Severance (The infernal Guard Book 3)

by SGD Singh

  A few days later, Jax passed Asha and Aquila's room on her way to the mess hall, and saw that it was empty.

  BapuJi told her the newlyweds had taken Silas back to Arizona. “And no,” he added, “he still hasn't woken up.”

  “Where will you go?” Jax asked BapuJi.

  “Back to Miami,” he said, like that should be obvious. “Even without a Headquarters, it's home. Plus, I have a job there. I can actually cook, you know.”

  Jax studied the floor. She had no idea where she would go. She couldn't bring herself to ask Kelakha, either. She didn't want to risk seeing the haunted look in his dark eyes again, the one he got whenever he thought about the future.

  Still, he couldn't work on a mystery weapon forever. Eventually the Tvastars were going to kick him out of the forgery.

  “We can always use another set of hands in the resort kitchens,” BapuJi said. “Or two.”

  Jax realized Kelakha was standing behind her.

  “You will always be welcome there,” BapuJi said, including Kelakha with a bow. The Jodha warrior didn't answer.

  The silence stretched, and Jax turned to look at him. His dark eyes were still sad, but when he turned to meet Jax's stare, she saw the sadness was no longer an abyss. He even smiled a little.

  BapuJi grinned then, and said something in Punjabi that made Kelakha laugh. Jax felt a swell of hope. If BapuJi could be happy, even after all the tragedy in his life, didn't that prove something for the rest of them?

  “But I'm warning you two right now,” BapuJi said, pointing his spoon at them. “I won't tolerate lazy slobs in my kitchen. You'll work hard.” He winked at Jax then. “Or you'll find yourself carrying water up and down the stairs.”

  They watched BapuJi leave the mess hall, and found themselves alone in the depressing cement and steel-filled room.

  Kelakha sat next to her in one soundless movement, and Jax felt his arm wrap around her waist. He pulled her to his side, and she luxuriated in his warmth.

  “You should have seen him, Jax,” he said, and she knew he meant Nidhan.

  She leaned against Kelakha, closing her eyes as the realization of Nidhan's death washed over her again. She would never again see the kindest Tvastar, never again witness his laughing smile, never feel the crush of his brotherly hugs.

  “He was absolutely glorious,” Kelakha breathed. “He lunged toward death with abandon, like some… ultimate warrior. He was absolutely fearless.” Kelakha sniffed, and Jax wrapped her arms around his waist.

  “We kept the Underworlder distracted by shooting at it from three directions with everything we had left, shifting and slashing at its arms to keep it facing us. And Nidhan, he ran full speed up behind it, so ferocious that time actually seemed to warp, and I could've sworn he was moving in slow motion. His giant form was the perfect image of justice as he leapt through the air, roaring in triumph. Then he yanked the creature's hair back, and shoved the dragon heart straight down its filthy throat. It tried to shake Nidhan off, shrieking like you can't imagine, but Nidhan, he held fast. I've never seen anyone so focused.”

  Kelakha didn't bother to wipe the tears from his eyes, and Jax felt her own dripping off her chin.

  “And then, even as he bled, even as the thing slashed his back open with its claws, Nidhan… he looked up at us… and he smiled. He actually smiled. And then he nodded over the Underworlder's screams, telling us to get the hell out of there.”

  Jax didn't know what to say to that, but she couldn't have spoken even if she wanted to.

  “I swear to God,” Kelakha whispered, “if there's not a picture of that in the next training manual, someone will pay.”

  Jax smiled then. “It better have a Nidhanesque caption, too, or I'm protesting.”

  “Definitely,” Kelakha said. “Something like, Portrait of Most Badass Warrior Ever, Featuring Burning Plane and Bone Skirt Boy.”

  The silence stretched, and Jax was sure Kelakha felt the same weight on his chest.

  Pride. Sorrow.

  Kelakha spoke after a few minutes. “He really lived, you know?” He sounded thoughtful. “He might have been only eighteen, but Nidhan appreciated the joys of life more than a hundred of us combined.”

  They sat in silence again, and Jax tried to imagine what Nidhan would say if he could see them mourning him. She straightened, realizing she knew exactly what he'd say.

