Prophet: Bridge & Sword

by JC Andrijeski

  I hadn’t fully realized how religious a lot of the seers were, especially the ex-Rebels, until I came out of that wire coma and my “sort of” death. Since then, a lot of them treated me like some kind of half-spirit, half-angel creature.

  Neela, especially, seemed to think I had full-blown mystical powers now.

  I pushed that out of my mind, but not before it brought another wave of frustration.

  I’d been trying to pretend things had gone back to normal after everything that happened in San Francisco and New York. I’d been trying to pretend Revik and I were normal, that Jon and I were normal, that everyone on the team was the same.

  They weren’t the same, though. Revik wasn’t. Jon wasn’t. Neela wasn’t. Jax wasn’t. Even Balidor wasn’t really the same guy I remembered before I came out of that coma.

  I wanted my husband to trust me again.

  I wanted Balidor to trust me again. I wanted Jon to talk to me without avoiding my eyes. I needed to stop walking on eggshells around everyone, being “nice” because I felt guilty about those eight months where they’d all thought they’d lost me.

  None of this crap was my fault. So why was I taking the fall for it? Still?

  The door clanged shut on me standing there, half-wrapped in a sheet and trying to decide if I should get dressed to follow him, or call Balidor so I could yell at someone, too.

  As the wheel spun closed on the other side of the door, I decided I would do both.

  Walking to the nightstand, I snatched up the headset Revik left me earlier, and fitted it over my ear. I barely had it switched on and Balidor’s signal activated, when the Adhipan leader picked up. I didn’t bother with a greeting.

  “You’ve got a potential issue headed your way,” I said.

  “Issue, Esteemed Bridge?”

  “Revik. Massively pissed off. Don’t say I never did anything for you, ‘Dori.”

  There was a silence.

  “I see,” Balidor said. “Thank you for the, err, ‘head’s up,’ as you Americans would say. I appreciate it, Esteemed Bridge.”

  “That’s not the only reason I called,” I said.

  “Oh?” he inquired politely. “More presents?”

  I swallowed, fighting my own reaction to my words.

  “We’re going to Dubai,” I informed him, feeling even more sure as I spoke the words aloud. “We don’t need a fucking meeting to ‘discuss’ it. We’re going. That’s an order. So pull Yumi and Declan and start planning the how. I know we need to pick up Loki and the others, but see if you can pull together a rendezvous en route. If you can’t, we’ll leave as soon as they get back.”

  Silence fell over the line.

  I exhaled, clicking under my breath. “I mean it, ‘Dor. My mind is made up. Put Yumi and Declan to work organizing a landing party. I’ll fill Revik in when I see him next.”

  “Alyson, are you sure that’s such a––”

  “I’m really fucking sure that wasn’t a request,” I cut in, hiding my anger badly that time. “If that’s what you were going to ask me, Adhipan Balidor, then the answer is no. Not a request.”

  There was a loaded silence.

  “Yes, Esteemed Bridge. I only meant––”

  But I didn’t want to listen to that, either.

  Using the mental command to switch off the link, I unhooked the headset from around my ear and tossed it on the bed.

  I’d listen to their hand-wringing and protests around security later.

  Really, more than anything, I felt relieved.

  For the first time in weeks, I felt like I’d made a clear decision without worrying I would piss off someone in my leadership team. More than that, it felt like the right decision. I felt the rightness of it, in my light, my mind, even in my heart. Given that, I would deal with the usual complaints, freak outs and paranoia attacks later.

  I would deal with Revik later, too.

  I already knew he’d like this course change even less than Balidor, especially since he’d just pulled my memory of Terian telling me to do that very thing.

  He would fucking hate this.

  I would deal with that, too. But not right this second. After we’d both calmed down. Maybe after he’d finished venting at Balidor and Vikram and whoever else he felt the need to yell at.

  Definitely after I’d had my first cup of coffee.

  Either way, I would cross that bridge… so to speak… when I came to it.

  23

  MUTINY

  “NO!” REVIK GROWLED. “No… fuck that!”

