Shield of Winter

Chapter 11

The child isn’t psychologically suited either to the squad’s training methods or to its mandate. Normally, I’d recommend he be removed from the program, but as the usefulness of his ability makes that a nonviable option, I suggest the immediate and repeated application of physical pain interspersed with psychological punishment to break him down. Only then can he be molded into an Arrow.

Private PsyMed report on Arrow Trainee Vasic Duvnjak, age 4 years 2 months

SEVEN DAYS AFTER the attack, Ivy went to heft her pack when the weight of it was simply gone. Startled, she spun around to see Vasic standing a foot away, near a snow-heavy apple tree.

“I’ve sent it ahead to the location,” he said, as if it was a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

Heart thudding, she realized it was for him. “Right. Of course.” She looked at Rabbit, her pet staring fixedly at where the pack had been. “Don’t do the same to Rabbit, okay?”

“No, he goes with you. I understand.”

For some reason that cool response made her want to smile through the nerves that had created a tight knot in her chest. Turning to her parents, she went to say good-bye, then thought to hell with it and hugged them one at a time. She didn’t expect much of a physical response, but they squeezed her tight, their unspoken love a vivid pulse against her skin.

Her breath caught at the idea of not having them within telepathic reach. She hadn’t ever been that alone. Now she wasn’t only about to leave her home and family, she’d disengaged her shields from the others in the settlement. It was the first time in seven years she’d been adrift in the Net on her own.

Take care, Ivy. The back of her father’s hand grazed her mother’s as he telepathed Ivy.

I will, she said, achingly conscious of her mother looking at her with an intensity that said Gwen was storing the sight for later recall. I’ll call, I promise. Now more than ever she’d need their steady, grounding advice. I’ll miss you both so much.

Gwen Jane’s modulated breathing didn’t alter, her expression didn’t change, but her words held her heart. If you ever feel unsafe, we’ll come. Day or night, snow or rain, we’ll find you.

I know. Swallowing past the lump in her throat, Ivy picked up Rabbit. She knew he had to be kept under control during the teleport, but he disliked leashes and she didn’t subject him to one unless there was no other way; she knew too well what it was like to be strapped in with no way to escape.

“We’re ready,” she said to the Arrow with eyes of clear, beautiful winter frost, his lethally honed body a powerful presence by her side.

She wasn’t sure if he touched her, if he needed to, but there was a slight moment of disorientation . . . and then her parents no longer stood in front of her. Instead, she faced several small cabins set against a backdrop of dark green firs and snowcapped mountains under a stunning blue sky, the air holding a distinct bite and the area blanketed with fresh-fallen snow. Though it wasn’t the orchard that was her home, the beauty of it hurt her heart.

A black-haired male with sea blue eyes moved out of the trees to her immediate right an instant later, nodded at Vasic, and teleported out.

Ivy was too startled to be scared. “He was wearing the same uniform as you,” she said to Vasic after putting Rabbit on the ground. Her pet looked suspiciously around before deigning to sniff the snow. “Was he a member of your squad?”

A nod. “His name is Abbot. I stationed him here as a guard after I confirmed the area was secure.” He indicated the cabin to their left. “I placed your pack inside, but as we’re the first to arrive, you can choose another cabin if you wish.”

“No, this is perfect.” Located at one end of the rough semicircle of cabins, it wasn’t far from the trees where she knew Rabbit would love to play.

Inside, the simple wooden structure proved much like her home. The kitchen nook was to her left as she walked in, a small table with two chairs to her right, the bed at the back with a private annex for the facilities. Her backpack was sitting neatly at the foot of the bed, beside a folded up screen she could use to block off the bedroom area from the kitchen.

“Where are you and your people going to sleep?” she asked Vasic, who’d remained in the doorway, his wide shoulders blocking out the light.

“We have cots stacked in the larger cabin situated at the center of the semicircle.” Vasic’s eyes followed Rabbit as her pet looked longingly at the bed. “Does he sleep with you?”

“Drat.” Ivy lightly slapped her forehead. “I forgot his basket.”

“I’ll get it.”

“Oh, thank you. It’s just inside the back d—” And she was talking to air. “That could get extremely annoying extremely quickly.” Her scowling mutter had barely cleared the air when he was back.

Vasic placed the basket near the kitchen nook. “There’s food for him in one of the cupboards.” Rising to his feet, he held out a small package of canine treats Ivy must’ve inadvertently left on her kitchen counter. “I guessed you might want these.” He was absorbed by the idea that she spoiled her pet.

