by Ada Harper
Olivia waited until Galen gave a sharp jerk on the cuffs to confirm they were locked in place. She backed away, retreating from his warmth to the chill forest air again. Something about all of it disquieted her. “You so much as rattle those chains, I’ll shoot you. Deal?”
“I’ll be quiet as a ship mouse.”
“Spoken like someone who’s never lived in an infested flat.” Olivia gnawed on her lip, but finally turned away with a sigh. She swept up her blanket and headed for the edge of the clearing.
“I thought you were going to sleep,” Galen called after her.
“I am. In a tree. Where I can keep an eye on you.” Olivia had really ceased to worry about an attack from that quarter. He’d had plenty of opportunity, she’d even baited him, but he seemed intent on his promise, for reasons she couldn’t fathom. It almost made it more stressful, this trustworthy altus. She preferred a clear target. But Galen’s hummed laughter blunted her anxiety.
“You really are a cat.”
“I suppose the dog would know?” Olivia could positively feel his amusement at her back.
“Wait. Do a helpless, chained man a favor?”
The question was too light. Olivia stopped short, pleading with the treetops for patience before turning. “I know for a fact that you are never helpless, Galen. What is it?”
Galen picked his next words gently. “Do me the honor of at least sleeping in my tree.”
“In your...” Olivia gave him a small, bemused frown before laughing in spite of herself. “Is this some weird protective altus...thing?”
She could see the offense settle in the self-depreciating curve of his lips. It was unfair how attractive he was when he smiled like that. “Would you humor me if it is?” He rustled the binding on his wrist. “I will have nothing to do but stand guard. At least give me something worth guarding.”
By the time she realized she was considering it, she’d hesitated too long to just dismiss it. “That something is me?”
“I think you’re worth many things you don’t realize yet.”
Olivia did her best to ignore such an obvious line. She fished her gaze over the branches, then down to the cuffs, before finally daring to look at Galen. The intent stillness in his gaze was making this about so much more than a night’s sleep. It was an unnecessary risk. All of this was an unnecessary risk. The negotiations, the stories, the trust. But if it was a risk, it was a risk she’d already weighed without realizing it somewhere along the way.
“Fine,” she said, and she wasn’t sure who was more surprised by the decision.
Galen lifted his hands, but she ignored his assistance. A run at the tree brought the lowest branch in reach, and from there she found a spot where Galen was just visible below, framed by thick, bristling evergreen. He looked up at her. He surely couldn’t see her in the dark, but an undefinable expression sank soft and warm across his face.
Olivia had an order marshaled, but it compressed in her throat at the sight. There was an easing of the shoulders, a rightness. A soothing feeling pulled the knots in her shoulders loose as she settled into a spot. A quiet sense of familiarity, safety, born of...
Oh, oh no. Olivia sharply twisted her eyes away. But staring up at the canopy, a clover patch of stars blinking though, did nothing to dismiss the feeling welling into her throat.
Temporary truce. That’s all this was ever going to be.
“Sleep well, Olivia.” Galen’s voice was a satisfied whisper in the leaves below her. Olivia had to swallow hard before she trusted her voice.
“Stay, hound,” she said. Though she knew he couldn’t. She couldn’t. Stay.
Sleep well, Galen, her mind whispered, but Olivia refused to listen.
Chapter Six
There were many fine things to wake up to in an untouched natural wilderness. Bird song. The perfume of flowers. The soft whisper of a dewy breeze.
Olivia woke up to none of them. It was a slow, disgruntled climb back toward consciousness, one she only accomplished under great protest and because, more important, something soft and insistent kept pinging against her cheek.
The only thing normally waking her up ungodly early was a surly tomcat named B. She flung an arm out, prepared to toss an annoying paw off her face. When her fingers only found empty air, she nearly spilled out of the wedge of branches she’d made. Panic, and an amused huff below her, brought her fully awake. Olivia looked down.
His hair was enticingly rumpled after a night against the tree. Olivia groaned and dragged her scarf over her eyes. “Oh, fuck you.”
Galen’s laughter chased her as she burrowed into her hood. “You’re not a morning person.”
“I do Whisper work at night and my only friend owns a dive bar. What on earth would have given you the idea I would be a morning person?”
“I supposed you would just glare the sun into behavior, too.”
If I could, I wouldn’t have such trouble with you. Olivia growled beneath her hood. “I’m not an outdoorsy person either, yet here I am.”
“Your personal growth is admirable.” Another ping of seed fluff hit her square on the forehead. His aim was impressive.
And annoying. Olivia balled her hands over her face. “Go away. Weren’t you the one who wanted me to sleep?”
“And I’m gratified by your cooperation. It’s nearly midmorning.”
That made Olivia slit open her eyes and look up. And immediately regret it as sunlight sliced through her comfy lethargy. She groaned and scrubbed her face against the inside of her scarf before slowly forcing her limbs to unwind.
Navigating the tree branches proved to be more challenging than it had been last night. But it did serve to clear her head so when she reached the ground she was able to appreciate two conclusions. One, that Galen was one of those irritating morning people, already alert and steady as an oak as he offered a polite hand down. Two, he was able to offer that hand—and fling seed fluff at her head—because his hands were free.
