21st of Thira, Continued

With a ragged cough, Arramy pushed himself up onto his knees, then onto his feet. He didn't say anything. He just took hold of my arm and pulled me upright.

I realized my hand was empty at the same instant I saw the infuser lying several meters away. I didn't wait to find out if Arramy was going to drag me off to the Coventry. With a savage kick to the side of his knee, I took off, just like he had taught me. I hadn't gone more than two steps toward the infuser before he grabbed me from behind, hauling me up off my feet, his arms like bands of steel around my middle, trapping my elbows against my sides.

My heart was pounding so hard it hurt. With a raspy shriek I lashed out with my feet, writhing and thrashing, but I couldn't hit anything important, and I didn't have the leverage to inflict much damage. He just coughed some more, and carried me down the balcony steps as if I were a disobedient child throwing a fit.

"Put me down!"

Arramy's answer was to clamp one hand firmly over my mouth, and growl, "Keep quiet!" in my ear. He reached the bottom of the stairs and turned right, moving fast as he navigated what was left of the garden by the light of the burning manor. He stumbled once or twice in the dark, but managed to get all the way around the edge of the hole yawning wide in the ground. Then we were crossing the velvety close-cut grass of a strolling green.

I stopped struggling, cold fury taking over as he strode toward the tree line at the edge of the green like he knew exactly where he was going. It was a drainage house. He was heading straight for the maintenance shed for the manor's drains. I shook my head behind his hand and started kicking again, but he just grunted and hauled me up to the maintenance shed gate.

It opened easily when his boot connected with it, and he slipped inside, juggling me to one arm while he grabbed a storm lantern from a hook on the wall.

In the process he had to let go of my mouth, and I screamed.

Arramy swore and gave me a glare I could see even by the distant light of the manor fire. Then he put me down hard on my feet and whipped me around to face him, his fist tight in the fabric of my dress. "Reixham's guards are still out there. We have two minutes before they blow that bunker. Shut up and move!"

"Why should I trust you?" I demanded, glaring right back at him. "You're with them!" I brought my hands up to his chest and gave him a shove.

He shifted his weight, as if I had actually been able to move him. He stayed that way for a second before he dragged in a harsh breath and turned me toward a set of curved metal railings barely visible in the shadows. "I said move," he rasped, voice dull. There was no denial.

I stared at him, jaw jutting, then started for the spiral of metal stairs leading to the drain access below us. "If this is an active sewer, I'm going to kill you," I muttered, groping for the railing, searching for the first step with my toes.

"Faster."

"I can't see anything," I pointed out, feeling my way downward.

There was a cough above me, then the tread of heavy boots on metal grating.

"So, I have a question," I announced. Calmly.  "If they're going to blow up an underground bunker... Why are we going underground?" I passed a third bend in the stairs and then nearly crashed to my knees when the next step was solid floor instead of another riser.

There was a 'gritch' as Arramy slid the striker lever on the lantern, the sound echoing faintly, and a flame leaped to life, illuminating the rounded walls of the metal room we were standing in. We were on a platform. If I had taken another stride forward, I would have fallen to the bottom of the collection chamber. It was dry. There were several pipes that must have emptied into the chamber at one time, but they weren't emptying anything anymore, and all that remained was a rust-streaked cavern of pre-war concrete and metal.   

Arramy gave me a push toward the top of a ladder that joined the platform to the floor of the collection chamber. "Keep moving. We're running out of time."

My stomach in knots, I gathered the train of the Midnight Goddess over one arm, then started down, moving as quickly as I could in my dancing heels. If I looked like I was cooperating, he might lower his guard.

Arramy waited until I was at the bottom, then slid down the ladder rails instead of using the rungs. He landed and nodded toward the riveted mouth of the gigantic outflow pipe. "In there."

I ground my teeth and did as ordered, shuffling out of the way when he came in after me. Ducking slightly to keep from bashing his head, he reached up and began cranking away at some sort of safety release in the ceiling of the pipe. A massive iron hatch cover began lowering out of a slot, and I flinched, expecting it to fall shut with a bang, but it moved silently on well-oiled rollers, closing without any resistance, and then the lock wheel spun easily, and the bolts slid smoothly into place with barely a sound.

My mouth went dry.

"Because it's safer in here," he said, finally answering my question. He turned and held up the lantern. "These pipes aren't connected to the exhaust system for the bunker."

As if to prove his point, there was a distant rumble, like prolonged thunder coming through a thick blanket. A powdering of rust fell from the rivets in the hatch, and the walls let out a groan that traveled the length of the pipe.

Arramy glanced around, eyebrow raised, waited a few seconds, then gave me a sideways look, and gestured to the inky emptiness ahead of us. There would be no surprise-attacking him from behind. For the hundredth time, I cursed my lack of weapons and started forward, leaving footprints in the sandy grit in the bottom of the pipe.

Mine weren't the only footprints.

"What is this pipe used for?" I asked over my shoulder.

"Smuggling."

I swallowed hard and kept going.

We walked in silence for several minutes, moving in a little bubble of light. The air was cool, but not unpleasant, and a breeze whispered over my skin. Compared to what had just happened, it was oddly peaceful, and suddenly there was time to think. There wasn't any way to deflect it. Memories swarmed through my head. Raggan and his unquestioning kindness. All the people on the Galvania. The survivors on the Angpixen.

