would no doubt love to eavesdrop on this tender conversation, but if he and Kayan were going to plan anything…
“I… can I just hold you?” he asked.
She didn’t look very pleased with the idea, but she didn’t say no, so he shifted over to her bunk and put his left arm around her, being careful not to smear her clothing with his bloody right arm.
They looked into each other’s eyes from the closest vantage since they’d been captured. Kayan blinked, then smiled ever so faintly. “I’d almost forgotten what it felt like when we touch.”
“So had I.” Jedra lowered his head and kissed the hollow where her neck and shoulders met, tasting the unmistakable essence of her skin beneath the sweat and dust of the arena. He raised up to kiss her on the mouth, but she pulled back.
“Don’t.”
He stopped with his lips just brushing hers. “Why not?”
“Because it’ll only make me love you even more, and I can’t bear it.”
Jedra said, “You can’t bear to love me? Why not?”
She shook her head. “I can’t bear to lose you.”
“Ah,” he said, but he was thinking she had a funny way of showing it, if that’s how she’d felt for the last few weeks. Or maybe the sudden realization that they had only a week left had made her examine her own feelings. Who could say?
“You’re not going to lose me,” he whispered to her.
“How can you say that? We have to fight each other next time.” She pressed her face against his chest, and hot tears left streaks as they fell. “Oh, Jedra, what have we done?”
“Listen,” he whispered. “We’re going to escape. Right now.”
She sniffed and looked up at him. “What?” “This is as good a time as we’re going to get. There’re just two psionicists in the whole compound, and a couple of dozen soldiers. It’s the opportunity we’ve been waiting for. Let’s do it.”
“Do what?”
Jedra kissed her neck again, nibbling his way up to her ear. Barely mouthing the words, he said, “When we link up, the first thing we do is blast the psionicists before they can react. Then… I don’t know. I guess we try to make it over or through the wall somehow, and try to get into the crowd leaving the city after the games. Maybe I can disguise us a little bit by bending the light around us.”
“Maybe? Jedra, this doesn’t sound very well thought out.”
“If you’ve got a better idea, I’m all ears.”
She shook her head. “No, I haven’t.”
“Then let’s go. Are you ready?”
“No.” She lifted her head and kissed him, her lips already hot and soft from crying. The rush of sensation caught Jedra by surprise. He lost himself in the kiss, closing his eyes and letting it carry him away for an eternal moment into a place where only the two of them existed.
“Now I’m ready,” Kayan whispered.
If the kiss was a welcome surprise, joining minds again was fantastic. The surge of strength and well-being that flowed through them was better than they had remembered, and the heightened sense of awareness made them feel like immortals. Time seemed to slow to a crawl while their intellects joined once more into a single mind. The psionicist guards, still smiling embarrassedly as they watched their prisoners embrace, had no idea what incredible new power was being born right under their noses.
Jedra and Kayan never gave them time to discover it. As soon as they had merged, they exploded outward and attacked straight at the psionicists’ unprotected minds, overrunning their defenses without resistance. They weren’t able to suppress the guards’ instinctive cries of alarm, neither vocal nor psionic, but they managed to cut them short, using Kayan’s medical abilities to drop the guards into a deep sleep.
Before the bodies had even slumped to the floor, they had moved their focus of awareness on out through the wall and into the compound beyond. It didn’t look as if anyone had noticed anything unusual, but they couldn’t be sure. The psionic shout could have been heard halfway across the city if anyone was attuned to it.
The servants’ gate in the alley was the least guarded; it was visible from only three observation towers—one along the wall and two on the rear corners of the mansion. That meant deceiving six guards, maybe seven if one of the ones on foot patrol was nearby. Not the best of odds, but it was the best they would get, and they were committed now. They brought their awareness