His brother arrived back an hour or so later, thrilled over what he had accomplished. He woke Sean, who was dozing on the balcony, and announced that Josef wanted to send Dillon up for advanced battle training. As in, ship him off to the Praetorian Academy. The place where every other recruit from the Examiner’s school had washed out. Josef was as excited as Dillon, finally having a student who might, just might, make it through.
Sean listened to his brother describe what was in store. Dillon danced through the process of showering and dressing, never stopping his constant chatter, not for an instant. And Sean grew increasingly certain that behind his brother’s adrenaline high lurked the same three questions that burrowed deep within him.
What about Carey?
What about their hunt for who was behind the attacks?
What about them?
The third question sat like a lead weight attached to his abdomen. Because one thing Sean knew for certain. Even if the powers that be asked, even if they begged, there was no way Sean would ever be going to battle school.
Dillon sang his way down the stairs and whistled across the lawn. Carey answered the door, and his brother said something that made her laugh. The sound was there long after the door shut. Sean sat and watched the dusk gather and knew he had no interest in another night sitting on the balcony. Alone.
He transited back to the school. It was odd, because for the first time ever he actually liked arriving in that featureless grey room. He didn’t change into sweats because he wasn’t staying. He slipped down the hall and passed through the portal that before had always been locked, and took the stairs up to the glass-walled mega-room.
There were several dozen other people scattered around the vast hall, some stretched out on cushions, others in portable chairs, one group dining at a candlelit table. He walked over to an empty space along the wall that faced the suns and stood there. Unhappy and content at the same time.
“I thought this was where I’d find you.”
Sean wheeled about and watched Elenya walk toward him. She wore her own version of at-home casual, or so Sean assumed. A shoulder emerged from a top that was pink and not exactly translucent, but certainly a far cry from the school’s staid sweats. She wore shorts or a short dress, accent on the word short. He had never seen her legs before, and they were really nice. Her sandals had velvety ribbons that laced up almost to her knees. A matching band held her hair back. She was, in a word, beautiful.
Sean had always assumed the true beauties were out of his league. And all the responses he had seen from them confirmed this. As Carey grew closer to his brother, Sean had the lurking suspicion there was something about his personality or some hidden trait the beauties could smell or sense, something that just plain turned them off.
So here he was, thirty thousand light-years or so from his home turf, dealing with the mystery of a truly awesome lady who clearly was interested in him.
There was no reason why Elenya’s sudden appearance should add to his sense of uneasiness and disquiet. But it did. And he hated it.
Sean asked, “How did you know I was here?”
“You can establish a link, Sean. It sends you an alert whenever the other arrives at the school.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“You miss a few things, climbing through nine years of schooling in a month.” She held out her hand. “Shall I teach you what you don’t know, Sean?”
The invitation was delivered so calmly, so matter-of-factly, that he had taken hold of her hand and turned back to the frozen double sunset when it hit him. What she said. What she meant. Maybe.
He was still trying to work through how to answer when she asked, “How do you see your shield?”
“I don’t.”
“Of course. I mean . . .”
“What I visualize when I’m making it.” He felt slightly embarrassed. “Like a big golden egg.”
She nodded slowly. “And your brother?”
“I have no idea. It’s never come up.”
“You men. You are ashamed of this, perhaps?”
“It just seems kind of personal.”
“I will stop.” But her voice was even more musical than usual with hidden laughter. “Men are astonishing.”
He could not stop the words any more than he could extinguish the flames. “I don’t want to be men, Elenya. I don’t want to be grouped.”
She sobered. “I have upset you.”
“What is it with you?” He could see faces turning his way. There was probably some Lothian protocol about arguing in public. He hated being the center of such unwanted attention. But he could not stop. “How can you be so . . . in total control over everything?”
Her laughter was gone now, her eyes very grave. “What you mean is, how can I be in such control when we are together, yes?”
He gripped the railing with both hands, squeezing the words from his confusion. “We’ve only just met and you treat me like . . .”
