Challenges (31 page)

“Attack?” she echoed with raised brows, her emotions suddenly turning uncertain. “I know they had me doing attack-like things in order to qualify for my mastery, but no one ever said it would be part of the competitions. Are you sure that that’s what we’ll have to do?”

“Nothing else makes any sense,” Jovvi replied as casually as possible, trying to calm Tamma. “And of course they never said anything about it. The last thing they want is for us to be fully prepared, but it isn’t something
you
have to worry about. Your other self will be in charge during the time, and it’s for her to worry—if you think she will.”

“No, I don’t expect that she will,” Tamma replied with a faint smile. “I’m slowly learning to be like that when I’m
not
touching the power, but I’ve something of a long way to go. She
likes
the idea of starting a fight, while I still try my best to avoid one. Hopefully I’ll make a bit more progress by the time the competitions begin.”

“Well, don’t make too much progress,” Jovvi said, surprising Tamma again. “It has just now come to me that your … easily observed reluctance to fight is probably the reason you’re in this group. They can’t be pleased with how strong we are individually, so the fact that the member of our group who is supposed to be most aggressive isn’t that at all must be reassuring to them. If they find out what you’re like when you touch the power, they may decide to break us up.”

“They could use the excuse that we haven’t yet Blended, which is the truth as far as they know it,” Tamma said, sitting up at the urging of the disturbance inside her. “That means we have to make it official tomorrow, so they won’t have that particular excuse. And now I think I know what that so-called Lord Carmad meant when he commented about me.”

“What comment was that?” Jovvi asked with a frown, searching her memory. “I can’t seem to remember one.”

“When he called me forward first and I went to stand in front of him, I was nearly petrified with fright,” Tamma explained. “Only a blind man could have missed how I felt, and he sneered out something about how my reaction was to be expected, considering the way the testing authority liked to do things.
He
knew I was supposed to be aggressive, and his sneer was for the fact that I wasn’t.”

“So now we can wonder why he sneered,” Jovvi said thoughtfully. “We’ve already decided that he was there to give us the help that Twimmal wouldn’t or couldn’t, so why would he be cynically amused to think our Blending was crippled even before it formed?”

“Maybe … maybe some organization of commoners sent him, to give the common Blendings a better chance against the nobility,” Tamma suggested hesitantly. “If he was supposed to visit all the common groups, he could have been disappointed that his help would be wasted on us.”

“And that produced the cynical reaction,” Jovvi agreed with a nod. “Yes, that’s perfectly possible, even if none of us has ever heard about such an organization. They would have to keep their existence extremely secret, or the nobility would root them out and destroy them. That ought to mean he probably won’t be back.”

“If he does come back, I’m going to make sure he doesn’t see the other side of me,” Tamma said, this time surprising Jovvi. “I’ve learned a certain cynicism of my own from my father, which tells me that one visit from the man means he’s on our side, but two will mean he’s working for our enemies. They would
expect
us to decide that Carmad is on our side, from the way he helped us. Then, when he reappears, we let him in on any secrets we may be hiding from the authority.”

“You know, that makes more sense than I like to think about, and I’m surprised I didn’t come up with it myself,” Jovvi decided aloud. “As suspicious as I usually am I should have, but the way he was almost caught by Twimmal distracted me. Even if he comes back in two days rather than tomorrow, we’d better stick with our suspicions. Not knowing our secrets won’t harm him even if he does happen to be on our side, but the reverse could certainly harm
us
.”

“I’m tempted to feel that not telling him will keep him from sharing what we need to know if he is on our side,” Tamma fretted, still not relaxing back in the water. “That doesn’t necessarily hold true, but it’s certainly a possibility. If he does come back, do you think we can use the Blending to find out the truth?”

“Since I could probably do that part of it myself, I don’t see why not,” Jovvi replied with only a short hesitation. “I really hate the idea of taking advantage with my ability, but if the man’s a secret enemy, he doesn’t deserve to be treated fairly. And if he’s a friend, he ought to understand the reason for our caution.”

