Shield of Winter

  "Here you go," she said on the fourth day after Sascha's visit, passing him several nutrition bars before she came down beside him on the porch, her now-favorite sweater warm around her. "Your daily, super-delicious breakfast." He'd already carried out the drink she'd mixed for him, along with her bowl of cereal and milk.

  Vasic, his forearms braced on muscled thighs, ate one before replying. "You eat the same cereal every day."

  "Yes, but it has tasty dried fruits and berries, as well as a mix of grains. Your bars are blandness personified." That was the point after all. "Here." She scooped up a spoonful of her breakfast. "Taste."

  What happened next had her staring.

  He actually leaned forward and accepted her offer. "There are too many flavors," was his cool conclusion.

  Ivy's toes curled at that voice of his, so intense and contained it made her wonder what he'd sound like if he ever lost control. Eating a spoonful of cereal to give herself time to think, she realized her lips were moving over the same warm metal his had touched an instant ago. Skin flushing at the small intimacy, she said, "Sorry, but you don't get a vote. Not when you only eat nutrition bars and drink the same stuff in liquefied form."

  Vasic didn't understand why he'd done what he'd done. All he knew was that Ivy was extraordinary. Though she'd entered the compound with the most severe mental and psychic wounds, she'd quietly shown herself to be one of the strongest people here.

  That included the Arrows.

  While Vasic and the others dealt with the dramatic shift in the PsyNet by attempting to stick rigidly to their conditioning, Ivy rode the wave. Every time she hit a wall, she stopped, thought about the problem with a determined concentration that caused two tiny vertical lines to form between her eyebrows, then found a way around it.

  His mind wasn't as flexible as hers, but it had done an odd, unexpected thing in the past three days. While the other Es continued to scrape against his senses, Ivy no longer did, though she was exploring her abilities in depth. It was as if his mind had created a special category for this empath whose telepathic voice was one he was now so accustomed to hearing, it felt too quiet inside his skull when she was sleeping and he was on night watch.

  His body, too, responded to her own in ways so alien that he had no experience with handling the reaction.

  Now she ate another spoonful of cereal, and he saw the golden cream that was the exposed slope of her shoulder.

  Reaching out, he physically tugged her sweater back into place.

  Chapter 20

  IVY ALMOST DROPPED her bowl.

  Steadying it telekinetically, he returned his hand to its previous position, his eyes on two Arrows going through a martial arts routine at the other end of the compound. "Do you feel in better control of your abilities?" he asked into the tautly stretched silence.

  "Not in control," she said at last, her voice a little breathy. "That implies too much conscious decision-making on my part. But it's getting easier to handle the instinct." Her bowl made a dull sound against the wood of the porch as she put it aside. "Does that make sense?"

  "Arrows don't acknowledge instinct, but it's inarguable that our reaction times in certain situations are so fast they might be categorized as such."

  Turning toward him, Ivy folded one leg up on the porch in that way she had, a bare inch between her knee and his thigh. "What do you call it then?"

  "Repetition and training until the knowledge of how to react to problematic situations is burned into our cells."

  "How?" A low whisper. "How do they teach you?"

  He thought of having his arm broken over and over as a child until he stopped crying, of being trapped in a suffocating box for hours until he learned to psychically regulate his body temperature, of being thrown into sensory deprivation chambers until he could endure nothingness, and then he looked at Ivy. "Mundane, routine repetition."

  Those eyes of copper that saw too much didn't stray from his. "You're lying to me, Vasic."

  "There are some things that shouldn't be in your head."

  The quiet words broke Ivy's heart. Taking courage from his earlier startling act, she grazed her fingertips over his gauntlet. It was a hard, cold carapace, but it was part of him. "Trust me."

  He didn't break the violently intimate eye contact. "It's too late for me, Ivy. Focus your energies on the ones you can save."

  Ivy didn't say anything when he rose, her fingers sliding off the gauntlet. He left without another word, tall and strong and alone as he walked across the clearing. He'd saved her life, was the heart of the psychic shield that protected every E here, would act as a living physical shield for any one of them in a split second.