  Turning, the tall seer glared at Balidor, his angular face half in shadow where he stood by the door. Narrowing his nearly-colorless eyes, he focused on the corner where Balidor sat behind a desk in the small office off the control deck.

  “No,” the Elaerian repeated. “Absolutely fucking unacceptable, ‘Dori.”

  His clear irises reflected light like a cat’s, glowing faintly from the shadow.

  The look there caused Balidor to flinch, in spite of himself.

  He hadn’t seen the Elaerian this angry in weeks––months, really, perhaps even longer than that. Balidor certainly hadn’t seen him this openly emotional, not even during those few times in San Francisco and New York where he displayed anger on the surface. Something about the Sword’s anger during those months without his wife always felt muted, anyway, maybe because he locked so much of his feeling behind those infiltrator’s walls.

  Balidor shouldn’t be surprised, really.

  Revik being reunited with his wife and daughter had already started to tear down those previous defenses.

  He knew him and Allie had been having a lot of sex, which tended to be how seers re-bonded following long or traumatic separations––and theirs had been both. Balidor also knew Dehgoies had been thwarting at least some of that re-bonding, likely due to the intensity of trauma he’d suffered.

  Balidor didn’t want to know any of that, of course.

  Information came at him as an occupational hazard, given who he was.

  He’d also read from Allie that she was frustrated at how protective her husband had become, combined with how much he still held her at arm’s length. Balidor understood that, but he found himself wondering if Allie had any idea just how different Revik was––how different he had been, that whole time she’d been gone––and how all of them assumed at the time his mind had been permanently damaged.

  Balidor wondered, too, if Revik’s wife had any idea how much he’d changed already, just from having her and his child back in his light these past weeks.

  He guessed she didn’t know.

  Maybe Balidor or Tarsi or one of the others needed to talk to her about it.

  Maybe they needed to warn her not to push Revik too much until he’d healed a bit more from what Shadow and Cass had done to him. Maybe they’d all been side-stepping telling her too much already, for fear of making her worry––or worse, making her feel even more guilty for what happened in her absence.

  Looking up at where Revik loomed over his desk, Balidor felt his muscles clench.

  The currents coming off the Sword hit at him in unstable ripples of charged light. The sheer intensity there cut Balidor’s breath.

  He considered calling Wreg––possibly Yumi, Declan, or maybe Jon, if Wreg would allow it––just to help calm the other man down.

  He wondered if he needed to pull Allie into this, too.

  Maybe she needed to see this.

  To really see it in action.

  The thought made him nervous, though, and not only because she might still be handcuffed to the downstairs bed. He had no idea how the Sword might react, if they brought Allie up here to “handle” him, regardless of the merit of his fears.

  Balidor knew at least some of what the Elaerian had been ranting about for the past ten minutes came from a legitimate beef with his wife’s recklessness, at least when it came to her own personal safety. Balidor also knew it was more than that. Recklessness hadn’t gotten Allie hurt by C
ass––Shadow had done that, and Cass herself. Allie hadn’t done anything to cause that initial, tragic event to occur, which maybe made it worse in Revik’s mind.

  Generally speaking, Allie’s recklessness seemed to work out.

  More or less.

  Balidor was warned by Vash to expect that from her, anyway. According to Vash, part of being the Bridge meant a total disruption in the usual way things were done. Balidor tried to remind himself of that now, with his own worries regarding Alyson’s last orders to him about Dubai shifting somewhere in the back of his light.

  Balidor also knew that, when it came to Dehgoies, he was dealing with a person who was still learning coping techniques for the intensity of light and emotions that came with marriage in the first place. The Sword had been having control issues even before what Cass did to Allie.

  He’d been struggling ever since he’d found out his wife was pregnant.

  Hell, he’d been having issues for years with his wife; getting her pregnant only made all of that worse. Dehgoies and his wife had never really been allowed to bond normally, which only exacerbated everything else, leaving a lingering veneer of distrust between them that should have mostly dissipated by now, in ordinary mates.

