Fire & Soul

by Siobhan Crosslin

  I clench my hands against the feel of Jye's skin under our fingers, and Mikscn stifles a laugh. He deliberately trails his fingers over Jye's ribs, and Jye shifts under the touch, making a soft, impatient sound. I lean forward despite myself and Mikscn dips down to taste Jye's throat. Jye tilts his head back accommodatingly and I bite my lip. There's no reason to push Jye more than he's comfortable with.

  Mikscn straightens with a pang of frustration and turns to glare at me. Jye lunges up and rolls them both so he's on top, settled over Mikscn's hips. He twists to look at me, his hair all mussed and his pupils blown wide, and it takes everything I have to slip back out the door.

  I slam down on the link between Mikscn and I, strangle it until the only thing left over from synchronizing is a restless itch between my shoulder blades. I draw a slow, shaky breath and force out the urge to taste Jye's skin, see if it tastes the same on my tongue as it did on Mikscn's.

  The gym. Working out will help me calm down. That's what I need to be focusing on. I run a trembling hand through my hair and set off in the direction of the gym.

  The compound is quiet this time of day, everyone either in class or at lunch. When I come into the gym, there are a few people sparring and Njande in a corner, practicing a slow zharma.

  I take up a spot a good distance away and follow his movements. Njande tilts his head in my direction but doesn't otherwise acknowledge my presence. The physical exertion helps slow my mind, lets me focus on something besides the mess of emotions and all the ways they tangle up with Mikscn.

  When I finally come back into my head, there are a few more people around Njande and I, mostly older pilots with a few anams thrown in. Someone suggests a match and we break into a circle around a pilot pair.

  I sit cross-legged on the floor, calling out pointers as the pilots spar. Desin and Yenja haven't been in the same trifecta long, and it shows in their sparring, how it's not quite a dance. There's a little too much clashing, but they're still refining their technique.

  "Here." I accept the bottle of water from Njande with a nod. He sits next to me, a knife and polishing rag in his hand. "They've improved," he murmurs.

  "Yeah." Njande doesn't talk much; the general consensus is that he just can't be bothered to. The Zhunai are a strange race, made to be cheap labor and repurposed as assassins, unfailingly loyal and obedient. But a slave is a slave is a slave, and even though Jheghda married his assassin, his right-hand, Njande had still been bought and paid for fourteen years ago. He's the only one of Jheghda's men we'll accept in our midst.

  "Your anam good?"

  I watch Njande from the corner of my eyes, but his attention is divided between his knife and Desin and Yenja's match. "Yeah." I don't think he's prying for Jheghda, and I've never heard of him betraying confidences, but it would be stupid to trust someone who shares Jheghda's bed.

  He just nods. "Good."

  Desin and Yenja break apart with a laugh and a kiss. Neina and Tiamin get up next, trading lingering touches before brutal punches.

  "Match?" Njande suggests.

  "Sure." I haven't sparred with Njande in a couple of weeks. Mikscn and I had been too busy with Misa to pay attention to anyone else.

  Neina and Tiamin have been partners for a long, long time, and watching them spar is always a pleasure. Njande lets out a low chuckle when Neina trips Tiamin and pins him, a feral grin on her face. Tiamin pulls Neina down for a kiss and Neina allows it, laughing. I wonder if sparring with Jye would be like that, a flowing push-pull scattered with kisses and glancing touches.

  I shake my head as I move to stand opposite Njande in the circle. That's not something I can be wanting, not something Jye is likely to want. Like Cherian doesn't get to keep his pilots, Mikscn and I never get to keep our anams.

  "Ready?" Njande asks. His eyes are half-closed. He looks like he could fall asleep where he's standing, and that puts me on my guard more than if he looked eager to kick my ass.

  "Are you?" I challenge, and he flashes a grin before charging.

  *~*~*

  "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

  I groan and bury my head in my arms, try to curl away from Mikscn's avenging presence. "Leave me alone," I grunt.

  "I cannot believe you slept in the adjunct!" I sigh. "We fell asleep waiting for you to come back! Why did you leave?"

  "Because I felt like it," I snarl.

  "Bullshit."

