Heart Thief

by Robin D. Owens

  “Yes.” His smile mocked both Ailim and himself. “A Null is not an appreciated creature, but I’ll wager that’s why you felt so peaceful in my company.”

  The guard’s word stuck in her mind. “Judgment?” Dread uncoiled within her. She, better than anyone in the hall, knew about judgment.

  He shrugged. “You won’t see me again. By tomorrow I’ll be either banished or dead.” When he bowed, the hidden chain tying his outside wrist to the wall and between his feet clinked.

  She hadn’t noticed the manacles. The black cuffs blended in with his boots, and he’d had enough inherent grace to manage to bow. Twice. Ancient chains to bind him, a Null. Her mind processed everything at triple slow speed. Of course, her StayAwake spell and pill would have failed around him.

  “Now the FirstFamilies will decide my fate,” Ruis said.

  No hope, then, that she could do anything to put this right. Too late. Once again too late to stop disaster. She rose and dipped a curtsy. “My thanks for your companionship.”

  He stood proudly, ignoring the guards snapping the chain from the wall to his other wrist. “I’d be glad to place myself at your service, but all the spells of your Residence would suffer. Even the great generational spells of your HouseHeart would wither and die.” His mouth twisted. “My Family moved me from the ancestral Residence to a cottage on the far edge of the estate before I was two years old.”

  She didn’t need to read his mind or feel his emotions to know his deep, caustic fury. It laced his voice, his manner, his expression, everything she watched for as a judge.

  “I’m sorry.”

  He inclined his head.

  A guard snuffled. “Ain’t you two going to give them noble goodbyes? You know, like ‘Merry meet.’ ”

  Ailim froze the man with a look. The guard snapped to attention. She frowned. All the guards looked to be large of muscle but small in intelligence. Not the usual highly Flaired, trained, and shrewd guards assigned to the FirstFamilies Council, or even the Guildhall. Another indication of Ruis’s uniqueness. Lowly Flaired men to watch him.

  She turned to Ruis and smiled. “It was merry met. You’re the most comfortable man,” she murmured.

  His smile became less bitter and more wry. “Thank you for those gracious words.” He shot a glance at the guard and walked away, his natural pace restricted by the chains.

  Ailim’s heart contracted.

  Ruis threw a smile over his shoulder. “But it’s not a very merry parting, and I doubt we’ll meet again. I have ‘business’ elsewhere.” He raised his manacled wrists. “Fare thee well.”

  Ailim managed a sad smile. “And you.”

  He turned away. “I don’t anticipate it.”

  Two

  Ruis Elder sauntered into the CouncilChamber, head high, shoulders straight. His bootheels rang on the tile floor in counterpoint to the clanking of his chains. Each step seemed to echo, “Death, Banishment, Death, Banishment.”

  He wondered morbidly which would be worse.

  Until this minute, he hadn’t thought he cared about his fate. Now he knew.

  He didn’t want to die. Even though his existence had been a continuous battle, he still cherished life. Who would save the earth machines if he died? No one. Who would teach the nobles that Nulls were valuable? No one.

  Yet he couldn’t accept being banished. All the earth machines that still existed were here in Druida, so the GreatLibrary had told him a year ago. Without the occupation of restoring them, he’d be lost.

  His heart thudded in his ears, but he refused to show any fear, any indication that the vital decision of the Council mattered so much to him.

  He stopped on the colorful mosaic pentacle in the center of the large chamber. A couple of meters away, behind a long table, sat wood and ruby velvet chairs for the twenty-five FirstFamily heads of households and their spouses. All except two of the FirstFamily heads were there, the highest ranked nobles of Celta. The most dominant in Flair—psi talent. A shiver washed through him at the great power of the group. These were his judges, perhaps his executioners.

  When he scrutinized the nobles, they appeared strained. His Null power definitely affected them. Ruis smiled. Some were pale, some flushed, some had a sheen of sweat on their faces. They didn’t like being near him.

  Danith D’Ash’s nose twitched. He bowed to her. She blinked, then returned his courtesy with a nod. T’Ash, her husband sitting beside her, growled. Though he showed no outward discomfort, his expression was stern. His long black hair looked tangled, his blue eyes showed a fierce predatory awareness.

