Word and Breath (Wordless Chronicles)

by Susannah Noel

“I’m not a romantic,” Riana objected, as if she’d just been insulted. “I just think relationships are more trouble than they’re worth.”

  Her grandfather had raised her and Jannie, and he’d been a romantic. He’d also been an idealist and had taught them to be that way too. For the last few years, though, Riana had tried to smother those impulses.

  Romanticism and idealism were a threat to the Union, held only by mystics and rebels. According to Union values, normalcy trumped lofty ideals, and recreational sex and breeding programs were better for society than lifetime romantic attachments. For the last hundred years, the government had been discouraging marriage and any sort of idealistic rhetoric, since such old-fashioned vices could potentially lead to irrational, anti-establishment behavior.

  “Romantics aren’t as common now, but they’re still around,” Nelly replied, ignoring Riana’s objection. “I think you could find a man still willing to tie the knot if you tried.”

  “I just told you—I’m not a romantic, and I don’t want to find a man at all.”

  “Connor was a romantic, you know.”

  Riana knew that was true. He hadn’t even tried to hide it. When she was fifteen, she’d been desperately in love with him. He’d been six years older than her, though, and always treated her like a little sister.

  On the day of her nineteenth birthday, he was just gone.

  She missed him.

  Nelly was silent for a moment, as if she was thinking about the mysterious disappearance of Connor too, but she soon recovered her natural inquisitiveness. “If you’re not a romantic, then you should find yourself a man. I bet you’d be a knockout if you’d dress better.”

  Riana snorted, genuinely amused. She had no illusions about her appearance and wasn’t the least insulted by Nelly’s words. “Right.”

  “You would,” Nelly insisted, gesturing toward Riana’s two-tone high-heeled pumps. “You always wear great shoes. Why don’t you wear better clothes?”

  Shoes were Riana’s one indulgence, and she spent more on shoes than she did on all the other clothing she owned. She never bothered with the rest of her wardrobe, though. Today she wore no-nonsense dark slacks, a gray top, and a black cardigan. “Why bother?”

  “And why do you always wear those braids?”

  Riana tugged on one of the two long brown braids she wore every day. “My hair is long. It would get in the way otherwise.”

  “But it must be so pretty when you let it down.”

  “Don’t even try to fix me up,” Riana said good-humoredly, recovering from her earlier discomfiture in the familiarity of harmless chat. “It won’t work.”

  Nelly rolled her chair back to her own desk. It was never wise in this office to waste too much time, even early in the morning. Smyde was always prowling about. “I’m not giving up. One day, I’ll give you a makeover. We’ll find you a man yet.”

  Riana just laughed in response. There wasn’t any sense in arguing.

  But Riana had no illusions. She wasn’t going to find herself a man.

  In her mind, recreational sex was another empty, sordid facet of the Union’s regime—imposed on people so they became interchangeable and thus easier to control—and she wasn’t going to participate in that. Besides, to attract a man, she’d have to be noticed, and Riana spent her life trying not to be noticed.

  She thought about Mikel again before she forced the visual out of her mind.

  Nelly looked like she was going to say something else, but her words were cut off when Smyde came over to stand in front of Riana’s cubicle.

  Riana looked up at him questioningly, hoping he hadn’t decided during the night to yell at her some more.

  “Did you find anything this morning? I’m told you went back to storage to check into something.”

  Nothing occurred in the office that wasn’t monitored. Riana should have known she’d be questioned.

  The three sheets of paper she’d been analyzing that morning were at the bottom of her inbox. She should just pull them out and hand them to her supervisor.

  She could feel Jenson’s blue eyes on her from across the room.

  Without thinking it through, she dropped her hands into her lap and met Smyde’s eyes squarely. “I did. I thought I remembered something from a couple of texts I read earlier this week that might add up to an anomaly. But I remembered wrong. It was nothing.”

  Smyde studied her warily.

  “I just wanted to make sure I didn’t miss anything else, so I’m trying to cover all my bases.”

  This seemed to satisfy him. With a curt nod, he said, “Good. Keep it up.” Then he just walked away.

  Riana let out a breath and stared down at the text in front of her. It wasn’t until Smyde was on the far side of the office that she dared to glance over at Jenson.

  He was still watching her. His expression was composed, but there was an obvious thank-you in his eyes.

  She inclined her head slightly and looked away, her cheeks flushing a little.

  It was a ridiculous reaction. There was no good reason for it.

  But she’d done something different, noteworthy, rebellious. She felt rather pleased with herself.

  ***

  Captain Largan studied the file that had just been laid on his desk.

  He hated days like today—filled with a lot of trivial problems that managed to distract him from accomplishing anything worthwhile. He needed to organize security for the President’s visit to Newtown, and he’d barely begun to make the necessary arrangements.

  This was one trivial issue too many.

