Honor Among Thieves (The Honors #1)(74)

“I went into dark sleep before I should have,” he told me. “This was different than before. It seemed . . . deeper. I haven’t just slept. I’ve . . . changed.”

“And that’s bad?”

“It’s . . . unusual,” he said. “It’s not supposed to happen until I am on the Journey. I think . . . I think this is why there are rules about sharing deep bonds with others before the Journey. It triggers . . . changes.”

Lord, this was starting to sound a hell of a lot more complicated than I’d thought. Maybe deep bonding was like sex: while it felt great, you needed a certain level of maturity to handle the consequences. And the consequences changed you.

“I don’t want to . . . mess up your development, Nadim. Or hurt you.” I took a deep breath. “You almost died. We almost died. That shouldn’t happen, no matter how good it felt in the moment.”

“I know.” He was regretful, that ambivalence in full force. The wanting was still there, but so was a new, quelling caution. “The Tours . . . the Tours are supposed to accustom me to light bonds. But it didn’t work. I didn’t. I will know better now.”

“Hey, maybe share a little of that knowledge too? Because lack of it nearly got me and Bea killed.”

I felt his contrition in waves of sad blues. “Yes. I will make more information available to you. I am sorry, Zara.”

I heaved myself upright, and my sore feet left smears of blood. It was so little in comparison to his massive bulk that he shouldn’t have sensed it, so it startled me when he said, with an urgent edge, “You’re wounded. Please seek medical assistance.”

“How can you recognize that? Blood, I mean?”

“It’s—” He seemed to consider that for a moment. “It’s mixed with mine, but I don’t know how that happened.” I did. I’d been wounded and bleeding while inside his body, fixing him. “I can sense it now. How odd. Are you badly injured, Zara?”

“Nope. I’m fine.” I immediately winced when I took a step, and slipped my shoes on. It didn’t help, but at least I didn’t leave bloody footprints limping to the med bay.

I got a sarcastic lecture from EMITU and flesh caulk on my hands and beneath my toes, plus some kind sticky balm for my bruised palms. The treatment left me walking weird, trying to balance on my heels, and it also left me realizing how bone tired I was. I couldn’t wait to lie down.

I was heading for the data consoles, though, when Nadim said, gently, “You don’t need to keep watch. I won’t slip away again. Please. Go and rest.”

I trailed my fingertips over the wall in silent thanks. As I hobbled to my quarters, Nadim asked, “Is now a good time to share what I missed?”

I did—in general terms, at least. He listened in silence until I got to the part where I’d gone deep-Nadim-diving. His startled reaction nearly knocked me flat. “You went . . . to the heart of me?”

Putting it that way made it seem so intimate when I hadn’t been thinking like that at the time. Nothing sexy about crawling through waste and getting my hands sliced to ribbons in the process. “I guess. It was the only solution we could come up with to keep you safe.”

“I don’t know how you survived that.” He sounded dazed again.

“Skinsuit, a little luck, a laser scalpel, and a lot of running. And Bea talking me through it. She was brilliant.”

“You both are. You keep doing the impossible, Zara.” An unidentifiable sound escaped him. “Now that I’m searching, I can feel the path you carved into me. Like a physical reminder of you.”

“Oh God, did I damage something?” If so, I wondered how the hell I’d get up the courage for another repair run. I didn’t have the stamina at the moment.

“No. But . . . it is . . . unprecedented?” He seemed to struggle to find the words, and though I wasn’t trying to feel what he did, it was more like I couldn’t help feeling it, as if we’d turned some corner, and that yearning loneliness I’d sensed in the dream swept over me, heavier this time and more irresistible. Sometimes it felt as if the more I gave him, the more he would absorb, and I should have been frightened.

But I wasn’t.

I paused in my walk and leaned against the wall. My feet needed the rest. “Unprecedented?” The little prompt slipped out before I could stop it. After all the terrifying silence, I was so hungry for Nadim’s words.

“Without more training, neither of you should have been able to wake me. That is what the shock device is designed to do. Yet somehow, you did.”

“Because we are just that good. There was no way we were losing you.”

His response was grave. “This is why there are always two Honors, one starsinger and one pilot. Both of you were well chosen. I have no right to say this, but . . . thank you. For staying alive.”

Beatriz had to be the starsinger, so that meant I was the pilot—but I was nowhere near as good as Bea at that, either, so how did that track? I had so many questions, and this time, Nadim would address them. While he might still be healing, that was no excuse for avoidance.

“You’re welcome. But you owe me all the answers, got me?”

“That is fair,” Nadim said.

“Okay, first off, I want all your databases unlocked. Everything. Including files on alien races. I don’t want to be caught like that again.”