She walked through the masked entrance of the cave without much awareness, and around the inner wall to her quarters, but came to an abrupt halt there. It was a surprisingly strong jolt to see it as it always was, and not disguised as an office in the Council Building. Caze’s office. Although deep down she knew the strength of the jolt was not because of that, but because of the man who was no longer here.
And she felt an echo of the odd sensation that had overtaken her when Brander had returned from Zelos and reported he’d both seen and spoken to Caze. It was somewhere between an ache and a hollowness she couldn’t quite describe. That he was up and around and functioning as if nothing had ever happened gladdened the healer in her, but at the same time it squeezed at her heart in a way she didn’t like feeling, for the only explanation she could see for it was one beyond foolishness.
You have been worse than a fool in your time, but that does not mean you must do so again.
She gave herself the warning in the sternest internal voice she could muster. But almost instantly another voice, one she had not heard for a very long time, seemed to answer.
Perhaps the foolishness is in denying what you feel.
She sank down onto the cushions someone—likely Grim—had replaced on the stone protrusion that served her as a settee. She was shaken to her core. For she had not heard that voice since the seconds before she had hurled herself to what she hoped would be death, when it had screamed out this was wrong.
She sat in silence. She did not know for how long. But then Grim was there, seated opposite her and gazing at her with some concern. When she looked up and met his eyes, understanding dawned in them almost immediately.
“You feel his absence,” Grim said, and it was not a question.
“How could I not?”
“Contention valid. Even damaged, he had such a presence even I mark it. But you feel it . . . differently.”
He hesitated, and she sighed inwardly. Just the fact that he was uncertain told her what was coming.
“We are still us, Grim, who have shared the worst,” she said quietly.
He nodded. Then, still looking a bit wary, which for him was tantamount to an expression of total trepidation, he said, “You miss him as . . . a woman misses a man.”
She looked at this tall, gaunt man who had saved her so that she could save others, who had been her loyal companion for all these years, asking nothing for himself except to serve her.
You have long paid me back, Grimbald Thrace. You needn’t take care of me any longer.
Do you wish me to leave?
Of course not. I merely ask why you would wish to stay.
You alone of all people do not think less of me because of . . . what I am. And am not.
I think you underestimate Ziemites.
“You have never felt this, Grim?” she asked. “Or have you simply never allowed it because you cannot carry it to the natural conclusion?”
“I do not know any longer,” he said simply. “And it does not matter. I am not a man in the sense other men are, and that is how I must live.”
“I wish I could heal you, my friend.”
“You cannot replace what was taken.” He did not flinch as he said it. And he continued to look at her steadily. “And you have in essence answered my question.”
She sighed. “If I cannot give the truth to you, then who?”
“Perhaps the man it concerns most?” Grim suggested.
“Would that not be foolish?” she asked, beyond curious as to how he would answer.
“Not if he feels the same.”
She suddenly could not take a breath. For Grim had a knack for recognizing other’s feelings. “Are you saying . . . you believe he does?”
“I have never seen a man fight so hard against it, which speaks to the power of it.”
She felt a shiver go through her. Was it possible? Was all the strangeness she had felt around Caze Paledan attributable to such a simple, basic cause?
“But . . . he is Coalition and I am of Ziem. Would it not be . . . hopeless?”
“As things stand . . . yes. But they may not always be so.”
“You think things—or he himself—might change?”
“I think one or the other is inevitable. Perhaps both. The only question is in what direction.”
She laughed, and felt lighter. “Ah, Grim, what would I do without your wisdom?”
But as she later lay in the empty darkness, that was not what she thought about. Because what she really didn’t know was what she would do without Caze’s compelling, room-filling presence.
Chapter 46
PALEDAN STARED AT the screen of the handheld. He’d gone through the records, searching the troops for those who originated on Lustros. One triggered recognition; it was Stron, the lieutenant he had marked for possible promotion up the ranks. It was the perfect excuse, and he called up the man’s records. There would be nothing strange about him checking into the background of a man he was considering for higher rank. In fact it would seem amiss if he did not.
It took a few minutes to work his way back to the birth papers, and once there he did not linger, not wishing to raise suspicion. It didn’t matter; he’d seen what he’d wanted to see, and that his suspicion had been proven right gave him no pleasure.
There was no check box, labeled acceptable or otherwise, on the birth form. And the form also lacked the odd symbol that had been in the corner of his own form. He went back to his own to verify the differences.
“Sir?”
He did not react, although he was surprised that he had been so intent Brakely had been able to get so close without him realizing. Or perhaps he had realized and had known there was no threat.
“Yes, Brakely?”
“The damage assessments are ready.”
“Estimated delay?”
“Three to six weeks, sir.”
Well done, Raider. “Next?”
“The landing zone repairs are ready for inspection.”
Paledan nodded.
