Shards of Hope (Psy-Changeling 14)

“You want to bring the enemy to the table?” Krychek asked with a raised eyebrow. “Ida leads the anti-E brigade.”

“Trouble happens when people don’t believe they have a voice.”

“Ida isn’t ready to be convinced even by the clearest evidence,” Kaleb responded, his tone hard. “She’s a bigot who’ll foster dissonance with her public disagreement with Coalition decisions.”

Ivy looked troubled but nodded. “We can’t afford that right now. But I still think the pro-Silence camp needs to feel like they have a real voice.”

They didn’t come to an agreement on that point, but all six of them stood side by side as they made the transmission through media channels and on the PsyNet declaring that, from this point on, the Ruling Coalition was no longer an interim agency but a permanent one. The membership was to remain stable until circumstances dictated the need for change.

Without being heavy-handed, Anthony made it clear that with Krychek, the Es, and the Arrows, as well as the F-Psy Anthony brought with him and the sprawling financial network controlled by Nikita, the Coalition was more than powerful enough to ensure its mandates were followed. He made no threats, spoke of no retaliation, but the message was crystal clear: the Ruling Coalition would permit dissent, but it would not allow anyone to destroy the hard-won stability of the Net.

Chapter 38

AFTER ALL THE work done to put their plans in place, this show of unrivaled strength was the last thing the group needed. Switching off the feed, the leader of the group—no matter if the others believed themselves equal—sent out a request for an urgent meeting.

Net stability could not be permitted to take root.

Chapter 39

THE SECTIONS FOR the first of the new buildings in the valley arrived faster than Zaira had expected and were put together at speed. The DarkRiver changelings had shared their expertise with a generosity Zaira wouldn’t have understood if she hadn’t spent that time in RainFire. It was about the children.

Changeling young were the packs’ greatest weakness.

Yet Zaira knew she’d never use that knowledge to harm them. They were allies and they were becoming friends. Remi and Aden, in particular, had kept the lines of communication open.

“He says we’re in remedial alpha school,” Aden had told her a week earlier. “It’s good to speak with someone who’s facing many of the same challenges, though it may not appear that way on the surface.”

The sane part of Zaira was glad for him that he was building another friendship, but the rage part of her was jealous as always . . . because she missed him. He had so many calls on his time, and though she was now his partner in this new life he wanted for the squad, it felt as if she’d barely seen him since the meeting ten days ago. And the aloneness, it was nibbling at her again though she was in the Net. This time, it wasn’t isolation that haunted her; it was going to bed without Aden by her side. Her body had learned to crave him even after so short a time together.

Her hands curled into fists as she stood on a cliff that overlooked the valley lit by the orange-gold rays of the late afternoon sun, memories of her screaming madness in the desert a piercing echo that reverberated in her skull.

That’s who I become when I step outside the box.

Accept your anger, Zaira, and you’ll strip it of its power.

A crackle sounded from behind her, small feet crushing fallen leaves.

“You’re not permitted up here,” she said to the child who stood a short distance away.

The solemn boy with creamy skin pinked by time in the sun, his sandy brown hair neatly combed, and his uniform spotless, stayed in place.

“What’s your name?”

“Tavish.”

“How did you get up here?” It was a difficult hike even for an adult.

In answer, the boy raised a leaf off the ground without touching it. So, he was a telekinetic with teleportation abilities. No doubt he’d broken the psychic leash on those abilities, at least on some level, if he was here. While Zaira abhorred cages, she’d been forced to accept that some were an unfortunate necessity. Children didn’t always understand why they shouldn’t ’port somewhere.

And it wasn’t always about making a fatal technical error and finding yourself in the middle of a city street in front of traffic that couldn’t slow down in time or ending up buried in a house that had been crushed by an avalanche but still functioned as a visual lock. When Zaira was twelve, a boy Tavish’s age had broken free and ’ported to his family home. He was shot dead by his much older brother, a telepath who’d barely survived the last time the Tk lost hold of his abilities.

After being in RainFire, being so close to the fragile forms of children, holding Jojo in her arms and feeling her small arms wrap around her, Zaira couldn’t understand how an adult could so coldly execute a child, or how her own parents could’ve treated her with such brutality. It made her question if she had in fact inherited the madness as she’d always believed; if she had, wouldn’t she be as cruel?

“Come here.”

“I broke the rules,” Tavish said after reaching her. “I’ll be punished.”

The words crashed into another memory.

No biting. Bad Jojo.

The little girl had displayed dejection at the memory of misbehavior, but her body and face had held none of the stoic endurance Zaira saw in Tavish. “You did break the rules,” she said. “Explain to me why.”

The child bit down on his wobbly lower lip, his Silence clearly imperfect despite his attitude. “You want to know why?”