Sword

by JC Andrijeski

  Vash appeared undaunted by the infiltrator’s anger. His smile widened.

  “I am seeing some very favorable signs, yes,” he said, winking at Cass.

  “Favorable signs of what?” Balidor said, his voice less respectful. “Of this foolishness you convinced her of? That she might manage to affect his light as well? I think we can see the effects of that little experiment, Vash.”

  “Oh, I think there is little doubt of that,” Vash said. “I believe she is affecting his light a great deal, Adhipan Leader Balidor.” His smile widened more, matching the amusement in his eyes. “Very much indeed.”

  Cass saw Jon and Balidor exchange looks, their eyes openly skeptical.

  She didn’t have to be a seer to know they were wondering if the old man had gone a bit senile, too.

  41

  BONDING

  I GLANCED UP from where I leaned against Revik’s chest, hearing another cheer go up from the group at the front of the room.

  We were in the largest of the common rooms, back in the main compound in Asia. Maybe twenty other seers shared the room with us, including most of the team that had been with me in the Black Arrow building. We’d gotten back only the day before, and I still felt jet-lagged, despite how much I slept on the plane ride over––most of it curled up in Revik’s lap, in the last row of seats in the main cabin.

  I couldn’t hear the broadcasters’ words on the feed monitor they were watching, but I could see my face up on the giant screen, even from all the way across the room. The young seers sitting under the monitor squished together on a long couch, drinking and eating and talking amongst themselves as the news feeds continued to play.

  When I looked back at him, Revik smiled.

  I saw that glimmer of pride in his eyes, just before he tugged on my arm, pulling me back to him so he could give me a kiss.

  “Are they going to do that every time they show that damned clip?” I felt a glimmer of pain again, right before I looked back at the image of me on the feeds. “It’s not exactly making me feel better about this whole…” I gestured around the room. “…Operation, you know? The screams of joy at my murder spree?”

  He clicked at me softly, shaking his head. He kissed my palm, then my wrist, caressing my arm. He was pulling on me again, and it distracted me, in spite of everything.

  “I think you’re misunderstanding it, wife,” he said softly. “They’re not cheering out of bloodlust. It’s because we’re alive. It’s because we destroyed the mainframe.” He kissed my neck. “Most of them have family in the camps, Allie. Most of those following me are the strays. They’re the ones who got pulled into the system as kids… either sold or stolen.”

  Looking back at him, I felt my jaw tighten.

  “How do you do that?” I said. “How do you manage to make me feel guilty because I’m not happier about this?”

  He looked genuinely surprised.

  “You think I want you to be happy about this?”

  Sighing a little, I tugged on his hair. “No.”

  He slid an arm around me, bringing me up against him. I felt that pull on him, strong enough that I closed my eyes, trying to think past it.

  Something was going on with us again.

  We weren’t talking about it, but it was making it really hard to concentrate around him, which hadn’t been easy at the best of times. I even wondered if it was from me using the telekinesis during the op, but it started before we’d left for South America.

  He kissed my throat, pulling sensually on my light, sucking lightly on my skin. Closing my eyes, I opened them on the room in front of me, feeling light-headed. When I did, I saw eyes shift away as a number of seers blushed, knowing I’d caught them staring at us.

  Great. We were affecting the others again, too.

  “Allie,” he said. “You would not have killed if it wasn’t for me. That makes me twice responsible. For hurting your soul… and for the deaths themselves.”

  At my frown, he clicked at me.

  “I know you do not think of soul like this…”

  I shook my head. “It’s not that. You aren’t responsible for me, Revik.”

  “It was my operation. I invited you along.”

  “Yeah,” I muttered, glancing back at the screen. “But you’re not ‘telekinetic, erratic,’” I said. “You wouldn’t have killed them.”

  “Exactly.” He turned my chin with his fingers so that I faced him. “I wrote that description. I knew exactly where you were with the telekinesis. That makes it even more my fault. I don’t understand how you don’t see that.” His eyes hardened. “I really thought you’d be angry with me for this. You probably should be angry with me, Allie.”

