“Ben said I was to try and discover if I had an ability,” Malokai told her. “You won’t be disobeying him if you help me.”
There was an edge to his voice, and Adrienne knew the words were aimed at her in particular. And she knew that she deserved them. “This isn’t about Ben or the commission,” she assured him. “We can’t help you because our Talents are all different. We wouldn’t know where to begin.”
“It’s true,” Louella said when Malokai looked to her for confirmation. “I never could have taught Adrienne to do the things she can with fire. She discovered that Talent quite by accident when she was angry.”
“What about you?” Malokai asked. “You weren’t the first healer to develop a Talent. Surely you had help from the others.”
“I did have help, to some degree,” Louella agreed. “I had more help than Pieter and Adrienne, at any rate. Maureen Cassin helped me.” Louella sat primly on her chair with her legs crossed and her hands folded in her lap like a lady about to give instructions on proper etiquette. “However, my Talent and Maureen’s are not exactly the same, and so she could not show me what to do or how to do it. She did advise that I go about my healing while in a state of Oneness. Eventually, my Talent manifested itself while I was sewing up a particularly nasty cut. I was in a state of Oneness and suddenly I knew what to do to stop the bleeding and knit the flesh back together without the aid of needle and thread.”
“So I’m supposed to maintain Oneness until I figure out what I can do?” Malokai asked.
“Not necessarily,” Pieter said. “When I discovered my Talent, I was working on a particularly difficult tool. I was on the last stage of shaping it, a crucial stage where one mistake could ruin all of my previous efforts, so I took a deep breath to calm myself and something came over me. Oneness, I suppose, though I had not consciously reached for it.”
Adrienne had never heard this story, and was as interested in it as Malokai seemed to be. “What happened?”
“I suddenly understood the metal in a new way. I could feel every strength, every weakness. The slightest difference in width or thickness was blazingly apparent to me in that state. And I knew just where and how to hit it to get the shaping exact.”
“Did the metal turn blue?” Adrienne asked, her hand wandering to the sword at her hip. The other objects Pieter had forged using his Talent had been blue as well, though not all as brilliantly blue as her sword.
“In certain light,” Pieter said. “The extreme color of your sword is because I used my Talent throughout the entire process, from heating to shaping to treating. Nonetheless, at the time I forged that tool it was my best work.”
“So you weren’t even trying to use an ability,” Malokai said. “Not even trying for Oneness.”
“Being in a state of Oneness while working at the forge had always seemed like a bad idea before that day,” Pieter said without apology. “I still don’t go completely into a state of Oneness to use my Talent. I don’t find it necessary or useful to do so. I have used my Talent enough that I don’t need to go that far to understand the metal.”
Louella leaned over and placed her hand over Malokai’s. “You can see now why we can’t help you,” she said. “All of our experiences are too different.”
“There has to be some way,” Malokai said, moving his hand and shoving himself away from the table. He paced the small room. The kettle over the fire began to boil and he stopped to retrieve it. He poured the scalding water into Louella’s delicate teapot before replacing the kettle and resuming his pacing. His long legged strides carried him quickly from one end of the small room to the other, and Adrienne was reminded of the lion she had once seen in a menagerie. It had been contained in a small cage, and had looked just as restless. Though many of the spectators had thought the sight magnificent, Adrienne had felt sorry for the caged beast.
“Maybe Adrienne can be of some help,” Pieter suggested. “The two of you have the most in common.”
Malokai shook his head. “I thought about that,” he explained. “I can’t do anything with fire.”
“Have you considered…” Louella looked apologetic for what she was about to say. “Have you considered that you might not have a Talent?”
“Of course he will,” Adrienne said. “He can already achieve Oneness.”
“Being unable to achieve Oneness means you will never develop a Talent,” Louella said gently, her blue eyes compassionate in a face the color of fresh cream, “but being able to achieve Oneness is not a guarantee that you will be able to develop one.”
“What?” Adrienne asked.
“There have been people in Kessering who have achieved Oneness but never become Talented,” Louella answered. “Oneness is difficult, but can be learned with time and patience.” She looked sympathetically at Malokai. “Evidence suggests that Talents can only be discovered, not taught. That they are inborn somehow.”
“Why was I never informed of this?” Adrienne asked.
Louella shrugged her thin shoulders. “It would not have helped your training to know, and once you became Talented the information was no longer important.”
Malokai was silent, but Adrienne refused to believe what Louella was suggesting. “I’m sure Malokai will discover a Talent,” Adrienne said. “He must. The rate of his progress—”
“Doesn’t mean anything,” Pieter said bluntly. “To be honest, I’m surprised Malokai was brought to Kessering at all. He doesn’t have a specialized profession, and that seems to be the one common link between everyone who has been able to develop a Talent.”
Adrienne came halfway out of her chair in frustrated anger. “He’s an excellent fighter. One of the best I’ve ever encountered.” She was angry that Malokai’s skill would be belittled. Worse, she was upset by the idea that she could once again go back to being the only Talented—or potentially Talented—fighter in Kessering.
