“He is Coalition.” She said it almost desperately, clinging to it as if it were a shield.
“And I thought my own dilemma, loving Drake while also loving the Raider, was complicated.” Only Kye’s sudden shift to a very wry tone allowed her to hold her composure. “It is . . . understandable. He is a very different sort of man. In addition to being very . . . eye-catching.”
Iolana felt her cheeks heat. Dear Eos, was she blushing? For one of the few times in her life she had to look away from another pair of eyes. “You are being very . . . kind.”
“It is easier for me,” Kye said quietly. “While I revered him, Torstan was not my father.”
Iolana looked back at her daughter by covenant. “And Torstan is why it cannot be. Ca—the major represents the malignancy that killed him.”
“Then that must be resolved,” Kye said, waving a hand much as she herself had over her concern about Jakel.
“So you, too, think he might be turned?”
“I think he would be much happier if he were free to become the man he could be.”
“On that,” Iolana said sadly, “we agree.”
“I FOUND ONLY two on base with the symbol, and one of those with the check box.”
Paledan looked across his desk at Brakely. “Both from Lustros?”
His aide nodded. “One had the check box and symbol from the beginning. On the other, the symbol had been added sometime after the document was created.”
“And the symbol, you found its meaning?”
For the first time since their earliest days, after Paledan had pulled him from the death line, Brakely looked fearful. And, in an odd counterpoint, concerned.
“It is . . . from the birth regulation ministry.”
Paledan had to prompt him to go on. “And it means?”
His aide took a deep breath, then answered. “It is the symbol indicating the two contributors are banned from further participation.”
There suddenly seemed to be a lack of air in the room. For there was only one reason contributors to the population program were banned from further production. Defects in the child they produced. Defects such as deformities, mental incapacities—some of which did not manifest until later, hence the later application of the symbol—or other abnormalities.
“I would speak to the trooper with both the symbol and the check box,” he said abruptly.
“I will summon her, sir.”
When the trooper arrived in his office, she saluted instantly and stood stiffly, but Paledan saw the tremor go through her. The young woman was clearly terrified. His first instinct was to reassure her but he did not, for he thought fear might get him the answer he wanted. So instead he studied the woman as she stood there, searching for any sign of a mark or deviation from proper physical or mental condition. There was none.
At last he released her from the salute. He bade her sit, then walked around to the front of his desk, standing so that he not quite loomed over her.
“Tell me of your birth, trooper.”
She looked astonished. On top of the fear, which lingered. “Sir?”
“Do you know your contributors?”
She looked aghast. “I . . . no, sir. I never met them.”
“Have you seen their records?”
“Only in passing, during medical assessments.”
“Are they still alive?”
“The male, yes. The female . . . no.”
“How did she die?”
The trooper lowered her gaze. After a moment she said, her voice unsteady, “She self-terminated, sir.”
“Was she ill?”
“No.”
“Insane?”
The trooper shuddered. “I . . . don’t know, sir.” He understood the fear better now, for insanity in a contributor would merit a permanent mark on your record, for constant monitoring. But he also heard something else in her tone.
“What do you know, or suspect about the reason, trooper?” he asked softly.
With an effort that was visible the woman drew herself up. “I overheard two from the ministry talking, saying there was some . . . defect in my production.”
“And yet you are whole and functional.”
“Yes.” Her head came up then. “And I have passed every assessment, sir. There are no defects. Even my birth record deems me acceptable.”
The record that bore the same marks as his own.
“Tell me, Trooper Brun,” he said, using her name for the first time, and the same soft tone, “have you ever felt that there was something . . . missing in you? Not physically, but a hollow sort of place that you did not understand?”
The woman stared at him now, as if stunned. “I . . . how did you know? Is there something written on my record that—”
She stopped when he shook his head. He was only vaguely aware of dismissing her, and of the woman leaving his office and quietly shutting the door behind her.
Paledan turned back to his screen, where his own birth record was still open. He stared at the symbol at the top of the page.
. . . the two contributors are banned from further participation.
Defects. And yet the box labeled “acceptable” was checked. So he had been acceptable, but the contributors who had produced him were banned from any further production.
Because of defects in their combination.
Then there was that hollow, empty place he’d always felt, had thought normal.
Defects.
Twins.
Chapter 48
IOLANA FELT THE moment when he believed.
The connection with one she had healed had never lasted so long, nor at such distance. Was this particular connection so strong because the healing had been so complex? Because it had taken so long? Had so many stages?
Or was it something else?
