Heroes at Risk

by Moore, Moira J.

  I didn’t know what was the best thing to do. To submit to blackmail rankled. But when it came to my family’s well-being, maybe blood and time weren’t so much to lose.

  Then again, that might not be all that they asked for. Once successful at getting blood from us, they might demand more. And they were hardly honorable, getting us to use human ashes without our knowledge. Something within me screamed that entering into any kind of agreement with those people would be a horrible idea.

  “We’re not going to do what they want, are we?” Taro asked.

  “Certainly not.”

  He nodded. “Good.”

  I would just have to think of a way to warn my parents of possible problems without giving them any facts.

  Chapter Thirty

  I had an unpleasant duty to perform. I had to end things with Doran. No more delay. No more games. The thought of the conversation we would have to have made my stomach clench, but it had to be done. So I went to his boardinghouse wearing the plainest gown I owned, my hair loosely tied at the nape of my neck, a particularly unattractive style on me.

  He was in. He looked pleased to see me. I wondered why. Every interaction we’d had recently had been negative. Why did he think this would be a positive meeting?

  He escorted me to the boardinghouse’s parlor and kissed my cheek before settling into the chair next to mine. “You look wonderful,” he said without the slightest trace of sarcasm in his voice.

  Because of that, I merely said, “Thank you. You are very kind.”

  “It’s good to see you looking so hale. I have to admit, I was worried the last time I saw you.”

  Oh, that made sense. I’d probably looked half dead the last time we saw each other. Anything would be an improvement on that.

  “I’m so sorry to have caused you concern.” Well, that was chilling and polite. I felt uncomfortable parroting meaningless phrases in the face of his sincerity. “Thank you for agreeing to see me on such short notice.”

  He frowned then. “Why wouldn’t I?”

  Um, well, yes, that had been a really stupid thing to say, hadn’t it? As though he were some sort of stranger. “Well, it wouldn’t be unexpected for you to have already made plans.”

  He shrugged. “Are you up to much yet? Because Weller is holding a small concert in his home the day after tomorrow, and from what I’ve heard of the repertoire, it’s perfectly safe for you to hear it.”

  I didn’t usually trust a regular’s definition of safe. They often had no idea. And while I was tempted to delay things by talking about music and what kind I usually liked to listen to, I knew I had to get things over with. “I’m not good at saying important things delicately,” I confessed. “So I’m just going to say it. You are truly a wonderful person, smart and witty and kind. But I can’t see you anymore. In any capacity. I am sorry.” There. That wasn’t bad, was it?

  His eyebrows rose. He was shocked. He hadn’t considered this possibility.

  How could he not, after our last meeting?

  He rose abruptly, circling his chair, rubbing his nose. I got the feeling he didn’t know how to react.

  I felt compelled to say something more, but I had no idea what would be the appropriate words. Repeating sentiments with different wording would only weaken my original statement, and ran the risk of stumbling into a logistical frailty or emotional quagmire.

  “I mean no disrespect to Shintaro,” Doran said finally. “But he is not the sort of person to which one should attach aspirations of longevity.”

  I was offended even though I agreed with him. I had the right to think that way. He didn’t have the right to say it. And it annoyed me that the first response he had about something that was relevant to the two of us, was a negative comment about Taro. “I really don’t have a choice about that,” I said. Doran once more looked surprised. “I’m bonded to him,” I reminded him. “I hope that will enjoy a certain amount of longevity.” As the alternative was an early death.

  “That’s different,” he said with impatience. “You’re being difficult.”

  I was being difficult? I wasn’t the one trying to create a debate. There had been plenty of warnings that this was my mind-set. He was behaving as though it was coming out of nowhere.

  I wished he would sit down. I didn’t like having to look up at him.

  “You are looking for someone to settle down with. For permanence. Aren’t you?”

