Page 107

Aware of the dangers that might be lurking, I slipped from his embrace. “I’m all right,” I murmured.

We made the remainder of the journey in silence. Even Zwee quieted, as if she could sense my rising nervousness.

The rain turned to a drizzle as we finally emerged into a small clearing. A tall, sturdy stone wall topped with sharp pieces of metal and glaz surrounded the capsule home. A single meter-wide gate made of trimetal appeared to be the only way through the wall.

The clearing was dotted with the skeletons of creatures three or four times the size of a full-grown gorga, with long tails and distinctly reptilian heads. Were these the kaory Siber had warned us about? The metal and glaz on the wall must be there to keep the kaory and serpents away from the house and yard.

Three eyeballs on long stalks appeared above the gate and bent toward us. Whatever those eyeballs were attached to had to be sizable, judging by how easily it looked over the gate and the width between the stalks.

We stopped halfway between the tree line and the gate. Jarrix holstered his weapons and we both raised our hands. Zwee settled on her belly on the ground beside me.

The creature behind the gate hissed. Zwee twitched but didn’t show her teeth.

I slid my visor and hood back to reveal my face and hair. Jarrix took his cue from me and followed suit.

I took a deep breath. “My name is Keela Wren,” I called. “I’m looking for Calla.”

One of the eyeballs swiveled toward something behind the wall while the other two remained focused on us. “Poe?” the creature trilled, its tone questioning.

I didn’t hear anything unlock, but the gate silently swung outward, revealing a truly enormous creature. Other than its long eyestalks, six triple-jointed legs, and two powerful arms tipped with nasty-looking pinchers, most of its body was inside its shell, which was covered with moss and appeared to be decorated with rocks and bits of shell.

“Poe,” it said, this time sounding distinctly menacing.

“Poe, let me through,” a female voice said from the other side of the wall.

My heart stuttered in my chest.

With obvious reluctance, the shelled creature emerged through the doorway and moved aside, all three of its eyes fixed on us and its pinchers raised in warning.

My sister stepped through the gate, wearing a green tactical jumpsuit as if prepared for battle. She held a plasma gun at her side and wore two gleaming Hardanian scythe-knives in sheaths on her thighs.

Right behind her was a very large, bare-chested, humanoid male with long white hair and bioluminescent purple skin. Four thick tentacles, each as long as he was tall, grew from his back. He carried a pulse rifle in his hands, its barrel pointed not at me but at Jarrix. Everything about him screamed predator.

He was unmistakably Fortusian like Jarrix, but I couldn’t think about that right now. Not with my sister only a few meters away.

Calla and I stared at each other.

I drank in every detail, from her long red hair—pulled back in a long braid, just like mine—to her boots. She looked so much like the image in her Alliance Defense file, but more…alive. In that file, she’d appeared fierce and dutiful, as if she’d been captured on her way to climbing into the cockpit of her fighter.

Here in the drizzle on Iosa, surrounded by swamp and kaory bones, she looked free.

“Keela?” she whispered.

“Yes.” I wanted to laugh and cry and run to her and collapse where I stood. “I…found you.” It was an almost ridiculous thing to say, given we were standing right here, but suddenly everything I’d wanted to say to my sister for so long evaporated right out of my head.

“How?” her mate asked, his voice cold enough to flash-freeze the swamp we’d just slogged through.

It was a fair and logical question. If our situation were reversed, I’d have demanded an immediate explanation too.

“For years, I’ve been posting requests for information about your whereabouts using a pseudonym and untraceable comm code,” I told Calla and her mate. “Nothing ever came of it. But a few weeks ago, I was contacted by a Kurutan named N’vera⁠—”

Calla’s mate growled, his tentacles wrapping around Calla as if to shield her.

I raised my hands a little higher. “N’vera told me they used to work for another Kurutan who was on a mission of revenge,” I said quickly. “They didn’t give me the other Kurutan’s name or any more details than that. Apparently N’vera came here to Iosa about a year ago with their employer and saw Calla. They heard her say her full name. When they saw my posting, they contacted me. We met on a space station. First they showed me your Alliance Defense file.” I swallowed hard. “It said you were dead.”

Calla flinched, regret obvious in her expression.

“Then N’vera told me you were alive,” I continued. “They offered to sell me your coordinates. I had no idea if they were telling the truth, but I paid. And now I’m here.” I spread my hands. “There’s a little more to the story, but that’s the most important parts. Well, that and N’vera’s dead. Your location died with them.”