  Yet he expected nothing from her, from the world.

  She didn't know how to get through to him, to tell him he had every right. Because if what she suspected was correct, then the Arrows weren't only the assassins they so often painted themselves to be, but the last line of defense against the infinite darkness that licked at the edges of the Psy race--might always lick at it.

  That instinctive awareness was borne out by the historical psycho-medical records she'd downloaded from the PsyNet over the past three days, Vasic having gained her access to a secure database. It catalogued the true rates of mental illness in the Psy race across the spectrum, including cases of suspected or proven criminal insanity.

  "I've gone back two hundred years," she said to Sascha later that day, the two of them walking in the trees after the cardinal finished her session with Penn. "The results are near identical. A percentage of our population always goes mad, and it's always a higher percentage than the other races."

  "The price of our gifts?" The leaves of the evergreens in this region threw lacy shadows on the other empath's face. "Silence, from everything we've discovered, didn't change that. It simply made it easier for the true psychopaths to hide, while the ones who needed help were quietly eliminated."

  Sascha turned her gaze toward the Arrows visible in the compound.

  "Whatever they've done," Ivy said, stomach tight and voice fierce, "they did it believing they were helping their people." She saw that truth in Vasic's relentless protectiveness, in Cristabel's injuries, in Abbot's intensity on watch. "We can't blame them." Ivy would allow no one to hurt the Arrows that way.

  "I don't," Sascha said softly, "but I think they blame themselves."

  Ivy took a breath of the biting cold air, icicles hanging off the branches in front of her in beautiful, dangerous shards. "Yes," she whispered. "It's not fair, when they do so much to keep the Net safe."

  The records she'd downloaded didn't state that outright, didn't even refer to the Arrows, but it was impossible to miss the stark difference in certain grim statistics before and after the formation of the squad, the date for which she'd received from Vasic. He hadn't realized what he was giving her, how it clarified the data she'd begun to piece together.

  "No one ever talks about the serial murderers who suddenly stop killing." Far too many to be explained away by any statistical model, the percentage so much higher than before the squad's formation that it was obvious they'd dramatically altered the playing field. "Who else but the Arrows would take care of that dirty job year after year, decade after decade?" Because the monsters kept being born, kept creating horror. "Certainly not Enforcement."

  Sascha, her eyes without stars, bent down to pick up a pinecone half-buried in the snow. Dusting off the frosty white, she played her fingertips over the edges as she rose to her full height. "I agree with you. The Arrows act as the only real control on the darkest elements of our race."

  A pause before the cardinal continued. "I think when the squad was first formed, it was about doing whatever was necessary to keep Silence from falling. Even though I might not agree with the actions of those first Arrows, I can understand it came from a desire to protect the Psy race."

  "And now that they know Silence wasn't the answer," Ivy said, forgiving those first Arrows for their undoubted part in suffocating
and burying the E designation, "the Arrows from this generation are trying to redress the balance. I know Vasic would take a bullet for me without flinching."

  "Yes," Sascha said at once. "The protective core has always been there, even if turned in the wrong direction . . . and I have a feeling the squad might've been manipulated into certain actions by some in power."

  Hugging her arms around herself, Ivy said, "Do you know if they've been with Kaleb Krychek for long?" The cardinal Tk was said to be the most ruthless man in the Net, but from what she'd glimpsed during Krychek's fleeting visits to the compound, Vasic seemed to deal with him as an equal.

  Sascha shook her head. "My contacts are light when it comes to information about the squad, but Judd did say Ming LeBon was their acknowledged leader for two decades. As an ex-Arrow himself, I'd say he was deeply trusted."

  Dropping the pinecone, the other empath thrust her hands into the pockets of her winter coat, the color a rich aquamarine. "I don't have any proof, but given what I know of Ming's tendencies, paired with the squad switching its allegiance to Kaleb, I think Ming tried to turn them into his personal assassination squad."

  Ivy stopped walking. "They believed in him and he used them." The betrayal would've struck at the heart of the loyalty that bonded Arrow to Arrow--the one thing on which, it was obvious, every single member of the squad relied.

