Exhaling, I found myself speaking again, my voice sounding more sure. “Look. It doesn’t change anything with us. I’m not angry... and honestly, I don’t think you did anything wrong, not under the circumstances. I get it, Revik... at least, I think I do. I just...” I shook my head, biting my lip. “I understand, okay? I’m not mad. Just, you know...”
“You don’t need to explain, Allie,” he said.
He stared down at me, his light sparking through mine.
Despite what he’d said, I could still feel him thinking about my words, or maybe about what he might say to me, or where that left us. I felt him continue to pull back from me, lost in that other space. Then he seemed to shove it away a second time. He pressed his body against mine, even as heat flushed his skin, right before he lowered his mouth to my face and neck.
“I want to do this,” he said, soft. “Gods, I want to do this so badly. Does that make me an asshole, Allie?”
I shook my head, smiling and clicking at him in spite of myself. “No.”
“Is that permission?” he murmured. “Are you giving me permission, Allie?”
Laughing, I clutched his hair. “Yes,” I said. “I thought I was seducing you?”
“Then take off your fucking clothes,” he murmured, speaking against my ear. I shivered and his fingers caressed my hip. He leaned his forehead on my shoulder, leaned his weight, looking down at the rest of me. “Take them off, Allie.” His jaw hardened, right before he lowered his voice. His words turned cajoling, nearly demanding in my light, even as his pain abruptly worsened. “Then you’re going to talk to me,” he murmured. “You’re going to talk to me the whole time we’re fucking, Allie...and we’re going to fuck a lot. A lot...”
I nodded, closing my eyes as another coil of his pain blinded me.
“I want you to show me some things, first,” he murmured, his mouth still by my ear. “I want you to teach me more, Allie. I have very specific requests in mind...” His pain spiraled out at me again, blanking out my mind, even as his hand clenched on my hip. “I might not let you come for awhile.” His voice grew harder, but lower, too. “...I might not last very long, either, wife. Not the first few times. If you do what I say, I might not last very long at all... but I really want you to do what I say. I might insist on it. I might insist on a lot of things for awhile. Don’t expect me to be rational about this, wife...”
My pain worsened, even before I felt more flickers off his mind, images along with his thoughts, cautious still, but with enough there, enough behind them, that I clenched my hand in his hair, letting out an involuntary cry as I writhed under his weight.
I had my light in him then.
I almost didn’t admit to myself what I was doing until he cried out, pinning me to the bed when I found what I wanted, when I finished winding that part of my light into his. I pulled on him, hard, losing control of my light...coiling into him until I nearly blacked out. I felt that part of us twine together, like two sinuous tails, and he was groaning then, saying my name, even as his fingers slid back inside me.
His mind opened to mine a few seconds later, and I started reading him, feeling all the things he wanted from me, all the emotions he’d been holding in, all of the thoughts and frustrations and confusion he’d felt, pretty much from the instant he saw me alive. I felt him before that, too, when he’d thought I was dead...and before that, when I’d been alive but not me, and even before that, when I’d still been unconscious in San Francisco. Somewhere in that whole mess, he let me feel that night when he’d shown up at Jon’s door, too. He let me see how drunk he’d been, how desperate...how desperately he’d missed me, and how Jon felt like the only link to me he had left. He’d been so angry at Jon, too. He’d blamed him, and hated himself for blaming him, and I could feel the part of him that didn’t care about anything, that just wanted it all to stop.
The more he showed me, the more my light wanted to open him up, needing to know, needing to feel him in it, to see it almost in real time. I saw him kiss Jon, saw Jon waver between fighting him and kissing him back, right before he pushed him away. I felt Revik trying to talk him into it, a near-compulsion, a wanting of...something...anything to change that deadened feeling, anything to avoid facing going back to our room alone. I felt Jon’s confusion, too, his self-loathing, and all I ended up with was two men who were grieving. Grieving and drunk and in pain, and unable to handle any one of those things.
Once I felt that much, I felt that lingering doubt start to dissipate. Pain came with it, but the relief I felt washed that away, too.
“It doesn’t matter,” I told him, kissing him. “It really doesn’t matter, Revik.”
Somewhere in that, I felt him start to believe it.
I felt him start to believe I was really alive.
I didn’t realize he was crying until I looked up next, right after I finished peeling the shirt off my head and arms. Leaning up, I gripped his hair in my fingers, holding him tighter when he kissed my mouth, when his hands started yanking down the pants I wore. He groaned against my neck again once he had them off, his pain slamming into me, shocking my light, making it difficult to breathe.
Images hit me again, but that time I felt love in them, a kind of compulsion to share with me, to want me to feel every minute I’d missed with him, everything he’d wanted to share and couldn’t while I’d been gone. I felt heat in some of those memories, heat and pain and worry, but something younger lived there, too, a loneliness that he’d been holding back, keeping separate from my light. I felt him missing me, more than missing me, how alone he’d felt without me, how tightly he’d had to hold himself to keep it from the others. He’d lost me, but he’d lost all of his friends, too, if only in his inability to cope with his own grief. I felt his loneliness like a physical force, even as he caressed my skin. I was crying then, too, but I was already murmuring to him when the kiss broke off.
