Nica's Legacy (Hearts of ICARUS Book 1)

by Laura Jo Phillips

  “Nica!” he called, careless of any other guests he might disturb. When she didn’t answer right away he pounded harder, using his fist until the door was rattling in its frame. Suddenly the door opened in mid pound and he found himself staring at Nica’s white, tear streaked face. He stepped forward, wrapped his arms around her, and kicked the door shut behind them.

  “Are you all right?” he demanded. She nodded, her arms tightening around his waist. He savored the feel of them, but he had to look at her again, so he loosened his hold and leaned back.

  “What happened?”

  “A bad dream,” she whispered, her body shuddering.

  “Will you tell me about it?”

  Nica searched his face for a long moment. He wished he knew what she was looking for, but all he could do was wait, and hold his breath. Finally, she nodded slowly.

  “Yes, I think I should,” she said. “But it won’t mean anything unless I tell you…other things first.”

  “All right,” he said.

  “Perhaps we should do it in the morning,” she said, dropping her eyes. “We’ll have a long drive tomorrow and you should get some sleep.”

  Ian felt her withdrawing but he wasn’t having it. Not now. Not this time. He grasped her shoulders gently, surprised at how small and delicate they felt beneath his hands. She always seemed so strong, so steady, that he sometimes forgot how petite she was.

  “We’ll do it now,” Ian said. Then he waited, staring into her eyes until she nodded her agreement. “Good.” He led her to the sofa, helped her sit, then found the half full bottle of wine from their dinner. He poured them each a glass, handed her one, and sat down in the chair opposite her. A moment later he stood up, moved the chair closer, and sat down again.

  “Whenever you’re ready.”

  She sipped her wine and took a deep breath. “I was born with a strong psychic ability. Sometimes I would see things that had not yet happened. Other times I’d just know things. I’d know if someone was a good person or not. I’d know if something bad was coming, or if something important was about to happen. I’d know if someone had to do something, or go somewhere, or stay away from someone. There was never any rhyme or reason to any of it. It could be anything about anyone at any time.”

  “That must have been difficult for you when you were a child,” Ian said.

  “It was difficult when we lived on Tiera, where I was born, because I had to hide it. Terians don’t approve of such things. When I was six we moved to Jasan, and I didn’t have to hide it any more. After that, it was just a normal part of my life.

  “Then, when I was fifteen, something bad happened. I saw it, in my mind. Something really horrible. For some reason I couldn’t stop it from replaying over and over in my mind on an endless loop. It was so bad that I couldn’t talk or think or eat or sleep. After a couple of days I became catatonic and not even my sister, who’s a doctor, or the Alverian Empath Healer could bring me out of it.

  “That’s when Honey let Aunt Hope put this ring on my finger.” Nica ran one fingertip over the cloudy green stone. “I know it’s not very pretty, but it’s not an ordinary ring. The moment it was on my hand the vision stopped. Just like that, it was gone. I was able to get up, move around, and function normally. Almost. I had no memory of the event. I knew the outcome. The finality of it. But I could no longer see the images in my mind, or even remember what those images had been. If someone told me about it, I would forget whatever they said moments afterward. My psychic ability was gone, and my emotions were…muted. I accepted that. It was a trade-off that I really had no choice but to make. I’ve worn the ring ever since. A little over eight years now.

  “I’ve tried three times to remove the ring over the years. Bree was there, helping me, all three times. Once in our freshman year of college, and once in our senior year. The third time was a couple of weeks ago. The day you left for the country, actually.”

  “I assume the vision hasn’t stopped since you’re still wearing the ring,” Ian said.

  “That’s right,” Nica said. “I don’t remember any of it of course. I never do. But I don’t wear the ring so that I don’t have to remember. I wear it to stop the repetition of the vision.”

  Ian stared into her eyes for a long moment, then smiled. “I underestimated you when we first met. I know that now. And I realize that I don’t know you all that well, yet. But one thing I do know is that you are not a coward. It would never have occurred to me for a moment that you’d hide from reality, no matter how painful it might be.”

  “Thank you for that Ian,” Nica said, fighting tears.

  “For what?”

  “For giving me credit for some sense,” Nica said. “I just found out a few weeks ago that my sister, Honey, has believed all these years that I wear the ring to block my emotions. So I don’t have to deal with grief. I’m glad she understands the truth now, but it kind of hurt that she didn’t know me better than that.”

  “Sometimes we believe the evidence before us because we don’t know what else to believe,” Ian said.

  “Yes, I suppose that’s true,” Nica said.

  “Do you want to tell me what the vision is about?” Ian asked. “You don’t have to, of course.”

  “Yes, I want to tell you,” Nica said, then took a large swallow of her wine. “What do you know about Jasan, Ian? Or, more precisely, what do you know about Clan Jasani?”

