“Let’s get on with this.” Clisantha sat on the table next to him.
He tutted as she rolled up the sleeves of her loose fitting top. “Such poor manners.”
“Manners will cost you,” Clisantha said, raising a brow.
“Cost me what?”
She tilted her head, a smile playing on her lips. “Some secrets.”
Riyen whistled. “Heavy price.” He scratched his chin, swaying his legs to and fro. “Alright, what do you want to know?”
“How were you able to detect my consciousness when Thaide weren’t able to?”
“The Thaide weren’t looking,” he said. “They never do. Whereas I’m always alert.”
“Hmm.” Clisantha nodded. “Is Betha’s husband a Phalorian?”
“No, but his father was, so he helps us whenever he can, in return for special threads from the Eastern Realm.”
Clisantha glanced at him sideways. “How come you have a Hjuy?”
“I don’t. I borrow one whenever I don’t want to be disturbed traveling, or when I need to have private meetings.”
“Hmm…”
“No, that’s it,” Riyen said, before she could ask anything else.
Clisantha laughed as he crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. “You have to be polite to me now,” he teased. “So tell me why you’re upset?”
Clisantha raised her nose and feigned the intonation of the older members of the peerage. “Pardon me, Elementyth Riyen. I assure you it was not my intention to cause you any lasting distress by my black mood. A troublesome merchant annoyed me. Please accept my humblest apologies and my next unborn self-child as compensation for my rudeness.”
Riyen bent over with laughter. “That wasn’t so hard was it?” he said, straightening with a beaming grin. “You do that so well. Maybe that’s how you should always apologize to me.”
“I could, but with my temper, you’d end up with a lot of babies,” Clisantha said, giggling with him as he burst into laughter again.
Wiping tears from his eyes, Riyen pushed himself off the table and stood in front of her.
His deep, woody fragrance filled her nostrils and she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. It was more complex than any of the perfumes and fragrances sold at the beauty gallery.
The presence of his mind cushioned the edge of hers.
“Think back to the meeting,” he said, still smiling.
Clisantha calmed her mind and thought back to the memory. It slipped from her control.
“You look just like your mother.” Coley leaned against the front of his desk grinning at her breasts. He was a short, slight man with a shock of pale blonde hair. He wore a suit made up of various shades of green and heavy rings on each hand.
“Thank you, Magien Coley.” Clisantha smiled. “I didn’t realize you knew my mother.”
Coley bent forward, lowering his eyes down her body. “Yes, I knew her very well.” He pushed off the desk and walked around her. “Now, what can I do for you, Mss Saraethien? We have already conducted our business for this half-week.” He began massaging her shoulder, his rings digging into her collarbone. “Unless there is further business you would like to negotiate?”
“Yes I would.” Clisantha rose from her chair and turned to face him. “Riyen sends a message.”
Coley’s face dropped and he froze.
“He awaits the reports from your daughter,” Clisantha said. “You’re late in your delivery.”
The memory slowed for a few long moments as Coley blinked, glanced behind her and spluttered. Then jumped back to normal speed.
“She’s on leave from the Charter sect at the moment,” he said. “As soon as she returns I will remind her to collect them.”
Clisantha smiled. “According to Elementyth Riyen, those reports could be worth a lot of lorel in the other Realms, and he feels that perhaps you are stalling to make copies.”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
“Are you sure they’re not in your possession?”
Coley nodded.
She turned in a full circle and back to Coley. “Riyen will be watching this as a memory at some point. If the reports are in this room, he will be able to locate them. Is there anything you would like to say to him?”
Worry flitted over Coley’s face and he glanced behind her again. “Tell him I will get them to him by moon-rise tonight. Usual place.”
Clisantha nodded and picked up her cloak.
Coley watched her, his nostrils flared. “You look like your mother but you’re just like your father.”
“What about my father?” Clisantha asked, a little too quickly.
Coley did not respond. He looked as though he wanted to say something but knew better. Clisantha tried to remember if she had ever seen Coley with Father back when she lived in the Arc but—
A burning pain shot through Clisantha’s mind. Everything disappeared as it revolved into raw intense agony. It expanded from her mind to her eyes and nose, and as it reached the back of her throat it stopped.
Clisantha opened her eyes and found she had fallen. Riyen crouched next to her holding her up around the shoulders.
“Clisantha.”
Her eyes, nose and throat were raw as though a fire had burned through them. She groaned.
“Clisantha.”
She looked at him, his eyes searching her face. “What did you do?” It hurt to talk.
He placed a hand on her head. “Close your eyes.”
As she closed them, a soothing sensation trickled from the tip of her head through her mind, over her eyes and nose and into her throat. She sighed as it sent a warmth throughout the rest of her body.
“Clisantha?”
She opened her eyes again. The pain had almost gone.
Riyen moved a strand of hair out of her eye, brushing her face with his finger. “Feeling a little better?”
She sat up and shrugged his hands away. “What did you do? When I agreed to this I didn’t intend on becoming brain dead. I don’t care how much training you’re giving me, it’s not worth it if I can’t remember any of it.”
