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

by JC Andrijeski

  I didn’t see anyone else, but I knew there might be others in there.

  Walking the rest of the way through, I made my way up a few rows of seats, then stopped, standing in the aisle instead of sitting down. Turning, I faced Revik.

  He stood there, looking uncomfortable, but didn’t move away, or avert his gaze. I noticed he was wearing a jacket I recognized, from when I stayed with him at the Rebel compound.

  “The plane?” I said, glancing around. “Is it from before?”

  He hesitated, then nodded. “They took most of it. Salinse and the others.”

  I nodded again. For a moment, I found myself struggling with words. I didn’t want to be coy though, so I just looked up at him.

  “I don’t really need you,” I said. He flinched, but I didn’t let my light dwell on that either, plowing on as I gestured with one hand. “…Right now, I mean,” I clarified. “I just… I guess I just wanted to talk to you.”

  He nodded, his face still wearing the infiltrator’s mask.

  He didn’t fold his arms, but I saw him shift his weight when I didn’t go on immediately.

  Finally, I sighed, fingering my hair out of my eyes.

  “I do need a shower,” I said, glancing around vaguely behind me. “Jon said there are showers here… and beds.”

  Revik followed my eyes to the rear of the cabin. I felt a kind of relief on him once I gave him something actionable, something he could help me with.

  “Yes,” he said. “There are showers. I can find you a bunk, Allie.”

  “I don’t have any clothes.” I felt my cheeks flush slightly, but I didn’t look down at what I was wearing. “…Could I borrow some?”

  “From me?” He stared at me blankly.

  I felt my face grow hotter. “It doesn’t have to be you, Revik.”

  He shook his head, clicking a little. “No, it’s fine. I just meant…”

  He glanced down at me, his eyes lingering on the long skirt I wore. His skin colored a little, and I found myself staring at his face when I noticed. I hadn’t seen him blush at anything when I lived with him as Syrimne. Not once.

  I hadn’t seen him do that since––

  “…I just don’t have anything… feminine, Allie.” He cleared his throat, avoiding my eyes. “I could ask one of the other infiltrators. Yumi, or––”

  I shook my head, gesturing a negative.

  “It doesn’t need to be feminine, Revik.” I hesitated again. “But you can ask whoever you want. Or I could,” I added. “I could just ask them. I didn't think of it until now.”

  He gestured another negative, shaking his head.

  Before I could really decide what that meant, he motioned for me to follow him, making his way down the aisle towards the back. Reaching the section where the bulkhead seemed to curve outwards, he undid the latch to a rounded, organic-looking door that said “vacant” over a green light that reminded me of toilets I’d seen on commercial planes.

  When he opened the door, however, I was a little bewildered by the space on the other side. It looked more like a locker room bathroom in a gym back in San Francisco than it did one of the cramped, odd-shaped bathrooms found on most planes.

  “Shower’s in here,” he said. He glanced at me, then let go of the handle. “I’ll be right back. Wait here, Allie… please.”

  I found myself watching as he walked back down the aisle.

  Wrapping my arms around my waist, I saw him pull a bag out of one of the overhead bins. Kind of a sophisticated duffle, it had handles on the side that he pulled, opening a flat panel on the widest of the storage segments.

  I looked away as he rifled through the contents inside, glancing through the partway open door at the bathroom itself. As I did, I fought a wave of pain, seemingly out of nowhere. I forced it out of my light without trying to figure out what it was from, and off my face as he walked back towards me down the aisle.

  By the time he reached me again, I smiled at him, taking the proffered stack of clothes, folded neatly in his hands.

  Pulling them against me, I fought to smile again. “Thanks.”

  He hesitated, looking at me.

  I felt him wanting to speak, so I didn’t say anything. Even so, I had to fight not to stare at him, especially his eyes. I found myself noticing what Jon had seen, what he’d told me about how Revik was now.

