Worldless
Reunion
"Lieutenant Celise Valen, reporting as ordered."
"Yes, sir."
Why am I here? Why does she look at me like that?
"What I have to tell you today is of the utmost secrecy."
"Understood, sir."
"It does not leave this room. Am I understood?"
Her eyes cut through everything. Like she's looking for something broken inside me.
"Yes, sir. What are my orders?"
"We have reliable intelligence which suggests there is a highly placed Commonwealth operative inside the MDS."
A spy. Of course there's a spy. There's always a spy.
"Understood, Colonel. Who's the target?"
"Your objective is to capture this individual, and bring them in for interrogation."
Simple enough. Find the traitor. Bring them in. Like any other mission.
"If I may ask, however, why isn't my team with me?"
"You won't be leading your standard squad this time, Valen."
Something's wrong. Vayan won't look at me.
"You have questions, Lieutenant."
"No, sir. I understand the assignment. Who's the target?"
Just give me the name. Let me do my job. Let me serve.
. . .
"Celise—"
"Major Syrin Valen."
The words don't land. They float past me like smoke.
"That's not possible."
Did I speak? The voice sounds far away.
"There—There must have been some mistake."
"I'm afraid not. The evidence is quite clear, Celise."
Celise. He called me Celise. Not Lieutenant. Why?
"Major Valen has been passing on sensitive information to loyalists for months now."
Syrin. My Syrin. Green eyes and morning coffee and birthday traditions.
"I don't... I don't understand."
The room is tilting. Everything is tilting.
"Why me?"
Did I ask that? I don't remember asking that.
"Put simply, you know the target."
Know the target. The target. My wife is the target.
"Your connection makes you uniquely aware of her patterns, habits, and weaknesses."
Her weaknesses. The way she holds her breath when she's nervous. How she braids her hair when she's thinking. These are weaknesses now.
"Moreover, it will prove your loyalty beyond any doubt."
Prove my loyalty. By destroying everything I love.
"Why me?"
I already asked that. Didn't I already ask that?
"This is no mission. It's a test."
A test. Of course it's a test. Everything is always a test.
Markil's face in my mind. The reason I fight. The reason I serve. The reason I became this.
But if Syrin is... if she was always...
Was any of it real?
. . . . .
"I understand, sir."
I understand nothing. I understand less than nothing.
"When do I leave?"
The words come out automatic. Like breathing. Like dying.
"Tomorrow."
Tomorrow I hunt my wife. Tomorrow I prove my loyalty by destroying my heart.
Tomorrow I become nobody again. But this time, for real.
forever
What's left when love was a lie? What's left when everything you fought for was built on nothing?
I am the weapon they made me. I am the tool they need.
I am nobody hunting somebody who was never really anybody at all.
. . . . .