Honour's Knight (21 page)

By this point, my gun was already wedged into his ribs to shoot him off me, but as I dug the barrel in, my finger hesitated. Rupert was staring down at me, and his cold mask was gone like it had never been. Instead, his face was a haggard mix of anger, fear, guilt, and love. So much love it made me pause, and in that moment, Rupert flicked up my visor and kissed me.

It should have been awkward to kiss through the opening of my helmet, but Rupert kissed me with such desperate passion he made it work. He was still on top of me, his body pinning down my suit with impossible strength, his shoulders hunched as his hands gripped my shoulders, caging me in. It was a familiar position, and it sent a memory rushing up so fast I couldn’t do anything but let it come.

It was another odd one. A strange, unfitting memory like the one I’d had before. This time, though, I’d guessed why. The memory felt weird because it wasn’t mine. It was Rupert’s. I knew this because there was simply no other way I could have a memory of seeing myself naked and asleep on his chest.

In the memory, I was looking down at myself lying on top of him with the sheets bunched up over our hips. I was facedown with one arm thrown across his chest like I was afraid he’d run away. My cheek was pressed flat over his heart, but my sleeping face was tilted up toward his, and my lips were curved in a smile so beautiful I could actually feel the ache of it in my bones.

If circumstances had been different, I would have burst out laughing. I have never looked that good in my life, and there was certainly no way I looked that good passed out with my sweaty hair clinging to my back. But I wasn’t seeing the truth, only Rupert’s perspective of it, and in his eyes, I was beautiful. The most beautiful, beloved, wondrous thing he had ever seen.

The memory vanished as fast as it had come, leaving me reeling. For a second, I couldn’t imagine how this could be, but then I remembered the feel of Rupert’s hand in my mind putting the memories Ren had dumped into my head back in order. He must have left some of himself behind in the process, because there was no question the image I’d seen was Rupert’s memory of our time together.

I could still feel his love for me like a hook in my stomach, and I knew here, at last, was the truth. This was no crush or infatuation. Rupert loved me with the same intensity he did everything else, loved me so much that the echo stayed with me even after the memory had sunk back into my unconscious, and now that I’d felt it, the red of my rage was all I could see.

Rupert was a symbiont, stronger than my suit. Anthony’s letter had warned me they were stronger than any armor, even the King-class suits, but raw strength wasn’t everything. Unlike a symbiont, the Lady Gray’s power could shift, and that was exactly what I did. Rupert was still on top of me, his lips on mine like a plea, but I didn’t even do him the courtesy of breaking the kiss before I swung all of my suit’s power to her legs and kicked him as hard as I could.

The blow sent him flying through the felled tree that had hidden my armor. I rolled to my feet the second I was free, coming up with Sasha trained on Rupert’s head as he crashed through the rotten wood. He landed in a crouch, but his blue eyes weren’t even looking at my gun. They were focused on my face, and the sad look in them made me want to scream.

“Devi…”

“
Shut up!
” I shouted. “Don’t say a word.”

He closed his mouth and started forward, but I shot the moss at his feet. He froze, looking at the little crater Sasha’s bullet had made, and he then sighed. “Devi,” he said sadly. “Stop this. I don’t want to hurt you.”

I went stiff. I’m no stranger to rage, I could even admit that I had a bit of an anger problem, but sometimes things got out of hand. Sometimes, my rage burned so hot that it went full circle, leaving me cold. I’d only hit the cold rage a few times in my life, but every time it happened, I did something I came to regret. I didn’t see how there was anything I could regret now, though, so I didn’t bother fighting the cold fury as I lowered my gun.

“You loved me.”

I didn’t realize how awful my voice sounded until Rupert winced. “I still love—”

“You reordered my memories,” I snarled. “Made me sick whenever I looked at you. You rewrote my life!”

“To save you,” Rupert snapped, his hands closing into fists.

“To save me,” I repeated, my voice so cold I was surprised the words didn’t come out with little puffs of frost. “Until you shot me in the head.”

If I’d had any lingering doubts that what I’d seen in the bunker hadn’t been a dream, the look on Rupert’s face would have done them in. He didn’t argue, didn’t deny it. He just stopped, his pale skin going even paler. “What?”