Riyen rose to his feet, holding up a hand. “Wait. I didn’t cause that.”
Clisantha got to her feet and marched to collect her cloak from the chair by the door. “You’re lying. I’ve never felt a pain like that.”
“Yes, you have, Clisantha,” Riyen called after her. “After you mind travel you feel a milder version of it. Remember?”
She halted and turned to face him.
“What were you thinking about when the pain started?”
Clisantha thought back. “I don’t remember.”
“With your permission I’d like to investigate.”
“Investigate what?”
“What’s going on with your mind. Those symptoms you get aren’t normal.” He walked back to the table and sat on it. “You put up with them pretty well, but they’re not what every Giftborn experiences.”
“What do you think it is?”
“It could be anything,” Riyen said, leaning back on the table. He looked tired all of a sudden. “I thought that maybe you were drawing on energy with an abnormal tilt or in some way accessing echo energy, but everything is fine from a Gift perspective. I thought after I’d trained you on the basics, they would go. Let me look into it.”
“It only happened because you were in my mind,” Clisantha insisted.
“Maybe.”
Clisantha breathed a sigh of annoyance. Riyen had been reluctant to train her at first, but she had stood firm in light of what she had given up. She had been almost hysterical before he agreed to her terms. Although the High Priest hadn’t explicitly said he would agree her lordship, all he had needed was a little persuasion and she would have made history. The only solace was that her business expansion had catapulted her popularity. The Torak city peerage had been astonished, many hounding her with questions and praise when they discovered what she had achieved. She received multiple invitations to dinners and weaver
shows. Clothing merchants wanted to design clothes for her, the beauty galleries wanted to create perfumes and face designs in her name. Anywhere she ate or bought tables became fully booked for at least a month afterward and numerous acquaintances wanted to be seen with her including many of the single men who had yet to find a wife, and some who already had. She’d had to buy a carriage and employ a driver and an assistant to manage her travel and organize her affairs. She had been amazed that the High Priest had even agreed to her business expansion, but grateful that he had. Perhaps she could still make history through her business while remaining safe from being discovered.
In the short time Riyen had been training her, she had learned so much more about the Gift than she could ever have learned from one of Father’s books. Even when the Puryth had tested her, Riyen had made sure her Gift could not be detected. Granted, she had to travel around the Arc and the City for him with cryptic messages and threats but it barely made a dent in her time. If she was suffering from some kind of Giftborn illness or affliction that caused the pains she suffered, she could not risk Kelvedon or the High Priest discovering it.
“Alright,” she said.
Riyen nodded. “I’ll need to consult a few people.”
“Fine, but we’re still training today,” Clisantha warned. “So remove that lazy look from your face and let’s go.”
She created a platform and soared over to the other side of the factory.
Riyen grinned and got up from the table, creating a number of strikers as he launched into the air.
***
The Red Road was named so because every day as the sun descended, rays of red sun beams set alight the entire road and the few large houses along it in a fiery haze. Other than that it was unremarkable. It held a small, stony park, a large bread and cheese outlet and a library that Clisantha had visited many times. Not only was it the largest library in Torak, it was also the only place that research studies from the Arc were made available.
As she entered, the crisp scent of freshly-made parchment and fragrant herb tea quietened her mind. When she and Orna had been removed from the Arc, she had spent many days and evenings examining various studies in the comfortable, worn soft-seats. The library remained in good condition. Cream walls on the outside with shrubs planted around the edge and two benches for outside reading, and inside the bookshelves pressed against sides of the space leaving a spacious living-style reading area with soft-seats and low tables.
This morning, a handful of citizens sat around the library, deep in their reading. She strode over to the research section and, after browsing for a few moments, pulled several reports from the shelves and sat in a single high-armed soft-seat. The library assistant arrived after a few moments to place a pot of Belyntea and a teacup next to her. After a few hours, she came across the report that had to be the one Isa mentioned.
Clisantha’s hands trembled as she opened it and flicked through the pages until she found Carrick’s name, but she was so eager to read it she had to read the first few lines three times before their meaning sank in.
‘SA2 – Border patrol changed. Thaide Ardron, Thaide Carrick, Thaide Colei, Thaide Eritha, Thaide Huran, Thaide Oskern, Thaide Toyzer, Thaide Qhon on duty.
SA3 – Thaide Carrick missing from post
SA6 – Bridge detected in Osrien. Thaide Oskern and Thaide Colei leave patrol to investigate.’
Clisantha scanned the rest of the report, and the reports covering the next few days, but Carrick’s name was not mentioned again and there was no mention of the result of the investigation. Confused she returned to the page and read it again.
Eight Thaide started border patrol two hours after sun-arc. An hour later Father either left his post or was removed from it. Then a bridge was detected. What did that mean? Then two days later at SA0 border patrol changed again to a new set of eight Thaide with no mention of the two Thaide that had gone to investigate.
Clisantha rose and headed to the research area of the library. Scanning the bookshelves, she sought through all books or files that may talk about bridges, but five hours later she was no closer to understanding what it meant to detect a bridge.