  I frowned. “I wouldn’t say that. I haven’t been looking for anyone.” For one thing, my life had been too chaotic since I left the Academy. For another, well, the logical side of my nature kept telling me that forever was a long time, and it was a little unrealistic for people to fall in love with the expectation that it would last for the rest of their lives.

  Certainly, I had spoken of permanence with Taro, but I knew that really just meant for as long as we were both interested. That wasn’t the same thing as forever.

  “Shintaro will never be the sort of person to remain faithful to one person.”

  Really, how the hell would he know? He’d met Taro only a handful of times. “He has so far.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  “Taro doesn’t lie.” Not to me.

  “You can’t know that,” Doran insisted.

  “Maybe not, but I can believe it.”

  “You’d be a fool to do so.”

  I found it fascinating how many people thought insults were an effective means of persuasion.

  “I mean it when I say I admire him. I do. But in some ways he’s like a child.”

  I opened my mouth to deny that and found nothing sprang immediately to mind, I was that shocked. A child? That was a new one. There was nothing childlike about Taro.

  “I’ve known many like him, Lee. They’re spoiled. Not mean-spirited, but thoughtless, because all their lives they’ve been given everything they’ve ever wanted, with little effort expended. And people like that are too easily bored, because they don’t understand the effort it takes to build something, and the value there is in creating something with their own labor.”

  I wasn’t going to explain that Taro had spent much of his life being anything but spoiled. That was Taro’s story to tell, and none of Doran’s business. “I knew someone else who said something similar about Taro. He was crazy.” And I’d killed him, though not because he hadn’t liked Taro.

  Doran snorted. “Only one?”

  “Crazy person?” Unfortunately, no. The Academy hadn’t warned me about all the crazy people I would encounter out in the real world.

  “Person who agreed Taro’s a—”

  I cut him off. “I don’t want to hear it!” I wasn’t going to sit there and listen to him denigrate Taro. If he was going to say such things, he could say them to Taro’s face.

  “Don’t want to hear the truth?”

  “The truth? Rumors spread by a bunch of people who don’t even know him?”

  “Oh, and you do?”

  Was he serious? “I’d wager that I’ve spent more time in Taro’s company over the last few years than everyone else in High Scape combined.”

  “And you think that means you know him better?”

  Of course. What else could it mean? “Yes.”

  “You’re being naive.”

  Certainly. If I didn’t agree with him, it had to be because I didn’t know what I was talking about. “And you’re being obnoxious. What do you think you’re going to accomplish here?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I wasn’t expecting this, and everything is coming out all wrong.”

  Well, I knew how that could happen. “I’m sorry, Doran.” And I really was. I liked Doran. I wanted to want him. It would make so much more sense. “But nothing you say now can possibly come out right.”

  He sighed. “I’m worried about you. I can’t see this ending well.”

  Neither could I, but I was going to give it my best effort. And I couldn’t give it my best effort if I kept Doran waiting in the wing
s. Besides, Doran should be marrying someone with money, as he had none of his own. And that reminded me of something. “That bundle of yellow flowers with the cake and the earrings, someone told me that was a token indicating an intention to open marital negotiations.” I took his silence for assent. “What was that about? You don’t truly wish to marry me.”

  He flushed and said nothing.

  “Please tell me,” I prompted. I wanted to be able to tell Taro the answer.

  “Can I assume Shintaro saw it?” Doran asked.

  “He told me what it meant.”

  “I assume the delivery created a great deal of”—he hesitated in his word selection—“discussion between you.”

  I felt my eyes narrow. He’d sent a token he probably knew I’d send back in order to cause arguments between Taro and me. “I underestimated you Doran,” I said flatly. “I had no idea you were so devious.”

  “It’s for your own good, Lee. It’s all going to fall apart. You know that. And I can be there to help you through it if you want.”

  Unbelievable. Doran, not Taro, was the man I didn’t know, and I was so sick of being manipulated by people. “My name is Shield Mallorough,” I reminded him. “And it’s past time I left.”