She was pacing her living area restlessly. He had such presence, filled a room with his own kind of power, that this place where he had been, even helpless, seemed empty now.
No, this was more than feeling restless. She had the odd feeling that if she didn’t expend some kind of energy, it was going to overwhelm her. But simply walking the floor was not going to suffice, for it was more than physical energy she needed to offload. It was a kind of internal, mental—no, emotional energy that she didn’t quite know how to get free of.
And when did you start lying to yourself?
As the words echoed in her head, she found herself face to face with the truth of it. This was not the connection she felt with someone she’d healed, for it felt entirely different. This was a much more elemental thing, something she had not felt in over a decade.
This was the connection of woman to man, and no amount of telling herself fascination with a portrait did not equate to his desire for the subject would tamp down the feeling of connection. Nor did the sense of longing she got from him necessarily have to do with her, for he was thinking much of the twins. As she had expected he would, once he came to believe. She wondered what had convinced him. Knowing the immense logic of his mind, he had probably searched for proof.
And there it was, the wall between them that was nearly as immense as the uniform he wore; Caze was a man of logic, while she inhabited a mystical sort of realm that was utterly foreign to him.
And yet he had come to believe more than she would ever have expected. The truth of his healing had opened his mind until the impossible had become the possible. And once he had taken that final step of acceptance—which she sensed had occurred when he’d taken that first physical step without the pain he’d lived with for so long—he had proven he truly lived by his own words. Once not changing his mind became the impossibility, he changed it.
She wished she could have been there with him when the truth had cut thro
ugh to his heart. She could feel his turmoil, wished she could soothe it. She—
The sound around the corner of the stone wall that separated her living area from the entrance to her sanctuary was slight, but unmistakable. Footsteps. Light, quick . . . and a pair. It was the only warning she had before the twins darted around the wall and came to a halt.
She halted herself and turned to look at them. They were no small miracle, these two, and she was amazed she had produced them. She was amazed at all her children, and what they had become helped fill the empty space within her that came from the simple fact that they had done it without her because she had not been strong enough.
Lux held out what she had been carrying, and Iolana saw that it was a large spray of mistflowers.
“We brought these—”
“Because you—”
“Like them and—”
“We are glad—”
“You healed the major.”
She took the offered bouquet, smiling. “I thank you both. This was a very nice gesture.”
“We can—”
“Be nice—”
“Sometimes.”
Her smile widened. “When you’re not being mischievous, devious, and utterly brilliant?”
Iolana felt another slam to her heart when they both smiled at her, for they were not the glib or knowing smiles she had seen before. These smiles were the ones they gave Drake and Kye, Eirlys and Brander.
Family smiles.
“We have been—”
“Thinking.”
“And when are you not?” It was an effort to keep her tone light and teasing, so full was her heart just now.
“Never,” Lux admitted.
“But we have not—”
“Liked to think—”
“About this.”
She lifted the spray of mistflowers to her face, inhaled the sweet scent, and waited. After a moment, starting with Nyx, it came in a rush.
“We have been—”
“Very angry—”
“With you—”
“Because you—”
“Left us. But then—”
“We started thinking—”
“About what Drake said—”
“That if he had—”
“Stayed mad at us—”
“Every time we—”
“Got in trouble—”
“He would—”
“Hate us by now.”
Drake had said that? He had told her more than once that her relationship—or the lack of one—with the twins was her problem to handle. Yet it seemed he had done a bit to help her along.
“We do not—” Lux began.
“Want to—”
“Hate you. You have—”
“Done good things—”
“For the Sentinels and—”
“The major—”
“And you have—”
“Not gotten mad—”
“At us.”
“No, I haven’t. For I find you too wonderful to be angry.”
They exchanged startled looks, and then those smiles returned. Lux looked around the room, now free of the illusion the Stone of Ziem had helped her maintain.
“It seems—”
“Different now.”
“It is,” she agreed, for she had felt the emptiness since he had gone.
Lux gave her a sideways look. “Do you miss him?”
They were both watching her, and she had the feeling her answer was important to them. So, honestly, she nodded. “I do.”
They seemed relieved. “So do we,” they said simultaneously.
“I know,” she said softly.
They studied her for a moment. “Do you—” Nyx began.
“Know if he—”
“Is all right?”
She smiled at them again. “He is. Although he is wrestling with some new knowledge just now.”
They exchanged those glances again, and she wondered anew if they were able to communicate directly.
Then Nyx turned his gaze back to her. “You told him?”
