Sheba gritted her teeth, trying to remain present for the Chief of Medicine’s query regarding trauma protocols, but the mental interruption was a persistent tug on her mind.
She faltered mid-sentence, her answer trailing into a disjointed mess of half-formed thoughts.
‘I’m so sorry, may I begin my response all over?’
The interviewers exchanged skeptical glances, then nodded as Sheba’s face flushed.
With an inhale, she shut off her neural link and turned her entire attention to the task at hand.
Later, she exited the glass-walled boardroom, worrying all the way home that her evaluation had been a disaster.
When she returned to her apartment, she found Idan standing on the terrace, his silhouette braced with rigid tension.
He didn’t turn to greet her; his posture stiff, eyes to the busy metropolis beyond.
When she tossed her satchel onto the sofa and stepped through the open sliding doors, he sliced eyes to her.
‘Where did you go?’ he rasped. ‘I tried to reach for you. You didn’t respond.’
She sighed.
‘I was at an interview, honey. I left a note by your bedside. I’m focused on my next career move, you know that,’ she countered. ‘The neural pulse you kept sending me was so distracting, it might’ve cost me the position.’
‘I needed to know where you were,’ he insisted, his jaw locking. ‘The static of this city obscures your signal. When you remain silent, it feels like afokkin’ threat. I’ll remind you Sulfiqar is on the warpath and you out there, alone, messes with my mind.’
‘If he ever decided to come this way, Mirage would sense him, wouldn’t she?’ she countered with a sigh.
‘Did she see Artya coming?’ he snarled at her, his eyes flashing with a sudden, annoyed heat. ‘How can we prepare for this war without me being certain you’refokkin’ safe?’
He let out a series of Sacran curses and strode toward the fire escape and ascended to the rooftop.
Sheba followed, finding him at the edge of the parapet, his teeth gritted as he surveyed the sprawl of the city.
‘Idan, I’d rather walk over explosives than tread on eggshells around you. While I appreciate you’re focused on saving me from danger, how you’re going about it is unnerving.’
Silence fell between them.
‘It’s the claustrophobia,’ he rasped after a beat, the words forced through a tight throat. ‘This metropolis presses against my ribs. I’m used to fields, mountains, and nature, not the density of millions of pulses crowding my air and cluttering the tether I have to you.’
She waited for his apology, butnadacame.
Sheba leaned on the brickwork, observing the way his muscles corded as his gaze turned back to the horizon.
She didn’t believe the urban landscape was the primary culprit; he was most likely worried about Sulfiqar and the inevitable battle to come.
For that reason, she let the matter slide for now, touched with compassion for her god-warrior’s predicament.
Even so, she thought in a wild tear,the reckoning with Sulfiqar couldn’t come soon enough.
21
Ordained Fate
IDAN
TheMáashìi, Molan’s corvette of matte-brushed gunmetal, carved a silent trajectory through the violet pre-dawn.
The ship descended towards the emerald planet, Dunia.
