The laundry, too, I left outside the laundry room door, since I couldn't get in. At least they went ahead and cleaned it—it belonged to the Queen, after all, and they adored her. Me? I might as well have been the worst, child-molesting, murdering criminal.
Actually, I might have gotten better treatment at the prison facility if that were true. At least the food would have been better. I'd learned quickly not to eat anything served by the kitchen. I subsisted on blood substitute on Le-Ath Veronis. On Campiaa, the Starr brothers saw that I got decent meals, at least.
Closing the door of the Queen's suite behind me after a particularly grueling day, I nearly shrieked when I saw what waited for me there. No—it wasn't additional sabotage by the comesuli—I would have welcomed that to what did wait for me. A very tall Larentii—nearly ten feet tall, waited, his arms crossed angrily over his chest. Just as I couldn't read Stellan, Kooper or Trevor, I couldn't read this Larentii, either. And, if there were ever a Larentii I needed to read, this was the one. Was he different from what I considered a normal Larentii? In every way possible.
Larentii dress in natural fibers, loosely woven so sunlight can filter through to their skin. They could feed in that way, if it became necessary. Sandals are worn most of the time, if they wear shoes at all. Their hair is some shade of blond, ranging from nearly white to almost red, while their eyes are a sunny, bright blue. This Larentii looked nothing like that. Yes, he had the telltale blue skin, but his resemblance to any other Larentii stopped there.
Curly, dark-red hair cascaded to his shoulders, his eyes were a deep, cobalt blue (very much like mine), and he was dressed, head to foot, in black. Black boots were on his feet and chains, glittering with black jewels, circled the ankles of the boots. He looked as if he were prepared to ride off on a giant motorcycle.
"Why are you here?" I asked, suddenly fearful. The number of those I couldn't read was rising dramatically, and threatened to become an epidemic.
"I am the Vhirilaszh," he proclaimed, as if that were supposed to mean something to me. "I was asked to take a look at you, to determine whether you might be the Vhanaraszh. You are too small and insignificant, I think. Nevertheless, I will test you, so I might take a full report to my father and be done with it."
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," I muttered, wondering what Vhanaraszh actually meant. "And I don't recall inviting you here. I'm tired and I want to go to bed." I did—it was after moon hour, I was exhausted and a new Council meeting loomed in my very near future.
"No. we will do this tonight, and if you warrant teaching, then we will proceed. I warn you, I have no patience, so you must learn quickly. Fail to apply yourself and I will punish you."
"What?" I stared at him in shock. "Look, I don't know who you are or what Vhanaraszh means and I don't think I want to learn. Get out or I'll start screaming."
"Go ahead. I have the room shielded. Your screams will only irritate me, and that may bring punishment earlier than anticipated." His eyes were hard as he stared at me, his blue arms crossed angrily over his chest. He was the most muscular Larentii I'd ever seen, but then I'd only seen three so far. That likely wasn't a good cross-section of the race as a whole, and certainly no basis for any judgments I might make.
"Really?" I backed slowly toward the door. No wonder he didn't look like a normal Larentii—the others had likely tossed him off the Larentii homeworld and told him to get lost. Larentii didn't act like that—not that I'd seen, anyway. If I could just reach the door, I'd be out of the Queen's suite like a shot and screaming my head off while I ran. This guy was terrifying, with a great big, capital T.
"It is useless to try the door; you will not escape. I have little time to devote to you, so you'd best resign yourself to my testing."
"Really?" I turned and ran for the door. I turned the knob. Nothing. I pounded, kicked and punched until my toes and my fists were sore. Nothing. I knew I'd hit the thing hard—my knuckles were bloody. The door was impervious, even to my vampire strength.
"I must be wimpier than I thought," I sighed, sliding down the door until I was slumped in the floor. "What's your name?" I stared up at my captor who was now standing over me, a terrifying scowl marring his features. Since I had no idea what to do, I'd frantically searched my mind for a course of action. Perhaps things would go easier if we engaged in a two-way conversation. I'd been locked up before, and I was silently petrified by my current situation.
