Allie's War Season One (104 page)

“To winning!” Palmer said, and they all laughed.

“To winning,” Ethan conceded, raising his glass again with a smile. “May it be swift, and relatively painless...to our side, at least.”

Raising their glasses alongside his, they murmured assent and drank.

11

SECLUSION

I PERCHED ON a boulder in front of Tarsi’s house.

I’d woken up early...too early, given the day I’d had before.

Moonlight had only just begun to fade through cracks in the cave walls when I gave up trying to sleep and dragged myself outside.

I sat wrapped in one of the cow skins that made up my bedding, watching stars fade in the sky, watching my breath plume out in clouds, distorting my view. An owl called out as it winged silently overhead, but otherwise, it was unnervingly silent. I was still sitting there when daylight birds began to sing.

It was about that time that I realized I was being watched.

Rising to my feet, I scanned the trees.

Using my eyes, then my light, I felt a whisper of another seer, but tightly shielded. I only hesitated an instant before calling out, still clutching the cow skin in front of my chest.

“Whoever you are, you’ve got about five seconds before I get my gun...”

A shadow stepped out from behind a tree.

For an instant, my heart flared. I thought it might actually be him.

Then I saw the height of the silhouette.

Immediately, my light retracted back around my body, coiling there as if unsure where to go. Flickers of pain rose, which I fought to suppress. Disappointment firmed my mouth.

“Chandre.” I recognized her braids, even with her face in shadow. “What are you doing skulking around?” Anger leaked into my voice. “Did Yerin send you?”

“No.” She cleared her throat. “...Balidor.”

I nodded, but my posture didn’t relax. “And?” My hand remained a fist, balled into the skins. “What do you want?”

The infiltrator hesitated, then stepped forward into the clearing. She walked towards me as if I were a stray dog whose temperament she still hadn’t assessed.

“You all right, Bridge?” she said, soft.

My hands tightened more. She must have felt something, because she stopped again, about ten feet from where I stood.

“I’m alone,” she said. “For now. They’re sending more...females only. Balidor’s rules.”

“Yeah? So why are you telling me? If they’re ‘Balidor’s rules?’”

There was a silence. I flinched then, startled by a pulse that enveloped my light. It came from Chandre, and it felt like pain...different than what I got from Revik, but with an emotional punch that startled me. I remembered that I hadn’t seen her among the faces in the courtyard that day. When she didn’t meet my gaze, I forced myself to relax, to breathe.

“Well, I’m glad they sent you,” I said, gruff. I tugged the blanket tighter around me, sitting down on the boulder again. “Are you hungry? There’s this coffee-like drink that Tarsi makes. It’s not bad, if—”

“No.” She took another step towards me, then stopped.

I felt her struggling again. Realizing she was looking for a way to talk to me about that whole mess with Maygar, I headed her off.

“Jon and Cass,” I said. “Are they all right?”

She gestured affirmative. “They’re fine, Bridge.”

“And...Revik?” I felt my mouth harden into a line. “Where’s he?”

Chandre’s eyes flickered to mine. Emotion stood out plainly in her face and after a few seconds where I could only stare, I looked away.

“He cannot come here, Allie,” she said, soft.

I nodded, pulling the cow skin closer. “Yeah. Okay.” I forced a sigh. “Is he all right? He didn’t...you know...
do
anything?”

She shook her head, clicking absently. “No. They brought him back to the compound before they told him.” She gave a low snort, folding her muscular arms. For the first time she sounded like the Chandre I knew. “...You shield good, Bridge. He didn’t know...not until Balidor’s people told him. Put up a hell of a fight once he understood what happened. Took five of them to hold him...” Feeling something off me, she hesitated. Her voice grew a little less flippant.

“They had to put him away for awhile...calm him down.”

My jaw hardened to granite. “Did they hurt him?”

She clicked softly, shaking her head. “No, Bridge. Few bruises maybe. He clocked Yerin good...broke a few of his ribs before they could get him off.”

I stared at the ground, thinking about whether I wanted to ask the next.

“And Maygar?” I looked up, meeting her dark red eyes. “Did I kill him?”

“No.” She gestured negative, shifting her weight. “Your husband didn’t either...not yet. He’s still alive.”

I swallowed, nodding. I wanted to ask more about Revik. I didn’t know what to ask though, or even how. Nodding again, I tugged the skins back around me. I didn’t move when Chandre walked closer, but I tensed enough that she paused before she would have sat down next to me.

She sank to the ground in front of me instead, crossing her legs.

“Bridge.” She took a breath. “He asked me to watch you.”

I nodded, forcing myself to look at her. “I figured that. He said something about finding you when I got to the compound...I just forgot.”

“Did he tell you why?” Chandre said.

“No.” My voice turned curt. “...And at this point, I don’t really need a lesson in seer legalese. I got the gist of the rules on that one. Maygar spelled it out pretty clearly. Apparently I was open game, because I’d asked for sex, and didn’t get it.” I folded my arms under the skin. “That’s right, isn’t it? Or did I miss some nuance in that little cultural tidbit...?”

