“No,” Arara said. “I don’t know how he’d feel about a whole group of people, especially Kin. We don’t want to spook him. Plus, we still need to be as discreet as possible about this. The Queen may know about us keeping Ottont, but not where to find him or I think she would have sent guards there by now.”
Sels placed a hand over Sesay’s. “I agree with Arara.”
“Take Recka with you at least,” Sesay said finally. “Tensions are high throughout the city and another riot could break out any moment.”
Arara bristled at the implication that she couldn’t take care of herself, but through their bond Sels pointed out the real reason Sesay wanted Recka to accompany her was so that she could get a firsthand account from him through their sedyu bond.
With Sesay’s help getting out of the palace unnoticed was easy. For all her straight laced appearance, she and Recka knew an awful lot about the hidden ways of the palace. When they got to the Jegeran district Recka knew all the back ways and routes to the house Ottont was hiding in so they got there in less time than Arara would have thought possible.
As they approached the door Arara told Recka, “Stay out here until I give the signal.”
Recka nodded and blended back into the shadows while Arara pressed through the vines on the door to enter the tiny den. Last time she’d visited she’d thought the den squalid. Now that the full light of day revealed what her night-blind eyes had missed Arara could see how run-down it really was. The mud-brick in several places had melted and fallen in; the shoddy materials hadn’t held up to the winter rains. Most of the windows were broken, the broken pieces still scattered about underneath the sill. Piles of garbage had been swept into the corners. At least it didn’t smell too bad, but Ottont probably had been cleaning during his stay here.
“Ottont?” Arara could feel him at the back of the den, but out of curiosity she padded across the living area and peered into the nearest room. It was empty and dark, the window still intact and so grimy almost none of the noonday sun penetrated into the room.
“Back here.”
Arara made her way slowly to the back of the den, reaching out with her mind and trying to get a sense for Ottont’s mood and how he might possibly react to her companion. However, his shielding was too good for her to get more than a sense of his location. She found him laid out on the floor doing stretching exercises while floating a chipped ceramic vase around the room in a pattern. Arara grew dizzy just watching him.
“Hi,” Arara said when Ottont continued his exercises without looking up.
“You tell your friend to come inside,” he said, glancing at her briefly as he changed poses.
She sighed and squatted down on the floor on her hindquarters and gefired Recka to join them in the back room.
“Your Jegeran is much better,” Arara commented after Recka was inside.
“Yes, I have practiced with the friends who bring me food.” Ottont did one last stretch and the vase levitated to the floor in the corner with a small ping as it landed. Then he moved to join Recka and Arara. “Have you practiced well?”
“I’ve been doing the exercises. I’m getting better, but it is slow.”
Ottont nodded. “Yes, lots of practice. You should have learned when pup. Now you catch up. Will be harder.”
“I realize that.” Arara sighed. It was about time she got to the point of today’s visit. “I have more questions for you. I know last time I wanted to focus on my telekin..., um the one that lets you move things.”
“Telekinesis.”
“Yes. But the other day something odd happened when I was reading someone’s mind and I need to know what happened and how to keep it from happening again.”
“What odd?” Ottont cocked his head at her, one ear flopping.
“He, the Kin whose mind I was in, knew I was there and somehow kicked me out. It hurt, made me fall over, and gave me a headache that lasted for two days.”
Ottont stared at her, his mouth dropping open. He snapped his jaws shut and shook his head before scratching at one ear with a front paw. “A flower person did that?”
“Yes. I mean, other Kin have felt me before, but only those that have a sedyu bond with a Jegera. This Kin does not have one.”
“You say this sedyu before, but what is it?”
Arara looked at Recka, putting one ear back as she tried to think. “It is like a mate-bond, but the Kin use their magic to anchor it to themselves. It makes them tougher, like Jegera, and makes their magic stronger.”
“We get benefits too,” Recka broke in. “Better senses. And we can feel Kin magic through the bond.”
