Keeper: First Ordinance, Book 2

by Suttle, Connie

  Even Ardis recognized that fairness in Justis and gave him respect. Dena still slept in Ardis' suite, in her own bed—for now. I could see his eyes following her at times. I also knew he would never hurt her, or ask for what she wasn't willing to give.

  Dena was beginning to care for Ardis, and as I didn't want to interfere in any way, held back from asking. She would tell me when she was comfortable with the new feelings she carried.

  "Quin?" Reah tapped on Berel's open door.

  "Reah?" I slid off Berel's couch, grateful I didn't stutter her name. She was the most beautiful woman I'd ever met, and with the power she held, she was magnificent. It was difficult to comprehend that the others failed to see these things in her.

  "I have a request," she smiled at me. "From Torevik's mother, Queen Lissa. She would like you to visit—the Sirenali that Marid had with him in Kondar cannot speak and neither of us can read anything from him. We'd like to see if you can tell us anything about him."

  "I'm not sure whether I can," I shook my head. I hadn't bothered with him—I'd focused on Marid because he held vital information. I'd only gotten a little of the knowledge needed from him before he killed himself.

  "Will you try?" Reah's green eyes begged me to say yes. "Besides, the Queen would like to meet you. Gurnil and Ordin have volunteered to come with you, as have Kaldill and Daragar."

  "May I go?" Berel asked. I realized then that we'd be traveling far away from Siriaa. Berel was excited by the prospect; I was terrified.

  "Kaldill and Daragar will come?" I quavered.

  "Yes. There is nothing to fear, I promise."

  "Then I'll come. I don't wish to disappoint anyone; I can only promise to try to read this man."

  "Sirenali," Reah corrected gently.

  "As you say," I hunched my shoulders. "How should I dress?" It was a valid question—I didn't wish to offend a Queen.

  "Dress nicely, but for comfort," Reah smiled. "The Queen isn't particular."

  "I'll help," Dena stood with a smile.

  * * *

  Not long after, I was herded back to the research building where Berel, Kaldill, Daragar, Reah, Gurnil and Ordin waited. Torevik intended to come as well—the Queen we would visit was his mother.

  As quickly as Daragar could transport me to Kondar, this trip was just as swift. I marveled at the ability to fly through the stars and arrive far away in less than a blink. Nevertheless, I'd closed my eyes for the journey, opening them once my feet settled on a solid floor.

  Avii Castle was a wonder; buildings in Kondar, including the High President's palace home, were amazing. What met my gaze when I arrived at the palace on Le-Ath Veronis took my breath away.

  Dark marble, with veins of gold and silver in its depths, covered the floor. A lighter version covered the walls. All of it was so carefully designed and beautiful I wanted to touch it to make sure it was real.

  A woman—small and slender—waited for us. She was lovely, with blue eyes and reddish-gold hair. I discovered quickly that I couldn't read anything in her, either. The Queen of Le-Ath Veronis, dressed in a silk tunic and pants, smiled at us and lifted her cheek for Torevik to kiss.

  Kaldill held a hand at my back and Daragar walked beside us as we were led inside the Queen's library. As massive as Gurnil's Library was at Avii Castle, this one eclipsed it. My fingers itched to open a single book—surely I could read it—and lose myself in other worlds and cultures.

  I couldn't—it hadn't been offered and I'd been invited for other reasons. Others waited in the library for us to arrive—many of them mated to the Queen. Some of them made me want to shrink away—one of them could become a huge wolf whenever he wished.

  Perhaps he guessed at my discomfort—he offered a gentle smile, convincing some of the tension to fall from my shoulders. Another there frowned at me, making the tension rise again.

  It was Kaldill's son, Lendill. I knew it before Kaldill introduced him.

  "Don't be a fucking dick," Kaldill scolded his son. I jerked to a standstill—I'd never heard Kaldill curse before.

  "Lendill, stop being a fucking dick," Reah echoed Kaldill's words. They were mated; I could see it when Lendill turned in Reah's direction.

