S’Vaan. After all, I assume blind faith did not lead you to undertake the Vesh.”
She nodded down at the scars on his wrists. He didn’t reply, so she continued. “For a warrior to have undergone ritual atonement and cleansing, ridding themselves of past sins and alliances, indicates either blind faith, in which case I would have expected you to enter a monastery, or a need to distance yourself from your family. Since you stand before me, you know what your brother is.”
“Of course I do.” He wasn’t an idiot, far from it. “He was already one step off radicalization when I was thrown out. Without me there as one small voice of reason, our father would have easily been able to bend Tavik to his will.”
He sighed, running a hand through his hair. For saying he and Tavik were litaan, their physical appearance was where their similarities ended. Tavik was hot-headed and impetuous, not often liable to look before he leaped. He was also cruel and single-minded when he wanted to be, and that last was what worried Nyek the most.
“What I need to know is what kind of links he has forged, what has shaped his thought processes since I last knew him. My father has apparently anointed himself prophet of Ursal-Kai but I need to know which of that god’s teachings they are following, so I can formulate a strategy against them.”
Miisan nodded in approval. “Know your enemy. Know yourself.”
He inclined his head as though that answer should be obvious. And it should. He was not a green youngling facing his first battle but a warrior of many years’ standing. And he knew to win the coming fight against his brother, he needed to get inside his brother’s head, as distasteful as that might be. He needed to know his brother… his enemy… inside out, to know him as well as he knew himself. Only then could he accurately predict what Tavik would do next.
Once he could do that… he could beat him.
Before the AI could answer him, though, the door behind him opened with a soft whoosh of air. Nyek turned with a smile of surprise, expecting to see Indra. He hadn’t expected her back quite so soon. She was a stubborn female. It was part of her charm… and he’d expected it to take longer for her to get over her snit with him.
But it wasn’t her.
Instead, Stephens stumbled through the door, blood streaming down the side of his face. Anger twisted his features as he pointed his rifle at Nyek. For all that he wavered where he stood, his arm was rock solid and Nyek read his own death in the human’s single-colored eyes.
“I don’t know what your fucking game is, asshole, but you bring them back. Right fucking now!”
Nyek lifted his hands slowly in the air as he faced down the enraged human. He made sure not to make any sudden movements.
“Bring who back?” he asked, but the sinking feeling in the center of his chest told him he already knew.
“You damn well know who!” Stephens snarled. “Bring Gracie and Indra back from wherever your asshole buddies have taken them.”
Nyek’s blood froze in his veins. Tavik. It had to be.
“I don’t have any ‘buddies’ here,” he said in a calming and reasonable voice. All the while he was working out the distance between himself and Stephens. He could throw a blade and hope to knock the human’s weapon aside but the chances were he’d be shot crossing the distance between them. He didn’t want to use the blaster strapped to his hips. Indra would never forgive him if he killed her friend.
“We all arrived here are the same time, remember? Now… tell me what happened?” he asked, refusing to panic until he had all the information. For all he knew, Stephens could have slipped in the shower and hit his head. Started having hallucinations. The blood on the side of his face indicated that was a possibility.
“We were in that trashed lab in Sector Four, printing a body for Keris—”
There was a harsh intake of breath from behind Nyek.
“You went into Sector Four?” Miisan demanded, anger in her voice. “After I told you not to? I have no access to the internal sensors in that sector, nor to the landing pads on the deck below it.”
“Draanth.” He turned back to Stephens. “What happened then?”
Their conversation was interrupted by another arrival. Seren K’Vass staggered into view. His skin was as grey as the doorframe he