Page 77 of Only Cold Depths
“Just do it—”
Asterin wrenched my nose to the side. I hissed. A few seconds later, the skinbond started pumping through my veins, dulling the bright, sparking pain to a dim, pulsing throb.
Asterin wet a cloth and handed it to me, and I wiped the blood off my face and tossed the soiled linen into the recycler.
“Well, that was entirely too easy,” Zane said. “I was hoping Kyrion would scream a bit.”
“The only one who’s going to be screaming is you,” I growled. “Right after I shove my sword into your chest.”
Zane clucked his tongue. “Please. We both know you’re never going to do that. Youcan’tdo that now, given that I am your beloved’s big brother. Vesper might not like me much, but I doubt she wants me dead.”
My fingers twitched with the urge to throttle him, but he was right. Vesper was hurt and angry, but she didn’t want any of the Zimmers dead, not even Zane.
“I might not be able to kill you, but you can’t kill me either. Vesper would kill you herself for that.”
Zane’s lips turned down into an exaggerated pout. “Yes, well, your truebond with Vesper is an unfortunate fact we’re all going to have to live with. Have the two of you figured out your psion powers yet? Or is my sister still randomly astral-projecting herself into people’s libraries?”
His voice was light and breezy, but concern wafted off him and tweaked my telempathy.
My eyes narrowed. “You actually care about her.”
A mulish expression tightened his face. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
I wouldn’t get a straight answer out of him, so I tried a different tactic. “How did you know we were coming to Sygnustern? You couldn’t have possibly tracked us here.”
“Oh, that was easy. Asterin told me.”
Asterin jerked back in surprise. “I did no such thing!”
Zane cocked an eyebrow at her. “Oh, yes, you did. I saw how chatty you were with Tivona Winslow and Leandra Ferrum during the summer solstice ball. Every time I turned around, the three of you were whispering, and it wasn’t hard to figure out you were talking about my dear sister and her unfortunate choice of paramour. Especially since you, Tivona, and Leandra had already helped Vesper and Kyrion escape from Crownpoint.”
Asterin sputtered, but Zane waved his hand, cutting her off.
“Don’t bother denying it. Scores of Regals and servants recorded the midnight ball on their tablets, as did the gossipcasts. I went throughallthe footage—every lastframe.”
Zane stabbed his finger at Asterin. “You, my lady, tripped some soldiers trying to apprehend Vesper and Kyrion outside the throne room. Daichi and Touma Hirano scrambled the security cameras, while Tivona Winslow and Leandra Ferrum took out some Imperium soldiers and Bronze Hand guards. Thus clearing the way for Vesper and Kyrion to board theDream Worldand zoom away from the palace.”
I’d figured someone would eventually piece it all together, but Zane doing it so quickly didn’t surprise me. He might act like an arrogant idiot, but he could be quite clever and dogged when he put his mind to it.
“But little did Vesper and Kyrion know that Adria Byrne had snuck onto their ship.” Zane focused on me. “I’m assuming you and Vesper eliminated Adria, since she is nowhere to be found. How did you manage that? I saw Adria after Vesper killed Dargan in the throne room. She was mad with grief at the loss of her truebond with her brother. No way she went down easy.”
“No, Adria didn’t go down easy,” I muttered. “I was getting healed in the hyperbaric chamber on the medtable when she attacked. Vesper has an O2 enhancement, so she purged all the oxygen out of the cargo bay. Adria died. Vesper didn’t.”
Zane’s golden eyebrows shot up. “That must have been hard to watch.”
He had no bloody idea. I would never forget how Vesper had struggled to breathe and then crumpled to the floor when she too ran out of air. How she had been more dead than alive when I’d finally freed myself from the medtable. How I’d used a strange combination of luck, along with our truebond, to find Vesper deep in her mindscape and bring her back to me.
“Since the ball, Tivona has been funneling Quill Corp credits into an account owned by a baroness with a ridiculously long name that’s clearly an alias for Vesper.” Zane snapped his fingers. “Oh, and Daichi and Touma are hiding out on Corios, just in case you and Vesper return home.”
I stiffened. “If you hurtanyof them—”
Zane snorted, cutting off my threat. “Your friends are fine. Tivona is surrounded by Quill Corp guards, who are being whipped into shape by Leandra, and as far as Daichi and Touma know, they are perfectly safe in their little hidey-hole.”
I bit back a curse. Zane kneweverything, and he could whisper a few words into Holloway’s ear and have our friends arrested anytime he wanted.
“What do you want, Zane? Because there is always a price for your silence.”
“True,” he agreed. “But in this case, it’s more about what my father wants.”
