5. HYRAN
5
HYRAN
OpenLog/entry
While reviewing older entries in this log, I received a request from Guardian Hyran. Never would I have answered him and pointed out Conduit Coldis’s favorite foods, but Hyran stated—and the Argentean Op-AI has confirmed this—that he imprinted on Coldis.
This is a joyous occasion. I find myself wanting to tell the Op-AI, but it is no more. It’s like there is silence where it used to be. It’s like the suite without anyone living in it and asking for things. A world, but no purpose in it. No one living in it.
I told Guardian Hyran about the sorono hummus and the three-color crackers. I might never see Conduit Coldis again.
(From Butler Bot 35’s personal log.)
You are beautiful, Hyran thought, over and over, as he watched Col dry himself. He didn’t want to say it because it was just the kind of thing a Conduit would have expected the Guardian imprinting upon him to say.
It wasn’t what Hyran wanted to tell anyone in the bathroom of the G&C Clinic where there were no windows and really nothing more personal than the option to adjust the brightness and hue of the lights. It’s true though. He’s so pretty. He’s special. He’s perfect.
Coldis’s eyes were captivating, blue and brown, though Hyran would have gladly given a decade of his life to just explore Coldis’s body for an hour.
He blinked, rubbed his forehead with a hand to hide that he’d very nearly been staring at Coldis’s flawless tawny skin and the droplets of water clinging to it. No. He’s more than that. He’s not a thing I can spend an hour exploring. I won’t ever see him as some sort of object, and if his team ever did, then I’ll stop them from seeing him altogether.
Coldis tossed the towel in the laundry chute and put his clothes back on. Hyran helped him with the shirt, weaving it back along the IV.
“Your socks, Coldis.”
“I don’t want them. You mentioned sorono.”
Hyran was glad he’d thought to get in touch with that butler bot, and he was glad it had delivered. “As much as you want.”
Coldis merely nodded and ambled out of the bathroom. He moved like someone in a lot of pain, but he was moving. That was good.
Hyran sped ahead of Coldis and pushed the sheets back to make sure the Conduit had an easier time getting back under them.
“Fuck,” Coldis said, gasping.
“What?” Hyran held out his arm, hoping Coldis would allow the help getting back on the bed. It was ridiculously high off the ground for a Conduit-sized patient.
“You’re fast. I’m not used to that.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
Coldis looked at the bed, then Hyran’s arm, nodded. Hyran helped him up.
“About the channeling. You never said whether you needed it.”
“Not right now.” Hyran grabbed the sheets and pulled them back over the Conduit. He’d have preferred to join Coldis in the bed, make sure he was warm without those socks, but as things stood, that was an empty desire, a need he had to ignore.
“My Guardians say that too. They are generally wrong because they know nothing about channeling, whereas I’m an expert in it.”
“An expert with a concussion who wants food. Is the light okay at thirty percent?”
Coldis shrugged and fussed with the sheets, looking as if he simply wanted something to do. “I can eat and channel. The light is fine. It was too bright before.”
Hyran understood that. Even dimmed light could be painful in the state Coldis had been in. I should have thought of that before.
“And I can’t let you do both.” Hyran got the cool seal container and the three-color crackers and brought both over to the small rolling cabinet next to Coldis’s bed and unfolded its table section. “I got this from my favorite place in the city. It’s this shop that looks tiny from the outside, but then you walk in and realize they have almost the entire floor of the building, and it stretches deep. They import things from other cities and have small batches of specialty foods in stock. For three-color crackers, you can get batches with more of the black bean ones or the golden ones. I got the regular mix because I didn’t know which ones you like best.”
Coldis lifted the box of crackers. “These’re Forty-Sevens. I’m sorry to inform you the brand is known all over the place, even in faraway Argentea. And I like being surprised by whichever color I happen to grab out of a bag.”
Hyran tapped the hummus container with his index finger. It didn’t have an official label, just a printed freshness date, seven days in the future. “I mean this. Handmade from sorono grown on the Ferrean city wall. They tell me they can even track it back to the bot that harvested the sorono.”
“Huh. Impressive.” Coldis broke the cooling seal and opened the crackers, then dipped one into the sorono, scooping as much on it as most people would on five.
Hyran watched with fascination as the Conduit put the whole entire loaded cracker into his mouth and chewed, making an appreciative sound.
“Good?”
“Acceptable.”
