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Monarth whispered, “I will send in a tray.”

  Brneary gave him a thumbs up.

  Her grandfather eventually stood upright. “I thought you would never contact me.”

  Brneary walked him to the couch and sat with him. “I wasn’t planning on it, but circumstances demanded it.”

  He flinched slightly. “I should have expected that. Do you know how you survived?”

  “The explosion? Or my childhood?”

  His skin flushed. “The explosion. I will explain the other later.”

  Brneary got up and retrieved the tea tray, pushing the door shut on the cousin that had carried it. “I think we should discuss it now. I am housing a few thoughts that will have an effect on how we proceed from here.”

  He sighed. “Your mother married your father against my wishes.”

  “That is patently obvious.”

  “Did she ever mention that she was engaged to a member of the Barcor assassin clan?”

  Brneary shook her head. “She just said that once she saw Father, there were no other men.”

  He exhaled.

  She poured him some tea and a cup for herself. She offered him his choice of cups.

  He nodded and chose one of the delicate vessels. It looked tiny in his huge palm.

  “She was engaged to Yuso Barcor. They had been engaged since they were teens. It was a business arrangement, but neither seemed unhappy about it. Your mother wanted to become the head of the clan, and with my beloved Btrice gone, she was in the prime position for it. That was when she met your father.”

  They sipped at their tea in turn. Brneary waited.

  “She didn’t call off the wedding, she simply married your father. As part of the contract, I had to put a price on her head for deserting the clan. When you were born, the contract extended to you as proof of her desertion.”

  “What happened when I was two?”

  “Yuso got married, and your mother brought the majority of the clan who were willing, over to the Ornuac household. It is amazing what a health plan will do for people.”

  Brneary looked at him over the delicate cup. “It is amazing what folk will do to keep their families safe. No one that worked for our family ever had to worry about being arrested.”

  He nodded. “True. Very true. However, I hear that you are aiming to change all that. Breaking into a secure environmental disaster? Very daring for someone raised in privilege.”

  She set her cup down and filled his and then hers. “My father raised me to stand on my own feet and to work out what was right, regardless of legalities.”

  “I may have misjudged Eamon. He seems to have had the heart of a thief all along.”

  Brneary smiled slightly. “He did have the heart of a thief, and he loved her until the last.”

  Her grandfather stared at her, and his eyes grew shiny again. He cleared his throat. “Right. Well, that is the story of why relations with my daughter were strained.”

  Brneary tried not to roll her eyes. “It makes a bit more sense now.”

  They sat in silence. He finally asked, “Did they suffer?”

  Brneary shook her head. “There was an initial wave of radiant energy, and then, the blast wave rolled toward us. It was over in seconds.”

  He exhaled. “I am guessing you are gifted?”

  She snorted. “I am guessing I am. I wasn’t before, but I am now.”

  “I will not ask what you are capable of, but you have the loyalty of those who once only answered to my wife, so you are definitely a worthy grandchild.”

  Brneary nearly laughed in his face. She held it in with effort.

  “I am glad to finally hear your voice and see your face in person. It has been a question in my mind for some time.”

  He smiled brightly. “Excellent. I was so relieved when you contacted me. Now, what do you wish to know?”

  “Was the experiment tampered with? Was the explosion a miscalculation or deliberate involvement?”

  He nodded. “Right to the point. It was deliberate. There are a lot of corporations here that benefit from the constant trade with other worlds.”

  “Give me a name, Lord Temlia.”

  He blinked at her cold tone. “You sound so much like your mother.”

  She waited and poured another cup of tea, reaching for a small cake.

  “Ergenfell Corporation hired the saboteurs. It required specialised skills, and they found the men who would do the job.”

  She smiled tightly. “Thank you. That is what I needed to know.”

  He sipped at his tea, and she refilled his cup.

  “You are such a calm and self-possessed woman. You have taken on so much at such a young age.”

  She sat back slightly and smiled. “My parents have been training me for this since I was ten. There has always been a threat over our lives, and I needed to know what to do in the event that one of the attempts was successful. You were not the only one trying to kill us.”

  He leaned in. “Tell me.”

  She chuckled and told him tales of being stalked at school, kidnapping attempts, and her mother dealing with each threat as it rose. Her father was in charge of keeping her psychologically prepared for all eventualities. She was skilled at trading before she entered school and could spot a tail at fifty metres.

  When they concluded their conversation and she agreed to speak with him again, he held her hands. “You are so much more than I imagined.”

  She smiled up at the eyes that were so familiar and said, “I am my parents’ daughter. When you have such a well-matched set of progenitors, it only makes sense that you are fairly impressive yourself. I will see you again, Lord Temlia.”

  He squeezed her hands and left her with a spring in his step as he made his way to his vehicle. The driver was waiting for him.

