As Salettin walked Tadessa toward the kitchen, she noticed that of her two guards only Officer Shuwey remained.
Noticing the direction of her gaze, the officer said, “Ah, Mistress Chalatta, we are off duty. Officer Winn has gone to notify your evening shift guards. Will you be here for a while?”
“Are you afraid I’m going to disappear around a corner, or something?”
“Exactly, Mistress. With so many guests and their servants, we’re under orders that you are to have two guards at all times. When you’re not where expected, you not only put yourself at risk, you make our assignment difficult for us.”
Just as she opened her mouth to apologize, Winn returned with her two evening guards. At his heels also followed two gold and white liveried guards.
“Thank you,” Salettin said to her guard, giving a nod of acceptance. “My father worried while I searched unprotected for the young Mistress. As you can see, I have found her. All is well.”
Winn gave a deep bow, but said nothing in response. Shuwey accompanied him down the hall leading to the House Security wing.
Everyone knew! She needed to leave, but from her guards’ surface thoughts she discovered they saw her as an undisciplined adolescent.
Which you are, Zilla said. Although today has been compromised, you need to see me so that you learn to reign in your emotions and make better use of them, but because they watch you so closely, we must wait for a better time.
She wanted to protest, but before another word passed her lips, Davvi Greer, her mother’s head chef, bowed to her. “Young Mistress, please allow me to seat you in the alcove just off the kitchen. Your guest will appreciate the privacy. Everything is arranged. The Imperial Master Chef insisted it be prepared for you when the two of you arrived.” He inclined his head again, a conspirator’s smile on his lips.
Already arranged? The two of us? She chafed under the assumption that this alien prince planned her actions in advance.
Usually, when not taking a meal in her study, the alcove was her favorite place to dine. Although private, it resonated with the muted sounds of kitchen staff, and eating here helped her feel less alone. Usually the table was bare, but today an embroidered cloth covered it. The addition of a single sugarflower bud in a slender vase stood in the center of the table gave her pause. The table, set for two, boasted of dinnerware she had never seen before.
Salettin sat across from her. “My mother’s,” he said when he saw her examining one of the plates.
“She brought her own dishes?”
“She’s eccentric. She prefers to eat alone in her rooms, and insists on using her own service. Your kitchen staff is nice enough to keep them ready should she want a tidbit of something.”
The next moment a kitchen helper placed a plate of sliced meats, cheeses, fruits and vegetables to one side. Tadessa helped herself to a crusty bun still hot from the oven, and a selection from the plate. Salettin did the same. The servant removed the tray while another brought a pot of tea and two delicate cups. Then the staff left them alone.
“Are you my shadow?” Tadessa still glared at him.
“Not exactly. We didn’t hit it off very well, did we?”
“You did your best to annoy me!”
He laughed. “I did. I thought it worked rather well. I find that people are more honest when annoyed. It’s harder for them to hide behind a shield, don’t you think? I didn’t expect you to run from me, though.”
“I wasn’t running from you.” She stabbed a slice of meat with her fork.
“Really? Aside from your teacher, I was the only other person in the room when you disappeared the first time. Then later, on the training floor, I can only suppose you ran from me, since you wouldn’t run from your parents.”
She refused to repeat herself that she needed to see someone. She doubted he believed her.
“I ran from B’sheer because he knew the testing was bogus.” Tadessa arranged the meat, cheese and vegetable slices on half of the bun, then topped it with the other half. “My parents ordered B’sheer to tell me that I was being tested for a position as my mother’s page, since I never declared a profession while in the Academy. I suppose they want me to follow Mother into politics, which I despise, and she knows it. I ran when I discovered what was really happening.” She scowled. There wasn’t anywhere she could run except to the Village, a walled community in the Area where most of the Krindarwee in this Sector lived. She wished Salettin hadn’t interrupted her flight with his presence.
“A career?” He seemed genuinely surprised. “I thought heiresses got married.”
“That’s what my father wants. He wants me to settle down and make him lots of grandchildren.” She watched as he arranged meat and cheese on half of his bun as well.
“Is that why he trains you in Nevian martial arts, to attract a suitor? Seems odd.” He took a healthy bite.
“He has me train because even an heiress has enemies.”
“As do all those in authority. There are plenty of malcontents around. Is that where you got your scar?”
“No. My uncle, my mother’s brother, who was dominated by a Moloch, gave me this.” She touched the scar under her cheekbone.
He gave her a respectful nod, impressed. “I assume your father reached you in time, or we would not be talking today.”
She stared at him in surprise. “No. I was busy disengaging my uncle from the Moloch that controlled him. I ignored the slice of his knife to my cheek while I finished. My father is unable to release someone from a Moloch. There was nothing he could do. It was up to me.”
“Release…? Mistress Chalatta, you exaggerate. Only a Discipline Master can disengage a Moloch from its host. And afterwards, the host always dies. The only way a host can be free from one of those beasts is if they choose to banish the Moloch themselves, which almost never happens.”
“Not all of them die.” She remembered Kirimina, one of Jem’s assassins who had also been dominated, and her successful release from the Zocassari (Moloch, she reminded herself) who thought it controlled her.
He shook his head, not believing her. “So you like martial arts?”
“I do, and I’m good at them.” She was glad she had stopped herself from revealing too much to this prince of the Faj.
“Why?” He caught himself. “I mean, why are you pleased with being good at martial arts? Do you want to be a soldier?”
“No. I like the dance.”
Now he really looked confused. “The dance?”
