Exile (19 page)

“I didn’t expect you back so soon. Your method of getting my attention was unique. I can’t help wondering what other skills you’re managing to hide from the Watchmen.” The cool distance in his tone erased that moment of pleasure, filling it in with more sorrow. “Is Emperor Yiloch in the prison?”

She had to swallow a fresh burst of rage. He’d known. He was as guilty of using her as Serivar had been. It didn’t matter now. He had to hear her out. He was the only one who might listen. “I don’t believe he’s guilty, Caplin. In fact, I know he isn’t.”

Caplin looked away from her. “I know how you feel, Indigo, but you can’t let your emotions cloud your judgment. We have signed confessions proving his guilt.”

“I know, but couldn’t…”

He faced her then and she saw denial in his eyes, felt his emotions turning cold to her. He didn’t want to believe her. Hurt and anger at the death of the king and his family filled him. It was a relief to have someone to blame, someone to punish. Inappropriate as it might be, she dug deeper into his emotions and found something more. Yiloch’s guilt gave him hope that she might change her mind about him. Now that he was heir to the throne and her beloved emperor stood accused of a most terrible crime, he thought she couldn’t possibly refuse him.

Did he think rank was what attracted her to Yiloch? Would he really set Adriana aside so easily? As she picked apart his emotions with ascard and saw his thoughts written in the flicker of hope in his eyes, she realized she would find no ally here. Her chest felt as though it might collapse into the chasm of loneliness and hurt that realization caused.

I truly am alone
.

“You’re right, my lord. I just can’t reconcile it in my mind.” She lowered her gaze to hide the hurt the lies caused her. Anger and pain were all that she had to keep herself going now. Let him think her resigned.

Caplin stepped close and rested a hand on her shoulder. “Stay for supper. Rest. We’ve all faced too much hardship of late.”

Rest and dine in the palace with you while Yiloch sits in his prison awaiting judgement? Never.

She shook her head, finding it all too easy to bring tears to her eyes. “No. Thank you, but I need a little time alone.”

Caplin placed a hand on her cheek and she strangled the urge to slap it away. She blocked out the surge of disappointment that flowed off him.

“Thank you for seeing me. I must go.”

“You are always welcome,” Caplin said when she turned to leave.

Despair threatened, boiling up within her. She would find no help from Caplin. The sense of loneliness made her want to lie down on the cobbles and weep, but that wouldn’t help Ferin or Yiloch.

Were they guilty? It was hard to believe that Yiloch would do something like this. He was far too clever and efficient. It wasn’t so hard to believe that he might want King Jerrin dead, especially given what the slave trade did to the Caithin attitude towards his people. Still, if he had ordered an assassination, it would have been far more careful. It was up to her now to intervene in their fates or let them die. She needed to make up her mind and devise a plan before it was too late.

•

Myac had watched Indigo leave. The fire in her eyes spoke to her anger without the need to be able to read her emotions. Just looking into those vibrant eyes told him her fury was a potent thing and that they had only scratched the surface. Like a poisonous snake that missed its first strike, barely grazing the skin with its fangs, she would recoil, consider, and strike again. The next time, she would not miss.

That her anger was directed at both of them now only infuriated him. His own anger was a cold thing, an ice storm within him, no less volatile at this moment than hers, but it would manifest in a different way. From the moment she returned to the academy, Myac warned Serivar not to use her. Nurture her, convince her this is the right path, he had recommended, but do not use her. Any ground he’d made with her was destroyed the instant he appeared in the prison, making himself party to the lies she had been told. He should have refused to play that part. Then he could have been her ally against Serivar in this. She would have been that much closer to becoming his.

“I warned you not to use her. She’s a powerful ally and a very, very dangerous enemy.”

Serivar shrugged the words off. He shuffled through some items on the training room table and said, “She’ll come around. She always does.”

“Are you blind,” Myac hissed and Serivar looked around at him this time. “Every fiber of her being was trembling with hatred for you. For both of us. I didn’t need ascard to see it.”

Serivar smirked. “You’re only upset because I’ve ruined your little game. She will not turn to you now. Not ever.”

