Allegiance of Honor

by Nalini Singh

  “Grandfather.” Another empathic voice, sweet and hopeful and with a generous warmth that sank into his aching bones. “You’re cold. Here.”

  Only when Ivy put the afghan over his knees did he see that his hand was trembling on the cane despite the sunshine that poured down on him, his wrinkled skin bearing the marks of age. “Thank you, Daughter.” He touched his hand to Ivy’s soft tumble of curls as she bent over to arrange the afghan, this woman who had brought his son alive.

  Vasic might not be that in absolute terms, their relationship two generations removed, but he was Zie Zen’s son of the heart. And he’d done what Zie Zen couldn’t—Vasic had saved his empathic mate, kept her from being crushed under the endless need of their people. A people who had finally remembered that the Es were treasures to be cherished.

  It eased Zie Zen’s century-old pain to feel her touch, to know that Sunny’s dream was on the road to coming true.

  Ivy smiled, the translucent copper of her eyes luminous and her affection and love for Zie Zen an open caress against his senses. Empaths—they had no sense of self-preservation. Never had. Probably never would.

  “Would you like a hot drink?” she asked as the sun kissed the gold and cream of her skin.

  Sunny’s hair had been yellow cornsilk, her eyes blue, but she’d been this way, too, always watching out for others. It was a need in an empath, this nurturing drive. “No,” he said. “The throw is enough.”

  “Ivy!” Tavish rushed pell-mell toward them, the knees of his beige corduroy pants stained with grass and dirt. “Ivy! Ivy!” The seven-year-old all but ran into Ivy’s legs, throwing his arms around them in wild affection.

  Laughing in a way that told the child he was loved, his affection welcome, she ruffled his hair. “Careful, speedy.”

  Tavish tipped back his head, looked up. “Did you finish Grandfather’s birthday dinner?”

  “I did.” Ivy met Zie Zen’s eyes. “I hope you’ll like what I’ve chosen.”

  “You could do nothing that would displease me, Daughter.”

  Ivy’s gaze shone wet before she was distracted by two words from the Arrow child who now called the orchard home, and who looked to Ivy and Vasic as family. As parents who wouldn’t reject him the way his birth parents had done when he proved to have a dangerous telekinetic gift. “Wanna play?” Wariness was a sudden intruder lurking in eyes of hazel mixed with brown.

  Then Ivy leaned down to press a kiss to his forehead. “Why not?”

  Wariness wiped away with a smile that was a burst of starlight, Tavish went to run back to the ball the small white dog, Rabbit, was guarding. He paused midstep, came to Zie Zen, his pace far more sedate. “Grandfather,” he said respectfully. “Would you like to play, too?”

  Zie Zen raised his hand to the boy’s cheek, touched the innocent warmth of it, and thought of the children he and his Sunny might’ve created had they lived in another time. “I will enjoy listening to you play, Grandson.”

  Tavish made an aborted movement forward, seemed to decide to do it, and threw his arms around Zie Zen. Zie Zen closed his own around the boy, this small, bright spark of life who had learned to laugh under Zie Zen’s eyes.

  “I’ll be over there, Grandfather.” Tavish pointed toward the start of the orchard after the embrace came to a natural end. “You can call me if you need me. Okay?”

  “You are a good grandson.”

  Flushing with pride, Tavish took his leave and ran off.

  Ivy followed at a slower pace after picking up Zie Zen’s fallen cane and placing it against the side of his chair. She was soon caught up in the game, however, one that seemed to involve kicking the ball between two trees, with Rabbit in hot pursuit of the black-and-white object anytime it went past an invisible boundary.

  When Vasic ’ported in right beside Ivy, she turned to kiss him in a motion so fluid, it was as if the two were one being. Zie Zen didn’t need to be an empath to sense her piercing love for Vasic, or Vasic’s passionate devotion to her. Zie Zen’s son of the heart loved his empath as Zie Zen had loved his Sunny.

