Shield of Winter

Chapter 6

HIS GREAT-GRANDFATHER DIDN’T immediately answer Vasic’s question, the quiet broken only by the faraway echo of a wolf’s howl, as if a SnowDancer ran tonight in the territory of its leopard allies. If Krychek managed to obtain the approval of the two packs, Vasic knew he’d hear wolf song at far closer range.

“My growing up years,” Zie Zen said long after the howl had faded, “were consumed with the discussion on Silence. You cannot imagine the world as it was then, the chaos and terror of it, our race on the brink of cannibalizing itself. We debated the Protocol at school, at the dinner table, in every corner of the PsyNet, on television, in newspapers . . .

“Trillions of words were spoken, written, thought, until Silence was the defining memory of youth for many of my generation. But . . . it is not mine.” A rasping breath. “My youth can be encompassed in a single word: Sunny.” This quiet was deeper, heavier, not to be interrupted. “Her legal name was Samantha, but no one called her that. She was my neighbor, and my friend, and when we were sixteen, she became my lover.”

Vasic turned at last, bracing his back against one of the posts that bracketed the steps to his left. “A true lover?” he asked, looking into his grandfather’s dark eyes. “Skin contact?” Rather than the financial and scientific dance that was the current mating ritual of his race, genetic and psychic profiles compared before an egg was fertilized at the point of a needle.

Zie Zen’s expression was distant, his mind clearly in that strange long-ago world. “Yes, skin to skin.” He touched his fingers to his jaw in an action Vasic had never previously seen him make, before dropping that hand back on the open pages of his book.

“I wanted to defect at the dawn of Silence,” he said, and it was an unexpected admission, “but Sunny was an E, a powerful one. She wouldn’t leave, said there was so much stress and panic in the Net that it would be the same as a doctor walking out of an ER bursting at the seams with trauma victims. So we stayed.”

Vasic didn’t know too much about the beginnings of Silence, but he did know that established couples hadn’t been forcibly separated—instead each couple had been directed to live a chaste, distant life in order to set the correct example for any offspring. That left only one reason why Zie Zen had not had a child with his Sunny, Vasic’s genetic history including no one named Samantha. “When did she die?”

“Five years after the inception of the Protocol,” was the stark answer. “Only twenty-three and worn-out, worn-down. So many needed the help of an E after Silence, hundreds of thousands in agony because they had to sever ties of love and replace them with everything that was frigidly rational. Worse was the unrelenting pressure on the Es to stop being.”

A quiet shake of Zie Zen’s head, but his hand clamped down so hard on the arm of his chair that Vasic could count his great-grandfather’s bones. “It would be akin to my asking you to stop breathing, for empaths then weren’t the smothered, broken shells of today. Sunny was joyous, vibrant in her ability, her heart open to the world . . . and that world kicked her until she bled in ways I couldn’t stem, couldn’t fix.”

The older man fell quiet for so long that Vasic was certain Zie Zen’s time of talking was done for this night, but then he said, “Watch over your Sunny as I wasn’t able to watch over mine.”

The Silent answer would’ve been to say that Ivy wasn’t his, was just another task. However on this moonlit night when his great-grandfather had told him of a woman named Sunny who Vasic would never meet—but who he now realized had shaped Zie Zen’s entire existence, there was only one correct answer. “I will, Grandfather.”

Zie Zen closed his book, his hands steady and his jaw a firm line. “You must make certain the Es aren’t sacrificed as they were then, aren’t broken under the weight of the burden that is this new world.” His gaze locked with Vasic’s. “They will walk into any hell; with very few exceptions, it’s how they’re made. Of stubborn courage and little to no ability to be selfish. This new chaos will annihilate them unless there is a stronger force that will put the Es first.”

Vasic had made a vow to protect, and he would do it until his dying breath, but—“That is a task for a better man, a man like Aden.” Strong and intelligent and without fractures in every corner of his being. Vasic’s self was held together by countless jagged stitches that tore him bloody night and day.

“I’m a brute weapon and an expendable shield,” he said as the night wind cut across his exposed face, “my task to stand in the way of any violence directed toward the Es.” He’d do so without flinching. “I’m not strong enough to last the time the empaths will need their protector to last.” Into untold decades to come.

Zie Zen shook his head again. “No, Vasic. This isn’t your choice. It is a matter of honor—mine and yours.” Another shaky breath. “You are the son of my heart, my truest descendent. You may have lost faith, but you will never give up, regardless of what you believe at this instant. You will do what must be done.”

Vasic said nothing. Zie Zen’s word was law as far as he was concerned, but there was no doubt in his mind that he would disappoint his great-grandfather this one time. Zie Zen was right—Vasic would never give up, but there would come a time when he’d simply stop working, his body and mind shutting down as a malfunctioning machine might do.

After all, that was what he was: a machine trained to mete out death.

Standing after another half hour of silence, he gave a respectful bow of his head before walking to the water’s edge, the snow soft and the pebbles small and smooth beneath the heavy tread of his combat boots. Zie Zen was growing frailer, the hand he’d placed on his cane as Vasic turned away trembling a little, but Vasic had known better than to offer his assistance. His great-grandfather would’ve considered that an insult of the highest magnitude.

I’ll need your help soon enough. When it is time, I will ask.