"I am Kalenegar," he snapped. "You will come with me and I will evaluate your skills."
"At what?" I barely had time to respond before he gripped my upper arm in a tight hold and jerked me to my feet. He then disappeared as easily as anyone else who had folding capability.
* * *
"I know you can read others," Kalenegar shook me after I'd read perhaps the twentieth person in a crowded square. He'd taken me directly to Surnath, where people brushed past us, although they couldn't see me or Kalenegar—he'd shielded us. "You must prove to me that you can block the visions. There is no need to read everyone."
"I don't know how to block them," I whimpered as he shook me—he'd never let go of my arm.
"Do it," he snarled. I tried. Honestly. I had no idea how, or where to start, even, and I was exhausted. He didn't care.
"I will only ask once more," he hissed. "Block the visions, Breanne." At least he knew my name. I felt helpless. Even as a vampire, I couldn't break loose from his grip and I screamed as pain lanced through my brain. That was my first taste of how the Larentii might punish one who flaunted their orders.
"Block the visions," he repeated, fury in his voice. My head hurt so badly by that time I couldn't see the visions through my tears. He shook me again. I wiped the wetness on my sleeve and tried again, failing miserably. Twice more he gave the order. Twice more I failed. Twice more, the pain shot through my head, blinding me and driving me to my knees.
"You are worthless," he snapped and jerked me to my feet before tossing me onto the floor of the Queen's suite seconds later. "I will come again," he said. "If you fail to learn what I teach you, you will be most sorry." Then he cursed—in the Larentii language. I could only huddle on the Queen's carpet and shudder, my brain feeling as if it had been hit by electrical current.
* * *
"What is wrong with you?" Gavin gripped the same arm Kalenegar had grasped the night before. It hurt. Did I tell him about Kalenegar's visit? No. He wouldn't have believed me, and if I told him I'd been hurt, I didn't want to see the pleasure in his eyes at that admission. My life had been bizarre enough, without adding a sadistic Larentii into the mix. As a result, I was exhausted and my mind wandered throughout the Council meeting. All I wanted to do was curl up somewhere and sleep without interruption.
"You have work to do," Gavin shoved me into the Queen's office, where my comp-vid and comesuli requests waited. "I'll have blood substitute brought."
I didn't want blood substitute. I wanted real food and real rest. I was destined to receive neither. Stumbling toward the Queen's suite four hours later, I walked through the door. Thankfully, it was empty. I had hopes that Kalenegar had given up on his demented quest and had chosen to leave me alone. That hope was short-lived.
He pulled me from a sound sleep, two hours after I'd collapsed on the bed. "Get up," he snapped, pulling me up by the same arm. It hurt. I had bruises, too—where he and Gavin had gripped it too hard and marked my skin. A vampire would heal quickly—if they were allowed rest. It seems I wasn't allowed.
"Last night you failed miserably. Tonight, you will try again," the tall, blue sadist muttered as he set me down in yet another crowded area. This one happened to be a train station on Ooblerik. I wanted to hit him. With the power a Larentii wielded, that would be as effective as hammering a nail with a feather.
Four times, that night, he hit me with the mind-pain when I failed to block the visions. The last one knocked me out cold.
* * *
"She has some talent, but does not apply herself," Kalenegar mutt
ered as Graegar examined Breanne. Kal had called out for one of the Five when he hadn't been able to rouse Breanne after the last mind-lance.
"She is small and frail, Kalenegar," Graegar muttered as light formed about his hands. "While she is vampire and stronger than some, you have hurt her. Is that your intention? To hurt her, or to get back at your father somehow, through her?"
"I am not compelled to answer to you," Kalenegar growled. "Fix her. That's why I called you."
"I will fix her, as you so ineptly put it, because she is deserving. You, on the other hand, are not."
