Last Guard by Nalini Singh
Chapter 40
To forget our history is to forget ourselves.
—From The Dying Light by Harissa Mercant (1947)
CANTO AND PAYALtook Sophia’s advice to heart, pushing away the weeds around their bond so it burned a glowing azure that was a beacon. There was an infinite amount of work to do, so many bricks to lay to build a strong new foundation for Designation A, but every spare moment they had, they spent together. Neither one of them said it aloud, but the ticking clock in Payal’s brain accompanied them every second of every day.
Not many more days and she’d have to return home to ensure that her anchor point stayed stable—and to get a shot of the medication that was a leash on her life. The thirteenth day after she’d arrived in Moscow, and she’d used up the second dose Pranath Rao had couriered over.
One—maybe two—more days till she went critical.
Canto had used her access passwords to break into the Rao systems, had even managed to work his way into her father’s private files, but Pranath Rao was a smart man. There was nothing useful in the available files.
“He’ll have it in his head,” Payal murmured, pressing a kiss to Canto’s shoulder as they lay face-to-face in bed, both of them bare to the skin.
Intimate skin privileges were extraordinary, but this kind of affectionate contact, it was better even than that. Especially now that Payal sometimes just went to him and said, “I need you.”
He’d open his arms, and she’d curl into his lap, and he’d hold her until she could breathe past the panic building in her brain. Because that panic hadn’t magically disappeared after her continuing work with Jaya. It had too long been a part of her to be so easily vanquished.
She still had agitated episodes at times, but increasingly, she could now calm herself down rather than going into a chaotic spiral. Jaya had taught—was still teaching—her tools to help herself. It was the best thing the empath could’ve done; Payal understood and valued such strategic mental work. Her recalibrated medications were also helping her to maintain a more even keel in day-to-day life.
The hardest thing she’d had to learn was that it was all right to be a little different.
“Quirky isn’t a bad thing, Payal,” Jaya had said as the two of them walked through a wooded area cool and green. “Some of the most admired people in human and changeling societies are the ones who walk to the beat of their own drummer.”
Then there was Canto. He kept telling her he adored her exactly as she was—reminding her that she’d been his favorite even when she’d been totally feral. The latter held weight because it was true. She could still remember the pieces of dried apple thrust into her hand, the way he’d found methods to give her hints to questions asked by the teacher, how he’d held her hand that final day.
How he’d remembered her.
Payal didn’t know when she’d be willing to allow her true self out in public, but she let Canto see her more and more. So when she felt the urge to lean over and kiss his nose, then nuzzle at his throat, she did it. He chuckled and cuddled her tight and almost suffocatingly close, exactly as she liked. “Are you sure you’re not a small changeling bear? A sun bear, maybe?”
She pretended to claw him, the game one she would’ve never played with anyone else, lest they see it as a sign of mental instability. But with Canto, she was free. She didn’t have to pretend.
Growling in his throat, he made as if to bite at her. The two of them were rolling around the bed, skin sliding on skin and breaths mingling, when Nikita Duncan’s cool voice entered her mind.
I have unlocked and reinitialized the archive.
PAYALand Canto had together decided it’d be best for her to be in the tech room when she went into the archive, in case she needed to meet with the others on visual comms.
Having changed into a work-suitable outfit in preparation for that eventuality, Payal took a seat before stepping into the PsyNet. Unlike when she did anchor work, she was present in the physical space to a degree, while also in the psychic space. But it wasn’t until she was deep in the old vault that she realized she hadn’t given even a single thought to the fact Canto was present in the same space.
He could knife her and she’d never see it coming, but she knew he wouldn’t. She trusted him. No walls. No shields. Pure trust.
Because Canto would always choose to use his power to protect her, not hurt.
She entered the vault together with the rest of the Ruling Coalition. Of them all, Aden proved the most efficient searcher. Possibly because Arrows were hunters and not just for people, but for data. He got them to the right time period in the vault, then they spread out. Payal considered her search strategy, thought of what an efficient A would’ve done, and dropped into the Substrate.
