I sat on the patio wall, leg drawn up to my chest, and stared sightlessly over the city, watching the golds and purples and reds of sunset turn the buildings into a hue of colors. Today had been too much—too much information, too much emotion, too many revelations that turned a lot of my preconceptions upside down. I felt shaken and unable to deal with it, so I didn’t. I sat there and just breathed.
No matter what Trammel said, I couldn’t agree with what Director Salvatore had done. I didn’t want to. Agreeing meant that all of those lives lost were an acceptable sacrifice and the moment I agreed to that, I became something else, something I wasn’t sure I could face in a mirror. The shards might have given us answers to questions we’d had for centuries, and it might lead to Toh’sellor’s complete downfall, yes. Toh’sellor grew stronger every year, became that much harder to manage, so I knew intellectually that just keeping him behind a barrier for the rest of time wasn’t a valid strategy either. Rationally, I knew the director had made the best call he could.
Emotionally I couldn’t agree. My heart kept breaking, over and over again, remembering what had happened in Njorage.
My mind bounced back and forth between the two thoughts, rationalizing and rejecting, over and over. I felt myself spiral down into a dark pit of negativity but felt helpless in pulling myself out of it.
The door to the balcony opened and a moment later a strong pair of arms went around my shoulders, a chin propped on top of my head. The knot of anxiety in my chest unraveled a little and I turned into Bannen, resting my forehead against the side of his neck, and breathed. He always smelled so good, like musk and sunshine. I was never quite sure how he knew I needed him at moments like these, whether the bond prompted him or if he just understood me that well, but I felt grateful for it either way.
We stayed like that for a long time, not speaking, and I sensed that he felt just as disturbed by this turn of events. I maneuvered an arm free so I could sling it around his waist, pulling him in a little closer, and felt better for it. I would say that physical contact always made the bond happier and that’s why I did it, but I’d stopped telling myself that lie long ago. I knew very well what made me turn toward this man in my arms and the bond had little to do with it.
“Still want to join the MISD?” he asked me softly.
I snorted. “If we continue to work with them after this, it will be in a consulting only position. I retain the right to look that man in the eye when he tells me to do something stupid and say: You’re a sarding idiot.”
I could feel him smile as he pressed a quick kiss against the crown of my head. “If you ever do tell him that, I reserve the right to be in the room when you do it.”
“Of course.” Somehow I had the idea I really would be put in that position. Sooner rather than later. My mind turned to the other things we had talked about and I didn’t really want to ask, but the words left my mouth regardless. “The plan we hashed out, will it really work?”
“I doubt this particular plan is going to survive first contact,” Bannen stated bluntly. “We’re working on guesswork as much as intel, but Maksohm seems to realize that and is being as flexible as possible. I do think we’re going to be taxed to the max trying to do this with just fifty people but he’s right—if this is all we have to work with, we’ll have to make do. The situation is going to get worse, not better, and giving ourselves more time isn’t going to better the odds.”
Unfortunately true on all accounts. “If I had any temptation at all of staying with the MISD it would be because of Maksohm. And Yez.”
“And Vee and Chi,” he agreed with a pleased sound that bordered on a chuckle. “I like them too.”
Once again words left my mouth without my conscious decision. “This is going to be insanely dangerous.”
“I know it. I’m actually glad we’re doing this now, because if we’d tried right after we bonded, I likely wouldn’t have been able to let you go in. Even after two years of practice of keeping the bond in line, I’m not sure how well I’m going to respond to that much danger.”
I felt exactly the same, if for different reasons. “I wish Master Mary could go with us.”
“Me too. Just one more Void Mage would make an amazing difference. But she’s really in no shape to be up there.”
I nodded in unhappy agreement. Mary could barely get around outside her cottage these days. At nearly eighty years old, it was understandable, if sad. I really wished we’d discovered all of this even two years ago, as Mary’s health had been better then, and we might have been able to borrow her help. “I’m going to have to be sufficient for this.”