* * *
Breanne's Journal
So many things rushed through my mind when I woke and stared into Graegar's face. I wanted to weep at the kindness and compassion there. That wasn't all I saw, however, and now and always, I will be grateful to him and the visions that came from his reading. So many things I learned that night, just by gazing at his face. No, he didn't get the visions, so I couldn't learn from him how to block them. I wished mightily that I might read Kalenegar, because those things certainly lurked within him. I only had to read people once in most cases, to learn how they might do what they did. Kalenegar's talents remained a mystery.
Graegar also insisted I be taken home and placed in bed. His hands went to my forehead, removing the last bit of pain Kalenegar had inflicted. I was asleep shortly afterward. For the first time in a very long time, too, I felt as if I'd received an adequate amount of rest before Gavin came and pulled me from the Queen's bed the following morning.
* * *
My comp-vid was in my hand while we traveled everywhere the following day—I huddled in the back seat of the hover limo and parceled out funds to waiting comesuli as we traveled from farm to farm to inspect crops and storage facilities. Inspecting the orchards and crops was something the Queen obviously took pleasure in, if I were to believe the beaming faces of the comesuli who greeted us everywhere.
I hugged children, tasted berries, handed out compliments and accepted requests. Until we arrived at the last place, that is. "Corent, how are you?" I knew who he was the moment I stepped out of the vehicle. A Green Fae, he was one of the last of his kind. Certainly the last on Le-Ath Veronis, I knew that much. I also read in his face what had happened to the others—they'd died in a terrible event that had almost claimed him, too. That wasn't all I saw, but the information I gleaned from him even he didn't know and I had to tuck it away in my mind until I could examine it more closely.
Corent's hair turned a serene, dark-blue as he gazed at me, and then he smiled. I couldn't help but smile back. He led me away and Gavin, thankfully, didn't follow. We walked silently for nearly half an hour, through rows and rows of apple trees.
"They are forcing you, aren't they?" Corent asked eventually.
"Yes. I'm surprised you know that." Somehow, he'd seen through my disguise and I wasn't sure how that was.
"I can sometimes read Gavin—he is angry, is he not?" Corent's face looked so young. He was immortal, though, and I could see that he was more than five hundred years old.
"He is angry," I agreed. "Many are. They think I'm here to take the Queen's place. I had no choice in the matter, and have less choice, now. They shove me into Council meetings and other functions. Frankly, I am at a loss to explain any of it."
"Something is not right with Gavin in this, but I cannot determine what it is and have no idea how to reverse its effects."
"If you figure it out, I'd appreciate it if you'd let me know," I replied dryly.
"The Queen has special talents," Corent smiled again. When he did that, his face lit up. He was quite handsome, even with blue hair.
"Yes," I nodded.
"Perhaps you should attempt to duplicate them."
"Are you serious?" I'd seen it in her photographs. She could mist. She could mindspeak. Well, I could mindspeak. She could also fold space. That frightened me, actually. What if I got lost between one place and another?
"I feel power about you, but I can't define it," Corent sighed. "That is why I suggest this—you cannot know what you might do until you make the attempt."
"If I did have power, I'm afraid I might send Gavin to another planet," I muttered.
"You are frightened of what you might do to those who harm you?"
"Well, yes."
"Because you might harm them, or they might retaliate?"
"Yes. To both. I really don't want to harm anyone, but I've never been around anyone who didn't want to harm me. It's just the way things are." I hugged myself.
"But when you were small, surely," Corent blinked dark-blue eyes at me.
"Until I was twenty-two, that was the worst time of all," I whispered.
Chapter 8
"We discussed apple trees," I muttered as I loaded into the hover limo. We had. Corent hadn't gotten any information from me after my foolish admission, so he talked about apple trees on the way back to Gavin and the vehicle. Corent had made an offer, too, before we came within Gavin's hearing range.
"If you want to talk," he said, "Come and find me." He'd faded into the trees after that.
"Tomorrow evening, we are hosting a gathering. Many important vampires will be there. You will appear as the Queen," Gavin informed me on the drive to the palace. Sighing, I continued to approve funds for comesuli requests on my comp-vid and nodded in reply.
