Allie's War Season One (96 page)

Yerin repositioned himself in front of Revik once they had control of him again. “Dehgoies!” He raised his voice. “We are trying to help you! You need to disengage! Right now! You’re not rational—”

“Yerin, for the gods’ sake,” Balidor said.

Yerin stubbornly continued to focus only on Revik. “We won’t hurt your mate!” he said. “We’re looking for her...right now. We have every available member of the Adhipan out already!”

At this, Revik looked like someone had stabbed him in the chest.

“No!” Pain reached his voice, worsening as he struggled with the bindings. “No! Call off your hunt...I won’t hurt him...I promise! Please! Please, gods...uncuff me. Let me find her!”

“Let him go!” Cass yelled, angry. “Jesus...you
fuckers!”

Revik’s voice rose. “Balidor, please! You have no right to hold me, I haven’t done anything—”

“Dehgoies!” Balidor caught his shoulder. “We won’t hurt your mate! No claims will be attempted...I promise you! And it is not only with my people...Vash has forbidden it. He has removed any right of second claim...”

Revik didn’t stop struggling, and it occurred to Jon he really would kill himself if they didn’t let him go. He took a step closer as Revik threw himself against the seers holding him down. He managed to crack one in the face with the back of his head. Blood exploded over his shirt as the seer’s nose was broken.

“Jesus. Stop it!” Jon yelled, as incensed as Cass. Someone grabbed his arm.

Turning, he glared at Dorje when he saw the seer holding him.

“Do not get close!” Dorje said. “Yerin is right! He is not sane right now!”

Jon said, “Why won’t they just let him go so he can find her?”

Dorje’s skin whitened. “Because he might kill every seer who witnessed the claim today!” he said. “Not just Maygar,
all
of them!”

Cass snapped, “And that would be
bad,
because...?”

The seer with the broken nose turned to Balidor. “Sir...we have to drug him. We can’t wait any longer...”

“No,” Balidor said. “...not yet. Give him a minute!”

Jon was about to yell out again, when suddenly...

Calm began to seep over his mind. It wasn’t a mental straightjacket, like earlier, but it definitely originated from somewhere outside of himself.

Balidor was manipulating the construct. He and his seers were trying to reach Revik through his light, to reassure him...and likely to refute the images in his mind of Adhipan males raping Allie in the woods.

Yerin didn’t move from in front of him, but Jon heard emotion reach his voice.

“I am sorry, brother,” Yerin said. “You are right. You have broken no laws...but you are in danger of breaking penance.” When Revik’s eyes narrowed, he lowered his voice. “We are only tracking her. No one is allowed to approach. No one. That is a vow. It will not be broken. She is safe, Revik.”

Revik laughed. Jon felt his throat close at what he heard there.

“We are not your enemy, brother,” Yerin said.

“You’re wrong about that,” Revik said.

Yerin’s dark eyes looked pained. “I am sorry you feel that way, brother.”

“Fuck you,” Revik’s voice sounded clearer. “Fuck all of you. I’m taking her out of here! Tonight.”

Yerin gestured negative. “You cannot leave with her. That request has been formally refused. She is the Bridge. Your rights do not extend to—”

“My
rights?
Watch me, Yerin. I’ll see if I can help her learn a little more telekinesis while I’m at it. Then we’ll talk about ‘rights’...”

“We
can
refuse you in this, Dehgoies.” Yerin’s tone gentled. “And you’re wrong. I felt tied by the law, but do not think I do not care.” He raised a hand to Revik’s face, but Revik jerked violently away. Yerin withdrew his fingers with pained eyes. “I understand, brother. We all do. But you mated with the Bridge. You cannot leave with her. The Council has given permission for the two of you to conduct the preliminaries of your marriage wherever you like. There will be supervision of the construct, of course, but—”

“No. No way—”

“We are working on the security protocols now,” Yerin continued, as if he hadn’t spoken. His voice remained politely formal. “If you do not accept these terms, we will be forced to separate you from your mate until you see reason.”

He clicked his fingers in Revik’s face, forcing his pale eyes back to his.

“Compromise, Dehgoies,” he said. “...It is the rational choice.”

For a long moment, Revik just lay there, in the dirt, breathing hard, as if fighting to control himself. Jon glanced at Cass, who looked even angrier now. She was staring at Yerin like he was the Antichrist.

When Revik spoke next, his voice was hard. He looked at Balidor.

“Maygar. Is he alive?”

Balidor glanced at Yerin, then gestured affirmative. “So far, yes.”

“Is he awake?”

Balidor sighed, clicking softly. Unlike with Yerin, the sympathy Jon saw in his eyes seemed to have real understanding behind it.

“What difference does it make, brother?” he said.

Revik’s jaw hardened, changing the shape of his face.

“Because I want the fucker conscious while I beat him to death with my bare hands,” he said.

There was a silence.

