A Conspiracy of Whispers

by Ada Harper

  Zahira raised her head as he entered. The massive silver wolf had taken up roost sprawled across the floor behind Olivia, ears alert, positioned between her and the door. Her eyes were yellow coins in the light and blinked at him calmly as she rose and padded over. Zahira had been at his side since his blooding at fourteen, Imperial tradition. Quillian wolves and their lords shared more than just a simple understanding. Galen hadn’t needed to tell the wolf what he most wanted to safeguard.

  “There’s militia in the town,” Galen said by way of greeting. Zahira shoved against his thigh affectionately as she went past and out the door. Probably in hope of begging delicacies from Bowen. Galen shut the door behind her.

  Olivia tilted her head as she made room at the window. “I saw.”

  “The border is a trap. No one is getting through that way.”

  “Of course not.” Olivia’s expression was placid as she traced a path with her finger through the fogged window. A makeshift map of her horizon. “But the farmland skirts the town right up to the border. I saw Lyre’s maps. I can follow that dry riverbed and cross there. It’s a clear shot.”

  “There will be patrols all over, even outside of town.”

  “So I avoid them.” Olivia slid her gaze sideways to him. “We’ve been doing that for two weeks now.”

  “If you get caught crossing illegally in the middle of an uprising, even if you’re caught by my people, they’ll throw you in detainment.”

  “Not as long as I make it across the border. The Whispers won’t care.” Olivia shrugged. “At least not until your problems bleed over. I’ll be fine once I’m back in the Syn.”

  “Are you so sure of that?”

  Olivia glanced up sharply.

  “Think about it. What you told me about this job. And now the border patrols here. Liv—” Galen touched a hand to her shoulder. “What if someone didn’t intend for you to come back from this assignment?”

  Unease soured her face. Olivia stilled. “Don’t be ridiculous. They could just as easily be watching for you.”

  “Anyone hunting me would assume I’d be running for Ameranthe, not the border. Think about it. If you’d done your job, if you’d killed me and Henley’s men in that clearing, you’d be a lone mercenary caught behind enemy lines during a military coup. You would have either been killed or captured, and either way, the Syn could have disavowed any knowledge of it. Liv—” It seemed to Galen that if he could just say her name enough he could hold some piece of her, here, safe. But he knew you didn’t tether birds, or cats, or human-shaped horizons like Olivia. He couldn’t help but try anyway. “Just think it through for a moment. There might be someone on the Syndicate side with an interest in seeing you not come back.”

  Galen saw her think it through, the logical conclusions sliding across her face like a shadow. Then her jaw clenched and he knew shadows would never be enough. “I’ve got B, and Yoshi will be expecting me. The city’s still my home—”

  “If you go, that city will be your grave.” The frustration broke through his voice. She blinked up at him, surprised.

  Almost regretfully, Olivia dropped her eyes. She twisted around him for the door, fleeing again. “Just focus on your own war.”

  Their story had always been a series of little collisions. A gun to his chin, a fist in his collar, a shove, her blood-slick hand finally reaching for his, his nose pushed into her hair to convince himself she was still here. All under duress, but all potent, magnetic in nature. So his hand on her arm as she passed felt natural. He tightened his grip to slow her. “Liv, you don’t—”

  Natural, at least until the world pivoted and he found himself on the floor, his back pressed into the rug, forcibly guided there by the knee that dug into his chest. Olivia hovered over him, her expression shattered and fragile. Her arm trembled where it pressed against his throat. Galen wisely held still.

  Her gaze was gunpowder looking for a match. It flickered over his face, pausing at his mouth before jutting up again. Her teeth clenched against some undefinable emotion, hot and fierce. “I decide what I want. Me. Not the Syn, and not you.”

  Galen took a single breath. “What do you want, Liv?”

  Moonlight hit her hair. Her eyes stopped.

