Dragon_The Final War

by JC Andrijeski

  I just didn’t like it.

  I didn’t like it at all.

  “But why would he ever believe you would trust him?” I said, biting my lip.

  Lying there, his heart beating against my ear, he let out a heavier sigh. Then, making a vague gesture with one hand, he rearranged his back in the cushions, combing his fingers through his black hair before he answered.

  “Because I would,” he said finally.

  “You would?”

  He nodded, glancing down at me when I looked up. “Yes.”

  I fought with bewilderment, what might have been disbelief, but Revik sighed, clicking softly. He pressed his lower body against me, a harder flicker of pain making me wince, then clutch him harder.

  “Menlim has this weird code thing,” he explained, his German accent thicker. “He would adhere to the letter of it, at least until I gave him an excuse. It would not have to be a particularly good excuse, wife… but he would need one. It would need to be sufficient for him to feel justified in breaking this thing with me. He would know I would know that.”

  “Why, though?” I said. “I mean, why would he bother? Why not just lie to you and take what he wanted the second you showed up at his door?”

  Revik shrugged. “It is just his way.”

  “So you would give him a reason to break it once you were there?” I said, biting my lip. “So why do we need to go to such lengths––”

  “You know why,” Revik said, his voice exasperated. “Menlim knows I know him. He would know that I would be very, very careful not to give him an excuse.”

  “Does it have to be something this drastic, though?” I said, frustrated. “Does it have to be about us?”

  “Yes,” he said. Looking down at me, he frowned, his light exuding another coil of pain as he held me tighter. “I cannot do this stupidly, Allie. We cannot. I know him. It would take a few months… at least… or he would definitely suspect something. Probably five or six months, minimum, to be safe. I have to really make him think that this is not what I want. That I do not want to be in his network… even in his construct… in any way.”

  He hesitated, stroking my hair, combing it through his fingers gently. I felt his light skirting around the next thing.

  “He knows me, too,” he said, gruff. “He knows I would not just ‘fuck up,’ Allie. Not in the usual way. He has to think I’m desperate. Out of my mind with desperation.”

  He shrugged, his light holding a faint apology as he glanced at me.

  “…Not rational, wife.”

  I understood his meaning there, too.

  I knew exactly what he was driving at.

  I also saw the brilliance in it. And the utter fucking stupidity.

  “Revik––”

  “You’re the only thing that would do that to me, Allie.” His voice grew taut, heavier with pain as his fingers tightened on my back. “Believe me when I say I’ve thought about this. But it’s the only fucking thing. It’s the only thing that would convince him. There isn’t much in my life, Allie, but I have my family. You are my family, wife. You, Lily… Maygar.”

  He shrugged with one hand, sighing as he leaned back on the cushions.

  “We would have to use Lily or Maygar, otherwise. Probably Lily, since Maygar is a grown man… or both of them. I cannot think of a way of doing that that would convince Menlim, or allow me to react convincingly. Not without actually putting our children in jeopardy.”

  Stopping his words, he exhaled in what almost felt like anger, even as a sharper pain expanded off his light.

  “I would not have to put you in physical danger, Allie,” he said, lower. “You would not have to be in danger to get me to react like that, wife. You’d just have to leave me. You’d just have to fall in love with someone else.”

  I shook my head, biting my lip.

  I fought to think past his words, to find some way past what he’d said.

  “What makes you think I could get someone to go there with me?” I said, pressing my lips together. “Enough to make it convincing?”

  He grunted, cocking an eyebrow at me.

  I frowned up at him, annoyed in spite of myself. “I’m serious, Revik.”

  “We can talk about the particulars on that later,” he said, his voice gruff. “I can’t do that tonight, Allie… I fucking can’t. But trust me, that end of things does not worry me at all.”

  “Because of some Bridge light crap?” I muttered, still annoyed.

  “Among other things, yes,” he said, his voice closer to a growl. “That ‘Bridge light crap’ is a fuck of a lot more compelling than you seem to think.”

  I grunted again, not answering him at first.

  “What if we can’t sell this?” I said then, exhaling. “You say you’re not worried, but what if we really can’t sell it, either of us? No one’s going to believe this of us, Revik. No one.”

  But he was shaking his head, his mouth grim.

  “We can sell it,” he said.

  “How do you know? You’re expecting a fuck of a lot from me… and from whoever it is.”

  “We can sell it because people already believe I’m a bastard, wife.” He looked down at me, his eyes sad. His voice turned gruff, “They won’t believe it of you, but they’ll believe it of me. If I gave you reason to want to leave me, they’d believe it when you eventually did. Some more than others. You’ll have a harder time selling it to ‘Dori, maybe… and Tarsi. But Wreg’s still pissed off at me about Ullysa. And a good chunk of the Seven knows what happened in D.C., and what I did when we were first married.”

  I stared at him, feeling that pain in my heart worsen.

  I knew what he was saying.

  I understood exactly what he was saying.

  “I don’t want to, wife,” he said, pain coiling off his light. “Believe me when I say, I don’t fucking want to do this. But like you said, no one will believe it of us otherwise. No one will believe it of you… not unless I’ve given you no choice.”

