Tadessa wanted to slip into Null as soon as she rounded a corner ahead of her guards, except the hall from the elevators ran straight to her study, no corners. She felt their eyes on her. Null worked best when no one watched.
Freshly fallen snow viewed through arched window along the hall caught her off guard. It sparkled the walkways like diamonds under the brilliant walkway lights. It mesmerized her. So beautiful, and so quickly gone. The Inner City’s heated walkways melted the glistening snow before her eyes.
She wanted to dart outside and run through it before it disappeared. Not once since moving here had she experienced the simple pleasure of playing in the snow. Instead, all her time needed to be dedicated to learning how to be Nevian. For an instant, completely by accident, she blinked into Null and back. She felt the startled guards behind her come to attention, renewing their focus on her. Usually she controlled her Null. Never once had she blinked out, even when startled. Always before, she chose when she wanted to disappear. It never happened by accident. I really need to see Zilla, she realized, wondering how to avoid the sudden tests. Once inside her study, it would be harder to leave this place.
She resented the sudden tests. True, she had never chosen a specific field of study. Even though she excelled in school, she considered her Nevian education, however interesting, as nothing more than busy work to satisfy her parents.
She turned around to face her guards. “I need to go to my suite,” she said.
“No, Mistress,” Officer Shuwey said. “We are under orders to escort you directly to your study.”
Evidently her split-second disappearance had startled him to over-caution. “But I need to get something.”
“Just tell me what it is,” he said, being as accommodating as possible. “I will fetch it for you.”
“As soon as we call another guard to take his place,” his partner added.
“Am I being watched?” Anger furrowed her brow.
“Yes, Mistress. Never before have the halls been filled with so many guests before. Suspicions as to their true motives abound. Our orders to keep you safely watched are strict.”
They included orders to keep her out of Null, she read from their surface thoughts. She jutted out her chin and proceeded to her study.
Her guards placed themselves outside the door as she entered. She stopped at one of the towering bookshelves and pulled out a favorite book. This side of her library contained fiction. The other side of the room contained history, finance, biographies, science and other academic books. She took her book to a reading area, one that let in sun soon after spring arrived in this northland. In the summer this was her favorite place, because the window opened to let in a fresh breeze. Not all the windows in this room opened.
Toward the back of the room clustered another grouping of chairs, and A’nton B’sheer’s desk. Counselor B’sheer, her mother’s legal and financial advisor, had been her first Nevian teacher.
“Good morning, Mistress Chalatta.” His smile was as bright as the walkway lights. “It seems I am, once again, in the position of being your tutor, although I suppose today ‘test monitor’ would be a more accurate term.” As he glanced at the book she held in her hand, he said, “I doubt you’ll have time to read a novel, however.”
Without an explanation, he shoved a book at her. The Xantis Tey Expansion, she read.
Put it in your desk and read it as soon as you’re able.
The caution startled her.
She sat at her desk, carrying both books. She opened the book Counselor B’sheer gave her to a random page.
Because the males require so many females to attend to their needs, they must constantly expand their territories. They enslave whole societies to fill their lusts and their desire for excessive progeny. A female Xantis Tey is required to bear at least six children. Divorce is not permitted. If she cannot bear the required number, the male will require his female slaves to do that duty. Although they have only one wife, common practice among the men is to have several female slaves in the household to bear children. If a female slave does not produce a child within five years, she is often sold.
The Xantis Tey value those with Talent. Even those born into slavery can be released if they demonstrate Talent. The male child will remain a slave until he reaches his majority. Male slaves may gain work in any Talent-dependent position, but it is rare for them to gain permission to marry, although they, also, may own female slaves. Their methods provide many Talented people in the workforce. The Talented female will be sold before her majority to a man willing to take her to wife. She will be cherished and protected, and will live the rest of her life in her husband’s family. Because divorce is forbidden, she cannot be replaced with another wife. She will never, however, be her husband’s only partner, since he will buy female slaves to fulfill his desires and his society’s progeny requirements.
This constant requirement for many females populating their society makes it necessary…
Confused, Tadessa closed the book and shoved it, along with the novel, into her desk, wondering why B’sheer had given her the book. A glance at him revealed nothing.
“You’re in for a busy day,” he said. “We’ll be doing a series of interest questionnaires, qualifying exams, personality evaluations, and so on. You should enjoy most of it, but it will take all day…”
At that moment a strange man entered the room. He leaned against the doorframe, a look of curiosity on his face. A shock of honey-blond hair, lit with a dash of copper, curled attractively over his forehead. Unlike her father’s, who kept his hair knotted at the nape of his neck, this man’s hair was too short to knot. Curls fell around his ears and brushed his collar. She couldn’t see the color of his eyes from across the room, and for an instant she wanted to. He wore a dark red jacket with gold trim over a pale gray shirt, and gray slacks with a dark red stripe down the outside of each pant leg, the stripe outlined with a thread of gold. A dark silk tie billowed down the front of his shirt and tucked inside his jacket. She thought it awfully ornate for daywear. Maybe he had an appointment later today.
“Your Imperial Majesty.” Master B’sheer bowed formally.
So he was one of the Faj guests. She eyed him with interest.
“I was not aware you would be here today, or any day, to tell you the truth. This is the young Mistress’s study.”
“I’m just observing,” he said as he straightened from the doorframe. “I was curious as to what the young Mistress was learning. I was informed that she had already graduated, years ahead of the rest of her class, and with honors.”
“Nevertheless, Majesty…” A’nton B’sheer stopped speaking when the man put a finger to his lips. His Imperial Majesty strode forward, a determined look on his face.
The young man pulled a chair next to Tadessa’s. “Pretend I’m not here.”
