As if he’d been reading me past the collar, he spoke up once more.
“I wonder sometimes, if I did it more for the sex,” he said.
He rolled halfway to his back, grimacing a little as he closed his eyes.
“I wanted her,” he added. ”I had a crush on her, the whole time I was in her class. I used to fantasize about her...”
Glancing at him, I returned my gaze to the ceiling, biting my lip before I'd thought about why. After a pause, I shook my head.
“You did it for her. I saw you, Revik. I felt what you felt.”
“You felt what I told myself at the time,” he corrected me. “That might have been me lying to myself then, too, Allie.”
He closed his eyes again, settling his head on the floor.
“I went to find her, you know,” he said. “When I was older.”
Flinching a little, I found myself turning my head. When I looked back at him, he was frowning, his eyes still closed as he lay on his back.
“...She’d moved,” he said. “To another town. She was married. I tried to thank her...for trying to help me. I tried to apologize. She couldn’t even look at me. She couldn’t look me in the face...”
Feeling another pulse of shame off him, I couldn’t answer him at first, lost in his light as I glimpsed an image of her older face.
The image faded quickly though, leaving me with nothing.
Taking another breath, I looked at him.
“If you wanted her to touch you, you can’t exactly blame yourself for that,” I said. “Whatever age you were exactly...I remember those years. I remember what it was like, and I had a family, Revik. I had friends. I had a brother.”
He raised one of his shackled hands, gesturing no in seer.
“Allie. I don’t want to hear the Jon story again.”
I felt my cheeks burn, even as a flush of my own shame hit my chest.
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know.” He shook his head. “Forget it.”
But the sick feeling in my stomach wouldn’t dissipate. I bit my lip.
“Why does that bother you so much?” I said after another moment, turning towards him again. “Is it because he was my adopted brother? I knew he was gay, even then, and I was scared. There were these guys at school...” Thinking about it briefly, I shook my head, realizing I didn’t want to explain that, either. “Never mind. I know it was wrong. I know it was stupid. I just...I had my reasons for asking him.”
“I know.”
“And anyway, there’s nothing I can do about it now...” Feeling my jaw harden, I looked at him again. “I wish I’d never told you...”
He stared at me from the floor, his clear eyes on mine.
I saw what might have been an apology in them, or maybe just understanding. After another pause, he just nodded.
“I know. I get it, Allie.”
“I know you get it. So why does it bother you so much?”
“It bothers me because he’s my friend.”
I just stared at him for a moment, stuck on his words. Then, thinking about them, I stared back up at the ceiling, turning them over again, finding I understood even more than I’d thought.
“Balidor was your friend,” I said, quiet.
Silence filled the space between us.
It expanded out of him, hitting at my light. I didn’t move as it reached for me, didn’t look over as I felt him replay my words. I regretted them already, even as it occurred to me that Revik had been talking to me...actually talking to me...for the first time. I returned his hard gaze, feeling my chest tighten when his eyes finally shifted away, focusing on the ceiling.
“Why, Allie?” he said.
I felt my breath stop. I think I reacted more to the feeling coming off him than the words; for a moment I couldn't even make sense of the question. When I turned my head, he was looking at me again, his clear eyes cold.
“Why?” he repeated. “I don’t mean me...I’m sure you had your reasons with me. I mean them.”
“Them?” I said.
“Yes, them...I thought you loved them. Wreg and Nikka. Jax, Holo, Gar...the others you went in with. You acted like you did. You knew what their lives were like before, what it would mean for them to become slaves again...” He paused, swallowing as he looked at me. “Why, Allie? How could you do it? How could you just throw them away like that?”
I couldn’t move.
Thoughts seemed to rise to answer him, then just die.
Finally, I shook my head, wiping my face with one hand.
“I didn’t throw them away, Revik.”
Anger pulsed off his light. “Balidor told me they belong to the Lao Hu now. He said you authorized her to raid the place...gave her the damned map coordinates. He said almost none escaped...that they were forced to swear allegiance to her then and there, or be faced with a Chinese work camp...”
I felt pain in my chest again, even as my anger at Balidor flared.
Well, I’d wondered what he’d been saying to Revik for all of those days.
Even as I thought it, the anger dissolved, breaking up around me like salt in water. Guilt nearly crippled me instead, and a grief I couldn’t keep out of my light, even as I fought to keep it off my face. I couldn’t handle that right now, and I knew it. I didn’t have the luxury to wallow in any of it, not until I’d finished what I’d started here.
“I didn’t authorize that,” I said finally, hating the words, hating them probably more than he hated hearing them, but unable to change them. “She broke our agreement.”
“Voi Pai?”
I nodded, gesturing yes in seer.
“What was your agreement?”
I stared up at the ceiling, knowing he would hate this, too, but realizing I wanted to tell him the truth anyway.
“I needed them distracted,” I said, clearing my throat.
My voice came out stronger, almost business-like.
“...I needed them contained until I had you somewhere safe. I knew your people. Well enough to know they’d send everything they had after us, once they figured out I’d taken you. Voi Pai was to keep them there, and that was all.”
