The Defender Page 6

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  Chapter V

  Zezilia

  I don’t know how long I stayed there staring into blackness, letting my mind wander over my memories from childhood. My heart ached as I reviewed all the incidents when I had actively sought my father’s love and approval only to have him ignore my efforts or attribute the results to my brothers. The weight in my chest grew into a sob in my throat. How could I have been so blind?

  “What are you doing here?”

  Blinking in the sudden light of the opened door, I peered into the face of a thin, young man and said the first thing that came to my mind. “I just needed a quiet place to think. Thank you for the use of your closet.” Straightening my tunic, I saluted him and exited by the door I had entered.

  “Wait!” he cried, but I was already around the first corner and walking swiftly in the direction to the sept son’s quarters. Keeping my head down, I prayed that he wouldn’t pursue me further. Thankfully, I did not hear another call as I hurried toward the next turn.

  My mind raced in many directions at once as I walked. All of them ended with a vision of my father’s face melting into a manipulative mask. Tears pressed at the backs of my eyes. Just as they were about to breach their walls, I remembered that there were more important and pressing matters that needed thought, like Hadrian’s safety.

  They were plotting something, and the plan would unfold tomorrow. Just because I didn’t know details didn’t mean that I shouldn’t warn Hadrian immediately. He and Renato understood much more of the political and legal structure surrounding the office of sept son than I. Those nuances were not necessary for a defender, but Hadrian would know what to do. I clung to that hope as I wove through a crowd of gaudily dressed women.

  Among the female laughter, I remembered my brother’s words: “The sept son isn’t fool enough to listen to the whining of a hysterical woman.” I shivered. What if he didn’t hear me? What if…?

  Shaking my head, I threw the thought away. No. I had fallen into the same trap. Even after three years of freedom, my heart was too easily ensnared in my family’s lies. I pulled truth into their place. From the first time I had met him, Hadrian had always treated me with respect. If he pushed aside my concerns, it would be because they were not relevant. Please make him listen, I prayed as I rounded the second to last corner.

  “Defender Ilar!”

  I hesitated.

  A tall man about Renato’s age came running around the corner after me and caught my elbow. His defender’s uniform was rumpled, and the sleeves looked too short for his long arms. “We have been looking for you everywhere,” he declared earnestly. “The sept son wants to see you urgently. I should take you straight to his quarters. It must be urgent because every defender not protecting the sept son is looking for you. Even Plantonio is in a fuss. I have never heard him yell at anyone before, and he is barking at all of us about finding you. Where have you been?”

  “I was just on my way there right now,” I replied.

  “Good. Then I will escort you and deliver you myself. Do you know this is my first year as a defender? It took me four tries to pass the testing. My instructor said it was because I was so bad at concentrating. I have gobs of Talent and little discipline, he said. Do you think that is a good thing? I think so. I am just like my father. I always have to be busy.”

  And on he went. In the brief walk from there to the outer door of the sept son’s suite, he gave me a brief history of his family, his schooling, and his interests. I did manage to catch his name in the onslaught. It was Zephus.

  “You have been the best listener I have met since leaving home,” he declared after we had been standing outside the sept son’s quarters for a good minute. He extended his hand at the end of a couple inches of wrist. “It has been nice to meet you, Defender Ilar. I hope that we meet again soon.”

  “Thank you for the escort,” I replied as I shook his hand. He seemed reluctant to release my fingers, but the guarding defender had opened the door. I carefully extracted my hand and slipped through before Zephus could manage another word. As the door shut, I heard him starting up a conversation with the guard. I stepped away from the door into the blessed silence.

  “Defender Ilar?” a vaguely familiar looking defender asked.

  “Yes, I am supposed to speak with the sept son.”

  He nodded. Turning away, he knocked on the inner door as he opened it and announced me. Then, stepping aside, he gestured for me to enter.

  A large table dominated the center of the room. Covered in a large map of Pratinus, it demanded the attention of the two men. Renato, devoid of his uniform’s overcoat, leaned over the parchment making measurements and scribbling them down on a small piece of paper. Hadrian watched from the other side with one hand on his hip and the other massaging his temple. Pain was etched clearly across his face, tingeing it slightly gray. Neither of them looked up as the door closed behind me.

  “It will still take two weeks for all the orders to arrive, weather permitting,” Renato announced as he straightened his back and stretched his arms slightly.

  Hadrian nodded. “Two weeks out and three back, it is still too long.”

  “I would say that four to five weeks back is a better estimate.” Renato pointed to a road. “The men cannot travel the same route as the courier, especially if you want them to be as inconspicuous as possible. Besides, they have to come further north than here. That will add time to the estimates.”

  Hadrian nodded again as he closed his eyes. “Is there any way that we can cut down the time?”

  Renato studied the map for a moment before shaking his head. “I don’t see any. Even if we broke up the groupings and sent out more envoys, it will not help for long.”

  “Then do that. Every moment counts. We need to be prepared for the worst and as soon as possible.”

  “You are gathering an army?” I asked. It seemed the best time to announce my presence since they had obviously not heard the defender.

  Both men turned to look at me.