“Like I’ve known you for years. That is it, yes?”
He bowed over until his head was down below his shoulders, his entire body tense. He was going to blow this. He just knew it.
She touched his shoulder with a pair of fingertips. “I have known about you and watched you since the first day you came to the school. Since the first hour.”
Sean remained where he was, bowed over, staring at his feet. But listening.
“I have no interest in most men, Sean. You need to believe me.”
He said to the floor, “I believe everything you tell me.”
Her grip on his shoulder grew firmer. “I want to become a Counselor. I want a partner who will be with me in this. Most of these students, they are so . . . limited.”
“You don’t know anything about me.”
“I know you come from an outpost world. I know you and your twin were discovered by accident. I know most of the older students resent you and fear you. Why? Because you know no limits. None.”
Slowly he straightened. But he couldn’t bring himself to look at her. The suns hung within their rose-tinted ring of fire, one degree above the horizon, turning the distant mountain range of ice and rock into gemstones and lava. “My brother showed me one of my own limits today.”
But she was not done. “My mother has always resented my father’s gift. She loves him and he loves her. But this has always stood between them, how he can transit from world to world, and she can only travel when he takes her. It is his power. And she . . .”
Sean spoke to the glass. “She wants what he has.”
“I do not know men, Sean. It was wrong of me to say what I did. It was an expression I have heard my older sisters use. I only know two lessons about love. One from my mother, who is a biochemist. She uses what is known as a planetary metabolic index in studying the subtle diversities between humans of different planets. Some traits she has found do not change, regardless of how distinct are their mutations. One such trait is, the female gender matures faster than the male.”
He could see her reflection painted upon the dual suns, the beauty and the zeal. One word clung to the glass like it had been etched into the surface. Love. Along with the intensity carried by everything she said.
“The other lesson came when I was nine, the same year I entered this school. My oldest sister had joined with a mate, supposedly for life, and less than a year later she was back home again. Crushed and brokenhearted and groping for answers. The same thing happened to my middle sister just a few months ago. The family is still reeling from this, how two beautiful and intelligent young women could both have their lives wrecked by love with the wrong man. My father told them both something that stays with me. He said, ‘Love is a ruthless game unless you play it right. And then it is not a game at all.’”
He turned toward her then. And repeated, “You don’t know me.”
“Nor you me,” she agreed. “But do you think perhaps we should seek to gain this knowledge?”
He could not meet her gaze. It was like she could strip him bare, not of clothes but of his flesh and bones, leaving his very soul exposed. He turned back to the window, as conflicted as he had ever been in his entire life. And more scared than he had been on the pillar.
And yet despite how he felt, Sean found himself describing for her what had happened that day. The cavern and the cold and the pillars and his fear. Dillon’s excitement. His own terror, gripping the stone, wanting nothing more than for it to be over. Dillon’s return and the electric thrill he carried of being invited to battle school. Then Sean tried to describe what it meant to hear his brother so enthusiastic about a step that meant them being separated, probably for good. And his concern over how Dillon might lose the finest love he had ever known. Using that word for the first time ever to describe Dillon and Carey. For Elenya to understand what it meant—Dillon’s love and their own relationship—he had to unravel at least a bit of the tangle about their parents.
He started crying.
He had never, not once in his entire life, wept in public. But this was as much beyond his control as everything else about that day. He tried to make it sound like a series of coughs, like he was choking. So ashamed he could have dissolved into the floor.
Elenya maneuvered him by will and motion, drawing him around, not allowing him to hide his face. She held him not just tightly but from sandals to hairline, melted in so close she could almost breathe with him, weep with him. Which was the only thing that allowed him to regain control. He took a pair of shuddering breaths and tried to release himself so he could dry his eyes, but Elenya wasn’t having any of that. She pulled his arm back around her, then lifted her free hand and wiped his face herself.
And then she kissed him. Long enough for his heart to stop and then restart.
Sean tasted tears, but he could not tell whether they were his own or hers.