  At my silence, he shook his head a second time, clicking.

  “As for your side, all you have to do is be convincing enough from the outside that it gets to Menlim’s people through the mole. It would help if I felt it through my light, as well… but we can’t make that too obvious, either. We have to at least pretend we’re trying to shield from one another.”

  Gripping me tighter, he shrugged. I felt another flush of that heat coil into my chest.

  “Menlim would tell me, Allie,” he said, softer. “…he would make sure I knew.”

  I was shaking my head again, but Revik sighed, clicking under his breath.

  He gestured gracefully with one hand. “Of course, you could not be too obvious in the other respects, either… or the lead up to this. There would need to be a courtship. Resistance on your part, at least at first. You could insist to everyone that it is only sex, that you are loyal to me. We can talk about the particulars of that, as well. More than me, you should definitely try to shield the sex from me at first.”

  Frowning, he went on, still thinking,

  “…As for me, Menlim might know I am playing a part, pretending to be what I was when I was young, but that could work to our advantage. He will assume I am trying to infiltrate him no matter what we do, wife. It is better if we give him a cover infiltration, something he thinks he understands. Hopefully something will come up when I am there that I can use to my advantage in that respect. I will be on the lookout for anything I can find, anything that will make sense as an infiltration target. If he thinks my goal is intelligence, versus wanting to be hooked into the network itself, it will provide a better distraction.”

  His voice turned grim.

  “…At the same time, I will need to convince him I am losing control over the part I am playing. That I cannot hold it when you get involved with someone else. That is why this must occur in stages. We must have him thinking I am there to infiltrate him for intel on his organization, even on his network… so that he forgets about
reasons I might want my light connected to their network.”

  Still thinking, he added, “I could drink a lot. I would do that anyway. Lose control of my light when I’m with others… again, even if Menlim suspects I am trying to infiltrate him, which he will anyway, he knows I don’t deal with separation well. He would believe this.” He gave me a grim look. “Especially if you play your part well, wife.”

  Feeling the anger on my light, he glanced down at my face. He gave me a grim look, but I could still feel him thinking when he nodded again.

  “But yes… stages, wife,” he said. “Refuse to open your light to whoever it is. Refuse to share a bed with them at first. It will have to be gradual to be convincing, which is another reason we will need more than just a few weeks.”

  Holding me tighter, he studied my face. “Menlim knows the bond is strong. He knows it would not bend or break so easily, no matter what attraction existed. You will have to be very careful not to rush things, wife. Both of us will.”

  Revik gave me a harder look, his clear eyes glowing as he looked at me.

  “I would lose my fucking mind if I thought you were with someone else,” he said, his voice blunt, holding a denser thread of pain. “…especially if I thought it was more than sex. If I thought there was any chance you were in love with them…” He shook his head, clicking softly. “I would not be rational, Allie. I won’t be rational. There is no fucking way. Menlim will know this. He will believe it, if it is real. You don’t need to worry about ‘selling’ anything, wife. I will be threatened enough, just from being separated from you for so long.”

  He clenched his jaw, studying my expression before he met my gaze.

  “We might even be able to find someone who could be in on it with you,” he added, coiling his fingers into my hair. “Someone who could help you with this. They would have to be a damned good infiltrator, though. Adhipan-trained, at minimum.”

  Frowning as if thinking, he stared at the far wall, still tugging at and playing with my hair, even as I felt his pain worsen. I felt possessiveness on him, even as he tried to hide it. I felt a denser grief, what might have been fear.

  Even with all that, I could also feel him considering different names.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said, his voice holding a faint thread of tension. “Even if we don’t tell them, I am not worried. It will be real enough. If we do it the way we’ve been talking about, I won’t have to fake very much. That is the point… to make this real enough that Menlim believes it. There is no way it will work if I am faking everything. He will see right through it. There must be that realness, or I’ll only get all three of us killed.”

  I winced, shaking my head, but I didn’t speak.

  I could tell he was more stressed than he was pretending, if only because his accent was so thick I was having trouble understanding him.

  “This can’t be the only way,” I muttered.

  “It is the only way,” Revik said. “Do you think I would ever suggest this lightly? Gaos. Even just thinking about it makes me fucking insane.”

  His pain worsened, again making me wince, again making me close my eyes.

  Shaking my head where my face pressed against his bare chest, I looked for another thread, for some way to make this come out different.

  “There’s no way to just make it seem like Lily was at risk? Or Maygar?” I bit my lip, wincing at my own words. “Not for real, of course… I agree, we couldn’t really put them at risk. But wouldn’t that be a lot easier to fake? Parents are never rational about their kids.”

  I glanced up at him, watching him stare up at the ceiling.

  I felt the cowardice there, how much my heart hurt at the thought of offering up Lily. Or Maygar, for that matter, even though I knew he’d do it in a second if we asked. Even so, it was a bullshit offer and I knew it.

  I knew even before Revik answered that it wouldn’t be enough. Not with Menlim.