  Olivia’s mouth collided hard against his, teeth clicking. A fierce, sharp demand that flared before giving way to a soft press of lips. A growl of surprise escaped his chest before he surged forward, taking as much as she would give. His hands slid over her sides, marveling at the uninterrupted line of warm curves beneath the thin shirt. Everywhere he touched he felt her, so many layers gone between them. His fingers curved around her hips and Olivia breathed sharply into his lips. One of her hands slid up to tentatively touch his jaw and she stayed there, hesitating. The flickering light made everything unreadable except the wet gleam in her eyes.

  Galen was lost. He felt it in his chest. He raised a hand up, brushing lightly at her cheek. His fingertips came away wet. He sat up slowly, allowing Olivia time to shift—or withdraw—but she only moved until she was straddling his lap.

  Her breath was a living thing, fast and shallow as it whispered over his cheek. “What I want—” The words were helpless, gulped down in a shiver of tension, an internal struggle that made Galen’s heart ache.

  He slid forward and caught her mouth again, slowly this time. She sighed into it, slipping into his chest. Her warm scent surrounded him, a zephyr of neon and warmth, foreign and familiar. He had to close his eyes against the urge to clutch her to him, to taste her until he was all she could feel. He settled for sinking his hand into her hair. Carding through it slowly as he carefully avoided her nape. He drew his fingertips over her scalp, marveling at how she shuddered and leaned into him.

  It was so right. He explored the seam of her lips with his tongue. Her hips rocked into his in response, fitting as if they’d always belonged there and drawing a startled huff from Galen. Olivia jerked and froze, as if just realizing what she was doing. Galen barely had time to release his clutch on her hip before she flung herself out of his lap. Her normal grace was gone and his heart ached as she gathered her feet under her. Hiding the same dazed expression that he felt.

  Galen took a hard, steadying breath, forcing himself to stay still. “Don’t go, Olivia.”

  Her eyes were lidded. She rubbed her face absently. “This is my room.”

  “I meant tomorrow.”

  That drew her back, blinking. He could see her lips were reddened when she bit them. But then she shook her head. “I don’t have any other options.”

  “You do. Stay.” The word he had resolved not to say burned so easily across his lips. He distantly registered the way Olivia’s shoulders stiffened, chin up. His fingers curled desperately around her shoulder. “You could just stay in the Empire.”

  “Just,” Olivia repeated, and Galen knew he should not ignore the low, bottomless tone in the way she repeated the word. “There is no ‘just’ for me.”

  “But you could. There are resources. I could help you find a way here. Guarantee any life you wanted.” Galen grasped blindly for something that would turn her pained gaze. “There is no so-called ‘breeding program’ in the Quillian Empire.”

  “No, there isn’t.” Olivia barked a laugh that was jagged and wounding. “There’s bonds. Fairy tales and obligation and bloody honor baked into the system. You told me yourself that caricaes rarely live apart from some formal arrangement. So staying here would mean, what? Being kept as some royal pet?”

  “No! You could be—” But Galen couldn’t finish that sentence. Not without making things worse. He pressed the words between his lips. He could still taste her there. “Caricaes are not prisoners here.”

  “Funny. They’re not soldiers, scouts, or transportation personnel in the Empire either, from what I’ve seen.”

  Galen’s mind was too overwhelmed to understand her argument. He felt l
ike he’d stepped into open air. “Well, no. But you’ve hardly had a large enough sample to understand—”

  “Are there caricae senators? Politicians? Leaders?”

  “I don’t—” Frustration made his words muddled. She was right, Galen realized she was right, but he could process that another time. Being right would not keep her safe. He tried to focus. “I just want to help you, Liv. What—what happened to deciding what you want?”

  Turmoil flickered across her face. Olivia pressed it all back with a frown. “I’m not trading one trap for another. I’ve worked too hard for that.”

  That was so alien it made Galen recoil. “You think allowing someone to care for you is a trap?” And the look Olivia gave him answered that enough. A calmer part of him distantly realized he was losing his calm. Voice raised, demanding, leaning into her like every horrible altus stereotype he’d denied. But the louder part of him said he was losing everything as it was.