“And she accepted that, the leader of the Lao Hu? A job as errand runner to the Bridge?” His voice was openly sarcastic. “Are you really that naïve, Allie?”
“I offered her payment,” I said angrily. “Tribute was in cache...in weapons. Not in people. Not even in planes. I offered her what you had in those crates, in the main hangar.” I paused, feeling my jaw harden again. “...And I offered her Salinse. She seemed to think he might be useful...for intelligence purposes, she said...”
“You gave her Salinse.”
“I offered him,” I said angrily, turning. “You’re damned right I did. She was welcome to him, as far as I was concerned. She’s still welcome to him. But he’s the only one of your people that bitch managed not to capture...”
Revik stared at me, his eyes showing a faint surprise.
Then he clicked at me, and I saw the surprise dissolve back into a colder anger.
“You’re pretty fucking arrogant these days, Allie,” he said. “Being the Bridge seems to have gone to your head, if you think you can take on the Lao Hu single-handed and win.”
“I didn’t try to ‘take her on.’ I offered her what I thought were fair terms.”
“Well,” he said, shifting to his back. “Clearly she disagreed.”
I felt my jaw harden again as I watched him settle his weight on the organic floor, his hand covering his face. But there wasn’t a lot I could say to his words.
For a moment both of us just lay there, not speaking.
“Wreg,” he said then. “Is he dead?”
I shook my head, folding my arms tighter with a sigh. “No.”
“You didn’t kill him on the plane?”
“No.” I looked at him in bewilderment, angry again. “I didn’t kill anyone on the plane. Why would I? And why would I kill Wreg?”
“
How did you keep him from stopping you?”
Clicking to myself in irritation, or maybe at him, I folded my hands over my ribs, still fighting the anger out of my voice.
“I threw him...with the telekinesis. When that only slowed him down, I shot him. In the leg.” When Revik didn’t speak into the silence, I shrugged with the same hand. “I had him cuff himself to one of the seats before I tranked him...using the same stuff I used on you.”
There was another silence.
“He was alive, Revik,” I said. “He wasn’t even in danger. I had him fixed up before we left him on the plane. They were all alive when I left.”
Again, he didn’t answer.
I felt him thinking as he lay there, even as another pulse of grief left his light.
Remembering the Barrier images Vash shared with me in the aftermath of Voi Pai’s attack on the rebel headquarters, I felt sick again, unable to tear my mind off of what I’d let her do...what I’d helped her do. I hadn’t even told him about Nikka yet, but now I couldn’t help wondering if Balidor had, or someone else maybe.
I didn’t even want to admit it to myself. The idea of talking to him about it, especially if he had to hear it first from me, made me feel physically sick. I knew it was cowardice...and that it wouldn’t probably even make a difference at this point, in terms of how he viewed me...but I didn’t want to be the one to tell him, anyway.
He was right. I’d been stupid to think I could trust Voi Pai.
Especially me. She made it clear she hated me, and hated the authority I had over her as Bridge, pretty much from day one.
At the time, I’d told myself I didn’t have to trust her. I’d trusted Balidor, and he and Voi Pai seemed to have an understanding of their own. He told me that she would honor their agreement, and I believed him.
But for all I knew, Balidor had been in on it with her. He certainly thought my approach towards the rebels and their stockpile of weapons and planes in the mountains had been lenient, to say the least. He’d accused me of being naïve, too. And of being overly sentimental with a bunch of terrorists who happened to be “nice” when they weren’t out murdering people in the name of their gods and ancestors.
The part that frustrated me most was that both of them were right, in a way.
The truth was, I couldn’t trust any of them anymore.
Balidor, Tenzi, Yumi, Poresh, Illeg, Farador, Garend, Jared, Vikram...possibly even Dorje. The Adhipan infiltrators all saw me as having been compromised by Revik. They thought I was tainted. I wasn’t sure if they’d picked up on what Jon brought up with me that first day, about the Dreng being in my light, or if they just thought I was incapable of being objective where Revik was concerned. Either way, I had to concede they were probably right.
And Revik’s team, well...they pretty much thought I was the Antichrist.
I fought back the pain that tried to rise, shaking my head at the ceiling.
“You’re right,” was all I said.
“About what?”
“About everything,” I said.
“Meaning what?”
“It was stupid,” I said, biting my lip. “...I was stupid. It doesn’t help either of us, knowing that. But I don’t want you to think I’m not hearing you. I am.”
I felt another coil of his light, a faint whisper of confusion that tried to turn into anger and only halfway succeeded.
“If it comforts you,” I added. “Pretty much everyone agrees with you...and not just the seers on your side. The Seven, too. They all think I’ve lost my fucking mind.”
When feeling started to strengthen around him once more, I turned on my side, facing him directly. His eyes met mine immediately that time. I paused, watching him look at me, the running lights at the base of the far wall reflecting in his clear irises. I didn’t let myself read anything into his expression, and I kept my voice toneless, leached of inflection.
“You know,” I said. “I probably don’t have to be the one to do this anymore. Not now that we’re this far in. If you want Vash to do it...or Tarsi...I think the connection is strong enough now. It doesn’t have to be me.”