Reaching a hundred and thirty years of age was not unheard of in their world, with a limited few living beyond that, but Vasic didn’t think his great-grandfather would make it. He saw the same tiredness in Zie Zen’s eyes that he felt in his soul, and after what he’d heard tonight, he understood that Zie Zen had suffered blows that had left grievous wounds. And still he continued on.

You are the son of my heart, my truest descendent . . . You will do what must be done.

As Vasic once again considered his great-grandfather’s life, he thought of Ivy with her too-perceptive eyes that showed her every thought and her scrappy dog that thought it was a mastiff. Yet there was a fierce strength there, strength that had led her to seek to protect those who were her own even if it meant facing down an Arrow.

. . . it’s how they’re made. Of stubborn courage and little to no ability to be selfish.

If Ivy followed that pattern, she’d be eaten alive by the monsters that prowled the Net. The world was an even harder place now than that which had claimed Zie Zen’s Sunny. Too many people had had their sense of empathy worn away to nothing, become cold inside in a way that couldn’t be ameliorated. Sociopaths reigned supreme in many areas of life—from business, to education, to medicine.

It would take decades to fix that imbalance.

Others were so used to being told what to do that they were finding it difficult to function under the current regime. Total freedom would be their worst nightmare. Voracious in their need, these hungry individuals would ask for more and more and still more from the empaths, until an E had nothing left.

Until she lay down to sleep one day and never again woke.

That realization uppermost on Vasic’s mind, he walked for near to an hour along the rim of the lake. When he saw the large spotted cat watching him from the trees, he didn’t make any sudden moves. Instead, he inclined his head in quiet acknowledgment. The leopard—or perhaps it was a jaguar—did the same, then whispered away into the trees, two predators passing in the night.

UNABLE to sleep, Ivy sat in her doorway wrapped up in a thick throw, and stared at the star-studded sky. A drowsy Rabbit had pulled and pushed his cushioned basket to her side with annoyed huffs, and now lay snoring beside her. A normal night, the sky holding a hard-edged clarity that came only on the coldest nights . . . except that her life would never again be normal.

Ivy’s lips twisted. Her life hadn’t ever been normal, not as the Psy understood it. Even before her collapse at sixteen, she’d known she was different. She’d tried so hard to be like her fellow students at school, increasingly rational and remote with every year of growth and training, but Silence had always been a coat so ill-fitting it exhausted her to wear it.

Mother, why can’t I do it right? The teacher says I’m flawed.

She’d been sobbing as she asked that question, a nine-year-old girl who’d failed her Silence evaluation for the second time. Ivy would never forget what her mother had said.

Flaws make us who we are, Ivy. Without them, we might as well be made of plas, featureless and indistinct. Never ever be ashamed of your flaws.

Then her parents had worked together to figure out a way she could pass the evaluations, though inside, her conditioning was as bad as always. Now an Arrow named Vasic had given her the answer why, and it destroyed everything she thought she knew about the world, her mind turbulent with the need to believe.

A shooting star fell across the sky in a splinter of light at that instant . . . and her nose began to bleed.

Ivy had already made her choice. This, she thought as she used tissues from the pocket of her robe to deal with the blood, was simply the coda on that decision. If the E designation did indeed exist and Ivy carried the ability, she wanted to explore it with every ounce of her being. The fact it would likely stop her brain from crushing itself was a bonus—

Her breath caught in her throat, her hand falling to her side, fisted on the bloody tissues. “You’re early,” she whispered to the man who’d appeared in front of the cabin.

“I’m not here for your decision.” Winter gray eyes scanned the area.

Rabbit jerked awake on a growl just as the Arrow disappeared around the side of the house. Heart thudding, Ivy could almost think she’d imagined the whole surreal experience, but he appeared around the other side of the cabin not long afterward. “You expected a threat?” she managed to ask, one hand on Rabbit’s rigid back.

“No.” His face an unreadable silhouette against the night sky, his shoulders outlined by starlight, he added, “A simple security sweep.” Ivy was now under Vasic’s protection, even if she hadn’t accepted the contract.

A startled spark in eyes that were dangerously expressive even in the low light. “Oh.” Continuing to pet her dog, she said, “Would you like something hot to drink?” A frown. “You must be cold if you’re doing security sweeps at this time of night.”

Vasic paused. She was afraid of him, the instinctive response an intelligent one. And yet she’d offered him sustenance. His great-grandfather was right—empaths did not appear to have the best sense of self-preservation. “No,” he said. “Why are you sitting here?” Talking to her hadn’t been on the agenda.

“I like the quiet.” Her face softened, the husky thread in her voice more apparent. “There’s a kind of secrecy in the world at this time of night, as if I’m allowed to see mysteries hidden in daylight.”

Vasic thought of the deserts and isolated mountain outlooks where he went in an effort to find peace from the shades of those he had erased, considered if Ivy Jane would see mysteries in those locations, too. “You should go inside.” His thoughts were immaterial because Ivy would never experience the places in question. “My readings tell me the temperature will drop considerably in the next fifteen minutes.”

Getting to her feet, the throw bulky around her, Ivy nodded. “I think you’re right. I can taste more snow in the air.”

It was a sensual way to describe a meteorological function, another sign that Ivy Jane was in no way Silent. Not that he needed the confirmation—her presence was sandpaper against his senses, harsh and abrasive. It didn’t matter. As Aden had pointed out, the sensation might be uncomfortable, but it wasn’t debilitating.

And Vasic had made a promise.

So long as he drew breath, he would protect her.