The Raider held his gaze before saying quietly, “I will take that as a compliment. Something I would say to no one else in your uniform.”
“And I would say it to no other rebel I’ve encountered.” He frowned. “And perhaps I will answer your question, if you in turn will tell me how you managed to move a fusion cannon with only four of the craft.”
“Would you not think the cannon useful in a smaller, more mobile form?” he answered. “But that discussion can—and must wait. We must discuss what happens next.”
“Obviously,” Paledan said dryly, “I am at your mercy.”
“I didn’t think the Coalition even knew the word,” came a voice from the entrance.
It was the sister. “It is not in the Coalition protocols,” he answered.
He studied her as she studied him, although it was an uncomfortable feeling, since he was paralyzed and helpless. When she had first appeared on that hillside, he had remembered her only as the device Jakel had used to entrap Davorin. But now she was clearly much more; that had been proven when she had taken on Jakel with nothing but a small blade. He tried to analyze the change in her, finally decided it was the anger he had noticed the few times he’d seen her in the taproom before. Then, it had flared like wildfire; now it was a fierce but banked burn.
“I see you aren’t surprised to see me,” she said. “Nor were you at the meeting place.”
“I assumed where your brother is, you would be. It is what is customary here, that blood ties hold, is it not?”
The woman’s expression changed. “But not customary on your world.”
“Not permitted,” he corrected.
She shook her head slowly. And when she spoke again, the harshness was gone from her voice. “What a cold, cruel way to live.”
And suddenly, uncharacteristically, he spoke before he thought. “The twins.”
He managed to stop himself there. Davorin and his sister exchanged a glance. “Concerned, Major?” the sister asked.
“Just . . . curious.”
“I understand they also are not . . . permitted on your world,” Davorin said.
He decided then that wondering how the man got his information was pointless. Better to focus on avoiding any betrayals of information better kept secret. But he saw no harm in admitting this fact.
“That is correct. And the contributors are forbidden from producing together again.”
“Contributors?” Davorin asked.
“I believe you call them parents. On Lustros they have no connection other than being chosen to contribute the child.”
“I repeat,” the sister said softly, “a cold, cruel way.”
He thought of the two beyond-lively children, the boy’s inventiveness and the girl’s wit and cleverness. The girl who would, on his world, have likely been the one destroyed for being the smaller, weaker.
“In this,” he said slowly, “I would have to agree.”
The sister looked surprised. Then thoughtful. It made him think of what she had said, out there.
I see why you like him.
Uncertainty was not a feeling he was used to, and yet he was just that about these rebels. From his position as commander he had always operated on the assumption that rebels were at best misguided, at worst fools, for no one could succeed against the might of the Coalition. But now—
There was a stir at the door. In came the woman, the Spirit, if her son was to be believed. She was accompanied by a tall, angular, nearly gaunt man with watchful eyes.
She crossed to where he lay. “I am told you have agreed.”
“I have forestalled an attack, yes.”
“So you wish to live.”
There was an odd note in her voice, and he realized she would have understood if he had chosen otherwise, for she had done so herself once.
“Perhaps I just wish to know if any of what you have said is truth.”
The moment he said it he realized it was no doubt foolish to taunt the person who supposedly would heal him, and he wondered if somehow his self- control had been crippled along with his body.
But instead of taking offense, she merely laughed. “And how much trouble has that curiosity gotten you into, Major?”
To his shock this time, he nearly smiled. What was this woman doing to him? Or was it merely this place, extending its effect? Or perhaps it was simply being around these people, whose ways were so different from anything he’d known.
He liked either of those ideas better than laying it all at the feet of this woman whose image he had lived with and been drawn to with more intensity than was easily explainable.
“Enough,” he replied, his voice gruff with the effort to stifle that smile.
She laughed again, and it was an even lighter, brighter sound that seemed to want to draw out that smile. She looked at . . . her daughter. He was so unused to thinking of family connections in that way it always took him that extra half second to remind himself.
“Will you need me?” the younger woman—although now, seeing them together, he could well see that there were not two full decades between them— asked.
“Not in the beginning,” her mother said. “But you will stay close?”
A nod was her answer, and the girl left. She looked then at her son. “We are agreed?”
Davorin drew in a deep breath, the only sign of hesitation he had seen from the man. He did not blame him; if this were all true, he was about to allow his enemy to be healed, when he could more easily let him simply die. That is what he would have done, in his place.
Or would he? A frown creased his brow.
“Second thoughts, Major?” Davorin asked.
“No. Merely wondering what I would do were our positions reversed.”
“You do not know?” the woman—he must decide what to call her—asked.
“I know what Coalition protocols would demand.”
“And you also know that is not what I asked. So in essence, you have answered,” she said.
