Prophecy (45 page)

And Jovvi had located the place where the resident of that wing waited, but the woman wasn’t alone. Another woman waited with her, and the second woman didn’t seem to be a servant. It had been a while since Jovvi and the others had faced the members of the enemy Blending and a lot had happened in the interim, but somehow she didn’t remember the Spirit magic user of that other group being female. And there was no indication that the woman was even opened to the power, not to mention touching it. Jovvi knew she was being waited for, but why wasn’t there more readiness in evidence…?

If the whole thing was designed to throw Jovvi off guard, the situation accomplished the exact opposite. Jovvi’s suspicions grew rather than lessened, and she paused to locate the nearest source of additional power. Her tandem link groups were spread out all over the place against a possible need, and she quickly located one set which wasn’t at all familiar to her. Well, some of the people in their very large number of followers weren’t very well known to her and the others, especially the ones who weren’t Highs. These link group members were no more than Middles, but if a crisis arose they would certainly do.

Satisfied that she was as thoroughly prepared as it was possible to be, Jovvi continued to walk again. The people waiting for her weren’t very far away now, only a short distance up that very corridor. So she walked that short distance, paused in front of the closed door behind which the people stood, then she took a deep breath and plunged in. The sooner begun, the sooner ended…

Opening the door showed Jovvi a rather large and ornate sitting room, one it must have cost a fortune to decorate. Most of the furnishings consisted of antiques, marvelously preserved and lovingly taken care of. But not by the woman—or girl—who shot to her feet as soon as Jovvi walked in.

“What are
you
doing here?” the girl snarled, her stare withering. “You servants were told to stay out of this area, and that disobedience would get you whipped. If you thought I was joking, you’ll find out differently as soon as I’m free to give you the attention you’ve now earned.”

“No wonder there aren’t any servants left in this wing of the palace,” Jovvi commented dryly as she glanced around. “Your winning personality would have
demons
fighting to get away from you. And now I know why your companion seemed familiar to me from a distance. Why is that Mardimil woman here?”

“You can’t be one of
them
,” the girl returned with a frown and a small headshake. “Your clothes are mere rags, I can’t detect any talent in you at all, and you certainly aren’t that Mardimil clod. Tell me who you are.”

“I’m Jovvi Hafford, and I’m definitely one of
them
,” Jovvi answered, suddenly getting an idea. “And now I think I know what’s going on. You expected Rion to be here to face you and your Air magic, and that’s why you have that woman with you. You expected to use her against Rion, to give you an edge that might let you defeat him. Too bad it wouldn’t have worked even if Rion
had
shown up instead of me.”

“I expect to see my son this instant!” the Mardimil woman pronounced as she got to her feet, showing the sort of regality which beat you over the head with her presence and importance. “You are and mean nothing, girl, and I demand that Clarion be sent for at once!”

“His name is Rion, and you no longer have any claim on him whatsoever,” Jovvi took a great deal of pleasure in telling the woman. “He knows you stole him from his father when his true mother died giving birth to him, so his last tie to you has been severed. As far as he’s concerned
you’re
the nothing, the same useless, positionless, nothing everyone else sees you as. You could have had the loyalty and love of a son to sustain you no matter what the rest of the world thought of you, but you threw it all away to
impress
him and cater to your own whims. You really earned what you’regetting now, so I hope you enjoy it.”

The woman had started to go pale at the first of Jovvi’s words, and by the time the speech ended Rion’s former mother was as white as a sheet. And her face was twisted with inner pain and torment, not to mention a raging battle of some sort. Jovvi had no idea why that would be—until the woman began to mutter.

“But that
can’t
be true, not any of it!” Mardimil husked out, clearly talking to herself. “He’s as much mine as he ever was, so when I take my revenge against him it will give him twice as much pain! He
can’t
know what she claims he does, nor can he feel as she says. He’s
mine
, and I’m the most important woman in this empire!”

“Important!” the Air magic user echoed with a short, derisive laugh, staring at Mardimil with scorn and contempt. “You were good for nothing but to be used as a hostage against that clod you raised, and now you’reeven useless for that. Keep quiet and stay out of the way, or you’ll get what
that
female has earned.”

