* * *
Rion deliberately walked away from the others, in no mood to do anything but be barely civil. He’d gotten back to the residence late last night, but hadn’t been able to sleep despite all the exercise he’d had. The question of where Naran could be kept demanding an answer, but he couldn’t find one. She’d disappeared into thin air, and if there had been any signs of struggle he would have been worried as well as baffled to the point of insanity.
But he’d finally noticed last night that the bed he’d shared with Naran had even been neatly made, which seemed to rule out someone coming in and kidnapping her. She’d taken the gifts he’d given her and had left—but to go where? And even beyond that,
why
?
“Excuse me, sir,” Rion heard, and looked up to see that he’d been stopped by a servant. “There’s a gentleman at the door who has asked to speak to you. Are you available, or shall I send him away?”
“A gentleman?” Rion wondered aloud. He couldn’t think of a single man who would come to speak to him, but the matter might just have something to do with Naran. “It’s all right, I’ll see him.”
The servant nodded and turned back toward the house, and Rion followed with growing impatience. If the visit
didn’t
have something to do with the woman he loved, he might well end up losing his temper. The front door stood closed, of course, and when the servant opened it before disappearing discreetly, Rion was able to see that the sloppily dressed visitor was a complete stranger.
“Are you Lord Clarion Mardimil?” the man asked, a sneer in his voice as he pronounced the name and title. “I’m not supposed to speak to anyone but him.”
“The name is Rion Mardimil, not Clarion,” Rion corrected shortly, ignoring the man’s rumpled coat and trousers and well-worn shirt. “What do you want?”
“I have a message from … your mother,” the man replied, sounding as though he’d meant to say something else entirely—until he’d realized how much larger Rion was. “I’ve only seen you from a distance, since I’m one of the ones working for the man who works for her … if you can follow that.”
One of the ones watching his every move, Rion knew the man meant. But when he didn’t comment aloud, the smaller man seemed to regain a certain amount of confidence.
“The message they want me to pass on is as follows,” the visitor continued with now obvious relish. “You didn’t fool us for long last night when you changed places with one of your friends, and we know the neighborhood you went to. It’s only a matter of time before we also know which house you visited, and then we’ll have your little playmate. Mommy says to tell you that she means to make the filthy slut sorry she dared to despoil her precious baby, but if you come home right this minute you might be able to talk her out of it.”
The man’s sneer was now completely visible, but Rion was too confused to take offense. He’d managed to elude his watchers only for a very short time, but the news of that wasn’t as disturbing as it might have been. If
he
hadn’t been able to locate Naran, these men would be lucky even to find the proper house. He still didn’t know why the girl had disappeared, but now he was heartily glad she had.
“I have a message for you to take back to my mother,” Rion said after only a very brief pause. “Tell her she might as well forget about putting on her best corset, because I’m not coming anywhere near her. And now I have a message for you and your … associates.”
The man had lost his sneer rather quickly, but when Rion used the power to push the man closer with a block of hardened air behind him, the fool actually went pale.
“In case you’ve somehow missed the point, I’m informing you that I’ve earned a master’s bracelet in Air magic,” Rion said softly, holding up his arm to display the bracelet. “With that fact firmly in mind, I’ll now add that I truly
hate
being followed around and spied on. From now on I mean to take a very good look around every time I leave this residence. If I happen to find someone following me, I expect I’ll do something … unpleasant about it. Now you can tell me what
you
expect to do.”
The man swallowed hard, his dark eyes showing a good deal of fear. When Rion had first used the power, the man had tried to counter Rion’s efforts. He seemed to be a rather strong Middle talent, but next to Rion he might as well have been a talentless Guild member. Mother’s agent must have sent this man in particular with the message, thinking he would be able to defend himself. It hadn’t worked out that way, and the man was quick to admit it.
“Wh-what I expect to do is play it smart,” the man stuttered in his haste to supply the right answer. “The others and I will find something else to do, and then you won’t be bothered again.”