  Even as the couple drew apart, Ivy’s palm yet on Vasic’s chest, Tavish came to tug at Vasic’s hand and ask him to join in the game. Vasic touched that hand to the boy’s shoulder before turning to meet Zie Zen’s gaze. Grandfather, you are well? His telepathic voice was as pure as a remote lake of unbroken ice, but there was no cold within Vasic.

  Not any longer.

  I am very well, Son. And he was. The sunshine was warm on bones that felt far older than his years. It was the weight of sorrow, the weight of memory, the weight of promises he’d made to himself to see through his Sunny’s dream.

  Here in this sun-drenched orchard while his son played with a child who had chosen Vasic as his father, and an empath laughed in unfettered joy, that dream came true. The Psy race was no longer a place only of chilling Silence, the PsyNet no longer a stark black-and-white landscape devoid of emotional bonds.

  The time of endless darkness was over.

  There, Sunny. It is done.

  • • •

  VASIC felt his grandfather go. No emotional bonds showed in the PsyNet but for mating bonds, not yet. But Vasic knew they existed, felt them in his soul. And he knew when his bond with his grandfather snapped forever.

  Grief speared him as he teleported the short distance to Zie Zen.

  His grandfather’s cane lay fallen on the ground, but Zie Zen’s head didn’t loll. It simply leaned gently against the back of his chair. His eyes were closed, the faintest smile on his lips. It was as if he were sleeping, but even as Vasic reached out his fingers to check his grandfather’s pulse, he knew Zie Zen was gone.

  Ivy’s hand locked around his as it fell to his side, the words she spoke breathless from her run to Zie Zen and wet with tears. “He was at such profound peace before he went. It felt like . . . like a beautiful heartsong.”

  Ivy would know, not only because Vasic’s wife was an E, but because Zie Zen had been linked to her in the Honeycomb. Vasic’s grandfather had smiled at Ivy’s request for a connection, then said, “I have come full circle at last, joined once more to an empath.”

  “Grandfather?” Tavish’s plaintive voice snapped Vasic out of his shock and sorrow.

  Reaching down, he picked up the child, his single arm more than strong enough for the task. He needed to hold the boy and Tavish needed to be held. “Grandfather’s left us, Tavish,” he said, finding it difficult to speak but knowing that at this instant, the pain felt by the small vulnerable heart in his hold was more important than his own grief. “But he was ready to go.”

  Ever since Zie Zen had told Vasic about his Sunny, Vasic had known that his grandfather was only counting time on this earth. The Psy race might not believe in an afterlife, but Zie Zen had believed his Sunny waited for him. He just had to finish his work here before he could go to her, to the woman he had always loved.

  “But he can’t go!” It was a child’s angry cry. “Tell him to come back!”

  Vasic felt Ivy’s love, the infinite gentleness of her, surround them both.

  Reaching up to cup Tavish’s wet face, she shook her head. “We’ll all miss him desperately, but you see his smile? It means he was happy to go on his next adventure.” She was crying, too, made no effort to hide her tears.

  Ivy. Vasic’s throat was too thick to speak. I need you.

  His empath tucked herself against his chest a heartbeat later, wrapping her arms around him and Tavish both. It was enough to keep him going, so he could do what needed to be done.

  He couldn’t cry, not then. He’d been an Arrow too long.

  It wasn’t until deep into the night, the world silent and his mate holding his head against her shoulder, that Vasic Zen cried for the man who had made him who he was, a man who had lived a lifetime with his own grief and who had left the world a far better place than it h
ad been before he first turned rebel.

  • • •

  ASHAYA received word of Zie Zen’s death directly from Ivy Jane. “He would’ve wanted you to know,” the empath told Ashaya before dawn the morning after Zie Zen’s passing, her eyes red and swollen on the comm screen.

  “Thank you.” Ashaya’s own grief was a raw wave inside her. “You’ll let me know the funeral arrangements?” Under Silence, Psy had held no funerals, celebrated no lives, but Zie Zen deserved every honor they could do him.

  He’d saved Ashaya’s son, saved Ashaya herself.

  And they were only two of hundreds, perhaps thousands.

  “Yes,” Ivy said. “You know more of a certain part of his life than we do. If you think there are others who should be told, please do it.”

