Blaze of Memory

by Singh, Nalini

  “No,” Dev found himself saying. “They’re just doing what the cats do—trying to heal her with touch because she’s hurting.”

  Ashaya put her fingers on his arm. “They’re too little to understand that she can’t be fixed.”

  “I think,” he said, “she’d have liked to know she spent her last night surrounded by hope.“

  “I know you want to lie with her,” Ashaya began.

  “I won’t sleep.” He needed to watch her as long as possible.

  And he did. Taking a seat on the bottom of the bed, one foot on the sheets, the other flat on the floor, he watched her as twilight turned to midnight, then slowly to the darkest hour of night, when everything seemed to go silent. Sometime after three a.m., he was distracted by a kind of ache in his head... no, that wasn’t right, it didn’t hurt—it was more like a shift inside his skull, not uncomfortable, just different. Frowning, he checked his psychic shields. Holding.

  Keeping his eye on Katya on the physical plane, he stepped out into the ShadowNet to check for outside interference—he’d allow nothing and no one to cause her any more pain. He didn’t see it at first. But the longer he stared at the flicker of Katya’s mind, the more he became convinced that he wasn’t imagining it. Her flame was getting stronger.

  Heart in his throat, he dropped back down to the physical plane and tried to find any indication that he wasn’t simply creating phantom images, wasn’t simply going mad with grief. But she still slept as peaceful and motionless as always, two little hands on her body. On her skin. Why hadn’t he noticed that before? Both Keenan and Noor had moved their hands . . . to either side of Katya’s head.

  Half certain he was losing his sanity, Dev forced himself to remain on the physical plane for an entire two hours. Only then did he allow himself to open his psychic eye. “Dear God.” It was a whisper full of wonder.

  Terrified any disturbance would destroy the miracle, he stayed in place for the next four hours, making sure no one came into the bedroom. When Noor and Keenan finally woke, within seconds of each other, he looked into their groggy little faces and barely kept himself from crushing them close. “Good morning.”

  “Morning,” Noor mumbled, rubbing at her eyes. “Want Tally.”

  Keenan reached over to pat her arm, moving as if his limbs were too heavy to lift. “Tally’s at home, but I’m here.”

  A little smile. Yawning, Noor got up and crawled around the bed to Dev’s side, exhaustion in every line of her body. “Pancakes?” she said hopefully as he cuddled her as hard as he dared.

  “Pancakes,” he whispered in a voice that threatened to shake, raising his hand to muss Keenan’s hair when the boy came over to lean against his knee.

  While his grandparents and Sascha distracted the kids with pancakes, Connor and Ashaya began to check Katya over using the equipment Connor had in his mobile kit. Dev could tell both doctor and M-Psy were leery of his hope, that they were doing it only to humor him, but he didn’t give a damn. And when Ashaya’s mouth dropped open and Connor began to swear under his breath, he didn’t allow himself to collapse in relief.

  That would have to wait until she woke.

  “Her brain,” Connor finally said, “is healed, according to this scanner.” He stared at the equipment, thumping it with his palm as if to recalibrate it. “I need better gear.”

  “Get it,” Ashaya muttered, staring at Katya. “I don’t have the ability to see the damage, but all her responses are within the normal range.”

  Connor got out a cell phone. “Glen,” he said a moment later, “I need you to fly out with one of the . . .”

  Dev tuned out the rest of the conversation, knowing what he knew. “I can see her on the ShadowNet,” he told Ashaya. “Her flame is bright enough to burn.” Her mind, it was different; her psychic self cut with crystal clarity. She was already drawing curious looks from the Forgotten in the ShadowNet, none of whom had ever glimpsed the razor-sharp psychic presence of a Psy born in silence.

  “You don’t need the scans,” Ashaya said with a nod. “But the rest of us do. Because if she’s healed ...”

  He spread out his senses, found two innocent and deeply vulnerable minds in the kitchen. “Yes.”