“Wrong,” Rion told him, using the block of air to push him another step closer. “What you will do is not mention any of this part of the conversation, except to the others who watch along with you. What you will tell them is that they’ll now be earning easy silver, as they’re to take their posts and then read or sleep. If I appear I am
not
to be followed, and you may make up any details for your reports that you like. Have I made myself clear?”
“Very,” the man agreed with a gulp, but Rion could see the instant calculation in his eyes and decided against letting it pass.
“Don’t think you can find a way around my orders,” he said, suddenly but briefly blocking the air the man was currently breathing. “I mean to hold
you
responsible for the actions of all the rest of your friends, and if one or more of them follow me they won’t be the only ones to experience my displeasure. Now what do you say?”
“Yes, all right, you’ve made your point,” the man gasped out, finally able to breathe again. “I’ll keep it quiet, and make sure the others do the same. In the name of the Unknown Aspect, how did you get so damned strong?”
“Practice,” Rion answered dryly, then stepped back and closed the door in the man’s face. Whether or not his orders would be followed was still up for debate, but at least he’d made
some
effort to increase his freedom. If it happened to work, all fine and good; if it didn’t, he’d have to try something else.
But in the meanwhile, he had another question to ruin his sleep: would Naran eventually return to that house and end up being found? He hoped not, or he would probably lose his head and do something horrible. He wished he knew where she was, and why she’d left like that. Where … and why, why,
why
…?
* * *
Lady Eltrina Razas settled back in her seat as her carriage pulled away from the residence, which finally let her show the laughter she’d been holding in. Even the densest, most trusting member of all the groups would finally see the truth today, and none of the people she’d just left fit into that category. They were all smart enough to have grown suspicious about what the testing authority was doing some time ago, and this latest interview would have clinched matters for them. They might not have
all
the answers, but by now they ought to know that they’d be formed into a challenging Blending—and should also have decided to ruin things for the authority by seriously trying to win the Throne.
Eltrina laughed aloud in delight at such colossal naïveté. She hadn’t really believed that
all
the peasants would react that way, but Ollon Kapmar had been absolutely right. He spoke from the experience of having gone through a previous twenty-fifth year, of course, so Eltrina wasn’t as impressed as she’d pretended to be when he’d told her. But the idea of letting them think they’d learned things they weren’t supposed to know was marvelous, no matter who had originally thought of it. It made the poor little things so much easier to manage…
Another laugh escaped her, this time one of anticipation. She couldn’t wait until all those naive little fools learned the real truth, only far too late for it to do them any good. And by then she would have all the power she needed to choose among the males for a toy or two, to keep her entertained for a while. But not too long a while. Lord Kagrin’s father would begrudge her every minute she kept them, and Lord General Trepor Axtin wasn’t a man to trifle with. He might refrain from criticizing her openly, but only if she were firmly seated in Ollon’s place.
Sudden annoyance made Eltrina shift in her seat as it chased away her amusement. All her planning had gone extremely well, and she’d been poised on the brink of arranging Ollon’s sadly fatal accident when circumstances had turned briefly against her. Ollon’s sister had been brutally murdered, and Ollon’s rage over the loss had caused the man to change his habitual actions. He had been spending most of his time haunting the investigators, demanding that they find the one responsible for killing his sister. Eltrina had known Elfini, of course, and personally couldn’t see what the fuss was about. It wasn’t as if someone
useful
had been killed…
But Ollon raged on and on about the loss of his precious sister, leading Eltrina to suspect that there had been more between them than a sibling relationship. That part of it didn’t matter in the least, but the fact that Eltrina was no longer able to
know
when Ollon would be in a particular place did. He hadn’t even slept with her since the murder, and how was she supposed to arrange his accident when she never knew where he would be?
Eltrina took a deep breath to calm herself, hoping the rumor she’d heard this morning was true. Just before she left the house, her husband had mentioned that someone had been put under arrest for the murder. His informant had said it was one of their own, a member of the nobility, but no one seemed willing to believe that. A peasant, yes, but a member of the nobility? That was too ridiculous to consider.