  “Can’t you take care of this yourself?” he demanded, staring up at the supervisor of the city’s Readers.

  Smyde cleared his throat rather smugly. “Regulation requires I report to you any suspicious activity and the steps I’m taking to address it.”

  The man’s manner of speaking got on Largan’s nerves—like Smyde went out of his way to sound pompous. Gritting his teeth, Largan managed not to stand up and clobber the pretentious imbecile. “So what is suspicious about this woman?” He leafed through the file, which was filled with images and symbols. Union files were only rarely put together with written texts.

  “Her name is Riana Cole. She overlooked a reference to the Underground.”

  Stifling a yawn, Largan managed not to toss the file away. As soon as Smyde left, he needed to call the General Counsel to the President, and he wanted to get that onerous duty over with. “Surely you have your own methods for dealing with sloppiness.”

  “It may not have been sloppiness. She has also been observed associating with Jenson Talon.”

  That was a name Largan recognized. Straightening up, he felt a few flickers of interest. “Are they lovers?”

  “We don’t know. There’s no evidence of it, but they’ve been seen associating.”

  Associating could mean anything. It was one of the words tossed around among Union officials so often it had lost any clear meaning. “So we think there are ties to the Front here?”

  “To the Underground,” Smyde said. “Maybe. We’re pursuing it through all the normal channels. I have also requisitioned a tail on her. Policy requires me to report it to you.”

  Largan wondered if Smyde had corrected him on purpose—using the preferred Union appellation for the Front—or if it had been unconscious. Probably on purpose.

  Refocusing on the issue, he mentally added up columns of numbers in his head to ensure they still had enough money in the budget. “An undercover officer, I hope. Surely you don’t need a Breather for this kind of job.”

  “I prefer not to use Breathers.” Once more, something about Smyde’s tone made everything he said condescending. “But she’s smart. And independent. I didn’t think she’d be easily fooled. We need a subtler touch than a regular undercover officer can provide.”

  Largan glanced over the images in the file. The girl looked to be in her early twenties. Not unattractive, although oddly girlish in those two long braids. Orph
aned early. Raised by her grandfather. The only family she had left was an invalid sister.

  Largan stared down at the photograph. There was something almost disturbing in the large, sober gray eyes and firm chin of the well-shaped face. He sighed, cringing at the inevitable depletion of the funds. “A Breather, then. Fine. Which one did you hire?”

  “Mikel. He made first contact last night and claims it won’t be long before he has something to report.”

  Largan cursed under his breath at the familiar name.

  Smyde continued, “I wish we didn’t need to use such…such creatures.”

  Largan raised his eyebrows—he’d always known Smyde hated the less traditional outgrowths of Union power, but he’d never voiced it so openly before.

  He’d said a subtle touch was needed, however. If anyone was subtle, it was Mikel. The Breather was as seductive and charming as they came.

  Largan turned to his monitor and touched a symbol on his touchpad. “I’ll make note of the fact that Mikel is in the city on a job. Let me know if he turns up anything.”

  Smyde left, looking satisfied with himself.

  Largan looked back down at the picture of Riana Cole. He wondered what had prompted her to get involved with the Front. She was good at her job—steadily moving up in the ranks of Readers. She’d never broken any laws or regulations.

  Flipping through a few more pages, he noticed that she could also read the Old Language, the one spoken before the Cataclysm. Experiencing a new spark of interest, a more intense one now, he studied the page thoughtfully.

  There weren’t many people left who knew how to read the Old Language.

  He reached for his phone and dialed Smyde, who must have barely made it out of the building. “She was raised by a grandfather?” Largan asked. “That wouldn’t be Marshall Cole, would it?”

  “Yes. That’s right. Another strike against her. She’s the granddaughter of that treacherous mystic.”

  Largan ignored the insult, having known to expect it. Marshall Cole, once an asset to the Union, had turned into an anathema to the more rigorous proponents of Union values. But that didn’t mean he was insignificant. “I understood his whole family was killed.”

  “His son and daughter-in-law were killed in the raid on the Eastern bank, and my understanding was a story was widely circulated that claimed the entire family was killed. But the two granddaughters survived. Why does it matter?”

  Again, Largan didn’t bother to reply. “Keep me in the loop on any developments concerning the Cole woman.”

  He hung up then, his mind buzzing as he sorted through possibilities. There was a banging on his ceiling—this building was constantly under construction—and the rhythm of the pounding seemed to match the pulsing of his growing excitement.

  He wondered about Riana Cole. He knew as much about Marshall Cole as anyone. Why hadn’t he known a granddaughter had survived? If she’d inherited even half of her grandfather’s intelligence and creativity, she would be unusually gifted. Why would she have risked everything for a cause as meaningless as the Front?

