The memory made my chest hurt briefly.
I felt amusement on Revik, though.
He tried to say something to me, but I couldn’t quite get it through the collar. I was still straining to hear him when a voice jerked me out of my attempt.
“You might want to take care with that, Alyson,” it said.
I looked up, a little thrown to see Vash standing there. I admit I felt relief the instant I made out his features, though.
I noticed he wasn’t alone.
A woman stood beside him.
The first thing I noticed about her, apart from her delicate, porcelain beauty, was her eyes. Bright yellow and sharp as the sun, they contained vertical pupils, like a cat’s. They stared at me unapologetically, holding an overt curiosity, tinged with a faint aggression. She wore an embroidered, traditionally Chinese-style dress dyed a deep, indigo blue, with a black sash. Her face was striking, hard to look away from.
She didn’t look Chinese, though, not really. She didn’t look anywhere near as Chinese as Wreg, for example, but that hardly mattered since I knew she had to be a seer.
She asked Vash something in what sounded like Mandarin.
I gave Vash a questioning look.
“Yes,” Vash said to the woman. He spoke Prexci, smiling at me. “Yes, this is indeed her. Alyson the Bridge.”
The woman’s mouth quirked.
I wasn’t sure how to take that expression.
“Is she as young as she looks?” the strange woman said, switching to heavily-accented Prexci. “She looks very young… her light,” she clarified, still fixing me with that narrow stare. “She looks recently awakened. Untrained.”
Frowning, and suddenly reminded of Kat’s initial reaction to me in Seattle, I found myself taking in the woman more warily.
She stood at probably six-two. Not at all unheard-of for female seers, but still fairly formidable. Her black hair had been done up in what looked like a traditional Chinese design, with a high bun fixed in place by a jeweled comb that left long pieces hanging down on either side of a face with dramatic cheek bones. The black sash cinching her silk dress showed a narrow waist between long, butterfly sleeves that made her look, yet again, like someone out of a Kung Fu movie.
She didn’t look Chinese, though––not exactly, as I said.
She did look like she belonged here, however.
The clothing and the hair appeared so natural on her, I could only assume she’d adopted the style as her own, and quite some time ago.
Maybe she was the assassin.
Vash smiled a little wider. “This is Voi-pai, Alyson. She leads the Lao Hu. They are a sort of Adhipan-like group based out of China.”
“The Tiger People,” I muttered. “I remember.”
I struggled to sit up more, interested in spite of myself.
I remembered hearing about the Tiger People from Balidor’s debriefings, way back when Terian had been starting wars between the United States and China. Luckily, all of the war-mongering died down fast once the Speaker of the House took over, since neither the President nor the Vice President survived the raid on D.C.
I was reasonably sure the woman in charge of the United States now wasn’t affiliated with Terian’s old group––or a seer herself. In any case, President Brooks had deescalated hostilities with China within weeks of stepping into office.
Not like she had much choice.
She had her hands full with extremist human and seer terrorism at home. Hell, half the country had been rioting for those first few months. If they’d tried to fight China, too, the government might have imploded.
So far, I liked Brooks. She seemed pretty level-headed.
I frowned a little, trying to get my brain working, to remember more about what Balidor had told me about the Lao Hu.
I knew Chinese humans had a different relationship to seers than the rest of the world.
From the very beginning, China adopted seers in almost a proprietary fashion, as a kind of cultural mascot. Not long after official First Contact at the beginning of the Twentieth Century, the Chinese government invited a group of seers from the Pamir to come live with the royal family of the Chinese Emperor, the god-ruler of the time. Those seers who accepted were brought to live inside the Forbidden City in Beijing.
Since the Chinese Royal Family made the request formally and only accepted volunteers, the arrangement was never viewed negatively by seers themselves. If anything, it had been seen as an anthropological opportunity of sorts, even an honor.
Those early seer scientists and their children became the Lao Hu, or Tiger People.
