Blade Dancer
Page 31
“I’m so hurt.”
Cirilo’s recessed eyes swiveled toward me. He was grinning. “Does cow go with fish?”
“I’ll ask your mother.” I didn’t take my eyes off him. “Sparky, want to tell me what’s going on?”
“The pinheaded one cut Hwit as we entered the level. The rest came after.” Her glow increased. “Most of
them have insulated themselves somehow.”
I made a tsking sound. “Pinhead, Pinhead. Now I’m disappointed.” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw
Nalek and the rest of the clan heading our way. About time. “Say good-bye to the third eye.”
“Cirilo.” Fayne emerged from the pack of silvers. She didn’t look happy, either. “What are you doing?”
“Her.” He pointed a blade at me. “I want her.”
Fayne gave me an odd look. Not the usual, I’d-like-to-see-you-dead glare. No, this was different.
Creepier. “I have prior claim.”
“Sajora.” Kol hovered just behind me. “Walk away.”
“You get the feeling Mommy and Daddy don’t want us to fight?” I smiled at Cirilo. “I say we take it to the
quad.”
“He’s mine first.” Sparky stepped in front of me. “I challenge you.”
Pinhead nodded, turned, and headed for the quad. “You can be second, Terran.”
“How much control has she gained?” I asked the Imabjaic as we took position below Danea’s corner of
the quad.
“Not enough.” Hwit’s eyes rolled as he glanced around us. “She still projects without thinking when she
spars, which tires her, and that silver’s thermals will protect him throughout the match. I fear for her, Saj.”
Across the arena, I saw Fayne watching me. “Keep your fins crossed.”
Danea left off her obek-la, and her hair was radiating in all directions as she stepped to the center of the
ring. Cirilo strolled with the confidence of someone assured of the win.
“Something is not right, Jory.” Renor came to stand on my left. “The Fawgithin prevails through deceit.”
“We won’t let him.” I’d jump in the quad myself, if I had to.
The hoverdrone descended and initiated the bout. Cirilo attacked with a lateral right, which Sparky
countered easily. What she didn’t anticipate was the follow-up body slam, which knocked her back two
feet, nearly into the ryata. A bright yellow light crackled in the air.
I’d seen Sparky glow, but never flash. “What the hell was that?”
“He’s wearing a neutralizer,” Hwit said. At my blank look, he explained, “It’s a device used to drain
bioenergetic fields. The Hsktskt use them when they attack aquatic colonies.”
“Figures.” I looked at Ren. “Want to help me break up a fight?”
“You will not interfere.” Dursano and a couple of inductors surrounded us. “The neutralizer is allowed.”
“So he can suck the energy out of her, then kill her? I don’t think so.” I glanced down as the inductors
drew their blades. “She’s my family; I’m not going to watch her die.”
“You will watch, or you will die.”
“Jory.” Ren put a cold hand on my sleeve. “We all have our talents. Trust that they will see Danea through
this match.”
I stared at him, then recalled Uzlac’s mysterious end. There was another flash from the quad. “I hope they
hurry up.”
Ren went very still, and concentrated on the fight. I stood beside him, itching to pull my blades and jump
in. Then I felt a strange, chilly sensation in the air around me, and a sense of something collecting and
growing.
Hwit raised a fin as if to feel the air. “What is that?”
“Someone adjusted the temperature controls again.” I gave Dursano, then Ren, a deliberate look.
“Right?”
He nodded slowly.
Whatever Ren was doing, it was making his body temperature drop, too—the hand on my sleeve felt like
a block of ice. In the quad, Danea was circling and panting as she avoided Cirilo’s casual jabs. He wasn’t
even making an attempt to spar with her, only chased her, trying to make contact so he could drain her
further.
Danea’s hair spiked as she turned her head for an instant and looked at me and Ren. Then she stopped
and spread out her arms, leaving herself completely defenseless. Cirilo laughed, lowered his blades, and
jumped at her.
What happened then nearly blinded all of us.
The entire arena fell silent as the yellow flash became twin streams of unbearably brilliant golden spheres
that poured out of Danea’s hands, joined together, and shot out to slam into Cirilo’s unprotected face. He
stopped in midlunge, almost suspended in the air as the energy poured over him, then slowly rose until his
feet left the quad. He kept going up, higher and higher, buoyed by the spheres, until he was twenty feet
above the quad.
Ren’s grip on my arm relaxed, and the spheres burst at the same time. The yellow light vanished, causing
Cirilo to drop like a stone and hit the quad face-first. He twitched once, groaned, then didn’t move again.
