tell
them, but maybe someone else did.”
“But I thought
no one outside the family and their solicitors knew about it.”
“The Empress
told us. I presume she told Thatcher. Maybe she told others, and those others
weren’t discreet.”
Which meant all
sorts of people could know.
I didn’t like
the idea of people knowing about Aryne’s connections to the Emperor. They might
try to take advantage of her, try to shape her to their will, with the hope
that her lineage would benefit them at some point. Aryne was strong, but she
had had a hard life during her first eleven years, a life of neglect
interspersed with abuse. Thatcher, her caretaker, if he could be called such,
had kept her docile – relatively – by telling her she was a slave with cruel
owners who were still looking for her. She had been so young when he had found
her, she hadn’t known any better.
She had been
furious when she learned the truth – that she’d never been a slave, that
slavery didn’t even exist on Flatwell. Thatcher had merely wanted control of a
member of the Imperial family, planning to use her to his benefit some day.
She had every
reason to hate the world. I didn’t blame her, but if she were given the power
of a monarch, I feared what she would do with it. It was likely she would abuse
it just as much as Gifford did.
Even if she
didn’t, she had no experience with the vicious politics employed by the
titleholders who lived in Erstwhile. The Academy couldn’t prepare her for that.
She was highly intelligent and, as far as I could tell, an excellent judge of
character, but the residents of Erstwhile were a breed apart. She might end up
listening to the wrong people, or not listening to the right ones.
I was very
ashamed of my feelings, and I would never, ever admit to them to anyone.
Besides, it wasn’t my decision to make. I would stay well clear of the whole
business.
Chapter Six
When the
annoying staff member from the day before came to deliver my breakfast, he was
not pleased to find Taro in my room. He didn’t say anything about it, though,
just pinched up his mouth for a moment.
“You’ll be
meeting with the council in an hour,” he announced stiffly. Then, his voice
acquired a tone of glee as he continued. “The entire council.” Then he flounced
out of the room.
The entire
council? There were currently seventeen members. They were all going to
interview us? That was going to take all damn day.
Lots of
questions. Probably all about the same things they’d interrogated us about in
years past. Taro being able to cause events and possibly heal people. His
ability to channel at the place of his birth. What the Empress had done with
us. What had happened in Middle Reach. Possibly everything we’d done since we’d
Bonded.
I had grown
weary of being asked the same questions again and again, but there was an
advantage to the repeated inquisitions. Taro and I had our lies down cold.
For this
meeting, Taro chose to dress entirely in black, his hair pulled into a ribbon
at the back of his neck. This made him gorgeous – as did everything else – but
also rather severe, almost untouchable.
I couldn’t
create this effect myself, but following his example, I chose my clothing with
care. I’d been told that wearing my hair pulled back from my forehead gave me
an aura of severe disapproval, so I tied my hair into a tight bun and dressed
in sharply cut trousers and a tailored shirt, hoping to make a chilly
impression.
The staff member
returned to lead us through the winding corridors and knocked on a door that
looked like every other door in the building. After the invitation to enter, he
opened the door for us and waved us inside. Then he quickly closed the door
behind us, appearing as though he was making his escape.
We found
ourselves looking at a black wooden table I guessed to be about thirty feet
long. Twenty-one pairs of eyes looked back at me, not seventeen. An
unprecedented increase in the size of