A small beacon pulsed below the fabric of the PsyNet.
Having fixed the location of the beacon in her mind, she returned to the PsyNet, overlaid the Substrate grid on it, and made her way to the correct point. It took her only four minutes and twenty-seven seconds to locate the file. “I have it.”
Her words reverberated around the massive vault.
“Fast,” commented the vast obsidian mind that was Krychek.
“An anchor stored this here—and they left a marker.”
Not waiting for further questions, she opened up the file. The information rose to float on the black walls of the PsyNet. She reached out to Canto at the same time: Shadow my mind. We have the data.
The two of them looked at the data. It was a pale and silvery ghost against the black of the Net, data so old that it was in danger of fading away. Someone, however, was reinforcing it as it emerged—a person clever enough to make the fix without altering the data or otherwise causing damage.
Her first thought was that it had to be Aden. Arrows were skilled at subtle maneuvers. Then, all at once, she understood that she was behind the correction. I don’t have this skill. She was a cardinal telekinetic with low-level Tp; such delicate power dynamics required a level of telepathic subtlety she simply didn’t possess.
I can do it.Canto had a frown in his voice. I’m not feeding you anything but you are in my anchor zone. So is this vault. It could be I’m fixing it instinctively.
It’s okay, Canto. Even if you are feeding me the information, I don’t mind.Because it was him. Her 7J. Isn’t it strange, though, that the vault exists in the same psychic space as you?
Coincidence.
Or the NetMind playing a very long game.
His response was a gruff sound that made her blood warm. Smile.
“Excellent work,” Nikita murmured. “It took me many years to be so proficient in such delicate repairs.”
Payal didn’t respond, choosing instead to focus on the data in an effort to capture the secret of how the other As had pulled off … “An occlusion,” she said. “That’s what they called it. Look.”
Her brain began to pull pieces of the puzzle together without her conscious command, each piece flaring with light in a coordinated cascade so she couldn’t miss it.
It’s been coded for anchor brains.Canto’s crystalline voice, sharp with an excitement that echoed her own. The others have no idea.
“How did you see it?” Ivy Jane said at the same time. “I only saw chaos until you pointed out that one area.”
“Because only anchors are meant to know this,” Payal said shortly, not because she was annoyed—the question was relevant and she liked Ivy Jane—but because she was processing too much data at once and needed to understand it.
She blanked everyone but Canto. Working together, they unraveled the information left behind for them by anchors long turned to dust. But their legacy might yet save hundreds of thousands of lives. Because there, in the encoded data, was a plan that meant they didn’t have to move people one by one.
Fucking beautiful, Canto declared. I can see how they did it, how they encoded it so only an anchor would understand the message.
Because it’s dangerous. Anyone else who tried this would collapse the Net.She double-checked their final conclusion. We’ll need twenty hub-anchors to pull it off. Five more for backup in case anyone overloads.
I can make it happen. They’ll follow your lead.
She knew at once that was wrong. No, Canto. I might be the battle tank, but you’re the navigational star. They’ll follow you. Payal could talk people into doing as she wanted by showing them that it was the logical course of action because of her skills or contacts—but Canto could make people follow him simply by being who he was.
Charisma?
No. Something more.
Perhaps his tendency to just aggressively trust people. A man like that … Well, it was hard not to trust him in return. Especially once you figured out that he had no hidden agenda. He was fighting for Designation A exactly as he’d said.
“I have it,” she said into the vault, not sure how long she’d blanked the rest of the Ruling Coalition. “It can be done by a syndicate of anchors acting in concert.”
The other minds around her sparked with questions, but it was Anthony who asked the most important one. “Can you explain the process?”
“No. Your brains aren’t designed to comprehend the Substrate.”
Ouch.Canto sounded like he was laughing, the rough warmth of it firelight in her blood. I bet you no one has ever told Anthony Kyriakus his brain isn’t good enough.
It isn’t. Not for this.
“You’re asking us to take you on faith,” Nikita said. “You’re asking countless people to take you on faith.”