  "Lendill, stop being a fucking dick," Queen Lissa repeated. Winkler—the man who could become wolf at will, burst into laughter.

  A woman stood with the many men in the library; she, like several others, was fascinated by winged people. "You really fly? I mean, Roff flies, but he doesn't have feathers."

  "What Renée's saying is that she's used to winged vampires, but not winged people," Lissa said. "I don't know of another winged race such as the Avii in all the known universes."

  "Renée is a pretty name," I offered. I was at a loss to comment on the wings—I hadn't had mine long, after all. Gurnil or Ordin would be better to ask about the Avii. A name—a real one, anyway—was also something I hadn't had for long.

  "Thank you," she said. If she hadn't been described as a vampire, and if I hadn't seen it in her already, I would have thought her the same as any other. She had feelings for the one she believed had made her vampire, when the one who'd actually made her vampire stood nearby. The Queen had offered her blood for the turn and one named Montrose had taken over, teaching her the ways a vampire should behave and comport themselves.

  Lissa lifted an eyebrow as all those things flew through my mind but didn't say anything; I couldn't read her but I could read the others about her.

  "May we offer food or drink before we make our way to the Sirenali's cell?" the Queen suggested. That's how we came to have tea and tiny cakes in her library, while I was ensconced on a comfortable sofa with Kaldill and Daragar.

  Berel was in raptures, I think. After getting permission to record images, his tab-vid was held aloft more often than not while the library, the people and everything else was captured for his father's perusal.

  Eventually, however, it was time to visit the prisoner. Rather than clumping down many steps to the Queen's dungeons, we were transported there by someone with the talent for such.

  Instead of a dark, rat-infested place, I found a clean, well-lit row of cells with adequate bedding and climate control. "This way," the Queen led us to a cell near the end. The man they all called a Sirenali was inside, his head in his hands as he sat, hunched over, on a cot.

  Without prompting, I read everything I could about him. He had no information on the spheres—Marid the wizard had given him no information as to their location.

  I knew what Marid had known and cursed about in this one's presence, however. "The wizard's containment spheres weren't completely effective," I announced. "The poison leached out of them somehow and now the world of Shaaliveer is also contaminated. Marid had the wasting disease," I added. "This one believes it made the wizard's spells too fragile to hold back the poison."

  The last thing I read in him troubled me greatly, but I had no real knowledge of what it meant. "What does tapping the core mean?" I turned to Queen Lissa.

  * * *

  "Did you see where he came from—the Sirenali?" Lissa thought to ask. She'd asked me, Kaldill, Daragar and a handful of others to come to her private study, where we could discuss what the Sirenali knew. I could tell my question concerning the tapping of the core disturbed her, but she ignored that subject for the moment.

  "He only knows his mother moved about after he was born. He has no idea who his father was or what happened to his mother—she sold him to a wealthy criminal when he was very young. He hates her for that, and the fact that she had no objections when his tongue was removed prior to the sale."

  "Does he remember her name?"

  "Erithia. He curses her daily."

  "Is he evil?" I could see that the mother's name meant something to the Queen, but as I couldn't read her, I had no idea what it could be.

  "He bears no malice against you or most others—I only saw anger against those who've harmed him in the past. That included Marid and the criminals who owned him before
he fell into Marid's hands."

  "I don't know what to do," Lissa flung out a hand in a gesture of confusion. "We let him go, he could end up with another Marid. We keep him here and it's similar to imprisoning the innocent."

  "What about Avendor?" Reah suggested. Yes, she was one of the few inside the Queen's study.

  "Interesting idea. Do you think they'd mind?"

  "Probably not. Can he use fingerspeech?" Reah turned to me.

  "He knows it," I nodded. "He learned when he was young."

  "Had to, I suppose," Lissa grumbled. "What's his name? Did you see that?" she asked me.

  "His name is Terrett," I replied, "Although the ones who bought him called him Geng. Nobody has called him by his proper name in a very long time. It is my hope," I began, working to keep my trembling at bay, "that you treat him kindly. He has never known such his whole life."

