Alien General's Chosen (Brion Brides 4)(6)

He’d known there were those who didn’t want to part with Rhea. Of course they didn’t, it would have meant a terrible loss. Even more so, the Brions didn’t bow to anyone. The Elders, in their wisdom, knew they needed the union   and couldn’t have the entire galaxy as their enemies. But it still felt like surrendering to some of them.

It was more surprising, but not unbelievable that the senators – or High Senator Eren – had been leading them on to war. Diego named the scheming senator the traitor. They’d been playing his game for a long while, hiding Rhea while they should have shared it with the galaxy. Now they were only left with options bad and worse with good nowhere to be found.

And then Faren saw the rage Diego had once called obvious bursting forth from Gawen. In his own mind, the only question was what to do now so as not to have the union  ’s collective armies marching against Briolina. That was a fight that could only leave the entire galaxy in ruins, with the victor being the one who the still drew breath. Against popular belief, the Brions didn’t desire war, they were simply good at it.

He had been certain Gawen would agree, but there was the rage, come to surface at last.

It left Faren speechless for the first time in his life. Not because he didn’t think it necessary to speak, but because he didn’t have the words to describe the pain that brought. A look from Diego was all he needed for confirmation – he saw it too.

“We are Brions,” his twin was snarling. “We don’t disobey the Elders.”

“I don’t believe I am. I think High Senator Eren speaks for himself alone. The Elders wanted us to be in the union  , why would they jeopardize it now?” Diego said calmly, but Faren knew that calm well.

It was Diego’s secret, one he understood but could never reproduce. Diego was amazingly good at making himself into a powerful storm of a warrior, like they all. But while others surrendered a part of their control to the battle lust – Faren had only to look beside him to see his twin lost in it – Diego was the eye of the storm, always in control.

“We are Brions!” Gawen was thundering now, repeating a thought that had been hammered into his head, but which he clearly no longer understood.

“We fear no one! We are the mightiest of them, yet you would cower from them! You have lost your spine, Diego.”

Faren could barely listen. The pain of Gawen being a traitor to everything they’d been taught was enough to shake even him. Diego was right. They couldn’t let it come to war, but Gawen clearly disagreed.

He saw Diego’s intentions long before his friend actually drew his spear. It gave him a few moments, just heartbeats, to make up his mind. Together they could overpower Diego, even if he had won against them in single combat. They could do it – the two of them, always different, always only having each other, one mind in two bodies.

Only Gawen was wrong. He was a threat to all Brions now.

When Diego charged, Faren remained motionless. Arms crossed over his chest, he stayed still as they fought. He only watched, refusing to look away even when he knew which would prevail.

Diego had always been the best of them.

Faren had thought he would feel fury when Gawen died, a sense of revenge, something sharp at least. All he felt was emptiness, a sense of truly being alone. As his twin’s lifeless body slumped to the ground, Diego standing over it with more regret in his eyes than there was in Faren’s, he just felt nothing. There was only him left.

His only friend looked at him, breathing heavily, the fight still singing in his blood. The valor squares lit up his face, but there was no fear in his eyes.#p#分页标题#e#

“I thought you would agree,” Diego said.

Always the one to speak the harshest truths, expecting everyone to be as true as he was. Giving no quarter, because he asked for none.

“I did,” was all Faren said to that.

In the days that followed Gawen’s death, he barely had a moment to consider the sense of emptiness he felt. He accompanied Diego to Briolina and fought beside him for all Brions as was his duty.

It was a risk to expose their lie to the union   themselves, but it paid off. After all, the High Senator and all who agreed with him were dead, most by Faren and Diego’s hands.

Only after it had all calmed down did he allow himself to think on the matter of Gawen’s death.

The sense of being incomplete took hold. His father and Gawen had been family, but they had both been taken from him. Diego was a friend, but that was not a bond as strong as the one he’d shared with his twin.