Now, a little more than a century later, the Lao Hu were considered some of the most elite infiltrators in the world. Intensely loyal to the Chinese––in part from seeing the carnage and mistreatment of their seer families by other human cultures––they took the view that Chinese humans were a more enlightened form of humanity.
Mythology blended on both sides.
As the Chinese incorporated elements of the Third Myth of the seers into their own national religions, so the seers themselves grew to believe that they were warrior sages who would lead the worthy among the Chinese to the next evolutionary level.
Because they viewed the approach of most humans to seers as barbaric, at best, the Chinese continued to allow their elite seer friends, the Lao Hu, to live within the Forbidden City’s walls, as a form of mutual protection. Ancestor worship played a part in both religions, as well, and in the Chinese version of the myth, the Lao Hu had been incorporated into the halls of the most ancient Chinese families, thus entwining their futures even further.
Of course, by now, the Lao Hu also figured prominently into Chinese national security.
It made sense that Balidor would bring us here.
It was about the only place left Revik might actually be cautious about approaching.
“It is true,” Vash said, in response to my thoughts. “The Chinese are less naïve about seers. And the Lao Hu, of course, are quite powerful infiltrators.”
He smiled, bowing respectfully to the female, Voi Pai.
“It makes them slightly paranoid about your presence here, Alyson,” Vash added somewhat apologetically, although I wasn’t sure to whom. “They know where the Bridge goes, divisiveness tends to follow.” He smiled wider, winking at me as he glanced at Voi Pai. “They are a little wary of my presence here, as well, if it reassures you.”
The female seer folded elegant arms in front of the indigo dress. Without taking her eyes off me, she gave an articulate sniff at Vash’s words.
“No,” she said, her eyes boring into mine. “It is this one we fear, old man.”
I flinched at the lack of respect she showed Vash. But I held her gaze, feeling her push at me, trying to see how I would react.
Tightening my light around myself, I smiled at her.
“Of course, I am extremely grateful for your hospitality,” I said, gesturing respectfully. “I would never knowingly or willingly bring harm to you or your people, respected Voi Pai.”
She smiled thinly. “Maybe not, Esteemed One. But you have already made us very visible. Too visible, in my opinion. To the wrong sorts of factions.”
She paused, looking at Vash, her voice and eyes hard.
“She brings Death to us, old man.”
Vash purred, holding out his hands in a gesture I recognized as a seer apology. Clearly, her informality didn’t bother him.
But then, not much bothered Vash, really.
“Death,” I muttered. I studied her gaze. “I take it you mean that literally, sister? You’re not being poetic?”
She turned on me, her vertical pupils contracting to slits.
“Why did you come here?” she demanded.
I raised an eyebrow, combing my long, rather greasy hair out of my face with my fingers. Looking down at my body without the sheet, it occurred to me that I wore nothing but a white silk shirt and a pair of boxer shorts. I still found it uncomfortable to loo
k at my legs and arms, with how thin they were. I’d need to do something about that, and soon.
“Didn’t Vash tell you?” I said to her.
“I wish to hear the reasons from you. If it pleases… Esteemed One.”
I hesitated, then gestured apologetically. “I was asleep, I’m afraid. I did not make the decisions for this leg of our journey.”
“Who did?”
“If I was asleep, honorable Voi Pai, then how would I know that, either?”
Vash smiled at this, clicking humorously.
Voi Pai, however, did not appear amused. Her eyes narrowed further.
It occurred to me again that she looked almost like a statue, with her flawless pale skin and that black hair swept up above an athletically thin but voluptuous body. She reminded me of a Eurasian version of Ullysa, an infiltrator and prostitute Revik had befriended during his years watching over me in the United States.
But that comparison wasn’t quite right, either. Voi Pai’s whole being exuded power, whereas Ullysa’s exuded a kind of calm repose.
That same power in Voi Pai’s light made her difficult to look away from, and intimidatingly beautiful, even without the silk dress and dramatic make up.
She quirked her lips at me, but her eyes only hardened more.
