Chapter Thirty Three
They made it to the infirmary in time and were able to get ahold of Dr. Nallia at Dahlia’s request. Rezzi’s psyche was going to be battered as well: a bit from the work she’d done and more from the unnatural amount he’d pushed himself. His subconscious knew it even if his conscious mind was fully unaware.
She stayed with him while Nallia dropped him gently into unconsciousness and stabilized his body so no further damage would be done. Only then did Dahlia begin to remove the bindings she’d placed on his mind. Even under the measures Nallia had taken his face grew wan and his skin took on an unhealthy shade as she did so.
Nallia’s eyes held a look of pity for the young soldier as she began repairing his body. “I’m surprised he was able to walk in here in this state.”
Dahlia closed her eyes, “He shouldn’t have been able to. He didn’t even know he was hurting.”
“Really?” Nallia gave the captain a searching look.
“Yes. We were attacked, he was in a unique position to make a difference in whether we kept the gate intact or not but he was already exhausted. I temporarily disabled the limits his mind placed on his body and the warnings that he was reaching them so he could keep fighting.”
The older woman focused intently on her work but said softly, “That sounds like a hard call to make.”
Dahlia looked down at the man lying at death’s doorstep. “I would have traded places with him if I could. But he’s a soldier and he will be proud of what he did today and hopefully the consequences will not linger long.”
“I don’t imagine they will,” Nallia reassured her. “He’ll be tired and sore and need rest tomorrow but then he’ll be absolutely fine.”
Dahlia stayed until it became apparent that Nallia wouldn’t need any more assistance from her. She left Rezzi in the doctor’s capable hands.
She started back towards her barrack, expecting to catch her soldiers as they returned. The sun had fully set as she’d stayed with Rezzi. About halfway there she encountered Traedon coming from the direction she’d been heading.
“Captain DeMorra!”
“Lieutenant Traedon, were you looking for me?”
“Captain Borreal heard about the attack on the gate and sent me to request a report from you. I was told you were at the infirmary but I’m relieved to see you look well. Were you injured?”
Dahlia half wondered whose idea it had started as and hid a smile. At the very least Traedon had volunteered to run messenger to see how she was. Whoever he’d run into at her barrack must not have mentioned she’d been taking Rezzi to the infirmary.
“No, not injured. I was escorting Rezzi who was forced to push himself past his limits defending us. He was the only soldier on site who was able to manipulate fire and pulling so much off the gate took more out of him than he would normally have been able to give.”
Traedon’s frown deepened. “Is he ok?”
“He will be. He made quite a sacrifice to ensure that the rest of the division had time to organize, get reinforcements, and stabilize the gate.”
“Well I’m glad he’ll be alright. And glad to hear you speak so highly of his actions. We’re lucky he was there when the attack started.”
“Yes, we were. It was actually pure chance. He and Genji were playing at worrying the enemy when he happened to hit a group working on explosives that thought they were well out of range. At that point they were forced to attack us in daylight rather than give us hours to prepare a defense knowing their strategy ahead of time. Genji and Rezzi took out some of their explosives and the soldiers on guard were able to stop close to half of them when they charged the gate. Even with that the amount that made it through caused a troubling amount of damage. We were extremely lucky.” She wasn’t exaggerating. She was still amazed at the fortune they’d had; Genji had picked the right group to target and with Rezzi rather than a bow, she had picked the right group under the structure...
“What abilities did the enemy display?”
“Impressive psychic and physical barriers. The most daunting thing is the level of constructs they’ve made. Between the metal disk that neutralizes psychic abilities and the metal structures they used during the charge that were able to shield the men from an intense amount of heat and explosive force I’d wager that is their strongest advantage.” Dahlia didn’t like the implications in that now that she’d stopped to consider it.
“If Ahriman is involved,” she continued, “that’s to be expected and it worries me. He was extremely gifted and years ahead of anyone else in his time here. If his methods hadn’t run to unethical he would still be celebrated here.”
Traedon stepped closer and put a hand on her arm as she met his intense green eyes. “ Dahlia, if you’re worried then I am, too. I can’t help wishing you could stay safe--that I could keep you safe--when they’ve placed a target on your back. I don’t want you to have to face them like that again.”
“Lieutenant Traedon, Captain DeMorra,” a familiar voice broke in.
Damn that man, he shouldn’t be able to move so silently, Dahlia thought to herself.
Traedon quickly dropped his hand to his side and drew back.