Returning to her soft-seat, she finished the cold Belyntea, her stomach grumbling. Father had been missing at the border on his last shift. Anything could have happened to him, but there was more to the story if he had no proper burial.
She committed the information to memory and returned all of the files to the bookshelves. Ordering a bronze vynth, she started looking through every file that had any connection to her family; deeds, merchant contracts, Orna’s wedding files, anything that could tell her something new about Father. The shadows in the library stretched around the room as the day progressed and the bitter bronze vynths the library assistant brought helped to keep her mind focused. About an hour before the library closed she threw herself down into the soft-seat, dejected. She had searched through everything at home and although it had always been unlikely to find something here, she had hoped for the Sovereign touch.
“Mss Saraethien, we are closing soon,” the library assistant said, handing her another vynth. “Would you like to hire anything out?”
Clisantha took the short, fat glass. “No.”
As the library assistant walked away, she swallowed the bronze liquid and dropped the glass on the short-table, thinking back to what Orna had said about Father. She had played that conversation over and over, trying to make sense of why Orna would make such unpleasant comments. She had never mentioned them again, which could mean it was untrue. Surely people would have been questioned, his friends, acquaintances… Clisantha sat up. Father knew a lot of people, some of whom he went to see repeatedly, both in the Arc and in Torak. They must be able to tell her something.
She smiled at the library assistant as she made her way out, renewed determination settling over her as she climbed into her carriage.
***
“Greetings, Clisantha.”
Telmar’s deep voice jolted her out of her reflection as she walked to her front door.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, with surprise. “I’ve already given you my figures for today.”
“I’ve come to see you,” Telmar said. “Can’t I visit my step-daughter?”
“I’m not your step-daughter,” Clisantha responded, a bite in her tone. She stood by her door, annoyed that he blocked it. Visiting her father’s friends had not been that useful, just a waste of her evening. Her mood would only be worsened by Telmar’s presence. “What do you want?”
“I’m here to discuss your business,” Telmar said. He lifted a bottle of wine. “Can I come in? I bought your favorite wine to ease the sting of my company.”
Once inside, he dropped down into a soft-seat and placed the wine on the short-table. “You have a lovely home here, Clisantha. Your mother didn’t keep the place so well furnished.”
Clisantha selected two glasses from the kitchen. “What do you wish to talk about?” Since her change of direction in front of the High Priest, Telmar had gone out of his way to make her life difficult. He had been so angry at her advancement that he had almost struck her in the carriage on the way back into Torak. She had dared him to do it, thrilled at the idea of telling the High Priest where her bruises had originated from, but he had caught himself in time. She was forced to see him every evening to discuss her sales figures and merchant signings, but he never made it easy to meet with him.
Telmar remained silent as she poured the wine. “I want you to give your business to me,” he said, lifting his glass.
Clisantha laughed. “Is that so?”
“Yes. I want you to announce that you will be giving the business over to me and convince all of your clients that doing business with me is worthwhile. You will also need to persuade the High Priest that I must take over the business. You are excellent at convincing people.”
“And why would I do that?” Clisantha asked.
Telmar leaned forward. “Because if yo
u don’t, I will tell the High Priest that you have been secretly meeting an Elementyth in one of your factories every day for three months in order to seduce him into illegally allowing you to co-own a ward.”
Fear gripped Clisantha. He was still having her followed. She had put it to the back of her mind with the flurry of the business expansion. “That is a lie.”
“Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t,” Telmar said, his mouth stretched in a grin. “I might not actually know what you do in there, but I’m good at convincing people too. That particular Elementyth is responsible for overseeing multiple wards. It’s plausible that you could be trying to persuade, seduce or trick him into letting you share one with an existing owner. I’m sure the High Priest would be interested in that piece of information.”
“You can’t prove it.”
“No, but I’m willing to chance that you will be unable to disprove it. Just because you’re bedding him it doesn’t mean you’re not also pursuing this plan.”
“The Elementyth could just say it’s untrue, Telmar. His word would be stronger than both of ours. ”
“The only way it can be proven is if either of you allow a Thaide into your minds,” Telmar gulped his wine, a perverse look in his eye. “I’m sure you don’t want to be seen in the many compromising positions I’m sure you have tried.”
Anger and panic rose in Clisantha as she thought through every possible reason she could have to be meeting Riyen every day. Nothing reputable came to her. The High Priest may not have cared if it was just her bedding an Elementyth, but her decision to give up her pursuit of a ward had been so sudden, this accusation could lay suspicion on her. She had even publicly encountered Riyen with Ketzia just before that meeting with the High Priest.
A determined smirk danced on Telmar’s face as she rested her eyes on him.
“It still can’t be proven, even if we both refuse to offer our memories.”
“It doesn’t need to be proven, Clisantha dear.” Telmar drained his wine. “Some citizens are already starting to think you’re luring men into your bed from all over the city. Once they get a whiff of this, your pure reputation will be in shreds. You’ll have to give your business up anyway for it to survive.”
Deviants of Giftborn (The Etherya Series Book 1) Page 19