‘… a rigid discipline, without which we would have no grasp of our own capabilities …’
He’s dull, but we are not all that way. His voice in my mind was rich and gentle, and I realised I’d never imagined the kind of power he could wield.
Only those trained to do so can understand how to wield the soul power, but there are many different kinds of power, Prince Thorne, and you wield a great deal of your own.
He could read my thoughts?
When you think them as clearly as that I can.
I glanced across the table to see that he was grinning. With a start I realised that everyone was staring at me expectantly.
Tell them you agree.
Clearing my throat, I nodded. ‘I agree.’
Lutius and Quillane both smiled, and I looked at Osric gratefully. In my head I tried to form a question. With what did I just agree?
No idea, he replied mildly. But that’s usually the safest answer since it’s the only thing they wish to hear. Then he laughed, and it was such an odd sensation in my head that I clenched my jaw with unease. It felt wrong all over my skin, having his magic inside me.
Forgive me, he said quickly. You are unaccustomed to this. I will stop now. And just like that he was gone from my head.
Lutius wrapped up his explanation of warder magic and I felt bad for having missed the entire thing.
‘My powers of deduction are telling me that someone new has arrived!’ Finn cried, rubbing her temples as though from telepathy. Jonah snorted his drink onto the hand of his poor servant and then apologised profusely.
‘Forgive us,’ Quillane said with a soft laugh. She made the introductions.
‘I know this one,’ Lutius said when she came to Jonah. ‘He’s one of mine, though he behaved very poorly today.’
‘He did not!’ Penn exclaimed.
‘He should never have wielded magic he is untrained in,’ Lutius informed him. ‘It was foolish and unbecoming.’
‘Penn, it’s –’ Jonah tried, but Penn stood so quickly his chair fell back to clash against the ground.
‘He didn’t!’ the boy roared, and I could see him growing enraged. His fists clenched and he hit them onto the wooden table loudly. ‘That’s Jonah! You don’t talk about him like that!’
Finn tried to get up, but she couldn’t see where she was and bumped her hip sharply.
‘Penn, it’s all right, I –’ Jonah said again but Penn let out a moan that was, abruptly, full of despair. It struck out and into all of us, like the ache of all his pain put into one sound.
I went to him, turning him to face me. Without permission, I removed his blindfold and looked into his eyes. They were full of frustrated tears. ‘Penn,’ I said softly. ‘I need your help. Can you tell me how many flagstones are on this balcony floor?’
His moan cut off and he looked at me, taking me in. He wiped his eyes impatiently, looking concerned. ‘Of course,’ he uttered. ‘Of course I’ll help you. Don’t worry, Thorne.’ And then he dropped to his knees and started counting the stones, and I felt sick in my guts for having manipulated him so, but in this moment I knew also that I loved him as kin, and would do so for the rest of my life.
There was silence around the table as I sat slowly. We didn’t offer an explanation. Jonah and Finn remained silent, and I knew they would never apologise for Penn, so I wouldn’t either.
Quillane looked pained by the exchange and was watching Penn worriedly. Falco was expressionless and watched me.
‘His mind is addled,’ Lutius said blankly.
‘No,’ Finn snapped, and I could scent her rage. ‘It is clear as day and full of beauty.’ And then, ‘I would never expect a warder to understand complexity.’
I felt a momentary fear slice through me. Somehow Falco correctly interpreted it. ‘Don’t worry, Prince,’ he told me. ‘We don’t punish words or thoughts in this country. Finn can say whatever she wants, and we just might love her for it.’
As Finn blushed – Finn, the girl who was never rattled by anyone – I wondered how no one else had picked that Falco was all an act. He was too smart, too calculated. Perhaps people only saw what they expected to.
‘I don’t understand why Jonah’s magic wasn’t permitted,’ I admitted. ‘He was told upon entry that he could use the power he knew.’
Lutius considered me. ‘Would you like to see something, Highness? It might help you to understand.’
I nodded.
