Chapter 19: The Wary Ally

Got a few minutes to talk?

Late in the afternoon following Storm’s outburst, Kitara read Devika’s message and replied.

For you, always.

She sat at her computer and initiated a secure video conference. Devika’s face appeared on her screen.

“Hey Dev,” she said with a smile. “Everything okay?”

Devika’s eyes darted up over her monitor and back again. “Maybe, I don’t know.”

Kitara frowned. “What is it?”

“Storm came in here this morning.”

Kitara blinked, then leaned back. “What did he want?”

“He wants access to the Fallen archives. Says it’s for a project, except I happen to know the Fallen are of interest to you right now, too. I could be a lot more efficient if we’re all on the same page. Are you two…working separate angles?”

Kitara shook her head slowly. “I’m actually not sure. Not that I’m aware of. What did he say?”

“He wants records on any Fallen of the last century or so. I figured it was because of the General’s interest.”

Kitara closed her eyes and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “I haven’t told him about the Doruri, or Ostragarn’s interest in them.”

Devika blinked, then frowned. “What do you mean ’you haven’t told him?’”

“I mean, until you and I determine if there’s anything to it, I haven’t included it in any official reports. This is something else.”

Her friend’s frown deepened. “Kitara, what’s going on?”

The Sleeper sighed. “I told you he and Declan came to the dark strip, right?”

“Yeah…?”

“Storm came back. Alone.”

Devika’s eyes widened. “He did?”

“Yeah. Said he had questions for me. My…my mom came up, and we fought. Nearly came to blows, actually.”

The Historian’s jaw dropped. “What? Oh my god, have you reported him?” She shook her head. “Stupid question, surely you have—”

“No,” Kitara answered honestly. “I thought about it, but no.”

“Why on earth not?”

The Sleeper laced her fingers together and leaned forward on her elbows. “He said some things about my family. Things that…made me think he had a reason.”

Devika scowled. “There’s not a single thing that could possibly justify him attacking you.”

“Even if he believes my family is the reason his mom is comatose?”

Her friend sat back a little, surprised. “Why would he?”

“I’ll give you two guesses,” Kitara muttered.

“You think his dad told him that?”

“Cornelius hasn’t exactly been candid about much else.”

“But why would he do that? And then make Storm your handler?”

“I have no idea,” Kitara said. “Maybe he thought Storm would refuse to work with me, or vice versa. It certainly makes a lot more sense that he insisted on this assigned pairing. I knew there was a catch. There always is with him.”

“Manipulative asshole,” Devika grumbled.

“Yeah. But…if Storm wholeheartedly believes my family is responsible for his mother’s condition then…his behavior the last few weeks starts to make sense. I can’t say I wouldn’t react the same way.”

Devika leaned closer to the screen. “So you think he’s trying to look into your family?”

“No,” Kitara replied. “I think he’s trying to look into my mom. I…may have mentioned her name in the heat of the moment.”

“Oh geez, Kitara!”

“Yeah. He’s…trying to verify.”

“Stars.” Devika rubbed her forehead wearily. “What are you going to do?”

Kitara paused for a moment, thinking. “I don’t know. My mom’s records are sealed, and if he can’t find the information he’s after, he’ll think I’m lying.”

“And what happens then?”

“I call Kenric and tell him what’s going on. I can’t work with a handler who doesn’t trust me, not one with this kind of…personal connection to my family. What could Cornelius have been thinking? I can’t believe the High Council agreed to it.”

“Me neither, honestly. But…” Devika hesitated. “What if he does find something? Maybe he has some kind of special clearance you don’t.”

“Maybe. But if he comes in to research it, you could use the opportunity to…gently inquire about his mom and what she might have known about the first Fallen. If the timing is right. I get the distinct impression it’s a bit of a…sore subject.”

Devika snorted. “Sounds like an understatement.”

Kitara smiled wryly. “A bit. But…” She chewed her bottom lip a moment. “Dev, what if he’s not…entirely wrong? Cornelius isn’t stupid enough to outright lie about something that big. What if Storm’s mom was involved somehow?”

“With your parents?”

Kitara nodded.

Devika blew out a slow breath. “It would mean your lives have been intertwined a lot longer than a few weeks.”

“You said half a century, right? That his mom has been comatose?”

“Yeah.”

Kitara leaned forward and laced her hands together. “That timing is awfully convenient, don’t you think?”

“Are you saying…you do think your family caused Ilythia—Storm’s mom’s—condition?”

“No. But if Cornelius somehow linked the two…I want to know why.”

Devika nodded slowly.

“It makes me…nervous,” Kitara admitted. “Cornelius orchestrated our partnership. He had to know this would come up at some point.”

“Maybe to try and discredit your work? To get you sent back to the boonies?”

“Maybe. He’s never said a word about his wife to me. I never heard of a connection there before. Not from the High Sleeper or Phoebe. And Phoebe was one of her closest friends.”