  “You asked me that before.”

  “I’m sorry, I’d forgotten.”

  “Don’t be,” Ian said. “Whenever I got close to a Tech Center these past couple of weeks I spent what time I could on a vid-terminal researching Jasan and Clan Jasani. I know quite a bit more now than I did the first time you asked me that question.”

  Nica stared in open mouthed surprise. “Well, that makes things a little easier.”

  “Good, then I didn’t waste my time,” Ian said, smiling.

  “Did you happen to come across the term berezi?”

  “No.”

  “How about Arima?”

  “Yes, I remember that one.”

  “A berezi is a female destined to one day become an Arima, a soul-linked mate to a male-set.”

  “Are you saying that you’re a berezi?” Ian asked, fear suddenly choking him. She saw the expression on Ian’s face and understood it.

  “Are you sure you want to hear this Ian?”

  “Absolutely,” he said, nodding his head in short quick jerks. “Please.”

  “Berezi are not usually identified until they mature physically. But, somehow, the male-set destined to be my Rami recognized me when I was six. After they met me they turned the operation of their mines and farms over to others and moved to Dracons’ Ranch so they could be closer to me. So they could watch over me.

  “I didn’t know any of this, of course. I was just a little girl. To me, they were like all of the other men and women who lived on the ranch. Like favorite uncles. They were around more than the others, and I liked them best, but there was no more to it as far as I knew.

  “When I was twelve they left Jasan for fear of accidentally setting off some hormonal alarm in all of us years too soon. Again, I didn’t know that at the time. All I knew was that they’d joined ICARUS and went out into the galaxy to help people whose lives were damaged by the Xanti. It was what I wanted to do, what I’d dreamed of doing from the time I’d first learned about ICARUS when I was nine. I thought they were the luckiest people I knew. They sent vids and messages back to me every week, and I was so excited to get each and every one of them. Then, after a couple of years, something started to change. I started to miss them more, much more than I did any of my other honorary uncles who went away. And they were in my thoughts almost constantly.

  “I lived among the Clan Jasani, Ian. Almost every adult I knew was a Clan Jasani. I lived in the same house with Honey and the Vulpirans, or Vulpies, as I’ve always called them. Why it took me so long to realize the truth, I don’t know. I don’t know why the idea
of me being a berezi was so strange to me, either. All of the female children I played with were berezi, and they all knew it. It was a normal part of their lives. But I was fifteen years old, and still trying to get used to the idea of it.”

  “Oh no,” Ian said softly. Nica looked up at him, her dark blue eyes filled with tears as she nodded her head slowly.

  “Yes,” she whispered. “I saw them die. More than that, I felt them die. All of it. Each horrific second in exquisite detail.”

  Ian felt her pain and his heart filled with tears for her. “But you don’t remember it,” he said, grabbing at that one salient fact.

  “No, I don’t,” she agreed. “I know that I saw it, I know that it was horrific and painful to see and hear and feel, but I cannot imagine it, in my mind. It’s like if someone tells you a friend died, you know they’re dead. You might even learn how they died, but you can’t see it. You can’t feel it. You weren’t there. It wasn’t your experience.”

  “But without the ring, it was your experience?”

  “Yes, very much so,” Nica said. “I like to think that, as horrible as it must have been, I could have dealt with it in time. What I could not deal with was the constant repetition of it. Of seeing it over and over and over again to the exclusion of anything else around me.”

  “So you wear the ring, and the vision stops,” Ian said. Nica nodded. “What do you know, or remember?”

  “I know they were in space. I know they died. That’s all.”

  “You don’t know what happened?”

  “There was a full investigation that took well over a year to complete and I was told the results of it. More than once, actually. But the moment I was told, I’d forget. You’d think that was a good thing, but it isn’t. I’ve always wanted to know what happened. I do better when I have information and facts to deal with, but it just wouldn’t stick in my mind. Until tonight.”

  “What do you mean?” Ian asked, not quite sure he wanted to know. What she’d told him so far had been quite enough to digest for one evening.

  “Because I dreamed, or remembered…whatever it’s called, what happened.”

  “Them dying?”

  “No, not that,” Nica said. “It was the memory of why they died. The results of the investigation.”

  Ian relaxed. “Do you want to share it with me?”

  “Yes, if you don’t mind?”

  Ian stood up, walked around the small table between them, and sat down on the sofa with one leg folded beneath himself so that he was facing her, and only a few inches separated them. Nica shifted so that she faced him too, and held her hands out. He took them, squeezed gently, then nodded. “Now, tell me.”

  “Their ship, the Nica, was destroyed in an explosion,” she said, nearly choking when she said the name of the ship.

  “You didn’t remember that it was named after you.” Nica shook her head. “What happened? How was it destroyed?”