But it really didn’t matter
who
had been arrested, if the action served to return Ollon to his usual habits. She’d been the one doing all the work for the past few days, and that was definitely not part of her plans. Ollon was supposed to do the work before he died, not spend all his time looking for vengeance. If he wasn’t careful, the Advisors would replace him before
she
had the chance to arrange his accident.
Time was growing very short, but Eltrina refused to abandon her ambitions. If Ollon wasn’t there to oversee the final arrangements for the competitions, then Eltrina would just have to coax someone else into doing it and then take the credit for herself. She’d already had to pick a replacement for the entrant who had lost his mind during the first competition, and she hadn’t enjoyed having to interrupt her own private schedule to do it. And now she had to drag herself to that tiresome meeting this afternoon in Ollon’s place.
Thoughts of that meeting made her
very
tired, but the people involved were simply too important to ignore. She would be expected to report on the results of the measurements taken from the peasants, and would confidently tell them the truth: none of them was too strong to be easily handled, so the right people had nothing to worry about. The second part of it, though, concerning that idiotic worry about the Prophecies… Ollon appeared to be just as concerned as their superiors, but
she
certainly wasn’t that foolish.
So she would have to
pretend
to be concerned, no matter how ridiculous the pretense made her feel. Yes, we’ve had all the applicants closely watched, but no, not a single sign was seen to manifest. Big surprise, as though they’d have to look
hard
to see the signs the Prophecies spoke of. They were all fools, and maybe she would do well to consider taking one of
their
positions once she had Ollon’s.
Well, that was for the future. Eltrina smiled again, pleased that she’d stuck to her determination despite all those ridiculous little snags. It meant she
was
destined for greatness, just as she’d always known…
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Homin was actually the first to get to the new residence. When the servants who came out for his baggage told him that, it improved his mood to a small extent. And his mood needed improving, there was no doubt about
that
. Annoyance had been an unfamiliar emotion to him, but the past few days had begun to teach him a number of unfamiliar things.
It took only a few moments to follow the servants to his assigned quarters, where he left his coat and new hat. He’d been told that tea was ready before he’d come upstairs, so he went back down to the sitting room to have a cup. He’d only just gotten sugar added when he heard someone else’s arrival, and turned in time to see Delin Moord enter.
“Homin, dear fellow, what an incredible surprise!” Delin exclaimed, obviously in a happily expansive mood himself. “You’re actually the first of us to arrive, something I wouldn’t have believed if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.”
“There are any number of things not to be believed around here,” Homin replied with a grimace. “My apartment has only two rooms, Delin, and I seriously doubt if there are enough servants to see to our needs. Why couldn’t they have left us where we were?”
“You can’t join people into a Blending when they’re scattered all over the landscape,” Delin replied, now eyeing him curiously. “What’s come over you, Homin? I scarcely recognize you from just a few short days ago.”
“I’m no different than I was,” Homin protested, knowing he spoke the truth. “It’s simply that I’ve only just begun to … get things moving smoothly at home, and now they’re forcing me to come here. I intend to suggest that we all move to my place, where we’ll certainly be a good deal more comfortable.”
“Your place,” Delin echoed, still looking at him strangely. “You sound as though you’ve forgotten that it’s your father’s house, not yours, and I believe that’s the key to your odd behavior. This is the first time you’ve been on your own, isn’t it? There’s no one at—‘your place’—to tell you what to do, and on the contrary the servants have been taking
your
orders. Independence is a heady wine, isn’t it, Homin?”
“Yes, it certainly is,” Homin granted him grudgingly after gulping a swallow of tea. He
had
forgotten somehow that the house was Father’s rather than his, and that Father could conceivably return at any time. Homin found that he disliked that idea intensely, especially since Father was almost certain to blame all his troubles on
him
. As though
he
were the one who had married that Elfini…