“Captain Ravin, good evening,” he managed to hide any embarrassment beneath the careful mask of a soldier.
“Good evening, Lieutenant,” Ravin’s gravelly voice sounded suspiciously cheerful. Dahlia smelled the smoke that still clung to him. “Mind if I take Captain DeMorra from you?”
“Of course not, Captain,” Traedon’s voice held absolutely no suspicion. Dahlia could have hit Ravin. He was having fun with this.
“Captain Ravin...” Dahlia began.
Ravin cut in, “We can catch up in the captain’s lounge unless you’d prefer your office?”
Dahlia ground her teeth at the subtle insinuation. No, she would not like to catch up with him in private. “Very well. Lieutenant Traedon, is there anything else I can give you for Captain Borreal?”
“I’m sure he’d appreciate Captain Ravin’s perspective,” Traedon offered.
“I sent a full report once Belakris took over, he should have that shortly. Thank you, Lieutenant.”
Traedon recognized a dismissal from a superior officer and took it. It made Dahlia want to smack Ravin with the blade of her ax, see if she could leave a mark in his hide. She had to admit that this was mostly her fault, but Ravin didn’t have to enjoy it so much.
“You didn’t strike me as the jealous type,” she shot at him once Traedon was well out of earshot.
“If I was jealous he’d be dead.” Kenny grinned at her. “I can see why you like him, he’s pretty.”
“I am not discussing this with you.”
“You started it.”
“What did you want, Kenny?”
A deep chuckle resonated through his chest. She ignored it.
“I needed to know what you saw that I couldn’t and I thought you could use a decent drink. How’s Rezzi?”
“He’ll live,” Dahlia sighed as they neared the entrance. “Nallia stabilized him before the damage had progressed too far and she thinks he’ll be back on his feet in a couple days.”
Kenny held the door for her as they walked in. With the force on such a high state of alert they were the only ones in the lounge so Dahlia had her pick of tables. She went to one with low, soft seats and a scarred wooden table. Kenny disappeared behind a high counter and she heard him shifting bottles aside. He reappeared with two cups and a plain brown bottle and joined her. He placed them on the table she’d chosen before pulling a seat up beside the table and pouring a generous amount into each cup.
Dahlia hesitantly put the cup up to her lips and sipped. It contained a strong, herbaceous spirit mildly reminiscent of the scent of the forest around them on a summer’s night. She was impressed in spite of herself.
“Do you like it?” he asked her.
“It’s very good. I didn’t know we kept spirits like this on hand or I would have been by the lounge more often.”
“I hide it behind all the stuff nobody likes. Nallia makes it for me when she’s in a good mood.”
Dahlia stared hard at the bottle. “Nallia distills spirits…”
“She doesn’t like it when I tell people that so don’t mention it.”
She took another appreciative sip. “And how would I go about convincing her to give me a bottle?”
“Tell you what. How about you don’t mention I told you and I’ll give you the rest of that bottle and one of the next ones she gives me.”
“I couldn’t possibly…” Dahlia started.
“If you like it, take it. I have more.”
“Alright, I won’t turn it down a second time. Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it. I wanted to ask what you did to Rezzi.”
“I temporarily blocked the parts of him that communicate pain and exhaustion. I did the same thing to myself the day before. Normally your body protects itself by not letting you go past a certain point so you don’t force it to consume itself to fuel your actions. I just overrode that system of protection so he could keep going until it literally killed him.”
“Can you do that to anyone?” Dahlia felt his comfort with her answers coupled with the strong drink lowering her guard again. But, she reasoned, the information could be worth him having if they faced a similar situation in the future.
“Probably, if they trusted me and let me in their head. Rezzi trusts me enough to drop his shield entirely, no reservations. That’s asking a lot of someone who doesn’t know me as well.”
“That man you sent against his own men, you were able to get in his head though.”
“Yes, there’s different ways I can do it and different consequences. If someone trusts me enough to let me in then it’s easy for me and the damage to them is minimal. If I just nudge someone lightly using an emotion or urge then they may be uncomfortable but they’ll get over it. If someone resists but I have enough time to dismantle their shield carefully then it’s traumatizing. But if I have to--and am able to--break their shield through brute force and enter their mind then there’s a strong chance of long term or permanent damage to their psyche. Of course that also depends on the person. Like a fighter conditioning his physical body, you can build up a tolerance to it. If I’d broken into Mayuera’s mind he’d take some damage but he could recover without any long term consequences.”