  “I will.” But first, after Ivy logged off, Ashaya needed to deal with the agony inside her. She slid down to sit on the floor of her home office, her arms curled around her knees. Sobs rocked her, when tears were things she’d never shed in the PsyNet.

  It didn’t startle her when Dorian entered the room within seconds, though she’d left him fast asleep in their bed. Her mate had felt her sorrow, run to her despite the fact that his leg was still in a plascast. “Zie Zen’s dead,” she managed to say before she couldn’t speak.

  Kneeling down beside her, Dorian held her against his chest and he let her cry.

  “K-Keen . . .” Her son’s heart would be broken; she needed to get herself together so she could deal with his pain.

  Dorian pressed a kiss to her temple. “I shut the office door when I walked in. He won’t wake.”

  “I c-can’t stop,” she said at one point.

  “You will when you’re ready.”

  So she cried and she thought emotions were a horrible thing sometimes . . . but she wouldn’t trade them for cold peace. Never again. A life of freedom from chains psychic or emotional or physical was Zie Zen’s gift to her and she would honor it always.

  • • •

  HIGH in a skyscraper in New York, a woman who’d once been under Ming LeBon’s ugly control hung up the phone with a thickness in her throat. Ashaya was devastated by the news of Zie Zen’s death but she’d taken the time to call Katya. “I thought you’d want to know,” Katya’s friend and former boss had said.

  Katya couldn’t believe Zie Zen was gone. He was like an ancient tree in the forest. Always there, offering shelter under its branches. It was near impossible to comprehend that the tree had fallen, leaving a gaping hole in their midst. She’d never been as close to him as Ashaya, but he’d had a profound impact on her life nonetheless—for it was Zie Zen who’d built the foundation on which every Psy rebel stood, whether they knew it or not.

  Conscious her husband would want to be informed as soon as possible, she looked up his private diary and saw he was scheduled for a consult with the Forgotten’s head medic.

  She knew what “consult” was code for, so instead of heading to the infirmary or Dev’s office space, she used her handprint to authorize the elevator to take her to a secret subbasement. Triple-shielded against interference, this was the space where the Forgotten ran experiments testing the limits of the new psychic abilities popping up among their people.

  The elevator doors opened to reveal another locked door.

  Scanning herself through using retinal fingerprinting as well as a voice code, she entered to find Dev and Glen the only two people in the cavernous gray space that always seemed cold to her.

  Rubbing her hands up and down her upper arms, she nodded hello to the doctor, but stayed out of the way. Dev didn’t acknowledge her, likely couldn’t. Her husband was seated in a chair surrounded by complex monitoring equipment. Hooked up to them by multiple wires, he stared straight ahead at what looked like a computer set to solve logic problems.

  As Katya watched, the computer’s behavior changed. It began to scroll data across the screen. Katya didn’t know what was happening but she knew Dev was behind it. He’d become part of the machine.

  Gut clenched, she looked into his eyes. They were the same gorgeous brown with amber, gold, and bronze flecks that she loved . . . only ice-cold, no humanity, no warmth. “Dev,” she whispered, unable to hold back the visceral need to claw him back from the metallic ice of the machines.

  Though she’d spoken at the lowest possible volume, his response was immediate. Lashes coming down, he said, “Katya, mere jaan.” A rusty voice, but his lips curved into a smile as his eyes warmed to shimmering gold on the upward rise of his lashes.

  She could barely wait long enough for Glen to unhook him from the monitoring sensors. Wrapping her arms around him the instant he rose to his feet, she shivered and held him even tighter. “You’re so cold.”

  Dev cuddled her to his chest. “I don’t feel it, but Glen says there’s a definite surface temperature drop when I interface with higher-level machines.”

  “No need to worry though,” was the doctor’s cheerful addition. “His vitals carry on as per usual.”

  Katya drew back, took one of Dev’s hands, and blew hot air on it while rubbing gently at his skin. “What about your mental state?” Her skin felt tight over her cheekbones, her heart that trapped bird that returned in times of greatest stress and fear. “What’s it do to you each time you become part machine?”

