Almost word-for-word how Lucan had explained it. So she understood the Optasia perfectly. “Including the Great Elders,” he prompted, waiting for her to admit it.
“Of course including the Great Elders. That’s the whole point. This is the only way for you to understand them, and to negotiate with them on an equal level. With you on the throne, humanity will finally have someone to speak to the Elders on our behalf. You’ll have a seat among the immortals, Calder. It’s something we all desperately need.”
Once again, she was trying to convince him he would be saving the world. Not handing his body over as a husk for the Elders. Finally, he’d caught her in an outright lie. He turned to Lucan.
“We’ve heard from the crazed Elder cultist, and now let’s hear from a neutral party. Jerri, Lucan here is a Consultant who came here to sabotage the Optasia. He Read the throne for himself, and instead of leaving, he stayed here to warn me.”
“And you call him a neutral party?” Jerri asked, but quickly latched on to a different detail. She turned away from Calder to Lucan. “Consultant Lucan, did you say?”
“Jyrine,” Lucan said, shocking Calder. “I’m glad you made it out alive.”
Of course. They were practically cellmates. Next door in the Consultant dungeon, they must have gotten to know each other. For an instant, a suspicion bloomed: if they knew each other already, how could he possibly trust anything Lucan said? Maybe he was Sleepless himself.
But if this was all part of their plan, they would have concealed their connection. He would never have found out. In fact, this could be an advantage: if Jerri knew Lucan, then she knew he was a Reader. She’d know he was telling the truth.
“Lucan, what would happen to me if I tried to use the Optasia?”
The Consultant didn’t hesitate. “You would go insane in minutes. Perhaps seconds. The Great Elders would core you like an apple and put whatever they wanted in your place.” No member of the Sleepless would warn him like this; they would leave him to walk blindly into danger.
“That’s some compelling imagery,” Calder said. “Jerri, your rebuttal?”
But he could see that his wife’s mind was elsewhere.
As soon as she heard the Consultant’s name, Jerri recalled a vivid memory. Crouched in her cold cell on the Gray Island, she listened as Lucan spoke to his ally. To Shera.
She almost shivered at the unnatural timing of this ‘coincidence.’ Kelarac was controlling the game now, and he had placed her within reach of Shera’s allies. “Lucan,” she said. “The Consultant named Shera visited you while you were in prison. Do you know her well?”
Lucan’s response was absolutely calm. “We’ve worked together.”
That was confirmation enough for Jerri. She turned to his blond partner. Meia? Maia? Something like that. “How about you? Do you know Shera?”
“I don’t believe I’m required to answer you, madam,” Meia said, but Jerri knew the truth. Kelarac had delivered two of Shera’s closest allies into her hands.
She nodded, turning back to Calder. “You’ve met Shera before. She’s tried to kill both of us. She did kill Urzaia. Would you trust her companions?”
“Consultant Shera and I have a separate account to balance,” Calder said. “If I refused to do business with any Guild whose members have attempted to execute me in the past, I’d be working alone. Or maybe with the Greenwardens,” he added.
He was being intentionally obstinate; ignoring her logic and making a point to say the opposite of whatever she did. In other circumstances, she could try and get him alone, make him engage her argument.
But she had to take this opportunity, whatever it cost her. You must not let the Killer meet the King.
“I’ve been warned about Shera quite recently,” Jerri said, hoping he would sense sincerity in her Intent. “However little you know of her, let me assure you: she is the greatest threat to you and to the future of humanity, not any Guild.”
Calder’s brow furrowed, and his hand began crawling for his pistol. “Recently? Who warned you, Jerri?”
“She’s your enemy, Calder, whether you believe it or not,” Jerri said. She was close to him now, the Guards closing in on her from every direction. “And whether you like it or not, I’m still your ally.”
She spun to face Meia, drawing power from her earring. The Vessel, the source of her power, delivered to her by Kelarac himself.
There were two targets here, two allies of the Killer, but she knew she would only get one shot. And if she could eliminate only one target, she’d prefer to remove Meia; the blond Consultant was a stranger, while Lucan had listened to her stories while they were both captives of his Guild. If she had to kill one and spare the other, she would prefer it if Lucan walked away.
“Stop her!” Calder shouted, drawing his sword instead of his gun. The Guards shoved her to the ground, but she had already released a shot of green flame. It blasted over Calder’s shoulder, tearing through the air with palpable hunger.
Meia stood with orange eyes wide, staring at her approaching death. In the instant before the blast struck, Jerri knew she had succeeded. Meia couldn’t escape.
Calder twisted, trying to get his orange-spotted blade between Meia and the fire, but he was too slow. He couldn’t stop it.
But Lucan threw out a hand.
Meia collapsed as though weighted down, like every inch of her clothing was suddenly anchored to the floor. Jerri’s attack tore through the wall of the Emperor’s room, leaving a smoldering hole the size of a bullet.
I’ve failed. The Guards piled on top of her, practically smothering her with their weight, and she knew she had only seconds before they pried her earring away. She couldn’t even see Meia, so her only option was to burn her way free of the Guards if she wanted to try again.
Her Vessel raged inside her, begging her to incinerate the bodies in her way, but she forced it down. Calder would never trust her again
“Her earring!” Calder shouted. “The earring is the Vessel!”
She was surrounded in a cage of limbs, both human and otherwise. The Kameira enhancements of the Imperial Guards blocked her in a menagerie of tentacles, talons, claws, and scales. But through the chaos, she caught a glimpse of another face; pressed, like hers, against the floor.
Lucan’s dark skin was a shade too pale, and his eyelids fluttered as though he hovered on the verge of passing out, but he looked as though he recognized her. And Jerri saw Kelarac’s will.
She wished it didn’t have to be Lucan, but this was one last Elder-sent chance to remove one of Shera’s greatest allies. The moment was here, she had her earring, and she didn’t even have to kill anyone else. Truly, the Great Elders had set the stage.
Though she knew Lucan wouldn’t hear her over the chaos, she felt she had to say something. “I’m sorry,” she said.
Her Vessel wasn’t sorry. It crowed triumph.
Calder shouted louder, reaching closer, trying to grab her ear.
A wave of dry heat blasted up as a single bolt of green flame flashed out from Jerri’s hand. It drilled into Lucan’s stomach.
The Guards saw the flash of light on her face, tearing out the earring and leaving a bloody hole in her ear. But it was too late. Jerri let them drag her off back to her cell, knowing that her task was over. She had already won.
Lucan was dead.
The Guards were still shackling her to the walls, growling threats about her execution, when Calder marched in. He still held his sword, as though he’d forgotten its existence, and he stared at her in undisguised horror.