“Do not tempt me, Bridge,” she said. “Only a fool would lie with the mate of Syrimne d’Gaos.”
Her eyes drifted out the door to my right, where I glimpsed the overhanging trees of a sculpture-filled garden. I saw flowers there too, what looked like cherry blossoms.
Inhaling deeply, I realized I could even smell them.
Replaying her words, I smiled in spite of myself.
“I wasn’t asking,” I said.
The woman frowned again, her yellow eyes swiveling back to mine.
After another pause, she looked away, clicking softly to herself as her eyes roved over the room’s walls. Even the way she clicked seemed to carry an accent. She gestured fluidly with one hand, a sign of respect.
Her words carried less respect.
“Why don’t you run along now, little Bridge?” she said. “We honor you, but we do not want you here. Go back to your mate. Reassure him for awhile until he stops making war with us.”
I swallowed, looking from her stone-smooth face back to Vash.
“Is that a possibility?” I said to him in English.
“Do you want it to be, Alyson?” the old seer asked.
“I meant,” I said, feeling my jaw harden. “Is he here? Revik?”
“He will be, soon enough, I’m sure,” another voice said.
I turned my head, and found myself looking at Balidor.
“…Especially with the way you’re constantly telling him where you are with your light whenever you wake,” he finished, giving me a wry smile.
Humor stood in his eyes, but it struck me as a mask.
Beneath that mask, he looked exhausted. His gray eyes appeared clouded, and he had at least two days’ growth of gray and red-streaked beard. Beneath that, his chiseled face looked thinner than I remembered, and older, too.
He entered through the same open door to the garden where I’d seen the cherry blossoms. He wore a black cotton outfit that looked vaguely Chinese, but positively Western compared to Voi Pai’s get-up. It reminded me more of the formal costume of the Adhipan, which I’d only seen worn in sims and through Barrier glimpses.
Behind Balidor stood Dorje, Jon and Cass. Baguen stood behind them, too, looking even larger inside the carved wooden doorway, with the light from the gardens at his back.
“Do you wish us all dead so much?” Balidor added, raising an eyebrow at me. “Or is it only me you’d like to see in such a state?”
I rolled my eyes at him, but I didn’t look at him long. I could feel Revik around me again, although the collar seemed to be blocking most of his light again, mysteriously.
Glancing for only a hair’s breadth at Balidor, I wondered how much of that had to do with him.
When I looked back at the woman, I saw her scrutiny trained unmistakably on Balidor. She measured him with her eyes, the same way she had me. Then she looked between the Adhipan leader and me, and smiled without humor.
“As I said,” she murmured. “…Only a fool.”
Her eyes stayed on Balidor a beat longer, then swiveled back to me.
Refolding her arms, she stepped closer to where I lay. “He is angry, your Death,” she said, matter-of-fact. She looked back at Balidor. “Especially at you.” Smiling, she made her voice coy. “What did you do to make him so angry, Adhipan leader?”
“He shot me,” I said.
Voi Pai smiled wider. She looked again at Balidor, then back at me.
“Is this true?”
I nodded, wincing a little as I straightened more.
“He shot me in a good way, though. Right, ‘Dori?”
Balidor’s eyes relaxed. His smile seemed almost genuine. “It was very well intended, Esteemed Bridge.”
“You see?” I told the woman. “One big happy family.”
Voi Pai continued to hold my gaze. I felt her light coil briefly around mine, but didn’t get even a whisper of her thoughts in that rather overly-intimate pass through my aleimi. Something told me I wouldn’t have gotten much even without the collar.
I was still trying to decide what to say to her, when I found myself staring at the woman walking into the room from behind her. My chest clenched. I felt Revik react as I grasped the side of the bedposts, gesturing towards Balidor.
“Gun,” I said to him. I stared at the approaching female, backing into the wooden headrest. “Gun, Balidor!”
“They do not let me carry in here, Alyson!” he said.
I couldn’t take my eyes off the new woman’s face.