He turned his head toward me, saying the words against my skin. “That isn’t all that’s worrying you.”
“No,” I admitted heavily. “I went through Trammel’s notes while you were getting Yez, Vee, and Chi up to speed. What he found isn’t…well, it isn’t promising. Downright disturbing, actually. He’s right in that Toh’sellor’s energy isn’t something we’ve seen before. Part of it is disturbingly close to my own magic, if different,” and I still didn’t know what to think of that and I didn’t want to think about it, either, “but there’s part of it that is completely unquantifiable. I literally have never seen the like before. The shards are different from the main body, more a makeup of energy and elements that he can push through to the outside. Even those gave me a little trouble at first, at least until I figured out where the core was, and destroyed it. The problem is, I don’t think the main body of Toh’sellor is going to be the same as the shards.”
“You think it’s going to be just different enough that you won’t be able to destroy it?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted with a wince. I hated those words, it felt like sour lemons leaving my mouth. “I honestly don’t know. I’m afraid we’ll get up there, I’ll look straight into that thing, and not have a clue how to defeat it. It will be devastating if that happens.”
“Don’t borrow trouble before you need to,” Bannen counseled, hugging me tighter for a moment. “It could be like the first shard you ran across. You didn’t know what to do with that one either, at first.”
True. “I’m just saying, I might not be able to figure this out quickly, so whatever plan you and Maksohm have made? Be sure that we have enough support for me to just sit and study that thing for an hour because I might need that much time.”
“Okay.” He fell silent again, for a long moment, and when he spoke again the words were barely loud enough to stir the air. “When we’re done with this, what do you want to do? Go back to Corcoran?”
Strangely enough, that question was harder to answer than any other I’d been presented with today. “To visit, yes.” That much I was sure of. My mouth worked to frame the words as I struggled to put what I felt into the open. “I’m not sure if I can live there again for any length of time, honestly. Growing up there, with all of the rules and restrictions, I just got used to it. I didn’t question it, it’s just how things were. But now, after living in Turransky, and visiting Z’gher, and traveling between continents like this, I realize just how close-minded Corcoran is. I think I’d chaff living there now.”
“I wondered if that would happen. Living in other countries always broadens a person’s mind.”
I heard it in his voice and I pulled back a little, just enough to look at his face. “You’re relieved.”
“Corcoran is not my favorite place,” he admitted frankly. “So if you want to live somewhere else, I’m all for that idea. Just not Z’gher, please.”
That made me laugh. “Maybe we should consider Turransky? I worry about Master Mary and Gill. They don’t have any children to look after them.”
“Sure they do. Us.”
I beamed up at him. “How come you always have the perfect answer?”
He waggled his eyebrows outrageously. “Because I’m perfect. Next question.”
Laughing, I mock punched him in the chest. “You’re ridiculous, is what you are. Turransky, then
? Although we’ll have to find a way to get better communications going because finding a job while living in that village is not going to be easy.”
“Maybe we should live the next town over,” Bannen suggested. “It’s larger, better access to information, and only a half hour ride from Mary and Gill. Close enough to help.”
“It doesn’t sound like a bad idea. We’ll have to do more research and planning when we get back.” It’s not like either of us had a lot to our name, as we’d been too busy studying the past two years to accumulate many possessions. Moving anywhere would be easy at this juncture. “I’m not sure how my family is going to take the idea of me living in Turransky, though.”
“They weren’t happy about you even studying there.” Bannen made a face. “But I’m with you, I really don’t want to live in Corcoran.”
“We’re grown adults,” I stated more confidently than I felt. “Our families can disagree all they want but that doesn’t mean we have to do things their way.”
“Who are you trying to convince?” he asked, eyes crinkling up at the corners.
“Me,” I admitted and watched him laugh. “Do you still have hang-ups of ‘must obey parents’ or is it just me?”
