Exile (4 page)

“There are many things about that experience that I’m not ready to discuss yet,” she answered. “As I recall, you had some things to explain to me and I would have those explanations now if possible. I want to continue my training with the Order, but I will not work with you behind a veil of lies and deceptions.”

Serivar smiled then, raising his cup to her, and the sudden fondness in his expression disconcerted her. “It is refreshing to have you back, Indigo. I missed your fiery temper and lack of respect more than I would have thought possible.”

The comment was disarming, forcing her to cling to her anger. “I find that rather surprising.” She offered a tepid smile, noting with interest that Edan’s expression had turned somewhat sour at Serivar’s words. Was that the mere jealousy of a rival adept or something more?

“The king’s life is always under threat of some kind, but Edan has been investigating some more specific information we got our hands on that someone is preparing to make an attempt on King Jerrin’s life. What we need in the face of such a threat is people working outside of the king’s knowledge, Indigo. People within the order who he could not betray if he were taken hostage. People who could protect his heir. That is why I kept your training secret, but I couldn’t risk telling you until I was confident of your dedication to our cause.”

A chill swept through her. His explanation made more sense than her fear that he might be hatching some plot against the king himself. He was working to protect the kingdom in the event they could not protect the king, and she had been too new yet to trust with that information. She almost felt bad for treating him as she had.

“Why me?”

“Because I have no one stronger than you,” Serivar replied, leaning in, eyes on fire with the earnestness in his voice, and she noted again a souring in Edan’s expression. “I know you don’t want to be a weapon, but I need you to be one. We need the strength of your ability and your aptitude for picking up new skills. You could be our ultimate weapon against such a threat. Simply put, I need you, Indigo.”

The sincerity in his voice and the way he leaned in, his eyes seeing only her, finally disarmed her, breaking her shield of anger and leaving her uncomfortable and a little afraid. She didn’t want him to need her in this way, not him or her kingdom. Yiloch had needed her this way and she had given him everything. Could she give so much again? It was exhausting and scarring. Without the precious reward of Yiloch’s affection, she wasn’t sure she could have given him as much as she had. Then again, she loved him. She couldn’t have turned him away. Could she turn away this? If what Serivar said were true, could she deny her own kingdom the same things she had given to Lyra out of love for its emperor?

“That’s all there is to it then?” She arched a brow, holding on to the mask of cynicism to hide her inner turmoil. “No greater plan than that?”

Serivar gave her a puzzled look. “Is that not enough?”

“So much secrecy before. You should have told me before I left. You could have spared so much worry, so much stress, simply by telling me the truth.” She felt knots of that stress releasing in her mind and gut that she hadn’t known were there and it infuriated her to realize what his secrecy had been doing to her.

Serivar’s features softened, a hint of sympathy in his gentle regard. “You were so set against being made a weapon and, as I said, I wasn’t sure at the time how real the threat might be. I had no way to know if some of those you would be fighting and traveling with might be part of that threat. In retrospect, I realize I should have handled it differently. I am sorry, Indigo. I should have been upfront with you and saved you the whole ordeal of going to Lyra. I made a mistake.”

“Knowing the truth wouldn’t have altered my decision to go to Lyra,” she countered, a touch of guilt warming her cheeks for having toyed with his emotions so. “But I might have done so without a mountain of worry weighing on my shoulders.”

“I can’t say that surprises me. You are a willful creature. Now that you’re back, however, there is much to do. If you’re ready and willing to defend your own people...” he trailed off, letting the challenge hang in the air, and leaned back into his chair behind the large wooden desk, taking a sip of his wine.

Indigo returned his scrutinizing regard. She wanted to continue learning. Knowledge was power. Power was freedom. Her thoughts wandered back to encounter with the adept Myac again. As far as she could tell, he might be as strong with ascard as she was. The battle with him almost cost her life. Myac was still out there somewhere and knowing that turned her blood to ice. Even without the desire to be more prepared if she ever met up with him again, she didn’t think her conscience would let her turn away from her king as leader of her people and as a man who had always treated her kindly, if he truly was in danger.

“If you feel that I must be made into a weapon for the good of our kingdom, then I will learn what you have to teach me.”

Serivar sat up, looking pleased, if somewhat surprised, by her response. Not as surprised as she was to discover that this training was so important to her, but she had gained enormous confidence from what she had learned so far. To learn more could only be to her benefit. She took a sip of her wine, not letting her eyes leave the headmasters as she did so.

“When will you be ready to resume training?”

“Tomorrow?”

A slow smile curved his lips and he raised his cup to her. “Tomorrow then.”

CHAPTER THREE

She yearns for more power. More control.

Myac observed the exchange with considerable interest from behind the safety of his assumed identity. He had known the mere surface illusion of the Caithin man called Edan wouldn’t be enough to fool the woman he had fought in Lyra and seeing her now made him appreciate the effort that went into his disguise. Two of Serivar’s most powerful creators assisted in building up complex layers of masking and illusion to bury the ascard signature that would have betrayed his identity. That masking also concealed the strength of his ascard connection.

Even so, the first moments in the room with Indigo were nerve-wracking. He knew from prior experience that her ascard connection was extraordinary and almost expected her to find a flaw in the illusion, but after a few seconds hesitation, she accepted him for who Serivar said he was and her initial suspicion eased into curiosity.

Now that he had a chance to observe her in a casual environment, he marveled at how the fierce beauty he’d faced in Lyra could appear so disarmingly delicate. She wasn’t as tall as his memory had made her. Average of height and elegant in the length of her slim bones, her build was refined enough to appear almost fragile. The determined gleam in her brilliant blue eyes brought life to fine features, warmed by a rich bronze skin tone and thick locks of dark brown hair that cascaded around her face with a hint of wildness. A playful, brightly colored dress clung to her figure, defiant of her wary manner.