Ivy’s narrow-eyed frown dissolved into panic. “Hide it before he sees,” she ordered in a choked whisper, as if afraid Rabbit would understand.

Vasic ’ported the package into the same cupboard as the dog food he’d brought in for her pet.

Hand on her chest, Ivy shook her head. “You cannot ever show him the whole package,” she told him in a tone as solemn as a church. “I made that mistake the first time, and he was like a junkie, standing in front of the cupboard salivating all day, every day.”

Vasic didn’t understand her. At all. She didn’t act as a Psy was meant to act and so incited responses from him that were outside the norm. “Do you purchase treats for yourself as well?” he found himself asking, though why the knowledge mattered to him, he couldn’t articulate.

Ivy bit down on the plump flesh of her lower lip, her eyes lit from within. “When I was eighteen and a half,” she whispered, stepping so close that her exasperated dog forced his body between them, his furry coat pressed against Vasic’s combat boots, “I went into the township’s general store for the first time.”

Not backing off, Ivy continued to speak in a low, private tone, as if she was sharing a secret.

He found himself bending toward her.

“I had money I’d earned from helping on the farm,” she told him, “and I intended to buy useful supplies. Then the woman who runs the store with her husband offered me a sweet because I was ‘too skinny by half.’” Her eyes drifted shut, her sigh long . . . and he thought perhaps she’d forgotten she was standing defenseless in front of a trained killer.

He stayed motionless, unwilling to fracture the strange, inexplicable moment.

“It was soft and sweet enough to incite sugar shock,” she murmured, “and the most astonishingly delicious thing I’d ever tasted.” Her lashes flicked up to reveal those perceptive, expressive eyes of copper and gold. “She told me it was called a Turkish Delight. I bought an entire box and gorged myself. Then I went back the next day and bought another box.”

Glowing with a joy that saturated the air, she leaned in even closer and said, “I felt guilty so I bought Rabbit extra treats as well.” Tiny lines formed at the corners of her eyes, bracketed the curve of her lips. “Alas, that was the end of my money, so we both had to wait another whole month before I could get more.”

Vasic stared at her, wishing he had the capacity to comprehend her. Deep in the back of his mind, in the crumbled ruins of who he might’ve once been, he had the piercing thought that she was a rare, beautiful gift. And such a gift, came the ice-cold reminder from the core of his nature, would only end up crushed and bloody and defiled should he attempt to handle it.

Stepping away from her so suddenly that she swayed a little, he turned to walk to the door. “The others will be here soon.”

Ivy stared at his shoulders, the raw intensity of his gray eyes burned into her retinas, her body missing the powerful presence of his own. He’d watched her as if she was the only thing in the entire universe, as if she was his version of a Turkish Delight. As if he wanted to devour her whole. Shaking her head to rid it of the foolish, impossible thought, she followed him to the porch.

Rabbit quivered by her side until she bent to pet him and whisper, “Go, explore. I’ll stay in sight so you can still protect me.” A happy lick, a “woof,” and Rabbit scampered out to sniff at the rocks and the grass that poked up through the snow near the trees.

A few steps out, he froze, then started again, froze. Again and again.

Concerned, she spoke to Vasic without looking at him, unsettled after . . . whatever it was that had happened between them. “He’s never behaved like that. Do you think he might be sensing contaminati—”

“He’s picking up the scents of the wolves and leopards who built the cabins.”

Oh. Ivy rose slightly on her toes, uplifted by the bubbles of excitement in her blood. “Will we see the changelings?” She’d never been near any big predator—discounting Vasic. He could’ve easily been a wolf, pure black with eyes of stunning frost.

“Highly probable.”

Unable to resist, she turned her eyes to his profile. It was clean, pure.

Hard.

“The experiment can’t begin until your minds have relocated to this region of the PsyNet.”

It took Ivy several seconds to wrench her thoughts back from the image that had formed in her mind between one heartbeat and the next—not of a black wolf after all, but of a warrior-priest from eons past. Strong and unwavering in the face of evil, and with a courage that defied comprehension.

“Yes,” she managed to say, stunned by the force and potency of the image. Yet, was it a true insight born of instincts of which she wasn’t consciously aware, or was she seeing such qualities in Vasic because she needed to see them, needed to think of him as a protector rather than the opposite?

“It shouldn’t take long,” he said into the heavy silence.