“I do too, from time to time. I ignore it. It’s better for my mental health.”
Having met his father, I believed it. Every overprotective instinct Bannen has he got honestly through genetics. A stray thought came into focus and I ducked my head down, leaning against him before he could read it on my face. If we weren’t going to live in Corcoran…if we weren’t going to really go back there, then that meant I didn’t have to be beholden to their rules. If we lived in Turransky instead, would I be able to follow their traditions?
Could I actually have Bannen the way I wanted?
Two years ago, when Mary had so factually informed me that Bannen and I were engaged, I hadn’t known what to make of it. Corcoran had drilled it into my head that he was my familiar, nothing more or less. Bannen had taken the news and ran with it, one joke after the next, never for a moment taking it seriously. Even now he joked about it, and while the laughter was a little strained sometimes, I knew he found the idea of us being more strange.
But if we lived in Turransky…my mind took hold of this idea, spinning out possibilities, images of what could be, and I felt my breath catch in my throat. If we lived there, would the influence of traditions give me a chance? Would I be able to break through that barrier of jokes and dry humor to show Bannen that I didn’t want to obey Corcoran’s stupid rules? That being engaged to him was my fondest dream?
I didn’t know. But for this, I was willing to take the chance.
“After we defeat Toh’sellor,” I said as honestly as I could, “we’ll have a lot of planning to do. Let’s go straight back to Turransky when we’re done.”
“No visiting family first?”
“We’ll be exhausted when all of this is over. You really want to visit your family afterwards?”
“Ah, no, that’s a good point, those visits are never restful. Rest first, family later.”
Pleased he agreed, I let out a happy sigh and hum.
“You’re tired,” he murmured into my hair. “Come on, up you go. Your beddy-bye is calling to you.”
“Bed actually does sound good.” Amazing how exhausting yelling at people was. I stifled a yawn as I let go of him, making my way into my room. With the promise of a future that I dearly wanted hovering in the wings, I felt like I could sleep tonight and get through the terrible days ahead. I could have everything I wanted.
I just had to survive this nightmare first.
The fifty agents we needed were not all stationed in one place. With an organization spread out like this, I hadn’t expected that to be the case. Director Salvatore sent out marching orders to people and left the timing for our departure up to Maksohm. Our team leader grabbed the equipment and half the supplies we needed, spending a day getting ready, and then shooed us all onto a train heading northwest, toward Z’gher.
Even though we traveled toward my home country, I had no intention of calling my family or trying to swing by for a visit. If they had any idea what I was up to they’d have conniptions. Besides, we didn’t have the time to stay and visit as they would demand. Better to get this done, then speak to them.
We left early in the morning, barely after sunrise, and since no one was awake at that hour, it remained quiet for a while. One would think, because we were going on an insanely dangerous mission, that the mood in the train car would be somber and taut. Since Chi was with us, that didn’t happen. He had never met a silence he couldn’t cheerfully break.
After his third cup of coffee, he abruptly snapped up, like a fox popping out of its den. “I’m awake!” he announced cheerfully.
Nora groaned from behind her report. “Heaven spare us.”
“Now, now,” he chided, “it’s better to talk on long journeys like this. Besides, there’s certain ground rules when on death-defying missions, and our newcomers need to know them,” Chi explained with the most solemn expression I had ever seen from him, so of course I knew not to take a word he said next seriously. “The first is: do not get into Vee’s chocolate stash. She’ll murder you. With a sock.”
“Chinna,” Vee growled in exasperation, trying to stretch her legs out into the aisle, and only ending up a little more squashed into the corner in the process, “I don’t care if someone steals a little chocolate, that’s fine, it’s when they don’t ask permission first and then proceed to eat all of it.”
Chi acted as if she hadn’t interrupted. “Seriously. With a sock. I had to buy her three times the amount I ate to get her to stop chasing me, and believe me, this woman can RUN. Her legs are not that long for show.”