  Ruis suppressed a grimace. It had been a real mistake, stealing that HeartGift from T’Ash—a man who’d grown up in the slums and had destroyed the killers of the T’Ash Family. But Ruis had been sure the roseamber gem in T’Ash’s necklace would vibrate at the correct level to run the antique machine he’d been trying to save. Luckily, Ruis had found the gem useless and returned the necklace unharmed. Ruis met GreatLord T’Ash’s eyes steadily. T’Ash, too, had known hardship.

  D’Ash placed a hand on her HeartMate’s tense arm and whispered in T’Ash’s ear. The man relaxed a bit. Ruis wondered whether the pair would vote for death or banishment.

  His gaze swept down the table. This year, GreatLord heads of households, like T’Holly and T’Ash, outnumbered Great-Ladies—such as old Muin D’Vine, the renowned prophetess.

  D’Vine met Ruis’s gaze and her eyes filled with sadness.

  He flinched. They’d never met, but one glance at her tilted head, the sympathy that was not hidden by the crinkled folds of her aged skin, and he knew she’d had a vision of his fate.

  Of the two chairs that were empty, one belonged to T’Blackthorn, the other to D’SilverFir. Ruis wished that the GrandLady in the corridor was with him, her compassionate blue-gray eyes looking at him from a heart-shaped face. Somehow he knew he’d feel steadier, despite the fact she was a Judge.

  His stare snagged on a hate-filled black gaze—Bucus, head of the GreatHouse T’Elder. Hauling his wife beside him, Bucus went to the center of the long table. He sat in the Captain’s Chair. He’d been elected the leader of the Council two years ago. When Ruis bowed to his aunt, she averted her face and stumbled into her chair. No help there. Never had been.

  Ruis held his uncle’s stare, revealing his contempt at the man who’d tormented him during his youth. Bucus banged a gavel. “Let this FirstFamilies Council come to order.”

  D’Grove, a matronly woman, shifted in her chair, frowning. She turned to stare at Bucus. “The invocation, Captain GreatLord T’Elder, if you please.” Her voice was mellifluous, but insistent. Ruis could almost feel the rivalries that often divided the FirstFamilies more than their powerful Flair bound them together. If Bucus ran the Council the way he ran his household, there’d be plenty who despised him.

  Ruis smiled.

  Bucus narrowed his eyes, then nodded shortly. “You may say a blessing, but make it short. We have business to finish.”

  D’Grove lifted her eyebrows and intoned, “By the Blessed Couple—the Lord and the Lady, and under the auspices of Don, the patron spirit of Law, let this FirstFamilies Council do what is right.”

  Ruis noticed the faint odor of sage. It comforted him. He looked at his hands he’d folded and noticed, for the first time in many years, the multitude of small, straight scars on them. Scars made by a razorslit. The razorslit wielded by the man now sitting in the Captain’s Chair.

  He turned his hands over to stare at his palms, also showing scars. Scars covered his body. His uncle had liked the fact that one person he tortured, the boy he hated the most, would always be marked. Ruis couldn’t be Healed by Flair. But his worst scars were inside and unseen. Would his uncle finally succeed in killing him? At least he was now sure he wouldn’t be tortured again. The air of dissension within the FirstFamilies Council ensured that. A ripple of relief flowed through him.

  When he looked up, he noted his uncle’s increasing color, unhealthily red.
Bucus snarled his words. “We know this man’s crimes. The theft of the—”

  “One moment,” D’Ash spoke up.

  There was a gasp around the table. The GreatLady was new, of common origin, and perhaps didn’t know her place.

  “Seeing the man in chains disturbs me,” D’Ash said.

  “Your husband forged those chains for the Null,” Bucus said.

  “And they’ve served their purpose. Holm and Tinne Holly stand at the door.” Ruis heard the men shift behind him as D’Ash continued. “Outside are stationed several more guards. Ruis Elder cannot teleport, no one can teleport.”

  Because of him, the Null. Ruis’s smile widened.

  “T’Ash alone could fell him—” D’Ash said.

  Ruis’s smile faded.

  “—but there are three fighting Hollys.”

  “I agree,” T’Ash said. “The chains are unnecessary. Our blasers may not work around him, but our swords can pierce him well enough.”

  “Vote,” called D’Grove. “Let’s vote. Shall Ruis Elder be freed during trial?”