  Faking some kind of danger to our child would never be enough. Like Revik said, I doubted it would be enough to fake anything, honestly.

  Revik was right. It would have to be real.

  On some level, at least.

  Revik knew I knew that. He answered me anyway.

  That was part of our masochistic ritual, too.

  “No, darling,” he murmured, kissing my cheek. “When it comes to my kids, Menlim knows nothing would scare me more than the idea of him having custody of them.” He kissed me again, pressing his face against mine. “…Nothing. I would never do anything that might put my children under his care. No matter what the risk. If it was my children I feared for, I would only be that much more careful not to break any of his rules. Thinking of my children would not make me lose control. It would do the opposite.”

  His light exuded an apology, even as I felt his mind still working in those higher currents of light, turning over scenarios, threading them together in different combinations.

  “I love my children,” he said softly. “But I’m more rational about them. Menlim would know that, too.”

  I nodded, feeling that sharper pain harden in my chest.

  “…Anyway,” he murmured, exhaling in a sigh as he tightened his arms around me. “Lily would have you. And Balidor. And your parents. And Wreg, who is scary enough on his own. Menlim knows that, as well. So would I. I would be more likely to trust you to protect Lily than do anything to risk making myself a greater danger to either her or Maygar.”

  Lying on the floor of the tank, naked and wrapped only in my husband, I nodded.

  I let my light flicker out briefly though, touching our daughter where she lay wrapped up in blankets about ten yards from where we were. Lily slept blissfully in a portioned-off part of the same container, her head mashed up against the stuffed elephant she’d been given by Uncle Wreg and Uncle Jon, her fingers clutching his plush leg. I imagined I could feel the ocean rolling under where we lay, rocking her as she slept, rocking us.

  I felt so safe there, with the two of them.

  So fucking safe.

  Closing my eyes, I fought back the fear that wanted to steal over my light, a fear so intense it made my stomach cold, twisting my intestines into hard knots.

  “We can’t keep running, wife,” he said, softer still. “We can’t.”

  I opened my eyes, staring into the dark without lifting my head from his chest.

  I knew he was right.

  I knew it.

  But I couldn’t make myself answer him.

  “COME ON BABY…” I murmured. “Come on… I need you more awake than this.”

  Caressing his face, I paused to stroke his hair, even as my light slid deeper into his. I felt him tense in my arms even as he leaned into me again, gripping my sides with his fingers. His light coiled into me harder, and I winced at the pain there, feeling it worsen on my end even as I struggled to keep us both shielded.

  I sat with my mostly-bare legs under me on the wet grass.

  He still lay more or less in my lap, his face pressed against my leg. We were further in the trees than when he first fell, but not much further. I hadn’t been able to drag him far. I couldn’t take the time to do it, or risk using the telekinesis.

  And Revik was really damned heavy.

  I could feel dawn approaching, for real now.

  Even so, the light hadn’t quite yet started to rise.

  I could see him, though, enough that I was having trouble controlling my light.

  He was a little more filled out than I remembered, like he hadn’t been running as much, or fighting as much in those past eight months. His face was bruised, although those bruises had mostly faded. It had cuts on it that he hadn’t had before he left, including one across his cheek that might have had stitches. I’d felt more on his neck and hairline.

  They were all more than half-healed, but I could tell some of them had been deep. Probably not deep enough to scar, since he was a seer, but deep enough to make me wince with pain whenever my fingers grazed one of them on acc
ident.

  I could feel other injuries on him.

  Bruised bones, more cuts.

  Things I couldn’t see.

  “Revik.” I murmured his name, kissing his face. “Come on, baby. Come back to me…”

  I’d spent over an hour on his light already.

  There was only so much I could do.

  I couldn’t detach him from the network. Not yet.

  A part of me wanted to so badly I almost couldn’t think rationally about it, but it would have defeated everything we were doing here, so I didn’t even let myself get very close to the different strands tying him to Menlim and the Dreng. I kept the silver light as far away from me as I could, focusing only on those higher areas of his light, the places where the Dreng and Menlim could not go. I knew they would feel me in his light anyway, but I also knew they would feel me there anyway, no matter where I was.

  I tried to make it look like he was dreaming about me.

  That we were dreaming about each other.

  After I’d gotten the specs and checked and rechecked them, I’d mostly been looking at what they’d done to him. I did that even more carefully than I’d done the other, hidden behind one of the most intense shields I’d ever used to disguise my light.

  I knew it might still not be enough, but I couldn’t seem to leave him alone.

  And while I couldn’t fix it yet, my light was already mapping out a plan for that, too.

  I was waiting for Jem now, for Balidor and Wreg. I was waiting for Jem to get the others up to speed, to tell them what we needed now that I had the connection.

  It was taking too long.

  Whatever he was doing, this was taking too fucking long.

  My fingers began combing through Revik’s hair again, noting another cut behind his ear, one on his hand where he held my arm––

  When a voice rose abruptly in my headset.

  “Alyson?”

  It was loud, shocking me with its immediacy.