Then Balidor burst out with a laugh.

After the barest pause, Revik laughed too.

For a few seconds anyway, his laughter sounded almost real. In the midst of those twenty or so seers, they continued to chuckle, Revik still half-crushed under four of the largest of them, his chest mashed into the dirt. When Jon gave Cass an incredulous look, she just rolled her eyes, refolding her arms and giving him the look that he recognized as her “Men!” look.

But as their laughter died down, Revik’s eyes brightened.

Feeling the change, Balidor patted him reassuringly on the shoulder, clicking to him softly.

“She is all right, brother,” he said. “You are blessed with a tough mate...a warrior.” He chuckled, patting him again. “You should have seen that little shit fly.” Waiting for Revik to glance back, he made an arc with his hand in the air.

“...Kaboom! Like swatting a bug.”

Revik didn’t answer. Jon saw his eyes close, just before he nodded.

Yerin spoke up from Revik’s other side, seemingly oblivious to the fact that Balidor had finally reached him.

“There will be a hearing on the validity of Maygar’s second claim,” he said. “He broke several laws I was not aware of at the time...setting the stage for his attempt. He will be punished for that...” He made a ‘more or less’ gesture with one hand. “...If he lives. But you cannot claim his life, Dehgoies. You are in penance, and...” Trailing, Yerin shrugged. “...from all appearances, he was within his rights. Technically.”

“Technically.” Revik stared up at him.

“For the love of the gods, Yerin...” Balidor said.

“She should have known the law,” Yerin said. “If you had educated her, brother, she might have known to avoid that situation—”

Revik lunged, managing to catch the Adhipan infiltrators off-guard.

He head-butted Yerin in the face with all of his weight, knocking him flat to the ground.

The four seers holding Revik got control of him again and dragged him up to his feet. Jon jumped a little when they slammed him down on a stone bench.

At a nod from Balidor, another seer forced the needle of a syringe into his neck as he struggled to free himself. As soon as the stopper was all the way down, the four seers dragged him backwards towards the door, but not before Revik got in a few body kicks on the downed Yerin.

Balidor’s eyes still looked angry as he pulled Yerin out of the way.

Releasing his arm, he gave him a disgusted look before glancing around at the onlookers.

“Someone get a medic for brother Yerin. Now.”

Jon and Cass moved aside as they dragged Revik towards the compound’s main structure. Jon already saw a difference in the way Revik was moving from the drug. Whatever they had given him, it was fast-acting.

Even so, he gave Jon and Cass a brief, searching look as they dragged him past...right before they steered him through to the basement door.

In that one look, his eyes were already starting to glaze, but Jon found himself thinking he understood, now, what Dorje meant.

It was probably better for everyone if Revik sat this one out for awhile.

REVIK WOKE UP alone, in a dim space. He had a headache that felt like it would rip his skull apart...and he could barely get his eyes open.

They’d drugged him.

He looked around, blinking to focus.

They had him chained to the wall of one of the brick and mortar monk cells.

The posture felt familiar, in more ways than one.

With a little experimentation he found they’d left him enough slack to rest his hands on a table they’d dragged between him and the door. They’d left enough movement that he could lie down, write, draw, even partially undress, awkwardly, if he’d felt so inclined...possibly even enough to throw the table at one of them if he were feeling really industrious.

They’d shackled his ankles, set a bucket discretely in one corner. They left him water, paper, pens that were useless against the semi-organic binders, a few of his books they must have pulled from Allie’s room.

They hadn’t restrained his sight at least, so he spent the next however long in the Barrier. He didn’t stop looking for her even when he got up to relieve himself in the bucket they’d left.

He couldn’t find her.

Which meant either someone had her, or she didn’t want to be found.

He knew he should probably be more worried about the former...but he strongly felt the latter to be the truth.

He couldn’t get Maygar’s words to him in Cairo out of his head...or the images he’d picked up from the other seers as they explained to him what had occurred. She might be furious with him. Knowing her, she might think he’d be angry with her, too. She might be embarrassed.

Whatever her reasons, he was getting increasingly frantic when he still couldn’t feel her about an hour later. He tried pinging her, calling to her, resonating with her light, apologizing.

He got no response. Nothing.

He didn’t come out of the Barrier at all until the door to his cell opened.

Clicking out, he focused abruptly on his visitor.

It was a different face than the one he’d expected.

Balidor stood looking at him critically, hands on his hips.

“Are you all right, brother?” he said.

Revik had thought it would be Vash. Even so, he relaxed after scanning the older seer. He didn’t feel any dire news on him. He had no complaint with the Adhipan leader himself. He’d tried to stop them, at least.

“Fine,” he said. There was no embarrassment in his voice when he added, “I’m hungry. And I pissed in there...” He nodded towards the rusted bucket. “...so you might not want to get too close.”

Balidor entered further into the room. He motioned for the guard behind him to deal with the bucket in the corner.