“What I really hate is living like this,” Tamma said, finally sinking back to the headrest. “All this intrigue and doubt, lying and being spied on, sneaking around and pretending all the time… Sometimes I wish the competitions would start tomorrow, just to put all the rest of it behind us.”

Jovvi made a sound which suggested commiseration, but in full truth she didn’t agree. The longer it took for the competitions to begin, the better their chance of winning. Which probably meant the competitions were scheduled to begin any day now. They still hadn’t been given that unimportant little detail, a lack which suggested that the announcement was meant to come as a shock. Anything to throw them off balance…

A sigh escaped Jovvi, showing how weary she herself had become of the game they were caught up in. But their futures and possibly even their lives were at stake, so weariness was a luxury she couldn’t afford. Vallant meant to meet with the small ex-groom Pagin Holter, Jovvi knew, so she had to remember to tell Vallant that they needed to ask about “Lord Carmad.” And to pass on a warning, just in case the man really was an enemy.

The warm water was deliciously relaxing, but Jovvi’s mind simply couldn’t rest. Now that she’d laid the groundwork with Tamma, it ought to be easier to break the news to the girl that she was considered to be the most important one among them. And after they all saw what their Blending was capable of, she might have to work with Lorand and Vallant on their problems. And with Rion’s lady in the house, would it be harder for the man to concentrate? And come to think of it, could his Naran be one of the enemy herself?

All those questions and problems threatened to make Jovvi’s head spin, but she firmly resisted the inclination. Their first chore would be to see about Naran, and Rion had to know in advance what they intended. Honesty was one of the most important things they owed each other, but how was she supposed to broach that delicate a subject? What words could she possibly use to keep from breaking their group completely apart…?

CHAPTER THIRTY

When my mind refused to stop fretting, I gave up on the idea of soaking and left the bath. Jovvi was so deep in thought that she didn’t seem to see me, so I used a bit of the power to heat all the moisture from my body and hair, got into my wrap and picked up my clothes and book, and left the bath house. Actually I pretended to run out of the bath house, also pretending that I’d been driven out of it by a sharp-tongued enemy.

For that reason I reached my apartment rather quickly, wondering all the while if anyone had seen my play-acting. Not that it really mattered. It was just something to think about to keep me from thinking about Vallant. For all intents and purposes I’d promised to spend most of the night with him, and the conflict in my emotions was driving me insane.

I looked at the book I’d chosen to distract me from my thoughts while I soaked, and was forced to admit that it wouldn’t have done the job any more than it was currently doing. The conflict bothering me was that I really wanted to become involved with Vallant, but because of the danger to him couldn’t allow an involvement to develop. In the face of that, no book ever written could have distracted me.

Ignoring the sitting room, I carried my burdens through the bedchamber and disposed of them properly. I was very much in the mood to drop everything in a heap and then turn my back on the heap, but that would have been too much like running away from my problems. Turning your back and forgetting about things is easy—until the giant pile of problems you’ve built topples down on your head.

So I put the book on a table and the worn clothes with the rest of my things needing washing, then lay down on my bed to think about my problem with Vallant. The plan I’d come up with, to let my power-enhanced self annoy him to the point of making him walk away, might not work, but it was the only thing I could think of. That was probably because I didn’t want to think of anything else, not when it would end any relationship even before it began.

But ending things was in Vallant’s best interests, so I knew I’d just have to keep trying. If only thoughts of being with him didn’t distract me so badly… I turned over onto my back to push those personal thoughts away, but they refused to go. Platinum blond hair and pale blue eyes above a devilish grin forced their way in front of my mind’s eye, then drew me along into the realm of marvelous daydreams.

Time disappeared to nothing in that realm, and the next thing I knew there was a knock at my bedchamber door. A maid called through the door that dinner was almost ready to be served, and then the shaped cluster of warmth that represented her body heat quickly retreated. She hadn’t been sent for so she hadn’t come in, undoubtedly a result of the lecture I’d given earlier. I forced myself to sitting and then off the bed, glad of the privacy. Unless you were very firm, I’d discovered, some servants took over and ran things to suit themselves.