  * * *

  "Of course she'd ask that," Kaldill sighed later, after Quin and Berel were transported to a local shop to buy treats to take back to Siriaa. "She hasn't been treated well, either. I've seen it from Amlis and his man-at-arms Rodrik—those of the higher class believe the only way to show their displeasure to those they consider beneath them is by beating them. Quin suffered at their hands, and then at the hands of a few Avii before she became useful to them. Word is she can heal almost anything; the Avii King and his now-deceased Red-Wing Princess demanded millions from the Kondari High President to heal Berel from a rare and deadly form of cancer. Of course, Quin received nothing for her efforts."

  "This is preposterous, and I'd pull her away from there immediately if I didn't feel she had some role to play in all this. Nobody else can read the Sirenali—apart from my sister. That alone makes Quin more than valuable and I only want to see her protected in all this." Lissa grumbled.

  "What progress has been made on the poison?" she continued. "If Siriaa's core has been tapped as Terrett believes, it'll only die faster."

  "The Kondari have already done some research and have determined it is a living organism that produces the radioactive poison by excreting it."

  "Can we kill the organism? We have to do that first or repairing the core will be useless. Reah won't attempt it unless the world can be saved, somehow."

  "The Kondari scientists say early samples taken from sea waters rendered dead organisms, but the poison, like any other nuclear waste, has a life of centuries at best."

  "Do they still have these dead organisms?"

  "I believe they do. Should I ask to borrow them?"

  "If you could. I'd like Karzac and a few others to take a look at them. I also want more information on Liron—the god the Fyrians and Avii worship. Did he have a hand in the creation of these creatures, or did someone else do it?"

  "A question for one of the Three, perhaps?"

  "It would be, if we could find any of them," Lissa frowned.

  "Their time is different from ours," Kaldill observed.

  "I'll make sure to point that out the next time I see any of them."

  "Do you believe it will do any good?"

  "Probably not."

  * * *

  Quin

  I'd never seen so many cakes, pies and cold or frozen treats in my life, and all of them sat proudly on shelves inside the same treat shop. A sign outside the shop, lit in bright colors against the constant night of the Le-Ath Veronis city, read Niff's.

  I'm sure there was a story behind the name, I merely couldn't decipher it at the moment. Regardless, Berel had no trouble pointing out what he wished to take back to Siriaa, so all of it was carefully packaged for the trip.

  I chose several things, thinking of Dena and the others we'd left behind in Lironis. Before long, we had a rather large crate filled to the top, which Reah promised to transport without any of it melting.

  Daragar and Kaldill arrived when everything was ready, so we were transported back to Lironis with barely a thought.

  Chapter 8

  "I brought these back for you," I placed the small, white box in Justis' hands after I walked into our suite. "The berries are covered in what they called dark chocolate, and when I saw it, I thought of your wings."

  "They look good," Justis opened the box and lifted out a red berry dipped in the dark, cold chocolate. He closed his eyes in pleasure the moment he bit into it.

  "Did you have one?" he asked, holding the box out to me.

  "I was still too full after tea and cake, but I'll try one now," I lifted one of the three remaining berries from the box. They were quite large and one would have filled the palm of my hand had I chosen to squeeze it.

  After my first bite, I considered that it was just as good as Justis thought it was—cold but not overly so—to keep the chocolate crisp until it melted on my tongue.

  "Thank you for this," Justis lifted a second berry from the box and devoured it.

  "You're welcome," I smiled and shrugged at him. "You should have seen the Queen's palace on Le-Ath Veronis. It was incredible. When are you flying out tomorrow?"

  "At first light. If all goes well, we'll only be gone three days."

  "All right. Please be careful. I don't want anything to happen to you or the others."

  "Do you see something?" Justis had the last berry in his hand.

  "No, I merely desire your safe return, that's all. Good-night," I said and walked toward my tiny bedroom.

