by Cassia Leo
Kali glanced back at Dehgoies yet again.
He was smoking now, probably hiri, the preferred smoke of most seers. Again, he made no attempt to hide that fact from her, nor to hide himself...nor to approach her. He simply watched her, his face as blank as it had been in that meeting hall that day, before Kali had known that he knew she was following him. She wasn’t entirely fooled by that lack of expression on his face this time, nor did she believe the indifference it attempted to project.
She felt something else off him, too.
He didn’t want her out here.
He felt she was too visible, standing on the river’s shore, the sun highlighting her form.
The thought might have amused her, under different circumstances. As it was, she wondered if, in his own way, he might be seeking to protect her.
Perhaps it was the thought of Terian finding her that concerned him.
Or perhaps it was the other one, that female seer who clearly wanted more claims on him and his body than Dehgoies was willing to give.
Frowning from where she stood, Kali watched him linger by the trees closer to the street, indecisive.
Clearly, he wished to speak to her again, whatever he told himself.
Kali wanted to oblige him, but found herself distrusting the compulsion she could feel behind his light, the near-obsessive quality that grew more prominent there, as she scanned him lightly with her own. He pulled at her in flickering darts, strongly at times, even as she felt him trying to convince her that her presence there did not affect him.
The truth hit her then, even as she remembered Uye’s warning words.
Dehgoies was fixating on her. He might not be all the way there yet, but the beginning signs were starting to manifest.
Uye had warned her of this, too.
He understood how psychology worked for most male seers. He understood their needs, both the more refined ones and those that lived in a baser, more subconscious form, somewhere in the oldest areas of their brain stems. Rooks rarely had the opportunity to interact with other seers normally, at least according to Uye...at least not as seers were meant to interact.
They also rarely encountered female or male seers with open light, who didn’t protect their aleimi as a matter of course. Uye had warned her that this would likely affect Dehgoies. Uye thought it might especially affect someone like him.
Uye also warned Kali that it might make him dangerous.
Of course, Uye’s precise words had been ‘more dangerous.’
Kali found she understood more of this than she perhaps wanted to understand it. She perhaps even understood some of the less obvious feelings coiling and connecting behind that base level of want she could feel on Dehgoies now...and could even sympathize, to a degree.
She could not bring herself to trust what he might do because of them, however.
Kali knew Uye would be yelling and cursing in her ears, too, if he were aware of her exact situation right now, and the fact that the Rook had started following her openly. If she wasn’t careful, Uye would feel the worry through her even now, and start to pay more attention.
Then Kali would have his fears to contend with, along with her own.
She wondered, too, that Dehgoies wasn’t more busy right now...with his real work, that is. She knew the Org kept him busy, as it did all of its loyal servants. How was it he could afford to stand out here for hours, watching her stare at boats?
Kali hadn’t been sure how he would react to her attempts to speak to him that day, but she had expected him to be too busy to bother with her for awhile, at least a few weeks while he mulled over her words and tried to decide if she could be telling the truth. She’d expected him to conduct his own Barrier incursions to attempt to verify her words, possibly even to solicit the help of friends who had talents in the far-seeing arts, like Terian himself.
Kali didn’t know the Rooks’ precise goals in the region at the moment, however...nor did she really want to know, truthfully, since she could do nothing to impact them or alter them directly. She knew they did have goals, however, and that Dehgoies had a key role in implementing them.
She couldn’t help but notice the shift in the air of the city, too.
She’d picked up murmurings from the human locals, both their minds and their lips, and from foreigners as well as those born in Saigon. Yesterday, those murmurings had centered mainly on a large political protest rumored for this day. The diplomatic areas of the city were already bracing for such an occurrence, as well as the potential bloodshed that could result. Kali knew also that many of the Rooks she had already glimpsed around town had been busy in that regard, too.
She had to assume that Dehgoies was involved in some way, since he and Terian were relatively high up in the Org’s infrastructure...as well as that woman who had attacked Dehgoies on the street after setting off a car bomb to get his attention. Through Uye, Kali had now ID’d that female seer as Elan Raven, another infiltrator and hunter for the Org, and most probably the ‘girlfriend’ Dehgoies had mentioned in his one, clumsy attempt to seduce her by the pool.
Kali didn’t know whether the Rooks had organized the protest themselves.
She tried not to care about most of what they did, apart from wishing to soften the harm they inflicted on those of her own kind, as well as on innocent humans who had the misfortune to cross their paths. Kali had learned to stay out of the Org’s machinations, both from practicality and due to her own unusual circumstances and person.
The Rooks were many. She was only one...and Kali herself was not the Bridge.
Therefore, unless the harm was obvious and she was in a position to act against them with some success, she forced herself to look the other way, as most seers did with the Org.
It made all of them responsible, in one way or form.
She told herself that, given who she was, she did not have the luxury to be reckless, or to engage in overly idealistic attempts to discourage the Rooks and their minions from their ego and fear-driven crusades. She could not afford to give them access to any intermediary, even one of relatively low stature, like herself...even apart from her visions about her possible future role.