Rubbing her hands over her arms, her sweater suddenly too thin, Ivy simply nodded. Academics attempted to claim knowledge, but no one understood all the rules of the psychic plane. Minds were usually anchored in one place by a biofeedback link, but individuals could go anywhere in the Net, even travel physically to another continent with no change in their psychic location. However, if a person wanted to reanchor, as Ivy did, the process could take as little as twenty-four hours.

Hearing voices, she realized someone else had arrived. Curious but also a little shy, she turned to Vasic. “Shall we go meet them?”

He walked down the single step to the ground in response, the black silk of his hair kissing his collar. It couldn’t be regulation length, and she liked the fact that despite first appearances, he wasn’t the perfect soldier . . . was perhaps her warrior-priest after all.

The first meeting went well, Chang a personable cardinal not much taller than Ivy. “I’m a scientist in my ordinary life,” he told her, before they parted so he could claim a cabin.

His Arrow was far more remote.

The others arrived in short order. Seated on her little porch only one step up from the ground, she drank a cup of tea and watched everyone settle in, while Rabbit ran around and sniffed at the newcomers, ecstatic at this adventure. Odd as it was, he didn’t bristle at any other Arrow. Only Vasic.

Either her pet’s instincts were diametrically opposed to her own . . . or he was jealous. And what, Ivy thought, did that say about her own response to an Arrow who remained a black-clad stranger—one who’d taken the time to make certain her cabin was stocked with food suitable for Rabbit.

Calling her pet back when his curiosity seemed to discomfort a small blonde who’d been the last to arrive, she promised him they’d play later. Satisfied, he drank from his water bowl, then sat panting beside her.

As it had so many times over the past two hours, Ivy found her gaze drifting toward Vasic. He was standing in the center of the clearing talking to several other Arrows. The presence of other members of his squad did nothing to mute her fascination with him—none drew her as he did, the quiet, dangerous mystery of him quickly becoming her new addiction.

Reaching out with her mind before she could second-guess herself, she “knocked” against his, her shoulders tensed in anticipation of a rejection. No doubt Arrows limited mental contact to those they trusted.

Do you have a question, Ivy? His telepathic voice was as cool as his physical one.

The hairs rose on her arms, born of a visceral reaction she couldn’t define, but knew wasn’t fear. What are you doing? It felt unutterably intimate to be speaking to him on the psychic level while the world moved around them, unaware of the connection.

Discussing security protocols. Would you like the information? The data flowed into her mind on the heels of his question.

Hmm, interesting, she said, though she couldn’t make heads or tails of the complex diagrams. I’m going to explore.

You’re free to do so. The perimeter is at some distance and clearly marked.

Rabbit rose the instant she did, his eyes bright. Smiling at him because it was impossible not to, she put her mug safely next to a porch post, then tapped her thigh, and they headed away from the cabins. “Be good,” she said, though she wasn’t worried her little white shadow would race too far.

Vasic? she said again.

Yes, Ivy?

It was strange how quickly his mental touch had become familiar. Can you tell the changelings about Rabbit in case he accidentally breaches the perimeter?

I’ve already done so. They have promised to herd him back if he does.

A deep warmth uncurling in her abdomen, she said, Thank you.

No response, no polite words. “Because he only says what is necessary.” And, she reminded herself in an effort to fight the temptation to draw him out further, he was working. “Come on, Rabbit. Let’s go find that stream we can hear.”

Tail wagging happily, Rabbit padded beside her through the sun-dappled spaces between the trees. His first winter with her, she’d tried to keep him inside, but her pet had made it clear he loved the snow. Now it was only on the coldest days that she left him snug inside their home.

A couple of minutes of easy walking later, the two of them stood beside a stream that looked like a picture she’d once seen in a children’s storybook, the water creating a quiet music as it ran over smooth pebbles as large as her palm.

Hearing the crackle of fallen branches underfoot behind her, she turned to see Chang. “Hello.”

The distinctive night-sky eyes of a cardinal, white stars on black, focused on Rabbit. “Is that a pet?”

“Yes.” Ivy had made a decision to own her new life, no matter where it led. No lies, no half-truths. Not even from herself. “My Silence is fractured to the point of being nonexistent.” And no one, she decided at that instant beside a sunlit stream, would ever make her feel lesser for it; she wouldn’t permit it.

Ivy?

Yes, Vasic? she said in a deliberate echo of the way he’d answered her earlier . . . and it felt like the beginnings of a secret language.

Are you at ease being alone with Chang? I saw him head in the same direction as you.

Something twisted in her heart. Yes. Thank you for checking.

Your safety is my priority.