Heart of Obsidian

reminded him he was hers and
no one
else’s.
    The past, she told him with her every touch, had no claim on either one of them.
    Breaking the kiss when he would’ve drawn her closer, she said, “Don’t tempt me,” and nudged him toward a chair she must’ve brought from inside the house. “I’ve been working on something I want you to see. We still have time, don’t we?”
    “A half hour,” he said. “But first”—he lifted his arm, the bandage gone, the skin no longer red thanks to two minutes with an M-Psy—“I had it done a few hours ago.” The same M had excised the original burn with a skill that had left Kaleb with only the faintest scar now obscured by black ink. As for the medic, since she had kept her silence in all the years of her employ, he had no doubts she’d do the same now.
    Sahara traced the ink with a trembling finger before she bent to press her lips to the tattoo, her touch tender, her eyes dark with emotion. “I’ve branded you.”
    “You did that a long time ago.”
    “I did, didn’t I?” A tear he kissed off her cheek, one of his hands curving around her throat.
    “I told you,” she whispered against his lips, “I was very smart at sixteen. Now sit.”
    When he did, Sahara stepped back, stretched out her arms . . . and then she was dancing, her limbs flowing with a grace and a beauty that made it appear as if she had wings. He couldn’t breathe, wasn’t sure his heart beat until she stopped and went down on her knees in front of the chair, her hands on his thighs.
    “That’s all I have so far.” It was a laughing confession. “I know I’m rusty.”
    Chest painful, he said, “You were beautiful.” Strong and whole and a luminous repudiation of everything the monsters had tried to do to them both. “Again. Please.”
    The mist swirled around her in fragile streamers as she granted his request, her body seemingly weightless. When he gave her a cushion of air as he’d done when she’d been a girl, her eyes sparkled and she flew higher, her hair a midnight rain down her back, his Sahara for whom he would’ve burned down an entire civilization . . . except that she’d asked him to save it.
    “Kaleb!” Chest heaving, she held out her hands, her voice coaxing. “One dance.”
    “I can’t dance,” he said, even as he rose to walk to her.
    “I’ll teach you.” Taking one of his hands, she placed it on her hip. “And”—a slender hand on his shoulder, the fingers of the other intertwined with his—“I won’t even try to get answers to math problems.”
    Kissing her smile until it was in his blood, he processed her telepathic instructions with the brain of a Tk for whom movement was like breathing and took the first steps. Sahara gasped in delight, and then she was fluid lightning in his arms, their bodies forming a single unit as they moved across the grass.
    On the horizon, the first rays of a dazzling dawn splashed the sky with color.

Dawn

    AS DAWN BROKE on a new day, former Councilor Kaleb Krychek, his mind linked to a mysterious woman identified as Sahara Kyriakus, told the PsyNet that Silence was no longer the guiding protocol of their race.
    The Arrows, the guardians of Silence for over a century, stood by him.
    The ragged remnants of Pure Psy, scattered across the planet, vowed to fight the fall to the death, to destroy the world and seed it for a better one.
    Hundreds of thousands of fractured Psy went to their knees, their hearts breaking at the freedom to be what they had always been meant to be. Others huddled in confusion, waiting for someone to tell them what to do. And the weakest, they struggled not to break under a wave of change that threatened to drown.
    There will be those who seek to exploit this time of change,
read the decree that blazed with a single platinum star at the top, bracketed by two smaller emblems representing Nikita Duncan and Anthony Kyriakus, and underlined by a black arrow,
but we will respond with deadly force against anyone, regardless of status, rank, or ability, who attempts to seize control of any part of the Net.
    Our people have survived one civil war. A second will not be permitted.
    The statement of authority, of control, was a beacon not only to the weak and the confused, but to those who hoped for a better future. It gave them a structure to cling to, the violence of Kaleb Krychek’s power a paradoxically stabilizing force. No one, whispered men and women from one end of the globe to the other, would