  “Zez,” Renato cried. Crossing to me, he gave me a fierce hug, just like the ones he used to give me when I was seven. Then, we had been trying to make the other cry for mercy, but now it was obvious that he had been worried. “We were looking all over for you. Where have you been?” He drew back to study my face. “Are you alright?”

  A sudden sob filled my throat at the obvious concern in his eyes. How had we escaped our father’s bitterness? How different he was than Vander. “I was momentarily kidnapped.”

  “How? Who?”

  Before I could begin my tale, Hadrian interrupted. “I think there is a more pressing matter at hand, Renato.”

  Renato stiffened slightly under Hadrian’s gaze. “Right. Are you sure you are up for it?”

  Hadrian nodded slowly without looking my way. “Whether I am ready or not, it needs to be done. Will you explain it to her while I prepare?”

  “Yes.” Turning to me, my brother gripped my shoulders and looked into my eyes as Hadrian moved away.

  A flicker of uncertainty zinged through my chest. Would Vander’s prediction be true? Was I only fooling myself about Hadrian’s respect like I had lied to myself about my father’s affection? I didn’t have long to dwell on the thought, though. Renato was already speaking. I struggled to concentrate on his words.

  “The only way to detect and remove a directive is for the sept son to do a deep probe. It works best if you clear your mind of all hindrances and allow him to probe each level. To prepare, you need to touch your Talent again and open up your senses. Then disable all your defenses.”

  Lowering my defenses would open me up to acting upon a directive without hinderance. Recent events had shaken my sense of confidence, and I wasn’t as certain as before that the assailant had been stopped soon enough. Renato must have read my face. “Don’t worry. I will be here to defend you and Hadrian. Just do as I say, and trust Hadrian and me to do what needs to be done.”

  “Have you d
one this before?”

  “Three times.” He smiled. “We were successful every time. Stop worrying and relax.”

  I nodded, closing my eyes. Filling my lungs with a deep breath, I tried to slow my heartbeat and loosen the tension in my shoulders.

  “Now open you mind to your Talent,” Renato prompted.

  I obeyed. It was as though I had lit a lantern in a completely dark room. Even with my eyes closed, I could see. Hadrian’s pain, fear, and worry throbbing from the far corner where he was struggling to calm himself for the task ahead. Renato’s concern and slight nerves came from him as a small whisper almost overwhelmed by Hadrian’s more violent emotions. I also detected Renato’s steadfast confidence that they would be able to help me. I latched onto that thread and tried to weave it into my own riot of emotion.

  “Now clear your mind of all its defenses,” Renato instructed.

  It took a few moments of concentration. I had erected many of my most complicated defenses in those few desperate moments back in the council room. They were still there and needed hard thought to disassemble. Dimly, I heard Renato ask Hadrian if he was ready as I pulled the last defense apart?

  “As ready as possible,” Hadrian replied. The deep exhaustion in his voice brought my eyes open and to his face.

  “Are you sure that we have to do this now?” I sent without thinking.

  He smiled weakly. “The longer the directive is planted, the harder it is to detect. Besides, it is now, or you will have no privacy until we do. We don’t really have anyone appropriate to observe you all the time.”

  “True.”

  “Are you ready?” he asked.

  “Only if you are.”

  He took a deep breath. “Then come.” He indicated the two chairs Renato was pulling into the center of the room.

  As we settled in place, sitting with our knees almost touching, Renato pulled another chair so that he faced both of us and sank into it.

  “When you are ready,” Hadrian told him.

  Renato nodded and then dropped his chin to his chest. After a moment, I felt a trace of his musky taste on my tongue. “Ready,” he sent to Hadrian and me at the same time. I straightened in surprise. I didn’t know that this kind of connection could be made. Of course, it made sense. It was somewhere between the General Call that Hadrian had used at his Induction Ceremony and the singular privacy between Talents in a regular sending.

  Hadrian’s rich flavor assailed my senses, and I felt his presence in my mind. It was similar to Selwyn and the stranger’s invasion, except he paused and waited for me to adjust to his sudden appearance before pressing deeper past the fringe into my Externus. As he did, I grew aware of his own Externus. Pain, exhaustion, and a soul weariness I had never known before affected my body as though I were the one feeling them. I gasped at the abrupt and sharp ache in my shoulders and back. A headache thundered through my head.

  “Am I hurting you?” he asked. Worry and fear rippled across my emotions, mine, yet not mine.

  I had to concentrate hard on forming my reply. “I am sensing your headache.”

  I felt him withdraw slightly. The pain in my temples reduced a bit, but not much.

  “Better?”

  “A bit.”

  He paused. I could feel a small battle going on in his thoughts. I guessed that he was debating whether or not to proceed.

  “If you can handle it, I can,” I told him.

  “I am sorry.” Then with a desire to get it over with, he concentrated on the task.

  * * *

  Hadrian

  Mint filled my nose, mouth, and thoughts. I felt every flinch of her slender shoulders that answered a throb of my head or a twinge in my back. With every movement, my heart ached. I hated hurting her. If it weren’t for the fact that I could never trust her again if I didn’t do this now and do it well, I would have withdrawn. Trying to partition my heart from my head, I focused on the canals of her mind.