  Including Vasic.

  He'd been abandoned as a child, tortured, then used. He'd never say any of that to her, but Ivy listened. So she'd made the connection between a child who'd started training at four years of age, and a man who called his parents "the woman who gave birth to me" and "my biological father."

  There are some things that shouldn't be in your head.

  No one became so encased in ice by being treated with kindness. He'd been hurt. Over and over. Then, in what must've been a final, staggering blow, he'd learned that the terrible things he'd been asked to do for the good of his race had instead been done so Ming LeBon could bloat himself with power.

  Every muscle in her body locked tight. She wanted to destroy the system that had allowed this to happen. "It doesn't seem fair, Sascha, that he--that any Arrow--should have to walk alone and thankless in the darkness."

  Slipping her arm through Ivy's, Sascha began to lead her back to the compound. "Do you remember what I told you about Alice Eldridge?"

  It took Ivy a second to speak past her fury. "Of course." Ivy had hurt for the scholar who Sascha told her had been put forcibly into cryonic suspension for over a century.

  "Well, in Alice's book--which she's given me permission to copy for all of you--she has a bit in the middle that's full of quotes by the friends and lovers of empaths." The stars returning to her eyes, Sascha smiled at Ivy, and the expression held a vein of unexpected mischief. "The most common word in that entire section is 'stubborn.' Apparently, Es have a problem with giving up on anyone. I'd say your Arrow doesn't stand a chance."

  Ivy's responding smile was shaky. "No," she said, "he doesn't."

  It wouldn't be easy, and there was a high chance she'd fail in her quest to shatter her Arrow's defenses, but Ivy hadn't survived a brutal reconditioning by being a shrinking violet. If Vasic needed Silence to survive, that was one thing--and agonizing as it would be to recognize that she could never truly know him, she'd accept it, because to do otherwise would hurt him.

  But, if her warrior-priest was using the isolation of the conditioning to punish himself for the crimes of another man, one who'd sacrificed the hearts of good men and women on the altar of power, then no, Ivy wasn't about to let that slide. Not now. Not ever.

  *

  VASIC checked the PsyNet late that night to discover the infection, its tendrils a malignant darkness, had well and truly invaded the compound, though it wasn't yet touching any of the minds inside. It went against his every instinct to leave Ivy and the others in the infection's path, but to remove them would be to deny their nature.

  Dropping out of the psychic network after taking one final look, he scanned the area. It was swathed in the pitch-black of a moonless night, the cabins quiet and the only movement that of the Arrows on sentry duty.

  One, however, wasn't where he was supposed to be. Abbot. Report.

  Sir. I'm with Jaya. She experienced a nightmare and requested I stay within her sight.

  Does she need medical attention?

  No. I believe she is . . . afraid.

  Vasic considered whether or not to pull Abbot from the detail. He'd chosen the younger Arrow for his unit not because Abbot's Silence was flawless, but because it was cracking in an erratic and possibly dangerous fashion--the squad needed to know if their more damaged members could work with empaths going into the future. As a result of Abbot's mental state, Vasic and another senior member of the unit had kept a close eye on the male throughout.

  It had soon become clear that he was stabilizing in an unanticipated way, his presence more ordered and calm than it had been for months, his concentration acute. The problem was that he appeared to have attached himself too deeply to his empath.

  Vasic? A light going on in Ivy's cabin.

  He caught the tremor in her voice, turned immediately to head to her. What is it?

  I just . . .

  He was on the porch pushing open her door before she finished. When she came directly to him, curling up against his chest while Rabbit leaned against her leg, he did what he'd seen humans and changelings do to offer comfort, and closed his arms around her upper body. And he knew Abbot wasn't the only Arrow who'd attached himself too deeply to his empath.

  Holding her to him with his gauntleted arm, Vasic cupped the back of her head with his other hand, her curls a warm tumble around his fingers. The fabric of her pajama pants was green and white flannel, but her top half was clad only in a thin, strappy top. When she continued to shiver and attempt to get closer, her arms tucked up between them, he used his Tk to alter the air molecules around her to generate heat, at the same time that he tightened his hold, and widened his stance to allow her to tuck her feet between his booted ones.