  * * *

  "Marid knew he had the wasting disease, else he'd never have taken his own life," I told Dena over breakfast. Justis and the black-winged guards had left early at first light, after a quick meal. They wouldn't eat again until their arrival at Avii Castle, which concerned me.

  "I wish I knew how to do that—to know things," Dena shook her head at me.

  "At times it seems a terrible curse," I responded. Berel sat beside me then, setting his tab-vid and his plate of food on the table.

  We'd chosen the balcony to eat while the others had breakfast inside. I knew they were discussing recent events, which included Marid's death. Gurnil and Ordin chose to join Reah and the others in that discussion, but after another troubling night of fitful sleep, I avoided a meeting and more disturbing news.

  "I left a second tab-vid with Tory—he said he'd make sure the meeting was recorded for my father," Berel informed us before spearing scrambled eggs with a fork.

  "Your father's shoulders must bear a terrible burden," I sighed. I knew from reading Berel that Sector Two was demanding an inquiry after the arrest of their President. I wanted to laugh—they'd demanded an inquiry into his actions and practices shortly before he'd traveled to Sector Five to make an assassination attempt.

  "You know there's a saying in Kondar—that someone is as fickle as Sector Two," Berel grinned before shoving eggs into his mouth and chewing.

  "I find that humorous," I smiled at him.

  "You're supposed to," he swallowed and grinned. "I heard the army is on its way back, but as they're riding instead of skipping—that's what Tory says he can do—skip somewhere, it'll take them more than a week to get here."

  "What are they doing for supplies?" Dena asked.

  "I heard that Vhrist was cleaned out before they left, but that didn't stop Tamblin from stealing anything he could along the way."

  "How are the people of Vhrist faring, then?" I asked.

  "Orik was at breakfast with the others—Fen too. They say that the news they have is that Vhrist has been forced to ration everything, because the army took their surplus."

  "You've learned a lot about Fyris in a very short time," I said.

  "It's fascinating, and I have to present good information to my father," he shrugged modestly. "Gurnil found maps for me—I can't tell you how happy I am that the Larentii gave me the ability to read as well as speak the language. Everything is so much easier because of it. I've interviewed a few castle servants, too. Father was appalled by the descriptions of their treatment at the hands of the nobles."

  "I believe Tamblin and Yevil saw to that," I s
aid, toying with my fork. "I can't say how things were when Tandelis had the throne, but it had to be better, didn't it?"

  "Books on the old laws are in Gurnil's private library," Dena said. "I dusted his shelves and saw them there."

  "Gurnil can probably tell you if you want to know, then," I nodded at Berel.

  "I'll ask after breakfast." Berel went back to his food.

  If Siriaa weren't in so severe a crisis and its people in such peril as a result, I would think that having breakfast with two whom I'd come to love was joy incarnate. As it was, I felt as if the weight of the planet had settled onto my shoulders, much as it had for Berel's father.

  "Quin, are you ready to start the day?" Ordin walked onto the balcony and nodded to my companions.

  "I am." I rose and allowed my wings to pull away from my back.

  "I'll join you there after I speak with Master Gurnil," Berel promised. "Father is asking after the health of the people."

  * * *

  The physician's staff from one of the ships followed Master Ordin and me into the physician's quarters. Already there was a line waiting to get inside. Two medics from the ship began their trek down the line, making a swift evaluation as to which ones needed to see us first—a process they referred to as vital assessment.

  The large, examination room at the front had been divided into five cubicles—the one at the back equipped for dental surgery, as the ships' staff named it.

  Ordin had one of the first cubicles, I had the one behind his. Two ships' surgeons had the two opposite ours.

  It was no secret that the worst of the patients were brought to me. Many more were asking to see me than I could comfortably handle; those were directed to Ordin and the others.

  My first patient was a young woman with the wasting disease. I felt a great deal of pity for her and after a brief consultation with Ordin, healed her of the sickness. She was the first whom I considered for such—all my other patients had been elderly up to that point and only wished for respite from the pain.