“We are better prepared to field armor and infantry, although our battlesuits are a mixed bag at best and our vehicles weighted to the lighter side.”
“Damn you, Mai!” Evan stomped further into the room, coming up on the display table most of the small committee had gathered around. On it was a map of the Conservatory, with icons spread around the campus to represent a placement of all allied forces. “How many Protectors died because of this? How many did I help you betray?”
“Eight.”
It was the first straight answer Mai offered, delivered with a simple matter-of-factness that seemed both cold and cruel. It helped Evan gather his poise again, letting him settle into a righteous anger. “Who gave you the right to make decisions like—”
“You did.” This time the House Master did not allow Evan to finish, cutting him off with a hand tearing through the air and a whip-crack shout that silenced the cadet. “I told you then, what you showed me was bigger than either of us. It was mine to deal with as I saw fit.”
“Giving his body over to the Dynasty Guard was not what I had in mind. You should have come to me.”
“You swore yourself to me, Evan. Of your own choice. I am either Master of your life, or I am not. That is the way of a Warrior House. One leader. One!”
Evan’s retort was silenced as Jenna stepped forward to place a hand on his arm. The warning was not lost. For all his anger and the cold emptiness eating away inside his guts, he saw he had not surprised Mai Uhn Wa. Far from it. Mai had waited for him, wanting this to be brought out in front of everyone. Evan glanced about the room as the shift in power played itself out.
Colonel Feldspar did not even look in Evan’s direction. Neither did Whit Greggor. Both men silently cast their votes. Evan did notice that Feldspar and Hoi glanced at the resident Mask agent, but how they arrived at their decision did not matter. David Parks sat off to one side, mired in his own thoughts. Hahn glanced between Evan and Mai, shook his head subtly as if trying to warn his friend to back off.
So even Hahn had abandoned him.
Evan could not remain in the room. Not now, after openly challenging Mai. Evan had handed his mentor all the keys necessary to become master of the situation, and all because he’d thought—he’d hoped—that he had finally found the path forward. Instead, he’d found a new door being slammed on him. He’d given up the Ijori Dè Guāng and his prominence in the uprising. Even his friendships, so painstakingly built, were apparently lost now.
He turned for the door. Jenna moved into his path, but Evan backed her off. “Stay,” he told her. “You may be able to help save lives.” Then he stepped by her.
“Evan.” Mai did not command him to stay. He merely questioned.
Evan paused in the doorway, refusing to face back into the room. Slowly, he unclenched his fists and laid his hands down at his sides. “I remember my pledge, Shiao Mai. And now I will wait for your orders. You certainly have no respect for my counsel.”
And then Evan left behind his friends, his Master, and his final ties to anything Capellan or Republic.
Making himself unavailable, Evan spent the rest of the day checking inventories and forward postings. He had shut himself out of the strategic council, but a nagging sense of duty pulled at him. He verified that the Rifleman could not be repaired any sooner, and hurried the military conversion of a second ConstructionMech into a modified design that might help make up for the Conservatory’s light armor assets. That gave them three modified IndustrialMechs. Slow and ponderous, but a threat nonetheless.
Jenna finally caught up with him outside his dormitory. More to the point, she was waiting. Possibly for hours, knowing it was the one place he would return to sooner or later. It had been later, long after dark, and the overhead streetlights were throwing a yellow glare across the quad.
“Want to tell me about it?” she asked, falling into step with him as he headed for the doors.
“No.”
“All right.” But she continued to follow.
She waited until they were inside, climbing the stairs, then changed her mind. “You know what, it’s not all right, Evan.” She shook her head, and her braids danced across his shoulders. “Maybe you were first to support the Capellan cause on Liao. Maybe you deserve more consideration because of the Ijori Dè Guāng and whatever history you have with Shiao-zhang Mai.” She grabbed him at the first landing and pushed him back against the wall, forcing him to look at her. “But you do not walk away from your friends, Evan.”
The stairwell wall felt cold where it pressed into the back of Evan’s head. He stared up over Jenna’s head, at the naked bulb that burned behind a safety grill in the ceiling. “I’ve spent more time worrying about the four of you than any other threat to me on this world,” he said. Today was apparently the day to speak his mind.
It took her aback. “Why? What did we ever demand from you?”
“Not a thing. But it’s the first rule of insurrection: trust no one. Mai taught me that. I let myself get close to you. And Hahn, David and Mark,” he quickly added.
“Then why didn’t you bring us in? David practically begged you, every day.”
There was any number of reasons for that. Uncertainty. Unsuitability. Evan jumped right for the throat, though. “Because you four were the first thing in my life that felt normal. Something that everyone else took for granted, and I never could. I didn’t want to lose that. For any reason. So I tried to walk a line in between my world and yours. And every time one of you pressed a bit too hard about my… activities… for days afterward I waited for the roof to fall in.”
Jenna blew out an exasperated sigh. “I once asked Mark what he would do, you know, if we ever saw evidence of your involvement with the Ijori Dè Guāng. He said that he’d be very disappointed in you.”
She laughed a nervous little laugh. “Not that he’d turn you in. He knew you well enough that he understood your politics, even if he disagreed with them. I think he would have argued with you forever, trying to change your mind. But you never let us close enough. Not Mark or Hahn or David.” She reached up to grab his chin, tilted his head down so that he had to look at her. “Not me.”
He sensed the question. “You were with Mark,” he said.
“Well, I couldn’t wait around for you forever, could I?” Jen sucked in her breath as if she’d said something wrong. Then she smiled, thin and hard. “I was beginning to wonder if you liked women at all. I mean, Hahn is a very handsome man. And available.”
Evan opened his mouth to protest, but no words came out. Jen had thrown him right out of the conversation with the ease of a judo wrestler laying hands on someone who’d only thought to spar. Part of it was good-natured teasing—she was, after all, still his friend. But a strong undercurrent of tension ran beneath. Had he really thrown away so many chances, frustrating Jen Lynn Tang as he never allowed her nearer than arm’s length?
“If I had known…”
“You would have run even faster, damn you.” She curled the front of his jacket into her fists and shoved him back harder against the wall. “And now you’re finding another way to run out on us. Evan, you have to start trusting someone sooner or later. Enough to make the hard calls.” Then she pulled him into her, rising up on her toes to plant a hard kiss on his mouth.