  Balidor knew theirs would fade, too, in time, if they could just catch a break and spend more time in one another’s light. Such distrust was beyond unusual in bonded mates.

  Knowing all of that didn’t particularly help Balidor now, however, in terms of dealing with the man in front of him. Regardless of the merits of the Sword’s emotional reactions, or even his arguments about and fears for his wife, the trauma aspect worried Balidor.

  That trauma made Dehgoies unpredictable in the extreme.

  “I’m making a request,” Revik growled, forcing Balidor’s eyes back to his. “A formal fucking request, Balidor. I’ll take it to the goddamned Council if I have to.”

  “A formal request?” Balidor knew he didn’t succeed in stripping his words, even his facial expression, of incredulity. “A formal request for what, precisely, laoban? To remove your wife from office?”

  When Revik’s irises sparked a second time, Balidor held up his hands, trying to use his aleimi to calm the other man down, even as the taller seer’s expression grew murderous.

  “Are you listening to yourself, Nenz?” Balidor said. “You are advocating a mutiny, led by the Bridge’s own husband. What possible grounds do you have, for––”

  “I am not trying to remove her from office!” Revik snapped. “It’s not a fucking mutiny, Balidor. Jesus. Are you listening to me?”

  “Every seer in this fleet can probably hear you, brother,” Balidor muttered.

  “Most of them don’t even speak English! Or are you broadcasting this shit through the construct in case I try to kill you?”

  Balidor felt his jaw harden more.

  “Of course not,” he said. Taking a breath, he forced his voice more subdued. “My point is, every seer in the fleet will see this as a mutiny, Nenz. I highly doubt you’ll get most of them to go along with you, no matter how you spin it––”

  “Bullshit! They don’t even need to know about it, Balidor!”

  “And what about Alyson, herself?” Balidor said. “Does she have to ‘know about it’? Do you imagine you could openly defy her orders, Nenz, without others noticing? Or do you really think she’ll agree to this? That she’ll just go along quietly with––”

  “My wife will just have to get over it, too.”

  Balidor stared at him in disbelief.

  “Meaning what? What the hell does that mean?”

  When the other man only exuded another cloud of anger, Balidor wove a thread of warning into his words.

  “You cannot put me in this position, Nenz,” he said. “You cannot.”

  Forcing himself to take a breath, the Adhipan leader fought to retain his calm.

  Even so, the panic coming off the other man’s light continued to affect his. He heard his accent strengthen in his words, mirroring the Germanic tones that invaded Revik’s English. Fighting to get his equilibrium back, if only so he could think clearly about what the Sword wanted from him, Balidor shook his head, clicking louder.

  “Nenzi. We can talk about solutions. We can.” Balidor took another breath, raising his hand in a peace gesture. “But you must calm yourself, my brother. You are not seeing this clearly right now, and you must see it clearly before we address the particulars in any way. You should go for a walk. You should do at least two circuits around the ship’s track. Then we can talk about this again, when you––”

  “She’s not fucking safe!” Revik snapped, glaring at him. “Am I the only one who sees this? If so, maybe I’m the only one seeing this ‘clearly’ at all.”

  He leaned closer to the Adhipan leader.

  “The single fucking time I’ve left her alone, Balidor. Today is the first time I’ve left her alone for more than ten fucking minutes since all of this shit happened… at least when she wasn’t with you or Tarsi. One time, and she gets contacted by that fucker’s people? Are you really going to sit there and tell me that’s a goddamned coincidence? That I’m overreacting?”

  “Do you know for certain that it’s not?” Balidor said, his voice subdued. “A coincidence, I mean.”

  “I damned well do!” Revik growled. “She showed me, ‘Dori! That fucker waited for me to leave her alone! He told her he did!”

  Balidor felt his chest constrict, but didn’t avert his gaze from the other’s face.

  Clearly, Dehgoies had gotten the unabridged version of Terian and Alyson’s interaction.

  “Where is she now?” Balidor said, cautious.

  “She’s in the tank.”