It was the thought of my father that threw me over the edge. He would still be alive if it weren't for Arramy. Numb, I realized I didn't care what happened to me anymore. I was tired of waiting for the end. Tired of losing things. Tired of hurting. And the cause was prowling along right behind me, acting like he was doing me a favor.

"So," I cleared my throat. "How long have you known about this bunker?"

He didn't answer at first. When he did, his voice was rough. "Six years."

I kept walking. "Did you know they were making a flying ship?"

Nothing.

"Does it bother you at all? They've got people, they've got weapons, now they can fly. Are you proud to be part of that? Oh. Maybe you haven't been Coventry for very long," I said, not bothering to hide the venom in my voice. "Maybe that was recent. Are you a recent convert, Captain?"

He let out a short breath, and the lantern swayed, sending our shadows dancing over the walls. Then his hand came down on my bare shoulder.

I jumped as if burned, twisted out of his grip, and shot forward, only to be brought up short by his fingers around my wrist. This time I didn't fight it, my breath snagging on something sharp in my chest as he pulled me gently back into the circle of light from the lantern. 

Slowly, he let go of me. "I'm not going to hurt you, Bren."

That was amusing. An odd, hollow laugh bubbled out of my throat. "You already have." My smile was frigid as I turned around to look at him. "You have the blood of hundreds of people on your hands. You lied to me. Manipulated me. Made me think you were the one person I could trust, but you were using me. The entire time."

He stood there, head bowed, the lantern light casting his features in harsh lines. He winced at the words 'one person,' brows drawing together.

"Why?" I whispered. 

For several seconds he remained absolutely still. Then his brought his eyes up to mine, pinning me with a heated glare. "You think I wanted any of this to happen? You think I didn't try to stop it? That it doesn't eat me alive every time I look at you? You aren't the only one who has been used, kid. They have my mother locked up in an asylum on Naghirai. They had my younger brother too..." He paused, ground his teeth, then rasped out, "They beat him to death because I didn't turn you in."

An image of Arramy in a long-ago tea-parlor flitted through my head, a quick flare of emotion in those chilly eyes when I teased him about his mother. I stared at him. Took a breath and let it out, but still didn't feel anything. All I could come up with was a flat, "What, so no one else deserved to live, then?"

The muscles in his jaw flickered again. "It wasn't like that. It was much more simple. 'Find information on a stranger or someone you love will die.' I didn't know what they were going to use that information for."

"The man I ran into outside the Porte De Darre Post. That was you. You stole my letter," I said. It wasn't a question.

He didn't break away. "I burned it. I only needed to be sure you were who I thought you were."

"Then what? You followed me? Found out which ship we were on so you could turn us in?"

"Again, if I had known what would happen, I would never have done it."    

It wasn't a denial. Braeton had been right. Arramy had been the one who told the Coventry my father was on the Galvania. Hearing him admit it didn't seem much like a victory, anymore. I crossed my arms over my chest.  "What about after? On the Ang? On the Stryka?" I asked. Blunt. Cold. "You knew then. You could have talked to me. Made me understand."

Arramy dragged in a deep breath and brought his hand up, gripping the back of his neck. He ground his teeth some more, his frown deepening before he looked at me again. "You really want to do this now?"

"Yes."  

He shook his head. Then he lifted his hands in a helpless gesture, his voice tight. "I didn't have a choice. They had an agent on me. Lieutenant Penweather. He was always there, looking over my shoulder, making sure I did as I was told. He was in the boarding party when we caught NaVarre. He must have told them you were on the Angpixen when we got to Lordstown. I didn't. I told them you were dead." Arramy paused. Swallowed hard. "It ah... It wasn't just you Gofree was after. I was unreliable. Gofree didn't get the job done, though, so... when we joined up with the Stryka again, Penweather told me they had executed my brother. Showed me silvos of Kenua's body... What they had done to him..." his words trailed off, his gaze drifting to a middle distance. When he continued his voice was rough. "There was a new agreement on the table. Cozy up with NaVarre or they were going to do the same thing to my mother."

I straightened, my eyes widening as something clicked together. I opened my mouth, about to ask if Penweather could have gotten to the manor, but Arramy had turned and taken a few steps away.

He scrubbed his hands through his hair, then wheeled round to face me again. "And now I've chosen a side. Your side. And because I did that..." his voice broke, and he had to start again. "Because I did that, she'll be dead by tomorrow."

Silence descended as the faint echo of his words trailed off into the distance.

My questions about Penweather fizzled out on my tongue. What could I say? 'I don't know how to trust you anymore, you could be lying to me right now, and I feel like an idiot for even thinking about believing any part of what you just told me'? 'I'm so sorry you've lost your mother and your brother, thank you for picking me instead'? 'Is that all of your secrets, or are there more?'

I remained still, but something had shifted. This was too messy to sort through all at once. We had both lost too much and done too much, and all of it loomed between us like an invisible wall. 

Still, my anger was slowly draining away. Trust would take time, but I was looking at another human being in pain. That much I knew. I reached across the space between us and touched his arm. It wasn't forgiveness, exactly. There wasn't enough left of me for that. But it was a start.

Arramy's throat moved. He looked at my hand, his jaw clenching. Then he took a shaky breath, lifted the lantern, and gave the darkness ahead of us a jerk of his head. "Come on. We can't stay here."

We started walking again, our footsteps quiet in the sandy bottom of the pipe.

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