  Mikel had been the right choice. She appeared to be clever and competent, but Riana couldn’t hope to keep her secrets. Mikel was the most successful Breather on the Union payroll. He was particularly good at extracting information from women.

  Making up his mind, Largan grabbed his phone again and called the capital to inform his superiors of a new development. When he hung up, he was satisfied he had the pieces in play to take advantage of the Cole woman.

  Then he dialed Mikel’s personal number. Largan had worked with the Breather on numerous occasions in the past. It would be more efficient to deal with him in person on this matter.

  Mikel picked up on the second ring. After a two minute conversation, Largan hung up again, his interest and excitement intensifying.

  There was something he’d wanted to do for years, and maybe Riana Cole would be a step toward achieving it.

  Mikel had said he’d already made a connection with Riana, and he’d sounded quite confident of his ultimate success.

  Perhaps Riana would let herself be seduced. She didn’t have a man and maybe she wanted one. Maybe she’d give up the information he needed willingly, without any resistance.

  She might not be so pliable, though. It might take more than Mikel’s charm and charisma.

  Mikel might have to use his particular gifts and extract a series of her thoughts or memories.

  It sounded vaguely horrifying. Largan would never allow such a thing to happen to him, but he’d ordered it done to others hundreds of times.

  Take a piece of another’s spirit.

  That was what a Soul-Breather did

  Two

  Reed Connor stared out through his large windows at the grimy, crowded city street of east Newtown. The roadway and sidewalks were crammed with cars and pedestrians, and the muffled noise made its way up to the third-floor office of the warehouse building he used as headquarters.

  He ached for the old city—for everything it had lost—as much as he ached for the losses in his own life.

  It was a fairly quiet evening. No accidents or arrests on the street below him, even though both of them were common events in this part of town. Not much was happening at Headquarters either, giving him a rare chance to do some concentrated planning for the future.

  He’d put down his notes a half-hour ago, though, and he couldn’t find the motivation to pick them up again.

  Connor was “the Librarian”—an appellation he’d started to use as a joke but one that had ended up sticking and then collecting a useful amount of exaggerated mythology. He was supposed to have led a mercenary army in the fight for independence of several different free islands. At roughly the same time, he was supposed to have taught two-thousand people to read so they could infiltrate Union offices worldwide. He was also said to have hacked the impenetrable Union database in the capital and liberated two dozen imprisoned members of the Front. Anytime something inexplicable happened, his name would eventually get tossed about.

  According to the stories people told, he’d lived a pretty accomplished life for just being twenty-eight. He wondered what would happen to his reputation if people knew he spent most of his time writing out coded communication.

  Not that his efforts at leading the Front appeared to be making all that much difference to the lumbering leviathan of the Union.

  Being the Librarian when no one wanted to read was a discouraging job.

  Connor was about to indulge in a rare case of self-pity when a knock at the door distracted him. The man who entered was quiet and competent, but the expression on his face made Connor stiffen in his chair.

  “What is it?”

  “Brook has been arrested.” Kelvin’s freckled face was basically composed, but his forehead was damp and his fists clenched at his sides.

  “Military arrest?”

  “Police. They took him on a regular patrol.”

  “For general suspicious activity? Then what’s the problem?

  Arrests happened all the time to those who supported the Front—just as they happened to everyone else. The police were in the habit of picking people up for suspicious activity, whether there were legitimate grounds to do so or not. Connor made sure his people didn’t keep incriminating evidence on them, since they never knew when they might be rounded up and searched.

  Kelvin didn’t answer, and Connor could see a muscle rippling in his jaw.

  That was when it hit Connor—the impact so intense it was visceral. He jerked out of his chair. “Brook had taken Ammie’s place today. He has all the correspondence for the north side.”

  “Yeah,” Kelvin said. “They’ll find it when they search him.”

  Moving immediately into crisis mode, Connor strode toward the office door. “Who do we have over there now?”

  “No one on duty. We’re short-handed because Ammie is sick and Valance is out of—”

  Connor didn’t bother to let him finish. “
Contact Torrence at police headquarters. She should be on shift now. Tell her to be prepared to do anything she necessary to keep Brook from being searched when he arrives.” He stopped at the elevator for a moment and saw that it was on the bottom floor. The creaky elevator was too slow to wait for, so he pushed through the door to the stairs and started down them two at a time.

  Kelvin, already working on the touchpad of his phone, kept in step with him. “I will. And I’ll send Marius over. He’s not too far away.”

  “Good.” Connor cleared the last of the stairs and burst out onto the city street, the dirty humidity of the late afternoon slamming into him like a blow. His glasses fogged up slightly after the cool of the building. Glancing at his watch, he saw it was nearly five o’clock. “Jenson’s in that neighborhood. He’ll be getting off work. I’ll use him. We might have time. If not, tell Torrence and Marius to be prepared.”