  He glanced over my shoulder at the group sitting in front of the monitor.

  “I brought up the other not to convince you it was right, but only for their sake. Try not to judge them,” he said, his voice apologetic. “Especially the young ones. This feels like winning to them. For some, it is winning for the first time in their lives. I would not take that away from them.” He gestured with one hand, adding, “It is different with us. We are not like them. We should talk about our misgivings in private. Same as strategy.”

  Thinking about his words, I looked over at the cluster of seers, most of whom sat crammed together on a number of couches and on the floor.

  I heard the message behind Revik’s words.

  He wanted me to think of myself as their leader––to see them as my responsibility, the way he did. He wanted me to share that responsibility with him. The idea frightened me somewhat, but I also felt the part of me that accepted it, maybe even wanted it.

  Still looking at the seers sitting under the monitor, I also realized he was right. Most of them were young, some very young, in seer years. Most had been slaves. The older seers were, on the whole, a lot quieter as they watched the feeds.

  Pulling my mind off the op before it could drift into more depressing waters, I caressed Revik’s arm, focusing on the tattoo on his bicep.

  “What does that mean?” I asked him. “Are you ever going to tell me?”

  I touched the band of black text highlighted by a paler blue that didn’t seem to have faded much with time. The bright colors made it difficult to tell when he’d gotten it. He told me once it was from a long time ago––but that was back when we were still on the ship and he couldn’t remember the specifics around what it was or why he’d gotten it.

  The text coiled his upper arm like a snake bracelet, circling his bicep almost three times, with six lines of script separated by a different symbol or pattern between each line. He wore ident tats too, of course, including the barcode on his arm and the “H” designation he still had from working among humans, along with a clan tat and the sword and sun.

  But he didn’t wear a whole lot of ink, compared to most of his seers.

  I caressed the text again, unable to let it go. It wound into the pulling until I found myself kissing his arm. I could tell it came from one of the older seer texts, but it wasn’t Prexci.

  “It’s ironic, you know,” I said. “You’re the only one on your team who doesn’t wear the Sword and Sun.”

  “I do.” He tapped his shoulder with a finger.

  “But not in the same place.” I caressed the text again, kissing his throat. “It’s not Prexci. Will you tell me what language it is, at least?”

  “It’s older than Prexci,” he said, propping his jaw on a hand. He smiled at me, twisting my hair into his fingers. “Your hair is really long,” he said, tugging on it gently. “Even longer than in Delhi. It’s really beautiful, Allie.”

  “What does it mean?”

  He smiled at me, tugging my hair again.

  Clicking at him, I rolled my eyes. “You really aren’t going to tell me? It’s on your body, Revik. Are you really going to make me do this the hard way? Where I take an image of it while you sleep, have one of your people look it up for me?”

  “You could ask Wreg,” he said, still sm
iling. “He knows.”

  I glanced over my shoulder at where Wreg sat on a recliner next to the couch filled with young seers. His eyes shone dully, still tired from the trip. I looked back at Revik.

  “I’m asking you.”

  Revik’s eyes grew predatory again, even as his fingers tightened on my skin. He started kissing my shoulder, pulling on my light with each touch of his mouth. Sighing in exasperation, I rolled onto my stomach, resting my face on my arm. His fingers kept touching my skin, moving aside clothing to reach more of it.

  I said, “You’re impossible, you know that? The king of diversion.”

  When I glanced up, his smile widened, but I saw that look there again.

  “Allie, it’s just embarrassing.”

  “Why?” I turned to look at him. “It’s a tattoo. Who cares? You’ve had it a long time, right?”

  “Since my late twenties.” He frowned, thinking. “No, I was in my early thirties by then. But young.”

  “So… what does it mean?”

  Letting his head slide down to his bicep, he just looked up at me for a moment, still caressing my back with one hand.

