A Glint of Light

by J. C. Andrijeski

  She let out a humorless sound. “Am I?”

  “You are!” he snapped. “Your refusal to let this thing go. Your refusal to speak to me about this honestly, like an adult, instead of always approaching me from a place of accusation and anger. Your refusal to hear me, when I tell you what I am doing… and why I am doing what I am doing. Either you trust me, or you do not. Either you love me, or––”

  “I do not,” Yarli said, cold.

  Balidor tensed, looking at her.

  “Is that supposed to be funny?” he said, when her expression didn’t move.

  “Not in the slightest, brother.”

  “So there is no trust? No love?”

  She stared at him, her dark eyes close to incredulous.

  “You have the gall to look at me, surprised and wounded by this news?” she said, exhaling more in anger than disbelief. “I was late to this party, brother. You lost interest in me more than a half-year before today. Coincidentally, not long after you started spending most of your working hours immersed in that murderous bitch’s light…”

  Balidor grimaced.

  “Gaos. That this would be your excuse,” he muttered.

  “Excuse?” Her shoulders tensed, even as she took a step closer to where he stood. “I don’t need an excuse, brother. I have been patient. I have been more than patient. I have allowed myself to be made a fool of for far too long. I’ve been waiting for you for far longer than just this night… and if you were capable of even a sliver of honesty with yourself, you would know it.”

  His anger worsened.

  Despite what he had thought about this, about their relationship, it still angered him.

  That she would pretend this was all him, when he’d tried to communicate with her about this, tried to be open… for some reason, her accusations infuriated him beyond reason.

  He had been patient, too. He had waited for her to believe him about Cass, to talk to him about it openly. She would not do it. She would not do anything but issue ultimatums and threats, accusations and demands that he do as she willed.

  He was no one’s fucking possession.

  Still, he forced himself silent.

  Watching her face and light, seeing the nearly open contempt in her stunning features, in the expression in those dark, night-sky eyes, he fought not to lose his temper for real.

  Even so, he felt torn.

  Was she right? Had he really given up on this relationship longer ago than he was now admitting to himself?

  He hadn’t thought so.

  He’d thought he was trying.

  More or less right up until tonight, he thought he was trying.

  She must have felt some of that, too.

  “Trying?” she scoffed. “Do not act like this was some unsolvable puzzle, brother. You knew exactly what you had to do to get me to trust you again.”

  He looked up, staring at her face.

  “Obey you?” he growled.

  “Listen to me,” she snapped back. “More than that, listen to your own good sense, brother! Admit to yourself the source of the problems between us. Stop exacerbating those problems by returning to her, again and again––”

  “Abandon our intermediary,” he said, raising his voice. “Risk that she has no role in the unfolding yet to come. Risk that I wouldn’t be jeopardizing the very future of our race––”

  “Or hand her the fuck off to someone else!” Yarli snarled, speaking over him in nearly a shout. “Not insist on doing it all yourself! Seeing someone in a professional capacity once you realized you were developing feelings for her. That you were starting to dream about her when you were not with her. That she was starting to invade our goddamned bed, not to mention every spare waking moment of your attention––”

  “Yarli! Gaos d’ jurekil’a… that is nonsense! It is pure jealousy! This possessive madness you have been suffering from––for months now––it is speaking in your stead!”

  He gestured angrily, in part to force himself silent.

  He could not stop himself from glaring at her, though, jaw clenched.

  “That you would take my own dreams against me––” he growled.

  “You know how such light connections work,” she cut in angrily. “They show up in dreams when we do not allow them into our waking thoughts. You said the same happened with Wreg and Jon, when Jon was still with Dorje. Do not gaslight me with your obfuscating nonsense, simply because you don’t want to believe it!”

  Balidor again stared at her in disbelief.

  “This is nothing like Wreg and Jon! I am working with her! It is natural that her light and mind would sometimes linger after such deep sessions!”

  “Oh, certainly, brother,” Yarli said, her voice openly sarcastic. “I am quite certain that is all it is. You waking up with your cock hard, the hirik extended, from these dreams is purely some kind of neutral effect of your ‘work’ with that evil cunt. I am quite sure the same would happen no matter who you worked with––”

  “I have not developed feelings for her!” Balidor snapped, furious. “I have never once approached her sexually. I have never touched her. I am trying to help her, for the love of the gods. It’s all I’ve been trying to do, since––”

  “More fucking lies.”

  He fell silent, staring at her.

  She clicked at him, combing her fingers through her curly hair, her voice quieter now.

  “I honestly cannot listen to any more of these delusions from you, Balidor. You make me tired, forcing me to listen to it. You make me wonder at how anyone made you leader of the Adhipan in the first place, with so little knowledge of your own mind.”

  She’d once more folded her arms across her chest, rumpling the long robe she wore, a dark, midnight blue piece of cloth that clung to her curves, twisting around her legs.

  “You speak to me… disrespectfully, sister,” he said after a pause.

  “I speak to you disrespectfully?” she said in disbelief.

