Shield (Bridge & Sword: Awakenings #2): Bridge & Sword World

by JC Andrijeski

  “I tried to find out from Jon and Cass, but they didn’t know. What you’d want. If you’d expect a more…” He met my gaze. “Human ritual. I didn’t know if you’d want anything.”

  He cleared his throat, gesturing delicately with the same hand.

  “…A ceremony. There are seer versions. I’m open to a human variant. In India. Or somewhere else.” He cleared his throat again. “We could bring your people here. Or we could travel… if you’d rather do that. I don’t know if you want me to explain more about… you know. How this works with seers.”

  I must have blinked. I continued to stare at him, wondering if he’d possibly been replaced. It actually crossed my mind that Terian had replaced him.

  I realized then, that he was waiting. He expected me to speak.

  “Revik.” I found I was stammering. “I really don’t need––”

  “Just think about what you would want,” he said, quicker that time, as if heading off something he saw on my face. “I know I’m springing this on you, but just think about it.” His fingers tightened on mine. “And where you’d want to live. We’ve never talked about any of the logistics. We should. I’d like us to share a home. I’m open as to where, Allie. Really open. There are probably safety considerations, but we can negotiate with the Council.”

  I swallowed again, staring down at our hands.

  “Allie, I don’t want you to think––”

  “Revik. Stop.” Holding up a hand, I took a breath, fighting to control my light.

  Finally, I shook my head, closing my eyes.

  “Please don’t take this the wrong way. Please. I really, really appreciate that you were willing to do this. And yes, I know we’re both in pain… a lot of pain.” I hesitated, forcing myself to look up. Wincing a little at his expression, I added, “But I can’t… I really can’t have this be your solution to what Maygar did.”

  He stiffened. For a second he didn’t move at all.

  Then his face changed, his features bleeding rapidly into shock.

  “Alyson… d’ gaos!”

  “Please! Don’t be offended. You know why I’m saying it.”

  He continued to stare at me, his face frozen in an expression that didn’t seem to know what I was saying at all.

  I bit my lip. “Revik, please. This is exactly the opposite of what you said to me the last time we talked.” Swallowing, I waved a hand towards the fire. “I’m not letting that whole… thing… force your hand. We should just go back to the original plan. Make sure this is right.”

  When I glanced back, he was staring at me, his eyes still buried in a kind of disbelief.

  It had progressed from earlier though; I saw him thinking now, maybe trying to decide what to say. In any case, his silence, mixed with that lost, puzzled look on his face, made it hard to look at him for long.

  “Maybe you were right before,” I said. “Maybe we should talk tomorrow.”

  “Allie, you’ve completely––”

  “Revik,” I said, cutting him off again before I’d thought. “I’m sorry. I really am. But I don’t think we should do this tonight. Let’s just… sleep on it.”

  Feeling another ripple of emotion off him, I searched my mind for some neutral way to end this. I only found one.

  As casually as I could, I started to regain my feet.

  Grasping my arms, he pulled me down again.

  “Allie, no.” He softened his voice, but I heard tension in it. His fingers were warm as they clasped mine. He touched my face, turning my chin so I would look at him.

  “Please. Listen to me. D’ gaos…. have I fucked things up with us that badly?” Feeling something off me, or maybe just feeling me pull away, he clutched me tighter. “Alyson! This isn’t about Maygar!”

  He was breathing harder.

  His light seemed to spark at me, reminding me of all that time ago, when he was first teaching me sight, the few times I saw him upset or angry or afraid.

  A little alarmed, I clasped his fingers in return.

  “Revik… hey,” I said. “Calm down, all right? It’s okay. You didn’t mess anything up with us. It’s really nice what you’re doing. I mean it.”

  “Nice?” he said. “Alyson! Dugra ti le ente…”

  I felt something rise in his light. I flinched at its intensity.

  He withdrew, all at once.

  Shielding from me, he took a breath, forcing whatever it was back.