She winced. “It is a stupid law. No one does that anymore. No one, Allie. It is why Dehgoies didn’t tell you...it didn’t make any sense to bring it up.”

“Yeah.” I nodded, looking out over the valley. “...No sense at all. Look, Chan, I appreciate you coming up here. But I really don’t need you to defend him. If he’s worried about me being mad, he can damned well ask me himself...”

“Allie.” Chandre’s voice turned pleading. “Please. It was my fault. I promised him...I
promised
I wouldn’t let anything happen. He was adamant that I meet you at the gate. I was stupid, letting that bastard and his friends get the jump on me. I should have had a back up in place...”

I stared at her. Chandre never got emotional, not that I’d ever seen. I tried to decide if it was for Revik’s sake, or for mine. Knowing her, it could be either. I shook my head slowly, feeling my hands unclench.

“I’m not mad,” I said. Thinking, then, I amended my words. “Well, okay...I
am
mad. But mostly, I feel like an idiot. I knew something was wrong. I knew Maygar was up to something, but I let him goad me into a fight anyway.” Still thinking, I added,

“…I’m not feeling a lot of love for the men at the compound who were there. And you can tell Vash I’m not going back there to live...”

Chandre nodded, her eyes and mouth pinched.

Biting my lip, I hesitated, then said it anyway.

“...I also feel pretty shaky about my standing as ‘leader’ when I’m subject to some legal loophole that says I can be gang-raped whenever my husband’s not in the mood...”

“No,” she said. She gestured vehemently in the negative. “It is only because you haven’t consummated. Once you have, no one can touch you, Allie...”

“Great.” I snorted. “...So I’ll be privately owned then. What a relief that will be.” Kicking at the dirt with my toe, I added, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I was hoping you were him. It’s not as fun to yell at you about this.”

She didn’t smile. Instead she nodded, looking dejected.

For a moment we just sat there.

I watched a scattering of birds chase one another from one cluster of trees to the next. Then I sighed, realizing I had to let this go. The last thing I needed to do was to encourage the aggressively protective impulse in Revik. Punishing my friends wouldn’t make me feel any better, either.

I dug a hand in my pocket. After a moment’s pause where I located it tucked in a section of creased cloth, I pulled out the ring I’d been carrying with me since I got it back from Jon. I held it out to Chandre, feeling my face warm a little.

“Look,” I said. “Do me a favor, okay?”

Chandre’s dark red eyes showed a whisper of surprise. The eagerness there made me feel bad again, but I ignored it, holding out my hand more insistently. She put her palm under my closed fingers and I dropped the ring in it.

I waited for her to look at it.

“Could you give him that for me?” I said. “It’s a present. He can do whatever he wants with it...adjust it for his finger size, toss it into the woods, put it in a drawer, whatever.”

“Which finger should I tell him he can wear it?” she said, examining the ring. “...if he asks, Bridge? Any?”

I shrugged, gesturing vaguely. “I have no idea what that means. Are there seer finger-codes I should be aware of?” I quirked an eyebrow. “You know, like this one means, ‘you’re my love bunny,’ but that one means, ‘I’m going to stab you in your sleep one night’?”

She gave me a wan smile, but it was still tentative...still very un-Chandre.

“Is this a marriage present?” she said.

I ran my fingers through my hair, uncomfortable with the question. “Sort of.” I tugged at the chain around my neck, pulling it out of my shirt. Fingering the silver ring that hung on it, I showed it to her with a sigh.

“He gave me this,” I said. “I know it’s not like a human marriage, where there’s rings and white dresses and all that. I’m not even sure what he meant by giving it to me. But I wanted to give him something, too.” I motioned towards the ring in her hand, feeling my face warm a little more.

“It was my father’s. He was human, and he meant a hell of a lot to me. You can tell him that, too. He’ll understand.”

Studying my eyes, she gestured in affirmative. I noticed she used the formal version, as if I’d asked her to lead an army into battle.

She put the ring carefully in a front pocket.

“I know what to do. Don’t worry, Bridge.” She smiled wider, looking almost like her old self. “You are a tolerant mate,” she said. “...Very tolerant. Dehgoies is a lucky man.”

I didn’t like that much. “I’m a doormat, you mean,” I said.

She clicked at me, but softly.

“No. No...I wouldn’t say that. Not at all, Bridge.”

Touching my arm with a pulse of warmth, she surprised me by kissing me affectionately on the cheek. I was still recovering from that as she rose to her feet. Without looking back, she walked directly into the woods, back through the shadowed opening where I’d first seen her.

Seemingly the instant she was gone, Tarsi pulled at my light.

She wanted me back inside.

Sighing, I tugged the cow skin off my shoulders. It was too warm now to wear it. Despite the insistence of Tarsi’s pull, I stalled a few seconds longer, letting the sun warm my face, eyes closed as I listened to the birds, facing east over the valley. I had a feeling it was the last I’d see of the sun for a few days at least.

Turns out, I was right about that.