The rationalization sounded hollow, though, even to her.
Kali knew that human political affiliations and ideologies meant nothing to the Rooks. They had their own agenda here that had more to do with control over all humans, as well as control over the increasingly heavy traffic in seer slaves through Southeast Asia, mainly from China and India. The Rooks claimed to be a pro-seer and anti-slavery front, the last bastion of resistance against the human plague that dominated their shared world...but Kali knew the truth lived in gray and black shades that were far more complex.
In fact, the Rooks’ version of events and their supposed role in them struck Kali as far more lie than truth, even when their followers appeared to believe otherwise.
She knew Dehgoies to be one of those so-called ‘true believers.’
Kali glanced at him again.
That time, he didn’t look away.
He began walking towards her instead, and Kali found herself tensing, more so when she felt his light sliding around hers in yet another, more invasive series of cautious darts and probes. Again, she could tell the behavior of his light was only partly conscious, that it constituted more compulsion than direction, but the pure insistence of it, which had worsened noticeably in the intervening days since she’d first spoken to him at the pool behind the Grand Hotel, made her nervous.
He looked physically unwell to her, too, she realized, as she watched him approach.
He looked tired mainly, but agitated, as if running on adrenaline and caffeine...or maybe something quite a bit stronger than caffeine. His body looked worn out as a result, his light erratic, and less tightly attached to his own form. She knew from Uye’s research that he had substance abuse issues, in addition to the rest.
Again, she tried not to connect that too closely to her daughter’s fate, either.
Anyway, drugs were hardly unusual over here, for seers or humans. It still intensified her caution when she saw the dilation of his pupils inside those clear, colorless irises, especially when she got a look at them up close.
If he had been out walking, he must have brought some of his drugs with him.
He stopped within a few feet of her. Standing there, he rearranged his weight on his feet a few times, as if unsure why he’d approached her at all.
Something in the vulnerability wafting off him opened her heart to him again.
It also alarmed her slightly, given how different he felt from the first time they had met. She couldn’t be sure if such a change boded well or not, for either of them, really, especially since he seemed incapable of hiding it.
“You should not be here,” he said, blunt.
She smiled at him, making a polite gesture. “Where should I be, brother?”
“Not here,” he said.
He glanced up at the Hotel Majestic, and she felt that tension vibrating his light worsen.
“My girlfriend...” He hesitated, and Kali saw something in his face tighten. “...One of my companions. She’s looking for you, sister.”
“Is she?” Kali inquired politely. “Should that worry me?” she added a beat later, although she suspected she knew the answer.
“Yes,” he said, blunt. “It should.”
Another silence fell between them.
That time, Kali decided not to break it. Eventually, he did.
“Why are you still in Saigon?” he said, exhaling as he folded his arms. “You delivered your message to me. Why haven’t you left? Is there more?”
“No,” she said carefully. “I told you what I wanted to tell you, brother.”
“So why are you still here?” he demanded, shifting his weight again on his feet.
Kali paused at the anger she felt on his light, watching those dilated pupils warily. “I thought perhaps you would wish to discuss it further,” she said to him after another breath. “Was I wrong in this, brother? Because it seems to me, your presence here confirms that...”
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said again, looking at her almost defiantly that time.
Even so, she felt the pain on him that time, along with an uncertainty as he looked at her. That pain worsened as his eyes lingered over different parts of her, again seemingly without him having decided to look at her in that way, or for so long.
“Brother,” she said, making her voice gentle, like she had by the pool. “I can see you are confused. At the risk of confusing you more, please listen to me. What you think you are feeling...it is not what you think...”
He stared at her, those clear eyes suddenly glass. He gave a short laugh, but Kali didn’t hear any humor in it. Whatever had gone through his mind, however, the Rook was back. It stared at her as if she was the enemy, as if she’d just pulled a weapon on him, or had threatened him openly. His light closed, tangibly enough that it made her wince. The suddenness and the drama of the change took her aback, and made her feel as if she stood there alone once more.
Still, the strongest emotion she felt that time was sympathy.
How could they stand to live this way, these Rooks?
Smiling at him reassuringly, she only indicated a strong negative with her hands, clicking at him softly as she repeated the gesture.
“Brother, you misunderstand me once again,” she told him.
He shook his head, a hard negative, human-style.
“I don’t think I do,” he said. “You told me you were mated. I understand.” His voice grew harder, but also more uncertain. “I...respect that. It is part of why I don’t understand why you haven’t left. I’ve made my interest in you more than clear...”
“Have you?” Kali said, quirking an eyebrow. “Are you so sure of that, brother?” Staring up at his angular face, she clicked at her own words, seeing the further closing in the young seer’s expression. “...All I meant, brother Revik, is that it is not me you are reacting to. Not really.”
“It’s not?” he said, his voice bitter, harder again.