“I love you,” I told him. “I love you... so much. I’m so sorry...”
His voice grew so soft I barely heard it. “I’m sorry about Jon. Gods, Allie... I’m so sorry about what I did. I missed you so goddamned much...” His eyes grew brighter again. “...I thought I’d lost my mind when you wouldn’t wake up. If it wasn’t for our child...”
I heard the fear in his voice again, the guilt, and I shook my head, shoving it out of my head, even as tears blinded me.
“It doesn’t matter,” I told him. I realized I meant it that time, even as my fingers tightened on his neck. “It doesn’t matter, Revik... it’s over. It’s really over this time.”
“No separations,” he said, gasping the words. “No more fucking separations, Allie...”
Feeling my chest tighten, I gripped him harder as I felt my aleimi snake around his, pulling on his, pulling him into me. Something denser rose in my light, right before I answered him.
Whatever it was made him flinch when it reached my voice.
“No more separations,” I told him. “Never again, Revik.”
He raised his head that time, looking at me.
He just stared at me for a moment, still breathing hard from where I gripped him around the neck, our faces only a few inches apart. Then he startled me, breaking into a real smile. His accented voice came out short the next time he spoke, filled with so much love I felt my skin flush, even through the amusement I heard on the surface.
“You fucking well better mean it this time, wife,” he said.
Before I could answer, he lowered his mouth, kissing me again.
Epilogue
SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL
BALIDOR SAT AT the table, looking at the row of monitors without really seeing any of them. The third of the four windows into those smaller worlds remained dark, completely cut off from whatever occurred inside the four walls of that segment of the tank.
Yet somehow, it was to this blank, lifeless screen that the Adhipan seer’s eyes returned more often than the rest.
The blank screen meant nothing to his mind.
The old woman, who sat across from Balidor at the small table, clicked at him softly. The noise, which she made with soft pats of her tongue on the roof of her mouth, came across as chiding on the surface. Even so, Balidor heard the softer grief beneath.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
Such silences weren’t really unusual between the two of them. In this case, however, that silence contained a certain amount of irony, given that they’d mutually agreed to meet alone, just so they could talk freely. So far, neither of them had spoken a word.
Neither of them had done anything, really, but stare at those four monitors.
Occasionally, Tarsi would stand, and use the dead metal spigot on the wall to add more boiling water to the mug that now stood on the table by her elbow. The old woman still wore combat-type clothes, from when she first left her cabin on the port bow of the carrier. Those clothes looked appropriate on her, too, even though it had been years since she’d worn them in any kind of official capacity.
As if she’d heard him, the old woman sighed, clicking a bit louder that time.
Balidor ended up being the one to break that silence.
Maybe because she clearly intended him to be that one. Or maybe for some other reason. In any case, he caved first.
“There is no doubt then?” he said simply.
Unlike their usual means of communication, Balidor spoke aloud.
That had purpose, too. Namely, to keep their conversation not only shielded between them, and inside the construct of the ship...but out of the Barrier entirely. Even if Balidor hadn’t felt the need to keep this particular subject matter private from the others, with Varlan on board, another minimum rank-eleven seer in actual, Balidor couldn’t afford to take chances.
Anyway, it wasn’t solely his own people he feared might be eavesdropping.
“You are certain?” he added. “Absolutely certain, my friend?”
Tarsi raised a smooth, but very thin-skinned hand, turning it sideways in a seer’s subtle affirmation. The gesture was older than the usual seer’s yes, and had its origins in the caves of the Pamir. She met his gaze then, her clear eyes flickering between his.
“Why you ask me?” she said, her eyes sharper. “You head of Adhipan. Right, brother?”
She’d spoken in that thickly accented mountain patois she often fell back on for English. Of course, Balidor had heard her speak that same language like a British-trained scholar when it suited her, too. The patois was part of her schtick, he supposed, one small panel in her infiltrator’s mask and yet another means of disarming those who didn’t hear past it...as if she wasn’t difficult enough to read already.
She chuckled, hearing him.
Her face smoothed into seriousness then, a few seconds later.
“You have any doubts?” she said, quieter.
“I was going to ask you that,” he muttered, sliding a hand through his hair. “Do you know for certain there is no way to take it out of him? Without killing him, that is?”
Tarsi stared up thoughtfully for a moment, possibly even searching for answers in the Barrier. Then she blinked, making a negative gesture with one hand.
“I do not know that,” she said. “But I have serious doubts.”
“Did Vash know?” Balidor said.
That time, Tarsi only sighed. “Don’t know,” she said. “Who knows what that man did or didn’t know? Or his reasons for not telling us?” Giving Balidor a sharper look, she asked, “Did you try contacting Elephant? You know. The other one.”
Balidor clicked to himself, sighing as he ran the same hand through his hair, pausing to scratch the base of his skull with his fingertips. His eyes went back to that blacked out screen, right before they shifted to the one showing the image of a small child lying on her stomach in an oversized crib. The little one still lay deep in sleep, clutching the stuffed animal he’d given her.