Lutius called for two novices to be brought in. They were both blindfolded and he explained that they were in their fifth year of training, personal mentees, students who shadowed him. I didn’t know how they both knew what to do – probably mind speak – but the eyes of both turned white and their skin glowed a very faint blue as if their whole body was covered in a bruise.
And then I wasn’t looking at them anymore, any of them. Because the chair I sat upon started rising in the air. I gripped its edges with a shock of fear. A sound left my mouth and I gazed around in astonishment. Up I flew, high up into the air, the ground below me growing smaller and smaller. I could feel the air against my face, colder and harsher as I rose, and my sense of balance started to fail until I knew I would fall. A deep terror awoke inside me and I squeezed my eyes shut, willing myself to remain calm. Sweat beaded and trickled down my face, and my guts heaved.
Then, just as quickly as it had started, I was back on the ground and I blinked, stunned, to find that Finn was standing and yelling at Lutius. ‘Let him go!’ she raged. ‘Stop this!’
I blinked, realising there were tears on my cheeks. Well. Great. This was the most mortifyingly humiliating moment of my life. I must have been making some Gods-awful sounds if they alerted Finn to my fear. The students’ eyes returned to normal and they looked terrified.
‘Finn, it’s all right,’ I told her quickly. ‘I’m fine.’
She was physically trembling as she sat down and gripped the edge of the table with white knuckles.
‘Forgive me,’ Lutius said emotionlessly. ‘I had no idea he was so affected by heights.’
Falco gave a titter of amusement, but I didn’t think it was real. I couldn’t smell any amusement on him.
‘What was that?’ I asked.
‘An illusion, Majesty,’ Osric told me.
‘We’re so sorry,’ one of the novices whispered to me. He reeked as though he thought I would rise up and devour him this very instant.
‘It’s all right,’ I assured him quickly. ‘I just … We weren’t in the air?’
‘No, Highness,’ Lutius said. ‘They simply made you think you were.’
‘The wind on my face and the loss of balance … You thought of everything.’
Lutius dismissed them and they retreated from the balcony. ‘They are currently learning illusory coercions.’
‘So would they really be able to lift us off the ground?’
‘After such a regrettable fiasco, we come to the point I wished to make.’ He looked at Jonah, who had remained quiet in his blindfold. ‘It is far easier to manipulate a human mind than to manipulate physical matter. So no,’ Lutius said. ‘They would not be able to move you through the air. Only Osric has the kind of strength for that.’
I looked at Osric, who flashed me a lazy smile. I was now more certain than ever of why he wasn’t in charge. He wasn’t just restless – he was arrogant, too.
The implication hit, and we all turned as one to look at Jonah.
‘A fourth year novice with as much power as the strongest warder in the world,’ Falco pointed out. ‘Is that really what we’re to assume here?’
‘It’s not like that,’ Jonah said hurriedly. ‘I thought Finn would die if she fell and I just … I didn’t think.’
‘A true point,’ Quillane said. ‘He acted to save his kin. He will not be punished for it, as he caused harm to no one.’ And that seemed to be the end of the discussion, despite it being hardly the point. I didn’t think it would be as simple for Jonah when he got back to training th
ough. Lutius was gazing at him with a kind of rapt attention.
‘I’m weary,’ the Empress added. ‘Forgive me, but I think we had best all get some rest. Tomorrow will be a long day – for the four of you, especially.’
As we went to leave, Penn shook his head. ‘I’ve not finished counting!’
I looked at Quillane and Falco. ‘I would stay with him while he counts, with your permission?’
‘I will remain also,’ Osric offered. ‘I wish to speak with the prince.’
Falco threw his empty cup to the ground. ‘I don’t care what you lot do! I’m off to find entertainment!’ He was laying it on a bit thick now. Maybe he really was drunk.
Quillane murmured, ‘Of course. I will have guards escort you home when you are ready. Unless the four of you would like to stay in the palace? It would be our honour.’