  “I’ll be here when Shintaro grows tired of you,” Doran said spitefully.

  “I won’t.”

  Well, I had predicted that one correctly. That had been really unpleasant. Not to mention disappointing. Just because I had to stop seeing Doran didn’t mean I wanted to think less of him. I headed home, feeling more weary than the slight physical exertion warranted.

  Taro was waiting for me. As soon as I closed the door at the entrance of the Triple S residence, I heard clattering down the stairs. “Lee!” Taro called, a certain urgency to his voice. “Come up to my suite. Right now.”

  That didn’t sound good. And he had called the suite his. He had been calling it ours. Something had rattled him. I wasn’t up to jogging up the stairs right then, but I pushed myself a little harder than usual. I didn’t know why I was trying to be quick. The bad news would be there whenever I got there.

  Taro’s hair was a tangled mess. That was another bad sign. “Close the door,” he ordered when I reached his suite. So I closed the door. “We’ve been ordered to attend the coronation.”

  “Gifford’s coronation? Ordered?”

  “Technically it’s an invitation, but it’s not like we could refuse. It was dropped off by members of the Imperial Guard. They’ve offered to escort us to Erstwhile.”

  To make sure we actually went, no doubt. And sure, that was annoying. We’d just gotten back on the roster. I had no interest in going to Erstwhile and even less, if that were possible, in seeing Gifford crowned. It wasn’t a disaster, though. “Why the panic?”

  “He doesn’t like us,” Taro said. “Why is he summoning us?”

  I took the letter and looked at it. “The only thing personal about the summons is our names. It’s a copy of thousands of others, I’m sure. He calls us because he can. It’s an inconvenience, but nothing to get excited about.”

  “Gifford isn’t like the Empress,” Taro said. “He’s more likely to let his feelings rule him, and he feels he has something to prove.”

  “What do you think he’s trying to prove with this?”

  “I don’t know, but it can’t be good.”

  “It could be nothing more than that he can snap his fingers and we have to come running.”

  “It could be.”

  “But you don’t think so.”

  “No.”

  “But we’re of no use to him.”

  “I would have said the same about his mother, and look what she had us do.”

  I couldn’t tolerate another journey like the one to Flatwell. I would go insane. But the Empress had had particular reasons to choose Taro for that task. Weird reasons, but she had clearly liked Taro. As Taro had said, Gifford didn’t.

  Maybe there were more family secrets that we were going to be exposed to.

  Or maybe, upon the Empress’s death, Gifford had learned about Aryne, and that Taro and I had been the ones to find her. He would be furious that his mother had sought another heir. And he would be furious with us for assisting her, whether we had had the option of refusing or not.

  Now I was starting to panic. I went down to the kitchen for some wine to help me stop thinking. There was no point worrying about it until we were there.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  So Taro and I were in Erstwhile yet again. Erstwhile was a cold site, which meant we should have never had to visit the city at all, as far as I was concerned. Most Pairs never did. It was just because the monarchs liked playing games that we were ever there at all.

  At least this time we weren’t expected to stay at the palace. For the past few days we had been enjoying the relative privacy of an expensive boardinghouse. It gave me hope that we would escape the personal attention of Gifford altogether.

  The city had been enjoying a week of celebration. There was a variety of competitions, running and jumping and fighting and bench dancing. There was free food and drink. There were plays and musical performances. There had been a series of breakfasts, dinners and balls at the palace, to none of which Taro and I, thank gods, had been invited.

  This was to be the final day, marked by a massive parade leading to Gifford finally having the crown placed on his head. I was curious as to how the Crown Prince felt about that moment. Was he excited or merely impatient?

  The only contact we received from the palace once we were in Erstwhile was the personal invitation to witness the coronation. That meant we had reserved seating immediately in front of the platform on which the Prince would be crowned. This was a highly privileged position, as thousands would be forced to stand. I would have preferred to be lost in a crowd.