  Sabine was the one skilled with words. The way Sabine could hurt and manipulate with a phrase was something Galen both respected and loathed about his sister. Worse, it was a skill Galen only shared when he was angry. And it was never, ever in his control. It was why he always erred on the side of calm, patience, silence, and why, in that moment when his gut clenched with fear, he reached for words and found the very worst ones. “You think you’re going to get a better offer in the Syn?”

  The words landed visibly. Olivia stepped back. This time the emotions were clear: shock, then hurt. “Offer? That’s what that was?”

  That. Oh. His mind reeled back to moments before. No.

  “You kissed me,” he heard himself saying. Olivia’s face went blank. And Galen wondered if Lyre would shoot him if he made it an order.

  She recoiled, a fist clenched tight against her chest like shielding a wound. When the anger surged in her voice, Galen miserably welcomed it. “You’re right. My mistake. How fucking generous of you to humor me. Thank you, Galen. You’ve clarified everything now.”

  “Liv, that’s—” Galen tried, but she cut him off.

  “Stupid. Stupid to expect anything else.” Loathing twisted her face as she glanced around the room, seeming to decide something. “Forget it. I don’t need to wait until morning anyway.”

  Olivia took a step and, because Galen stood by the door, changed course. She threw open the window and grabbed her half-packed satchel in one fluid motion. Galen thought she hesitated, a sliver of a moment, caught in front of the window. Her hair was still wet. Her shirt shivered in the breeze. Then she disappeared over the sill and was gone.

  She hadn’t looked back.

  A breeze ticked through the room. With it came a numbness that held Galen in place, an unwillingness to catch up to the present. Olivia always landed on her feet. She would land and she would run, and Galen could only stare at the square of moonlight that had framed her a moment before. His attention drifted around the room, catching on each thing she’d left behind before it landed on her coat—his coat—still neatly folded over the chair. His eyes went back to the window where the distant Syndicate skyline glittered, hungry and waiting.

  He wasn’t certain how long he stood, processing the fear and self-loathing he deserved for what had just happened. But when he moved again, it was to grab his coat. A drift of scents rolled over him as he slung it on and headed for the door. Olivia’s zephyr breeze twined with his own less pleasant sweat, distant and pathetic underneath it. Maybe it was true you couldn’t hold on to a horizon.

  But, gods, you could always chase it.

  Chapter Ten

  She could feel the thrum of the train car shuddering above the pulse rail all the way to the roots of her teeth. Olivia hadn’t noticed that before. She hadn’t noticed how the crinkly vinyl seats smelled of stale grease and strangers’ sweat, a chemical trace of spilled buzz-fizz, and a lingering of quaramesh from some junkie. Not like rain-washed stone and sun. She was noticing a lot of things now.

  It was too cold in the city. Too cold, with wind that howled between tall buildings like concrete corridors and snapped mercilessly at her skin. In the Caeweld, surrounded by sunken valleys and trees, the air had been quiet, still. Time had been still. But now it was moving again and Olivia felt ripped in its wake. The city was loud, anonymous, familiar. She’d looked forward to sliding back into her old life like an old coat. Instead, every rough edge seemed to scrape against invisible wounds. There was a hollow pain in her chest.

  You think you’ll get a better offer in the Syn?

  She tugged the newly replaced scarf viciously tight against her throat. Most of the night crossing the border had been a haze. Moving through the fields slowly to avoid detection, mechanical and raw with salt lacing her throat and cheeks. She’d thought she’d be righted by a hot shower and sleeping for three days straight. She’d planned to be in bed by now.

  Instead, she found herself standing in a shadow contemplating the likelihood of death.

  A sit-down. Whispers didn’t do a sit-down. Especially not with a freelancer. She always picked up and submitted her contracts digitally. After the work was done, it was a simple matter to send off proof, wait twenty-four hours, then wake up the next morning to her payment in her account. Not this time. She’d sent her contract completion scans the minute she got a secure pulse feed at home. But after twelve hours, instead of payment there had been a new assignment in her in-box. No explanation from Wallis, just Report to Whisper HQ.