‘No thank you,’ Finn said crisply. She sank into a curtsey that very nearly cracked her head open on the table in her blindness. She and Jonah were escorted away and I moved to wait near where Penn was counting. Osric joined me quietly, looking out at the sea.
‘Your mind is very receptive to breaking the rules,’ he pointed out with a grin. ‘Do you like misbehaving, Majesty?’
I glanced at him, but didn’t bother responding as it was such a stupid question. Osric seemed to find my silence funny. I understood within the wash of his gaze that he liked the company of men and wanted the company of me.
‘How long do you think you’ll be able to keep your secret?’ Osric asked me abruptly.
I knew he was baiting me, so I said nothing.
‘I met your father once,’ he said suddenly.
I frowned, not understanding how he could have been old enough to.
‘I am much older than I look,’ he assured me, dipping into my head again.
I watched his strange eyes and his refined face. I supposed a part of me found him attractive. But I disliked his arrogance.
‘I use the term loosely, because we didn’t actually speak. But we stood about this close, and we looked into each other’s eyes. Just like this, in fact.’
I didn’t look away. I dreaded what was to come, the words that were circling, readying themselves to swoop.
His voice completely toneless, Osric said, ‘I had just watched him kill a friend of mine. Another warder I’d trained with all my life. I was full of … disbelief. That’s all I can define it as. No one was supposed to be able to kill warders, even if we were young and not yet finished our training. But the first prince of Pirenti was a law unto himself on that battlefield. I felt in him the fury of a thousand years of bloodshed, could taste his need for violence. It was so seductive that it almost overcame me. I wanted to fight him, kill him, but we were losing the battle and a comrade pulled me away before I could get myself slaughtered by the slaughterman. He already bore three Marks that day. My friend would have been his fourth.’
He stopped, and there was silence but for the crashing of the waves on the cliffs below and the soft counting of a young boy.
‘Tell me, son of Thorne – do you bear any Marks?’
I felt anger and shame, equally. ‘Do you think it would be permitted for me to be here if I did?’
He said nothing, simply gazed at me with those unsettling eyes.
‘No one in Pirenti has been given a Mark for twenty years,’ I told him, but he remained silent. I felt heavy with the weight of it, of my family, and I felt heaviest with the shame of it.
But somewhere deep inside me bloomed something else. Something sinister and frightening. A sick, misplaced kind of pride.
I was supposed to hate him, and I did. I was supposed to fear him, and I did. But I would be branding my soul with lies if I did not admit to myself that I was also a little bit thrilled by my da’s strength. No one in the world had been able to kill him, even when an entire country was out for his blood. No one could defeat him except my mother, and that had been simply because he’d loved her. I didn’t know what that meant, and I didn’t know what it meant that I liked it.
Forcing it all back into the dark corner of my soul, I swallowed and said, ‘You are right to be angry. Right to hate me. I can only apologise for the blood shed by my people – I cannot erase it.’
Osric’s response surprised me. ‘You have a pure heart, Thorne. A kind heart. You must fight that blood of yours with everything you have.’
I opened my mouth but nothing came out. I felt exhausted by the simple idea of this.
‘I can read you,’ he reminded me. ‘I know all that you are. If I did not, I might make an embarrassing blunder and try to kiss you. But then again, if I did not know all that you are, I would not want you like I do.’
I didn’t know what to say in the face of such a bizarrely honest statement, so I said nothing. He clapped me on the shoulder and strode away.
Sliding to the ground, I waited for Penn, loving the sound of his counting. It was so comforting that I could have fallen asleep and been washed away into the night. It had been such a long day I could hardly believe it.
‘There are three hundred and eighty-three stones in this section of the balcony, Thorne,’ he told me some time later.
I looked into his deep brown eyes and said, ‘Thank you, my friend.’
As we were being escorted through the palace I spotted Emperor Falco leaning lazily against a statue in the entrance hall. Penn and I paused as he dismissed the servants.
‘You are curious to me, Thorne of Araan,’ Falco murmured, and I knew the pretence to be gone. For whatever reason, I stood now before the true Emperor of Kaya.
