by S. E. Weir
He raised his eyebrows. “It’s just an expression, kid. Don’t overthink it.”
Phina followed Link into another hall. She knew where they were going now, which made her very curious.
“Was that all you noticed about this weird green alien?”
“Oh, no. I just wanted to make sure you were paying attention. He wore this big red pendant on a necklace with these other rocks around it.”
“Excellent.”
“What is it?”
“Which, the alien or the necklace?”
She rolled her eyes from a step behind him. “I would have said who for the alien, but now that you are asking, I am curious about both.”
“Ah, well, that necklace has two different versions of it. One applies to their religious order, and the other is dispensed only to their assassination squad.”
Phina’s mouth dropped open as they stopped in front of the door. Her eyes went wide with alarm before she remembered she wasn’t supposed to be showing emotions now, and she relaxed so as to appear only mildly interested. Her mentor’s eyebrows went up though his eyes grew warm with approval. Phina felt warm inside at the affirmation. “Which one was this?”
“Did you see a black ring around the red pendant?”
She brought it back to mind. “No.”
“Just so. He isn’t an assassin. An assassin would have been too dangerous to steal a pendant from.”
“Steal?”
“Yes, that man was an impostor. I notified Reynolds, but he was already aware.”
She felt puzzled, not having seen anything weird aside from him being a green alien with jewelry. “How did you know?”
“Simple.” He grinned. “A real member of their religious order wouldn’t have been caught dead in a bar.”
Phina stared at him, then shook her head. “So, why isn’t all this in the databases? You would think the info would be widely useful.”
The man grinned at her with unholy glee. “Oh, so you checked? Well, maybe you weren’t checking the right labels.”
Phina frowned, then quickly pulled out her tablet and did some searching. She began shaking her head as she realized he was right. The information was there, but you needed to know where to look for it to find it.
There were so many things she needed to learn about the various cultures, as well as what she needed to learn about being a spy. As she followed Link into the room, she ruefully thought of herself a few weeks ago when she believed she had already reached a top spy level.
Amazing what a difference in perspective a few weeks made.
Chapter Twelve
Etheric Empire, Vermott, Planet of the Baldere
Geirik held a half-drunk glass of ale in his hand as he leaned against the railing on the balcony and watched the system’s second sun sink toward the horizon. The dark ale was one of the best by-products of joining the Empire. However, in Geirik’s mind, nothing compared to looking over the city on the best planet in the galaxy at sunset.
Strong but soft arms wrapped around his middle and caused him to amend that thought. He put his ale down on the table beside him and turned his head to see his beautiful bondmate smiling up at him with love in her blue eyes. He turned and enveloped her in his arms, resting his head against hers with a low sigh.
“Thinking about something difficult, hey?”
He laughed softly and whispered, “You.”
“Aye, something difficult indeed,” she teased as she pulled back to look into his worried eyes. “You’re thinking about Velof again.”
“Aye.”
She closed her eyes and leaned her head against his chest. He knew she was smelling his scent since she’d told him before it was one of her favorite things and it centered her when she didn’t know what to do. Since he felt the same way, he pulled her tighter against him and laid his head on hers.
“Is it our fault?”
Fastel lifted her head at his mumbled words, revealing surprised and confused eyes. “Is what our fault?”
“Velof.”
Compassion softened her expression as she lifted her hands to his face, stroking with her thumbs. “No, my love, he is not our fault. Though we did play a part, it was Velof that cheated in the Jeskir games. We just didn’t know until it was too late.”
He looked down with troubled eyes. “He was my best friend, Fas.”
“Aye, and now you’ve got a better one.” She squeezed him tight.
“Halvad has proved to be a great friend.” He reached behind her to run his fingers through her long hair.
She thumped his back and glared up at him, the slight upturn of her mouth revealing her amusement. “I meant me, you big oaf!”
He grinned as he reached behind him and took her hands. “I know.”
She snorted but smiled. Tension released inside Geirik as he let himself be in the moment with his female. “Have I ever told you, Strength of My Soul, how happy I am that you chose me as your bondmate?”
Her eyes shone with love as she propped her chin on his chest and peered up at him. “Perhaps once or twice, but it’s getting kind of faint. Maybe you need to refresh my memory, hey?”
He grinned since her sense of humor and gentle teasing were just two of the many things he loved about her before looking at her with serious eyes. “I wouldn’t change a single thing, Fastel. Losing Velof’s friendship, even losing the games last time. Does that make me a terrible leader for our people, that I would choose you over them?”
“You’re choosing them now, my love. Velof has gone too far.” She frowned, thinking. “It’s not wrong to want to believe the best of your best friend. As much as we pride ourselves on our strength, it is our hearts that make us who we are as a people, hey?”
Geirik began to squeeze her hands, but Fastel pulled away to pace the few steps the balcony afforded, growing more impassioned with every thought.
