Shadow (Bridge & Sword: Awakenings #4): Bridge & Sword World

by JC Andrijeski

  When I passed a message to him, however, he had mysteriously been redeployed in the States. He messaged me back at once, promising to visit once he was back in town. We ended up communicating at least every few days after that, via the secure network, but he soon got so busy it got pushed out to once every week.

  I distinctly got the impression we were being kept apart by someone, or several someone’s. I didn’t know who was behind it, but I suspected Voi Pai, despite her surface indifference to my personal life. I wasn’t sure if she was trying to keep me focused on work, or if there was some other reason, but it was a little depressing.

  In addition to the rest, Surli was funny––and charming. I liked him.

  He’d also been good with his light. Really good, and he’d liked mine, enough to try and coax me to open more, well past where Ulai warned me not to go with any of my clients. The one time he got me part of the way there, I’d seen it in his eyes, right before he pulled on me harder, groaning as he let me into more of him.

  He’d climaxed not long after that, but he spent the rest of our time together trying to get me to go there with him again.

  With Surli gone, it was back to the usual parade of… nothing.

  Most of my clients were fine, not jerks or anything. I got a lot of presents. A fair number of those I gave to other consorts and my wardrobe people, at least once I found out I couldn’t trade them in as part of my debt to the Lao Hu.

  I kept the jewelry, the gold and jade, and the few pieces of fine art I received. It wasn’t so much vanity as practicality; I kept them so I’d have something to sell later. Certain things Revik told me kept reverberating in my head, like about the dangers of being poor and seer.

  Ulai wholeheartedly approved of my approach.

  He elected himself my financial advisor, and helped me sell some of what I’d collected so I could invest the money, utilizing market experts in the Lao Hu. He also helped me spread that money around, like Revik did, so I wouldn’t be overly reliant on the Chinese economy in case something happened.

  My mother would laugh if she knew I had a Swiss bank account, but I found the knowledge oddly reassuring. I also had money in the United States, Brazil, the U.K.

  In terms of “what next” after this, I’d already been offered a few positions in China, both within the Lao Hu and for the Chinese government, doing something like what Surli did.

  I found myself taking those offers seriously.

  It was way too early to make any decisions, though.

  All in all, my life moved forward. I worked off my debt to the Lao Hu, and managed to keep my mind off how I was doing it. I saved money. Every now and then, I tried to think about what I might do when I got out, where I might go. I was friendly to the other seers. I rode my horse when I had free time, or talked to Surli on the network.

  Then, on a day finally warm enough to make me think wistfully about spring, Voi Pai called me into her receiving room, and I got a good look at my third seer client.

  55

  REFUSAL

  I DIDN’T KNOW I was going in to see a seer.

  Given the fuss everyone was making, I’d assumed it was a human, some head of state the Chinese were particularly nervous about impressing for some reason.

  It was unheard of to take me out of the concubine residences to meet a client.

  It was even more unheard of for Voi Pai to be there in person for an introduction.

  All of that business stuff was normally handled behind the scenes; my clients were all screened, questioned and scanned long before they got anywhere near me. Honestly, it annoyed me at times, how little they involved me in my own “list.”

  So when the wardrobe team made a big fuss and told me I had to be in the main reception hall at four p.m., sharp, dressed to kill and using every single one of the correct forms of the formal manners I’d been taught, I was a little nonplussed. The lead wardrobe tech kept slapping my fingers away from my face and hair as he worked, until finally I just stood there, hands held out from my sides, feeling like a dog being groomed.

  Trying to get anything specific from them proved impossible, so I just let it go.

  Hours later, I entered the reception hall, guards in tow.

  Once I got a good look at who waited for me, I came to a dead stop.

  A group of Wvercian males stood there, in their full, semi-Viking regalia.

  I counted five of them before cycling around to look at each individual in more detail. The one in front was probably the largest seer I’d ever seen in real life. The ones standing behind him appeared to be closer to Baguen’s size, which I would have termed huge before seeing the seer in the center. He clearly was their leader, as he stood directly in front of Voi Pai’s chair, where most in the Lao Hu normally bowed, or even knelt.