  “Look,” he said. “I am hearing you, Allie. I’m listening.” He motioned towards the low couch against the wall. “…I’ll sleep in here. I’ll sleep outside if you want. But please, gods, listen to me. This has nothing at all to do with Maygar! Maybe I haven’t been clear about––”

  “You were clear,” I said.

  I flushed after I spoke, realizing I’d cut him off yet again.

  I felt his light spark around me, disbelieving once more, and I fought to relax, extricating myself gently.

  “Revik,” I said. “I believe you. I do. But you’re confusing me. And I still think it’s a bad idea.”

  “Which part?” he said. “What’s a bad idea? Us? The sex?”

  I stared at him. “You honestly think we should have sex right now?”

  I saw something flicker in his eyes, but he wiped it away, leaving me with the mask. His voice came out neutral.

  “I’ll wait,” he said. “…as long as you want for that. Please, Allie. Just tell me if that’s what you meant.”

  Fighting to read past that mask, and to think, to wade through his words and my mind, I realized this was going to a bad place. I tried to think how to back us off of the pit we were circling. I stared at his hands, fighting separation pain, wishing I could just leave the house… wishing I’d slept with someone during that year he’d been gone, or done anything other than wait for him while he figured out how he felt about me.

  But that was ridiculous. And borderline insane, really.

  I shook my head, still staring at our hands.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Revik. I’m really sorry about this. Maybe I just need some time to think.”

  When I looked up, he was staring at me. His face was utterly blank now, his light closed. It crossed my mind to wonder how much he’d heard of what had just gone through my head.

  “I’m not talking about us,” I said. “To be clear, I didn’t mean us. I’m talking about sex. Tonight. It just feels wrong. I don’t want to do it like this––”

  “So we won’t,” he said quickly. “We won’t, Allie.”

  I heard relief in his voice, and that brought the pain back, bad enough that I couldn’t answer him at first. Lowering my head, I clenched my jaw, waiting for it to pass. As it began to subside, I felt him caressing my fingers with his.

  “I’ll sleep out here,” he said, quieter.

  He still sounded relieved.

  I got a little too quickly to my feet.

  He stood with me. I didn’t want to risk walking, not with my light halfway outside my body, so I risked looking like an idiot instead, and stayed by the table until I calmed down.

  I didn’t move when he stepped closer. He touched my hand lightly with his fingers.

  I was just standing there, not looking at him, when he lowered his face so that our cheeks touched. I felt his breath by my ear.

  “Allie,” he murmured. “Please. Please don’t leave me because I’m clumsy with this. Please.”

  The pain in my chest worsened.

  I looked up. His clear eyes held that intensity again, making them hard to look at. I felt myself softening at the expression there. I was still staring up when I felt myself reacting again… to his nearness, to his light, noticing the shape of his mouth.

  He flinched. I took a reflexive step back.

  Disentangling my light, I didn’t look back as I walked out of the room.

  I DIDN’T THINK I’d sleep.

  I lay on the bed wearing the kimono, thinking I’d lie there most of the night, staring at the same patc
h of ceiling. But something in the stress… or, more likely, the eight plus hours of hiking, most of it up steep, mountain tracks… knocked me out cold. I had a passing glimmer of guilt that he got stuck on the couch with his height, but it didn’t even last long enough for me to get up and brush my teeth.

  The next morning, I didn’t know where I was.

  I looked around for Tarsi and Hannah, expecting to see them crouched by the fire.

  Instead, sunlight peered through the cracks in the curtains of a real window, and the only thing across from the bed was a bureau with several wooden boxes on top. I lay on something a lot softer than the floor pallet, feeling the cleanest I’d felt in several days at least.

  I raised my arm and the sleeve of the kimono fell to my elbow.

  Remembering the night before, I didn’t move for what was probably fifteen minutes, riding out the morning dose of separation pain while trying to shield it from view in the construct around the small house. Eventually, though, I climbed out of bed, untying the front of the kimono and hanging it on a bedpost.