Devika’s gaze flickered over her computer screen as if double-checking she was alone. “Well, I got access to the archives this morning. I didn’t tell Storm because I wanted to check with you first.”

“If he’s researching my mom with any shred of doubt about what happened to her, it means he wants the truth,” Kitara pointed out. “And you know how I feel about that.”

“You lie for a living, so you don’t do it about your personal life if you don’t have to,” Devika recited.

“If nothing else, we might get more insight into what Ilythia knew. It’s a good excuse to ask him.”

“So I can tell Storm the Fallen archives are available?”

“Yes, but tell him to come in tomorrow morning,” Kitara said. “If he finds what he’s after, I imagine he’ll have questions, and he’ll need some time to leave the AIDO to find me.”

“Thought you told him to stay home?”

“I did. But if he starts questioning what he’s been told, he deserves the opportunity to have those questions answered—and I’m willing to give him that, if for no other reason than to loosen Cornelius’s death grip on my life.”

“Fair.”

“And who knows,” Kitara continued, “maybe it’ll turn him into a decent handler. He’s not exactly inept. Stubborn, impulsive, and a little controlling, maybe, but not incompetent. Maybe if we’d been on the same page from the beginning, we could have had a healthier partnership.”

Devika studied her through the screen for a long moment. “Is that all?”

“For now,” Kitara said, returning her friend’s curious expression with an impassive one. “All I know is we can’t continue like this. Something’s gotta give eventually, and I’d rather it not end with me dead.”

Her friend grimaced. “Me neither. Okay. I’ll message him when we’re done.”

“Thanks, Dev. And thanks for the heads up.”

As the call ended, Kitara closed her laptop and leaned back in her chair.

Cornelius never mentioned Ilythia’s name to her, not once, but the High Councilor’s fierce dislike of her had begun the moment she stepped foot into the AIDO.

A memory rose unbidden—one of her first in the facility.

She arrived less than twenty-four hours before. The staff kept her quarantined and monitored: standard protocol. Immortals whose names and faces escaped her now rotated in shifts to keep her company, all of them kind.

Until an angel with hard blue eyes had her brought to an interrogation room.

“Tell us who he was,” Cornelius Avensäel demanded. “Just a name. You know his name, don’t you?”

Ten-year old Kitara, traumatized and terrified as she was, knew better than to tell this angel with his cold eyes and bitter voice anything about her family.

The High Councilor slammed his hand on the table beside her, making her jump. “Damn it, child, a name! Tell us his name!”

“That’s enough.”

Kitara’s vision blurred with tears as a woman with dark curly hair entered the room.

“She’s been through a horrific ordeal, Cornelius. Can’t you see she’s traumatized? It doesn’t matter. He’s gone—”

“If he survived, others might have, Phoebe,” Cornelius spat.

The High Emissary came to stand beside Kitara’s chair, and Kitara cringed automatically into her side. Out of motherly instinct, Phoebe wrapped her arm around the girl’s shoulders. “You think a child would know if there were? Be reasonable.”

The High Councilor had been beyond reason.

Was his wife’s condition the cause?

After Phoebe extricated young Kitara from Cornelius’s ruthless interrogation, she led her back to the quarantine room.

“Go on in, mija, I’ll join you shortly,” Phoebe told her with a kind smile, though the bruised circles under her eyes emphasized their teary redness.

Kitara obeyed, but it didn’t prevent her from hearing the subsequent muffled conversation through the door.

“Estrellas, she looks just like her,” Phoebe murmured to someone outside. “Except the blonde—”

“No, it seems she takes after her father in that regard,” came a reply from another unfamiliar woman.

“Did you find his name?”

“No, they all—well, almost all apparently— died long before we started detailed DNA logging.”

“How is it possible?”

“The only conclusion we’ve drawn is the obvious one. Her DNA and auratic signatures match those of Moriah and…a Ninthëvel. It can’t be anything else.”

“Dios mio, does the child know?”

“We haven’t been able to determine that. Despite her…parentage, we haven’t seen any indication she possesses any of their more unnerving qualities.”

“The Fallen gene may have something to do with that.”

“That’s our working theory.”

The door opened then, admitting the woman Kitara would later know as Zayne’s mother. She knelt down to Kitara’s level and managed a watery smile.

“Hello, Kitara. My name is Phoebe. I was a friend of your mama’s. Are you all right?”

Back in the present, Kitara stared blankly across the room. She tried to remind herself that the majority of the High Council wasn’t like Cornelius. Hell, Phoebe and Saoirse—the other woman in the hall, though Kitara wouldn’t meet her until some years later—were the closest thing to surrogate parents she had. But he was the High Councilor for a reason. That Kitara didn’t know or understand that reason didn’t mean it wasn’t a valid one.

After, she’d learned what it really meant to be her father’s daughter. Sworn to secrecy in terms comprehensible—and equally terrifying—even to a ten-year-old.