Myac yearned to strike him down on the spot, but the new king trusted Serivar, which meant he needed the miserable fool, at least for now. The situation was far too delicate to strike down a critical player at this juncture. He’d made such arrogant mistakes with Yiloch’s father and lost considerable ground because of it. He would not do so again.

“Perhaps you missed the part where she was also furious with you. Maybe you don’t understand. Indigo is a unique creature. She’s much like me. She could strike you down with a passing thought as easily as I could. The only real difference is that, for the time being, I need you. Indigo doesn’t.” Serivar stared at him, holding onto his composure convincingly enough, if not for the tremor of uncertainty running through his emotions. “Think about that. I have some business to take care of.” Myac started for the door.

“Wait.” Myac stopped, not offering enough respect to face the headmaster. “I thought you were going to come with me to speak to King Gavin about our new prisoner.”

“You sound like a spoiled child no one wants to play with,” Myac hissed. “Go talk to your puppet king without me. I have more important things to do.” Leaving the room, he used a tendril of ascard to slam the door behind him, appreciating the satisfying crack as wood in the doorframe splintered with the force.

Out in the streets, the mood was subdued. Women wore dresses or shawls in the mourning color, some with the traditional braids in their hair as Indigo had done. Men wore coats or vests in the mourning shade, but they wore their hair too short in Caithin to braid it as the women did. No pureblooded Lyran man would be seen with such a pathetic head of hair. His lip curled in a silent snarl, despising the need to pass as one of them. It was an insult to a lineage that could be traced back hundreds of years.

He strode through the streets with such a dark, determined glare that people made way for him, a human instinct for self-preservation. It took very little time to reach his destination. There was no way to know if the young lord would be in, but, given the general state of mourning and upheaval, many had taken to their homes to make a show of their somber regard for the loss of their king.

A grumbled acknowledgment and a few minutes wait answered his knock. When the door opened, Jayce stood there. A woman sat in the room behind him, craning her neck to see who was at the door.

The young lord’s hazel eyes lit with recognition. “Edan. You found her?”

Myac smiled and nodded.

Jayce stepped back in the doorway to offer entry and turned to the woman. “Andrea, I’d like you to meet my good friend, Lord Edan.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Adran sat on a couch across from Lady Auryl. He sipped at his wine and tried to focus on what she was saying, but his thoughts refused to move away from the circumstances around the unexpected visit from Indigo and Lord Serivar. More specifically, they lingered on the warning from Suac Chozai that Yiloch would be betrayed by love. If Yiloch loved anyone more than he did the lovely Caithin adept, Adran did not know who it could be. What if the suac was right? What if Indigo’s unexpected arrival was the start of her betrayal?

Given the direction of his thoughts, the look on Ian’s face when he entered the room made Adran’s heart to jump into his throat. The young creator’s ashen pallor and the desperation in his eyes said something was very wrong. Something Ian felt incapable of handling on his own.

Forcing himself to appear calm, he gestured with a tiny tilt of his head toward Auryl.

Ian’s answering nod was almost imperceptible and he schooled his expression, clearing his throat softly. “Please excuse the interruption.” There was the slightest tremor in his voice that might go unnoticed by someone like Auryl who didn’t know him as well. “I need to speak with you for a moment, Captain Adran.”

Adran stood and Auryl placed her hands on the arms of the chair as if to rise, looking up at him and then Ian with concern. She wasn’t a fool. She sensed that something was amiss. Under her querying gaze, Ian, his forced composure already cracking, started to look like a cornered animal.

“Please excuse us, my lady,” Adran intervened, feeling a wash of relief when she reluctantly relaxed back in her chair. The spark in her eyes told him she wasn’t happy to let them go, but she also recognized that she didn’t yet have the authority to make demands of him. “I’m certain this will only take a moment.”

Fighting the dread that constricted his throat and twisted his stomach in the most unpleasant of ways, Adran led Ian away from the sitting room, finding another quiet room down the hall. Once inside, he turned to Ian as the creator shut the door behind them.

“What’s happened?”