I formed my free hand into a gun and tapped my finger against my forehead through my still-open visor. “Pow,” I said. “Good job. Welcome back to the fold, Eye Charkov.”

As long as I live, I will never forget the look Rupert gave me then. If I hadn’t been trapped in the cold anger, it would have made me cry. I didn’t even know there was an expression for abject guilt and horror until it was staring me in the face. “How do you know about that?” he whispered.

“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “It happened. But for the record, I would
never
grovel like that.”

Rupert closed his eyes and dropped his head. When he spoke again, his words were calm, soft, and so sad I almost lost the cold rage. “I would apologize,” he whispered. “But I know there’s no excuse. I did something in that place that cannot be forgiven, and I regret it more than anything I’ve ever done.”

“And yet you keep doing it!” I shouted. Cold rage or not, I was so mad I was shaking, and I stepped forward so hard my boot sank three inches into the leaf litter. “You stand there saying you love me, that you did all this crap to save me, but you gave me to
Caldswell
to hand over to the Eyes! And now you’re going to do it again! You’re here to grab me for Caldswell so he can shove me in a lab for the rest of my
life
!”

“I have no choice!” Rupert shouted. He was breathing heavy too, his icy calm shattering before my eyes. “You know what I am, what we do. You know what’s at stake. If it were up to me, I’d never have given you a reason to run in the first place, but it’s
not
. It doesn’t matter how much I love you, I’m an Eye, just like Caldswell. I have a duty I cannot betray. You saw the wreckage of that planet, you saw what the phantoms do.”

“And what would you have done against that?”

“Nothing,” Rupert admitted. “We could not have saved Unity, but we have saved thousands of other planets, Devi. Every day, all of the known universe, the Republic, the Sevalis, even Paradox is in danger. It’s only because of our work that planets aren’t lost all the time.”

“Save it,” I sneered. “Caldswell already fed me the hero bullshit.”

Rupert’s lips pulled back in a snarl. “It’s not
bullshit
,” he growled. “We can’t even count the lives we’ve saved.”

“How about the lives you’ve ruined?” I countered.

“It’s not like that,” Rupert said, his voice furious and frustrated. “We don’t know what’s going on with you, but something is wrong. We have to run tests to be sure, and the only place to do that is back at headquarters. This isn’t a death sentence, Devi!”

“You of all people should know by now that my life isn’t what I value most,” I snapped. “I go with you, and everything I’ve ever fought for, risked my life for, is gone. They’re going to lock me up until I’m crazy as Maat, aren’t they?”

He shot me a confused look. “How do you know about—”

“
Aren’t they?
” I shouted.

Rupert sighed. “I don’t know what plans are being made for your testing,” he hedged. “But it is likely you will never leave the Eyes’ custody again.”

“Right,” I said. “But you’re still not going to let me go, are you?”

Rupert’s eyes went cold and hard as blue ice. “No.”

“Well,” I whispered, reaching up to flip my visor back into place. “I guess that’s that.”

Rupert looked away with a word that sounded like a curse. “I tried, Devi,” he said bitterly. “If there was any other way, I’d find it, but there isn’t. It doesn’t matter how much I love you, no single life can outweigh the greater good of the Eyes’ mission. But you have to know I tried to save you. I tried everything I knew.”

His words were pleading, but I was already stepping back, kicking my suit into battle mode as I planted my feet. “Save it,” I said, giving Elsie the command to start heating up. “I must have been some kind of idiot, Charkov, because for a while there, I loved you, too. That’s why I’m going to give you a chance to change before we do this.”

My voice was crisp and cold, and it must have scared Rupert. He put his hands up, his voice going gentle, like he was trying to talk down an enraged animal. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”

I shrugged. “You want to put me in a lab, I disagree. Sounds like we’re at an impasse.”

“I’m not your enemy, Devi,” Rupert said, staring me down. “I never was and I never will be.”

That claim almost made me laugh, because now that I had my memories back, I knew that Rupert had always been my worst enemy. From the very beginning he’d gotten under my skin. Even when I knew he’d lied to me, I’d still trusted him, loved him. I knew he loved me even without seeing his memory, but it didn’t matter. When the line had been drawn, Rupert had made his choice, and it wasn’t me. If that didn’t make us enemies, I didn’t know what did.