  “Katya.” Dev tipped up her chin. “You keep me human, no matter how many machines I touch.”

  Fear still knotted her gut. “You’re getting so strong.” He did things like turn on household computronics without even thinking about it.

  The dark of his hair sliding forward, Dev bent so his forehead touched hers. “And I love you more each day. I’m in no danger of losing myself.”

  His skin was warm now and whatever he’d done this morning, their psychic connection had never once flickered. She had to remember that, believe in that. Dev might be changing, becoming something new, but he was still the man who loved her.

  He was also the leader of the Forgotten, a people who’d had far more dealings with Zie Zen than the rest of the world ever guessed. “I have sad news,” she said, her throat thick again. “We’ve lost Zie Zen.”

  Dev’s grief was a rough, harsh thing, and it was painfully, rawly human.

  • • •

  ADEN didn’t want to deal with Trinity or Ming LeBon right now. He wanted to be there for his friend, to take care of details so Vasic didn’t have to. But Zie Zen had believed in Trinity, had spoken to Aden at length about it the last time they had a conversation.

  It is a construct of raw hope, this Trinity Accord of yours. A bold, audacious, defiant thing that challenges the world to be better and demands that people be the very best they can be. Never let this construct fail, Aden, for so long as it stands, it broadcasts that challenge. Sooner or later, even the consciously deaf will have to listen.

  For that reason and that reason alone, Aden forced himself to stare at the proposal that had arrived in the hour directly after Zie Zen’s passing, at a time when Vasic and Ivy had told no one but Aden and Zaira, and Ivy’s parents. At least Ming LeBon could be acquitted of the crime of trying to use Zie Zen’s death to his own advantage. That was the only good thing Aden could say about the letter that had gone out to every signatory of the accord.

  Proposal for a European Alliance

  The Trinity Accord presents a hopeful view of the future, but in the short time since its inception, it has already proven lacking in the basics and is a group clearly dominated by certain parties to the detriment of others. It is for this reason, and because Europe has needs Trinity simply will not be able to fulfill, that I am proposing a European Alliance.

  The proposed alliance would encompass members from across the continent as well as the British Isles, and will provide a vehicle for better growth for all parties.

  Membership in the EA will not preclude being a signatory to t
he Trinity Accord. The two organizations can coexist, though the EA is apt to be the far more useful tool for those who intend to do business in this part of the world.

  —Ming LeBon

  Aden knew the core of Trinity needed to respond to this, but he also knew that he refused to disrespect Zie Zen by playing politics today. So he’d have faith in his “bold, audacious, defiant” construct and in the people who’d helped him take it from idea to fruition.

  He input a call.

  Lucas was more than willing to handle the situation. “Anything Trinity or Ming related that manages to make its way to you, forward it to me.” The panther held Aden’s gaze, his own eyes solemn. “I heard. The world lost a hell of a man yesterday.”

  That was when Aden realized that, of course, Lucas would know of Zie Zen’s passing. A child whose birth certificate listed Zie Zen as his father lived within DarkRiver. “Yes, it did. Thank you for handling the fallout from Ming’s EA proposal.” He knew the alpha had to still be dealing with tracking down those behind the abduction attempt on his child.

  “None necessary.”

  Signing off, Aden turned to find Zaira waiting for him.

  She slipped into his arms, her own locking around him. “I’ve spoken to Ivy.” He couldn’t see her eyes, but he knew they remained shell-shocked from a loss no one had seen coming.

  Zie Zen had always been there, until it seemed even the most Silent, most pragmatic Arrows had subconsciously believed it would always be thus, that he was a force of nature immune from time and age.

  “I know what they need,” Zaira finished, her voice husky.

  Aden nodded, then together, the two of them started to do what they could to help bear the load.

  Chapter 28

  HELPED BY FRIENDS who’d been there every step of the way, Vasic and Ivy held Zie Zen’s memorial service at the orchard, on a small rise awash in the sunshine his grandfather had loved. Once, when they’d spoken about it, Zie Zen had asked to be cremated and scattered on the winds as he’d done for his Sunny. But first, they would have this ceremony for the living who grieved for him.