“And,” Brakely continued, “there is word from several troopers that they have seen Jakel skulking about. And that he is . . . not himself.”
Paledan drew back slightly. Had they done it? Had she done it?
“In what way?”
“He is no longer menacing everyone in sight. In fact, he appears to be afraid himself.”
“Of?”
Brakely gave a shrug and a shake of his head. “Everyone. Everything.”
And once more he had undeniable proof that the woman this world called the Spirit could do exactly what she said she could do. As if he needed it, after what she had done for—and to—him.
“I would consider that an improvement,” Paledan said.
“As would I,” Brakely said, his tone dry, Paledan suspected to keep from laughing. But his aide’s tone shifted back to serious when he asked, “Are you all right, sir?”
He leaned back in his chair. “Never better.” Physically.
“It’s just . . . I noticed you’ve been looking at your medical records.”
“I’m fine, Brakely.” Then, noticing the man’s disquiet, gave him a nod. Brakely, after all, had not come from Lustros, and so had not had the capacity for emotion quashed. It struck him to think about this later, how his aide functioned so well if he carried a full load of these tangling feelings. “It’s all right. I . . . appreciate your concern.”
He would grant that to no one else, that freedom to worry about him. At least, no one else on this base.
An image came back to him with jolting clarity, a pair of blue eyes lit with the cool fire of concern. She had worried about him. And while logic told him it was the worry of a healer about her patient, something else, something deep inside that had been stir
ring since he’d arrived on this planet but had roared to life in her presence, told him it was more. Much more.
“What was it you were looking for?” Brakely asked, snapping him out of the reverie he’d been battling since the Raider had left him on the hillside where, by all reason, he should have died. For a moment he wished that he could tell Brakely the truth, that he was healed, but he knew he could not. For the truth of how that had happened might stretch even Brakely’s considerable boundaries, and he did not want to put the man in the position of having to decide whether or not to report what would clearly be a reportable offense to High Command.
Realizing somewhat belatedly that Brakely dealt with these records much more than he did, he pointed to the symbol on the screen.
“Do you know what this means?”
Brakely leaned in. “I’ve seen it before.” He frowned. “I’ve always thought it indicated some . . . irregularity. But if this is your record, that cannot be true.”
Paledan was not certain what he had done to earn such blind faith. “Is there no guide to such things?”
“There is, sir. Shall I look it up?”
“Please. And search for anyone assigned here who also has the symbol on the birth record.” He looked up at his aide who was already turning to go do as he was bidden. “Door is closed, Marl.”
Understanding flashed in the man’s dark-brown eyes. “Yes, sir.” And he was gone, to set about fulfilling the request.
I think you would be proud of him, Commander.
He went very still. That thought, even the concept of that thought, was forbidden in Coalition practice. Blood ties were nothing; the Coalition was the connective unit. And so pride in a genetic offspring was non-existent. And yet . . .
The pride in Lana Davorin’s voice when she spoke of her children was beyond denying. Even when she spoke of the twins it was there, despite that they were defects of nature.
Defects of nature.
We are glad you did not die.
“And I you,” he said under his breath, as if saying it aloud in this place, in the face of all the Coalition trappings, made it somehow fiercer. For he was glad. His life would be the lesser had he not met those two. They had opened his mind to so many possibilities. . . .
Including that you are one of their kind?
No, it was their mother who had done that. But it was Lux and Nyx who made proving—or disproving—the idea essential.
It was on his way to inspect the repaired landing zone that he unexpectedly encountered the other Kalon, the woman, near the wreckage of what had once been Davorin’s taproom. Even had he not known who she was, he could have guessed the connection by the color of her eyes, that bright turquoise that stood out even amongst Ziem blue.
“First your cousin, now you,” he said when the woman met his gaze.
“We like to keep track of what of Zelos has been destroyed,” she said flatly.
“But this,” he said, gesturing back over his shoulder at the ruin, “was destroyed long ago.”
“Yes. The moment the Coalition discovered Drake was the Raider.”
“And yet neither you nor your cousin have joined him.”
She lifted one shoulder. “I am no fighter by nature. And I have long ago accepted what my cousin is, and is not.” She said it calmly, almost wearily. Then she shifted her gaze to the flattened space, where the citizens of Zelos persisted in leaving tokens to their hero despite the fact that a troop crawler rolled in and flattened it all again every week. “I miss it.”
That surprised him. “I did not think you ever frequented the place.”
“It was not my favored place to linger.” She shifted her gaze back to him. “I miss, rather, something that was in it. Something I was very proud of.”
His brow furrowed. “And that would be?”
“The painting.”
He blinked. Drew back, staring at her. Proud of?
“It was,” she went on, “the first piece in which the feeling, the inspiration perhaps, really took hold. To where I could not work as quickly as my mind provided the way, the details.”
His breath caught. He could not deny what she was saying, yet. . . . It took him a moment to get out the question.