‘It’s because I see you, and you can feel that,’ I told him simply.
‘What do you see?’ he asked, and I was abruptly hit with the scent of grief and rage and yearning so strong my knees nearly buckled.
I swallowed, wanting to give him the truth, knowing that this moment deserved it. ‘I see a man cowed by fear, and I know there must be a reason for all of this because you are too smart for it to be otherwise, but I can’t help feeling deeply sad that you feel your life must be this way.’
There was silence in the stone corridor. We stared at each other, and for the first time I saw his eyes shift colour. They changed, unsettlingly, to a vibrant crimson shade. I had a momentary awareness that this was his true colour, his true self, the shade of blood. It reminded me of my beast.
‘I feel deeply sad about it too,’ Falco said with a broken laugh. And then he shocked me by stepping forward and pulling me into an embrace. ‘Goodnight, brother,’ he spoke into my ear, and then he was gone, swift like a shadow.
Penn and I walked home in silence. There were people all about, and some recognised me, but we kept a quick pace and our eyes remained down. I was grateful for his presence.
And then, strangely, we met Finn on the street. She was dressed in a cloak and stopped before us, tilting her head in such a way that I knew she knew. She knew I felt ancient and weary of the world. Penn threw his arms around her, and while she hugged him she looked over his shoulder at me.
‘It’s nearly over,’ she consoled gently. ‘And when you wake you get to start a whole new one.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘I’ve been summoned by the palace.’
I froze.
‘Again?’ Penn asked quizzically. ‘Are we all going back?’
‘No, just me.’
I didn’t know what to do, what to say. Nothing could make its way out of the burning mess inside me.
‘Penn,’ I murmured. ‘Can you make it back to the inn without me? It’s on this street, down another block.’
He nodded and without meeting our eyes he sprinted off to find Jonah.
Finn started walking and I fell into step beside her. ‘I’ll escort you,’ I felt the need to explain in a rough voice.
She nodded.
Our footsteps sounded around us. I could hear people shouting with distant fun. We remained silent, and it was the first time I’d known Finn not to wan
t to break the quiet.
‘What is it that you want?’ I asked.
‘I told you. Adventure. Fun. Entertainment.’
‘But why?’
‘Because I’m bored.’
‘But why?’
We approached the palace.
‘You sound like Penn. I just want to see if I can get him to look me in the eyes,’ she declared with a wicked grin. But for the first time since I’d met her I could see behind the smile to the unhappiness, and it startled me so much that I felt as though my chest was opening up.
‘It’s dangerous, this game,’ I warned her.
‘The best games are.’
‘And if you lose?’
‘Then we bond.’ She shrugged. ‘Wouldn’t that be an adventure.’
The steps started before us and we climbed them slowly. I wanted to stop time, and had the strangest sense that she wanted the same thing.
‘I’m kidding,’ she said. ‘I won’t bond with him. Or with anyone.’
‘Why?’
‘And even if I did, we’re about to find the end to the bond, so I’ll be able to reverse it anyway.’
‘He’s a buffoon.’
‘Yes. But I’ll bet he’s fun.’
We reached the top of the steps where the guards waited. ‘You don’t need to do this, Finn.’
‘I do.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I can’t breathe.’ As she looked at me in the dark I felt a moment of purest understanding.
‘All right. I’ll wait for you.’
‘Please don’t,’ she said as she went up into the palace.
I walked to the bottom of the steps and sat down to wait, for as long as it took.
Falco
As Quill and I walked to our chambers, she paused and in the flickering light looked dangerous.
‘You are taken with her. But be careful, Falco. Whatever you do, don’t look into her eyes.’
And I nodded, because she was right. If you were so taken with someone from such a distance, after never having spoken a word to her, chances were that woman was your bondmate.
Finn
I was blindfolded and then guided into the palace to the royal chamber. I could smell the difference, as it was filled with the scent of patchouli, and the light dimmed.
Thorne (Random Romance) Page 14