  Only the T’Elders voted to keep him manacled, his uncle shouting “Nay.”

  T’Ash rose and circled the table with a fighter’s grace. He stopped two paces from Ruis. “Do I have your word that you won’t attack when I remove the chains?”

  Ruis couldn’t prevent himself from a minor act of defiance and drama. He lifted an eyebrow and jangled the chains.

  T’Ash gestured to the men behind Ruis. “Holm, Tinne.”

  Ruis heard footsteps. “You have my word,” Ruis said.

  The two men behind him retreated.

  T’Ash took a key from his pocket. With three little clicks and a tug, the irons fell from Ruis.

  Ruis stretched, easing muscles cramped for days.

  As T’Ash took the chains and seated himself, Bucus said, “Ruis, calling yourself Elder, you stand before the FirstFamilies Council accused of the following thefts: theft of T’Ash’s HeartGift, the Captain’s Chalice, the T’Birch emerald necklace, and five Earthsuns from Stickle’s Shop. How do you plead?”

  Ruis rubbed his wrists, made a point of straightening the cuffs that still showed the embroidery of a GreatHouse Heir, widened his stance and replied. “I returned T’Ash’s HeartGift—”

  Ruis sent his most charming smile to Danith D’Ash. “I returned the HeartGift to D’Ash.”

  T’Ash growled again.

  “That’s true,” D’Ash said.

  “I would see proof that I stole the rest,” Ruis bluffed.

  “Arran of Mullin testified you bought an Earth Soil Analyzer for two Earthsuns from him, and Stickle says the gems came from his shop,” Bucus said.

  Ruis shrugged. “Two gems are not five.”

  T’Ash, the jeweler, curled his lip. “Stickle is the scum of my profession. We’re taking Stickle’s word about theft? He beats his apprentices, he weights his scales, and he sells vermeil—gold-coated silver—claiming it’s pure gold.”

  D’Birch’s high voice cut in. “I am missing a necklace, and I vow, this is the thief who stole it.” She pointed at Ruis.

  “Proof,” T’Oak said softly.

  Proof? Ruis stared, amazed. A GreatLord asked for proof. He’d believed that his trial would be perfunctory.

  “I felt the drain of my Flair, then my necklace was gone!” D’Birch cried.

  “Where was this?” Bucus appeared smug at her answers.

  “In CityCenter Bazaar on Summer Solstice FairDay.”

  “You wore an emerald necklace to the bazaar on FairDay?” D’Ash sounded incredulous.

  D’Birch looked down her aristocratic nose. “I had consulted with T’Ash to match the pattern for a bracelet.”

  T’Ash frowned.

  D’Ash, his wife, nudged his ankle. Ruis saw her do it under the table. The Council had not bothered with damask table-cloths for him.

  T’Ash muttered something.

  She kicked him.

  “The clasp to the necklace was faulty,” T’Ash said, louder.

  Bucus glared at D’Birch, then at Ruis. “Still—”

  “No proof,” said T’Oak. “The charge should be dismissed. Does anyone disagree?”

  “I am Captain of this Council, I run—” Bucus started.

  “You are biased in this matter,” D’Grove interrupted. “Isn’t this man before us the legitimate FirstSon of your brother, the former T’Elder?”

  Bucus grumbled but didn’t deny the statement.

  “Let us dismiss the charge, then.” D’Grove waved her hand.

  A rivulet of sweat trickled down Ruis’s back. He blinked. He thought he’d been cool, calm, composed. He rarely lied to himself.

  But D’Birch lied about feeling him near her on the Summer Solstice FairDay. Not even the most powerfully Flaired sensed his nullness in passing, only after he lingered several moments. As long as he stayed a meter away from strong spells and moved within a quarter-septhour, he was unnoticeable. Even during the night, when he slept, his nullness couldn’t fill up the small apartments in the unspelled buildings where he lodged.

  He hadn’t stolen the ugly necklace, merely jostled D’Birch in the crowded square and caught the thing when it slithered down her silkeen gown. It had taken time to test the emeralds and find they were too poor to use as focal points for the lazer he’d been rebuilding. He’d planned to return them, but his arrest had prevented it. The gems were still hidden.