  Turning towards her, I tried to keep the incredulousness off my face.

  She raised an eyebrow at me, but I saw the warning in her eyes.

  I looked back at the Wvercian leader.

  I wore a backless, flowing white dress with no sleeves and only a single, thin neck strap, presumably to emphasize the collar I wore. The dress was nearly transparent, showing different parts of my body depending on the angle of the light. The effect was amplified in the sunlight-filled reception hall.

  It was one of the clothing items I hated, actually, in that it made me feel naked, and on display. It struck me as cruder than the majority of the wardrobe team’s creations. Wearing it invariably put me in a bad mood, and further, caused me to make negative assumptions about the client I was about to see.

  Staring up at those broad, windburned faces, I saw several sets of dark eyes trained on my body, a harder expression reflected in their irises. This was starting to feel like some kind of gang rape scenario, which was definitely not cool with me.

  Firming my jaw, I looked again at their leader.

  That time, I looked at his face.

  I found myself staring once I had, lost in his countenance.

  I took in the black eyes above his blotchy, sunburned cheeks. His skin reminded me of how some plains humans looked from eating too much meat. His eyes were dead-looking, empty. A murderer’s eyes. More than that, I couldn’t help but see the familiarity in them––a familiarity I realized, horribly, that I shared.

  My gaze dropped to his throat, where a jagged white scar stood out on his darker skin, visible above the collar of a coarse-spun cotton shirt, open at the neck.

  Moving from the scar, my eyes shifted upwards once more, without my willing it. I stared at his face, still unable to believe what my mind told me, what I already knew, despite the activated collar around my neck. He was smiling now, but that dead look never left his eyes. I saw the hunger there. I saw it, and I feared it––but I couldn’t tear my gaze off his.

  I couldn’t believe he was alive.

  Staring at his face a last time, I found myself looking sharply at Voi Pai.

  “No,” I said, blunt. “I refuse.”

  I didn’t wait for her reaction.

  I turned on my heel, walking out the way I’d come in.

  After the barest pause, where I’m sure Ulai exchanged some kind of communication with Voi Pai, he hurriedly followed me, half-jogging to catch me in the corridor outside the cavernous reception hall. He stopped me before I could leave. Gripping my arm in his large hand, he ignored my attempt to jerk it angrily from his fingers.

  Motioning for my guards to wait, he steered me firmly into a side chamber. He closed the door behind us, probably so we wouldn’t be overheard.

  “What?” I said, still struggling to free my arm. I glared up at him. “I’ve never once exercised my right of refusal. Not once.”

  “I am aware of that, Esteemed Bridge––”

  “Well I am exercising it now. It’s non-negotiable, Ulai. And I don’t have to say why.”

  His blue eyes held a glint of frustration, and not only at me. Looking at him, I realized it was more than just frustration. I stared up at his taut ga
ze, half in disbelief once I realized I knew what that look meant.

  “I don’t have any choice,” I said.

  He grimaced, shaking his head, but not in a no. “Normally, you would, Esteemed Bridge. Normally, the right to refuse is inviolate––”

  “Except when it really fucking matters.”

  “This is not a usual situation, Esteemed Bridge. My hands are tied.” More of that frustration flashed in his pale blue eyes. “There are… political considerations, Esteemed Bridge. Diplomatic ones, that are highly sensitive.”

  I gave him a disbelieving look. “Are you telling me the Lao Hu is so desperate for favors from the Wvercians, they would sell the Bridge against her will?”

  He winced, but his eyes didn’t leave mine. “It is not all of them, Esteemed Bridge. You are not being asked to service all of them. It is only their leader. I know he is not attractive, but––”

  “His looks aren’t the issue, Ulai.”

  “Then what?”

  “I said no. I also said it's non-negotiable.”