  It seemed to work, Ivy's skin warming under his fingertips where they grazed the edge of her face, and under his palm where it curved over her arm. Every other part of him was shielded from her, his combat uniform designed to protect . . . but now it was a barrier that stopped him from feeling the slight weight of her fist against his heart or the pulse that fluttered under the flushed gold of her skin.

  He didn't understand why that mattered, but it did.

  "You made it warm." She stayed curled up against him despite her words, the radiance from the kitchen light pouring past them to the porch.

  He moved them fully inside by doing a minute teleport and shut the door. Ivy was open about many things, but she also had a private side, and this . . . it was private.

  Hand flexing on his chest, a movement he saw but didn't feel, she said, "Did you just 'port us?"

  "Yes."

  She looked up with a wobbly smile. "Do you ever think about how amazing it is that you can do that?"

  "No." For him, it was the reason he'd spent his childhood in excruciating pain.

  "You can go anywhere you want to, anytime you want." Putting her head back down against his chest, she said, "Can we go somewhere tonight?" A tremor ran through her frame. "Just for a little while?"

  Vasic evaluated the security situation, connected with his Arrows--to receive the same report. Each and every one of his men and women was awake, even those meant to be off shift. "Not tonight," he said. "I'll take you another day."

  "Why not today?" Lifting her hand to her temple, she rubbed. "No, wait, I can feel it now . . . the empaths, we're leaking fear . . ." Her eyes, those big, penetrating eyes, stared up at him, the rim of gold vivid against the copper. "All of us had nightmares?"

  "The majority." He forced himself to release her now that she was stable. "Isaiah, Brigitte, and Penn appear to have been immune to the precipitating event but were woken by the reactions
of the others."

  Shoving her hands through her hair, Ivy said, "Okay, okay, let me think." A decisive nod. "I need to be in the PsyNet."

  Following her, he saw the same thing she did.

  Chapter 21

  "PENN, BRIGITTE, AND Isaiah," he said when they dropped back out, "are the most distant from the infection in terms of their location in the compound." While Ivy and Jaya were on the leading edge.

  "I'm going to touch base with the others." Closing her eyes, she did so telepathically, and he took the chance to just look at her. Her skin was delicate, her collarbones fine, but there was a lushness to Ivy that was diametrically opposed to his own body. No hard edges, only soft curves. Everything about her promised the opposite of pain.

  When a strap slid off one shoulder as she thrust her hand through her hair again, he didn't slide it back up, fascinated by the smooth line of her shoulder, the creamy plumpness of the exposed upper slope of her breast. It would, he calculated, take the barest telekinetic nudge to push the silky fine fabric farther down, exposing her fully.

  Embers low down in his body flared to glowing life . . . and Ivy's skin flushed a deep peach.

  Tugging the strap up with a trembling finger, she said, "Jaya was the most shaken. Having Abbot around seems to have calmed her." Her breath came fast and shallow. "He's playing cards with her."

  As far as Vasic knew, the younger Arrow didn't know how to play cards. "Is he losing?" he asked, conscious he'd crossed a line in looking at Ivy as he had.

  "Badly," she said rather than asking him to leave, "but Jaya says he's catching on fast. We're corrupting all your Arrows."

  He thought of the warmth of her scalp against his palm, the featherlight caress of her curls, the sweet curves that would flow like honey under his hand. She was the softest, most beautiful creature he'd ever touched, and he wanted to experience her again, wanted to indulge in this tactile contact that had nothing to do with pain or training or a cold medical checkup.

  "Perhaps," he said, watching her color deepen as he continued to look at her in a way he knew was sexual. He should've apologized. He didn't. "But," he said instead, "the corruption doesn't appear to be doing harm." A lie. Ivy was breaking things down in him that couldn't be broken down for his own sanity. Even now he found himself wondering about the texture of her skin at the dip of her breastbone, his fingers curling into his hand.