  “Next, the Captain’s Chalice, missing from the Colonist’s Museum.” Bucus glared up and down the table. “I have an affidavit from GuardsMan Winterberry, a man very familiar with this thie—person. He states that after the theft was reported, he used his Flair to scan the room and determined that a Null had stood in front of the glass display housing the Chalice. We only have one Null on Celta at this time, thank the Lord and Lady.”

  Ruis met his uncle’s loathing gaze. “I visited the Museum on Discovery Day as part of my personal Ritual, as did others in Druida.” He’d gone in the night, always preferring darkness. He’d stared at the cup and wished bitterly that he’d never been born on Celta, that his ancestors had not landed on the planet and bred for Flair. Ruis knew enough history to realize that on ancient Earth he wouldn’t have been a detested outcast.

  Beside the Captain’s Chalice was a brass plaque listing all the FirstFamilies’ lineages and Heirs. He, Ruis Elder, the first-born of his Family, had not been mentioned. His anger had ignited at the omission and hot sweat had coated his brow. Yet he would have left the Chalice alone except that he’d seen equations engraved in the gold that might help him in his quest to save the past. So he’d taken the Chalice, made wax molds of the equations, and returned the piece to the museum.

  “That item, too, was recovered, was it not?” he asked in as calm a voice as possible.

  Bucus pushed his chair back with a sliding rasp and stood. “Why do we try this piece of filth?” His face reddened, his nostrils widened and pinched with heavy breaths. “He is a NULL. Anathema to all of us. Threatening to all of us. Of no use to anyone. Less than a man, a Celta human. He has no respect for us or our traditions, and is filled with bestial emotions, not fit to live.”

  T’Ash rose, turned, and matched his gaze with the older man. “He’s a GreatHouse FirstSon. Don’t call him a feral beast.”

  “He is no son of ours. T’Elders cast him out long ago as repulsive, defective, and unworthy. An aberrant son of a sickly father. He is nothing to the Elders. Nothing. Death to him! I call for a vote of Death.”

  In the charged silence a little creak echoed as old D’Vine, the prophetess, rose. In hushed quiet she hobbled along the table, touching T’Reed’s head, T’Ash’s shoulder, D’Ash’s hand. She came to stand before Ruis and peer up at him with milky eyes. When she laid her palm against his cheek, he jerked at her chill, uncanny touch. Yes, she must have had a vision.

  A tremor shook him again when she stealthily slipped a note into his far trous pocket.

  Her lips curv
ed in a thin smile and she tilted her head at the table. Her whisper filled the room. “I have nineteen decades of using Flair, and not even a strong, young Null can suppress my wisdom. I am old, a crone—close to the cycle of death and rebirth—and my sensing of Mysteries is great. I have had visions of this young man—and of the fate of our Council, so I must speak. Events have already been propelled down a specific path. Be wary of trying to control the wishes of the Unknown, of usurping the strong Fate now in motion.”

  She dropped her hand and turned toward the FirstFamilies Council. “Not everything is predetermined in this matter, but be assured by seeking to punish Ruis, you will turn the river of Destiny to flood yourselves.”

  D’Vine continued. “I cast my vote. Life, as always. Freedom, cherished by us all. Respect—that which our ancestors sought when they cherished and nurtured their puny Flair, left their home planet to pursue their own Path of psi powers. I vote no death and no banishment. Blessed be.” She shuffled, an eerie figure in black, to the doors. Before she reached them, the two Holly men, Holm and Tinne, opened the doors wide and bowed with perfect grace to her. She left.

  Hope flared within Ruis. Could he be freed, simply freed? He hated hope. So much worse when it crashed into despair.

  “The question of punishment for Ruis, once-Elder, has been called,” Bucus said with relish.

  D’Grove blinked. “The sole options before the Council are Death and Banishment, perhaps we should reconsider. . . .”

  A flurry of words passed between T’Ash and D’Ash. D’Ash sat back with a huff and didn’t meet Ruis’s eyes. T’Ash scowled.

  Bucus T’Elder glowered at his fellow nobles. “Do I hear any more options being proposed?”

  Silence.

  “Banishment will be from the major cities of Celta. If Ruis, calling himself Elder, is banished and later found within the walls of Druida, Gael City, Anglesey, or Lomand, he will be executed. Vote,” Bucus ordered.

  Ruis didn’t want to care whether the FirstFamilies Council voted to banish or kill him. He’d convinced himself that he didn’t care.