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

Nikita paused in the act of turning away, was still, then gave a crisp nod. “I’ll add this to the Ruling Coalition’s agenda—but if you’re correct, any number of As should have contacted us by now to warn against the current shape of Sentinel.”

“That assumes they’re in the information loop.” Nikita tended to forget that not everyone had such access—she had been in power for decades, was unused to being in the dark on any important matter.

The two of them began to walk together again.

Nikita’s hair was black glass under the sun as she said, “The fact is, we’re in a time crunch.” In front of them, the doors to the building slid open. “There’s no sign of a slowdown in the Scarab issue—the damage being done is long-term and destructive.”

Sophia didn’t follow Nikita inside. Frowning in thought, she made her way slowly back across the bridge. She knew a lot of people—but as a former J-Psy, her major network was in Justice. She had no contacts in Designation A. Even if she did, what would she ask them? Her feeling of unease was exactly that, a feeling.

No facts, no rationale behind it.

Stopping near the center of the bridge once more, she stared down at the running water as her headache pulsed, slow and steady. When she looked on the PsyNet, at the small section she anchored, she saw that it remained calm, stable, and yet the knots in her stomach wound themselves into painful rocks.

The NetMind and DarkMind had once been whole when they wove through her section of the Net—she’d become an uncategorizable focus, one that helped the twin neosentiences find cohesion. Perhaps because she, too, had once been fragmented. Into so many pieces that her personality and mind were a scarred mélange.

“Beautiful signs of your will to survive, Sophie darling.” Max’s dimpled smile as he ran a finger over her chin, after she’d spoken aloud about her piecemeal self. “You kicked the scrawny ass of anyone stupid enough to write you off, and I’m a smug shit about it.”

Today, hoping her mind could help the twin neosentiences of the Net hold on to coherence, she “listened” for their presence and heard only the wind. As if they’d gone beyond madness and into a final death. But no … There. A brush against her mind, another.

Inhaling on a sob, she clenched one hand on the bridge railing. She couldn’t speak to the NetMind or the DarkMind, but she’d never needed to; theirs was a bond of emotion. Now she staggered under a melancholy wave of sadness and heartbreak.

Their sadness. Their heartbreak.

The PsyNet was dying. And they were dying with it.





Chapter 19



The volcanic eruption came without warning, and it led to the death of an entire city. Included in that number were twenty members of Designation A. It is said that the loss changed the face of the designation forever.

—From Disasters of the Ancient World by Antonio Flavia (1957)

EIGHT HOURS AFTER the meeting, Payal lay awake in bed, staring up at the ceiling. In her fist was a small white stone she’d stolen from the oasis when Canto wasn’t looking. A stone he’d touched, held. Her larceny had been an impulsive emotional act that had nothing of reason in it, another sign of the deleterious effects of her response to him.

She squeezed the stone hard … and teleported herself back to the desert, barefoot, and wearing only a sleep tee and pajama pants. Moonlight kissed the oasis, so she was in the same hemisphere—and from the position of the moon, not so very far from Delhi. Padding down the path, the sand gritty under her soles, she checked the areas she’d altered while he’d watched with interest. None of them had been changed back.

Sitting down on a fractionally misaligned paving so she wouldn’t have to look at it, Payal soaked in the peace and quiet. No wind stirred the trees or made the sands whisper closer. No other voices split the air. If she’d tripped a silent alarm, no one came to kick her out.

In front of her lay a small area she’d fixed so it was harmonious to her mind.

“It’s compulsive, your need for mathematical perfection.” Her father’s voice when he’d discovered her arranging her childhood belongings exactly so on her shelves. “Coloring between the lines will never get you anywhere. Our race likes rules, but the people who gain power are the ones who understand that the rules need to be bent and broken.”

Pranath Rao had never seemed to understand that though his daughter far preferred to color inside the lines, she saw all the options, the decision-making system in her mind a multilayered and multidimensional matrix. Her preference for order over chaos wasn’t heavily weighted in that matrix.

Rising, she went to the next little garden area. It had been planted with care but remained out of alignment. She knew Canto wouldn’t mind the small alterations she wanted to make to bring it back to harmony. This place was his, but … it felt a little bit hers, too. It was a terrible thing, this emotional response, another strike at the walls that protected her sanity, but she couldn’t make herself teleport home.

She began to work.

Sitting back with a satisfied sigh some time afterward, she looked at her sand- and dirt-covered hands, then up at the night sky. The galaxies of Canto Mercant’s eyes dazzled her inner vision. The part of her that had learned to survive in Vara hissed at her to remember that he was a Mercant.