“You do that every day.” Payal wasn’t here to play word games. “When was the last time you thought about the anchor in your region or wondered at their political leanings?”
“Touché,” Kaleb murmured softly. “Do you? Have political affiliations?”
“As Payal Rao, CEO? Yes. As Payal Rao, anchor? No.” It was that simple, her world split in two. Both were her. “Would you like to waste time on further discussion, or shall I get this started?”
“What can we do to assist?” said a dark voice that hadn’t spoken until now—Aden Kai. “Will there be confusion or other disruption on the physical plane or on the psychic?”
Payal had to take a moment to think about that, consult with Canto, then check the vital information left by past anchors. “It’s possible,” she said at last. “All most people should feel is a headache that should pass within the hour, but a few may panic.”
We’ll need Krychek’s voice.
Payal agreed. “Kaleb, you have the loudest psychic voice in the room. We’ll need you to blast a message across that area of the PsyNet, warning people of what is to come—we don’t need cooperation, but it might stave off the panic.”
“Give me the text of the warning, and I’ll adapt it to what’ll make the populace behave as needed.”
That was why Kaleb had become a Councilor while Payal hadn’t; he understood how to manipulate people in ways she never had. Lalit had the same skill. So did the empaths—though they didn’t think of it as manipulation. Es had a tendency to gently nudge people toward certain behaviors with the full cooperation of the patient.
Jaya, for example, was teaching Payal how to modify her own behavior.
But even empaths must have their bad seeds, so the same skills could conceivably be used for evil.
“I have to leave to work on the occlusion,” she said. “Our aim is to do this within the next twenty-four hours, though that will depend on technical considerations. We have some room to maneuver, but the longer we wait, the harder it’ll be on the anchors in Delhi.”
Payal had managed to maintain to date, but it was getting more difficult with each day that passed, psychic exhaustion a constant threat on the horizon. Prabhyx and Virat were the same, while Shanta—the oldest of them—was starting to sleep fourteen hours a day as her mind and body began to overload. Payal would’ve urged Nikita to hurry if she hadn’t been aware of the intricate series of actions required to open the archive without damaging the data; Nikita had sent a copy of the process to her, so she could follow along as it progressed.
Now Payal opened her eyes on the physical plane and looked at the man who would take the next step. “Do you have it?”
He nodded. “They were brilliant, our psychic forefathers. Why did we forget?”
“Because our people like to forget things. Apparently, we believe ignoring and forgetting is as good as actually fixing problems.”
“Wish I could argue with you on that.” Scowling, he turned to the door. “I’ll contact the others. Arran and Suriana will assist, I know. We’ll leave Ager and Bjorn out of it unless we’re desperate.”
“Yes, they’ve earned their rest.” She glanced at her organizer. “Ruhi has been trying to get in touch with me. I’ll need to make a few calls to keep certain balls in the air.”
“You can do that while I gather our team.”
Payal held his eyes when he glanced back at her. “I’ll have to go back to Delhi for the occlusion.” She’d have had to return soon regardless, but she’d been hoping that her brain—calm and rested—would allow her to push things a little, give her an extra day or two before her need for the tumor medication went critical.
Yet there was no other viable choice.
They were anchors.
The first and last guard of a failing system.
This was their duty.
Canto turned right back around and moved until his chair was beside where she sat, the two of them facing in opposite directions. Reaching out to cup the back of her neck, he tugged her close for a kiss long and deep. “I’ll always be there.” Hot breath against her lips, his forehead pressed to hers. “A single thought and I’ll find a way to be by your side.”
Payal fisted her hand in his shirt. “Maintain the surveillance inside Vara.” Some might consider that a strange choice, but for Payal, it meant that in a place filled with enemies, she’d have one person on her side.
Her Mercant knight.
“A single thought, Payal.” Canto squeezed her neck. “And if I see a threat to you, I’ll take care of it.”
Payal felt no need to argue with him—she’d destroy anyone who hurt him, too. That was what it meant to be someone’s person.
Her temple pulsed softly, a whisper from the tumors growing deep in her brain.
