Galaith’s outline keeps getting brighter.
Revik steps back warily as the human’s light body flashes out in a hard arc. Galaith raises a hand towards the field, and I see a Nazi soldier’s eyes flash silver, just before he bends to light a torch on one of the loaded wagons.
Galaith turns to Revik. “This war can be over in months,” he says. “Already, two million have died in the camps. Should we wait until it is four million? Ten million?”
Revik hesitates, staring out over the field.
“Hitler needs to die,” Terian adds. “If the humans want a leader, we’ll give them one...we’ll give them all the dreams and laws and bullshit racial policies they desire. But why should seers die for the madness of humanity? Why? When we can bring peace so easily?”
Revik stares down the hill.
I remember Russia, the frozen bodies, the smell of burning flesh, and realize Revik is remembering, too.
The first gas tank detonates. An inexplicable grief expands in my light as fire blows back the line of soldiers. They are murderers, too, I think. But my thoughts and fears and rationalizations are all caught up in Revik’s, the wanting to believe he can be a part of something, that he can make it better. That he can be more than simply a bystander, helpless as history unfolds.
Terian ducks as the fireball expands, then starts to laugh.
Screams fill the clearing, along with smoke and fast-moving shrapnel. Seconds later, meat comes crashing down. I realize it is from the mule that pulled the cart and feel another surge of nausea as legs and arms rain down, too, some of the feet still wearing boots.
“Revik?” Galaith watches him, waiting. “Are you ready?”
Revik hesitates. He almost looks afraid.
“How many seers did they kill?” Galaith asks. “How many burned in the gas chambers as you watched from the Barrier, cousin?”
Revik holds up his hand. Seeing his fingers shake slightly, I will him to lower it. I know this is past, that it’s already happened. I know I cannot change any of it now, that it’s too late. I even hear the logic in Galaith’s words. I want the same revenge Revik wants for all those who died, but I will him to hear me anyway, to not do this.
A blank-eyed soldier lowers a second torch.
When it explodes, I flinch along with Revik.
Shock rips holes in the turf, throwing wood and iron as shrapnel into standing lines of men. The SS don’t move out of the way, even when burning metal embeds in their flesh, or catches their hair or clothes on fire, or splatters hot oil across their skin.
I see Revik’s jaw harden. Without being asked by Galaith, he focuses down the hill again. The third soldier lowers his torch.
There is another hollow boom.
Terian is laughing again, jumping up and down as black smoke plumes outward in a mushroom-shaped cloud. Revik stares down the torn-up field in angry shock as Terian hits him playfully on the chest, then starts down the hill to view the carnage up close.
He leaves Galaith and Revik to stand there alone.
“What are you?” Revik says, looking at him.
I feel Maygar beside me, tensing for the answer.
Galaith smiles. “Perhaps you should ask yourself that question, Rolf.” He smiles, squeezing Revik’s shoulder. “I’m very, very proud of you, my son.”
Revik stares down at the field. His eyes still show a dim shock, but I recognize the predatory curiosity there as well. The intent focus accompanies a fire that powers a hotter engine beneath his controlled veneer.
Interesting choice for a mate, Maygar says. ...Esteemed Bridge.
I turn on him in fury.
He reformed, okay? Just let it go!
I watch as Maygar grunts, looking at Revik with utter loathing.
His self-righteousness infuriates me.
Whatever your trip is with him, it’s infantile, I tell him. He’s dead!
Real anger flashes in Maygar’s light.
Infantile? He catches my light arm in his hand. I saw it, Esteemed Bridge. I fucking saw it! I looked at all of the records from when Dehgoies Revik ‘reformed.’ I saw what happened when they brought him in. Half-dead, beaten to a pulp by his own and then our men...you should have heard the litany of garbage he spewed, as the Adhipan worked to detach him from that Pyramid filth! It took them days to get it off...weeks even. And all the while, the whole construct was treated to the lovely things your husband did while in the Rooks’ employ...
Maygar’s eyes flash colder as he looks down the hill.
...The things I saw as they unwound those structures made me physically ill, Bridge. I did not sleep. I could not want anything but his death for days. So do not tell me I am infantile. Do not tell me anything about that man, not until you’ve seen what he is for yourself...
I stare at Maygar through the Barrier, but my mind is blank.