“There don’t seem to be any questions,” Eltrina said brightly after looking around at them. “That means I can now leave you to enjoy your meal, but don’t worry if a question occurs to you later. I’ll also be at the reception, and those of you who attend can ask me then. Good night, all.”
The woman turned and left the room after giving them an airy wave of her hand, but for a moment no one seemed able to speak or move. Vallant knew exactly how they felt, and it was a definite relief when Jovvi sighed and leaned back in her chair.
“Well, that was clear enough,” she said, looking at each of them to see that they understood what “that” was: the virtual certainty that they would soon be made into a Blending. “We seem to have only one more challenge before us, which will be the competition tomorrow. Anyone who doesn’t win doesn’t get to go to the reception.”
Or join the Blending, was the unspoken addition. By then the servants had entered with their food, so no one did any more than nod. Not that anyone needed to do more, Vallant admitted silently. Or point out the fact that he, at least, might not make it after all.
“Excuse me, Dom Ro, but I wonder if I might have a few minutes of your time after dinner?” Vallant heard the words which dragged him back to the present, and for an instant thought it was Jovvi who had spoken them. When he realized that it was Tamrissa instead, his insides tightened into a painful spring. Most likely the woman wanted to tell him again how distasteful she felt sharing his bed would be, or possibly she meant to tell him again that only cowards refused to see how far they could go in life. He was in the mood for neither thing, and so shook his head as he gave his attention to the food.
“I’m sorry, Dama Domon, but I intend to go right to bed after dinner,” he replied in the most neutral tone he was capable of, making sure not to look at her. “Tomorrow will be a difficult day for some of us, so I’m afraid the conversation will have to be saved for another time.”
Nothing of words came in the way of a response or argument, and a glance at the girl while reaching for a roll showed Vallant what seemed to be disappointment on her face. He’d obviously taken away her chance to make him feel even worse than he did, but that was just too bad. She could try again tomorrow night—assuming he still rated a place in the residence.
Which, considering where the competition would be held, wasn’t very likely. And he’d been the fool who’d
wanted
to get to the first competition because it suited his mood. Well, there was no arguing that it certainly did suit his mood
now
…
* * *
Eltrina Razas let the servant help her into her carriage, the smile on her face showing just how pleased she was with the way things were going. She’d even managed to form
six
groups of potential challenging Blendings, so if any of the members of the first five happened to become unavailable, it would be possible to replace him or her.
But the peasant Holter would
not
be returned to this residence if that beautiful man Ro happened to fail in his attempts to keep up. Holter had actually begun to settle in as a full member of the group, proving how little taste those lowborn commoners had for encouraging such a thing. The man was a peasant even to them, after all… But Holter was gone, leaving Ro and his problem—and his ever-growing feud with the Domon female. Her spies had told her that they’d even stopped speaking, and she herself had heard, just a moment ago, the way the man had refused to grant the girl even a handful of minutes of his time.
Eltrina’s smile widened as her carriage began to move, her plans having been easily adapted. These people would never make an effective Blending, and when they failed she would exercise her authority and take first choice from among them. She’d been too busy to notice earlier how really beautiful a man Ro was, with those broad shoulders, that handsome face, and that delicious platinum-blond hair. But she’d noticed tonight, and once his bright and mighty prospects turned to powdered dust, he’d be more than anxious to give her a time of the pleasure she desired.
And while she enjoyed herself completing her plans, Lord Ollon, her superior in the testing authority and current lover, would have his tragic accident. It was already mostly arranged—although there had been an unforeseen and annoying delay—and afterward Eltrina would go from second in command to being completely in charge. Her political position and power would more than triple, and finally, at
long
last, she would be in charge of her own destiny.