  “The short answer is that the Xanti caused it.”

  “But they were annihilated nearly a decade earlier, weren’t they?” Ian frowned, thinking. “Do I have that right?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Then, how could they have caused it?”

  “The Xanti had something called Blind Sight. It rendered itself and its surroundings virtually invisible. With Blind Sight, they were able to go wherever they wanted and not even the most advanced equipment could detect their presence.

  “When the Jasani cracked the code to Blind Sight, making it useless to the Xanti, they had a new Blind Sight system created. Just before the destruction of Xantara the new Blind Sight system failed completely. No one knows why, but all Xanti ships became visible at the same time.

  “The Xanti were hive creatures as you probably know.” She waited for Ian’s nod, then continued. “When the queens died, all of their offspring were doomed to die as well. But, the further away from Xantara they were, the longer they had to live. Days, instead of minutes, a week or two at most. Nobody knows how many Xanti were left here, in the Thousand Worlds, after Xantara was destroyed, or how many ships they had or even where they were.

  “Some of this next part is guesswork,” she said. “Educated guesswork, but still, guesswork.” Ian nodded again. “Knowing they were about to die, the Xanti came up with a plan to leave as much death and destruction behind them as they could. They activated the original Blind Sight system that was still in most, if not all, of the Xanti ships, and rigged impact charges throughout each ship. Every Xanti vessel within the Thousand Worlds became an invisible bomb drifting through space.”

  “Clever,” Ian said with a grimace. “Still, there couldn’t have been many of them if it took, what? Nine years for a ship to run into one?”

  “It took nine years for a Jasani ship to run into one,” Nica corrected. “And don’t forget, space is big, Ian. Really big. It’s not at all surprising that it would take years for a ship to run into one of those drifting bombs. It was only because of the fact that a Jasani ship hit one that it was discovered at all.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Jasani ships are equipped with a variety of sensors and recorders that send information back to Jasan all the time, just like most are. But the Jasani have a bonus in the sheer number of psychics that live on Jasan. No one thought for even a moment that an accident had destroyed the Nica. It was just a matter of finding out what happened.

  “During the investigation it was discovered that at least a dozen ships throughout the Thousand Worlds were listed as missing or destroyed by some unknown mechanical failure. It’s suspected that most, if not all, were victims of a Xanti bomb. After the investigation, Blind Sight sweeping became standard procedure on all ships. As a direct result of that, two Xanti bomb ships were discovered by passenger liners in time for them to alter course and avoid hitting them. One liner carried three thousand people, the other twenty five hundred.”

  “What did they do with the Xanti ships?” Ian asked.

  “They were deemed too dangerous to attempt examination, even by the strongest of Clan Jasani, the Dracon Princes. No one else wanted to try either, so they were destroyed.”

  Ian rubbed his thumb over the ring on Nica’s forefinger, remembering the first time he’d seen it, and wondering why she wore it because it wasn’t pretty. He certainly knew the answer to that question now. “So, the Xanti are responsible for killing the men who were meant to be your Rami,” he said finally. “Your soul mates.”

  “Yes, that’s right,” Nica said.

  “And this ring you wear, that blocks your psychic ability, also dulls your emotions.” Nica nodded. Then shook her head.

  “What?” Ian asked.

  “Well, it’s just that, ever since coming to Apedra, my emotions aren’t so dulled,” Nica said. “I’ve felt more since I’ve been here than I’ve felt in eight years.”

  “Such as?”

  “Worry, anger, frustration and…other things.”

  “Do you care for me, Nica?” Ian asked bluntly.

  “Yes, I do,” Nica said, dropping her eyes to their joined hands. “Very much.”

  “But I can’t be your soul mate, right?”

  Nica didn’t know how to answer that, so she remained silent. Ian smiled. “It’s all right, Nica. It’s not your fault. It’s just that, well, it confuses me.”

  “What does?”

  “I just don’t understand how it’s possible for me to not be your soul mate when I know damn good and well that you are mine.”

  “How can you know that?” Nica asked, stunned.

  Ian shrugged. “I just know.”

  “I don’t have any idea how these things work, Ian. I really don’t. But I know that I care for you very much. I don’t understand it, I barely even know you, but at the same time, I feel like I’m supposed to be with you. That confuses the hell out of me because I already had my soul mates, and they died before I even understood what that meant. I just know that I think about you all the time, I imagin
e that you’re with me, sharing everything I do from the time I wake up till the time I go to sleep. What is that Ian? Is it love?”

  “It sounds like love to me, Nica,” Ian said. “It feels like love to me, too.”

  “Is that enough for you? Will my love for you be enough?”

  “Love is definitely enough,” Ian said. “Love is a lot more than I ever expected.”