  "Maybe I didn't feel like fucking someone I just met," I bite out.

  "Don't act like you're not obsessed with him," Mikscn snaps.

  "Leave me the fuck alone!"

  "Not until you tell me why you left!" Mikscn shifts closer, blocking out the sun. "All I got was some sort of guilt about Jye? He's ours!"

  "No he's not," I snarl, bolting out of my interface cradle. "He will never be ours," I breathe, an inch from Mikscn's face. "He's only with us because we're the most powerful pilots here. As soon as Jheghda pisses off the wrong House, they'll recall him, and the next time we see him, it'll be in a dossier on our enemies."

  "You've got some issues, babe."

  I look past Mikscn on reflex and glare at Jye. "Fuck you."

  Jye leans forward, his hands braced on the edges of the cockpit. "You didn't, actually."

  Despite myself, I feel my face heat. "Why are you here?"

  "Talk to each other," Mikscn says, his tone flat. He brushes past Jye and gives me a long look before slipping out of the cockpit.

  I collapse into my interface cradle and pull up a HUD, sighing as it flickers behind my eyelids.

  Jye drifts closer, his fingers brushing over panels and circuits. "You take excellent care of your adjunct."

  "Aiya does most of the work," I say.

  Jye perches near Mikscn's cradle. "It's not that you don't like me," he says slowly. "No, you like me a lot."

  "I don't want to talk about it."

  "Is it because you're so inexperienced? I don't care either way."

  "I said I don't want to talk about it," I say, my fingers biting into the interface relays under my hands.

  "No, I think it's because you don't know how to be in control of a situation."

  "No, I—" I snap my mouth shut, and he nods.

  "You don't necessarily have to be in control, Temsha. Or out of control. You've spent your whole life obeying orders. If anyone's supposed to be in control of this trifecta, it's me."

  I stare at him hard, line up what he's saying with all the anams who've come before him. All of them too young, not powerful enough, most of them female and therefore very unlikely to be the kind of anam Aiya thinks we should have in terms of calming down. And all of them were off-limits because they weren't ours, didn't belong to us the way Micca belongs to Aiya and Keito, because we never get to keep our anams.

  But Jye's free. He belongs to himself—decides who he belongs to. Could maybe decide to not belong to himself anymore.

  I bury my head in my hands. I don't know how to do this. It's one thing to obey orders—though disobeying Aiya isn't exactly conducive to living—but it's something else entirely to give up control to our anam. Whenever Aiya and Keito piss off Jheghda, Micca steps forward and takes command, takes over reporting, protecting his pilots because even free pilots can suffer, and punishing, disciplining his pilots when needed. Before, it's always been Mikscn and I trying to shield our anam, trying to extend their life just a little longer by keeping them beneath Jheghda's notice and behaving ourselves. I don't know how to do this.

  "You don't have to," Jye murmurs, and rests his hand on the back of my neck. It's a move so reminiscent of Aiya or Keito that I can't help but relax, surrendering under someone that's supposed to be in charge for once. "I'll take care of it," Jye continues, kneeling in front of me so I have to look him in the eye. "Trust me."

  I make myself breathe out slowly, and nod.

  *~*~*

  I blink up at the dimmed lights above the bed, and sigh. Beside me, Mikscn curls further into Jye's warmth. I pet a hand throu
gh my brother's hair and the bond between us resonates with contentment. I spare a couple of seconds to close it down gently, so Mikscn can sleep a little bit longer.

  Once I've rolled out of bed and dressed, I carry my boots into the hall. Keito's waiting a few doors down, his arms crossed in front of his chest and his hair a disordered mess. He waits while I put on my boots, and I let his presence soothe away the disquiet sitting in my chest. We walk to the gym together; it's early even for the sky forces, early enough that when we get to the gym it's entirely empty.

  I follow Keito to a corner and follow him in our morning zharma, letting my mind drift as my body flows from one stance to another, stretching out sleep-heavy muscles and waking up my appetite. "He's a good guy," Keito says when we reach the end of our morning ritual. "I knew his father, knew him when he was still a kid."