  She looked at the situation and reached for the sword that she kept next to the entryway. A sharp whistle brought the cousins running, and two small pulses caused a surge of bodies toward the man who was not an actual driver.

  The driver saw that his target had paused, and he reached for a weapon.

  Brneary was already running, and by the time he had taken aim, she was between the projectiles and her grandfather. She felt the impact of the metal and unsheathed her blade, separating the driver’s head from his body while the cousins formed a living shield around Lord Temlia.

  She wiped the blade on the driver’s clothing and looked back at her grandfather. “Alfus will take you home.”

  He was actually smiling. “How did you know?”

  “A driver would have gotten into position next to your door, not next to his. So, why are you smiling?”

  He sighed in relief. “I was worried that you would not care if I was injured or kidnapped. It seems you are more than capable of defending your own.”

  “So, you knew you had a viper, and you brought him to my home?”

  She sheathed her sword and walked toward the man who had rejected her mother.

  He was staring at her torso. “Is that metal?”

  She didn’t need to glance down. She released the micro-armour, and they fell to the ground.

  Alfus brought the car around.

  She inclined her head. “We can discuss it another time. Have a safe trip home, Lord Temlia.”

  Her dismissal was absolute, and she tried not to look at the body of the driver staining the stones of the parking area. When Alfus and two of the cousins were escorting her grandfather home, she dropped to her knees and puked. Killing someone had more smells associated with it than she thought, but there was a first time for everything.

  Chapter Six

  Monarth knocked at her study door two days later. “The prototype has arrived.”

  Brneary sat up and looked at him with a hopeful smile. “Does it look all right?”

  He turned for a moment and then returned with a large box suspended on both arms. “We didn’t open it.”

  Sh
e grinned and followed him to her small table, where she tended to snack. He set the box down, and then, he waited. Apparently, this was not a private moment.

  She opened the lock on the box with her thumbprint and opened the case for the prototype bio-reactive suit. The idea was that it could fit tightly against her skin while defending her from impact or being identified.

  Brneary looked at Monarth. “I am not trying it on with you here.”

  He nodded and turned. “I will be waiting outside.”

  She chuckled and started to remove her clothing. The suit was set to her exact measurements, and any fabric between it and herself would interfere with its function.

  Naked, she pulled the suit on and scowled at the leggings. It looked like she was about to engage in modern dance. That would have to be addressed later.

  The trigger for the hood was on her wrist. She activated it, and there was a flash before her hair was plastered to her head. She turned her head and checked her range of movement. It seemed to be fine.

  The suit left nothing to the imagination, but it would be covered as soon as she triggered her gift. It was getting easier. Weeks of practice rolling around and picking up the materials on the floor had made her suits of sand, dirt, flowers, and once, children’s cereal. She could pick up a layer and then acquire more layers as needed. Whatever her body was doing, it knew its stuff. If she needed protection, it was there, and if she needed concealment, it was there as well.

  The belt that she had asked for might not be practical for all situations, but the mineral inside the small ampules that studded it were going to be just what she needed for this one night.

  She whistled sharply, and Monarth came in. He stared, blinked, and looked at the wall to his left. “It is certainly snug.”

  “That it is, but it has to be. I am going to test it out.”

  Brneary walked over to her table and smiled at the stone and sand garden. It was about to be sacrificed.

  She plunged her hand into the sand, and it shivered and flashed up and around in less than a second.

  Monarth blinked, and he smiled. “It looks like you are wearing glitter.”

  She looked down at the pale effect the sand was giving the black suit. “That is all the material I have in here. I don’t want to waste a chair.”

  She focused again, and the sand moved up her body, across to her right arm and back into the container. She exhaled slowly. “That was a trick that took some practicing.”

  “You can put things back?”

  “I can. I have been working on it. The full dismissal will dump it to the floor, but a careful removal might be useful at other times.”

  He smiled sadly. “Your mother would have loved that. She always said you had the making of an excellent thief. This particular gift is right up that alley.”

  She smiled. “I know. I learned that last trick for her. She would have liked the possibilities.”

  He nodded. “She would be so proud of you.”

  Brneary blinked rapidly to clear her vision. “Thank you. I know Dad would, as well.”

  “He would. You have truly become a credit to your parents.”

  “Thank you. I would be sobbing if I didn’t already know it.” She winked.

  She exhaled and waved a hand in the air. “Right. Let’s get back to planning my excursion this evening.”

  “You are going tonight?”

  “Of course. No sense in letting folks know that I am coming. I like the idea of surprising anyone who is waiting. Do you have a line on containment?”

  “I do. I have found a location that will confine and control the container until the source can be neutralized or repurposed.”

  “It isn’t under the house, is it?”

  He chuckled. “No, nothing like that. The energy signature will be impossible to isolate.”

  Brneary nodded. “Good. Now, get out of here so I can get dressed again. This suit is riding up a little.”

  He chuckled and left her to get the suit out of her crack.