That hurt. There was no reason it should have, none other than that Hyran had hoped Coldis would be pleased. That he would say that he was pleased.
“I brought a few more things,” Hyran said and unpacked the rest of everything, sweet nut candies, the Kiki Tea, two for each of them, and a selection of fruit.
He brought all of it over, spread it out in front of his Conduit. Coldis watched him while he ate, the next cracker very nearly vanishing under the amount of sorono as well. The Conduit still looked tired, but clearly, food was helping.
“Wait, is that moisturizer?” Col pointed at the bag that was left on the table.
Hyran froze. He sped over there, pulled the little bottle from the bottom of the bag and brought it over.
“It’s an all-purpose one. I grabbed it at the store because I figured it couldn’t hurt if you were staying here for a few days.”
Coldis took the moisturizer, leaving the crackers and sorono alone for the moment.
“I’m not staying here for a few days. I’m leaving as soon as this”—he pointed at the medication—“is done. But I have dry hands, so this is nice. Thank you, Guardian.”
Hyran sat on the bed, wary but unwilling to ignore the possibility for closeness, however slim it was. “You are very welcome. And you need to heal. Concussions are bad for your brain, and to me, yours is very important.”
He watched as Coldis rubbed the gel into his hands, applying a generous amount. A strand of the Conduit’s rich brown hair fell into his face, and Hyran longed to brush it back but didn’t dare.
“You wanted to tell me about how you were suspecting me and my team,” Coldis said without looking up from his hands.
“I didn’t, but I will. Before that, we need to talk. About the imprinting.”
“There isn’t that much talking that needs to be done after an imprinting, Guardian. Things are clear. Custody-ship sets in when that first touch ends, and we are bound in that until one of us is no more.”
Hyran’s hands balled to fists. “First of all, please stop calling me Guardian. Call me Hyran. And I disagree. There is a lot to talk about, because Custody-ship doesn’t have to be unilateral in every way. I don’t know everything there is to know about you yet, but I want to. I would like to share myself with you as well. I hope we can grow to trust one another. And please, please, don’t talk about dying, Coldis.”
Coldis tilted his head up. “Would I have reason not to trust you, Hyran?”
“That’s not what I mean.”
“Perhaps we could build this trust by you telling me about your suspicions then? Otherwise, I feel like you’re hiding things from me, Hyran.”
Hyran rubbed his eyes. “I’m doing this wrong, and I really want to do it right. All I want you to know is that I lived close to Linar and Durgo, and I don’t want what they had. I know I can’t change how I feel after the imprinting, and you might not want to change how you feel, but I hope there is a path—I just want to be with you, and I want you to want that. That’s all. I want you to not wake up calling another Guardian’s name. That’s really everything.” He looked at his feet. “I’m not above begging for any of that.”
When Hyran looked back up, Coldis’s mouth was a line pressed tight. “I told you, it was a dream. It has to be this Hound-fucking medication. It’s messing with me. It’s what made me cry over something as silly as a shirt.”
“I know. And I told you I didn’t mean to imprint upon you.”
“No Guardian ever does.”
“Wrong.”
Coldis opened his mouth, closed it. “True enough, Hyran. Why couldn’t Vin control you? I just remembered. During the fight, after you saved me, he tried and couldn’t.”
“Oh. I don’t really know. Psionics and illusions just don’t work on me.”
“That’s not a secondary power I know. And I meant to ask, what’s your secondary?”
Hyran shrugged. “Don’t have one unless you count that weird resistance. I just run really fast. I’m afraid that’s all you’re getting.”
Hyran was prepared for pity and dismissiveness. It was what he had encountered often enough. Isn’t a solo power more a lower-classer thing? I thought you were an A-classer, was what he’d heard most and had learned to shrug off or ignore. He’d blamed that for never really having any of his relationships last, but honestly, he wasn’t so sure it was just that.
Yet Coldis didn’t offer pity, didn’t dismiss Hyran. In fact, he didn’t say anything, just looked at Hyran as if he were seeing a new side of him.
If only there were a way to tell whether it’s a side of me he actually likes.
“Please tell me about why you would suspect someone from outside the city, and why you were suspecting us when you saw us on the boats.”
“We don’t have to talk about this now.”
“Oh, but we do. An Op-AI died today. Or yesterday. People died or were hurt. Back in Argentea, my home, more people are dead. I would like to know everything about suspicions that my Op-AI only ever formed after the attack on it and presumably after we were found out there on the river. I am curious to learn where your suspicions come from, Hyran.”