She reached out then, to touch him. Not his arm this time, but his neck, where one would touch to feel for a pulse. If she found nothing he would not be surprised at this point; this entire interlude would make more sense as a dying brain’s delusion than reality.
The moment her fingers touched his skin that odd tingling sensation began. Grew stronger the longer she maintained the contact. His gaze went to her face; her eyes were lowered, as if she were concentrating.
And suddenly, belatedly, it struck him. “It was you.” Her gaze lifted. Met his. “On the bridge.”
For a moment he thought she would deny it. But she said only, “You sound very certain.”
“When you bumped into me . . . it felt the same. A tingling, almost burning. I first thought you had poisoned me.”
Something in her gaze shifted then, changed. “Is that what it felt like to you?”
“It felt like nothing ever had.”
She stared at him. He held her gaze. He could do nothing else, could not move from the neck down, but he would not cower.
“How did they do it?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
His brow furrowed. “What?”
“How did they crush the emotion, the feelings out of you?”
“I do not think I ever had them. Not as others did.”
Her brow furrowed in turn. “Yet you have humor, feel anger.”
“Anger is permissible. Even required, for the Coalition’s work.”
“And the humor?”
His mouth twisted wryly. “I found it required, as well.” Then, wondering if the trouble he was having focusing on the subject was a side effect of his injury, he asked, “What did you do to me, at the bridge?”
“What I did, Major, was very simple. I gave
you a tiny bit of true feeling, normal emotion. And anything you felt after that was a fraction of what most people feel every day.”
He blinked. “That’s . . . impossible.”
“What will be impossible is healing you, unless we begin quickly. Drake, Grim, turn him please.”
His natural instincts rebelled at the thought of turning his back on them, but he quelled them quickly with the silent admission that he would be no more helpless lying face down than he was already.
The two men did the job easily. It was the tall, gaunt one who adjusted his head so that he could see into the room. So he could see her. That surprised him.
He saw the Raider stand, easily, after the task was done. It came back to him again, the memory of what he had seen in Jakel’s dungeon room, that bloody cell the man had soundproofed so his victim’s screams would not be heard. The very man who moved so easily now, with such strength, had been broken, beaten, and tortured until he was unrecognizable, every harsh, shallow breath seeming likely to be his last. He had thought him already dead at first, held up only by the chains Jakel had used.
If he was to be believed, she had healed him. And if she could heal that, in a matter of days . . .
“I will stay,” he heard Davorin say.
“It is not necessary.”
Paledan realized it was her safety Davorin was concerned with. As if he could so much as lift a hand to touch her. Even if he wished it. Thoughts such as he had not had for an eon slammed through his mind, all tangled with visions of the portrait, the living subject of which was here now, alive and even more striking than the image he knew so well.
“Grim will be enough, for now, and you have much to do. I will send for you when he is mobile again, but it will be some time.”
He heard footsteps as Davorin, the Raider . . . her son left them. Wondered if he had truly gone insane, to even consider that this woman might restore him to where he might someday hear his own footsteps again.
. . . when he is mobile again.
She sounded so sure. So confident. He recognized the tone, for it was regularly in his own voice. So he did not doubt her certainty. It was only what it was claimed she could do he could not accept. It was fantastical, a kind of thinking that wasn’t just frowned upon in the Coalition, it was punishable. Severely. High Command did not tolerate variations from their norm.
“This will be difficult for you, Major. For you will have to discard the beliefs of a lifetime.” He nearly laughed as she came so close to his thoughts at this very moment. “Major?”
His gaze snapped back to her face. He still found it nearly impossible to believe she was really here, vibrant, alive. Somewhat scarred, yes—he had noticed the scar on her arm, wondered if it had happened in her plunge from Halfhead or after, in some battle against the Coalition troops here. How long had she been with them? All along? Had her children always known she had survived that fall? That did not fit with the legends he’d heard, of the Spirit of the mountain. But then, he had paid scant attention to the tales, for they were . . . fantastical.
“For the moment, you must set aside those thoughts. For this will not work as it should if you do not believe that it will.”
His lips tightened. Had he, when face to face with the end, become so obvious? “You ask much.”
“I give much,” she answered simply.
He could not make the jump. The capacity for such imaginative acts was long gone, if he had indeed ever had it. He understood only logistics, procedure—
“Let me explain the procedure. Perhaps that will help.”
Had he been able to move, he would have gone very still at her using the very word he had just thought.
“You must talk, as I work on the healing.”
“What has that to do with—”
“I must know that I am not doing further damage. Which also means, I am afraid, that you must feel some of the pain, for the same reason.”
“Why would I feel pain at all, if the cord is severed?”