After something tragic happened to her husband as well, she added silently without the amusement. The tiresome pig had been bothering her even more than usual, and she didn’t yet dare refuse him. He wasn’t above tossing her aside if he grew displeased, and after she’d given him so much. Well,
that
debt would soon be repaid, the first of quite a few…
Eltrina felt a surge of impatience, but used the sight of the beautifully calm night to help push it away. Everything was going perfectly, and that despite the efforts of a great many fools. That group looking for applicants who fit the description of the Chosen Five in the Prophecies, for instance. She’d had to let them paw through her notes and records in order to get rid of them, but she hadn’t let them see the private reports she’d had assembled. Just about everyone in her residences fit the Prophecy in one way or another, but only if you knew everything about them.
So Eltrina hadn’t let the searchers know everything. They would have intruded with their ridiculous investigation and ruined all her plans, and she refused to allow
anyone
to do that, especially not for nonsensical gibberish. People who believed in the collection of fairy tales called the Prophecy were fools, and Eltrina had never suffered fools gladly. After the reception she would tell her people about forming challenging Blendings without the interference of idiots, and then…
And then Eltrina would have what she’d ached for for so long. Freedom, and power, and all the wonderful things that went with them… She leaned her head back and closed her eyes, actually tasting what would so soon be hers…
CHAPTER THIRTY
Rion was delighted to see the Razas woman leave, and that despite the welcome news she brought. He’d been picturing himself turning up on Naran’s doorstep with no more than a few silver dins in his hand, feeling and looking like a beggar. Now … now he would have gold, assuming he could find a way to avoid being followed. Maybe he would do best to take Tamrissa up on her offer to help…
“I had a surprise today,” Lorand Coll said suddenly, breaking a silence which had continued since their food had first been brought. “Holter’s having been moved out reminded me, even though Holter will be missed and
he
wasn’t. Eskin Drowd showed up in the testing area today.”
“So he finally qualified,” Rion said, finding it impossible to keep the distaste out of his voice. “I hope you had the good sense to bury him in the ground, or Encouraged a tree to grow up around him.”
“I can’t say I wasn’t tempted,” Coll agreed sourly. “Even after ‘eating my dust’ for so many days, as one Adept put it, Drowd was still sneering with imagined superiority when he saw me. I could also see that he was waiting for me to fail, so I decided I couldn’t let that happen. If I hadn’t been too tired afterward to think of it, I would have thanked him for helping me to succeed.”
“I had almost the same help, and from a similar source,” Tamrissa put in with a grimace, apparently having pulled herself out of disappointment of some sort. “Beldara Lant has also qualified, and she got me so angry that I invited
her
to attack me in place of Soonen. But I also promised to respond if she did, which I hadn’t done with Soonen. At least not to begin with. Afterward, I think Beldara was glad she hadn’t accepted my challenge.”
“‘At least not to begin with,’” Jovvi echoed, looking at Tamrissa with a frown. “Does that mean you did respond eventually? And did that have anything to do with why were you so exhausted that you were asleep as soon as they helped you into the coach?”
“Yes to both,” Tamrissa agreed. “I certainly did respond during the last exercise, but only because Soonen suddenly had the help of Adept Gerdol in attacking me.” Rion started at hearing that, and apparently so did everyone else at the table. “For some reason they both tried to burn me to ash, but I couldn’t return the favor without missing out on my last mastery. So I drew in more power than I’d ever used before, and worked
around
their attack to complete the exercise. Pretending I didn’t even notice their efforts scared the starch out of them, but it used up so much of my strength that once I finished eating a
really
large meal, all I wanted to do was sleep.”
“Now isn’t that an odd coincidence,” Jovvi commented, looking around as she said it. “I had almost the same experience, and apparently so did everyone else. Genovir and Algus tried to gang up on me, but I was able to overcome them and gain the mastery. Afterward it became perfectly clear why they were so deferential yesterday after I gained the first-level masteries. They knew they would try to interfere with me during the second-level testing, and wanted to give me a reason to go easy with them if I ended up victorious.”
“Subservient behavior in front of a superior,” Coll agreed with a nod. “That’s what works with lower animals, so now we know what they think of us—if there was any doubt before.”
