Page 37 of Dark Chains: First Link
Tell her we might be able to get her out, Number Eight urged.
Not yet, Number Two countered immediately.He needs to build more trust first.
He shouldn't tell her anything before we have a plan, Number Four reasoned.It's cruel to give her hope when the plan might fall apart.
The collective was right. The timing wasn't right. Yaaf needed Sullha to trust him enough that when the moment came, she would believe what he told her and act on it without hesitation.
That kind of trust wasn't built in a single conversation.
Still, the urge to tell her, to see the brightness in her eyes expand at the possibility of a different life, was strong enough that suppressing it required effort.
"Can you show me Tomek?" he asked. "I'm curious about how the classroom looks these days."
The brightness flickered and then dimmed as wariness crept back into her expression. Her lips parted, then closed, and he could see the competing impulses moving behind her eyes. The mother who wanted to show off her extraordinary child, and the protector who didn't want an armed soldier near him.
"I'm sorry," he said immediately, raising his hands with his palms open. "That was just an idea. You don't have to."
She studied him for a long moment, her dark eyes moving across his face with an intensity that made its way through him to the collective.
Whatever she found apparently passed inspection, because she stood up, brushed the dirt from the knees of her work coveralls with quick, decisive swipes, and looked down at him.
"I'll show you," she said. "But you have to stay out of sight. The children will be scared if an immortal warrior walks into their classroom."
He nodded and rose to his feet.
The height difference was stark now that they were both standing. The top of her head barely reached his shoulder. She had always been small, and that hadn't changed when she'd matured, but her spirit had always been much bigger than her diminutive body, and that hadn't changed either. She hadn't allowed the breeding program to hollow her out like it had so many of the other women.
Yaaf fought the urge to slouch or curl his shoulders to reduce the disparity. In the camp, height and size were advantages to be maximized, and the training had wired his posture for maximum physical presence. Making himself smaller went against every conditioned reflex he had, but he didn't want to intimidate Sullha.
He liked it that she was comfortable with him, and he didn't want to spoil it by towering over her.
But Sullha didn't seem to mind. She didn't lean away from him or angle her body to create distance. She just looked up at him with an expression that was evaluating rather than fearful.
Not sure he was reading her right, he tracked her heartbeat, but it had returned to its normal resting rate, seventy-two beats per minute, steady and unremarkable. During the early part of their conversation, it had been racing at over a hundred, spiking at a hundred and twenty when he'd crouched beside her.
Now it was calm.
She had decided that he wasn't a threat.
The knowledge created a warmth that spread through him with a long-forgotten softness. The collective registered it, the others noting the sensation with the attention of scientists observing a new phenomenon. It wasn't love. He didn't have enoughexperience or context to identify it as such. But it was something adjacent to it, a precursor perhaps, the way the first green shoot was a precursor to the plant it would become.
She started walking and he fell into step beside her, matching his stride to hers, which required shortening it considerably. They walked along the path that ran between the dormitory buildings, and as they passed, women appeared in doorways and windows, watching with expressions that ranged from alarm to curiosity to the blank wariness that seemed to be the compound's default.
None of them spoke to Sullha or to him. They just watched as if he were a stray dog, assessing whether he was dangerous and how quickly they could get to safety if he turned out to be.
Sullha walked with her chin up and her pace steady, not hurrying, not dawdling, projecting a confidence that he suspected was at least partly performed for the benefit of the women watching.
Look. I'm walking beside him, and I'm fine. He's not going to hurt anyone.
She was leading by example, and she probably didn't even realize she was doing it.
They reached the covered area beside the dining hall, and Sullha stopped at the corner of the building and gestured for him to stay back.
"Wait here," she whispered. "You can see the children from here, but they can't see you."
He positioned himself against the wall and looked around the corner.
The classroom was an open-sided structure with a corrugated metal roof and benches arranged in a rough semicircle. A woman was standing at the front with a stick, pointing at letters drawn on a large blackboard that was mounted on a movable stand. Chalk lines formed the shapes of the alphabet, and the children were reciting the letters in a ragged chorus.