With that thought, the cold rage blossomed in me clear and crisp as a battle drug, pushing all the conflicted feelings away. Oddly, it also sent my fingers tingling, the tips prickling with the pins and needles I’d come to associate with the black stuff, but I was too angry to care. I had only one focus. Rupert the man tied me in knots, but an enemy I knew how to handle, and when I looked at Rupert now, that was what I saw: a clever, dangerous enemy who wanted to take away everything I’d worked for.

He was still watching me with those pleading eyes, and he must have seen the decision on my face, because his mouth opened. Whatever he was going to say, though, he never got the chance. I was already in the air.

I’d put all my suit’s power into the jump, and I flew at him so fast even Rupert was surprised. I was just cold enough to savor the look of fear on his face as Elsie ejected on my wrist, her thermite firing like a shot of sunlight as I brought her down on Rupert’s arm.

For one moment, I thought he was actually going to let me cut him. I should have known better. Just before I hit, Rupert moved, flicking away like a shadow. But he must have forgotten who he was dealing with. I’d seen him fight several times now, and fought him myself. I couldn’t match his speed, but I knew how he moved, and the second he dodged, I spun, slamming Elsie’s glowing blade deep into his side.

It was like trying to cut through a reinforced cement pillar. Even with my new tungsten blade and the thermite going full burn, there was enough resistance that I couldn’t finish the slice before Rupert jumped back. To his credit, he didn’t cry out, though when I spun around to gauge the damage, I didn’t see how.

I’d cut him clean across the side. The thermite had burned his dark jacket and shirt away like they were tissue, so there was nothing to hide the gaping hole I’d put in the smooth skin just below his ribs. Anti-armor bullets might not work on symbionts, but like the xith’cal they resembled, thermite sliced them open just fine. I couldn’t get too cocky yet, though, because Rupert was still standing.

Elsie’s intense heat had cauterized the wound, so there wasn’t as much blood as there should have been, but Rupert’s hands were still crimson where they held the wound closed. I expected him to change into his scales and charge me then, but he didn’t. He just stood there, staring at me with that brokenhearted look, like this was all my fault.

“Change,” I ordered, swinging Elsie’s blade at him, letting the thermite hiss through the air. “Now.”

“No,” Rupert said solemnly. “I don’t want you to see me like that.”

“Are you kidding?” I shouted. “That cat’s been out of the bag.”

Rupert set his jaw. “I won’t be a monster for you, Devi.”

“If you think I’ll hold back just because I can see your puppy dog eyes, you’ve got another think coming,” I snarled. “You don’t take me seriously and I will take your damn head, scales or no.”

Rupert said nothing, just pulled himself a little straighter. I was about to give him a final warning when I saw his eyes flick toward my thermite blade. I glanced at my timer and cursed myself for an idiot. I’d thought Rupert was playing on my sympathies. I’d even thought he didn’t want to fight me because he loved me. What a joke. Rupert wasn’t holding back out of love, he was wasting my thermite. I’d just lost twenty of my eighty-five seconds of burn time
talking
.

With that, the cold rage fell on me like fresh snow, and I charged. I had just enough time to see Rupert’s eyes widen before I crashed into him, blade going deep into his stomach. Or that was the plan. He spun at the last second, grabbing my shoulder and using my own momentum to send me falling past him.

On anyone else, that move would have sent them to the ground, but I’m not anyone else. I’m a Paradoxian armored merc, and the second he threw me, my suit caught me. I spun on a pin, flipping around with my blade up to catch him on the back step, only to grind to a halt.

There was no dodge this time; I hadn’t missed. Elsie’s glowing edge was less than an inch from Rupert’s side, but I couldn’t move her forward because the shining blade was caught on a black claw. I was so close to Rupert now I couldn’t see his face on account of our height difference, but I saw the change all the same. Black scales bloomed across his body, starting with the hand that had caught my thermite blade and spreading up his arm, shredding his already ruined clothes. As before, the transformation took less than three heartbeats, and it was on the second one that I struck.

I wrenched my arm up, twisting my blade. Those black claws of his were hard, but they weren’t indestructible, and with the extra torque, Elsie’s blade sliced through them like wooden pegs. I heard Rupert hiss as the sharp ends of his claws were cut free, and then something grabbed my shoulder. Rupert was going for a submission hold.