“But they were also frightened because they weren’t certain it would work,” Rion pointed out. “They claimed they were under orders and did the same with every applicant, but for some reason I didn’t believe them. My personal guess is that they do it only with those whom they consider unacceptably strong.”
“How can someone in
our
position be ‘unacceptably strong’?” Ro suddenly demanded, his previous dark mood still obviously with him. “Those bastards could have killed me, or at least come close enough to it to break my nerve. After that my decidin’ to stick it out would be meaningless. When it finally came down to it, I’d be—”
Ro’s words broke off as he realized what he was saying, and Rion joined everyone else in exchanging disturbed glances. With the servants around they were all being careful of what they said, but even with circumlocution Ro had made an important point after Rion’s own. If the testing authority wanted the strongest and best for the challenging Blendings, why were they trying to weaken some of those who
were
best? The obvious answer was that they didn’t want any common challengers who were
too
strong, not when those commoners would be facing members of the nobility.
“I think, under other circumstances, I would find my appetite gone now,” Jovvi commented, staring down at the food in her plate. “Confusion often does that to me, and right now I’m
very
confused because of what we were told only a short while ago. We have to
win
the competition tomorrow, or we don’t get to go to the reception the day after.”
That was another excellent point, and Rion joined the others in considering it silently. Being too strong had brought down attack on their heads, but now they’d been told they had to be stronger than everyone else. And there was no doubt that they were being urged to win. The Razas woman’s voice and attitude had made that clear, and yet… What
were
they supposed to do?
“You know, it’s really strange,” Tamrissa said suddenly, drawing everyone’s attention. “I’ve just now remembered one of my late husband’s more odious games. He would give all the servants a few hours off, and once they were gone he would chase me from room to room all over the house. The longer I kept running the happier he was, and when I finally dropped from exhaustion he would … have the rest of his entertainment. It took me a while to realize that I didn’t
have
to keep going to exhaustion, I could simply pick a time to
pretend
to be exhausted and he never knew the difference. After all, I was only being measured against my own strength… I’m sorry, I don’t know
why
I brought that up…”
Rion joined Jovvi and Coll in assuring her it was quite all right to mention something without relevance to the conversation, but that was just as much of a lie as Tamrissa’s apology. The girl had had an excellent thought, and had found a way to mention it to the rest of them without alerting any servant who might be listening.
The fact had slipped Rion’s mind, but that first competition would be on the order of a foot race. Each participant would be striving to be best, but against time and situation rather than directly against each other. And in a foot race, it was possible to win by a single body length as easily as by ten or twenty yards. If they pretended that that was the best they could do, who would be able to prove otherwise? And then a thought of his own occurred to him.
“If we’re sharing personal incidents, I have one of my own I’d like to share,” he said, keeping his voice diffident but looking around pointedly at each of the others. “Once, when I was a boy, Mother began to invite people over who had sons of their own who were approximately my age. I thought at the time that she did it to provide me with playmates, but during each visit she insisted on having some sort of contest among all the children. Once it was a race, and once it was a test of strength, and once it was even a comparison of book learning.”
“So you were constantly being required to perform,” Jovvi said with a sympathetic nod. “Did she expect you to win at everything?”
“Yes, and most of the time I did, but being able to brag wasn’t her entire reason for doing it,” Rion said. “She held the contests to see how well I would do against some criterion of her own, using the other little boys as nothing more than yardsticks. She didn’t care about
their
performances, only mine, which took me awhile to realize. At the time I was too busy wondering why the other boys hated me when I won.”
Again there were murmurings of commiseration, but the expressions of understanding in everyone’s eyes told Rion they’d gotten his point. Depending on how strong the other competition entrants were, the whole point of the exercise might be to assess the strength of Rion and the others. If the thing was legitimate, they would face other possible members of Blendings; if it wasn’t, the testing authority would have dross there just to make it all
look
good. But they would have to wait to find out which it would be.