  All the other people milling about the collection of seats were the highest of titleholders, politicians and guild masters. No one like us. I’d met a couple of them before, during my other visits to Erstwhile, and we exchanged distant greetings. And through it all, I was aware of a woman, tall and buxom and blond and wearing a duchess’s coronet, watching us closely.

  When I finally looked directly at her, she approached us. “Excuse me,” she said to Taro. “Are you Source Shintaro Karish?”

  He smiled at her. “I am.”

  “My gods,” she said. “You look so much like your mother.”

  His expression chilled. It was true—he and his mother looked freakishly alike—but he didn’t like to be reminded of it. “How may I help you?” he asked coolly.

  “I’m Fiona,” she announced.

  Taro grinned widely. “Cousin!”

  “How are you?” She threw her arms around him.

  I realized who she was. The current Duchess of Westsea. The woman who wrote the hilarious letters and stood up to the grasping Prince.

  Taro seemed comfortable hugging her back. “It’s wonderful to finally meet you,” he said before drawing away. “This is Dunleavy Mallorough, my Shield.”

  The Duchess of Westsea turned her warm smile to me and offered her forearm for me to take. “A joy to meet you,” I said.

  “Shintaro has written about you,” she told me.

  “That’s unfortunate,” I responded.

  “So what do you think of this idiot getting the Crown?”

  I almost choked on that. “You might want to keep your voice down,” Taro advised her in a mild tone.

  She snickered. “I’m no politician.”

  I didn’t think the titleholder of an estate as large and powerful as Westsea could afford not to be a politician. I agreed with her sentiment, though. I was very uneasy with the idea of Gifford being our ruler. I didn’t trust him.

  “Maybe you can give me some information, though,” Fiona was saying. “I’ve applied to the Source and Shield Service for a Pair.”

  Taro frowned. “Flown Raven doesn’t have natural disasters.”

  “It does now. Th
ere was a horrific earthquake a couple of months ago, and a few smaller ones since.”

  Taro gasped, his eyes wide.

  “If everyone would take their seats!” some official called out.

  “It’s a delight to meet you both,” Fiona said, squeezing our hands. “Maybe we can talk some more after the deed is done.” She headed to the front row.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked Taro as we took our seats at the back.

  “That’s where those events were coming from,” he said. “The ones from a distance. That’s why they felt like something familiar.”

  I slapped his arm. “You’re not supposed to channel events at your birthplace!” Weird things happened when Sources tried to channel events from the place where they had been born. In the past, the Pairs had died. More often, the events got away from them. There was a theory that the familiarity of their home made it difficult for a Source to decipher which forces needed to be channeled and which should be left alone. That was why Sources were never posted in the area in which they were born. Or raised.

  It was why, probably, Taro had let so many forces flow through him, and why I’d had such difficulty Shielding him.

  “I didn’t know,” he protested.

  “Don’t do it anymore.”

  “I haven’t been.”

  And soon there would be a Pair at Flown Raven who would channel the events, and Taro wouldn’t feel tempted to do so. That was one danger avoided, so I could stop thinking about it.

  I could feel the racket of the parade approaching. When I learned of the parade that was to introduce the Prince’s coronation, I’d thought nothing more of it than another event on a day that was already too long. And yet I had never seen a parade quite like this. The sheer number of participants, for one thing, all in matching and highly tailored clothing that wasn’t quite warm enough in the autumn air. There was dancing and tumbling, all in time to expertly played music that really had me wanting to jump and dance around, too. I had to sink my nails hard into Taro’s arm to resist that impulse.

  The floats were unbelievable. One was a huge horse, about four men high, black with blazing red eyes, pulled by four enormous live black horses. Visually stunning and a little menacing. I wondered what kind of message the Prince was trying to give with that float. Maybe I was reading too much into it. It wasn’t likely that the Prince had made any of those decisions.