  Three hours later, there was no question about it—not only was Katya healed, but she was likely to wake from her unconscious state at any time. Forcing himself to go out onto the porch with the others so they could discuss what had happened, he found himself watching protectively as Noor and Keenan—bundled up like little penguins in jackets, boots, mittens, scarves, and hats—tried to climb a tree at least ten times their combined size. Both had just woken from a two hour nap and weren’t moving with anywhere near their usual level of energy.

  “Which one of them did it?” Dev asked, still shell-shocked.

  Every single person on the porch shook his or her head. Ashaya was the first to speak. “When I asked Keenan if he had helped Katya, he told me ‘they’ fixed her.”

  “They?” Sascha leaned forward, watching the kids as they chased each other in circles.

  “Yes.”

  Noor ran to the porch at that moment, scrambling into Dorian’s arms. “Ha-ha!” She teased from her high perch. “You can’t get me.”

  Keenan grinned and jumped up to grab her booted foot. “Can too.”

  “Uncle Dorian!” It was a laughing scream.

  Lucas grabbed Keenan and turned him upside down, to the boy’s delight. “So,” the alpha said easily, “you two helped Katya.”

  “Yeah,” Keenan said, walking on his mittened hands across the porch as Lucas held him up. “Noor can’t go in by herself.”

  Dev held his breath, waiting to see if the children would add anything else.

  “Yeah, I had to do a lot of weaving,” Noor said. “Kee is my truck.”

  Both of them found that hilarious. Keenan was still giggling when Lucas turned him right side up again. “Does it make you tired?” Lucas asked.

  “Yeah.” Noor nodded. “My head is full now.”

  “Keenan, how about you?”

  But it was Noor who answered. “Kee’s head is quiet.”

  Seeing something dart across the snow, Keenan jumped across the porch in excitement. “Come on, Noor!”

  “Okay, okay.” Kissing Dorian on the cheek, the little girl asked to be put down and then she was off after Keenan as he ran back toward their climbing tree.

  “There were rumors,” Nani murmured, “that in the past some Psy were born with gifts that only worked in tandem with another.”

  “Noor didn’t show any active abilities when we tested her at Shine,” Dev said, knowing he owed a debt to those two babes that could never, ever be repaid. “But she does carry a high percentage of Psy genes.”

  “My son,” Ashaya murmured, “is a telepath. He’s midrange, but in that range, he’s crystal clear. A truck ... a conduit.”

  Sascha nodded. “For whatever it is that Noor does, her ‘weaving.’ ”

  Dorian blinked. “Huh. She told the Arrow who helped William that they were the same. But I’m pretty sure even he can’t do this. She’s—they’re both—unique.”

  “Yes,” Ashaya agreed. “I’ve never heard of an M-Psy—of anyone—who can heal that kind of an injury.”

  “It doesn’t matter whether or not we can define her gift—we have to protect her, protect them both,” Dev said, meeting Lucas’s eyes. “Tell Talin and Clay that they have every Shine resource at their disposal. If others find out what she and Keenan can do ...”

  “We’ll all protect them,” Lucas said, and it was a vow. “No one will take advantage of those two.”

  “Yes.” Sascha’s voice held awe. “Keenan’s clearly exhausted, and what Noor said—about her head being full—I think she’s flamed out, her gift has gone numb from overuse. Ashaya, can you tell about Keenan?”

  Ashaya nodded after a moment’s pause. “He’s flamed out, too.” Worry laced her tone. “It might take days for them to recover.”

 
“But they will recover,” Sascha reassured her. “They’ve just overstretched their psychic muscles.”

  “We’ll have to be careful who and what we expose them to,” Lucas said. “Keenan adores her so much, he’ll follow her lead, and she won’t be able to help trying to heal the injured even if it means hurting herself.” A glance at his mate.

  As Sascha made a face at the DarkRiver alpha, Ashaya whispered, “A tandem gift ... It’s extraordinary.”

  “Not really,” Dorian murmured, surprising them all. “Keenan has a twin for a mother, after all.”

  A frozen silence.