That left only one option for being whole. In that whole great mess, Diego and his gesha Isolde had been right before him for most of the time. Faren had never thought that Diego, as ruthless and dangerous as any Brion general, could become warm in the way he did when he was around her. He probably didn’t realize how much his whole posture changed when he looked at Isolde. Faren had seen him kill countless enemies, had seen his friend grow into the most feared man in the galaxy, but that woman made him weak.

It wasn’t the bad sort of weakness, just like being fearless wasn’t a compliment. Gawen’s death had left Faren alone in a way he didn’t think anyone else could even comprehend. The healers had told his father that he and Gawen were parts of a whole and he’d always assumed it was two wholes for the two of them. Only now everything told him he wasn’t enough for himself. It was a crippling feeling, one he didn’t like.

Other men desired geshas so as not to be alone, in a very literal sense. Faren wasn’t bothered by solitude. There was lust too, but he’d always had enough women in his bed if he wished. That was not an incentive either. He wanted what a gesha truly was, at the most basic level – a feeling of being complete. Maybe then he could be a proper Brion. And he would have clarity in his life again to continue serving his purpose.

At the very least, he would have to try. If there was one thing Faren didn’t tolerate in himself, it was being less than he could be. And right now, he was not all he could be. This would have to change, on way or another.

After all, it was the Brion way to trust fate to bring them exactly the one they needed.





CHAPTER FOUR

Leiya



Home, Leiya thought happily. Home at last. Peace and quiet and…

“They want you to sing!” Aya exclaimed so loudly that Leiya yelped and threw her cup of hot cocoa into the bush over her shoulder.

“That will make my mother so glad…” she began, but stopped.

Her best friends were running over the grass in front of her house and she couldn’t really muster even a single shred of anger towards them. She bounced off the precious grass and jumped into their hugs.

When they finally broke their embrace, Leiya was nearly in tears.

“Oh,” Iloya said at once, her healer-persona switching on like someone had flipped the light. “Did we hurt you?”

“No-no-no,” Leiya hurried to assure them. “I’m just so glad, I was so afraid we’d grow tired of each other while we were away studying, but here you are, still the same brats that like sneaking up on me…”

They laughed, the three of them. They’d all grown up together, the houses of their parents almost side by side in this luxurious part of the capital. Leiya hadn’t actually joked about the bush, because both that and the grass were rarities in the city. Briolina was quite green, but in the high-tech cities grass was almost nowhere to be seen. Children grew up and only saw the first of it during their study years. Leiya loved it, loved the feel of it under her toes, and she knew she was blessed to be so accustomed to it. There was something familiar and warm in it on a level she couldn't really explain.

Iloya was the oldest of them, but it barely mattered. The Elders didn’t wake every year and they’d still all gone away to study at the same time. She could boast maturity over them, but she hardly bothered, Leiya thought with a smile. Iloya was the image of someone who didn’t fit the Brion profile completely. Healers were supposed to be short, small and mostly quiet. Iloya was taller than most of them and louder by a score. She made Leiya feel better.#p#分页标题#e#

Aya was a year older than Leiya and quiet only in comparison to her friends. She was going to be a senator – which was why she’d already been smart as a child – and Leiya had always trusted her to know better. Aya simply saw through people more easily than she did, it was her gift, her job.

And she, she was the youngest and needed no excuse to act like that.

“Now…” Leiya said when the three of them had settled down. “You have got to be kidding me, right? I got home two days ago. My first tour begins in a week. I thought I would get some, I don’t know, rest? Peace and quiet? No?”

“Yes,” Aya said. “Sing. You. Not joking.”

“Why?” Leiya said in the same suffering voice she’d probably inherited from her father.

“You’re the best, they say,” Iloya put in with a smile.

Leiya giggled. That, too, was something the other Brions didn't seem to do. Her reactions were natural, immediate, pure. Even her friends, who she had always been close to because they didn't entirely fit either, actually fit the mold. They laughed when it was obvious someone told a joke. Leiya laughed when she thought something was funny.