“No,” she said, without flinching that time. “It is not.”
“Then what am I reacting to exactly, sister?”
Kali looked up at him, wrapping her arms back around the cool fabric of the silk dress she wore, conscious of his eyes on her, his light where it flickered tentatively around her body, again almost without him seeming to intend to do it. She felt that want on him again, a near-longing mixed with a loneliness that wanted to cut her breath, if only because she knew she tasted only the barest edges of what truly lived behind that mask. Studying those clear eyes with their wide pupils, watching those pupils remain open even as his lenses reflected light from the sun rising higher in the sky, Kali contemplated different answers she could give him.
The more she looked at him, however, the more sure she was that her initial impressions were correct. Once she realized she knew the answer to his question, she found she couldn’t stop herself from telling him the truth.
She owed him that much.
“You are not reacting to me,” she said simply. “You reacting to her, my brother. The Bridge,” she clarified with a low sigh. “I should have realized that this would happen, when I made contact with you. I share a connection with her too, of course. Your being with me has reminded you of your own ties to her...and strengthened them, perhaps. Perhaps even reconnected the two of you...”
There was a silence.
In it, Kali heard the distant honk of car horns and the back and forth of voices as other parts of the city began to wake. She smelled frying oil and coffee from the nearby restaurants and European-style hotels, as well as the denser taste of smoke wafting from the nearest chimneys. The smell of gutted fish had already started to grow prominent by the river itself, now that the sun began to heat up the water and the surrounding shore, increasing the glare from the yellowing sky.
Dehgoies Revik stared at her, silent, as if taking her measurements with his eyes.
His narrow mouth curled into a frown.
Kali saw the skepticism there. Perhaps it was resistance as much as skepticism, but some deeper emotion lived behind both of those things. Whatever it was, it was enough to open his light once more, at least marginally, so that she could get impressions from him again.
She felt his confusion, and her guilt worsened.
“Brother,” she said gently. “I am sorry I have distressed you. I do not know how to make this easier for you...or I would do it. Gladly.”
He gave a short laugh.
Her words were the thing to break his spell, however, and flicker his eyes away from her body and face. Staring out over the river and clicking under his breath, he fished in the breast pocket of the outer shirt he wore, what looked like part of a uniform, even though he wore it casually open over a thinner, cotton shirt underneath. When he extracted the packet of hiri, he offered one to her, but she declined with a wave of her fingers.
She watched him put one of the dark, wrapped sticks to his lips, then light it with a silver lighter, one of the human ones that clicked open and shut with a hinge.
Exhaling smoke, he clicked the lighter shut once more, shoving it into a pants pocket. He didn’t return her gaze when he spoke.
“I don’t know anything about your daughter,” he said, his voice stripped of emotion. Shaking his head, he took another drag of the hiri, clicking under his breath. His eyes looked cold, even in the pale gold of the morning light. “...I’ll be honest. I don’t much care about her, either. I won’t tell Galaith what you told me. I won’t tell any of them, if you don’t want me to. But I need something from you in return.” Those glass-like eyes met hers. “...You need to leave Saigon, sister. Today.”
Kali frowned, studying the mask that had fallen over his angular features.
“Why, brother?” she said.
His eyes turned even colder in that pause. His booted feet rearranged themselves on the dusty walkw
ay by the lawn, right before he gazed out at the river once more, looking up when a horn sounded from one of the passing barges.
“Because you’re not safe,” he told her simply, answering her question without looking away from the water. “That friend of mine. She is looking for you, sister...even now. And she is angry. She thinks there is something wrong with me. She thinks you are the cause. She thinks it started when you and I first spoke...”
“Is she right?” Kali asked quietly.
He winced slightly from her tone, staring at her.
“She’s not wrong,” he said, his eyes still boring into her face.
He took another drag of the hiri, and that time, the pain on him intensified, making Kali flinch before she could stop herself. His light exuded an open want, mixed with a near-desperation as it conflicted and merged with those other emotions of grief and sadness, that aloneness that shocked her light with its intensity, along with other feelings too subtle for her to pick out from the rest. He seemed to be letting her feel these things, though, showing himself to her deliberately as he stood there, avoiding her eyes. He exhaled the sweet-smelling smoke, his expression darkening as he looked back at her again, avoiding her face to focus on her body.
“...If you stay here much longer, you won’t be safe from me, either,” he added, blunt.
“Brother Revik...” she began, but he cut her off, meeting her gaze directly that time.
“Am I making myself clear, sister?” he said, his voice colder, overtly warning that time. “I’ve made a request of you. An even trade. I’m asking you...formally...to honor it.”
“And if I don’t?” she said, quieter.
His jaw hardened visibly, pushing out a muscle in his cheek. With scarcely a pause, he took a step towards her, abrupt, his whole posture openly threatening.
Kali felt the deliberateness of the motion and didn’t flinch that time, realizing that he wanted her to feel the aggression in his light.