She shuddered very slightly. “The man I sent to attack the others was close to death anyways. He didn’t have the mental strength to resist. If, by some impossible odds, he survived his mind would have been permanently broken.”
Kenny looked thoughtful as he asked, “So it doesn’t have to be a bad thing?”
“No, it’s like…” Dahlia stopped herself. The spirit had loosened her filter too much. She did not want to go into that analogy with this man.
She felt his intense focus center on her. “Like what?” he asked.
She searched for another analogy but couldn’t find one. “Rough analogy but this is the best I can offer: it’s like sex. It can be intimate, positive if the circumstances are good but they aren’t always. The way I use my abilities, almost never.”
Her voice trailed off. What about talking to this man made her babble out things she’d kept secret for so many years?
As if he sensed she’d gone too far and wanted to retreat he asked her about the battle at the gate again. “Can you tell me how you broke the barriers?”
Dahlia straightened herself and sipped the spirit in her cup, back on comfortable ground. “The first time I got lucky. We picked the structure that didn’t have the soldier with psychic abilities. He must have just placed a solid shield around that one then actively guarded the other. The shield I broke was solid but brittle. All I had to do was hit a sharp spike into a weak spot and it crumbled. There must have been two soldiers who could create physical barriers, one with each group. Once the psychic barrier around the group we focused on was gone my soldiers were able to hammer at the man creating the physical barrier until he went down or at least lost focus and his barrier disappeared.”
Kenny watched her. She could tell he was absorbing what she was saying and working it into his mental model of battle strategy. She continued, “The second one must have been the man who created the first shield I broke. His fellow soldier blocked Rezzi’s stream of fire, keeping it close to the gate. It was an attempt to buy as much time as possible. He must have guessed that Rezzi couldn’t keep up pushing that much fire around, especially with someone resisting him. He also must have guessed or been told that I was there and would be much stronger than he was. So instead of facing me straight on he took a defensive advantage. Whenever I sent out energy to probe the area he was in he could sense it coming and would throw up a concentrated, temporary block to redirect my energy. If I’d thrown a strike then he would have had time to deflect it. So I was working blind and at an offensive disadvantage. I could have worn him down by just hammering at him but covering distance makes things harder to do and it would have taken a while.”
Dahlia paused to take another sip. “The major disadvantage of that strategy is that it takes much more concentration. If he’d just been holding a shield he probably could have done that and reacted to anything unexpected. Parrying me, though, required complete focus to watch for and deflect blasts. Especially if I had had multiple people start shooting at him. So I sent the injured man at him to distract him, even if it was just for a moment or two. I wasn’t sure I could hold the compulsion and the pain suppression on the injured man at that distance and shoot but I had Fidelity, Arreal, and Jo-jo available so they aimed at the soldier while I distracted him. I’d hoped that the physical barrier wasn’t constructed to stop men, just projectiles. Once my soldiers hit the psychic he wasn’t able to focus enough to block me.”
“But you were able to suppress Rezzi’s pain without holding it?”
“I created a temporary construct in his mind. I was able to touch him and he welcomed me in, trusted me.”
Kenny nodded slowly, taking in what she’d said. “I’m not very vulnerable to psychic attacks or compulsions so I haven’t paid much attention to them, but from what you’re telling me I think it would be at least interesting to be able to sense them.”
Dahlia recognized the subtlety of what he’d done. He was aware she wasn’t entirely comfortable talking about her abilities so he’d offered her information that he’d kept quiet about himself. Similar to what he’d done in the woods when she’d noticed his presence had changed. She had seen his shield but she hadn’t known how strong it was. He’d just told her, indirectly, that not much had been able to shake it.
“You said it could be good.” Dahlia felt the man’s intense focus suddenly center on her. Unprepared for the question, she responded without thinking. “Yes, you’ve felt echoes of it before.”
Kenny leaned forward, a grin showing his canines. “Have I?”
Dahlia tried to stay relaxed. “Yes,” she said trying hard not to think back to the instance. She felt her cheeks growing warm. Why did her response to him send her hard-won self control flying out the window? She focused on keeping her pulse and breath slow and relaxed.
Black eyes were fixed, unwavering on hers. “I’m interested.”
“That first night in the woods. And...other times.” She said, keeping her voice even. “A resonance you could call it, that amplifies an experience, makes it more intense.”
“And that was just an echo?” His voice had deepened almost to a growl.
She hesitated. “Yes.”
“So what’s the whole thing like?”
“I don’t know.”
He looked taken by surprise. “You don’t know?”