  “But why?” he said, frustrated. “He is one man. You have been with others, less of physical specimens than he––”

  “He is the exact one I am refusing, Ulai,” I snapped. “I won’t sleep with him. I won’t fucking do it, all right?”

  “But you cannot refuse!” His voice grew harsher, even as his fingers on me tightened. “This is one client you cannot refuse, Esteemed Sister. You cannot.”

  “Why?” I stepped back, still fighting to free myself of his hands, but most of all his light, which was both attempting to pull on me and calm me at the same time. “Stop treating me like a goddamned animal and just talk! Why can’t I refuse?”

  “He is an emissary of important allies of the Lao Hu.”

  “What allies would those be?”

  “I cannot tell you who they work for,” Ulai said, clicking at me. “But it is most important that we not displease them, Esteemed Bridge. They wish to know you are being cared for. And that you are docile. They want to know you are safe with us.”

  “Cared for?” I stared up at him. “Docile? You make it sound like I fucking belong to them.”

  “All of us belong to them, Esteemed Bridge. Even you.”

  I stopped struggling, frowning` up at him.

  “Who are they, Ulai?” I said. “Give me a name.”

  The pained look returned to his face. “Please, Esteemed Bridge! Please! Voi Pai will not accept a refusal for this. She will not.”

  I saw frustration sharpen in his expression, mixed with a denser grief.

  “…You must do as she asks. You know what she will do.” He looked at me, pain reflecting in his eyes. “Please, Allie. Do not make me do it. I do not want to.”

  Staring at him, a feeling of powerlessness washed over me, more intense than anything I’d felt since I got there. He wasn’t going to tell me why. He wasn’t going to tell me who they were. He and Voi Pai were going to force me to fuck that albino mutant, no matter what I did.

  My light lashed out in a furious pulse, what would have been a telekinetic spike if not for the collar. It was strong enough to activate the collar’s shock, blurring my vision, making me gasp in pain. The intensity of the pain forced me to stop, to retract my light.

  Wincing, I clamped a hand on my neck, fighting to breathe, fighting for self-control. I couldn't control the anger, but I managed to dim my light, gritting my teeth.

  “Fuck you,” I said to him. “Fuck you both. I’ll never forgive you for this. Never, Ulai.”

  He nodded, grief in his eyes. “I know. But you owe the Lao Hu, Esteemed Sister, and in this, I have no choice.” Seeing or feeling my anger surge hotter, he shook my arm. “Allie… it is done! He is under orders, and so are we.”

  Clenching my jaw, I stared angrily at the closed door, feeling that sick feeling in my gut worsen. I felt my light grow dense once more, vibrating the collar.

  Ulai hesitated, and I felt another pulse of grief off him. “Allie, just do this thing. Do it, and then it will be over. He will not hurt you. We have received the utmost in assurances that he will not harm you in any way.”

  I stared up at him, but my mind had gone blank once more, back to that flatline place.

  Almost clinically, I thought about the only options I had left.

  I thought about what they would do, if I continued to refuse. I wondered if they would simply tie me down, naked and spread-eagled––or if they would drug me, like one of those females I’d seen in human brothels and work camps.

  I thought about what I would have to do, if I went back into that room and accepted him as a client willingly. I wondered if I could even pull it off. I tried to decide if it would be worth the bruises and humiliation, just to avoid that.

  Then something else occurred to me.

  It took another few seconds for that thought to fully penetrate.

  Once it had, I nodded, once.

  “Fine.” My voice came out abrupt. “Fine. I’ll do it.”

  I looked at Ulai. He stared back at me in surprise. The bewilderment was so intense in his expression, I worried he might have read my thoughts. My jaw hardened.

  “She’ll drug me if I refuse?” I said. “Tie me up, whatever?”

  Ulai hesitated, then gestured a reluctant yes.

  “Then I’ll do it,” I said. “But I want four times the credit for it. Towards my debt.”

  There was a silence.

  I waited, knowing Ulai was checking my terms with Voi Pai. His irises clicked back into focus a few seconds later.