“When I chose you over Velof, he was the one who decided to cut off your friendship. He decided to become the Jeskir no matter what it took. He took everyone’s trust and burned it to ashes when he turned to criminal activity against our people instead of protecting them. He was always weak inside, Geirik.” She stretched her calloused hands out, palms up. “It’s why I chose you over him, hey? His weakness is just now coming out for everyone to see.”
He grunted in agreement and turned to catch the last light of the sun as it dropped below the horizon. She was right about everything. Geirik knew that, though it didn’t stop his musings. His hand had almost reached his glass to drink it down when he heard Fastel’s soft voice behind him.
“Do you blame me?”
He turned his head in surprise to see her beautiful face downcast, her body stiff with tension. In all their years together, she hadn’t once asked him, though every so often, he had seen the question in her eyes. Given the Rikhar, he should have known this had been troubling her and given his love peace long ago. He let out the tension he had been holding and strode the few steps to stand in front of her, his hand reaching out to stroke her violet cheek.
“No, Fas. I’ve blamed myself. I’ve blamed Velof. I’ve blamed Drestin. I’ve even blamed our mothers for the way they handled our bondmatching, and our fathers for the pressure they placed on us, but never once have I ever blamed you.”
He put one arm around her waist and the other held her head to him as his strong, fierce bondmate’s eyes leaked on his shirt in relief.
QBBS Meredith Reynolds
Phina couldn’t take any more. The dratted man was running her ragged, practicing diplomacy skills, spying skills, and fighting skills over the last several weeks between her classes and sessions with Maxim. Granted, she had been eager to learn a lot of the new skills and usually learned them quickly.
The subject matter wasn’t the problem. She learned fast, often after seeing something only once.
It was the pace and Link’s constantly changing attitude that were the problems. He had taken her to different locations on the station and expected her to adapt to tha
t situation. That would have been fine if he had given her a clue about what she would be walking into.
Oh, no. Not Greyson Wells. Drat the man. She couldn’t think of him as Link during those moments, as if his massive ego needed the full name to hold it. Link could almost be a friend at times, irritating though he might be. Greyson Wells was a slave driver.
Especially when he seemed to lack any compassion for her. “Sink or swim, kid. Sink or swim.”
The arrogant, infuriating, pompous ass.
Phina decided she needed time to herself: no new skills to learn, no being on edge, just Phina. To that end, after her training with Link was done for the day, Phina had walked away and kept walking.
Eventually her steps had led her to a deserted hallway. A tingle of excitement ran up her spine as she grinned at the long, empty stretch. She bent over and extended her limbs to stretch her body. Finally, she popped up and ran down the corridor.
When her muscles had warmed up enough that they wouldn’t cramp, Phina began one of the tumbling passes she performed in the halls. Since she had no padding to protect her body if she fell, she stuck to her tried and true favorites: cartwheel, front handspring, roundoff, back flip.
The airtime felt glorious.
After landing, Phina closed her eyes and took a deep breath, not even minding the dusty smell of disuse that permeated these corridors. She really wanted to climb around in the air shafts to feel more like her old self, but she didn’t have her body suit. After another deep breath, she stepped forward and bent down into a handstand.
As she alternated between standing and walking on her hands, with part of her brain keeping track of how long she could stay up, Phina finally had the mental space to think things through.
She eventually came to two conclusions.
First, this was all training. Everything was training. She didn’t doubt that a big part of Link’s attitude was on purpose, to push her or to see how she would react. She needed to take everything in stride and adapt as quickly as she could.
And second, she really needed to do gymnastics more often. If only she had a set of bars she could use. She used to love flying through the air with only her hands to keep her from falling. It was freeing in a way she needed.
She remembered what Link had told her on their first day about sloughing off the fears and insecurities she had acquired by dealing with her aunt for years and realized that was exactly what she needed to do.
Phina had always wanted to go her own way. She wasn’t one to fit in naturally or be a part of the norm. She wanted to walk to her own beat and not feel like it was necessary to apologize for it. However, her aunt had made her think she should be ashamed of herself, that she wasn’t good enough unless she conformed to what her aunt wanted. That ended up making her feel like she had to apologize for being who she was, even if she didn’t want to.
She paused her handstand, lowered her legs, and stood. Phina stared in front of her though she didn’t focus on anything in particular.
Was it really so simple?
Accept who she was, don’t apologize for it, and don’t let anyone’s opinion make her feel like she was…less. It seemed easy in concept, but she didn’t think it would be quite as simple in practice. After years of feeling like she needed to be less, it wouldn’t just take one realization to make her feel like she could be herself, let alone become more.
Still, the realization made her feel lighter and cleaner. Perhaps a few of those layers really had sloughed off.
Phina closed her eyes and decided to just let go and relax. A song popped into her head and she started moving to that inner music, shaking off the nerves and turning stretches into dance moves. When her muscles had loosened up again, she opened her eyes and eyed the corridor as she stopped moving.
The music still playing in her mind, she took a deep breath and began to run. With the corridor clear, Phina closed her eyes and began a new pass, this one more difficult: cartwheel, front handspring, roundoff, back handspring, back layout.