Hyran shouldn’t have mentioned it, but he knew he’d have to if only to see Coldis’s reaction. And maybe now is the best time to see it.
“Fine. But follow my words, this is something I would prefer you keep to yourself.”
“I’m not inclined to promise you anything.”
“Not unreasonable.” Hyran took a deep breath. “It might scare you, the things I’m about to say, but I assure you, I know what I’m doing when I’m outside the walls. And you have been there, met a Hound and an outsider. You know they aren’t all dangerous like the dramas show it. Not all Hounds will look at someone and see another earring gained if they kill them.
“I’ve cultivated contact with outsiders. Closer contact than brief encounters. Some of the Hounds too, although they make that more difficult. But there is a place near Cuprea. It’s a town where the outsiders live. It’s like one of our cities. Not as big, of course, but they have made a life there for themselves.”
Col licked his lips. “You do realize my team runs missions outside the walls. The one that turned into this mess was a med drop. I know what a town is, Hyran, and I know outsiders live in them.”
“Of course you do. Well, this one is called Lowvalley. People there were mentioning strangers coming to town who were talking about how things should change, how the walls should come down. How the cities had been built to fail, and now it was finally the time for them to fall. They said the strangers didn’t stay very long when they realized there weren’t any Guardians in the town.”
Coldis cocked his head. “None?”
“None they told them about at any rate. They have a mycologist—that’s a mushroom specialist—who has some healer ability. Maybe a D-classer, but I’m not sure. The people of Lowvalley aren’t too friendly with people they don’t know or trust, and from how they told it, those other outsiders made them very suspicious.”
Col leaned forward. “But you they like?”
Hyran made himself smile. “Believe it or not, I’m a likeable person.”
“I’ll come to my own decision on that. You accosted my little brother when he was alone in a clinic room like this one. Don’t think I’ll soon forget that.”
Hyran shifted and reached for one of the candies. “Don’t you see, I had a reason for doing that. I thought he would talk to me. Because he was a protector. I thought he would tell me if he’d seen anything that might hurt the cities. If he had, I would have made sure he was safe. I would have protected your little brother. That has to count for something, doesn’t it?”
Coldis huffed out a breath. “It does. It actually does.” He took a candy, crunching down on it. “Loquin?”
“Yeah. I didn’t have time to get everything out of him, but for some stupid reason, he helped Alesa with corrupting your screens. He said he planted the trackers on your guns the very day you first came to Ferrea and were all taken to the clinic. Who knows what else he did. That’s something the Judiciary AIs will have to deal with.”
“But you still suspect my team?”
Hyran had been wanting to tell someone about all of this, someone who would listen and help. He had even considered talking to his mothers, but he hadn’t dared, hadn’t wanted to share all the information with them that he knew they weren’t supposed to have. It might have endangered them, and he didn’t want that. Coldis, though, listened.
Trust. Maybe if I trust him first, he will return it. “The people in the town said something about what one of the strangers had said to them. Apparently, she brought some liquor with her—don’t ask me what, but she drank with some of them. I think she wanted to see if they had information?
“Anyway, one of my friends in the town said that woman said something interesting. ‘They have no idea how deep we’re burrowing into those walls of theirs.’ That’s what she told everyone. I figured what better way to burrow than be survivors with sudden access to Ferrea, with everyone’s compassion and love? For all I know, Loquin was a means to that end, the one to bring you here.”
Coldis sighed. “It’s probably because my head hurts, but I can’t quite decide if that is very stupid or very smart. I’ll decide tomorrow. Which it is. So I will decide in a few hours. Maybe after Rasev has given me updates. Is Rasev still in charge?”
“I’m not exactly sure.”
“Guardians. Typical.”
“What? I don’t know what that means.”
Coldis sighed. “Will you hold my hand, Hyran?”
And Hyran took the hand his Conduit offered. He didn’t have it in him to reject, not even when he felt Coldis channel him, the sensation like the pleasant chill of a high-speed run.
“Don’t need channeling, huh? Typical. You are nowhere near leveled, Hyran.”
“Never said I didn’t need it. Just said it wasn’t what you were for, Coldis. There’s a difference.”
Coldis didn’t respond, but he took another candy. Good enough for now, Hyran thought and allowed himself to enjoy the comfort of Coldis’s channeling.