  For a moment I just looked at it, and felt like a jerk.

  I’d been wearing makeup last night, too, after the shower.

  Biting my lip, I went through drawers, found a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. Tying my hair back as best I could, I washed my face in the freezing cold sink water, getting off the remnants of the makeup and scrubbing my skin. Cass, being Cass, had supplied me with enough cosmetics, skin creams and perfumes for the entire cast of Cats.

  I decided to skip that for today, though, with the exception of moisturizer and deodorant.

  Pulling on socks, I took a deep breath and ventured into the other room.

  He wasn’t there.

  Looking around, I wondered if he’d slept in the cabin at all; the couch didn’t seem any different than it had the night before.

  I was reassured slightly when I smelled coffee and located the pot steaming on the counter. It was still hot, and didn’t smell old, so I poured myself some, after rummaging through the cabinets for a mug.

  Still clutching the mug, I headed for the door to outside.

  I figured he’d done his usual and wandered off.

  Knowing him, I had a few hours at least, to sit outside on the bench, stare at the mountains and wake up. Shoving my feet into my unlaced boots by the door, I pushed it open with my hip and peered outside.

  Once I could see through the morning light, I stopped dead.

  Two horses stood in the mown space around the house, tied to the fence.

  Revik stood beside the larger one, a pale-colored horse with a dark-red face. I watched him cinch some kind of makeshift saddle to its back with what looked like a macrame seat belt. The saddle itself, upon closer inspection, was a sheepskin blanket. These weren’t those small Tibetan horses, either, but the full-sized variety I remembered from home.

  He glanced over when he saw me. He wore his careful face.

  “Good morning,” he said.

  He motioned towards the horses, as if that explained everything.

  I looked at the smaller, nearly all-white horse standing next to the one with the red face. Both wore rope bridles that had real-looking bits.

  “Good morning.” Feeling even stranger, I ventured closer, still clutching my mug. “Are they two of the ones we saw yesterday? Down by the river?”

  He nodded, still working the blanket on the roan, yanking it further up its back, arranging it over the high, bony withers.

  I noticed the white one was already wearing a similar blanket and seat belt, and seemed to be staring at me, chewing in some irritation on the bit in its mouth. Its shaggy mane made it look like an annoyed teenager.

  “They’re okay to ride?” I said.

  He made the “more or less” gesture with his hand.

  “They’ve been ridden before.” He glanced at me. “It’s been awhile, especially for this one.” He patted the roan. “But they seem good-natured.”

  The roan jerked its head up, flattening its ears when the white one sidled closer. When the smaller horse nipped its shoulder, the roan stamped its leg, snorting before thrusting its forefeet, stiff-legged, into the dirt and leaping a little into the air. Revik sidestepped the dancing feet absently.

  “Okay,” I said. “You know I’ve been on a horse, like, twice. Right?”

  He smiled, but I saw him studying my face.

  I looked at the horses again. The white one was rubbing his head blissfully on the fence now, eyes half-closed.

  Revik cleared his throat.

  “You don’t have to come, of course,” he said. “But I think they’ll be okay.” He patted the roan on the rump, looking at me. “I thought we could explore. See the river. Map out the valley a little.”

  Meeting a direct gaze from him was harder than I thought it would be.

  His face was still guarded, but on closer inspection he looked, well… tired.

  Exhausted, really.

  He seemed to hear my thoughts.

  “I’m fine,” he said, making a dismissive gesture. He smiled more genuinely. “It took me a few hours to catch them.” He motioned towards the roan. “I haven’t done anything like that in awhile. It was fun.”

  Not exactly reassured, I nodded.

  He met my gaze, and I saw him again, at least in his eyes.

  I knew on some level what he was doing. I knew he was old-fashioned enough that this made sense to him, given what we’d talked about the night before, how we’d left things. Even as I wondered about his first wife, what he’d done while courting her, I was also touched, more than I really wanted him to see, at least right at that moment.