“You? You are the artist?”
“I am.” Her mouth twisted. “Or I was.”
He realized she must think it destroyed along with the building. “I was told it was painted by a student.”
“Yes. At the time, I was.”
His brow furrowed in doubt. “How old were you?”
“Fifteen.”
“Impossible.” It broke from him almost unwillingly, he who had never said anything he didn’t mean to say. Or had not, until Ziem.
To his surprise, the woman smiled at him, and there was a glint of . . . something in those eyes. “I will take that as a compliment, Major.”
And whether it was the way she said it or that glint he did not know, but he suddenly knew she spoke the truth. She had created the portrait that had so seized him. Haunted him. Enchanted him. “It is . . . deserved.”
“I thought there was no place for useless bits of art in Coalition thinking.”
“That portrait is many things, but useless is not one of them.”
She glanced around at the ruin. “You speak as if it still exists.”
Of course. She wouldn’t know. Driven by an impulse he didn’t understand, he answered, “It does.” He did not speak of the subject, for he could think of no way that did not sound insane.
Her brows rose. Then lowered. “You have it?”
“I do.” She simply looked at him, waiting. She had, he realized, a great deal of her cousin’s unshakeable composure. “I cannot give it back to you.” He was a little stunned at the amount of regret he felt.
“What use could the Coalition possibly have for it?”
“None.”
“And yet it is now theirs.”
“No. It is mine.” What was it about these Ziemites that had him speaking of things in ways he never did? Or should? She looked surprised, perhaps at the utter possessiveness in his tone. But then she smiled, as if she had taken that as a compliment also.
As she should.
“I understood the Coalition did not believe in personal possessions.”
“They do not.”
He let the words lie there between them. After a moment she said quietly, “In that case, you have quite a dilemma, Major. I wish you luck in resolving it.”
When she was gone he stood there for a long time, not really seeing the ruins around him. For he was wrestling with another much, much larger dilemma.
The simple fact that he liked these Ziemites much more than he liked almost anyone in the Coalition.
Chapter 47
IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE. He was well now, healed, there was no reason for the connection to linger. And yet . . .
Iolana paced her quarters restlessly, unable to shut down her equally restless mind. Which in itself was odd, for she usually had much better control over her thoughts. But ever since the rover had lifted off carrying her son and the man she should by rights loathe, the boundaries seemed not just breached but destroyed. For all she could think about was Caze.
“Iolana?”
She turned at the call from the cave entrance. “Come in, Kye.”
“I don’t want to disturb—”
“Please. I welcome the distraction.” Kye stepped in. She smiled, but still seemed hesitant. “My daughters do not need to stand on ceremony,” Iolana said, and Kye’s smile widened. But in her way, she dispensed with the niceties and went straight to her purpose.
“I’ve just come back from Zelos.”
“And my son breathes again,” Iolana teased.
Kye finally relaxed.
“Yes. I know he does not like it, but I needed to test whether my concealment still holds. And he agreed—finally—as long as I did nothing more than that.”
“The people of Ziem hold you as their rightful leader’s mate, those who might know would not give you away.”
“I was afraid Jakel might. I heard talk of him, and he saw me here.”
Iolana waved a hand. “He no longer has knowledge of any of us.” She looked Kye up and down. “You do not look as if you trekked down on foot.”
“I did not.” Kye grinned then. “Kade flew me to the old ruin and I went from there.”
Iolana smiled herself. “That should hold him for a while.”
Kye nodded, then went on. “I thought you might wish to know I saw him.”
Iolana knew the subject had abruptly changed, even though Kye did not specify it was no longer Kade they spoke of. “He seems well?” she asked, surprised at how hard she had to work to keep her voice even.
“Yes. He moves well, and the lines of pain have faded already.” Iolana nodded, but sensed there was more. And after a moment Kye spoke again. “He told me he has the painting.”
“If he does not know you know that already, then your secret holds.”
“Yes, it seems. As does Brander’s.”
“You have told him you are the artist?”
Kye nodded. “I believed it would dissuade him from believing my true life.” Iolana thought sadly that the artist should have been her true life, but said nothing. “But it was what else he said I thought might interest you.”
And now Kye was sidling around the subject, enough unlike herself that Iolana wondered what was coming. She waited silently. Kye took a breath and said, “Once he learned I had painted it, he told me he could not give it back. He said it was his, rather . . . vehemently, even though he admitted the Coalition allowed neither art nor personal possessions.”
“He is . . . fascinated with your work.”
Kye studied her for a moment, and Iolana suddenly knew what she was going to say before she actually spoke the words. “I think he is fascinated with the subject. And not simply because you healed him when he thought it impossible. I think you have made him question . . . everything.” Kye’s steady gaze softened. “And as I’ve told you, I know you feel more for him than healer to healed.”
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