  “There’s a story behind it,” he said.

  “I figured.” I smiled.

  “You may not like all of it,” he said.

  I felt my smile grow stiff. I tried to think of a good answer and couldn’t. Finally, I shrugged, feeling his eyes studying mine.

  “You don’t have to tell me,” I said.

  He exhaled in a sigh. “No, I do,” he said. “Now I do.”

  Tugging on my hair again, he averted his gaze, looking out over the other seers in the room. I saw his gaze recede just before he sighed again, still tugging absently at my hair.

  “There was a girl I liked,” he said, his voice low. Glancing at me, he must have seen something in my expression, because he tugged on my hair harder, kissing my mouth. “It wasn’t anything, Allie… just a crush. I was young.”

  I nodded, but didn’t really meet his gaze. Without my willing it, my eyes glanced at the cluster of young female seers at the front of the room.

  I’d never gotten a tattoo for anyone. Not even Jaden.

  “I was fighting for extra money then,” he said. “…and she got off on it, I think. She liked me when I was all bloodied up from a fight.”

  I nodded, doing my best to keep my mind blank.

  “…I got sick of it after awhile,” he said. “She and I didn’t have much in common other than that…”

  “Other than sex, you mean,” I supplied helpfully.

  His eyes narrowed. “Yeah.” Hesitating, he shrugged with one hand. “I told her I didn’t want to see her anymore, and she got pissed off. She had her brothers jump me… revenge, I guess. They got me after a night of fighting, and a day spent training in the hills with Menlim. They worked me over pretty good…”

  Wincing as I picked up flashes of this, feeling flickers of his physical pain, I caressed his hand. For a moment, it felt like we were alone again. He studied my eyes.

  “I think she felt she’d lowered herself, Allie, sleeping with me. She was human… she knew what I was. I think it pissed her off, that I could break things off so easily with her.” He shrugged. “She got her brothers to teach me a lesson.”

  His voice turned bitter towards the end.

  “I got the tattoo to remind myself––” he began.

  “––that humans suck?” I said, only half-kidding.

  “No, Allie.” His eyes grew serious. “To remind me what real love is. That all of the other things people do to one another… it doesn’t matter.”

  I bit my lip, but didn’t let my eyes wander back to the front of the room.

  I wondered if he was trying to make me jealous, or if he was just being oblivious.

  He kissed my mouth, his voice soft. “Neither, darling,” he said. “Because this is really about you.” He kissed me again. “Allie, the script reads, They shall never be complete without the other / At one in their inmost hearts / Understanding in their deepest light / It cannot be broken, even in strife, a lover’s quarrel / Their words are sweet and strong / The fragrance of fire…”

  I thought about that for a moment, replaying the words in my head.

  Still propped up on my elbows, I found myself looking at him, really seeing him for a moment. I saw him back then, when he hid out in his uncle’s army, fighting on the street at night, ostensibly for money, but also to work through… whatever it was he needed to work through. Wreg had laughingly told me Revik was a little shit back then, that I wouldn’t have recognized him. Looking at him now, I wondered.

  Still studying his face, I caressed his inner arm where it lay on the couch cushion in front of me, then the tattoo on his bicep.

  “Why is that embarrassing, Revik?” I said. “It’s beautiful.”

  Pulling me down to him, he kissed my face, then my mouth.

  “Allie,” he murmured, kissing me again. “It’s from the seer Book of the End, like the last days… or Revelations.” He caressed my belly through my shirt, his eyes holding an intensity I recognized, that still managed to warm my skin.

  “It’s about the Sword and the Bridge,” he said. “It is from a set of verses called the Love Song.” He kissed me again. “I was in love with you even then,” he murmured.

  I felt my heart react as his light flooded mine.

  Before I could say anything, he kissed my mouth, parting his lips that time, using his tongue. Leaning into it, he began massaging my lower back. He kissed me for what felt like a long time, taking his time, using his light in more and more subtle ways as he pulled me further into his. We didn’t let it go much further, but we were both breathing harder when we paused, and I had my hand on him again.