She blinked.
“We heard—”
“That you knew—”
“Something about him—”
“That could change—”
“Everything.”
“It seems,” Iolana said with a smile and a laugh, “that your four ears are better than any observation network.”
They smiled at that, so clearly pleased that that warmth in her heart expanded another notch.
“We would—”
“Like to—”
“See him,” they finished together.
She opened her mouth to remind them he was back in Zelos, amidst his forces, then stopped. They knew this perfectly well. And underestimating these two would, she feared, set her back greatly with them. Not to mention the twins always found a way to what they wanted.
That they had come to her with this, rather than just going on that way they always seemed to find, meant everything to her. And yet, she could not let them run amok, not even for her own gain, not when it would put them at risk. She chose her words carefully.
“I can understand that,” she said. For had she not just admitted she missed him as well? “So do you have a plan?”
Again they exchanged glances, and when they looked back at her she saw in their faces that she had done the right thing, at least for her relationship with these two youngest of her children.
“We thought—”
“You could—”
“Hide us—”
“Like you did—”
“This room and—”
“We could—”
“Go to him.”
She looked at them consideringly. It was a clever idea, but then she would have expected nothing less.
“You mean me to go with you?”
“You want—”
“To see him too—”
“Don’t you?”
Yes, these two did not miss much. It took her a moment to control the leap her heart took at the idea. And it was still strange enough to her that she did not yet wish to admit it aloud. So she focused instead on their proposal.
“It is an interesting plan. I have never tried to mask others, although I have fogged people’s perceptions of them. But perhaps, if I carried the Stone of Ziem, it might work. We shall have to experiment.”
Delight fairly burst from them.
“You will—”
“Do it?”
“I think we must see if it would work first, don’t you?” They nodded enthusiastically. “And I’m afraid this is where I must be responsible. We cannot do this unless Drake approves it.”
“We could—”
“Convince him.”
“I have no doubt you could. But perhaps the Raider might have to say no.”
They went quiet, but after a moment nodded.
“If the Raider—”
“Says no—”
“It is no.”
She felt a burst of sadness, that these two, so young, so well understood the necessities of war. But underneath it was a vivid awareness that her pulse had picked up, and her nervous tension increased.
All at the prospect of seeing Caze again.
Chapter 49
HE HAD, PALEDAN thought, lost his mind. Left a piece of it trapped in that illusion.
Or with the woman who had created it.
When Jakel had slunk into his office he had been surprised. That had turned to near amusement as he assessed the change in the creature who had once been the most brutal enforcer. She had indeed done as promised. Cowering, c
learly terrified, the man barely managed to set the small object on the desk before he scuttled out. For a moment Paledan thought of those the man had tortured, murdered, for no better reason than he enjoyed it. True, he had done some of it at the behest of the Coalition, but that he had taken such pleasure in it made Paledan’s skin crawl.
He deserved what she had done. And that she had been able to do it unsettled him, not because of her power, but because she had not used it on him. For surely there would have been great pleasure in destroying the mind of the leader of their enemy? Or in taking his free will on the choices before him? But then, Ziemites had ever acted contrary to their best interests. Hadn’t that been in one of his first reports to High Command after his arrival here?
With her forbearance safely categorized out of the realm of the personal, he at last had unwrapped the small object. The page around it was one of those bedamned calling cards from the Raider, left at the scene of all his raids. But the object was one of those prickly fruits the twins had given him. And at the bottom of the page were written two words.
The hillside.
His mind had taken a leap. And he’d known it was right.
So here he was now, approaching the hillside where he had, in essence, died. And been brought back to life by someone he’d thought also dead, someone who was an impossibility in herself, the legend he’d put no credence in, the woman they called the Spirit.
But she was alive, vibrantly, undeniably alive. And he of all people could not deny her powers were real. Every step he took without pain reminded him. But it was what else she had done to him that was uppermost in his mind and had been since he’d left their stronghold, wherever it truly was. Even in the three days since he’d been back, he’d felt the difference strongly. Everything seemed . . . not just different but more intense. His reactions to the simplest of things seemed . . . out of proportion. Even what color there was in this gray world seemed brighter. A snappy salute earned a return with a nod; a sloppy job got stern but not angry instruction. And Brakely’s concern for his well-being got a smile and his thanks. Which only seemed to stoke his aide’s worry.
When he had found himself staring at his office wall, appreciating the curve of the Ziem sabers, he knew it was time to move. Realized there had never been any doubt that he would go to meet them.
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