He found himself staring at the figure at the top of all the rest.
She wore all white. In one hand she gripped a lightning-infused staff.
One of her bare feet rested on the Earth, the other in the heavens. The staff spun gold and white light up into the heavens, forming an arc of cabled light that reached from Earth to a shimmering, deep gold sea surrounded in dark blue clouds.
The figure wore all white.
She stood alone in a night sky.
She holds light between both worlds… Revik’s mind murmured.
When he looked down, he saw a man standing there, gazing up at the same mural.
Even as Revik took in the infiltrator’s uniform, the black armored pants and organic vest, the male seer turned, his green eyes widening when he saw Revik.
Then he burst into a grin.
Revik just stood there, feeling shock, staring at Dalejem.
It had been more than two years since he’d seen the other seer.
Before he could recover, Dalejem walked right up to him, embracing him with both arms, wrapping one muscular arm tightly around Revik’s waist. He clasped his back with the other, his fingers gripping his shoulder, then his neck.
“Gaos.” Dalejem’s voice came out hoarse. The older seer released him long enough to look at him. “Gaos. You look so different, brother. So fucking different. Your light… it is even more beautiful than I remember. You are positively glowing, my friend. Truly, I almost did not recognize you…”
His words trailed, and then Dalejem was studying him openly with his eyes and light, even as he continued to run an infiltrator’s scan over Revik’s entire aleimic body.
Revik almost wondered if the other male knew he was doing it.
The green-eyed seer still held his arms, gripping him tighter and smiling, even as tears began to run down his face.
“What are you doing here?” Revik said.
The words were clumsy.
Revik winced at how clumsy they were, but he couldn’t figure out how to soften them.
He stared at those pale green and violet-ringed eyes, feeling a strange combination of pain and happiness at seeing him there. The pain part of that shocked him, clenching in his chest, even as he stood there, staring at Dalejem’s face, watching the infiltrator look at him.
“Gaos,” Dalejem said, wiping his eyes. “I am so happy to see you, brother.”
Revik felt that pain in his chest worsen.
He watched the other male cry, fighting the parts of him that wanted to cry, too.
Remembering where he was suddenly, he looked around, and realized Tulani had already left them alone.
“And what am I doing here?” Dalejem said, humor touching his voice as he shook Revik lightly in his hands. “I missed you, goddamn it. What the fuck do you think I’m doing here? I missed you like crazy. I wanted to see you, brother, now that I finished my training under my new order. I was given some time before I started my first assignment.”
Revik fought to get his equilibrium back.
His chest hurt badly now. He shook his head, fighting to disentangle himself from the other male’s light. “No. I can’t do this, Dalejem… no.”
“Brother.” The other seer caught his arms, pulling him back. “Brother… please. Let me see you. I can’t stay long. Just let me see you. Let me say goodbye to you this time at least. Let us leave one another as friends, goddamn it!”
Revik shook his head, fighting the closing in his heart.
He hadn’t felt anything like this since he left Brazil.
He hadn’t closed like this, with anyone––not in months.
He’d been trying so hard.
He’d told himself he’d made so much progress.
Yet here he was, right back where he had been all those months earlier, when he’d first gotten here, a goddamned mess of self-hate and broken light.
He couldn’t look at Dalejem at all now.
At the same time, he didn’t fight him all that hard, either.
He ended up following him, stiff-legged, as Dalejem brought him to a faded couch that squatted directly under the painted mural. Dalejem sat him down, then curled up on the cushions beside him, pulling him closer as he warmed Revik’s light with his.
Revik felt the other male’s hands on him then, touching him, caressing his skin, and winced in spite of himself, pulling away.
“Jem… no,” Revik said. “I said no,” he growled, glaring at him.
“Don’t call me that.”
“Fuck you.”
“Gods, brother… I don’t want to fight.” His green eyes filled with tears, even as he caressed Revik’s face with one hand. “You left that morning. You left, brother. Before I could explain. Before I could tell you anything. I looked for you everywhere before I left. I called for you. I wanted so badly to talk to you about this, about why I did what I did––”
“I know why you did it,” Revik said. “You did it because she is the Bridge… and I am not.”
Dalejem stared at him. Then, pain filled his green eyes.
“No, brother,” he said, shaking his head. “I did it because Kali asked me to do what felt right to me. She asked me to look, high up in my light. She told me to ask that higher, clearer part of myself, the part that loves unconditionally… and she urged me to do whatever that part wanted me to do. She had me ask it what felt right for you. She had me ask it what felt right for me. She had me ask it what felt right for the world. All three answers were the same.”
Caressing Revik’s jaw, the seer shrugged his shoulders––shoulders that were even more muscular than Revik remembered from the jungle.
“…Once I’d done that,” Dalejem said. “Once I could see that she was right, that the higher parts of me agreed with her, I could not choose differently.”
“You could not?” Revik said bitterly.