  But I couldn’t let myself go there, even now. I knew all about that kind of delusional thinking. I’d engaged in it for months when I’d lived with Syrimne. I’d engaged in something similar in the tank, well after I should have known better.

  I wasn’t sure I had it in me to be broken by that particular fantasy again.

  Forcing my eyes off his when he noticed me staring, I looked back at the bathroom.

  “Do you want me to wait?” he said.

  I looked back at him, hiding my surprise. I answered before I’d really thought about it.

  “Yes,” I said. Feeling my cheeks warm, I fumbled to soften my answer. “But if you’re busy, with the others––”

  He shook his head, once. “I’m not.”

  I moved towards the door to the shower, but he caught hold of my arm.

  I froze. Glancing back at him, I tried to hide the confusion in my light.

  “Allie.” He winced a little, meeting my gaze. “There is one more thing. Well… two,” he amended. “Two more things.”

  I continued to look up at him, unmoving. I watched his eyes study my face.

  After another pause, he released my arm. He gestured vaguely as he averted his gaze.

  “There are remnants,” he said. “In your light. Balidor thought…” Clearing his throat, he wiped his face with one hand, still not looking at me. “We don’t want them following us. Salinse and his people. Or the Lao Hu.” He gestured vaguely again. “Voi Pai seemed to be allied with whoever was going to take you. We’ve felt the Dreng on them, too.”

  But I already understood. I nodded, then gave the hand-language version of yes.

  “It’s fine, Revik. Whatever you have to do.”

  “It’s not much,” he said, looking me in the face again. His voice grew apologetic. “It’s from me, Allie… not from anything you did. It’s my fault it’s there.”

  “It’s fine,” I said. “Really.” I held the folded clothes more tightly against my body, covering my bare skin self-consciously, despite what I’d told myself earlier. I gestured towards the other side of the plane, beyond the curtain, using a brief wave with my fingers.

  “Can you do it now?” I said. “Or do you need the others?”

  “I can do it.” He continued to hold my gaze.

  I was still looking up at him when his irises blurred. I felt a part of him leave. His expression grew blank even as his mouth firmed somewhat in concentration.

  Then his light flooded mine.

  I gripped the handle of the bathroom door, fighting not to panic as I felt him there. He only remained in the lower parts of my light briefly. I felt him start to scan me more thoroughly, emotion stripped from his light. The process felt methodical, almost clinical as he made his way through different layers in my aleimi. That part of him moved systematically up and through the lower segments of my light, until I felt him working high above my head, somewhere in the structures I used to perform the telekinesis and more complicated types of sight-work.

  I couldn’t help but notice that some of those structures were things I’d used when working with him in the tank, too.

  I felt a sharp jolt, a jerk, right before––

  It wasn’t really pain. It yanked hard enough to alarm me, but it didn’t hurt.

  It was like he’d broken something. Broken something on me––or maybe broken it off me, like a gardener cutting off a dead branch.

  For a long moment, I just stood there, feeling him scan me, as if checking me for anything more. I held onto the bathroom door, gripping it tighter as a feeling of vulnerability came over me, so intense I was shaking. He scanned me again.
/>   Then he did it a third time, cleaning off a few smaller things he found along the way.

  Out of nowhere, heat hit my light, pooling in the middle of my chest.

  I fought it, but it spread rapidly down my torso and through my limbs, making me breathe harder, worsening that vulnerability until it grew into a panic. I tried to block what came with it, the emotions that rose up, nearly blinding me as I lost myself in that initial flush of light.

  I couldn’t block it, though. It was as if a bandaid had been ripped off without warning, or maybe more like Novocain wearing off all at once, leaving nothing but heat and raw pain.

  I’d lost my ability to live in that blank space, where nothing mattered.

  I felt Vash with me again, and Tarsi.

  I felt Revik, too… still searching my light.