  According to the high theory I studied under Neleck, each sept son saw the minds of others differently. I had always envisioned the mind like a maze of canals. The deeper into the canals one pushed, the deeper into the mind one probed. Zezilia’s canals were clean and easy to probe. I had to be careful to not push through too fast.

  She willingly led me to her memory of the incident in the council room only hours before. From there, I traced the path of the intruder. She flinched as I began following his steps, but braced against the memories. Then, abruptly, I lost the trail.

  “That was where I ConPropped,” she explained.

  “And you haven’t opened up since?”

  “Not until Renato told me to a few moments ago.”

  Her honesty rang clearly through her sending. “I am going to check all the usual places to hide directives then.”

  Her consent was instantaneous. A calm wave of relief washed over me. How peaceful it was within her mind, especially compared with the frantic workings of my own. I hoped she would never know the difficulty of an overworked mind.

  I only stumbled across one spot of fresh, emotional pain. After ascertaining that it had nothing to do with a directive, I withdrew without delving below the surface. However, I felt strangely drawn to know more. The pain was recent, more recent than the invasion of the stranger. The thought of her bearing an emotional weight alone brought up feelings that I had never known before. I only just caught them before they reached the outer edges of my mind. My thoughts were still my own. I needed time to examine this strange new discovery first.

  “I am going to withdraw now,” I sent to both her and Renato.

  Slipping from her mind and back into my own, I suddenly felt empty and alone. With the other probes I had done, I had almost been overwhelmed with relief when I was able to finally withdraw. Now, as I watched her eyelids open, revealing dark, liquid-grey eyes, my chest contracted with a strange feeling.

  “Are you alright?” I asked.

  She smiled weakly and nodded. Only then did I realize that the throb in my head was not nearly as strong, and the tension in my shoulders had eased. A sending of reassurance from her flooded me before Renato broke the connection with a question.

  “So, what did happen?”

  I blinked and shifted my focus to more recent events.

  “It was Vander and Father. Vander and a couple of men dressed as defenders abducted me from the back of the procession. They dragged me to a linen closet. Then, Father and two men arrived.”

  “Did you recognize them?” Renato asked.

  “No. The strangers both wore simply cut tunics, one of red and the other of black. I could not see their faces because I was in the light, and they stood in the shadow. However, I think I could recognize their voices if I heard them again.”

  “What did they want?”

  Renato was doing just fine with the questioning, so I settled for watching Zez’s face.

  “First, they talked about me, debating about what I had learned in Hadrian’s service and how my studies hadn’t improved me.” She turned to address me with worry etching a line between her eyebrows. “Then they tried to convince me to leave your service by telling me that your power would end tomorrow at the council. They said that your strength was bound up in your title and they would be taking that tomorrow. They can’t do that, can they?”

  “Not without a majority vote among the lower kings and the high king’s consent,” Renato replied. “I don’t think that they will be able to get that by tomorrow though.”

  “What else did they say to you?” I asked.

  She nodded. “Of course. I was told to gather my things, without telling anyone, and go to Vander’s quarters. They were going to fetch me tomorrow afternoon.”

  I nodded. A ploy to keep me distracted. Zez’s disappearance and missing clothes would have set me to searching for her outside in the city, and I wouldn’t pay attention to their plans and actions.

  “I am willing to bet that those two were Elitists,” Renato informed me vehemently. �
��They probably talked of marrying you off to someone, right?” he asked Zez.

  A blush crept into Zez’s cheeks, and pain flickered into her eyes. I suspected that they had said more than that. “Yes.”

  “See, I told you.” Renato rose to pace. Zez hid her face in her hands.

  “It isn’t as though we haven’t been expecting this,” I pointed out, “especially after the recent news.”

  “What news?” Zez asked.

  “There is another Elitist encampment,” Renato informed her. Crossing to grab her hand, he then proceeded to drag her to the map. “This was the one we knew about.” He pointed to a red mark on the west coast. “Then an hour ago, we received news that there is another one farther north. This one is more established and much older. They have been breeding Elite troops for at least twenty years or more.”

  I stood and crossed to the opposite side of the map. “Which means that the superior army bent on complete subjection of all non-Talents that we feared is already matured and active. Instead of being ahead of the threat, we are sorely behind. The call to arms among the Talents has already begun.”

  “The response time is what you were calculating when I came in,” she whispered.

  I met her worried gaze. “We can no longer sit on our hands. We must take action now that the game has changed.”

  She nodded. “So how does my discovery change things? Surely you cannot do this if you lose your title and authority to call an army together.”

  I nodded. “But we have a secret weapon.” I met Renato’s eyes. “Get out the manifesto, Renato. Now is the time to use it.”

  He nodded solemnly. He disappeared into darkness of my bedchamber and returned carrying a thin leather packet. Unlacing it, he unwrapped the leather and oilskin that had protected the ancient parchment since long before I had been born. My heart made its usual shudder at the sight of the precious document. “I suggest you begin copying it for distribution to the high king. He will see to it that the council receives a copy.”