  She took a step towards him.

  She moved so quickly that time, so aggressively, Balidor stepped back in reflex.

  Putting the low, fold-out table between the two of them, he regarded her warily over the tea set that sat on the metal surface. His hands gripped the back of one of the fold-out chairs that also could be pushed back so that it disappeared into the bulkhead wall.

  He continued to watch Yarli’s face, and her light.

  He should go.

  He should go now, before things escalated even more.

  Seers did not always handle break-ups well.

  Hell, they did not always handle arguments well––not when those arguments were with a previous or current sexual partner. Not where jealousy was involved.

  “You think this is only me,” she said, her voice colder, but audibly more subdued. “It is not only me, brother. And it is not only jealousy, despite your attempts to dismiss it as such… it is not even solely a lack of trust or openness between us. How can I view you the same, when you are going against your oaths? When you are acting against any normal code of ethics or propriety for seers… not to mention your holy Adhipan? How can I possibly view you the same, when your integrity, your honesty, your… goodness, Balidor… are the very things that drew me to you in the first place?”

  He felt his jaw harden more.

  When her expression didn’t move, he forced himself to shrug.

  “That is your opinion,” he said neutrally.

  “I suspect I would not be the only one to hold it,” she retorted. “If your actions were known to more of your friends. I have noticed Alyson the Bridge seems to hold integrity in high regard as a trait, as well… particularly among her friends. So I ask you again, what would she think about what you are doing?”

  “You are not viewing it as I do, Yarli––”

  “Clearly.”

  “Nor would Allie,” Balidor warned. “But not for the reasons you state. It is a low blow, to bring her into this. She was intimately betrayed by this p
erson. She cannot be expected to view it with any amount of objectivity––”

  “But you can? Gaos!” Yarli burst out, throwing up her hands. “Listen to yourself, brother! You are the head of the l’murilar kun-re Adhipan. Our most holy and ancient of warrior castes. What in the fucking gods are you doing? Do your vows mean nothing to you?”

  At that, Balidor lost his cool.

  As in, really lost it.

  Fury exploded over his light.

  It reached his voice before he could pull it back.

  “Don’t talk to me about my goddamned vows, sister. Ever.”

  His voice came out loud.

  It wasn’t just the volume.

  He spoke the words with his light––as in really spoke them––infusing every molecule with charge, with the fire that came from the structures over his head, and under his feet. Years of training and meditation came through his voice, structures he’d brought in with him at birth, parts of himself he’d honed over years of work as an Adhipan infiltrator.

  It wasn’t something he normally did.

  Normally, Balidor kept the majority of his light at least partly shielded.

  He didn’t just do that to fool people into thinking he was less powerful than he was. Tarsi taught him to do it while he was still quite young. She told him at the time she’d done it in part as an exercise in ethics––to help him continue to respect the free will of others.

  She told him he was cursed and blessed with an inordinate amount of power in his light.

  She trained him extensively to shield that power, to never use it in any but extraordinary circumstances. She told him if he did not, his soul might be in danger. She warned him that, with light like his, he might inadvertently frighten or push others to his will, consciously or not.

  She warned him that if he did not learn to keep that light under control, and at an early age, he might abuse that power, until he no longer noticed he was doing it.

  Even by then, there had been… accidents.

  There had been things Balidor regretted.

  There had been enough of them that Balidor took Tarsi’s warnings seriously.

  For the same reason, most of his life, Balidor had done as Tarsi taught him.

  He held back; he softened his light, if only for the power it held.

  He shielded it, even when he argued with others. He shielded it in meetings with other Adhipan. He even shielded it with the Bridge and Sword, although either of them could likely withstand whatever he threw at them. He’d done it out of habit, as much as out of a conscious need at that point.

  It was so ingrained in him, he no longer noticed he was doing it.

  Until now.

  Until this very moment, when, for the first time in as long as he could remember, he didn’t control it at all. He didn’t hold back.

  He didn’t soften anything.

  His voice crackled with aleimic light, with a near-electrical energy in the Barrier space as his aura flared out, instantly taking up more than half of the room. It cracked out like a whip, carrying so much heat and pulse he felt Yarli flinch violently under it, as if she’d been hit––no, as if she’d been punched in the face by some part of him.

  The vibration of that charge rippled the room’s aleimi around both of them.

  It felt almost like a hot wind.

  The aftershocks rippled hers even now, slamming into her with a near-physicality.

  By then, Yarli had stepped far away from him.

  She stood by the curved bulkhead near the bed. She was breathing harder, blinking at him, her eyes wide in undisguised fear.

  Seeing that fear, Balidor felt his throat close.

  She’d never looked at him like that before.

  He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had looked at him like that.

  He didn’t think any sexual partner of his had looked at him like that, not in over four hundred years.

  Shame swam over him, infusing his light even as he dampened the aura of his aleimi swiftly. He pulled it back into him, softening it and drawing it behind shields before he could make the damage worse, or frighten her even more.