Ignoring him would be hard to do, since he was right at her elbow. His presence bothered her. She did notice that the centers of his blue eyes surrounding the pupil were yellow, like blueflowers. She frowned at him.
“Ah, so she shows emotion besides that bit of a mocking smile her scar gives her.”
Tadessa hadn’t been aware she had been keeping her face expressionless.
“I also understand the young Mistress studies martial arts with her father. Ken’di?”
“Also Fotu Jan, Mari’chen Diometin, among others.” She did not tell him that her classes always ended in her failure to “press forward in the attack.”
“I practice Fotu Jan also, and As’wendi Yom.”
“Why do you limit yourself to unarmed disciplines?”
“My masters tell me one cannot guarantee that a weapon will be available when one is attacked. Both martial disciplines have kept me alive so far. You missed my early morning workout. You would have been impressed.”
“I cannot see how.”
He ignored the slight. “Why do you practice s
o many? Oh, yes. Your father is a general. Maybe he should have adopted a son instead.” The young man laughed at his own joke.
“Mistress Chalatta Deena A’nden, may I present his Imperial Majesty Prince Salettin ba Tir, the son of our new Emperor.”
Disturbed by what she had just read, she didn’t rise, but nodded formally from her chair. She wasn’t about to allow this rude man think she would cater to him because of his position. Although B’sheer frowned at her flagrant show of disrespect, the man laughed as if delighted. “Stubborn, too.”
She met his eyes, surprised.
“I thought you finished school. What could you possibly be doing today?”
“Since she did not choose a career at the academy she will be doing some evaluation testing for career placement,” B’sheer said.
“I see. What kind of a career would an heiress have?”
“If she qualifies, she will be the page to the Lady High Commissioner.”
Tadessa shot a look at B’sheer. No one had told her that. Were today’s tests a sham? She sent out a thread, and as his mind reviewed the purpose of the exams, found that they were no more than a cover to make her believe that she qualified for the one thing Mama knew she would never do, have a hand in her mother’s politics. Worse, her father approved of these tests.
Confused and hurt, Tadessa rose to her feet, startling the men in the room. Her temper flared. She refused to be manipulated in this way!
“Mistress Chalatta.”
She did not turn at B’sheer’s call, but strode out of the room.
She, who before today never forgot anything, forgot about the guards at the door. Her plan had been to wrap herself in Null and disappear, but her guards followed as she flew down the hall. As soon as the hallway turned, she pulled Null around her, just in time. A maid came out of one of the rooms.
Null worked best when no one ever noticed the person in the first place.
Her guards never saw her disappear, but everyone knew she had been here only a moment ago. She would not be able to leave their thoughts.
Neither parent approved of her using Null, but right now she didn’t care.
Her planned to go to her suite and change into winter clothing, then leave for Zilla’s.
As if they read her mind, everyone, her two guards, B’sheer and that arrogant ba Tir man, all headed for her rooms as if they could see her. If she had chosen to use shadow, anyone of Talent, definitely B’sheer and probably the Emperor’s son, would still have been able to find her through her life pattern, a unique pattern of energy that remained visible to the Talented. Instead, with her inside a Null field, they shouldn’t have been able to follow.
How silly I am! They aren’t following. They are heading where they think I’m going next. I am far too predictable.
As if he decided she had gone into her suite, B’sheer shouted into her apartment, chastising her for her lack of manners. Prince Salettin and her guards said nothing as they stood behind her tutor.
She leaned against the wall across from her door as all of them rushed inside her sitting room behind B’sheer. Suddenly it all seemed incredibly funny, four men chasing after her in this way. She started giggling until tears ran down her face. Not even her parents knew she could hide sound also.
She waited until they left, then went inside, past the sitting room and into her bedroom. She moved a small end table out of the corner where it stood, and placed it to one side. Kneeling in the corner, she pulled up the carpet. Digging at the flooring under the carpet, she pried loose a floor panel. No one knew she made this hiding place in her suite. Soon after their move, her Nevian father ordered her to get rid of the things from her time on the streets with her father. Hidden under the flooring she secreted a locked box containing the items she carried in her pockets the day she arrived, a ball of string, a top and string, the jewelry Snake made to hide the fact that some of them were lock picks, stubs of candles and lighting sticks, the intricately carved knife Snake made to teach her how to use the Dance as defense, a real knife in its sheath and belt, and her flute that she used as a tool to reach her grandfather. Warm clothing wasn’t enough. If she intended to enter the Area, these were necessities.
Someone approached! Tadessa replaced the box, panel and the carpet, and adjusted the end table back into position. She let go of Null as she threw herself onto her bed, acting as if she had been weeping there.
“Daughter.”
Her father’s voice surprised her. She had expected B’sheer. She realized she should have used a thread to identify who approached. Why can’t I think of the most obvious things? Why wouldn’t I send out a thread? I’ve done that all my life. Why are my thoughts so chaotic today?
“Master B’sheer told me you ran out of the classroom.” He sat on the edge of her bed and stroked one of her shoulders.
She rolled over to face him. “The testing is pretense,” she said. “I read it from his thoughts. I don’t want…”
“There are a great many things in this life we don’t want.” His voice was gentle, not accusatory. His thumb stroked the scar under her cheekbone. “But we do what we must. Always.”
She threw herself into his arms as when she was much younger. A few tears leaked from her eyes and she wondered how to confront the confusion of this day. His dark blue uniform jacket scratched her face, but as always, his hands soothed her.
She wanted to talk to him about her uncharacteristic emotions, and sent out a thread first to examine his surface thoughts. Sometimes he was easier to talk to than her mother, and hoped this was one of those times.
Not her mother at all, but her father had orchestrated the farce of her new evaluations today. The realization startled her.
But there was something else at the back of his mind, something that worried him, and she found she could not access it.
7
managing the heiress