  “We need to go back to the room, Allie,” he murmured.

  “I know.”

  He kissed me again, glancing at the other seers. I followed his gaze, seeing eyes look away from mine as I did. I felt Revik getting more turned on and massaged him, watching his eyes close as he pressed against me.

  “Gods, wife. What are you trying to do to me?”

  “They don’t seem to mind,” I said, soft.

  He grunted. “Of course they don’t mind. They want to watch us fuck. They’ve all but asked me for it since they saw us lying here together.” When I flushed, he pulled me deeper under the blanket. “I’m afraid I’m going to oblige them if we stay here much longer,” he murmured.

  I didn’t answer. I knew it was a seer thing, the whole group sex, resonating with one another’s light thing. I even knew it could be a friendly thing, a sign of affection, I guess, or camaraderie. I knew from Balidor that it could be a way of bonding tactically, too, incorporating a new member into a team, or solidifying a group into a single, cohesive unit.

  I’d only just started to get my head around some of the dynamics in seer communities. Seer mates were intensely possessive, and monogamous pretty much without exception. Still, they touched the larger group, and in ways I didn’t fully understand. Revik and I were probably more plugged into the group than most mates, even, simply because of who we were.

  I also knew from Balidor that the op in D.C. had been centered around the Vice President getting off on seeing seers being together like that.

  Revik had been in the middle of that session, too––partly because he led the op, and the other seers responded to him as their leader, and partly because they’d felt what Balidor called “sympathetic pain” from his being separated from me in the middle of our bonding.

  In any case, both things drew the other seers to him, specifically, which made it a lot harder on me afterwards.

  Even the humans had been after him.

  I’d never been involved in any kind of overt expression of seer sexual dynamics like that, but I could feel the part of my light it affected.

  It also brought up memories I didn’t really want to think about right then.

  “Allie.” He caressed my face. “I don’t want anyon
e else.” He pulled on my light, caressing me again. “I don’t want anyone else, Allie.”

  I nodded, but I didn’t look up, tugging on his shirt.

  He kissed me again. “You led them in there, in Brazil. You’re the one they’re trying to get close to. Not me.”

  I nodded again, but I didn’t really believe him.

  To distract myself, I looked over my shoulder. I watched Wreg smile faintly at one of the younger seers. She was pointing at the image of me with the glowing eyes, making some kind of joke as the others laughed.

  Still watching them, I said to Revik, “Maybe it’s not us. Maybe it’s just the being alive thing, like you said. Basic seer hormones.”

  Revik didn’t answer. He stroked my hair as I watched the monitor. I saw a thoughtful look in his eyes though, coupled with a near-predatory glance around the room before his gaze turned thoughtful again. I saw it threaded with something else, what might have been indecision.

  I couldn’t help wondering what he was thinking.

  Whatever it was, it made me a little nervous.

  The newscaster continued to narrate the action in the background. I was still too far away to hear the reporter’s words––thank the gods––but I did see the sadness return to Wreg’s smile as his attention shifted back to the screen. I was still watching him when Wreg glanced at me.

  His smile grew instantly warmer.

  He finger saluted me, and I nodded back.

  Revik wrapped his arms tighter around me, and I felt myself softening. Glancing over at the nearer faces, I saw a few others look away. I realized at least ten seers were watching us while pretending not to. I saw Nikka curled up in Holo’s lap, and they were kissing, Holo’s hand under her shirt. I felt another tendril of light around ours.

  “Is that really from us?” I said, quiet. “Partly, I mean?”

  “Yes. Sorry.”

  Looking back at him, I paused, studying his face.

  He was really turned on. He was getting more turned on watching the effect we were having on the others––he was also worried about me reacting unfavorably if he let it show. He wasn’t sure how he felt about the number of males he could feel staring at us, either.