  Her eyes had slid uneasily around her room after reading that. It had felt odd, sleeping in a soft bed again after so many nights tucked between tree branches. It had felt even odder waking up to four claustrophobic walls. The way they smothered the outside noise used to make her feel so secure. Now, no matter where she went in the city she felt trapped.

  The Whisper building was a twin to every building in the government sector: new, glittering, efficient. A titan of new steel and glass and absolutely nothing left to chance or emotion. The Whispers occupied a lower level of a tower in the heart of the sector, worlds away from her Cauldron streets. Since she’d started masquerading as a genta, Olivia only had cause to come to the government sector twice, the day she received her Whisper permit and once, on a mission, when an altus protester had thought to stage a riot in the square for media coverage. Nothing had ever made the news, of course; Olivia was good at her job.

  Olivia was fucking good at her job. That’s why this bothered her. That’s why she hesitated, across the government square, in the shadow of the security cameras.

  If she lingered much longer, she’d trigger the suspicious behavior tag on the FL-AI drones that monitored the city. Olivia took a deep breath, adjusted her scarf, and mounted the steps to the Whisper building.

  * * *

  The air of the room was chill and smelled of dry chemicals and wet metal. The speed with which Olivia had been ushered down endless arrow-straight hallways only increased the lead forming in her stomach.

  What if someone didn’t expect you to come back?

  Godsdamn Galen. Godsdamn Galen and his mind like a bag of cats. She’d sworn she wouldn’t think of him again, not after striding into the dark with the light of the house at her back, hot streaks on her face. But he’d installed this anxiety in her with just one word of pointless paranoia.

  She couldn’t afford to think about any of that anymore. She was cautious by nature but she’d always been able to trust Whisper work. She did good work, had an impeccable record. That’s why she’d been eligible for the assignment in the first place, she assumed. Perhaps there’d just been a technical error with the scan or—

  “Whisper Shaw.”

  Olivia’s muscles cramped from the effort of not jumping at the voice. You survived in the Syn by being a good civilian. A good civilian, even a Whisper, was calm and compliant with the system. Good civilians didn’t startle. Or get curious. When Olivia turned her head, she made
sure it was a lazy tilt.

  An older woman wearing the pips of government sanction and the demeanor of a scientist stood at the door. She had at least a decade on Olivia. She had the body of a soldier, but wore a linen suit with ease that spoke of plenty of time shaking hands and winning confidence. Her hair was close-cropped and dark red. The gray salting her hair gave it the overall appearance of a skullcap of dried blood and white bone.

  “Your report was nine days over estimate. It will be docked from your pay,” the woman announced and Olivia finally put the voice to the face and shot out of her chair.

  “Wallis! I mean—Whisper Wallis.”

  “Present,” Wallis said without humor. “Take a seat, Shaw.”

  “Sure.” Olivia sank back down. She relaxed a little as Wallis entered alone. If it was simply Wallis here, then perhaps this was simply a clerical error and she could get through undetected.

  “You are late,” Wallis repeated once she had her attention again.

  “I apologize.” Olivia held up her bandaged hand. “As I mentioned in the report, what I encountered was beyond the scope of your brief.”

  “My brief was entirely appropriate for the situation.” Wallis tapped at an unseen pulse display, eyes clouding as the retinal implant delivered data only Wallis could see. “Why aren’t you full time, Shaw?”

  The direction of the question startled the smile from Olivia’s face. The real answer was simple: permanent status took blood-work, which Olivia could not fake. She had a different response prepped. “Freelancing fits in better with my personal situation.”

  “Still? No registered spouse, no child assignments, and your mother died, what, a year ago?” The sympathy crinkled the skin not quite close enough to Wallis’s eyes. More measured than authentic. “Tragic.”