“No.” Dalejem frowned. “Could you? If you loved me?”
Revik frowned, his jaw hardening.
Before he could think of what to say, Dalejem kissed him, leaning into his chest and coaxing his mouth open with his tongue and lips. Revik found himself kissing him back, falling into it before he knew he meant to, until he gripped the male’s long hair in his hands, losing himself in his light, pulling on Dalejem to open that light more.
When Dalejem did, Revik let out an involuntary groan.
He kissed the other seer again, holding him tightly enough that he might have been hurting him by then.
When they next parted, both of them were panting.
Dalejem’s hand fell on Revik’s groin. He looked up at Revik’s face, those green eyes glazed, and he gasped when Revik pressed his erection against his palm.
Revik’s fingers tightened, gripping Dalejem’s face in his hands.
“Explain,” Revik growled, staring at him. “You said you wanted to explain things to me that morning. So explain. Fucking talk, Dalejem. Is that all it was? This seeing of ‘rightness’ to leave me?”
The seer closed his eyes.
Then, leaning closer, Dalejem pressed his face against Revik’s. After a pause, the older seer kissed his neck. He made a low sound when Revik’s light opened, looking up at him.
“Brother, you understand. I know you do. It’s why you got so angry at me that night. It’s how you knew… before I’d told you a damned thing. It’s why I didn’t have to tell you anything. You understood from the moment I did… before, maybe.”
“I understood?” Revik growled. “What did I understand, exactly, Dalejem?”
“I serve the Bridge.”
Revik’s jaw hardened. “So?” He released Dalejem’s face, leaning back abruptly on the couch. “Do you want a fucking medal? Your own set of angel’s wings?”
“You understand,” Dalejem said, clicking softly. “I know you do.”
Revik found his eyes shifting up.
He stared at the white figure at the top of the mural, and felt his jaw harden.
“So Kali managed to split u
s apart.” He turned, glaring at the other seer. “It occurred to you, didn’t it? That getting you away from me might have been their goal?”
Dalejem shook his head. “I do not think so, brother. She cried when I told her. She cried when I said how I felt about you. They both seemed surprised, her and her husband.”
“Maybe it wasn’t her, then,” Revik growled. “I noticed Balidor and Vash didn’t want me in the Adhipan, either, not once you were spoken for.”
“Revik… gaos. No.” Dalejem massaged Revik’s thigh, frowning. He shook his head. “No. You know that is not true. That’s not what you think, either. It’s really not.”
“Then what is true?” Revik growled.
It hit him that maybe that was the first real question he’d asked the other male. A pain rose to his heart, even as he tried to answer the question inside his own light.
“What is my purpose, Dalejem? What is my truth? What would that higher part of me tell me is ‘right’ for the world and for everyone in it.”
Dalejem looked at him, his green eyes sad. “You know I can’t tell you that, brother. But if you stay here, it will become clear for you. I am sure that is why Vash––”
“You don’t know that,” Revik said. He swallowed, staring at the other male’s face. “What am I doing here, Dalejem? Because it feels a hell of a lot like I’m being pushed aside, hidden out of the way… and not only by Kali. Or Vash. Or Galaith.”
Watching the distressed look coming to the other seer’s face, Revik shook his head, clicking sharper.
“You can’t tell me that, either? Is there anything you can tell me, Dalejem?”
“I am sorry, brother,” Dalejem said, his voice softer. “I wish I could. I wish I could so much… but I can’t. I really can’t. All I can say is that you are not forgotten here. They have a job for you, and it is an important one. They need you here for that. For now, anyway.”
Revik fought to think about his words.
He could feel the truth there.
He could feel Dalejem too, and knew he was being honest, as well.
He fought to hear that truth objectively, not with the parts of himself that wanted to yell at Dalejem, or overreact, or hear his words in a way that would cause them to fight.
The vagueness was too much, though.
In the end, the inability of Revik’s mind to make sense of the exact meaning behind that vagueness brought another swell of frustration and denser grief. Shoving both feelings aside, he looked at Dalejem, fighting not to react to the sadness in his eyes.
“Who asked for you?” Revik said, feeling his jaw harden. “Who exactly?”
Dalejem shrugged, tilting his hand over his knee.
“I do not know, brother,” he said, sighing. “Who knows anything with these things? Kali said only that she knew it was to be me. She saw me with her daughter… protecting her… presumably through one of her prophetic visions. She could not risk her daughter’s life by sending me away. Not even for you, brother.”
Revik sat there, fighting to think.
He felt the part of him that wanted to be angry about it still, to have someone to blame. But it hurt to be angry, even now. Maybe especially now, since he could already feel that Dalejem wouldn’t be staying.
When he looked up next, the seer was wiping tears from his face.