Ottont frowned and got up to pace around the room like Arara did when she was thinking. “I not hear of such a thing before. Now make more sense why we lost the war with them so long ago.”
“So you don’t know how he did it?” Arara slumped back. “Or how to keep it from happening again?”
“Oh, no. I know how such a thing is done. Yaka learn how to do what you say to keep intruders out of heads, hurt those who try to misuse our powers.”
“So you can teach me how to get around it?”
“No.” Ottont stopped and looked hard at Arara. “Even if I know, I would not teach you. It is forbidden.”
Great, there went that idea. Arara went to stand but Ottont sat and held up a front paw. “I can teach you how to be less noticeable when you look into minds.”
Arara grinned and sat back down.
“Another thought,” Ottont turned his paw palm up. “If only Kin with a sedyu feel you before, and this Kin feel you, why you say he not have sedyu?”
“Because only the Royal Family have the bond. Only they know the magic to create one,” Recka answered when Arara furrowed her brow in puzzlement.
He made a good point. Hadn’t Queen Seuan and Sesay done something similar to what Elric did, albeit they didn’t hurt her? But Arara hadn’t pressed the issue like she had with Elric and Elric hadn’t given her a verbal warning.
“Recka, where did Sesay learn to block me out of her head like she did?”
“You mean the buzzing?” Recka chuckled. “After we found out Sels could use fire magic, Sesay suspected it wasn’t something new, but merely something so rare that knowledge of it was lost. So we investigated the palace archives. We found an ancient tome that looked promising. We’ve been working on translating it - it’s written in a language that hasn’t been spoken since the War of the North so it’s taking us a while. What we have translated didn’t say much about Sels’s type of magic, but instead detailed techniques on dealing with Yaka on the battlefield ncluding one on how to prevent a Yaka from seeing into your mind. Sesay thought that trick might work on you, and she was right.”
“Does Elric have access to the archives?” Arara’s blood ran cold. She’d seen them only once, an entire floor of books stacked in leaning towers on sagging shelves, haphazardly organized and never cataloged. Sels had said at the time that anything could be in there, but had given up after a few dust coated claw-marks of digging through the mess.
“Of course. All the Councilors do, although they rarely set foot in the lower levels where the older tomes are stored.”
“What if he found something, something like what Sesay found?”
“It’s possible...” Recka trailed off, putting the pieces together.
“Ottont, your prophecy, does it mention a final step or anything like that?”
Ottont rocked back and forth, brow furrowed. “The prophecy,” he spoke the word slowly, stumbling over the pronunciation. “Does say that the final night is nigh when the city of the sun sees a night overcome the day.”
“City of the sun?” Arara repeated.
“That’s Sebaine,” Recka said. “Sebaine in the old language means ‘Blessed by the Sun God.’”
“And night overcome the day has to be the upcoming eclipse.”
Ottont nodded. “Yes, our truth-seers know that much. Send us here to prevent the final night, but we fa
iled in our task.”
Recka pointed at the sky, which had begun to turn pink. “We need to go, before we are missed. Thank you for the insights, Ottont.”
Arara pulled a bag of candied liver out of her pouch and handed it to Ottont. “These are a gift for you from Prince Sels.”
Ottont picked up the bag and sniffed at it. His eyes lit up and he licked his lips. “Tell the Prince thank you, for that and for this,” Ottont waved at the den around him. “Roel told me what he did for me.”
SELS RESTED HIS HAND on his hip as he walked, feeling the now familiar edges of the wooden box that held the star-metal through the thick leather of the pouch. During the day he kept it in the pocket sewn into the end of the sleeve of his robe, but for his lessons with Elric he wore a tighter fitting tunic and pants so there would be less clothing to catch on fire if his magic went out of control.
The moon was waning, a mere thumbnail crescent remained in the sky, and the night was almost pitch dark. Normally he could navigate these paths without help, but it was so dark that he’d relented to Sesay’s prodding and taken a sun flower lantern with him.