The Ninthëvels were the greatest villains Valëtyria ever encountered. Traitors. Dangerous. A black mark on their history. The darkest, most sorrowful era in immortal memory. Her father’s blood represented treachery in and of itself. That Kitara was spared immediate execution—or at least, infinite imprisonment—upon the AIDO’s discovery of her ancestry remained a mystery until she learned of Phoebe’s long-time friendship with her mother.

Now, a thread of unease snaked through Kitara’s chest, the same unease she’d felt since Storm’s unexpected revelation the night before.

Had history repeated itself? Was it possible her father’s treacherous darkness, the same darkness lurking beneath her own skin, had snuffed out the light of a Myragnar like Ilythia Avensäel?

Storm received a message from the Historian that she would have the Fallen archives in the morning. He hadn’t heard from Kitara, but he hadn’t received a visit from the Commander or his father yet, either.

Further removed from the situation, he recognized his behavior set grounds for her to request a different handler. To report him. He’d almost hoped she would, so as not to give his father the satisfaction of learning of Storm’s failure from Storm himself.

Still, nothing.

Why didn’t she report him? Guilt? Indifference? Was she…baiting him?

A tiny voice in the back of his mind offered another option: maybe she was just as confused as he was.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

He’d seen uncertainty flicker through her expression and chosen to disregard it in the moment.

So the next morning, as his doubts compounded, Storm joined Devika in the library office, sitting quietly as she instructed him on how to find the information he sought. The Historian wouldn’t let Storm take her tablet which, he suspected, was more to monitor his research rather than fear he might abscond with the thing.

“The Fallen archives are here.” Devika pointed. “You can find lists you need here…” She tapped a different icon. “…and search here.”

“Thanks,” Storm murmured.

She scrutinized him for a moment, deliberating. Finally, with a sigh, her dark eyes softened. “You want help?”

“No, I think this is all I’ll need.”

“I’ll be here.” She gestured to the table where a tattered stack of books and a second tablet waited for her.

As soon as the angel sat down, Storm entered a search query.

Moriah Orinokë

He waited as the database spun.

No results found.

He scoffed. He was right. Moriah wasn’t listed as Fallen—not even in the archives. He needed no other proof. Kitara wasn’t Moriah’s daughter—she spawned from some scummy Fallen and a scummier Valorn.

And yet…

“…the report on my mom was a cover-up. …You should know better than anyone, because whatever happened to your mom has been mysteriously covered up too!”

“Devika?” Storm asked.

“Mm?” She barely acknowledged him.

“Can this tablet access the whole library database?”

The Historian turned. “Anything with standard clearance, yeah. Beyond that, you’ll need creds if you’ve got the appropriate authorization.”

“Cool, mind if I use it a bit longer?”

“Be my guest.”

With several minutes of exploration, Storm found the other database and searched for the Emissary. A few results appeared: some teaching material referencing Moriah, some of her more impressive missions, even the upcoming seminar Zayne would speak at, but nothing about her death. All the results said she died during a mission…but none of them included any details of said mission.

Frowning, Storm tapped the icon linking related records. Typically, any operation parameters, if not all of the details, were included in an associated file along with a full AIDO profile. As expected, the file was partially classified. He entered his credentials and waited for it to load. Instead, he received another alert.

Restricted access. Historian credentials required.

Storm’s frown deepened into a scowl. Restricted access? From him? Why? He glanced at the curly-headed Historian who paid him no mind and wondered, not for the first time, about the truth of her relationship with Kitara. What would she think of his research?

Storm cleared his throat. “Uh, Dev, sorry to interrupt again…”

“What is it, Storm?” She didn’t even look up this time.

“I got an error…something about Historian creds?”

Devika sighed and spun in her chair, hand outstretched. “Dove headfirst into stuff beyond your clearance, huh?”

“Apparently.”

Storm handed her the tablet and watched her input a password and unlock the file with her fingerprint. If she noted the content he wanted to access, she didn’t comment as she handed the tablet back.

“Thanks,” he murmured.

The Emissary’s AIDO profile loaded, and an image appeared on the screen. Auburn hair cascaded around her shoulders, and steady hazel eyes gazed out at him. Storm scrutinized those eyes, searching for any resemblance to Kitara’s. Instead, a fragmented memory swamped him.

Moriah’s eyes were kind, gentle. Happy. White feathered wings fluttered at her back as she shifted so he could see…

His mother.

Storm inhaled sharply. An ache, long buried, echoed in his chest at the unexpected memory of the Myragnar. Her eyes sparkled with laughter, her cheeks and lips were rosy with health, and her overall appearance shone with the vibrant glow unique to her people. Her brilliant silver hair, so unlike the dull gray of the present, reflected sunshine in the memory. The healthy woman he remembered as a child stood in such stark contrast to the wraith-like figure she had become. The ragged, painful edges of the ache in his chest intensified. He couldn’t have been older than four or five. When was this?

In his mind, he focused on Moriah’s face beside his mother’s as she smiled: an expression he recognized, not because he remembered her smiling at him, but rather because when Kitara smiled, she was the spitting image of the Emissary.