Elan Raven stood next to Voi Pai, her striking, turquoise-blue eyes boring into mine. The last time I’d seen those eyes, I’d been in a cage in the basement of the White House, naked and beaten bloody by one of Terian’s bodies, who’d decided to rape me. I stared up at that angular face and felt my chest clench again, remembering her staring at me with that same expression through the bars of the organic cage.
Revik’s attempts to reach me grew more urgent.
“What is she doing here?” I demanded of Voi Pai, my eyes still on Raven.
Voi Pai looked at Raven, then smiled.
“She is my guest, Esteemed Bridge,” she purred liquidly. “And my blood cousin. There is no message here, in terms of your safety. She will not harm you.”
At her openly scornful tone, I felt my jolt of fear bleed into something closer to rage. I sat up taller in the cushions, gripping the wooden walls of the bed, my jaw hard.
“And if I asked you to kill your blood cousin, devoted Voi Pai of the Lao Hu,” I said, still staring at Raven. “As a favor to the Bridge, one of your intermediaries… would you comply?”
“Al!” Jon said, his voice shocked.
I turned on him, switching to English. “This bitch watched Terian rape me, Jon. She watched me bleed on the floor of a metal cage for hours… then lied about it to the boy to save her own ass. I almost died. I probably would have died, if Nenzi hadn’t come along when he did.”
Jon didn’t have an answer for that. He looked at Raven, then back at me.
“Oh,” he said.
Raven glanced at Balidor, and at the seers from the Adhipan who had moved closer from the garden. She studied their faces, one by one, with narrow eyes, then looked back at Balidor, who she seemed to recognize.
I saw fear in her eyes, as she looked at him.
Balidor’s face looked guarded now, too. He had taken a few steps closer to the bed, so that he stood between Raven and I.
“Do I have no authority here?” I asked the Lao Hu leader.
Voi Pai studied me clinically, her yellow eyes holding more interest. Not surprisingly, I had gone up some in her estimation once I started ordering beheadings.
Raven startled me then. She bowed to me dee
ply, falling to one knee.
“I humbly apologize for my hand in your captivity, Bridge Alyson,” she said. Her voice trembled, enough that I almost believed it. “My loyalties at the time may have been misguided, Esteemed Sister, but I assure you, I meant only the best for the Bridge and her mission here. I thought it was advantageous for you to mate with the boy, and you seemed unwilling to do so.”
Her turquoise eyes looked down the length of my body.
Panicking at my hard glare, she looked up at Voi Pai, as if for help, and I saw from her eyes that it wasn’t all an act. I’d actually managed to scare her.
“Whatever I can do to make amends, Bridge Alyson, I will do. I will gladly pay any compensation you deem appropriate. I will wait on you. Serve you––”
“Where is Maygar?” I said.
Balidor and the others looked at me in surprise. I felt my jaw harden.
I hadn’t told them everything that happened in D.C. For one thing, I’d been fairly certain Revik wouldn’t be the only one who’d want Maygar dead after they found out he’d played a part in my captivity there.
“Maygar, Esteemed one?” Raven said.
My jaw hardened further.
“…I apologize, Bridge Alyson,” she amended swiftly. “My son is no longer in China, Esteemed One. I meant only to protect him.”
“Where is he?” I said.
“New York City, Esteemed Bridge,” Raven said promptly.
Nodding, I folded my arms, then winced sharply when the position pulled at the still-healing gunshot wound. I placed my arms back at my sides, still grimacing from the pain.
“You are staying then?” Voi Pai asked me, her eyes wary.
When I looked at her, frowning, she made the respectful gesture again, the one reserved for holy sages, or members of the Council.
“You are of course welcome to stay, Bridge Alyson,” she said politely, although I heard something else altogether in her tone. “For as long as you desire.”
I glanced at Balidor.
He quirked an eyebrow at me in return, but I saw the humor in his eyes. It struck me that he found it funny I’d just now realized I had authority over these people.
I considered demanding a turkey pot pie, but somehow I doubted they’d get the joke.
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