Fifth Quarter (4 page)

"No. Got to… tell you." A purpling tongue scraped against his lips. "Looked at me. I was him… and he was… me and then he jumped."

"Jumped where?"

"To me. Then… pushed me into him." A shudder ran down the length of the old man's body and his teeth clattered together like dice. "Dying."

"He pushed you into his old body and he took yours?" Not all the training in the Empire could have kept the shrill note of disbelief out of her voice. She stiffened, head cocked, but no one appeared to have heard. Apparently, the orders the governor had given to keep everyone away still held. With a fingernail grip on her self-control, she turned back to her brother. "That's impossible!"

The expression on the face of the man lying in front of her said everything necessary. She'd seen that expression a hundred, a thousand times. Obviously, it
wasn't
impossible. "He can't have gone far. I'll go after him. Bring him here. Make him give you your body."

Bannon shook his head. "No time. Be dead… when you got back. Vree…"

He wanted something from her. She recognized a tone she'd heard all her life.

"
Oh, come on, Vree, just this once
…"

But he had only one thing left to want; only thing that she could give him.
Nothing should hurt this much and not kill you
. Teeth clenched around a howl of pain, she began the movement that would drop a dagger out of a forearm sheath into her hand.
When this is over, I'm going to find Aralt and I'm going to make him
beg
me for death
.

Vree opened her mouth and closed it again. Bannon was all she had, all she'd ever had besides the army. But to die for him? To allow herself to be pushed into a dying shell?

To have Bannon in her body.
And isn't that what you've been wanting
? she asked herself, desperately clamping her will around a hysterical desire to snicker. To have Bannon be a part of her. Know everything she was. Everything. No. But weighed against the only alternative, against going on alone…

"Vree?"

No time left to decide. Her heart slammed against her ribs and sweat trickled down her spine. She could smell her terror and his death. "Do it."

Invasion! A kaleidoscope of images tried to force an entry into her mind.

Vree fought to pull the barricades down.
This is Bannon! Let him in or he dies
! A crack appeared and then another and then he was in, and she nearly lost herself in a maelstrom of shared memories subtly skewed and alien emotions; of being just for an instant, someone else and knowing what they knew, feeling what they felt. She struggled to hold on, to accept, to not fight it although every instinct demanded she defend herself.

I trust him with my life. He trusts me with his life. I trust him with
...

"Vree? Vree! Wake up! We haven't got time for this!"

She could feel the dry, dusty fibers of the carpet pressing into her cheek. Smell the poison mixed with wine spilled out onto the floor. Hear…

"Slaughter it, Vree! Wake up!"

"Bannon?" Eyes opened, all she could see was a pale hand curled up like a great, bloated, dead spider. When she tried to lift her head, her body felt as though it no longer quite fit. "Bannon?"

The muscles in her thighs began to spasm. Her legs jerked and kicked and her feet scrabbled for purchase against the floor. "Bannon, stop it!"

"Vree, no!" Bannon's voice rose to a near incoherent shriek that slammed against the inside of her skull. "Don't."

Panting, she forced herself to relax, to not expel the invader. Her brother. Gradually, she gathered all the bits of her body back under her control and, slowly, got her hands under her and pushed herself up onto her knees. "Just let
me
do the moving. Understand?"

"Yeah." He sounded subdued, but she knew it wouldn't last. "I understand."

Ignoring the corpse sprawled beside her, Vree stood. Every movement was surer than the one before as, with every movement, she reclaimed more of her scattered self. Although constantly aware of Bannon's presence, as long as he remained a passive passenger, she felt she could ignore him enough to manage. He had, after all, always been a constant presence in her life.
Kind of like ignoring a nagging toothache
…

"I heard that."

"Not now, Bannon. We haven't time for…" Which was when she realized that she wasn't speaking aloud. "Shit on a stick! Do you know
everything
I think?"

Yes, she did, because she felt
his
bitterness and
his
pain and
his
fear of dying. Like a wave she barely managed to keep her footing under, his emotions rolled over her and retreated. Fists clenched, she ground her teeth in anger. Aralt had a great deal to answer for, and she'd enjoy making him pay. "We'll get your body back," she murmured as though Bannon still stood beside her. "And we'll cut Aralt loose to shriek in the darkness."

Tentatively, for the floor was not always exactly where she thought it should be, she walked to the window, careful to remain out of the line of sight from below. Time had not stopped just because the impossible had occurred and she—they—were still in the heart of an enemy stronghold. Her hand held the heavy swag curtains motionless and she looked out at the sky. The stars had danced most of the night away.

"We've got to get out of here."

"Agreed."

But instead she stood staring at her hand as though she'd never seen it before. It was too slender, a strong hand but a woman's hand. The nails were too even, they should have been ragged, chewed to the quick. The white line of scar from the second knuckle to the base of the thumb—where had it come from?

"No. Mine." And suddenly, it was her familiar hand again. She felt his presence draw in on itself, wrapped around equal parts of torment and terror. She wanted to reach out and touch him…

By the time they were over the wall and back into the city, her body was responding with the fluid grace and economy of movement they had always shared. If Bannon occasionally added his control to hers, Vree couldn't tell, and she supposed that was all that mattered.

"Head for the South Road."

She paused, one foot half raised. "What?"

"Aralt is going north, toward the Capital." If the city had another name, no one remembered it. No one had used it in generations.

Her protest died, unformed. In the commander's place would she believe that an old man had stolen her brother's body and pushed his life out into a dying shell? Would she believe such an impossible story without the presence of Bannon's thoughts beside her own?

"He'll think I died in there and you've gone crazy,"

Bannon insisted. "The army thinks assassins are half crazy anyway. You'll be shackled so you don't hurt anyone. Probably drugged. We'll
die
like that, Vree."

"If we leave the army like this—if we desert— they'll hunt us down." Assassins who deserted were under an immediate death sentence; an Imperial edict designed to reassure the citizens that the army's more subtle killers remained under control.

"Slaughter it, Vree! Why would they think we deserted? They'll think the odds finally caught up to us and we died in Ghoti. And if you'd stop arguing, we could have him by dawn and be back in camp before they even miss us."

"Don't be an idiot, Bannon…"

"He's in
my
body; I should know how far he can get! He's only a couple of hours ahead of us."

"And it's less than a couple of hours till dawn." Very pointedly, Vree turned to face the east. Whether the frustration she felt was his or hers, she had no idea. "If Aralt was ready for you, he was ready to travel. He might even be on horseback."

"No, no horse."

"How do you know?"

"I just know, okay? I just
know."

She ground her teeth and struggled to find order in the emotional maelstrom inside her head; fought to separate her reactions from his. "So we skirt the army for the South Road, and then what?"

"And then we find Aralt and reclaim my body."

"You really think it's going to be that easy?"

His anger started her heart racing. "I don't care a crow's ass about how easy it is or isn't going to be! I want my body!"

They crossed the South Road, east to west, on the Ghoti side of the embankment—the sentries patrolling along the top unaware of the enemy slipping through the darkness behind them—and getting out of town was as easy as getting in. Driven by Bannon's uncompromising need, Vree stayed as close to the road as she dared, stealing from one bit of shadow to the next, using the night as cover. How, she wondered, had Aralt managed? While he had Bannon's body, he wouldn't have the skill to manipulate it.
At least we didn't find him pinned to the road by arrow fire from the top of the embankment
.

"Shut
up
, Vree."

Just for a moment, she'd forgotten what
he meant and had, for the same moment, forgotten that her thoughts were no longer her own. "Sorry."