  “Alone?”

  “No. She’s not fucking alone!” Revik turned on him, his voice harsh, even more heavily accented. “I doubled the team on her. I had them turn the security feeds back on. I told them if they hear a fucking sound in there, they were to contact me and break down the door. I told them to give her an escort if she tries to leave… and to contact me before she passed the goddamned threshold of those walls.”

  Revik trailed, falling silent seemingly with an effort.

  Making a vague gesture with one hand, he inclined his head.

  “She’s not alone,” he finished shortly, his voice cold.

  Balidor watched as the other man raised a hand to his forehead, rubbing his temple. Muttering something under his breath Balidor didn’t catch, Revik combed a hand through his black hair, using the same hand that wore Alyson’s ring.

  Balidor watched as he paced in front of the desk in two long strides, moving like a caged animal. The tension vibrating his light smacked Balidor’s again, feeling like a live wire. Everything about him felt manic, like he had to fight just to remain in one place.

  “Nenz.” Balidor made his voice soft. “You cannot simply imprison your wife. You cannot. No matter what your concerns. She will not tolerate it, for one. Her followers won’t tolerate it, either. You’ll have a mutiny on your hands––a real one. You’ll divide the whole crew, if you don’t work this out between the two of you. You must come to some agreement. Something you can both live with.”

  Revik gave him a harder look.

  The taller man seemed to remain silent just long enough to control the emotions shifting behind his clear irises. Once he had, he leaned over the table, placing his hands there, even as he glared into Balidor’s face.

  “I’m not asking to revoke all of her fucking authority, ‘Dori,” he said, quiet. His voice grew colder, more uncompromising. “I’m not. That was never even remotely my intention, so if you or anyone else tells her it was, I’ll break your goddamned arms.”

  Pausing to let that sink in, he added,

  “I have absolutely no intention of ‘imprisoning’ her, either. I’m simply asking to be able to overrule her, with agreed-upon limits of discretion, where and when her or our children’s safety is the dominant risk factor in a decision. I’m asking to h
ave final say in those protocols that concern her and Lily’s security, okay? That’s it. That one fucking area. I’ll follow any other order she gives me, Balidor. Every single one, no matter what it is. But not in that one area. Could I possibly be any clearer than that, ‘Dori?”

  “Again. On what grounds?” Exhaling, Balidor leaned back in his bolted-down chair. “I have no grounds to grant you such an exception, Nenz. Illustrious Sword or no. There is no provision for fearful husbands, as much as you might want there to be––”

  “Bullshit, ‘Dori!” Revik slammed the flat of his hand down on the desk. “I can evoke spousal privilege! That’s in the fucking Code. It predates Adhipan, predates Seven, predates any of the edicts your people have defended since! Further, I’m her second in command. I can make a judgment on her ability to keep herself safe, if it’s warranted. I have that right. Hell, I have that responsibility, goddamn it!”

  His jaw hardened at Balidor’s silence, even as his eyes seemed to grow paler.

  “She won’t listen to me, Balidor! She won’t take it seriously! You said it yourself. She just talked to that fucker! She refused to disengage. She didn’t use the link to call me. She just talked to him, as if she was having a goddamned business meeting with him and Menlim, and la-de-da, and it’s all perfectly okay. As if Terry didn’t just kidnap our kid. As if he wasn’t still working directly with the fucker who tried to murder her, less than a year ago. Hell, Terry probably stood there and watched, while they cut into her…”

  He flinched at his own words, wincing, his jaw hardening more.

  “…She’s not fit to make decisions based on her own goddamned well-being, ‘Dori. She’s not. She’s fucking proven that. And I won’t stand for it anymore!”

  “You locked her to the bed,” Balidor reminded him, glancing over Revik’s shoulder to the other room to ensure his words wouldn’t being overheard. “Nenz. Think about it. What was she supposed to do, precisely, when you––”

  “Are you going to honor my request?” Revik snapped. “Am I going to have to do this by force, Balidor? Or were you not aware that was the subtext here?”