  This time, I felt the grief on him, the worry as he scanned me a fourth time. Then a fifth. Unwilling to risk leaving anything in me he’d put there, that the Lao Hu or anyone else had put in my light…

  The pain behind it made me gasp.

  I gripped the door tighter. Clutching the clothes against my body, I fought to pull myself back, to control my light. I was fighting tears then, too.

  I tried to push it away, to hold it in, even before I felt him coming back, returning to where we stood at the rear of the plane by the door to an onboard shower.

  I pulled myself upright, standing almost straight when I saw his eyes click back into focus. Still, he must have seen something in my face. He caught hold of my arm, pulling me to him. His eyes held that same worry, and now I could feel his light, all around me. I felt him noticing the difference in mine too, and pain rippled off him again, even as he pulled me closer.

  “Allie. Gods. Are you all right?”

  I clutched his arm with my free hand, still holding the bundle of his clothes against me. I tried to speak. I decided I didn’t want to risk it and nodded instead. I looked away from him when my throat tightened, unable to meet that clear gaze.

  He caressed my hair, kissing my cheek.

  I flinched, even as I felt my light respond––more so when he opened his so close to me. I fought not to just open to him in return, to merge into him again, but it was difficult, almost impossible when I felt another curl of emotion off his light. That part of me felt starved, half out of control when he opened more, letting me closer to him.

  Finally, I averted my gaze from his, looking towards the shower.

  His fingers loosened on me, but he didn’t let go.

  “Allie,” he said.

  I looked up, biting my lip.

  I saw his eyes study mine. His expression looked almost the same as it had before, only now, I saw clearly behind the infiltrator’s mask. Pain lived there, a kind of longing that hurt to look at, especially when I felt another curl of his light. He caressed my hair again, pushing it back from my face, his throat moving in a swallow.

  I was trying to force out words when he looked away, still holding my arm as he shoved his other hand in a front pocket of his pants.

  I watched him pull something out.

  My throat closed when I saw the silver chain, even before I saw what it held. Pain clenched my chest, worsening when he cleared his throat, when my eyes rose back to his.

  His were bright. Too bright.

  “Allie,” he said, his voice thick. “You don’t have to wear it. You can throw it away.” He pressed it into my hand, closing my fingers around it. “It’s yours, Allie. Please. Please don’t try to give it back to me again.”

  I stared up at him. Then, forcing myself to move, I nodded. Still staring at my fingers wrapped around the silver chain, I nodded again dumbly.

  My eyes found his fingers then. I focused on the band of silver around his index finger, not quite believing it was real. A shock touched my heart when he squeezed my hand tighter, and I saw the ring dimple the flesh around the bone.

  I stared at it… too long. Long enough for Revik to notice.

  “Is it all right?” he said, caressing my fingers. His voice fell lower than a whisper. “Can I wear it again, Allie?”

  Another flicker of pain reached me. That time I didn’t know if it was his or mine.

  Unable to speak, I only nodded.

  I don’t think I looked at him again as I stumbled through the rounded door into the shower area, clutching the ring in one hand and his clothes in the other.

  65

  BAD AT TALKING

  HE SAT IN one of the cloth airline seats, fighting not to feel what was going on in the rest of the plane. He occasionally saw one of the others look through the curtains from the other side of the cabin, but no one bothered him, or tried to speak to him directly, which was a relief.

  He kept his light from hers, too, inside the shower.

  He’d found her a place to sleep. It turned out only a few of the bunks were taken, and all of those were the smaller ones, closer to the front of the main cabin.

  He remembered having the plane refitted for longer combat trips. They’d spent so much time in the air, those first few months he’d been with the Rebels––

  But all of that felt so long ago now.

  His mind tried to toy with what they’d found in their scans of Voi Pai’s light on the drive between the Forbidden City and the small airport where his pilots guarded his plane. He couldn’t concentrate on that, either. Not enough concrete information lived in her mind to really distract him from the person on the other side of that rounded door.