In the quad, Danea staggered to the ryata and held on, panting. Stunned voices rose in confusion around
the arena. The hoverdrone descended to inquire if Cirilo wished to continue.
Pinhead didn’t answer, and when the drone rolled him over, he stared up with wide, lifeless eyes.
Sparky needed a couple of hours in the immersion tanks to recover from the stress of the bout, and
Renor and I stayed in the infirmary to keep her company and keep other, curious trainees away from her.
“She sure knows how to fry someone in the quad,” I said to Ren as I watched her swim. “Mind telling
exactly how you helped her do that?”
“I did not help her. Danea was merely able to successfully encapsulate her field,” he said.
“But Cirilo was wearing that gadget; why didn’t it work?”
“I believe they will find it malfunctioned.”
I rubbed my temple. “I thought your push only worked on living things.”
“The energy it was draining came from a living being. I used the energy as a conduit.” He smiled at me.
“Did I do well, ClanSister?”
“Yeah.” I chuckled. “You did fantastic.”
Fayne made a big deal over Cirilo’s death, of course, which infuriated the silvers and compelled the
balance of the trainee population to take sides. Many chose to become white neutrals, but we were still
outnumbered on both sides.
The silvers stepped up their campaign of terror, brutalizing anyone foolish enough to get in their way out
of the quad, and butchering anyone they could lure into it. The daily mock battles became more vicious
than ever.
And still Uel did nothing to stop it.
“It’s like he wants us to kill each other off before the rescue ships get here,” I said to Os on our way back
from training one evening. “I thought the whole idea here was to save everyone’s ass.”
Inside our quarters, Os shrugged off his tunic and stretched his other arms. “Perhaps Kol will speak with
him.” He saw Galena limping out of the cleanser wearing only a towel, and took a step toward her before
catching himself. “Or I will.”
I went over to look at Birdie’s leg, which sported a hideous bruise and a long graze. As far as I knew,
she hadn’t been in any of the day’s melees. “What happened to you?”
“I fell.” She looked over my shoulder at Os. “It was an accident, my ClanBrother.”
Os got an ugly look on his face; then
he pivoted and strode out.
I crouched down to check her muscles. “It’s going to hurt for a couple of days, but you’ll be okay. Stop
flattening your wings. What kind of accident?”
“I… reacted improperly to a diving maneuver Strix demonstrated for me.” She flexed her wings. “It is
difficult for me to think like a predator, even with regular practice.”
I made a mental note to thump Strix the next time I saw him. “So he did what? Clocked you in midair?”
She grimaced. “Something like that.”
We both looked up as Kol and Nalek entered. They were speaking in low voices, but abruptly fell silent
when they saw us.
“Don’t mind me and Birdie,” I said.
Kol looked at Galena’s leg, then around our room. “Where is Osrea?”
I helped Galena hobble over and stretch out on her mat. “I don’t know; I’m not his mother.”
Nalek rubbed his bald head. “Renor and Danea are using a practice room. He will be alone, wherever he
is.”
Kol turned and walked out.
“You stay here with Birdie, big guy.” I went after Kol, and caught up with him just outside third level.
“Didn’t you give him the stay-in-pairs speech?”
He scanned the arena. “Osrea is impulsive. As you are.”
“And you’re not?” I got a strange feeling and looked up. “Oh, hell.”
Strix and Tej were flying overhead, high up in the dome, carrying a writhing Os between them. Their
talons prevented him from using the blades in two of his hands, but he was doing a great job of plucking
them with his other pair.
“Strix!” I waved. “Would you bring him down here? In one piece, please?”
The two avian beings slowly descended and dropped Os about five feet from the floor. He landed,
rolled, and leaped to his feet. “I’m not done with you!” he shouted at the avatars.
“You are now.” I clamped a hand on his shoulder. “What do you think you’re doing?”
He whirled on me, baring fangs I’d never seen before. “They injured Galena.”
“As part of training, yes, they did. We’ve all gotten hurt plenty of times since we came here. And just for
the record”—I tapped a finger under his plated chin—“if you bite me, Snake Boy, I get to bite back.”
“Osrea.” Kol made a gesture, and the two of them walked away from me. More conversation in low
tones. That was really starting to bug me by the time they returned.
“Why is it no one wants to talk around me anymore?” I asked with a sweet smile.
Osrea’s tongue flickered. “Because you pick fights.”
“That’s rich, coming from you. Come on.” I sighed and headed for the corridor. “Let’s go get some
sleep.”