  His shame worsened when he saw her watch him do it, that fear and wariness still coloring every piece of her light that he could see. Realizing he’d just made things about a hundred times worse between them, he felt a kind of futility with that shame, mixed with a frustration that caused his jaw to clench all over again.

  It hit him again, what he’d done.

  It was as close to an open threat as he’d ever made to a sexual partner in his life.

  It was maybe the closest to an open threat he’d made to anyone in several decades, apart from perhaps Dehgoies Revik when he was the one in that tank.

  Even then, Balidor hadn’t lost control over his light.

  Even when he’d been kicking Revik inside that tank, Balidor hadn’t completely lost control over his light like that.

  Remembering those weeks and months made his jaw harden more.

  Back then, Allie had been the one battling everyone to keep her sessions going with Revik. Allie was the one who had everyone telling her how insane she was for attempting to bring Revik back. Allie was the one forced to lie, to withhold information, just to do the work she knew needed to happen to reach her mate.

  Thinking about that now, Balidor winced, clenching his jaw.

  The irony did not escape him… nor his own hypocrisy… or karma… or whatever it was he was being forced to experience now.

  “I am sorry,” he said.

  Looking up, once more holding up a hand in a seer’s peace sign, he winced when he saw Yarli’s face. Fear still shone in her eyes, but now she was staring at him warily, too. He saw anger there, coupled with an open disbelief.

  The anger grew as he watched.

  “I am sorry,” he repeated.

  She stared at him, unmoving.

  “I should go,” he said, swallowing. “I should go––”

  “Yes,” she cut in, still breathing too hard. “You should. Go, brother. Now.”

  He nodded, releasing the chair back he’d been holding onto. He’d gripped it somewhere in the confrontation between them, so tightly his knuckles were white, and he’d barely noticed until he let it go.

  He lifted the vest off the back of the chair by the door, shouldering it back around him and hooking a few catches in front to keep it there.

  He was turning for the hatch door leading to the corridor when Yarli spoke again.

  “Tell one of the others where to have me send your things,” she said, that fear still trembling her voice. “You’re not welcome back here, brother.”

  Balidor’s hand had just touched the door’s handle.

  He hesitated the barest breath, wondering if he should be trying harder than this.

  He wondered if he should be trying harder to apologize, at least.

  It crossed his mind in that same breath that it was already too late.

  He had not only lost her as a partner.

  He had lost her as a friend, too.

  Worse, he did not feel shame at the realization, or even guilt. Well, he did, but he did not feel only those things.

  He also felt… relief.

  Swallowing, he nodded.

  Then, completing the motion he’d started, he gripped the L-shaped handle and jerked it downward, pulling the hatch door inward. He pulled it closed behind him after he reached the dark green corridor on the other side.

  Staring up and down it, he exhaled.

  He considered going to directly to Torek, the gold-eyed, British-born seer who technically oversaw the residential areas onboard the ship.

  He would need his own quarters.

  Torek would be in charge of requisitioning those to him.

  But going to Torek meant making such a thing more or less public. That, or it meant making an issue of asking Torek not to tell anyone else where he was, or that he no longer shared a bunk with Yarli.

  That would be com
plicated.

  People would ask him what happened.

  He wasn’t sure he was ready to navigate those conversations.

  On the other hand, he could not hide where he was sleeping at night, either––not for long, anyway. Allie and Revik needed to know where he was. So did Wreg. So did every infiltrator in the Adhipan, when it came down to it.

  Still, he had some time.

  He didn’t need to deal with this tonight––as in right now, at this very moment.

  Most people contacted him via his headset first.

  There were those who would stop by his quarters, or buzz him via the wall monitor in there, but it wasn’t something that happened often. Balidor had noticed it happened much less often when he was sharing his bed with someone, so the likelihood of it happening to Yarli or him in the next few days was extremely slim.

  Thinking of that now, he punched in a series of numbers and Prexci symbols with his mind while he stood there, requesting that any messages forwarded to his quarters and addressed to him be forwarded on to his headset.

  Then, now walking down the corridor, roughly in the direction of the nearest mess hall, he had another thought.

  As soon as it struck him, he clicked through another ID code. It didn’t occur to him how late it was until the other seer had already picked up.

  “Brother?” the other said sleepily. “Is something wrong?”

  Balidor winced, checking his timepiece.

  “Gaos. No. And I’m sorry, brother,” he said. “Truly. Nothing is wrong. I had hoped to ask…” He hesitated, then shrugged with one hand, seer-fashion. “…a favor. It is a personal favor, so you are of course under no obligation to––”

  “Of course, brother,” the other assured him. “Of course. Anything. What is it you need?”

  The seer on the other end was clearly still struggling to wake up.

  Given the hours he and his team had been working for the past year or so, particularly since that fiasco in Dubai, that was hardly a surprise.

  Another twinge of guilt hit Balidor’s light.

  Gaos. He was quite the bearer of Christmas cheer on this night.

  He was simply spreading joy everywhere he went.

  “Vik,” Balidor said, exhaling. “Do you still have an extra bunk in your quarters?”