My thoughts seemed rather disjointed as I dressed and brushed my hair, and leaving my apartment didn’t help much to clear things up. I had no trouble remembering how I was supposed to behave with the others, but everything beyond that felt far too complex even to consider briefly. For that reason I sent my glares to everyone as I took my place at the table, received their glares in return, then paid attention to nothing but my food.

Everyone else was just as silent during the meal, and afterward we each took our own private chilly silence back to our bedchambers or apartment. Once there I sent for a tea service, waited for it to be brought, then told the servant not to try to collect it again until tomorrow. I deliberately gave the man the impression that I would probably be reading until the wee hours, but as soon as he left I headed straight for bed. I’d finally figured out that sleep was what I needed, especially since we were scheduled to Blend again as well as help Rion and his Naran. When I woke up I would need the tea, much more than I needed it right now.

As it happened, when I woke up it was to remember a strange, disturbing dream. I’d been standing in a large, indistinct room, all alone while being almost completely surrounded by a lot of men. To my relief the men were ignoring me, and then suddenly, without warning, a flow of flames began to leak out of me at several points. In frantic fright I began to try to stop the leaks, but stopping one simply started the leak in another place.

I’d been trying, of course, to keep the leaks from the notice of the surrounding men, but they’d seen them instantly and then I was no longer being ignored. They all began to advance on me, and as I started to run in the only direction possible, I glimpsed Vallant behind one bunch of them. He gestured in an effort to get me to run in his direction, at the same trying to fight his way through the horde, but there were too many of them. He couldn’t reach me and I couldn’t reach him, and so I ran across the marble floor, the sound of pursuing footsteps coming right behind…

And then that sound came again, only now I was awake enough to realize that it was knocking rather than footsteps. I looked at the door, trying to discern the shape of the person out there knocking, to see if I’d yet learned to tell man from woman. But there was no shape of heat outside my door, which meant either that the person knocking was dead, or the door knocked by itself.

I shivered at both thoughts, still too groggy with sleep to know fantasy from reality, and then the knock came a third time. Gentle and impersonal, it seemed almost lighthearted, and a glance at the clock suddenly suggested a third possible source for the sound: it was two o’clock in the morning, and if Rion had wanted everyone to be awake, he could have solidified a bit of air to knock with.

The relief of that realization made me want to stretch out again, but then the knock came for the fourth time. For a moment I wondered why he hadn’t stopped now that I was definitely awake, and then I understood that he didn’t know he’d succeeded. It was up to me to find a way to tell him, so I thought for another moment and then smiled. It felt as though I were in the midst of playing a child’s game, and I’d just figured out how to make someone else “it.”

Looking in the direction of where Rion’s bedchamber lay, I took a firmer grip on the power and … rode it, so to speak, into the room. In the same way that I would have surrounded a feather I meant to burn, protecting everything around the feather, I chose a small volume of air in the room. The power let me know that the volume contained nothing but air, so I set a small but very bright flame to burning. I kept the flame alight until the time for a fifth knock was well past, and then, knowing Rion had gotten my message, let it go out.

Which left me with nothing but the memory of that dream as I got up to wash my face. The idea of flame leaking out of me like water was ridiculous, but it hadn’t felt ridiculous in the dream, it had been terrifying. I hadn’t been able to make it stop, and all those men had been drawn to me because of it…

I poured water from the pitcher into the basin, then wet my hands and pressed the wetness to my face. I’d really have to remember to thank Jovvi for telling me what she had about women with Fire magic, as it had done a marvelous job in adding to my store of subjects for nightmares. And that business about Vallant trying to reach me and not being able to… I’d been left with the impression that the crowd was about to trample him, but I’d been awakened before I was forced to stand there and watch it happen…