  I look Keito over pensively. His trifecta's been with House Bredan for at least as long as Mikscn and I have, but none of them look much older than their early thirties, and that's pushing it. Jye's in his mid-twenties himself, compared to Mikscn and my twenty, and he would've been sent away for anam schooling at around five years old.

  "How old are you?" I demand, the numbers just not adding up in my head. I hadn't thought about it before because Keito, Aiya, and Micca have always been there. They're the closest things we have to parents.

  Keito shrugs, and I glare at him. "You have to be at least forty …." Only that isn't right, either, because House Bredan only employs those free trifectas that are over the age of thirty. I stop and turn to stare at him. "Keito, how old are you?"

  He drops to sit on the ground. "We were hoping you wouldn't realize." I follow him to the ground and copy his stretch. "I'm fifty-two; close your mouth, gaping is unattractive."

  I straighten and shake my head. "No fucking way."

  "Yes way." He rolls his eyes and stretches down to touch his toes. "Not our fault you two don't pay attention to things."

  "Sorry if we didn't realize our surrogate parents are fucking immortal!" I hiss when I see a trifecta wandering into the gym. "Keito, what the fuck? You guys don't look much older than us!" Thirty-two years, how is that even possible?

  For the first time, I see Keito hesitate. His eyes dart to look at the trifecta before flicking back to me. "I'm sure you've heard of Project Áed?" he murmurs, and I recoil, dropping my eyes to the floor.

  "Keito—"

  "Temsha, just—"

  "Hey, you." Jye appears at the entrance and strolls over to us, his expression open and bright. "We didn't hear you sneak out."

  I let the pleased embarrassment that always accompanies a conversation with Jye overrule the cold terror that's the only possible reaction to Keito's words. He didn't—he wouldn't risk everything he has, everything I have, on those two words. I just misheard him, is all.

  Something about spending time with Keito slips out of my mouth and Jye gives me a pleased smile, his hand darting out to brush my hair away from my face. "Mikscn wanted me to find you before breakfast, if you're up for it."

  "I'm starving," I blurt, and I glance at Keito as Jye pulls me to my feet. His expression is calm, relaxed, and I decide I really did just imagine it when I see Keito's expression darken as his eyes dart to the entrance.

  Micca's standing there, spinning a short staff in his hand, eyes locked on Keito despite the people filtering in between them. They look serious, determined, and it shakes something in me to the core, the thought that our mentors would be involved with something like that—

  "Breathe," Jye murmurs into my ear, trailing his hands along my ribs as an excuse for the display of affection. He's pushy, aggressively in my personal space and it completely removes my mind from the panic looming.

  "Stop," I mumble, making a half-hearted attempt to push him away.

  He laughs and catches my lips in a hard kiss. All my thoughts evaporate as he licks his way into my mouth and it's only the others' catcalls that remind me that we're in the fucking gym and everyone can see us.

  I really do shove him away then, but it does nothing to hide the fierce blush I can feel burning all the way to my ears, and he reels me back in, laughing. The others are relatively tame with their jeering and I drag Jye out of the room, keeping my head down to hide the smile that won't stop tugging at my lips. The gym opens before breakfast does, so the halls are quiet, and Jye tugs me back, pulling me in again and I let him even though part of me is wondering how many people are gonna see us now.

  "You okay?" He sinks his hand into my hair and tugs a little, the motion exposing my throat.

  Hot embarrassment settles low in my stomach, but I do nothing to break his grip. "Yeah," I breathe, and something shivery chases down my spine when he mouths at my jaw. I hold tight to his hips, bracing myself, waiting for—

  "Seriously? I leave you alone for two minutes and this is what you get up to." There's nothing but amusement in Mikscn's voice despite the words, and Jye tucks me close as Mikscn draws near enough to kiss. "Today even, instead of yesterday like I told you to."

  "You said for us to talk," I mutter, and the low-level irritation at Mikscn interrupting gets swept away under Jye's mouth. I feel the puff of Mikscn's scoff against my cheek before Jye pulls away to kiss him again. It doesn't seem to take any extra effort for him to juggle us both and I frown.

  "Do they teach you to do this is in anam training?" I ask before my thoughts can catch up.