“Only for the night, brother,” he said. “They gave me leave to see you, but I cannot be gone long… and I cannot interfere with your work here.” He hesitated, then said, “It is unlikely I will be able to be back. They warned me about this. I can’t tell you particulars, brother. I wish I could… I only know that we are going into hiding, and the tie between you and the Bridge cannot be visible at this time. It would be dangerous for both of you.”
Revik nodded, staring at the stone floor beneath the mural.
He’d known that, too.
He didn’t know how he’d known, but he’d finally stopped asking himself that question.
It was pointless.
Looking up, he felt some part of his chest unclench, even as he let out a humorless laugh.
He stared up at the elaborate mural of the seer pantheon painted on the rock.
Tulani may have picked this room on purpose. In fact, as Revik thought about it, he grew more and more certain the monk brought him in here with intention––if only because the Pamir monks rarely did anything without conscious intention.
Knowing Tulani, he would see it as a favor, a means of reminding Revik of the broader perspective surrounding his own, considerably smaller problems. Tulani would see it as one small nudge past the pain to see the truth of things.
The truth of life. The truth of Dalejem.
The truth of Revik’s own role in all of this.
Tears came to his eyes as he thought it, but he took Dalejem’s hand.
Raising it to his lips, he kissed his palm, pulling the seer closer so he could wrap his arms around him. He felt Dalejem’s immediate relief, an almost mind-numbing feeling of gratitude, as Dalejem wrapped his light and body around Revik’s.
For a long moment, they just kissed, half-lying there together on the old couch. Then they were only holding one another, immersed in each other’s light, caressing each other through their clothes.
“I missed you,” Revik murmured, resting his head on the other male’s. He kissed his hair, tugging him closer, until he’d pulled him, armor and all, halfway into his lap.
Pain bled out of the other seer.
Pain, and so much love, Revik closed his eyes, biting his tongue as he opened to let it all in. Then he was stroking Dalejem’s hair and back, opening his light more as he felt the seer sigh against him, gripping him by the arm and shoulder.
For a long time after that, neither of them spoke.
As they lay there, Revik found his eyes scaling that rock wall again.
His gaze stopped on a second, softer image of the woman in white, one nearer to the bottom of the image of the Earth. The Dragon God swam by her through stars, his tail curled around Tortoise. This softer woman in white rested in their light, but she wasn’t looking at either them, and the smile she wore wasn’t for Dragon or Tortoise, either. She held that charged light between her hands, but it was softer than the lightning of the figure on top
Inside that glowing circle, Revik saw a faint image of a golden ocean.
Next to her, a boy sat smiling, his eyes filled with joy as he played in the star-filled sky.
Between his hands glowed a blue-white sun.
It was him the woman in white was smiling at.
It was him who entirely held her gaze.
Revik felt tears return to his eyes as he traced the course of those lines, seeing the boy laughing where he held the light of both worlds between his hands. A golden ocean still beckons in the background, faded and dark, a bare scratch in the stone, but Revik remembers that, too, and not only from the lines he’s read in the old books.
He remembers what it was like there.
It is real to him now.
Between those curling flames, bisecting that light and dark, a perfect white sword glows softly in the night sky.
WANT TO READ MORE?
Check out the main series of the BRIDGE & SWORD WORLD, starting with:
ROOK (Bridge & Sword Series #1)
Yanked out of her life by the mysterious Revik, Allie discovers that her blood may not be as “human” as she always thought. When Revik tells her she’s the Bridge, a mystical being meant to usher in the evolution of humanity––or possibly its extinction––Allie must choose between the race that raised her and the one where she might truly belong. A psychic, science fiction romance set in a modern, gritty version of Earth.
See below for sample pages!
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Sample Pages
ROOK (A Bridge & Sword Novel)
1 / Allie
I KNOW WHO I am.
Somehow, deep down inside, I’ve always known.
I don’t know how to explain that statement precisely. It’s not in the “I am Alyson May Taylor” sense of knowing myself. It’s more like this presence I carry within me, this solid sense of “me-ness” that feels untouchable in some way. It shocked me as a kid, when I realized a lot of people didn’t have that.
For a lot of people, that rock-solid, “here I am” thing was more elusive. A lot of them spent their whole lives searching for it.
Funnily enough, with me, it turned out who I was didn’t end up being all that important.
What I was mattered a whole lot more.
On that front, I knew a lot less than I thought I did. I might have had that essence thing down, but I was missing a hell of a lot of pretty significant details.
“HE’S BAAAACK.” MY best friend, Cass, grinned at me from where she leaned over the fifties-style lunch counter, her butt aimed at the dining area of the diner where we both worked. Given that our uniforms consisted of short black skirts and form-fitting, low-cut white blouses, she was giving at least a few of our customers an eye-full.
Seemingly oblivious to that fact, and to the men sitting at the counter to her left and my right, pretending not to stare at her ass as she stuck it in the air, she grinned at me, her full lips looking even more dramatic than usual with their blood-red lipstick.
The Defector Page 31