“No, I don’t. I told you, entering someone’s mind is not something I do lightly and what you’re talking about goes well beyond that. It’s not some small part of you; everything you have and everything you are would be exposed and laid bare for another person.”
He was silent for a beat.
“Ok,” he said simply. She felt his intensity recede and she relaxed.
“I did give you the bottle, but I suppose you won’t mind if I have a bit more?” He asked, his tone returning to normal.
She reached out and poured more into the empty cup next to her half full one. She was definitely feeling the effects of the spirit. If she topped hers off she might sleep through any alarm that went off during the night.
She let her mind wander as they sat together. What he’d been asking about was something fairly well known among people with stronger psychic abilities. It wasn’t widely discussed because, well, you also didn’t go around talking about exactly what you’d done with whom when it came to sex. Plenty of young members just coming into their psychic abilities whispered about it with their friends, though. When two bodies joined in something as intimate as sex an energy was created between the two people. With psychic abilities you could take it one step further and join minds as well. That created an amplification of what they were feeling as it fed from one person’s mind into the other’s and then back. The result was literally mind blowing sex. All it required was the willingness to open yourself up a little bit more than normal, drop your shield, and allow the touch of another person’s mind. It was similar to what she’d felt with him already.
With Dahlia, though, nothing with her abilities was ever simple or by the halves. Most people with abilities could touch and feel. She could completely immerse herself in another person’s mind and have them be immersed in hers. Add in her ability to amplify and project anything she was feeling and there was a very strong chance you wouldn’t be able to tell where one person ended and the other began. Then, once it began, she would lose control over it.
The first night in the woods she’d found some of that resonance with Kenny. Even with her shield up that small amount had been enough to overwhelm her and saturate her world. That had been the first time she’d ever experienced it and it had thrown her control out the window, drowned out her better judgement.
The second time he’d pushed some of her own energy back into her, setting off that resonance again as it amplified. She’d been just as caught up in it as the first time.
The third time...well, she didn’t have an explanation for the third time. The first time she’d thought maybe her shield had just slipped or the exhilaration of the night had caught her off guard. But the third time she’d been prepared, her shield had been intact, and she’d still felt it.
The man was all kinds of maddening. He caused her to lose control, brought out parts of her she wasn’t comfortable with, and seemed unphased by anything she said to him. Yet she found herself relaxing around him, opening up and talking about things she’d kept hidden. Even now, when he’d pushed just far enough to take her off balance, she was comfortable with his presence.
She spoke to break herself out of that chain of thoughts. “Any movement outside of our post?”
“Nothing for sure yet but I imagine it’ll be something soon. They’re still trying to burn the gate but we’ve got enough control that it’ll be more of a distraction than anything else. Force us to spread thinner. Jenue and Borreal both got bad feelings about the westernmost section of Barrack Three. Nothing concrete but if someone offered me decent odds I’d be willing to bet.”
Dahlia felt bone-tired as she drained the last of the spirit in her cup. Kenny stood and pulled her to her feet. She felt the alcohol burning through her system as his sudden proximity acted like a drug on her mind. Her breath caught and she felt pulled towards him. He held her gaze for a moment, his black eyes unreadable. He moved to hold her face and he kissed her. It was oddly tender for him. Wasn’t rough, wasn’t demanding. He didn’t try to take it deeper. She felt locked in place against him for a moment then she withdrew and he let her go. He shifted back and pushed the bottle towards her as he scooped up the two cups and went to drop them on the counter.
Dahlia’s heart beat hard. Damn it. She walked towards the door to the outside and Kenny followed.
The night was warm and lingered with the spirit on her tongue. If she searched for it she could smell smoke still coming from the gate, though her nose had become used to it lingering on her and Kenny. Beside her shadows played over Kenny’s face and she imagined she could see the black scaled monster, struggling beneath the surface to be released. She looked down at a hand, shadows from leaves and lines twisted over her as well and she recalled what Mayuera had told her.
One shadow shot through from that hand, pierced her heart…
Two monsters walking under a summer moon then, she mused, with fire and death littered behind them. A soft breeze made the shadows dance around her and brought with it more of the scent of smoke.
They came to the point where their paths split and she turned towards her barrack.
“If you want someone to watch your back tonight I’d be happy to offer.”
Dahlia turned back to find Kenny grinning at her again.
“Goodnight, Kenny,” she said. She walked back towards her room with the sound of his low laugh caressing her back and the moonlight and shadows that twisted around her.