“Because it is not. Not completely.”
He frowned. “How can you know this?”
“The same way I can know that long ago, perhaps in childhood, your left leg was broken.”
He blinked. Would have drawn back if he could. How could she possibly know this? “I—”
“Perhaps if you think of me as any other physician, it might help?” For an instant, just an instant, a woman with a stern face and in Coalition medical uniform, looked down at him. And then she was Iolana Davorin once more.
A low short laugh escaped him. “You look like no Coalition physician I have ever seen,” he said. And realized with a little jolt, as she nodded and reached out to touch him, he had almost added, “Iolana.”
Chapter 19
HER CHILDREN WERE stubborn. Drake had the drive and determination of his father; Eirlys had the fire and energy she herself had once had. And the twins had a brand of willfulness all their own.
But this man could give lessons to them all.
He fought down his doubts; she could feel it through the connection between them. And she was more than surprised at the strength he still had to do so, although it was strength of mind that was required, not body.
Kneeling beside him, she pressed her hands against his back, some part of her recognizing how powerful the muscles were. This was no chair-bound Coalition officer; this was a warrior. She’d known that before, but feeling it beneath her fingers, even through his clothing, was much more vivid. As was the ridge of scar tissue she could feel, where the piece that had shifted had originally ripped into him.
It was, she thought, no small wonder that he was still alive at all, let alone functional.
It took her a few moments to set up the channel, in large part because his mind was as powerful as his body, and she had to take extra time to wall it off so she could focus on the healing. In the moment before she successfully isolated the pathway she needed, a single, incredible piece of knowledge hit her, a piece buried so deeply she knew he had never been aware of it. It was well hidden within, in that place where the very basics of a life were stored, things so elemental they were never conscious thought or awareness. It explained something she had sensed only the edges of before, something she had been worried about, but never understood.
She pushed it aside. It could wait. Everything could wait, except what she had to do now.
She heard him make a sound of surprise tinged with that stubborn disbelief. “You feel it,” she said; she did not have to ask.
“Something,” he admitted.
“Like on the bridge, only stronger?”
She sensed the mental tension as if it were physical, even in a body that could not, at the moment, do such. Never had she had to build such walls to separate the flow from the chaos of thought.
“Yes,” he finally said.
She steadied herself. She needed to keep him talking, and he was clearly not inclined. She was spreading herself thin, and might well end torn between asking Grim to join, or sending him for Eirlys, who could give her more strength.
“And . . . different,” he said when she had thought he would not.
“Yes. This is focused on your injury.” She moved her right hand slightly. She could feel it now, as surely as if it were heated glowmist. The old damaged tissue, and now the new, with the bleeding, the screaming nerves surrounding their brethren that had been severed.
After a moment he said, rather acerbically, “Then what was that moment on the bridge focused on?”
She hesitated, but then gave him at least part of the truth. “The measure of a man. Do you wish to know how this will proceed?”
“Should I not?”
“Some don’t. They only wish it over.”
“That”—the acerbic tone was back—“I can understand.�
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“Is the pain too much? As I explained, there must be some so you can tell me if it moves.”
“Which will mean?”
“Possibly new damage. And a shift in my focus.”
“Is this always so . . . conversational?”
She nearly laughed at his tone this time. Yes, the wry humor was intact, which given his situation was rather remarkable. But then, she already knew this was a remarkable man. And that he was a Coalition major didn’t change that, but it did give her pause.
“No,” she answered, “for usually those hurt badly enough to need me are either unconscious or must be rendered so to survive. And later, when the pain will be the worst, I can lessen it. But the nature of this injury requires I know immediately of any change. And it is helpful that I know you are still sensible.”
“There is nothing about this that is . . . sensible.”
She did laugh this time. And the burst from his mind battered the barrier yet again, in a way that unsettled her enough that she almost lost focus. This could not happen, so she hastened to give the explanation he hadn’t actually asked for.
“I will seal off the bleeding first. That is the fairly simple part. Healing muscle and bone is more complex, but nerves are the most difficult of all, and take longer. That will be the most painful, too, I’m afraid.”
“So am I.”
And yet again he took her off stride with an almost acid humor in his voice. “I would not think you afraid of anything. Does the Coalition allow such?”
“If you have no fear, you have no caution and become foolish. Not desirable for Coalition officers of higher rank. They only concern themselves with crushing fear out of those who must ever and always follow orders.”
He said it so coolly that it sent an echoing chill through her. She made herself focus. “The shrapnel is planium, I believe?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Then I can remove it.”
“Our surgeons said—”
“Not with surgery.”
“What?”
She knew he would likely not believe it. But she told him anyway. Better now when he was forced to hear it than when he could walk away.
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