Nora stopped pretending to read a mission report, and Rena blinked her eyes open, no longer feigning a nap. Since his distraction was working, I egged him on. “I promise to keep my grubby mitts off the chocolate. Rule two?”
“If there are any flying monkeys in the area, they are to be eliminated with extreme prejudice. I mean it. Extreme. Prejudice.”
I snorted a laugh. “Njorage?”
Chi growled, huffed, and refused to answer.
Stifling a smile, Vee offered, “Not just Njorage, although that was definitely the worst situation. You know how mosquitoes like certain people over others? How some people attract flies and others can walk through a swamp with only one bite to show for it? Chi’s like that with monkeys. If he gets anywhere within a mile of a nest of monkeys, they converge on him, and they’re ruthless about it. The last time, he got swarmed by about twenty of them and by the time we got them off, he was covered in bites. He looked like a bleeding leper.”
“I hate,” Chi gritted out between clenched teeth, “monkeys.”
Rena laid a consoling hand on his shoulder. “If any monkeys show up I promise that I won’t desert you, Chi. I’ll fight them off to the death.”
Chi beamed at her. “I knew you were my favorite for a reason. Anyway, rule three: if we camp out at night, the only person allowed to use Vee as a body pillow is me. I know that she’s warm, and she’s marvelously comfortable, but I have called dibs on her. I will not share.”
I expected a riposte of some sort from Vee but she only rolled her eyes. No one else within earshot even looked remotely surprised. Rena laughed as if she thought Chi was joking but I knew he wasn’t. I remembered most of our drunken conversation. This was some part of Vee that Chi had managed to carve out for himself and he had no intentions of begrudging anyone else the same privilege. For whatever reason, Vee allowed it. I smiled to keep the lighthearted feeling up even though I knew this rule, at least, Chi wholeheartedly meant. “Noted. Rule four?”
“If we’re in any sort of fatal funnel, go right foot first.”
“Now I know you’re making stuff up,” Rena drawled.
“No, no,” Vee assured her, lips twitching suspiciously. “Bad things have happened when we went left foot first
. Always lead with the right.”
Maksohm cleared his throat. “If you two are quite done? I’d like to talk about things they actually need to know.”
“Our rules are more fun,” Chi informed him, pouting.
“You can play with your new toys later,” Maksohm promised dryly. “Bannen, Rena, we’ll actually be passing through Turransky on our way to Z’gher and staying in Heaberlin.”
I nodded, as that made perfect sense. There’s a port in Heaberlin that offered ferries to cross over into Z’gher. I’d used them quite a few times myself.
“We have to register with the Heaberlin Office and get tickets there before crossing, so I need to clarify something. You mentioned before that in Turransky tradition, you’re engaged. Is that legally the case? Because if so, I have to register you as an engaged couple.”
I felt completely blindsided by the question although I shouldn’t have been, as I knew that Turransky had interesting culture quirks like that. They didn’t want men and women staying together in the same berth unless they were family or engaged somehow. Of course he would have to report that if we were to stay within a close proximity to each other. I turned to Rena, as I honestly had no clue how she wanted to handle this.
“Wait, that’s not a joke?” Yez asked in surprise.
Rena leaned around me to meet Maksohm’s eyes calmly. “We’re engaged.”
A part of my heart unclenched at those words and even if she meant only legally, only in Turransky, I loved hearing her say that. For a moment, just a moment, I basked in the feeling that she was mine. It was a bittersweet feeling because even though my mind replayed her words on an endless loop, I knew that part of her didn’t mean it.
Nora spluttered. “Maksohm, I’m going to court-marital you!”
I found this a little extreme but Maksohm just rolled his eyes. “What am I being charged with this time? Leaving you out of the gossip?”
“Non-disclosure of vital information pertaining to strategic interactions between members of an elite and highly-classified team,” she riposted promptly.
The Void Mage (The Familiar and Mage Book 2) Page 20