Ian’s precarious calm collapsed and his hands began to shake. “They’ve taken him. I was standing right there, but I couldn’t act fast enough. I didn’t sense the threat. I failed him.”

“What do you mean, they’ve taken him?” Panic burst within Adran like burning pitch set aflame, but he had to be strong and steady. He had the awful feeling Yiloch needed him to be so now more than ever.

“Lady Indigo and Lord Serivar. I took them to meet with Emperor Yiloch.” As he spoke, Adran noticed his eyes losing focus, perhaps searching for some trace of Yiloch with ascard. “Indigo told him she had a missive from the king. As soon as he touched it, Lord Serivar put a hand on her shoulder and all three of them vanished.”

Adran loosed a string of the vilest curses he knew, releasing a tiny fraction of the rage and anguish Ian’s report brought him. A sense of desolation at losing his dearest friend again filled in the space left by the outburst, but now he could at least think somewhat coherently. He gestured for Ian to sit in one of the chairs. Too distraught to argue, Ian didn’t hesitate to obey the silent command. Adran pulled the string that would ring the servant’s bell, then, driven to impatience by the urgency of the situation, he leaned out the door and hollered for a servant. A young man in servant’s livery came rushing down the hall. Before he could finish his bow, Adran was barking out orders.

“I need Lord Terral and Commander Hax here immediately.”

“Yes, my lord,” the man bowed and started to trot down the hallway.

“And send someone to start a fire to warm up this room,” Adran called after him, noticing the chill in the air. “We may be here a while.”

“It will be done, my lord,” the man called back over his shoulder.

There was a whoosh behind him and sudden warmth. He glanced from the now blazing fire to Ian and shut the door. “Thank you.”

Ian held a scroll out to him. Adran stepped back from it, but Ian shook his head. “It isn’t worked. It was on the floor where they had been standing. I checked it before I touched it. I’m certain the one Indigo handed Yiloch wasn’t worked either. All I can figure out is that Serivar must have been holding a key.” Adran took the scroll and unrolled it while Ian talked. “It says that they have taken Emperor Yiloch into custody to stand trial for ordering the assassination of King Jerrin Duvox and his wife and son. According to that, Kade and Sine have already confessed their part in the deaths and claimed that their orders came from Yiloch.”

Adran read the scroll, confirming what Ian said. He read it again… and again.

Ian was gripping the arms of his chair as if he meant to tear them off. “What do we do now? We have to go after him, right?”

Adran’s pulse pounded in his ears. He reread the scroll one more time. “No. This is a delicate situation that could easily end in war and we’re in no position to go to war with Caithin. We must proceed with caution. We’ll send someone with a missive demanding the release of Emperor Yiloch and the opportunity to investigate these allegations ourselves.”

“He’s not guilty, right?”

Defensive anger flared and Adran met Ian’s eyes, catching his temper before it passed his lips. No matter how Ian had grown and changed in the last year, no matter how great his creation ability was, he was still very young and naive. “No. I would have known if he were planning something like this.”

Ian buried his face in his hands, his elbows resting on his knees to prop the weight of his head. “I didn’t sense the threat. I failed him.”

A strong desire to throw himself down in another chair and give in to his own despair assailed Adran. Instead, he started to pace the room before the large window. He could think better that way.

“They must have used a Serroc prison,” he growled, more to himself than Ian. Yiloch would be insane with rage at falling for that trick twice. A shame he trusted the woman so much or he might have been more careful, but love did strange things to the mind. It was clear now more than ever that he really did love Indigo, or at least had loved her until now. “Curse that woman,” he snarled.

Ian looked up, fierce defensiveness blazing to life in his eyes. “I don’t believe Indigo would hurt him.”

It was apparent that Ian loved her as well. Adran scowled at him. “She already has.” He would have though it impossible for the young creator to look any more dejected, but Ian’s expression fell even more at those words and he buried his face in his hands again. “Did either of them say anything to you or to each other when you were taking them to see Yiloch?”

Ian raised his head, his face smoothing with concentration as he replayed the events in his mind. “Nothing really, though Indigo seemed lost in some deep melancholy. I tried to speak with her, but she said very little.”