  “You know what this means?” Jax looked up at Kelakha.

  “What?”

  “We'll just have to live our lives with as much joy as he would have if he were here.”

  Kelakha smiled, leaning toward her until his lips were only a breath away.

  “We'll eat twice as much fried food as we should,” Jax said with determination.

  Kelakha laughed, bringing his lips to hers and kissing her once, gently. “And we'll love,” he whispered, gathering Jax into his arms. “We'll love with hearts made giant just from having known him.”

  Chapter 34

  Almost Three Years Later

  Asha hesitated in the shadows of the room, watching Zaiden watch Lexi. The Upperworlder stood still as a statue at the door to the temple balcony. His wings and hair shone in the light of the setting sun, and his gaze never left Asha's best friend. Lexi, in turn, looked only at the horizon, and Asha felt the familiar grief well up inside her chest when she saw that Lexi wore no weapons.

  Varina giggled then, and Zaiden turned to them as Aquila swept his daughter onto his shoulders.

  “Sorry,” Aquila whispered, then flipped Varina upside down, spinning her around twice. “Definitely no chocolate for you. That was not stealth mode.” He tried to look serious, but Varina made a face, and he smiled and tickled her. She dissolved into giggles again, and Aquila mouthed sorry again, shrugging helplessly at Asha.

  Give me five minutes, Asha told him, closing the balcony doors.

  Call me when you want us. He swept Varina away, saying, “Let's find some monk weapons!”

  “Like a treasure hunt?” Her voice rang out, delighted.

  “Exactly like a treasure hunt.”

  Asha watched their retreating figures, smiling like a sap, and wondering vaguely if it was inappropriate to admire Aquila's ass in the presence of her daughter.

  Shaking her head once, she moved to stand next to Zaiden. The two of them watched Lexi together. She hadn't moved at all.

  “How are you, Asha?” Zaiden asked politely. “And the others? I trust all is well?”

  “All is very well, Your Highness. Thank you,” she told him.

  The Upperworlder had lost his golden skin tone and could almost pass for human—albeit an extremely beautiful human—if he hid his eyes and wings. Asha knew that was easily done, having spent time with the other Upperworlders as they settled into their lives in Satya.

  “I brought you a letter from Satish,” she told him, holding the envelope out to him. “He and Dinesh have settled into their positions as Silas' bodyguards quite happily. In fact,” Asha smiled. “I'm pretty sure that's their wedding announcement.”

  Zaiden raised his eyebrows, then laughed. “I don't know why I'm surprised,” he said. “And Jax? Kelakha? I hope your grandfather is well.” His eyes flitted back to Lexi even as he kept the conversation going.

  Asha looked at Lexi and wondered for the thousandth time how she could keep herself so isolated for so long. She wondered if Zaiden minded, if he missed his busy royal life. Judging by the look on his face, Asha was pretty sure he didn't mind at all.

  “Jax is perfecting a system for tracking Underworlders in our realm. It's some complicated computer program that connects with civilian information and alerts us to any and all freakish supernatural activity. Everyone's as impressed as kids at the circus. Kelakha most of all, of course.”

  Zaiden smiled.

  “How is she?” Asha said, softening her voice.

  Zaiden glanced at Asha then, and back to Lexi, and Asha thought he wouldn't respond.

  “She eats more now,” he said fina
lly. “Ever since she started training the kids from the village.” He shook his head. “I was sure we'd have furious parents showing up here, demanding justice for their children's irreparable trauma. But instead her classes grew. Kids are traveling from all over the area, braving all kinds of weather to have her smack them around and yell at them.”

  “That's great.” Asha laughed. “It's good she's back to training.”

  Two Himalayan monal pheasants flew past the balcony, calling to each other as they sought shelter for the evening, the last of the sun's rays reflecting for an instant against the male's iridescent feathers.

  “And the two of you?” Asha asked, cringing at having actually said that out loud, but unable to stop. “Are you…?”

  What exactly am I asking here? Oh, by the way, Your Highness, has Lexi finally pulled her head out of her ass and accepted that you're her soulmate? What am I expecting him to say, exactly?