* * *
"Block the visions!" Graegar hadn't been able to keep Kalenegar away from me and the tall, red-haired Larentii returned with a vengeance the following evening. I'd hoped to crawl into bed and sleep without interruption after a bitter day of listening to vampires squabble over petty matters. Then I'd moved in a daze between vampires, who'd come to a formal gathering to rub elbows with those in the palace. Kalenegar had shown up shortly after Gavin allowed me to retire for the evening.
I tried to do what Kalenegar ordered. Really. I just had no idea where to start. At least these mind blasts weren't as powerful as the last ones that had knocked me cold, but they still forced me to my knees in whimpering pain. Another blast was leveled in my direction when I didn't rise fast enough.
"Think of a fucking clear wall between you and your target," Kalenegar shouted. Shocked by any Larentii's use of "fucking" as an expletive, I stared at him in surprise before turning to the male walking past us on Shaaliveer. A clear wall? I shivered as I attempted to devise a way to mentally construct such an unusual thing.
Thoroughly surprised, I stared as my reading went fuzzy before I lost my concentration and it returned. Kal hit me with another power blast. My vision grayed and I almost toppled again. Terrified that he'd make me lose consciousness before I could perfect my experiment, I latched onto another person passing us—a woman so depressed she was almost suicidal. Recognizing that emotion (I'd experienced it often enough), I worked on the clear wall again. Everything went blessedly blank around her and the reading disappeared. I sighed and went to my knees in welcome relief.
"Did you do it? Did you?" Kal hauled me up and shook me, my face inches from his own.
"Y-yes," my teeth clacked together.
"Good." He tossed me onto the ground. "We'll work on folding space, now."
"What?" I cowered at his feet. Folding space terrified me, and my head still hurt from his power blasts.
"You will learn. What use are you if you can't fold space? The prophecies of the Vhanaraszh are filled with her legendary power. You are weak. You are not the Vhanaraszh and I will prove it with my last breath."
"Really? I didn't know Larentii had last breaths. I thought they were immortal," I muttered sarcastically. I should have kept my mouth shut. Another power blast bore into my brain as I was dropped into a dark, raging sea and left there.
* * *
"Dad, I think I'd like Breanne to come." Rylend Morphis tossed a comp-vid onto his desk with a sigh. "We have the Ambassador from Tyriss coming with his camp followers tomorrow. He has offered generous payment for one of our warlocks to work in his office, but I don't trust him. Somet
hing about him doesn't seem right, and I think Breanne would tell me immediately if he can't be trusted."
"I'll tell Gavin we need her. She'll probably be glad to get away from him for a few hours. I'll ask the kitchen to prepare a meal for her, too. I hear from the Falchani twins that she's getting by on blood substitute because the kitchen is rebelling against her. Gavin should have remained silent. The rumor is running through the palace comesuli that she's working to take your mother's place."
"Do you think they're right, Dad?" Rylend studied his father's face. "I mean, Mom never said a thing to us before she disappeared."
"Son, stop worrying. And whatever you do, don't mistreat Breanne because of gossip. She didn't have a thing to do with this, and I have the feeling that if she had her way, Le-Ath Veronis might be the last place she'd want to be."
"Gavin certainly wouldn't be her choice of sire, I know that much," Ry snorted. "Anybody would have been better than that crusty bastard."
"Rylend, if you were younger, I'd send you to your room for that."
"I'm King of Karathia, Dad, and I'm already in my room." Ry swept out a hand, encompassing his private study, which attached to his suite of rooms.
"Thought you wouldn't notice," Erland grinned. "Your mother will come back to us, I feel it. We just have to be patient. Have you heard from Tory?"
"No. What's up with him?"
"I heard a rumor that King Jayd is saying Reah's pregnant again. With Tory's baby."
"I don't know how he manages to do that so easily," Ry muttered angrily. "I want another child. Bel wants to spend time with Travis and Trent when they go to Falchan, and learn more from the Saa Thalarr. I'm not about to stand in his way on this."
"I know. You can always take a second mate if you want another heir. Reah says you should."
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