“But he’s not a soldier, not as his sole profession,” Pieter said more gently. “Fighting isn’t all he does.”
Adrienne waved her hands angrily. “None of us here are only our jobs—” Her hand shot out and knocked into the porcelain teacup, sending it over the edge of the table.
She and Pieter, the closest two, reached for it automatically, though it was too late to catch it. When the cup froze a bare two inches from the ground, they looked from it to each other and stared.
“I didn’t—” “Did you—” they both asked at once, eyes wide with amazement.
Louella turned and saw Malokai, his hand outstretched, attention completely focused on the teacup. Slowly, the teacup rose, shaking slightly as it made its ascent.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Adrienne and her friends were waiting nervously in the otherwise empty corridor outside of the commission’s meeting room. Today, the commission would deliver its decision regarding what had happened two days ago at Louella’s house. The day that Malokai had so unexpectedly discovered his Talent.
Malokai’s extraordinary ability to move things with his mind had sent the commission into a flurry of activity—if intense meetings counted as activity. It was proof to them that Adrienne’s Talent was not a fluke, that it was possible to create an army of Talented soldiers.
The commission was not as afraid of Malokai’s Talent as they were of Adrienne’s, but she knew that not all of the commissioners were happy with the state of events. She suspected that many of them had probably seen her ability to develop a Talent as an aberration and had not expected Malokai or anyone like him to be able to develop an ability.
And despite the fact that the commissioner’s saw Adrienne’s Talent with fire as being more dangerous, many of them still viewed the tall M’bai man as an inherent threat. To them, Malokai was a savage that could not be trusted with such power.
Adrienne thought that view was even more ignorant than the view the commission held of soldiers. At least the view about soldiers was a sweeping view that they had adapted before any of them had met any soldiers, but they knew
Malokai now and still did not trust him.
“What do you think they’re saying?” Louella asked. Like the others, she had wanted to be present for at least some of the discussion. Unlike the others, she had been surprised that they were not included.
“Ben is probably telling the commission that everything is working as planned,” Pieter said. “The training is going well, the Talents the commission was looking for are finally being developed, and we should continue training more soldiers and warriors.”
“And Lady Chessing is probably saying that even one more soldier in Kessering will threaten the entire city,” Adrienne said.
Malokai said nothing.
“I heard some of them want to stop the training,” Louella said. “They don’t want more Talented.”
“They’re afraid,” Pieter said, resting one of his big, dark hands on Louella’s light one.
“And jealous,” Adrienne added.
“What will they do with us if they end the program?” Malokai asked.
Louella looked up at the warrior in surprise. “What do you mean?”
“If they decide that they don’t want more Talented. What will they do with the ones that they have?” He looked at Adrienne, and she knew that they were both thinking the same thing. Would the commission decide that their duty was done and send them home?
Although Ben had not said much, Adrienne knew that he was worried that the commission would end the training program. As the only Talented commissioner, ending the program would affect him in a much more personal way than it would the others on the commission. But he had not told Adrienne what would happen to her if the training was ended.
Adrienne stared blankly at the wall, transfixed by the fading pattern on the tapestry. She lost track of time, and the tapestry began to to blur in front of her eyes, the colors bleeding together until all pattern was lost.
“They have to say yes,” Louella said. Adrienne jumped as the silence was broken, turning away from the tapestry to look at her friend. “The commission has to decide to train more people to become Talented,” Louella explained, her face earnest. “They had such success with you and Malokai.”
“With us as well,” Pieter interjected.
“Yes, of course.” Louella shot the blacksmith an exasperated look. “I only meant that they wouldn’t stop now that there are finally Talented who could fight Almet. Right? Isn’t this why the king formed the commission in the first place?”
Malokai shrugged, and Adrienne didn’t know what to say. Over half a year in Kessering, living under the commission’s rule, had taught her that the commission was not always logical, nor did their actions always seem to be in the best interest of Kessering or Samaro. Too often the decisions the commission made did not even seem to line up with their objectives, at least not the objectives given to them by the king. Adrienne wondered if perhaps the commission had its own agenda, separate from the one laid out for them by King Burin. Either that or King Burin was more of a fool than she had supposed and had picked the worst possible group to help him end the conflict with Almet. If the commission decided to stop using soldiers and warriors or ended the training program altogether, Samaro would have no way to end the conflict with the larger country to the north.
But Louella trusted the commission, as did most of the others in the city, and Adrienne did not want to damage that trust before she heard the verdict. Perhaps the commission would make the decision to continue the training program with more soldiers instead of less. If that was the case, all of her worry would have been over nothing. “I’m sure they’ll do the right thing,” Adrienne said, though her words were far from the truth.
“Of course they will,” Louella said. “They—”
The door opened, and Louella popped up from her seat like a cork from a bottle. Adrienne and Pieter rose more slowly, and Malokai straightened from where he had been leaning against the wall with a false sense of casualness. They had all wanted to be here, together, to hear what the commission had decided, and Ben had finally agreed to allow it.