  Zaiden fell silent again, and Asha was thankful. But then he said softly, “I don't have to tell you what it's like to feel another person's heart. To know another's mind and soul.” Zaiden's smile was sad, his reptilian eyes black as he watched Lexi.

  He sighed. “Lexi is… she's healing. She's struggling to accept that loyalty and love do not have to be at war. That she deserves happiness. She's…”

  “Stubborn,” Asha said.

  Zaiden laughed. “That, too,” he said, then added, “She never says so, but I know she misses you.”

  Asha turned to look at him then, but the Upperworlder had silently returned inside, leaving her alone.

  Lexi sat on the edge of the wide balcony, one leg bent under her chin as she watched the sky, her blonde hair waving in the breeze.

  Asha took a deep breath and stepped outside.

  “It's beautiful here, isn't it?” Lexi said without turning.

  “Yes.” Asha took in the view of endless forest, mountains, and sky, and thought wistfully about her non-existent honeymoon. “Yes, it is.”

  “But you want me to leave.”

  Asha took a few more steps forward. Lexi looked good. Asha had been afraid of finding her emaciated with grief. But just being near Zaiden, being close to her soulmate, was good for her, no matter how much she chose to deny it.

  “Silas says the first weak spot between the realms is starting to form,” Asha told her. “He says within twenty years the portals will reopen unless we build.”

  “The natural balance returning, or some fucking shit, right?”

  Asha was so happy to hear Lexi's familiar tone, she wanted to hug her.

  “Something like that, yeah,” she said instead. “He's drawn out plans. Construction will start as soon as he puts together a team of Tvastars and Illusionists.”

  Asha waited, but Lexi didn't respond. “Silas also said…” she took a deep breath, “he said you should command the new Central Headquarters.”

  Lexi sighed, never turning from the setting sun. “Did he now?”

  “He says you're the best person to train The Guard's youth, to prepare the next few generations so that they'll be ready in fifty or a hundred years, or however long it takes for all hell to break loose again.”

  Lexi snorted. “So, not in our lifetime.”

  Asha couldn't decide if it was disappointment she heard in Lexi's voice or not. Knowing her, she hoped it was.

  “Silas also said…” Asha was suddenly glad Lexi was unarmed. “He said, ‘The sooner Lexi accepts how deeply she is loved, the sooner she will accept how deeply she herself loves. And on that day, this world will witness a union of such pure, unsurpassed happiness as to be greater than any it has ever known.’”

  Lexi closed her eyes and lowered her forehead to her knees. “Fucking Seers, man.”

  “Yeah, Aquila thinks it's total bullshit,” Asha said, trying for humor. “He told Silas to stop torturing people with Sappy Virgin Poetry.” Asha braced herself for Lexi's temper as she added, “But I know he's right.”

  Lexi kept her eyes closed as she lifted her face to soak up the last rays of sunshine as its light fell below the horizon, leaving them bathed in a fading pink glow.

  She nodded once, the movement barely perceptible, and Asha's heart leapt. But when her friend spoke, it was to change the subject.

  “If I take this job, I'll have full authority?”

  “Absolutely,” Asha told her. “Of course, Ursala and Ariella insist on joining you. Apparently tropical vacationing in the nude wasn't the ecstatic bliss they thought it would be. Koko too.”

  “Kenda?” Asha could hear the smile in Lexi's voice.

  “He'll come around,” Asha said, looking at the mosaic floor. “He and Sashi were sure you'd say no.”

  Lexi snorted. “And Jax?”

  “She's sure you'll say yes.” Asha fidgeted with her rings. “She's already making arrangements with Stevens. I told her you would not take kindly to any kind of welcome back celebration. I warned her she's risking injury, but I'm not promising she listened.” Asha watched Lexi carefully as she added, “This whole Underworld Detection thing she's perfected may have gone to her head.”

  Asha tried not to grin as Lexi tensed, definitely interested. And though she refused to face her, Asha knew Lexi's eyes shone with their old anticipation of a good fight.

  “Kelakha even proposed to her, finally, he was so over- whelmed with admiration.”

  Lexi shook her head, the beginning of a smile playing across her features.