  “Oh.” Ashaya blinked. “Yes, of course. Amara and I have always been able to merge.”

  “So maybe,” Sascha theorized, “Keenan was born with an innate ability to merge with another mind. Perhaps it was only that he needed the right mind.” A pause. “And the right environment—tandem abilities are unlikely to flourish in a network that punishes any kind of an emotional connection.”

  “Yes.” Ashaya nodded. “It’s a very intimate link.”

  Sascha turned to her packmate. “And it’s probably not one you could forge with simple practice. That’s why they ceased to exist. But the potential was always there.”

  “We have to monitor them,” Ashaya said, eyes worried. “I don’t want either of them unduly influencing the other. Keenan’s my baby, but young telepaths don’t always understand right from wrong when it comes to their psychic abilities.”

  Dev shook his head, watching Keenan help Noor onto the first branch. “That, I don’t think we have to worry about. They enjoy each other too much to try to change the other person.”

  “It would be considered bad form to mind-control your future mate,” Dorian said dryly.

  Ashaya laughed at Dev’s surprised look. “Those two are quite determined that they belong to each other. I have a feeling we’ll have a hard time keeping them from jumping the gun when teenage hormones hit.”

  The thought made everyone grin. The kids played on, unaware of just how extraordinary they’d proven themselves to be.

  CHAPTER 56

  Dev wanted so badly to talk to Katya, but she remained unconscious. He kept going into the ShadowNet, checking to see that the fine silver thread that connected them was still there. He got a surprise the fifth time he checked.

  Silver had turned to gold.

  The next day, gold had become platinum, a solid, unbreakable rope.

  His nani found him in the ShadowNet. “Look at that, beta. Beautiful.”

  “It’s stronger than any other thread.” He kept running his psychic fingers along the length of it, amazed and delighted in equal measures.

  Nani laughed. “Of course it is.” A wave of affection surrounded him. “It’s love.”

  “Yes.” He felt his heart expand. “It’s also because she can’t access the biofeedback by herself. She has access to the ShadowNet because her mind is close enough to ours to allow it, but she’s linked to me, not jacked into the network itself. I have to draw in the biofeedback for both of us.”

  “Does that bother you?”

  “No—there’s more than enough to go around.” His heart swelled. “I wish I’d known it would work like this before.”

  “Love is unpredictable, Devraj. Those bonds, we can’t control.”

  “Never liked surprises,” Dev said. “But I think I’ve changed my mind.”

  As his nani laughed, he felt Katya awaken, their link to each other so deep and true, the knowledge was instinct. Dropping from the net, he strode into the bedroom just as her eyes lifted. “Hey, sleepy.” It took incredible control to keep his tone light, his face calm.

  Dev? A confused look. But—

  “Shh.” Kissing her gently on the temple, he helped her sit up, his heart thudding double time. She’d spoken telepathically and he’d heard. It was another piece sliding into place, another joy. “I’ll explain everything.”

  And he did. No one interrupted them—knowing his grandmother, she’d played sentinel and barred the doorway.

  “Those two are miracles,” Katya whispered. “Dear God, Dev, if the Council ever—”

  “They’ll never find out,” he promised her. “All of us, Shine, the cats, we’ll all protect them.”

  Her face twisted. “And to think,” she said, “that Larsen would’ve destroyed Noor had he had the chance. He’d never have understood the gift of what she is.”

  “You did.” He ran his hand over her hair. “Lucas plans to apologize to you for chasing you in panther form.”

  That made her smile. “I thought I was done for that night.”

  “No,” he said, closing his arms around her. “You had to live to meet me.”

  Her hand spread over his chest. “How am I hooked into your ShadowNet?”

  “Through me,” he said. “My grandmother agrees—your connection is only through me. It’s our ‘mating bond,’ as the changelings put it, that’s keeping you in the ShadowNet.”

  “A mating bond.” She smiled. “I like that.”

  “Katya—that means if I die,” he told her, “so will you.”

  A shining look up at him. “That’s what happens to changelings, you know. One dies, the other doesn’t last long.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I did some research once. I was curious.” Fingertips stroking over his cheek.