This would be his first lesson since he and Arara had repaired and renewed their bond, and he was still feeling a bit shaky and on edge. He still wasn’t quite used to the feeling of Arara in his head all the time and he wasn’t sure how it was going to affect his concentration or his spells. He was also nervous over what he should say to Elric about his treatment of Arara, or if he should say anything at all. Despite Sels being the Prince, as Speaker of the Council Elric outranked him.
Elric waited for him at the edge of their practice area and he waved Sels over when he saw him. Sels placed the lantern on the ground by Elric’s feet. It would only get in his way during practice and the ring was already adequately lit by the torches set around it, although Sels preferred the warm light of the flower over the harsh and shifting illumination from the fire.
“Your Highness, before we get started today I need to talk with you about your sedyu.”
So Elric was going to push the issue. He decided to play dumb. “What about her?”
“Yesterday night she was rude and insulting.”
“I’ve already spoken with her regarding the incident.” Sels looked Elric in the eye and mimicked the expression Sesay used on him when he’d said something particularly stupid.
“Not good enough. I demand her publicly punished. Five lashes, at least.”
Sels ignored Elric and went to stand in his usual place in the center of the ring. “Shall we get started?”
“Are you listening to me?” Elric narrowed his eyes and tightened his grip on his cane.
“I heard what you said, and as I said, I’ve already spoken to her about it.” No need to say that talk had merely been him reassuring her that she’d done everything right. “I will not repeat myself again.”
Sels had to be careful. He was toeing the line here and Elric could call his bluff, but to his immense relief the Speaker lifted his cane and pointed to the new target that had been set up since last time he’d practiced.
“Burn the trees but keep the target from harm.”
The dummy target had large fake trees set on either side of it, the paper leaves almost, but not quite, brushing its arms.
As he’d feared, controlling the magic proved tougher in his still weakened state. His first blast hit the ground just short of the trees. Frustrated Sels gathered more energy and prepared to strike again. Just before he let go, Arara’s presence filled him; but rather than disrupt, the effect seemed to help. The fire struck the left-hand tree and it began merrily burning away. The next shot went even smoother, if possible. Rather than impacting the fire almost embraced the trunk and limbs of the tree.
“Now, put the fire out.” Elric called. “Without moving.”
Put it out? This wasn’t something they'd practiced before and Sels faced the same dilemma he’d faced back in the market only now there was no sun to aid him. He struggled, reaching out his hand towards the burning trees and trying to pull the energy back to him. It worked, the fire streamed towards his hand in flaming swirls, where it coalesced into a ball. Smoke continued to wisp up from the remains of the trunks, but the fire was out. Now he had to figure out what to do with it.
Through the bond he felt Arara’s suggestion of just imagining the flames going out. He tried that, focusing on the sphere and in his mind’s eye blowing it out, like a candle flame. The fire in the ball wavered, but remained. He pushed his hands together, but the ball just flattened against his palms, springing back into shape when he pulled them apart again.
Finally Elric hobbled over, disappointment etched on the lines of his face. “We’ll work on that later. Put the fire back and let it go out naturally.”
“Yes, sir.” Sels pulled back his concentration. The flames snapped back to the tree as if they’d never left and quickly burned up what remained of the trunks.
“At least your aim is getting better, although the person standing between those two would still have gotten scalded.” Elric led Sels over to the dummy and pointed to the scorch marks on the wood of the arms and the bubbled paint that had been its eyes and mouth. “Pull those two pots away and get fresh ones, then we’ll try again. This time I want to work on how to protect the person in the middle from the heat.”
Sels looked to where he pointed to see a line of fake trees set away from the arena, just visible in the torch light. The rest of the lesson went the same, with Sels learning how to contain the fire to protect bystanders.