  “Yep. He blurted out his intentions in the middle of a Jodha meeting where Jax was trying to explain technical crap to about thirty shapeshifting monster-hunters. He hardly stuttered at all, and only knocked over one glass and a chair. It was the height of romantic smoothness.”

  The first stars began to come out in the sky's rich purple-blue, and Lexi's shoulders started shaking with laughter.

  She's ready.

  Asha felt Aquila's lips brush her neck once, soft as velvet, sending heat along her skin, and then he was gone again.

  “Is that her?” Varina's voice rang out, and Lexi finally turned her head to face them.

  “There's someone here who wants to meet you,” Asha said. “Varina, say hello to your Auntie Lexi.”

  Varina stepped forward, approaching Lexi on her tiny legs, her eyes wide with awe.

  “Hello Auntie Lexi,” she said, and her high pitched, three-year-old voice shook. “My dad says if you call me Creepy Eyes, I should punch you in the nose.”

  Tears rolled down Lexi's cheeks, but she laughed as she studied the child. “Well now,” she said. “That sounds like a lot of fun.”

  Lexi patted the worn wood next to her. “Come sit with me, Varina, so I can get a better look at those eyes.”

  Varina hesitated, perhaps sensing something dangerous about her Auntie Lexi, but she squared her little shoulders and climbed onto the balcony's ledge next to her, and Lexi grinned with pride at her fearlessness.

  Asha watched them put their heads together, their noses touching as they studied each other's eyes, and then Lexi made a face, and Varina burst into laughter.

  Asha wiped her own tears as she returned inside to watch them along with Zaiden and Aquila.

  The sky turned fully dark, and the only sound that remained was Varina's high pitched laughter. Aquila wrapped an arm around Asha's waist, and she leaned against him, her heart swelling with hope.

  Then Varina's voice rose in a question, and the night grew heavy with silence as the three of them waited, holding their breath.

  And then Zaiden gasped, dropping his head against the window's frame, and Asha heard it.

  Lexi had begun to sing.

  Extra Stories

  Before leaving these characters for good, enjoy two extra stories in the world of The Infernal Guard – one prequel, and one immediate sequel.

  And if you want even more, you can find a third story online. What happens when Lexi, Ursala, and Asha are ordered to meet with a questionable shrink? They pretty much cause her to quit her profession.


  http://www.sgdsingh.com

  https://www.wattpad.com/user/SGDSingh

  Blame it on the Mucenici

  “So there we were on Mucenici with no reteta mucenici moldo-venesti.” Arihan's silver incisors flashed in the firelight as he smiled around at the group.

  Asha blinked. “Moo che knee—what?”

  Dhevan entered the garden and lowered himself to the ground next to Lexi, his metal foot scraping along the dirt as he straightened his leg. “See?” he told Arihan. “You're confusing them again. If you want to tell a story, it has to make sense. Otherwise, there's no point.”

  Asha looked around at her friends' surprised smiles.

  Dhevan had finally deigned to join in the conversation.

  Until now, Dhevan would spend these nights silently reading a book by the firelight. As soon as the sky began to lighten, he would slam his book closed and leave the garden, complaining about how Arihan had “spent the night making shit up again” and grumbling about babysitting.

  Lexi raised her hand. “Mucenici, like the Romanian dessert?”

  “Exactly, Hewitt,” Arihan said. “See? They're not confused.”

  “I'm confused,” said Nidhan. “You guys trained in Romania? Like, Dracula Romania?”

  Arihan crossed his massive arms over his chest. “Will you let me tell the story, or not?”

  Asha still wasn't used to seeing the Tvastars in shirts. Ever since they'd arrived at Hong Kong Headquarters, the normally bare-chested weapons-creators had been forced to leave the heat of the forgery every Wednesday night to join the Trainees around the bonfire while the rest of the instructors attended meetings in Macau.

  Hong Kong Headquarters sat hidden within one of the city's hillside cemeteries. They kept civilians out with the illusion of a crumbling ravine, and forgotten, moss-covered headstones sinking into the earth.

  Asha looked forward to the lazy Wednesdays spent telling stories around the crackling flames. They ate snacks, admiring the dazzling view of Hong Kong Island at their feet and Kowloon across the water in the distance, shining like scattered jewels.