Anjhela sat on the edge of her plush bed—a thing of rich, rumpled bedclothes and satisfaction contained in a room of amenity and luxury.
A place that was hers alone.
Here, she could express her relief: the fugitive village was all but found. Publicly, she could show no relief, no hint of concern, for Anjhela could not be known to have concerns. Anjhela had only control and demanded only respect.
She fisted her hand, pulling the mendihar to the surface—flexing her fingers to admire the play of lumelight over gleaming skin and smooth metal.
Her salvation.
She couldn’t remember the last time she’d failed Ghehera. Not to have her supplicant resist not just one interrogation but two and then three, to almost die and then—after all that—to pity and threaten her.
She couldn’t remember the last time—
Except then suddenly, she could. And the time before that, too.
And the way they all connected to this same man.
===
Remembering...
===
...Anjhela sat on the edge of her cot.
It was a plain cot in a plain room of warm stone that held few amenities and no luxuries—except that now, finally, it was hers alone.
She gazed at her hand with wonder, running the fingers of her freehand over those of her host hand, touching the sensitive skin, the hard, pointed nail...the beauty of what lay beneath.
She never tired of the wonder.
There was a cost, of course—not one that everyone could bear. There was the endless sensation of its itch to escape, the pleasure-pain of its emergence through skin, the constant need to maintain her guard against it. But even that still held a wonder. Because I can do it.
Anjhela, the misbegotten. Anjhela, the half-breed runt. Anjhela, scooped up early from her village, brought up in Ghehera and always aware of her debt to Glyphmaster Shahh.
Trevarr was different. He had come late to this place, and if he no longer frightened her, she was nonetheless frightened for him. For although Ghehera let him live, he felt no debt to its Tribunal.
He despised them all. And he let it show.
Mine.
He is mine.
The thought surprised her; she thought it might have come from the mendihar. But instead of squelching the intrusion, she tasted it. Rolled it around in her mind...liked it.
After all, she was Trevarr’s equal now—more than his equal. For Anjhela was the one with the mendihar, the one now respected and feared.
Trevarr was simply reviled, as he’d been since his arrival at Ghehera. Sent on the worst of the off-world collection missions because of his ability to pass as human when necessary. Sent, always, with the dictate to succeed no matter the personal cost.
Anjhela had helped put him back together often enough to know those costs.
No such damage had ever happened to her—nor would it, now that she had the mendihar. And if Trevarr had helped her through the process of merging with it, that was only right.
He’d best not assume it now.
He quite suddenly stood in the doorway, as if drawn by her very thought—leaning and tired and distinctly worn. “Anjhela.”
She started, jerking her fingers away from her host hand, her faintly scaled skin rippling in embarrassment. Just that quickly, anger followed. How dare he interrupt her? “Where have you been?” she demanded. “The Tribunal sent you on no errand these past days.”
“Hunting.” He rarely explained himself. He didn’t seem inclined to start now.
“Hunting what?” she heard herself say—and liked it. Liked the confidence in it, and the hint of demand. “Hunting where?”
He straightened, no hint of his reaction showing except in those eyes of his, kyrokha eyes that grew bright with the power his body could stir. And more than that, there seemed some hint of sparking intensity around his form, something not of Trevarr at all. The glint of barely seen glass, of movement at the corner of her eye.
“You did it.” That, too, came out as a demand. “Your secret little quest, the thing you think to keep from me.”
The silvered eyes met her gaze more evenly than she would have thought possible—certainly more evenly than she was accustomed to, even this short time after her merging.
No one met her gaze these days. But he not only did so, he did it with no apparent effort. And he did it long enough for her to understand the dismissal behind his regard before he turned away. “Be well, Anjhela.”
In an instant she knew so many things.
He would not be treated as anything less than equal. He would not bow before that which had changed her. He was what he’d always been—the one honest, reliable, true thing in her life. True to her, true to himself. Even in this.
“Trevarr!” She hated the way her voice lost its authority; she hated the fact that she hadn’t been able to let him go. She hated that she still needed him at all.
And yet she couldn’t stop herself. “Come back. I didn’t mean to be... That is, I’m still learning the mendihar. You know that.”
He did stop; he did turn. He did still look weary, still accompanied by the vaguely discernible glint of liquid glass. “I do know that.”
But he offered no acquiescence, even as he came into her room—taking up the space as though he owned it. He touched her hair; he picked up her hand, running a thoughtful thumb along the skin over her slumbering mendihar.
He said, “I wait only to see whether you learn it, or it learns you.”
===
...Remembered.
===
Until this moment, she hadn’t truly understood his warning. It learns you. Or heard the unspoken warning behind it: and then uses you.
Now that she did, she thought it might be too late.
~~~~~~~~~~