There was another silence.
In it, he only stared at me.
I saw his expression change somewhat as my words sank in, as his surprise filtered deeper into his light. Then he was looking at me again, his focus flicking forward as he studied my face from across the space between us.
“No,” he said, startling me. “No, I want it to be you, Allie.”
“Why?”
“Does it matter why?”
“Yes.”
Settling his face back on the organic floor, he closed his eyes.
“I just want it to be you.”
I struggled through my own confusion at his answer, not letting myself read anything into his words as I studied his resting face. I almost thought he might be going to sleep, when he spoke up again, his eyes still closed.
“Don’t worry, love,” he said, softer. “It’s not a present.” Clearing his throat, he resettled his shoulder on the ground. “If you don’t hate me now...you will by the time we finish this.”
I bit my lip, looking at him, but he didn’t open his eyes.
“You’re so sure about that?” I said, fighting my voice.
“I’m sure.”
I nodded, feeling my anger turn into something heavier, a feeling that slid briefly into a kind of depression.
“Then you’re stupid, too, Revik,” I said.
Before he could answer, I rolled to my back again, exhaling shortly as I resettled on the thin blanket. Tugging it around me, I closed my eyes.
He didn’t look up, or speak to me before either of us slipped off to another uneasy bout of sleeping and dreaming. But before I drifted away, I felt another coil of confusion leave his light, whispering through mine right before he pulled it back again.
10
EMISSARY
CASS STOOD UNDER a leafless cherry tree that grew partway inside the wooden pagoda where she and Baguen had been left to wait, over an hour earlier. The tree’s dark brown branches extended jointed arms towards a gray and low-hanging sky, somehow providing a contrast that made that sky look even more bleak than it did.
The beginnings of winter had transformed the gardens so radically that Cass may not have recognized them at all, if it weren’t for the high walls and the few buildings that stood out more starkly against the leafless trees. The trees themselves, which had all been in bloom when she last stood in this place, now had sticks for arms and twigs for fingers. They stood in muddy slots surrounded by stones and yellowed grass, cropped low to the ground and covered in dark moss and, in some cases, a thin layer of ice.
Most of the warmer-weather bushes had been covered, or moved into one of the long greenhouses that took up one whole segment of the open space between the Tian’anmen and the Meridian Gates. Now, with fewer trees to obscure those, too, Cass realized that an entire complex of such greenhouses existed, lining almost a third of the high walls. Movement around their lit doors and walls told Cass that work continued inside the greenhouses themselves, even at this time of night. Someone maybe even worked around the clock caring for the plants, or harvesting for meals that would be cooked and served inside the secondary set of walls.
The ponds and wells were covered. Bird cages had been moved indoors, and many of the trees were wrapped at their bases, to keep them warm and cushioned from the worst of the snow and ice. The sheep, cows and horses had all been moved to indoor stables as well; Cass saw only a few horses huddled together under trees in one of the paddocks further back beyond the hot houses that glowed in the dimmer light of heavy clouds.
It felt like the entire of the several acre gardens had gone into hibernation.
In any case, Cass certainly lost track of the majority of her landmarks and reference points from when they’d been staying there in the spring.
Exhaling in frustration, she shivered in the late November chill, wishing she’d forgone
the elaborate silk outfit for a decent fur coat and one of those Russian-style hats.
It was starting to get dark.
Cass blew on her hands to warm them, then blew her choppy bangs out of her eyes. Her hair, though still bright red at the ends, had started to transform under the inevitable creep of her naturally straight, black hair. Still on the fence about whether she wanted to go back to the shocking red she’d worn for years in San Francisco, she hadn’t bothered to do anything with it for this trip. She knew to the Chinese seers, it wouldn’t have made any difference, anyway. Unlike a lot of seers, the Chinese ones didn’t disparage her because she was human, per se, but because she was from one of the ‘lesser races’ of Asians, and a mutt to boot.
She hadn’t figured that out on her own.
Baguen told her, in his choppy and heavily accented Prexci-English.
One of the servants who’d attended them told her it was supposed to snow in two days. Glancing around the empty courtyard, Cass wondered if it would snow before the leader of the Lao Hu would agree to grant them their requested audience.
In any case, she knew it was likely a lot warmer inside, where their host presumably waited, likely smirking at them from behind the walls of the Inner City while she drank hot, imported rice wine. Meanwhile, Cass and Baguen remained locked outside of the Meridian Gate, in a ceremonial pagoda in one of the gardens, freezing their respective asses off.
Of course, Voi Pai hadn’t refused them outright in their request.
In fact, every message they received was polite to the point of being a mockery of subservience. As emissaries of the Bridge, they’d been given a tour of the entire outer premises. They'd been taken to several different gardens, greenhouses and tea houses. They were given presents of hothouse flowers and embroidered sashes. They were recited poetry, sung songs and given a demonstration sword fight in the ancient ceremonial forms.
At one point, there’d been puppets.
The seer overlord of the Forbidden City stretched out the preliminaries and the honorifics to the point of teeth-grinding madness, both to avoid letting them inside and, Cass suspected, to make them feel as humiliated and disrespected as possible.
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