Galen followed the knife edge of her glare and appeared to weigh his options before settling on a boyish grin that made it possible to want to both punch and kiss him. “They were uncomfortable” was all he said.
“Quiet as a ship mouse. Trust you, you said.”
“Wasn’t I quiet and still enough for you, sleeping beauty?” Galen asked.
“Yes, it appears your knack for constant infuriation is solar powered. You’re the paragon of virtue at night.”
“Oh—” and the corner of Galen’s lips tipped right over from boyish to scoundrel “—I wouldn’t go that far.”
The way his eyes lit at that, darkening from amber to bronze as the wicked edge of his mouth made unspoken promises, drove the irritation from her. Or, at the very least, warped it into a new kind of disgruntlement that he would not be delivering on any such promises. At least, not with her. Stuck in the middle of nowhere with a flirtatious doglord she couldn’t so much as approach without risking exposure. Her life really did suck sometimes.
“How?” She gestured at his hands.
Galen demonstrated a lever on the cuff, inside the casing. Impossible to reach without a tool and foreknowledge. And now it was bent just enough to slip the ratchet. “The manufacturer tithes to our state council.”
“Our? You make it sound as if you own them.”
“Do I? You must still be waking up.” Galen’s hand was brushing past her face before she could process it, plucking a leaf from her hair. “You snore, you know.”
Olivia made an undignified sound. “I do not.”
“You do. Don’t give me that look. It’s endearing.”
“Endearment is...not my intent.” Olivia turned and retrieved her bag. Galen’s voice sounded self-satisfied behind her.
“Did you at least sleep well?”
Olivia found the correct bottle and slapped a pill into her han
d, taking her time to dry-swallow it without looking at him. It bought her time to think. It had been more than a relief to get a good night’s sleep. It’d been a godsend. Caricaes typically slept a bit more than altusii or gentas, something to do with internal clocks. She was used to pushing herself on the fumes of energy reserves, but more than a week of it had put her at her limit. This morning she finally felt clear-headed again, the sleep-deprived cotton cleared from her mind. Perhaps the foolish feelings and thoughts tangling up her head would clear as well.
“It was fine,” she said.
* * *
They walked a half day in companionable silence. When not making conversation, they didn’t need many words to navigate the Caeweld by now. A nod here, a glance there. Conversation sometimes felt like a trap, but Olivia could appreciate how eloquent they were in action. Galen was purposeful as they moved, intent and clear. It was only the stopping, the looking, that confused her. Olivia resolved that the answer was to simply...keep moving.
The sun was high and hot overhead when she saw it. Galen didn’t seem surprised when it came into view, but it was enough to stop Olivia cold in the dirt.
“Is that...civilization?”
A lattice of whisper-thin metal flared high over the treetops ahead of them, beautiful and manmade. It still bore the typical Imperial overabundance of decorations and crenelated additions, but it was steel. At this point, Olivia would have kissed anything that wasn’t made of mud, wood, or moss.
“Don’t sound quite so shocked,” Galen said, smug and pleased.
Well, almost anything.
“A watchtower? Wait, no, the landing has—” Olivia’s eyes skimmed over the top platform, cluttered with smudged objects from this angle but curiously empty of railings on one side. She saw a red beacon and suppressed a gasp. “A shuttle tower. All the way out here?”
“It was once a military watchtower, but now is more of a little-used refueling station. I wasn’t certain it was still in operation,” Galen explained as they cleared the last of the trees.
It was as Quillian as everything in the Empire. Only the top third of the tower was metal construction. The lattice of technology set on the worn ruins of what looked like an old brick tower. Sunbaked stones melded with permasteel at impossible angles, giving the whole thing the appearance of a melting cake. In the Syndicate, it would have been bulldozed for breaking eight building codes.
Olivia shook her head. “Are your people so hard up that they’ll live in anything?”
“Are your people so hard up that they’ll waste everything?”
“Says the man with decorative lion heads on his refueling station.”
“Now that’s unfair.” Galen grinned as they reached the tower and found the sturdy door standing open. “They’re wolf heads.”
Olivia didn’t reward that with a response. Inside the base of the tower was a composition of dust and shadows, not really lending confidence to Galen’s promise of technology and assistance. The tower had obviously been long disused. However, the crumbling stone steps gave way to metal grillwork and they stepped into a tidy enclosed hub of the main platform. One wall was open to the air where a ship could dock to a levered series of grates. It was a clever design. At the push of a button, any portion of the outer walkway could quickly fold on a hinge, allowing ships of various sizes to dock. The rest of the room was broken up into a few cubbies of control panels, separated by a low meshwork of steel and glass. Surprisingly utilitarian for the Empire.
Olivia drifted over to the nearest bank of buttons. “An aetheric array?” Aetheric tech was the Empire’s technological riposte to Syndicate pulse technology. Their highly classified technological riposte.
“I didn’t say exactly what this station refueled,” Galen said vaguely, confirming Olivia’s suspicions. An intelligence outpost, then, on the edge of the Syndicate border. How utterly convenient for a soldier like Galen to know about, but Olivia had no interest in espionage. He crossed to where she stood and brought the crystal screen to life. “Let’s see if we can raise anyone.”