  I looked at the white horse instead of him, trying to think.

  He cleared his throat. When I glanced over, he was looking at me. That intensity was back in his eyes, but I saw a faint thread of nerves beneath.

  “Are you coming, Allie?” he said.

  I only thought about it for another moment.

  “Sure,” I said. “I’m in.”

  After the barest pause, he smiled.

  25

  MARRIED

  WE DIDN’T GET back until nearly dusk that first day.

  By the end of it, I could already tell I was going to be sore from riding, but I didn’t care.

  It had been one of those really great days that only come every so often, the best I’d had in as far back as I could remember.

  Definitely the best since I’d left San Francisco.

  I couldn’t remember the last time I’d done something like that even in the human world, just hung out in the sun under a blue sky with someone I just wanted to be with. Exploring. Eating a picnic lunch. Wandering along a river. Lying on the grass. Swimming. Laughing over dumb jokes. Talking.

  We circled the property from his memory of the boundaries, then rode along the river for a few miles until we reached an area with more trees and wider pools. Fording in a calmer spot, we took the horses up into the foothills before coming back to the shade by the water.

  The next day, we followed the river upstream instead, walking the horses up the river itself, through a narrow canyon surrounded by sheer cliffs. Breathtakingly beautiful, the ride that day had mostly been to look at scenery, although we stopped for awhile then, too, once we found a spot with enough flat land and trees to make a good picnic area.

  The third day, we went straight for the mountains themselves, taking the horses up a steep, winding trail until we found an even bigger waterfall than the one we’d passed on the way to the cabin. We hung out there most of the afternoon, alternately hiking, sitting around, talking, even playing around with some sight stuff.

  Each day, he brought food. I didn’t know if he was getting up early to cook or what, but the food supply seemed endless.

  I went swimming each of the three days, too, despite the freezing cold water. I swam in the river itself, not far from where he lay on the grass, trying to nap while the horses grazed. I even swam in the pool formed by t
he waterfall higher up, where we stopped on the opposite side of the valley.

  I didn’t know if he was still on that kick, wanting us to get to know one another without sex, but I really saw the logic to it by the end of day two, if so.

  We’d rarely had time together when we weren’t in some kind of crisis. People trying to kill us, time pressures of whatever kind, him stuck in the role of bodyguard or teacher, me depressed about my mom or the new life I blamed him for, at least in part. Then there’d been the rest of it––the usual separation, fear, misunderstanding-one-another’s-intentions, paranoia crap that seemed to dog us from the beginning.

  I found him easy to be with when neither of us was trying to communicate anything dire. We were both a little overly cautious maybe, and we both probably looked at one another longer when the other one wasn’t paying attention.

  But other than that, yeah… it was easy.

  I’d forgotten he had a good sense of humor.

  The white horse had been his idea of a joke, of course––the whole “white horse of the Apocalypse” thing and the Bridge. Apparently he’d been up half the night chasing horses because the white one had been so difficult to catch.

  Still, he’d experimented with riding it for a few hours to make sure it was safe, so when he’d offered that one for me to ride, he’d been fairly confident, he’d said, that he wasn’t actually putting me in danger.

  After the first hour, I’d nicknamed the horse “Bait and Switch.”

  The white horse seemed like the easygoing one at first, maybe because he didn’t fidget or startle as much as the roan, and didn’t react at all when I first climbed up on him. Once we left the fenced area by the house, however, he had a tendency to take off at a gallop without warning, and stop on a dime… also without warning.

  The third time he did it, I went flying over his head and landed in a heap on the grass.

  Once he realized I wasn’t hurt, I saw Revik fighting to suppress a smile as I cursed at the horse while it cantered around us in a circle, tossing its head and mouth with the metal bit.

  Revik offered to ride the white one after that.

  I tried again, weathering a few more of Bait’s attempts to unseat me, but after he dumped me a second time, I gave in, giving Revik a turn.