She flew through the air, gaining momentum, hands and feet only touching the floor for brief moments. Phina felt relaxed and free for the first time in weeks. The final move was risky without a mat below her, but she could feel the movement in her body, the resistance in the air, and knew it would be fine. No, not fine.
Perfect.
Her hands left the floor and she flew backward, her body whipping around and her head missing the corridor’s ceiling by inches, then her feet touched down while her body leaned forward slightly to help stop the momentum. Her feet slid a few inches, then stopped.
Phina jumped up with a whoop and a grin and did a happy dance. She knew what she needed to do now. She wanted that freedom in more than just the way her body moved. She would learn all the skills, experience, and tricks she could, internalize them to make them her own, and then figure out her own path in the diplomat and spy worlds.
Her heart felt lighter as she wandered home, not even changing when she saw Link leaning against the door to her suite with a smirk on his face as she approached.
“Come on, kid. We’ve got a situation happening tonight, and you need to come with.”
He looked her up and down, appraising her appearance. “You should probably change clothes, though. You’ll need something a little more formal.”
Tensing again, Phina groaned inside. Dressing up was her least favorite part of being a diplomat so far. “So, this is a Greyson Wells situation?” It was always helpful to know which persona she was expected to interact with, even if he told her nothing else about it. If he decided to share that info.
He grinned. “Nope, Ian James. Just hold onto the attitude that you can barely stand to be seen with your mentor, let alone touch him, and you should be good.”
Shooting him a look devoid of any expression except the glare, she walked past his grinning face of approval to enter her apartment and change.
“Just like that, my dear. Just like that.”
As she let him in to wait for her, Phina remembered what she had decided not long before and felt the tension leave her body again.
Training. It was all training.
QBBS Meredith Reynolds, Receiving Hall
Jace had never worked harder in his life, and he had a niggling thought that perhaps this was all a big mistake. He really should have been picked by Greyson Wells. That some ignorant girl who didn’t even know who Greyson Wells was or the bigger picture of the Empire shouldn’t have gotten the coveted spot Jace wanted.
Granted, eventually becoming the Head of the Diplomatic arm of the Empire meant he would eventually become Phina’s boss. He rather liked that part, and he did believe in a lot of the goals Anna Elizabeth had outlined for the Diplomatic Corps. The thought of helping his friends and fellow students and having their backs warmed him.
Still.
He’d never thought he would be helping organize the annual gala for the diplomats, the alien representatives, and the various leaders of the Empire. When he had recovered from his shock at the job request by Anna Elizabeth, he had asked if those leaders included the Empress. She had laughed, and in a moment of candidness, she’d said Bethany Anne would rather poke a sharp stick in her eye.
Jace was beginning to agree with that sentiment.
After running around all day attending to last-minute issues that absolutely had to be taken care of, Jace had finally gotten a moment to himself. He withdrew to the corridor outside the receiving hall that was empty now that everyone had gathered in the event room. He leaned against the wall near the corner of a cross corridor and closed his eyes.
They popped open again a moment later when he heard and recognized voices coming down the next corridor around the corner. Phina and Greyson Wells. Just his luck to have to face them now. He began to slink back down the hallway when their voices gave him pause.
“Why are we going this way? There’s nothing here but that gala for the diplomats.”
“Ah, my dear, that’s why we’ve
come.”
“What? You told me this was an Ian James event, not Greyson Wells!”
“Of course, and it is. Or rather, it’s both.”
There was a slight pause. Their voices grew louder as they moved closer. He stepped back step after step as he continued to listen, but it sounded like they had stopped speaking for a moment. He hesitated since this sounded like a private conversation, something he wasn’t supposed to know about. Who was this Ian James? He cringed at the thought of getting another scathing look from either of them.
“Oh, come now, my dear. Surely you knew it wouldn’t be easy all the time.”
“So, what you are saying is that you might not tell me everything I need to know, and I have to be prepared for anything no matter what you tell me because you might not tell me the truth or at least all the truth.”
“Of course. As you should be prepared for anything.”
“Being prepared for anything is one thing. Throwing me a curve like this makes it so that I’m not sure I can trust you. I need to be able to trust you if this is going to work.”
A longer pause. Jace stopped moving in surprise, and he had to admit to some curiosity as he leaned forward to hear the reply. Had he backed up too far? He had lifted his foot to take a step toward the cross corridor when Greyson Wells answered.
“Fair enough. How about this? I promise I will tell you which personas we are walking into beforehand, even if I don’t tell you anything else. Especially if there is more than one type of situation involved like there is in this one.”
Another pause. He wished he could see if Phina was nodding. Body language made things much easier. He almost missed her answer since she spoke in a low voice.
“You’re lucky I had a fancy dress to wear, thanks to Alina.”
“And you look lovely, my dear.”
Jace backed up quickly and leaned against the wall near the door of the receiving hall, trying to act natural as they strode around the corner and approached him. Greyson Wells’ face was impassive, and his stride was easy. Perhaps his jaw seeming to be clenched was just a trick of the light. His dress clothes were fancier than normal but nothing out of the ordinary.