She was as remarkable in appearance as she was strong in ascard connection. Had Yiloch perhaps chosen her for something other than her ascard ability? It was an interesting possibility. If Yiloch discovered her power first, that alone would have motivated him to draw her into his circle. But how would he have discovered the one thing she worked so hard to hide? It almost made more sense that the selfish prince might have sought her out for the pleasure of her flesh and discovered the magnificent adept beneath her skin by accident. What a fortuitous accident for him if so.

He investigated further with ascard, taking extreme care not to alert her to his actions. She still had her ability almost completely masked. In her own home city, he would have expected her to be less cautious. When he encountered her in Lyra, she had masked her ability with such incredible skill that he hadn’t become aware of her presence until he faced her in person. That element of surprise almost cost him his life. He had managed to turn the tables, but only barely. When he fled to Caithin after Emperor Rylan’s fall, he had done so not knowing if she survived and hoping she had not. Now he experienced a morbid sort of pleasure at knowing she had. As Edan, a fellow member in this very exclusive subset of the King’s Order, he might have the opportunity to influence her, so long as he could ignore the irritating fondness his old healing instructor, Serivar, had for her.

That fondness radiated off the headmaster even now, accompanied by a thick layer of frustration.

She was also an open book to the ascard skill he had developed for sensing emotions, though hers were more restrained, a hint of anger edged with the sour tang of distrust. Such emotions seemed out of place coming from a student facing her teacher. Digging for more, he came up against a thick core of sorrow, the foundation all of her other emotions rested upon. Even without knowing the source of that sorrow, it inspired an unaccustomed twist of sympathy in him. It tasted to his ascard sense much like the sorrow he’d felt after his mother was murdered and his father turned him away.

He pushed those thoughts aside, leaving darker things to dwell in the dark places where they belonged.

What he most wanted to understand was why she risked so much for Prince Yiloch. Was it nothing more than a sense of duty to help her kingdom fulfill the alliance they had made with the Lyran prince? Could she have been guilty of the same error he’d made? Might she have believed there was little risk because she had never come upon another adept as strong as herself? With her strength, as with his, it would have been a reasonable assumption to make.

Strange as it was, there was something glorious about being wrong. Having someone else around who rivaled him in power made everything more interesting. Until he knew more, however, he couldn’t risk her finding out who he really was, which also meant he couldn’t let her know of the power they shared.

He drew on a more ascard, preparing to search deeper still. There was so much to learn about her and he wanted to know it all.

“I would like you to work with Edan,” Serivar was saying to Indigo. “He has an advanced skill in sensing emotion that I think would be useful for you going forward.”

As Serivar spoke the words, the emotions Myac was digging through vanished and his ability ran up against a cold wall of apparent indifference. She met his eyes, offering a tight challenging smile. If he’d had any warning, he might have tried to counter the block, but he would never have expected her to put up such a barrier so fast. Her aptitude for adapting an existing skill to new use was remarkable.

“Impressive.” He acknowledged the sudden shut-down with grudging admiration.

“Thank you, Lord Edan.” She offered a curt nod. “No offense, but I like my privacy.”

“None taken.” He made his voice light despite the swell of irritation with Serivar for alerting her and with how easily she managed to slap away his power, like someone swatting a fly. He hadn’t had much strength invested in the process, but being so effortlessly cast off still stung his pride. How novel.

Masking was never one of his greatest strengths. He would have to learn to mask his own emotions a bit better before he taught her too much about detecting them. It was also clear that he needed to make Serivar understand how any further revelation of his skills in her presence could undermine their efforts. They could have learned more about what drove her before she had the opportunity to shut him out. Every skill she developed gave her more advantages and she already had a plethora of defenses that were going to force him to find ways outside of ascard to understand her.

Serivar glanced at each of them in turn and Myac dared to give him a quick warning look. The headmaster’s slight shoulders rose in a small shrug and Myac bit back on the petty punishments he yearned to deal out. Serivar refused to acknowledge how dangerous his precious little prodigy could be if they didn’t keep her under control. Then again, the headmaster had never shown enough sense to withhold anything from him either. Expecting him to have the foresight to filter what he taught this woman, whose very manner demanded an influx of knowledge, was perhaps asking too much. The best Myac could hope for was to win her trust as Edan, which could to be an entertaining endeavor if he went about it correctly.

“About Lyra…” Serivar began.

Myac returned his full attention to Indigo, still hoping to learn something, though it would have been far easier before she blocked him out. Now he had to rely on body language and tone to read between her words.

She straightened in her chair, shoulders pulling back, defiance hardening her features. “Many things happened in Lyra, and I used skills that I should perhaps not have used. I have no regrets, however, and no one in Caithin can prove I did anything more than heal with my abilities.”

So many careful words used to convey absolutely nothing. Well done.

Serivar’s eyes narrowed, as unsatisfied with her answer as Myac was, though for different reasons. “No one in Caithin?”

Myac smiled to himself. No one in Caithin that she knew of could prove she had done more than heal, but he had been on the receiving end of her power. Since he arrived here, he and Serivar had many lengthy and often heated discussions about the powers she used against him, so there were at least two people in Caithin who knew some of what she had done. To her credit, she had no reason not to believe she was telling the truth.

“I used abilities other than healing to aid Emperor Yiloch directly on at least one occasion, so obviously he was aware, as were a few of his closest companions.”

Serivar shook his head and his tone, when he continued, was cold enough to freeze a river in flood. A fine show, since none of this was actually news to him. “Why would you risk exposing everything? We had an agreement. You were to go as a healer like the others. Nothing more. Certainly not as a personal adept to the prince.”

Her blue eyes matched the ice in his tone and she lifted her chin, refusing to accept chastisement. “My reasons are my own.”