Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 128413 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 514(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128413 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 642(@200wpm)___ 514(@250wpm)___ 428(@300wpm)
Zaira’s expression held a quiet intensity. “I’m learning subtlety and nuance,” she said. “And how people can have different faces. I suppose I never expected Councilor Henry Scott to ever wear the face of a doting father.” The Arrow waved a hand in a slicing motion. “But that’s not why I’m here.”
Auden was glad to move past the topic of her parents. “How bad are my shields?”
“Not bad at all,” Zaira told her, to her surprise. “Who taught you shield construction?”
“My father.”
“I thought as much. He was good. But you have an erratic crack through your psychic pattern at the foundation—it’s destabilized things at the very start so that the error runs outward.”
Auden could’ve made excuses, hidden the truth, but if she was going to do that, she might as well end this session now. “I was implanted with an experimental biograft. It did permanent damage.”
Zaira’s eyes had gone gleaming obsidian at Auden’s first words. “So,” she said after a pregnant pause, “you were brought up like us after all.”
“No,” Auden said, “I had sixteen years of a life where I felt safe and protected.”
Though Zaira didn’t push the point, Auden could follow the line of her thoughts: that Auden didn’t want to believe she’d suffered because to do that would be to destroy everything she’d believed about her childhood.
“I wasn’t raised as a sacrificial lamb,” she whispered, wondering who she was trying to convince. “Until the brain damage, I was meant to be his genetic legacy. I’m almost certain Shoshanna was the one who decided to implant me.”
“All those things can be true,” Zaira said and the words weren’t harsh, just straightforward. “That your father cherished you in whatever way a Councilor born in Silence could cherish a child, and that he saw you as a tool that, once broken, was no longer worthy of his attention.”
Except the latter cancels out the former, Auden thought, but didn’t say aloud. “Can I fix the crack?” she asked instead, her voice rough with all the emotions she couldn’t release, all the things she couldn’t say.
“Yes,” Zaira said, “but we’ll have to rebuild from scratch. That means a purposeful destruction of your current shield. I realize that’s asking a lot. You don’t know me and it’ll leave you vulnerable, but it is the best possible option to ensure we don’t leave the error behind at some level of the psychic code.”
“Remi trusts you,” Auden said without hesitation. “And I trust him.” She took a deep breath, exhaled. “Please make sure my baby is protected from any psychic shock waves.”
Zaira nodded. “You know she’s a strong telepath?”
“The squad can’t have her.”
Zaira’s lips kicked up. “I wouldn’t dare make that claim with such a mother—and with Remi in the mix. I was just going to say that she’ll need to learn psychic discipline earlier than most. Bring her to me when she starts cracking your maternal shields and I’ll teach her.”
The Arrow gave a curt nod after that extraordinary offer. “Shield destruction in three seconds. Three, two…one.”
Chapter 35
Miane, it’s a go on our idea to blood-bond the half-human children to you.
The theory is that given the strong ties of family and friendship between BlackSea and the Alliance, the children should be pulled into the BlackSea changeling network the instant after their minds separate from the PsyNet, but EmNet has assigned a team to psychically force the transfer if necessary.
The infants could also end up pulling their Psy parent into the network, due to the parent-child bond.
The scientists are certain that, with no PsyNet to return to, the children will cling to the new network out of instinct, even with no adult Psy to hold them in place.
—Bowen Knight, security chief of the Human Alliance, to Miane Levèque, alpha of BlackSea (2 November 2083)
IT WAS FULL dark and dinner was over by the time Zaira left Auden.
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” the Arrow told Remi when he met her outside, the tree canopy above them a sprawling darkness against the starlit sky. “This isn’t a task that can be completed in a day—especially not when she’s weak from childbirth.”
“Can you get her to a point where she’ll be safe inside the Scott household?”
Zaira nodded. “From everyone but a telepath of Shoshanna’s strength and skill—and Auden says they have no one like that in the family.”
“Thanks, Zaira.” He reached into a pocket. “Before I forget—I don’t know how Jojo figured out you were here, but she made you this.”
Zaira smiled at the painstakingly drawn image of a leopard, its coat purple with sparkly silver dots. At the top it said, “For Zai,” the wobbly words nonetheless legible. “Give her a hug from me, and tell her I love it and that I’ll be back for a proper visit with her soon.”
With that, the Arrow faded off into the darkness, from which Remi had picked up a familiar—yet unknown—scent. Zaira’s teleport assist was most often the same Arrow: Alejandro. Yet Remi had never laid eyes on the man—Alejandro preferred to stay in the shadows, for reasons neither Aden nor Zaira had ever vocalized, but Remi figured plenty of Arrows had scars.