Snake Boy went into our quarters ahead of us, but Kol stopped me by putting an arm across the
doorway.
I glanced down at it. “I’m not in the mood for another debate on Jorenian mating practices, if that’s what
you have in mind.”
“I have discovered some information about Kieran.” He nodded down the corridor. “Walk with me for a
while.”
I walked beside him, and waited. And walked. And waited. “Kol, much as I appreciate the complete
guided tour of the trainees’ quarters, I’d like to get a couple of hours’ sleep tonight.”
He stopped at a door panel and opened it. “In here.”
It was a room I’d never noticed anyone going in before, and saw why when I stepped inside. Databases
and consoles lined the walls, all active and waiting for someone to tap into them.
“How did you get the code?”
“I observed Uel entering, and memorized his input.” He went over to one of the consoles and tapped in
an inquiry. A long list of data scrolled onto the display. “These are attacks on various ships, colonies, and
space stations attributed to Kieran.”
I examined the list. “There are thousands of them. But that can’t be right. The League database barely
covers a tenth of these reports. Where are they originating from?”
“Here, at the Tåna.” Kol down scrolled until he revealed a line of numeric code. “They have been keeping
detailed records on Kieran’s activities—and those of every other blade dancer in the order—for a very
long time.”
I rubbed my brow. “For what purpose? Blackmail? An honors list? Payroll?”
“I do not know.” He indicated the most recent entry. “According to this, Kieran returned to Reytalon, but
there is no record of his departure.”
That hit me like a slap. “So he could still be here. Or he died here.”
“Both possibilities occurred to me as well.”
“He can’t be here. The only Terrans are you and me. Bek said so.” I groped for a chair and sat down.
“We are the only ones, aren’t we?”
“I asked the same of Uel. He indicated we are.”
I read over the entries. “Why would the Tåna track him like this? He wasn’t a blade dancer; he was a
raider. Why would they care?”
Kol went behind me, then rested his hands on my shoulders. “Sajora, Kieran never left the order. I do
not believe anyone ever does.”
“So he’s still on active duty?” I laughed, and leaned my head back to look up at him. “Sorry, I was just
thinking, could this get worse?”
“Bek admitted to training him. We know he graduated and joined the order.”
“Yeah, but thirty years ago. And he hasn’t exactly stuck by the old order motto of ‘Kill and don’t get
caught.’ He’s been openly raiding anything that moves.” I wished I could have told him the rest—that
Kieran was my biological father—but I didn’t want him to know that it had been my father who had sold
his mother to slavers.
Kol’s fingers began stroking the tight muscles on either side of my neck. “Sajora, there is something more
to this than a collection of data. Look at the date when Kieran returned.”
I looked. It was only a few weeks before I’d been deported from Terra.
“It cannot be a coincidence that we are here as well.”
I was going to ignore the wonderful magic his fingers were working on my neck. Somehow. And I was
going to change the subject before I ended up blurting out the truth. “I don’t think Kieran has anything to
do with that.”
He turned me around in my chair, and knelt before me. “I am only saying that it is very suspicious.” He
moved his hand, brushing some curls away from my throat. “Your hair grows quickly.”
“So does yours.” I chased his straight black strands with my fingertips, enjoying the way they felt against
my skin—a lot like heavy dimsilk. “What do we do now?”
“We must discover who among the Tåna staff is involved with Kieran, or knows of him. Bek would be
the obvious choice.” His white-within-white eyes looked all over my face. “You are tired. We should
return.”
“No.” I let my hand rest against his chest, over the implant that could kill him in an instant. “I want to stay
here a little longer.”
“We agreed.” He swallowed as I brushed my thumb across his jawline, then tried again. “We said we
would not do this.”
“Do what?” I murmured, watching his lips move, unable to make sense of the words.
“This.” He cradled my face with his palms. “This.” He kissed me, a whisper of mouth against mouth.
“This.” He rested his brow against my cheek, and breathed in.
I felt the inhuma
n power rising inside me again, but it was much different this time. It had become huge,
and hungrier than ever before, but it brought with it heat and desire, and the need for more than physical
satisfaction.
“Do you feel it?” he whispered.
Yeah, I felt it, all right. I didn’t want to have sex with Kol. I wanted Kol. All of him. Every breath he
took, every day he lived, I wanted it for me, and I wanted to give him mine. My life for his.
Finally I understood what Kol felt, what his people felt when they Chose. I wasn’t so Terran after all.
It should have been simple. An exchange of words, a promise of bonding our lives together. I could
almost hear the words in my head—I will be yours, and you will be mine, and we will walk the path