  Voi Pai knew enough about Gerwix’s employers to know they could harm the Lao Hu. She hadn’t exactly sworn allegiance to them, not like one had to swear allegiance to the Rooks in the time of the Pyramid, or even the Rebellion less than a year ago.

  It was more like a tribute relationship, from what he could tell.

  The Lao Hu paid protection tribute to these people, like one might pay an organized crime syndicate in places controlled by that syndicate. What the Lao Hu got in return still wasn’t clear. Unfortunately, the blocks on Voi Pai’s light had been extensive, and well-constructed––too well-constructed for Balidor or any of the others to crack before they made it to the airport.

  He would have liked to take her with them, to find out more, but that was impossible.

  As it was, Allie hadn’t been wrong, when she said this would mean war. The Lao Hu would never forgive him for holding their leader captive, or for removing her from the City, even for so short a time. For them, it would now be a matter of saving face––and of making an example of him. They would never allow such a thing to stand. Never.

  Perhaps they even couldn’t, not if they didn’t want others to try the same.

  It also meant the Lao Hu might see fit to ally with their enemies, another development they could ill afford.

  He didn’t regret it, of course. Truthfully, all he could feel was relief.

  He just wished they’d been able to discover who pulled Gerwix’s leash. He didn’t know of any group of seers powerful enough that the Lao Hu would fear them.

  Feeling pain sliver through his light, he gripped the armrests of the economy chair.

  She’d killed Gerwix.

  He knew he shouldn’t feel touched by that, or feel as much emotion as what rose in him at the thought, but he couldn’t help it. The fact that she’d cared enough to even react that way brought up enough feeling that he could barely breathe.

  It also gave him a flicker of hope.

  He jumped when the door opened behind him.

  Turning his head, he didn’t stand up until he saw her outline in the backlit opening. She wasn’t looking at him, but down at her feet as she fumbled with the handle of the door. She turned her back to him as she shut it more firmly, twisting the mechanism until it caught.

  Then she looked at him. He stood in the same moment, still holding the back of the plane seat where he’d been sitting.

  The braids gone, her hair hung down her back now, wetting the dark blue T-shirt he’d given her. Her brown le
gs stuck out below shorts he normally slept in, which came down to about the middle of her muscular thighs. She must have been doing mulei in the City, as well.

  He stared at her legs, unable to stop himself from staring, then felt her eyes on him and looked up. He knew he was reacting, even before pain slid through his light, making it difficult to hold her gaze.

  “Better?” he said, a little lamely.

  She nodded, arranging the bundle of clothes she clutched in her arms.

  He noticed then, that she was wearing the chain with his ring around her neck. His pain worsened, nearly blinding him as he felt his body react, too.

  He forced his eyes off where the ring hung almost to the top of her breasts, hating himself for staring, especially when he could see from her face that she felt where his eyes were trained.

  When she didn't speak, he tried again, clearing his throat.

  “Do you want me to take those?” he said, holding out a hand for the clothes.

  She looked up at him, and he stared at her pale green eyes, fighting the reaction out of his light once more.

  “Where do they go?” she said.

  Vulnerability wafted off her light, which made his tongue thicken more.

  Gods. He could barely control his light, and he wasn't even standing next to her.

  He gestured vaguely towards a bin set into the wall, a push door that stood flush with the bulkhead. Feeling his face warm, he motioned towards the same with his head and chin.

  “You can put it in there,” he said.

  She followed the prodding of his light, pushing open the flap and then shoving the clothing she’d been wearing through the round door. He watched her do it, felt her noticing his eyes on her again, but he couldn’t make himself look away. When she turned, she wrapped her arms around her front, not quite folded, but almost.

  “You said there’s a place I could lie down?” she said.

  He nodded, still fighting reactions out of his light as he indicated to one of the bunks to the left of the row of seats. She followed his fingers with her eyes.

  “The bottom one?” she said.

  He cleared his throat. “Either, Allie. Any one you want.”