators’ full attention. He moved as Sihvaaro had taught him. One Kinsman guard went down with a single well-placed kick. Ronan caught his weapon in midair. The second guard turned as if in slow motion. Ronan disarmed him and clipped the base of his skull with the butt of the gun.
He knew exactly where to go. He reached the communications console and punched in the codes Sihvaaro had passed to him with his thoughts.
VelRauthi spun around. Ronan aimed both guns at the Kinsman’s belly. His subordinates froze. One glance at Cynara was all Ronan dared risk.
She vanished. Ronan’s keen eyes could not detect her, nor his other senses fix on her presence. The Kinsmen were equally blind. The bridge doors opened and shut again on the sight of struggling guards.
Farewell, Beloved.
Ronan laughed aloud. VelRauthi had blanched the color of bone.
“She deceived you, kek’ko ne’lin,” Ronan said. “You thought her skills were of no consequence, but she is the strong one. You will not find her quickly.”