Page 110 of Shielded in the Shadows

I went quiet for a while after I finished, letting Calla process what I’d revealed as Vos comforted her. Despite the heaviness in my heart and the tension in the air, there was something really, profoundly good about sitting with my sister like this as our mates held us—Vos with his tentacles, and Jarrix with his wings and tail.

It made our lonely, miserable lives in the arena seem very, very long ago and almost a lifetime away.

“You brought him with you?” Calla asked finally. “Leomer?”

“Yes.” I leaned over to pick up my pack from the floor and withdrew the fabric-wrapped orb. When I let the wrapping fall away, we all stared at the innocuous gray sphere.

“I want to throw it into a black hole,” Calla said, her voice toneless. “Or maybe a sun.”

“I know. Me too.” I flicked it with my finger. “And yet…”

“And yet,” she echoed quietly. She rested her head on Vos’s chest and looked away from the orb and back at me. “And what turned out to be on the datachip?”

I grimaced. “Millions of credits.”

Her jaw dropped, and all of Vos’s tentacles twitched. “What?” my sister gasped.

“The datachip has account information and access keys to dozens of untraceable accounts,” I said. “I don’t know where the credits came from, and there’s no way to tell. It’s a fortune, and it’s only accessible to someone who shares Leomer’s DNA.”

“Gods,” she breathed. She looked at Vos and then at us. “What are you going to do with it?”

“What are we going to do with it?” I corrected. “I don’t know. They’re not my credits. There’s a good chance they weren’t Leomer’s either. Well, maybe if he invested most of his lifetime earnings and those investments paid off…” I shrugged. “Even then, I doubt he could have amassed all of it legitimately. Odds are at least part, if not most of it, is stolen.”

“Stolen from whom?” Vos asked. “The Liktarrs?”

“It seems unlikely,” Jarrix said. “I doubt anyone steals from the syndicate and lives very long. Leomer might have had his own schemes. Again, we don’t know, and we really have no way to find out that wouldn’t call attention to ourselves we definitely don’t want.”

For a long time, we all sat quietly, lost in our own thoughts.

“The accounts aren’t going anywhere,” I said finally. “We have time to consider it. I really don’t want Leomer’s blood money. I could drop that datachip into a pool of lava somewhere and we can forget those credits exist.”

“I feel the same way.” Calla studied me, her head tilted. “But?”

“But…” I sighed. “But I’m not ready to do that yet. I don’t know why I’m hesitating.”

“There’s something holding you back—something you might be thinking subconsciously,” Jarrix said, his lips pressed to my hair. “It’s like with your nivilus. Until you know for sure, wait. Let the answer come.”

Calla was staring at me. “What does he mean, your nivilus?”

I reached for the sheath I’d dropped next to my pack and withdrew my nivilus, which I’d carried on my back in its compact form during our walk through the swamp.

“Oh, gods,” Calla breathed. She started to reach out, then snatched her trembling hand back. Her gaze when it met mine looked haunted. “Is that really…?”

“Yes. This was my weapon in the arena.” I stuck it back in the sheath and tucked it away out of sight. “It was all I had to my name when I left Ganai. That and a few credits.”

“You kept it.” She rubbed her arms as if she’d gotten cold. Immediately, Vos extended a tentacle and turned up the flames in the fireplace. Calla didn’t seem to notice. “I sold mine in the market the day I turned sixteen,” she whispered. “Bought two good intanas, a couple of daggers, and a few other things. I never wanted to see it again.”

Many gladiators had felt the same way, which was why these unique weapons had found their way into dealers’ and collectors’ hands.

I needed to tell her why I’d named my ship the Nivilus, but that could wait.

“After I got my freedom, I never used it again, until recently,” I said, my voice quiet too. “I carried it with me for years. When I finally bought my own ship, I mounted it on the wall in the cargo bay and let it get dull and rusted. But when it came time for me to go to Saistea and find Orqiel…”

Calla’s sharp intake of breath made Vos stroke her arms with his tentacles. “You killed him with it?”

I couldn’t keep the pride out of my voice when I replied, “I did.”

She blinked rapidly. “Good.” For a beat her face crumpled, and then she took a deep, shaky breath and seemed to steel herself. “Good for you, Kee.”