Last Guard (Psy-Changeling Trinity #5) by Nalini Singh

“I understand,” Payal said, adding that piece of data to the decision matrix in her mind.

“Most of all, keep on being who you are, Payal.” Ena’s eyes held approval when she turned them on Payal … and the older woman’s approbation mattered. A great deal. “You stand here today because you acted on your conscience and saved the life of a young woman—and in so doing, you set in motion a chain of events that led to the answer to your problems coming to your door. He came not because you are powerful, but because he trusts you.”

Payal intended to follow Ena’s advice. “In the meantime,” she told Canto as the two of them lay in a hanging bed on a sprawling verandah in the back of Vara, “I passed on Nikhil’s regards to Visha.” The bed—which Payal had found in deep storage—swung gently in the evening light.

“You romantic.”

Payal laughed, wild and unfettered. It came easier now, finding a balance between sanity and total erasure of self. “She blushed because she remembered him, too. She was also proud, I think, when I told her that Nikhil had risked himself to warn me of insurrection. Her shoulders grew straighter, and her eyes shone.”

“The man is a hero to her now.” His arm her pillow, Canto now curved his hand around to rub his knuckles over her cheek. “You’d better get ready for a wedding invitation soon.”

Payal moved to lean over him—a maneuver it should’ve been impossible to make easily in this bed designed to swing, but there were advantages to being a telekinetic. Including the fact she could freeze the bed in place when Canto wanted to shift in or out of his chair.

His beloved face was relaxed as he looked up at her, galaxies in his eyes and his hair damp from the swim they’d just taken in the secluded lake to which she’d teleported them. Soon Vara would have a pool. Being in the water was important to Canto, and so it was important to Payal.

“Should we?” she asked him.

“Should we?” He raised an eyebrow.

“Get married.” It wasn’t a Psy thing, but weddings in Delhi were always loud, colorful events, and Payal felt like making a loud, colorful start to her new life.

Canto’s lips curved in a slow smile. “Are you asking me to marry you?”

She grinned, kicking up her legs. “Yes.”

“Okay, but you have to get me a ring. And I’m not budging on a small, pretty cake for our private—and naked—post-wedding celebrations.”

Laughing, she climbed on top of him, her 7J who had never forgotten a single one of her dreams. “Agreed. Done deal.”

This man, he was hers. For always.





Divergence



Coherence, connection, bonds, that has always been the answer. We must fight to hold on to that which makes us a sentient society capable of empathy and hope and joy.

—From The Dying Light by Harissa Mercant (1947)

If enough believe, does delusion become reality? What is reality but the will of the masses?

—Discussion question: Philosophy 101

IN THE HEART of the Substrate, an unbreakable tendril that connected two anchors sparked with blue fire that began other small fires. As they burned, the waters of the Substrate grew clearer, until parts were translucent limned with blue. Even Ager was astonished, such purity of Substrate flow unseen in their long lifetime.

Deep in the PsyNet, in the mind of an anchor unlike any other, a neosentience in danger of losing itself forever took its first clear “breath” in hundreds of years. It wasn’t Psy, changeling, or human, its thought patterns unknowable, but it watched the bond deep beneath the starlit sky of the PsyNet as a mother watches her children.

With hope. With fear. With wonder.

It sent the mind in which it hid images of a drop of water falling onto a dry seabed, a single blade of grass coming to life in a desert, a tiny iridescent butterfly in a huge rocky gorge.

Even as that mind woke and asked, “Is it enough?” another, far more twisted mind came to wakefulness.

The Queen of the Scarabs, she called herself now, though others still said the Architect. The name didn’t matter, only what she was, what she’d become. A spider with endless tentacles, endless disciples.

The Psy, those inferior minds, had stopped the first wave, but unbeknownst to all but the queen, that had been a test strike to evaluate the enemy. She’d held back many of her children, sacrificed others.

No more.

It was time to unleash their full might while the Net was in good enough shape to handle the deluge—but not so strong that it could repel so many of her children acting in concert. Because she knew what to do now. To be a true queen, she had to first rule her own kingdom.

The easiest way to do that was to take the action the Ruling Coalition had been too cowardly to complete—tear off a piece of the PsyNet, isolate it so it was an island on which the Scarabs ruled. Where she ruled.

She had everything she needed, everyone she needed. Because amongst her children were three of the bright minds needed to anchor a broken piece. So mad they were, quite out of control had she not squeezed walls around their minds that made them appear sane to their brethren, but they could do their task.

They would sit below her island and hold it up.

Are you ready, my children?

Yes, Mother.

It is time. Cut the threads, make the excision. Let the Net bleed.