  The matte grey skimmer had no registration, and it cruised along the surface toward a location she had thought she would never return to.

  The blast site was surrounded by fencing, and there were live and digital monitors around the site. It was a good thing that Leadra knew about the air handler passageway and that her grandfather had confirmed it.

  Brneary pulled the skimmer down near the entry point, and she stepped out of it, summoning the sand and dirt to cover her suit.

  Camouflaged, she walked toward the hatch, and she brushed it free of sand and grit. There was more than she had expected, but the explosion had probably covered the entryway.

  Clearing the buried door was taking precious time, so she wrapped herself in it and deposited the sand and dirt behind her in a rapid cascade.

  The door was a standard metal door, but the lock had been destroyed. She gritted her teeth and proceeded into the facility that had literally rocked her world.

  She breathed slowly as she walked; the energy still projected by the core was keeping the lights on, and the glow was literally at the end of the tunnel.

  Brneary wanted to see it. She wanted to see the energy source that had given so much hope and taken it all away.

  Her skin began to tingle, and she used the mineral pack around her waist. The thin shield of minerals spread across her skin in a second, stopping the tingle and protecting her from the radiation.

  Trading with Duboss for some of the minerals had been awkward, but she was glad she had done it. They were a bunch of unpleasant misogynistic bastards, but they knew their minerals. They had provided the samples that the team had used for her little bullets. She was now wearing them all over on a molecular level.

  She followed the path that she had researched, walking out of the air corridor and hopping down a few feet before picking up the pace.

  The interior had been bent dramatically away from the central core, but they had been melted rather than broken. The walls were surreal and bent in strange angles, which made it hard to tell where the floor actually was.

  Brneary focused and kept her mind on her project. She needed to get that core under control, and the materials she needed were at hand.

  The shielding that she passed was added to her armour. With every single step, her body was defended against the damage that the orb was trying to enact on her limbs.

  The scans on the housing for the orb had been done, and the tiny microfracture had been detected. The orb had blown open, and the reaction had compounded in an instant. The power that was supposed to be channelled and focused had cascaded outward in a wave instead.

  It was that wave that had crushed her plans for her future and taken everyone she thought she couldn’t live without. She had proven herself wrong, but it still hurt.

  Brneary moved through the facility and found the reaction chamber. There it was. The cracked housing let out just enough of the light to show the pulse of life inside the metal.

  Now, this was the time when her new gift could either help her or let her down completely.

  She touched the metal, and it slid onto her arms. The heavy housing became part of her armour, and finally, she was staring the murder weapon in the face.

  It was pretty. There was white and blue swirling together in a tight cascade. It was a small ball. Smaller than she had imagined. The size of her fist was spinning slowly in its own suspension field.

  She exhaled. “Okay, you can’t stay here.”

  She turned to get the transport capsule that had been stored in a nearby cabinet, and that is when she realized she wasn’t alone.

  Two figures in radiation suits were standing there. They were holding weapons on her.

  “Step away from the orb. We have plans for it.” One of the figures jerked their weapon.

  Brneary called herself seventeen types of fool, but she stepped backward, toward the orb. She was really hoping that it was a malleable s
ubstance. This might be the last bad decision that she made.

  The figures froze in shock as she backed up and then jumped into the casement where the orb was still spinning. She knew the exact moment when she made contact with it. Her entire world went bright, and her eyes saw stars. Life and death were happening at the same time. It was not her plan for the evening.

  Chapter Seven

  When the light finished integrating into her suit, she felt it. She looked out at the figures, and they were raising their weapons. She flicked her fingers toward them, and they both dissolved into ash.

  It was time to get this power source to safety. There were going to be others on the other side of that door, she was sure of it.

  The power source giggled and lifted her off the ground. She translated the power’s message and looked up at the dozen floors between her and the outside world. It was worth a chance.

  She folded one arm against her chest and lifted a fist over her head to punch the ceiling out of the way. The power laughed at her lack of trust, and it lifted her up, carrying her to the ceiling and moving through it. It was effortless. The power that wrapped her was strong, and it was having fun.

  The evening sky appeared in seconds. Wrapped in the energy, she knew she was a bright object, but it was the figure standing next to her skimmer that caught her attention.

  She glided silently down to where the man was standing, and she faced who she felt was the architect of the whole disaster.

  “Lord Temlia.”

  He quirked his lips, and she saw the resemblance to herself and her mother in that mouth. “My, my. You certainly do have skills.”

  She stepped toward him, casting him in the eerie light of her suit. “I certainly do. You had someone create the fault in the containment?”

  He smiled and shrugged. “I was paid handsomely.”

  “There were three thousand people at close range. You killed them all.” She kept her voice cold.

  He smiled and shrugged. “It is what I do. Now, hand over the orb, and I will be on my way.”

  She chuckled. “I will not be doing that, but enjoy the lingering death that you are about to experience.”