  Jye grins at me. "They do. In fact, the class is called Threesomes 10—"

  "Not a threesome," Mikscn says flatly. He rolls his eyes as he steps away and starts walking down the hall. I make myself follow him, and Jye drifts after us. "We're sharing you, there's a difference."

  "Yeah, but the class is called—"

  "Jye, stop lying," Aiya says, startling all three of us. Jye makes a mournful noise that Aiya entirely ignores. "I'd like to go over a few more simulations after you guys are done with your exercises for the day."

  "Why are you riding us so hard?" Mikscn bites out as we walk into the dining hall. "We're going home in four days and we have an escort."

  "I just want you guys to be able to work together properly," Aiya says in her 'Do as I say or suffer the consequences' voice.

  "Yeah, but we're tired," Mikscn says mulishly as we get into line behind a few other trifectas. "And running so many simulations is going to be hard if Temsha doesn't get over himself enough to let Jye fuck him—"

  "Mikscn!" I whap my asshole brother upside the head and he glares at me, and that's not fair cuz I know that he and Jye haven't had sex yet, either.

  The pilots and anams ahead of us are giving us amused, pitying looks and I wish futilely for a hole to open up in the ground to swallow Mikscn. Normally, he's the calm, rational third, but when he's annoyed he turns into the bitchiest ass I've ever met.

  "Sorry I wanted to get to know him before I let him—"

  "You two are such children sometimes, I swear," Aiya says drolly.

  One of the anams ahead of us is whispering something in Jye's ear, giving Mikscn and I bright, amused looks while Micca looks on with a smirk curving his lips. Jye looks way too invested in what she's saying, it's awful. When did my life turn into a circus act?

  Aiya gets drawn into conversation with another pilot as the line shuffles forward and Mikscn turns to me with a sigh. "Seriously though, Temsha. It's not like you're doing a good job pretending you aren't completely into Jye."

  "We talked," I protest. "I just wasn't … sure about some things."

  Mikscn gives me a hard stare. "You feel better about everything?"

  I'm sure you've heard of Project Áed.

  "Yeah," I say.

  Mikscn must be satisfied by whatever he finds in my face, because he nods. "Okay. We're going to make an amazing trifecta, Temsha, I know it."

  *~*~*

  Jheghda's personal rooms are quiet and dark, the still, humid air broken only by the bubble of the fountain and pool in the next room. Jheghda's sitting at a low table, an
open report in his hands. Njande is lying with his head on Jheghda's knee, stretched out like a content cat.

  Jheghda's face is set in a frown, completely different from the practiced amusement he usually presents to outsiders. This Jheghda looks more down-to-earth, calmer and quiet; less a snake in the grass and more a prowling tiger.

  He makes us kneel for almost an hour in silence, Jye, Mikscn and I arranged in a loose triangle. Coming into the room, Mikscn and I had moved to stand in front of Jye, but he slipped between us and took point. It makes the back of my neck itch to have our anam in front of us and vulnerable, and I wonder if this is what Jye meant about trusting him.

  "My reports say that this trifecta held a 100% compatibility rate in your test sequences," Jheghda says without looking up. "Is that correct?"

  "Yes, Your Eminence," Jye says before Mikscn or I can reply.

  That gets Jheghda's attention—he looks up sharply, his eyes flicking between us before his lips curve in a grin. He lets a hand drop down to pet through Njande's hair.

  Njande's cat-slitted eyes drift open before he blinks and his pupils go round and huge. He yawns, the tips of his canines glistening in the light.

  "What do you think?" Jheghda asks, and Njande hums.

  "Good team," he murmurs. "House Corcins has been acting up. Worth it to keep them."

  "Mm." Jheghda stares down at Njande, his expression pensive as he strokes his thumb along sharp cheekbones. "How are you liking my House, Jye?"

  "Very much," Jye says, and he sounds strange without his usual dose of sarcasm. "I've been made to feel most welcome, Prince."

  "Good, I'm pleased to mend the bridge between House Osess and my people."

  "Of course, Your Eminence. His Eminent Lord Aeshan is pleased as well."

  I tense. Jye may not technically belong to Jheghda, but Jheghda's never this calm and polite.