By the end of the evening Sels was sore and covered in soot from moving the pots, but he knew how to put a barrier up that would give strangers the same protection from the heat and flames that he gave himself instinctively. Elric even had him pull out the star-metal stone and practice harnessing its energy without it overwhelming him.
As Sels picked up his sun flower lantern and prepared to go back to his sleeping soil for some well-deserved rest, Elric held out a hand for him to wait.
“You’ve improved quite a bit in this last month.”
“Only thanks to your instruction,” Sels said, meaning every word. He still didn’t particularly like his father, despite Mother’s fond remembrances of the man, but he did have to admit that Elric had a gift for teaching.
“I’m having a small get-together at my mansion tomorrow night, an evening ceremony to the new moon. I’d be honored if you were to join us.”
Sels blinked at Elric, a bit blind-sided by the invitation. In his head Arara was warning him not to go, not after what she’d seen of his thoughts and the suspicions they had of Elric being in some way involved in the final night. But turning him down would have been impolite, not to mention that Sels reminded Arara that they couldn’t turn down an invitation to enter Elric’s house.
“We’d be delighted.” Sels smiled.
“We? No, this invitation is for you alone.”
“But she is my guard-”
“No, no guards. My house is protected by the strongest spells. Guards are not necessary. If you insist on traveling with them they will need to wait in the carriage for your return.”
“Mother would never allow-”
“I’ve already spoken to the Queen about this,” Elric said, cutting him off again and Sels was beginning to get more than irritated. “She has given her blessing for you to attend.”
Elric smiled broadly and looked at him expectantly. Sels was torn. Arara’s disapproval was coming through the bond. She was certain that Elric was up to something and didn’t want Sels to go into his house alone; no matter what they could find it wasn’t worth the risk.
He trusted Arara’s judgment in this matter. “Then I’m sorry that I won’t be able to attend.”
The smile on Elric’s face morphed into a glare. “You said you’d be delighted-”
“I said,” Sels took a small joy in cutting off Elric mid-sentence. “’We’d be delighted.’ You can’t invite me and not my sedyu. I expect my lesson is
canceled tomorrow, so I will see you in two days.”
Elric drew himself up, his expression thunderous. “Yes, your lesson is canceled tomorrow and forever after. Find a new teacher.” He hobbled off, driving his cane down hard at each step.
Sels stared after him in shock.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CITY OF THE SUN
Arara sat up, quivering with anger. She didn’t like Elric but Sels was getting so much better at controlling his power since he started getting instruction from him. For Elric to treat her sedyu like that; she was determined to teach him a lesson. Sels was still in the garden and Elric had just left. With his cane he wouldn’t move very fast and she was already down in the guard’s quarters, right next to the carriage green-house. Forget what Sesay had said about not breaking into his place.
As she left Yegra nuzzled the empty blankets and sighed in her sleep. If she woke her up to tell her where she was going Yegra would insist on coming along. But if they got caught Arara didn’t want her to get in trouble. She was still new to the palace guard and was already under scrutiny for Ottont’s escape. Another infraction could cost her the position she loved so much and might even prompt her to move back to Last Home, leaving Arara here alone.
The greenhouse was empty at this time of night; the Kin who tended the carriage pods all bedded down in their sleeping soil. Arara sniffed around at the carriage doors until she found one that carried Elric’s scent. The pod rested on the ground with its bottom roots, that Arara had previously used to ride out on, burrowed into the soil. The vines that propelled it around were neatly coiled, leaving her nowhere to easily hide while she waited for Elric to return.
The only option then was to hide between the broad leaves that sprouted from the pod’s top. However, that was where the guard Jegera usually rode, and they’d find her the instant they jumped up. Out of curiosity to see if perhaps there was somewhere up top she could remain unnoticed she crawled up the side of the pod, careful to keep her claws retracted. At the moment she didn’t dare wake it, lest it rouse any of the guards sleeping next door. She remembered what happened the last time she clawed a carriage pod, when it had screamed and dumped her out on the street.
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