Her expression had smoothed since he’d last seen it. She lay there, sucking on one finger, her whole body exuding peace.
Something in Balidor’s chest softened as he saw that small nose wrinkle. Maybe from a dream, he saw her make a tiny frown, clutching the elephant tighter to her small chest.
“Thank the gods we got her away from them,” he said, instead of answering.
Tarsi’s eyes followed his to the crib.
Reaching over, she surprised Balidor then, squeezing his arm with surprisingly strong fingers. She didn’t speak for a moment after she’d done it. The two of them just sat there, watching the child sleep. The Bridge and Sword’s daughter still looked frighteningly small and vulnerable inside that round-edged crib with the blue whales all over the blankets.
“Will you tell him?” Tarsi said.
Balidor let out a disbelieving laugh.
There wasn’t a lot of humor in it.
“Tell him?” he said, raising an eyebrow in her direction. “What choice do we have? Would you actually consider keeping such a thing from him? From either of them?”
Tarsi didn’t take her hand off his arm, but sighed.
“No,” she said. “I suppose not.” Looking at Balidor directly, she firmed her mouth, only loosening it to add, “You know what he is likely to do.”
“You mean kill himself?” Balidor said, his voice openly bitter that time. He pulled at a loose thread on the sleeve of his shirt, breaking it off with a sharp jerk. “Commit suicide in his quest to rid himself of the old man? To rid the world of that scary old bastard, for that matter...? The thought had crossed my mind, yes, sister.”
“Do you think she could talk him out of such a thing?” Tarsi said, her voice softer, more cautious. “...For the child? For the sake of their family?”
Balidor exhaled again, that time letting his shoulders unclench. He fought to think past that pain in his heart, a stone that had crept there, as soon as he’d finished his preliminary scans of Dehgoies’s light, and confirmed what Tarsi had found. That pain hadn’t left in the time since, but seemed only to remain there inside him, throbbing coldly.
“She might,” he said, his voice subdued from before. “She probably will. I just do not know at what cost. I do not know what that will mean in the long term...or whether or not it will satisfy her as a solution, either. Especially since there is a good chance their daughter already suffers from the same affliction...”
Frowning down at his sleeve, and the button that now hung half off it, Balidor shook his head, clicking once more.
“Hell, she might already know,” he said, frustrated. “Both of them are so damned oblique when it comes to the other...and she’s more aware than any of us of how fragile his psychology can be, given the abuse he suffered in his youth. And anyway...” he said, gesturing dismissively with one hand towards the row of monitors. “...You heard what the others said about the Bridge. At the Tower. She wouldn’t let him go after Menlim. She flat-out refused to let him do it. So she might already know why Nenzi can’t go after Menlim...even if she hasn’t told him. Hell. Even if she hasn’t admitted it to herself.”
Tarsi seemed to think about that, too.
“It is possible, yes,” she conceded.
Sighing, she removed her hand from Balidor’s arm, leaning her body back to rest on the upper edge of the plush chair. Balidor watched the old woman’s fingers curl around her mug. Like a lot of Asians, she often drank steaming water without anything else in it, something Balidor had lost the habit of doing since he’d developed a taste for tea, somewhere around the early 1700s. He flavored his hot water now, when he bothered to drink it at all.
“What
do we tell him?” Balidor said. “...And when?”
Tarsi let out a low snort, setting the mug down on the metal table.
She stood then, joints creaking. Once she’d straightened fully, using her hands and arms as leverage on the table, she walked over to the where someone had left an open box of tea bags spilled over part of the counter, probably when the last shift had turned over. Balidor couldn’t help smiling a little when he saw Tarsi pick up a tea bag and dunk it in the mug, right before she topped it off with more of the boiling water from the spigot in the wall. Clicking softly, he rolled his eyes at her, unable to escape the fact that once more, she had overheard everything he’d been thinking, even when he’d thought himself to be thinking quietly.
“We should talk to the other, first,” Tarsi said, grunting as she rested her weight against the counter. “The one you haven’t called yet...Elephant. See if she’s alive.”
“Yes,” Balidor said, a little impatiently. “And what then?”
Tarsi gave him a faintly humorous look, her clear eyes shining a faint, steely gray, as if reflecting the color of the walls.
“I am no prescient, am I?” she mocked. “Why you think I say we talk to her?”
“You know what I mean,” Balidor said, clicking at the older seer.
Tarsi only shrugged, unapologetic.
“Didn’t you just say this?” she said, still dunking the tea bag by the string. She leveled her eyes on him, and for the first time, Balidor noticed she had her hair wound around her head in a long braid, rather than hanging straight down her back, as usual. “You said the truth, right?” she added. “So we tell him the truth. We tell him what Menlim did to him, and that we can’t fix it. Then he decides.”
“He already knows he’s the structural head of their construct,” Balidor muttered. “Maybe he’s already figured it out. Maybe he knows...maybe he just didn’t care before, thinking he was dead anyway, with his wife gone?”
“What you think he do?” Tarsi said again. “When he knows? If he knows?”
Allie's War Season Four Page 61