“Wait a minute.” Olivia stopped him. “We’ve gotten this far avoiding people. We’re not giving away our position now.”
Galen paused. “If I can reach another outpost, I can summon help. Forces, weapons, information, a ship.”
“None of which I have any use for. I’m just trying to get home. Quietly. Alive.”
“We’re still a hard couple days out from the Syn. With an aetheric shuttle I could get clearance to drop you on your city’s doorstep.”
The only way the Syndicate would allow an Imperial shuttle across the border was if it was plated in gold or carried the empress herself. A fact that Galen, whatever his military background was, had to know. Perhaps he thought she wouldn’t recognize the bluff.
Olivia’s mood soured immediately. She knocked his hands away from the panel. “Fight your war in your own time.”
“It’s not a war, not yet. That’s what I’m trying—” Galen clenched his teeth as he seemed to encounter something intractable in Olivia’s glare. “Fine. At least try your little band. Perhaps we’ve escaped the rebel scramblers.”
That, at least, was an idea Olivia couldn’t argue with. She set down her bag and wordlessly dug her pulseband out. She strapped it to her wrist and powered it on as she walked toward the open end of the platform where she would get a clear signal. The display jumped promptly in front of her eyes, blurting a low charge warning before streaming through its routines. Olivia closed it with a sigh. “No such luck. How are they scrambling this close to the border? The government would throw a fit if it thought the Empire was operating in its territory.”
Galen tilted his head, mouth twisting on a thought. “Unless the Syndicate council knows exactly what the insurrection is doing and condones it. Was there any sign of government intelligence when you received your brief?”
“We’re still a hard couple days out from the border,” Olivia repeated blandly. She frowned down at her band, remembering. “That patrol we encountered. The mercenary that got in a pissing match with the rebel. He sounded Syn, too.”
“Mercenaries can be hired for a number of reasons.”
“But foreigners are suspicious. Why hire a Syn crew to operate that far into the Empire?”
“Same reason one sends a Syndicate Whisper after an Imperial soldier.” Galen quickly measured her reluctance to follow that train of thought. He joined her at the railing and fell silent, sightlessly contemplating the open air beyond the platform. When he spoke again, it was slow and careful. “So the Syndicate is aware there’s an attempted coup underway. The only question is whether your country has had a hand in it, or simply been paid enough to not care.”
It wasn’t anger in his voice now. It was low with sadness, a simple misery that his country had been brought to the point of war. For the first time, guilt gnawed at her chest for the game they were playing. Olivia looked down. “The border is going to disappoint you.”
Olivia didn’t have to look to know she had his attention. She plowed on. “I... I’m going to disappoint you. The questions you have... I don’t have the answers you need.” The admission felt sick in her gut. “You’re trying to stop a war and I’m just trying to save my skin. You have to have figured out by now that I’m just...hired help. Like those mercenaries. This was just a job for me and I...”
“You have everything I need.” The quiet in Galen’s voice shot Olivia’s head around. He faltered, as if realizing just how his words sounded, but he didn’t avoid her gaze. This close, his eyes were cool amber. “Whoever our enemies are, they made a strategic error. They thought you were merely a pawn, and that I’m—” He stopped himself, a wry expression crossing his face. “Take it from me, even a pawn can back a king into a corner. Two pawns and enough room to maneuver could tip the scales. The fact that you’re alive—that we’re both alive—fouls their plans. The
only thing we need to do is ‘save our skins’ as you put it.”
The earnestness in his voice was enough to make her chest hurt. “But this isn’t my war.” There was an apology in her voice.
“I wouldn’t want it to be.” Galen appeared to consider, come to some decision before speaking again. “Whatever you say at the end of this trip, you can go back to your city, your cat, your friend’s bar. Leave the playing board to me.”
He was attempting to reassure her. At great cost, judging by how he weighed his soft words. Had he initially planned to try to stop her at the border? What would have changed his mind? Olivia knew enough about Galen now to know he did not make promises lightly.
But the weight sank deeper in her stomach, and instead of reassurance all Olivia felt was guilt. She diverted her eyes. She was less than a pawn. A meaningless nothing was easy to let go. She looked out over the platform instead.
In the face of conspiracy and war, the vast wilds of the Empire stretched out before them, Olivia simply felt very, very...small. She’d taken comfort in being overlooked, unimportant in the Syndicate, because unimportant meant safe. But now she felt it for what it was: simply powerless. Perhaps it was a side effect of proximity. Staying too long, too near Galen’s mental chessboard and his fierce certainty was infectious. She had begun to feel she could make a difference.
They fell into quiet. Olivia dropped her eyes to the grated floor. The green beneath her took a moment to process, and then a moment more before she stiffened.
“Galen,” Olivia said quietly. “Was the tower door secured in any way?”
“What? No, an outpost abandoned like this...” Galen trailed off as he followed her gaze. Far below them, cloaked figures circled the base of the tower. Galen swore something brusque and growly in Quillian.
“Not yours then.”
“No.”