Page 37 of Vindicated

I bit back the retort that danced on the tip of my tongue. There had been an explosion in my munitions hold. I did not have time to defend my honor or my sleeping choices to a theatre troupe who knew nothing of me or my people.

Before I could speak again, Athena stepped toward me. “Is everything okay? Why were the sirens going off?”

I gave a brusque shake of my head. Everything was not okay, but I did not have the time to go into all the thoughts tormenting my mind about her and her lineage. “There was an explosion in the munitions storage.”

Color drained from her face. “An explosion? That sounds serious.”

“It is,” mymajakgrowled before I could respond.

“Do explosions happen often?” Athena’s voice was less confident, and her friends seemed to shift closer to each other.

“Never.” The word came out sharper than I’d intended, edged with the fear I had not let myself feel when I was searching for her. “Not on my ship. Not before today.”

A ripple of nervous murmurs went through the group. I hadn’t meant to cast aspersion on her and her friends, but it was clear they understood what my word implied. Not before you arrived. Not before I took in refugees.

Athena’s eyes were unblinking, and she licked at her lips as I refused to release my grip on her gaze.

Dawz’s voice was a low rumble at my side. “Raas, we should go. Zarn is waiting for us. You should be there.”

Not herewere the words he didn’t speak and didn’t have to. He was right. Every second I lingered here was a second I was not with my battle chief analyzing the site of the blast. Every moment delayed arguing with Athena was one more I was not where a warlord should be when his ship had been wounded.

As much as I knew that, I could not simply leave her to find her way back to me in the chaos. Not with raiders sprinting through the corridors and the origin of the explosion unknown.

“Athena.” I said her name calmly, but she stiffened at the sound of it, as if expecting a rebuke. “You should come with me. The ship is a maze when it is calm. I will not have you wandering it while it is not.”

“I got here fine on my own,” she said.

I gritted my teeth and forced my voce to stay calm. “But that was before the alarm.”

She hesitated and I watched the internal debate play out on her face. She clearly hated the thought of giving in to me, but she was weighing it against arguing further. She huffed out a breath. “If you insist.” Then she turned to her friends. “I’ll see you later. I promise.”

I did not miss the looks that were exchanged between her friends as she stepped toward me. They were worried and suspicious, but I found I did not have the patience to care what they thought of me.

I did not offer my arm because I doubted she would take it, but I led the way with mymajakbringing up the rear. We moved briskly through the corridors that grew thicker with smoke the farther down in the warbird we descended, the acrid tang of it stinging the back of my throat and burning low in my chest.

Athena didn’t complain, although I heard her breath catch more than once, and she pressed her hand to her mouth as wepassed through a haze thick enough to blur the steel walkway in front of us. I resisted the urge to slow my pace for her. Not only did we need to reach the explosion site, but she would also not thank me for treating her like glass.

Still, when we crossed the last swinging bridge before the floor that contained the munitions hold, I rested my hand at the small of her back. Not to steady her or urge her forward, but because some primitive part of me needed to remind myself that she was mine to protect.

Whirring vents had thinned out the smoke near the hold enough so we could clearly see shapes. The first ones I made out were a handful of my raiders clustered around the scorched entrance to the munitions bay, the kilts and bare chests smudged with soot. Beyond them, arms crossed and tail lashing behind him like a blade slicing the air stood my brother.

Zarn’s face didn’t hold the easy, needling grin I’d grown accustomed to enduring since childhood. It was solemn and drawn tight across features that were entirely serious.

“Well?” I asked him, my voice pitched to travel no further than the space between us. “What happened?”

His menacing gaze did not go to me. It went over my shoulder to Atena and held there long enough that I noticed her bristle.

“Enemy sabotage,” Zarn said, his voice as clear and bold as his implied accusation.

As I stood in the remnants of an explosion, the scent of char sharp enough to choke me, I did not know what infuriated me more. Was it that my own brother would look at Athena and see nothing but a Zagrath’s granddaughter and a convenient scapegoat or that some traitorous corner of my own mind, the same mind that had been convinced that blood did not determine fate or loyalty, had not been entirely certain I wasn’t making the biggest miscalculation of my life.

Chapter 28

Athena

Enemy sabotage.

The words hung in the hazy air, and I felt every eye that had been on Lorken slide instead to me. Wait, did Lorken’s brother think I had something to do with this? Why would I want to sabotage the ship that had provided me and my friends refuge? Why would I hold any grudge against the Vandar? More than that, how would I have sabotaged a warbird? I didn’t know the first thing about them.