However, they soon saw that the door had not been opened in invitation. Instead, Ben came out of the room and closed the door firmly behind him.
“Elder Rynn has given me permission to inform the four of you of our decision,” he said formally.
“Ben, I thought we were going to hear directly from the commission,” Adrienne said, her voice sharp after two hours of anticipation. Her muscles were tense, as if she had been waiting too long for a battle to begin, not for a meeting.
“I am a commissioner, Adrienne,” Ben reminded her coolly. “There was no need to have everyone stay behind when I can deliver our decision myself.”
Adrienne’s stomach twisted. She didn’t have to hear Ben’s words to know what the commission had decided. She could see the decision written on his unusually drawn face.
“The commission has determined that there is no immediate need for more people with abilities to be trained,” Ben said. “It is now clear to us that some people are capable of developing abilities that can be used against an enemy. If the need for such abilities arises in the future, others will be trained, but until they are necessary the commission sees no reason to uncover abilities in more people.” Ben nodded decisively, as though he were in full agreement with the commission’s decision, but Adrienne knew Ben was disappointed as well.
She bit her tongue to keep from saying how stupid and ill thought out the commission’s decision was. Anyone with even the most basic understanding of strategy knew that one didn’t wait to train soldiers until they were needed, but kept them in reserve in case they eventually were. She wondered how Ben had felt when the rest of the commission had made the asinine decision, and if any of them saw the inevitable drawback of needing more Talented but not having them.
Ben knew better than any of the other commissioners how hard and precarious it was to develop a Talent. Not only was he Talented himself, but he had trained many of the Talented in the city. He knew that it was not a short process, and that it did not always work.
“But I thought the situation in Almet…” Louella trailed off, confused.
“The struggle with Almet has not escalated to the point where special abilities are necessary,” Ben said. “Things are momentarily stable on that front.”
Adrienne knew that by stable Ben meant that the normal amount of killing and looting was occurring. Civilians were being harmed and soldiers were dying in an ongoing struggle to keep Samaroans safe from being killed or enslaved by Almetian forces.
“So they are just going to wait?” Pieter asked. Louella let out a relieved sigh, and Pieter shot her a look. “You can’t be happy about this?”
“If they can find a solution to open war,” Louella hedged.
“They can’t.” Pieter looked fierce, and Adrienne remembered her old sword, which still hung proudly in Pieter’s shop. The blacksmith understood better than Louella what this decision meant on a larger scale, and that sometimes bloodshed was necessary to maintain freedom.
“We don’t know that,” Louella said. “Do you really want to risk your life before everything else has been tried. Do you really want people to die if they don’t have to?”
“Of course not,” Pieter said. “But we’ve tried other ways.” He looked at Ben in accusation. “Talented soldiers were supposed to be the other way. The Talented were the way to win the war.”
“Until real war breaks out, abilities such as Adrienne and Malokai have developed won’t be necessary,” Ben pointed out.
Adrienne wondered if anyone on the commission had ever heard of making the first strike, or thought about how many would likely die in a war before enough people could develop useful Talents to make a difference. Compared to Almet, Samaro was too small to not take every advantage they could get.
She tried to believe that the commission was right, but their decision went against everything she had ever been taught. She wished to be back in Kyrog, where the orders made sense and, even i
f they didn’t, she trusted the person who had issued them. She could not bring herself to trust the people here. “Wouldn’t it be better to have more people with powers in reserve, ready to be called up when needed?” Adrienne finally asked, unable to help herself.
“We have decided that it is better to hold off on any further training,” Ben said with finality.
••••••
“We can’t stay here,” Malokai said abruptly. He had been lying on the other side of the camp, looking up at the sky that was slowly turning a darker shade of blue as the sun fell toward the horizon. Now he sat up and looked at her out of those intense blue eyes.
Adrienne looked around the sparsely wooded area where she and Malokai had set up camp the night before. They had left Kessering after the commission’s decision, needing space from the confines of the city. It would take only a few hours to walk back to Kessering from where they camped, but here they were momentarily away from the sights and sounds of the city, and the control of the commission.
Neither Adrienne nor Malokai had told Ben about their unexpected trip, though Pieter and Louella knew. Ben would likely be angry that they had left without first asking permission, but Adrienne no longer cared what Ben thought. The commission had decided against training any new Talented; they did not need to manage every part of Adrienne’s life.
“Well, no, of course we can’t stay,” she said, hoping that Malokai did not mean they had to go back to the city right at that moment. It was peaceful out here, away from the bustle and chaos of civilian life. “We’ll have to go back eventually. It’s just nice to get away for a while.” Not that there was much for her to get away from, now that her own training was at an end. She had promoted Edward to captain before hearing the commission’s decision, and he was now solely in charge of the city guard. Except for Louella and Pieter, there was little in the city of importance to Adrienne. Her studies about the Dark Mage had come to a halt: no matter how hard she tried, she could not decipher the Almetian script. There was probably a book in the library that would help with such a task, but she could not ask the librarian or one of the scholars without giving away what she was trying to do.
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