“That’s what it feels like to me, a flow of energy like a bird in flight, a dance. That’s not how my father sees it, of course. He wants me to be more aggressive, go for the kill.” She shuddered. “I would make a horrible soldier.”
“Not from what I saw.”
“You were watching?” Even then? She knew the Intergalactic Faj representatives arrived early this morning, but she thought they busied themselves settling in, not watching her. Did her father put her on display for him? She pushed back her plate surprised that most of her food was gone, and stood. Is nothing the way I saw it?
“Please, Mistress Chalatta. Sit with me a little longer.”
“I have to get ready.” True enough, but she still had an hour before Sentille
expected her.
“Not yet. Please.”
“Why? So you can watch me fumble through this maze of crazy expectations and laugh at me some more?” To her horror she found herself fighting tears. “I’m not hungry.”
“Neither am I.” He rose. “Please, take me on a tour of your home. I would love to see it.”
“You’ve already seen my suite and the training facility. You’ve seen the kitchens. You’re staying on one of our guest floors. We’ll be having dinner in the Grand Dining Room, and tonight you will most likely dance in the Grand Ballroom. That floor is off-limits while the rooms are being read
ied, and we can’t enter any of the private apartments or House Guard quarters. Aside from the servants’ quarters, my parents’ apartments, and the lower offices in this building, what else is there?”
“Then let me see everything again, through your eyes.”
When she thought of her mother’s rooftop garden, its beauty enjoyed by so few, she said, “I know one place you are never likely to see without my assistance. Would you like to see it without guards?” she whispered, her eyes lighting in mischief.
“That’s not possible. I know. I also grew up heavily guarded.”
She smiled. “All we need to do is go around a corner before they do. Stay close, and be ready. We will pretend we have nothing better to do than walk throughout this building.”
Salettin strolled beside her, conversing with her about his family. His mother, he claimed, was shy and soft-spoken. She frightened easily. His father was just the opposite, loud, boisterous, and filled with himself. He laughed at that. “Now you must tell me about your family.”
“My father is both strict and loving. Everything in his household must be Nevian. He allows for no other culture, not my mother’s Irelli culture nor my Krindarwee one. Even so, I always know that he loves me.
“Before we moved here, my mother sacrificed herself for me on many occasions. She is neither shy nor soft-spoken. She is sharp and determined to do whatever she needs to accomplish her goals, no matter what she must do to reach them.”
“I imagine so, her being the High Commissioner of this Sector. I believe our mothers are exact opposites. I also watched your mother work out. She is exceptional.”
“My father, rather, my Krindarwee father, taught her. He called it the Dance. Everything depends on balance, no movement out of place. The Dance adapts itself to any martial discipline.”
She hadn’t shared even this much information with her Nevian father. He insisted she attempt to master every martial art he knew, surprised when she excelled at all of them, but she had never explained the reason. Why is it so easy to tell this Faj prince what I have always kept hidden?
“Maybe someday you’ll teach me this Dance.”
She refused to answer, reminding herself that Salettin represented the Faj. She would teach him nothing about her people any more than she would have shared the Dance with her Nevian father. But she wanted to, and that made her uneasy.
They appeared to be in no hurry as they chatted. The guards were not far behind, but not at their heels.
The moment they rounded a corner, Tadessa pulled Null around them, and led him a short distance down the hall. The guards followed, becoming alarmed the moment both their charges seemed to vanish.
When Salettin started to speak, she placed two fingers on his lips, liking the warmth of his lips. More fanciful thinking, she told herself, giving herself an internal shake to clear her head, irritated that she needed to clear it in the first place. Zilla’s right. I’m an undisciplined adolescent.
She delighted in his surprise as the guards passed them, never even looking in their direction.
Then she took him back toward the elevators. They had to wait until the hall in front of the elevators cleared before she entered the code accessing the rooftop garden.
“You’re a Null. I guessed as much when you threw us off so quickly earlier today. I thought you might have used a variation of shadow, which is what most of us do when we want to disappear. It leaves that tell-tale energy pattern, however. Anyone of Talent can see us.”
“Yes.” But she didn’t tell him that she could have hidden the sound of his voice as well. It surprised her that she wanted to.
“My parents forbade me to use Null. They claimed it left me unsafe.”
“I can see their point. What if I suddenly attacked you?”
She laughed. She had been listening to his surface thoughts. Although he kept most of his thoughts behind a very strong shield, a sudden attack was not on his mind. Instead, he seemed far more interested in getting to know her. She found his curiosity intriguing.
The elevator doors dilated and they stepped into a small room with two access doors, one to the rooftop parking garage, the other to her mother’s garden. Tadessa entered the code that opened the doors to the garden. When she waved on the lights, his look of appreciation gave her a slight thrill.
“Do you like it?” She felt silly asking. With the pull of a single thread she knew he loved it.
“This place is amazing.”
“It’s my mother’s retreat. She and I breakfast together here most mornings. I’m pleased that you like it.”
Once inside she identified the plants, and described how each one was tended.
“You could be a botanist.”
“My half-sister already is. She wants to be a Landkeeper someday.”
“What’s a Landkeeper?”
“It’s a Krindarwee profession, not something you can learn in a Nevian academy. If her parents have their way, she’ll never get the chance.”
“So since you’re not going to become a botanist, what profession would you choose?” He grinned at her as if his question was some sort of impossibility.
“I’m a Lorekeeper. My purpose is to preserve and share the history, stories and songs of my people, to release those held in slavery in Sector One, and to rid this planet of all Zocassari, the entities you call Molochs. To do that I must escape from this place.”
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she realized she had just made her third mistake of the day.
11
watching from a distance