  “She agrees.”

  I nodded, once. “Then bring me back to my room. I’ll wait for him there.”

  Relief expanded off Ulai’s light. He caressed my face with his fingers, but I jerked away from his touch. He barely seemed to notice.

  “Thank you.” He touched my hair, murmuring, his light still exuding relief. “Thank you, beautiful Bridge. The Lao Hu owes you a debt, Esteemed Sister. The venerable Voi Pai thanks you, too. She is most grateful. She will ensure that you are rewarded beyond your asking price, in such a way that you deem fair… that is worthy of your concession.”

  I didn’t answer.

  Still smiling, still exuding relief, he led me towards the storage room’s door.

  I followed him back into the foyer of the imperial reception hall, where my Lao Hu guards waited for me. I walked with all three of them back to my client chamber in the concubine’s residency, and we didn’t talk.

  56

  REMEMBER ME

  I DIDN’T HAVE long to wait once we’d returned to the chambers where I saw clients. Ulai barely had time to resume his usual place by the door, following his routine security scan and the removal of my collar.

  I didn’t sit.

  With the collar gone, I could already feel him.

  I tried to see pieces of the missing story I’d glimpsed through Ulai and Voi Pai, and even in the worried and frantic light of my wardrobe seers. But Wvercian light had always been strange to me, difficult to read. I could rarely get real thoughts from it, even from Baguen, who never shielded in my presence.

  Instead I got a thick, flowing feeling, sometimes with emotions, but more often with a feeling of separation, as if I studied their aleimic bodies through a deep pool of water.

  This one’s presence did not hide from me, either.

  I felt his anticipation under that heavier fog, that feeling of disconnection inherent to Wvercian light. He looked forward to this, and my clear unwillingness didn’t put a dent in that anticipation at all. For all I could tell, it may have heightened it.

  I felt a broader knowing in his light, as well, a kind of “on mission” feeling I recognized from the Adhipan and even from Revik. With that, I also felt a flavor of reverence. This duty had a religious component to it, for him anyway.

  Of course, that didn’t mean it did for whoever hired him.

  I stood by the largest of the couches, next to a waiting pot of steeping tea and two blue
and white cups. I didn’t move from that spot as the giant, near-albino seer entered through the main door. He was greeted with a deep bow from Ulai, but barely seemed to notice.

  Ulai gave me a faintly encouraging look, just before he darted out through the cloth-covered door, exiting out the round, wooden opening on the other side. I felt his presence fade, and realized he wasn’t simply moving discreetly to another wall in the same building.

  He’d left altogether.

  That was a first, too.

  By that point, I didn’t care. I turned my head, once more focusing on the Wvercian as he glanced around the high-ceilinged room, a faint smirk on his fleshy lips.

  He didn’t look around the way Surli had. He did it more like a caretaker checking to make sure his property was still intact.

  His black eyes, when they met mine, looked at me the same way.

  Almost. The difference shone behind those dark irises, barely discernible in the flat density of his stare. He walked towards me without speaking, without seeming to care I hadn’t spoken. I studied his thick face, trying not to let my eyes drift down to the white scar on his throat.

  He stepped right up to me, so there would be no mistaking the height discrepancy between us. I couldn’t help calculating roughly what that was. I’d never measured Revik or anything, but I guessed him at somewhere around six-seven, maybe six-eight.

  The Wvercian in front of me had to be over seven feet, easy.

  He seemed to enjoy watching me estimate his size. A bare smile touched his lips, right before his eyes flickered down my body. For the first time, I felt arousal off him. It pulsed off his aleimi, cloying and dense, like the rest of his light.

  “They treating you all right, girl?” he said.

  His voice came out surprisingly soft.

  My face didn’t move under his stare. While he waited for my answer, he looked down at me again, focusing on my bare feet with the twin circlets of bronze around my ankles. Watching him look, I unfolded my arms, feeling his light flicker hotter.

  “What difference does it make?” I said. “…Boy?”

  His heavy gaze shifted up.