  Dev understood. “It’s not only changelings. Humans pine away, too.”

  “But,” she said with a smile, “I’d like to have a long lifetime with you, so stay safe.”

  “You, too.” He reached up to cover her hand with his own, holding it against his cheek. “Because if you die, so will I.”

  A smile that held a spark of mischief, a bright new thing. “Will you pine away?”

  “It’s no laughing matter.” But he was smiling, too.

  “Dev, my Dev.” She rose to straddle him, her face glowing with happiness.

  Placing one hand on her hip, the other on her lower back, he bent his head and let her press kisses all over his face, fleeting touches of love, of affection, of promise. “You saved me, you know,” he said between kisses.

  A curious look.

  “Everyone’s been worrying the metal would take me over.” He drew in the scent at the curve of her neck. “But how can it when you have a line straight into my heart?”

  “Dev.” More kisses, gentle touches. Then a whisper against his ear. “I’m afraid to look at your ShadowNet.”

  He found himself whispering back, playing with her. “You? Afraid?” He slid his hand under the sheets to close over her thigh. “Not my Katya.”

  “Will you hold my hand?”

  “Always.”

  Dev was waiting for Katya on the psychic plane when she opened the mental doorway of her mind and took the first step out into the shimmering chaos of a network of thousands of minds, millions of emotional connections. He felt her shock, but she held on to their bond and stayed in place, looking, learning.

  “It’s . . .” He felt her wonder, her terror.

  “You get used to it.”

  “You do?” A laughing question. “Dear God, Dev. How do you navigate this?”

  “Follow the threads.”

  “But I only have one to you.”

  “You can bounce off the threads of others,” he explained. “As long as you don’t actually try to hook into an emotional line without permission, no one minds if you use the threads as navigation points.”

  “And this,” she said with a deep breath, “is definitely a place that requires navigation.”

  “You’re wrong, you know,” Dev said, nudging her attention sideways. “You have got other threads.”

  “But I don’t know anyone else in here.” She touched the thread. “It’s your grandmother!”

  He felt her follow the thread, knew when she’d reached the end. “I see her, but I also see ... your grandfather?”

  “Yes, you have a link to him through her. As you have a link to thous
ands through me.”

  He could see her thinking that over. “When I form more connections, you’ll be able to access them, too?”

  “On a certain level,” he said. “It depends on my own emotional bond with the individual. Look.”

  She followed his finger to a sparkling silver-blue thread that glittered diamond bright. “Who is that and why am I linked to her?” Curious as a child, she touched her psychic hand to the silver-blue thread. “Tiara.” He saw her smile on the physical plane. “She likes me enough that this link’s formed.”

  “She’s always been a lunatic.”

  “I think she has excellent taste.” She played her fingers over the thread. “It’s very fine.”

  “You’ve just begun a friendship. If you grow apart instead of together, the thread will fade, too.”

  “I guess,” she murmured, “lovers in the ShadowNet always know where they stand.”

  “If both are psychic,” he pointed out. “If a Forgotten forms an intimate bond with a human, that human is pulled nominally into the net. We can see the mind, but it’s automatically shielded—we think the ShadowNet does that because otherwise humans would be too vulnerable. But it has the side effect of blocking their access to the network.” A sound of frustration. “We never even considered that it would be otherwise with Psy, that the ShadowNet would recognize you as different.”

  “You had no reason to think that,” she said, calming him. “The ShadowNet’s acceptance of me is a gift—but it’s only an answer to those who love.”

  “Those who dare to love.”

  “Yes.” Another pause as she scanned the multitude of intertwined and entangled threads around them. “This network is very, very complex.”

  He smiled. “That’s my Psy.”

  A playful mental slap came down the line as she began to figure out how things functioned. “It’s open, that’s what the difference is. Your ShadowNet is open to outside connections and influences—even shielded, those human minds bring something to the network.”

  He took time to consider it. “Yes, I think you’re right.”