Page 60 of Rifted Hearts
Kaveh had asked Javier to take Remi to the airport in the morning, too angry and hurt to do it himself. Had Remi decided not to leave immediately and continue the Colony’s plot of stealing the control object? That didn’t make much sense. The ratkind didn’t take stupid risks. Run away and live to steal another day was one of their mottos.
Maybe Remi had tried to leave, and someone had stopped him.
No, that couldn’t have happened. Rhys’s boiling anger and argument that both Lyall and Remi should be killed wouldn’t have led him to the drastic step of disobeying the matriarch.
Unless he hadn’t disobeyed her but followed her instructions.
Kaveh’s mouth went dry. He tried to keep calm and see if he could get more information from the parrot hybrid. “Snow, what’s wrong with Remi?”
“Little rat,” Snow repeated in his singsong voice.
The bird grew frustrated at Kaveh’s lack of understanding and fluffed his feathers with theatrical flourish, sparks showering over Flutterberry, who gave a yowl of pain. The half parrot flapped over to Kaveh’s arm, tiny embers floating around him.
He spoke again, the words chilling, and his voice a perfect replica of Rhys’s gruff tones.
“You’ll be nothing more than a heap of rat bones in the desert.”
Kaveh wouldn’t have hada chance to get to Remi without Amanita. The repoequus hadn’t returned to her equine form after she and her colt had defended the Earth horses from the phantoms. The two of them were hunting jackrabbits in the saguaro forest close to the monstertown, and Flutterberry was able to locate them and communicate Kaveh’s desperate need for transportation with surprising speed. The mothcat hadn’t even asked for presents before doing so, which was a first. He resolved to buy her whatever she wanted for the favor.
He asked the Goat Sisters to take an urgent message to the guardians and—the gods help him, Lyall the hellhound—then swung into the saddle with Snow on his shoulder. They were riding too fast for the half parrot to fly, but the bird was able to give Amanita a mental image of Remi’s last location.
Amanita raced off through the desert, and Kaveh hoped the interspecies communication between the two Earth-Riftworld hybrids was sufficient to allow her to take him to Remi.
He had to get there before it was too late. Precious time had elapsed since Snow had overheard Rhys’s threat. How much time, the context of the interaction, and whether the matriarch had sanctioned Rhys going after Remi—there were too many unanswered questions.
Kaveh didn’t want to believe that Rhys, his former lover and family member, would ignore the oath Kaveh had given to Lyall and attack Remi. He also didn’t want to face the possibility that Xiang Jao, more of a mother to him than the drakone who had birthed him, had sanctioned this.
He cursed himself for withholding the information that Remi was the Matchmaker’s choice from his family. That would have given Remi immunity from the violence the drakones meted out to enemies like the ratkind. It also meant the clan would view Remi’s freedom and choice in the matter as irrelevant. They had been appalled their aquatic cousin Ceto had been paired with a human marine exobiologist whose life work was about understanding Riftworld peoples. His clan would be far more horrified to learn Kaveh’s intended husband was a half-human Colony spy with a psychic ability to seduce anyone without the mental shields to block him.
Amanita slowed, her breaths coming in harsh pants. Atfirst, Kaveh was worried he had pushed the mare too far, too hard. She had more stamina than an Earth horse, but they had taken a punishing pace through the heat to get this far. Then he saw they were near the highway, close to an abandoned fuel station.
The repoequus halted, her sides heaving with exertion. Snow took flight, sparks flying from his feathers as he winged his way toward a rusted heap of buildings.
Kaveh dismounted, checking for his utility knife at his belt. It was absurd. Rhys had manifested his aerial form earlier than any other air drakone in living memory. His ex could manipulate the wind to his command, and his aerial form was enormous compared to Kaveh’s human shape. The only weapon Kaveh could wield successfully against Rhys was his summ.
It was an awful thought. The touch of Kaveh’s poisonous fire would kill Rhys, and using it would be murder.
A darker part of him took satisfaction in that.
Remi was his. How dare Rhys try to harm or even touch him? If his ex had hurt Remi or worse—had killed him—Kaveh would drench the ground with his blood.
No.
Kaveh forced his breathing to slow, trying to push those violent fantasies from his mind. He wasn’t a mindless monster filled with bloodlust from his Azdaha birth and fanatical jealousy from the effects of the Matchmaker.
He would first ascertain if Remi was okay and then talk to Rhys. Despite his ex’s anger about the Colony plot, he had to respect Kaveh’s point that the situation was complex, and cooler heads needed to prevail. Then he would get answers, both from Rhys and Xiang Jao, about the control object.
His rapid steps took him close to the decaying remains of the gas station, a leftover from the age of internalcombustion engines when the use of energy sources had sped the Earth’s environment into its current cycle of weather instability and desertification.
He spotted Rhys, in his human alter form, focusing on a saguaro cactus in front of him.
Kaveh approached, taking care to make his steps slow, careful, and above all, silent. There was no sign of Remi, but there was something bizarre about Rhys being alone in the ruins of an old gas station. He tried to make sense of the scene. Something was attached to the cactus, a mass of fur and blood against the prickly green of the plant.
Realization struck, and blind fury overwhelmed him. It wiped out any rational thought and replaced it with nothing but a need for vengeance.
He hit Rhys hard, driving his shoulder into the larger drakone’s form.
Rhys didn’t react fast enough, and Kaveh landed on top of him. His outstretched hand found a nearby rock, and he used it to smash his ex in the face.
