Bonds of Brass (The Bloodright Trilogy #1) - Emily Skrutskie Page 0,134

the prince—that was all they wanted. And speaking of the prince—”

“I never could have told—”

“That part I get, yeah. But you didn’t have to drag me into the middle of it.”

“I didn’t,” I concede, lowering my gun. “But I thought I couldn’t do it without you.”

Something in her expression twitches from pissed to pleased before she can stop it. She saunters closer, lowering her hands. “So,” Wen says, dropping into a crouch next to me.

“So,” I repeat. The fury’s fading, and I don’t want it to leave. I can already feel the emptiness growing in its absence. “How did you find me?”

I stop myself from adding, Why did you bother?

Wen shrugs. “I thought like you and took a guess.”

I gape.

“Also Gal made me sneak a tracker onto your belt.” Wen chuckles at my expression, leaning back and settling herself against the wall. She pulls a pilfered datapad out of her pocket and drops it in my lap as the “distance to target” on its display winds all the way down to zero.

“And how…how did you get caught in the first place?”

Wen looks stricken. “I ditched the skipships nice and easy, like you said. Piece of cake once I didn’t have to worry about bouncing the soldiers in the hold around like rubber balls. I thought we were supposed to meet up with the fleet after that, but Gal told me we were changing the plan. I asked if you knew, and he said you did, but…”

I squeeze my eyes shut. More things I should have anticipated. More reasons the blame for Gal’s capture lies heavy on my shoulders. After what Gal tried to pull when we arrived at the base, it’s no wonder she’d balk at trusting him without me there to reassure her.

“We were arguing when we got the notification that the system governor had surrendered, and by then I was sure something was wrong. Nothing about today added up, and…if I had listened, if I hadn’t hesitated—”

“You couldn’t have known,” I say softly, and she shakes her head.

“They were on us so fast. Too many of them,” Wen says, her eyes dull, like admitting that is stealing something horrible from her.

I swallow back the lump in my throat as the tumblers line up in my brain. Berr sys-Tosa’s surrender makes perfect sense. The Ruttin’ Hell was sighted. He knew the Umber heir was collaborating with the Archon forces to enact his revenge. And the governor must have decided two could play at that game. He saw his opportunity to eliminate the Umber heir before Gal could ever become a problem. Berr sys-Tosa ceded. He turned Rana into a warren, then told General Iral exactly what he was hunting.

I pick up the datapad and turn it over in my hands, running my fingers along its smooth, glossy surface. A dark urge rises to snap it in half, to throw it across the garage, to take some part of my rage and frustration out on this useless slab of electronics. Instead I pull out my own datapad, stolen from the soldier I took down, and stack it on top of Wen’s. Set both of them on the ground between us. Put the blaster on top, followed by the soldier’s ID.

Wen lifts her unburned eyebrow at me.

“Our assets. You got anything else?”

She pulls a switchblade out of her boot and tosses it on top of my pile.

“That’s it?” I ask, scoffing. It’s more than I had last time, but now I’ve got Wen with me, and we should probably have more figured out between us.

“Well, I know where they took Gal.”

I swat her on the shoulder. “Heavens and hells, Wen—lead with that.”

“I didn’t want to rev you up—you’re gonna say it’s impossible. I might not agree, but—”

I shake my head. “Wen, where is he?”

“The general’s setting up shop in the governor’s palace. Your dear prince is being kept in the court there.”

My hand clamps over my heart before I know what I’m