The girl glared at Jovvi as she shoved Mardimil away from her, and the older woman staggered and then fell into the chair she’d been sitting in. Jovvi could tell that she was a good way into shock, but she really was unimportant. It was the younger woman who had to be given full attention, which Jovvi did.

“I’m Selendi Vas, Air magic, and you were a fool to come in here to face me,” the girl now said, the words somewhat calm and even—despite the turmoil fighting to begin in her mind. “Didn’t you people get the note we sent?”

“Of course we did,” Jovvi replied, having a suspicion of what this Selendi Vas was now trying to do. “We all saw it, and we paid it every bit of the attention it deserved—which is to say, none at all. You and your groupmates don’t belong here, and you know it as well as we do. If you surrender to me, we may be able to preserve your life.”

“If I were you, I’d be worrying about my own life,” Selendi crowed, full delight now on her. “You say you all saw the note we sent, which means most if not all of you touched it. I can tell you now that there was poison on the paper, so in a very short while you’ll no longer have a Blending to be part of. Are
you
one of the ones who touched it, or will you just be one of those left alive after the others die?”

“Neither,” Jovvi responded pleasantly, probing toward the girl even as she spoke. “I said we saw your note, not that we touched it. Our Earth magic user noticed the poison, so our Air magic user—Rion—opened the thing for us without using his hands. Could
you
have done something like that?”

“I don’t believe you,” the girl snarled, but her mind said she certainly did believe and would have been devastated—if she weren’t under strict control. Their Spirit magic user had been busy, then, doing things he shouldn’t even have done to strangers. To put your own groupmates under control…! Jovvi began to unravel his work, but there were still other things to say.

“Yes, you do believe me, and you may not know the entire story,” Jovvi said with a bit more sobriety. “We’ve learned that you and some of your groupmates
have
been poisoned, and you’ve been holding off the effects of the poison by using a counteragent. Our Earth magic user, who’s something of an expert, tells us that the counteragent can’t be used for more than a short while before it becomes ineffective. After that you have to have the antidote, or the poison will kill you. As I said before, if you surrender we may be able to save your lives.”

The unraveling of control which Jovvi had done in the girl’s mind let Selendi pale and begin to tremble. The girl was now beginning to see the true situation she found herself in, and her thoughts began to turn frantic.

“I knew he was lying to us, I knew it!” she shrilled out, terror fighting to take her over. “And I’ll bet he even has the antidote, which he’ll dangle in front of us once the counteragent stops working! I hate him more than I’ve ever hated anyone except my sister, and
she
stole Father from me! But I can’t afford to displease him, or I won’t be given the antidote. I hate him, but I still have to do what he wants me to…”

And with that she turned a crazed glare on Jovvi, a completely unstable girl doing what she thought was necessary in order to survive. Jovvi could see that clearly, but what she couldn’t do suddenly was breathe. Selendi Vas had taken away the air Jovvi needed to live, and the girl’s mindset clearly showed that she would continue on until her enemy was dead.

Jovvi had been trying to unravel the control around the girl’s mind in order to establish her own, temporary control, but there were too many layers of command in the way. If she’d had the time she could have gotten through, but now time had run out as quickly as her air supply. If Jovvi didn’t do something quickly, she
would
be dead…!

In another moment or two, Jovvi knew she would begin to black out. That was inevitable, so whatever could be done had to be done
now
. So she first reached to the tandem link group she’d found earlier and began to draw strength from them, and then turned her talent on the Mardimil woman. She sat deeply sunk into shock, most of her defenses—and sanity—gone, but it wasn’t possible for her to resist Jovvi’s commands. The older woman straightened and then stood, turned to look at Selendi Vas, and then she struck the younger woman with a closed fist and all the strength in her round, overweight body.

The blow landed in the middle of Selendi’s face, and the pain and surprise threw the girl completely out of control. The air returned around Jovvi as suddenly as it had disappeared, and she bent over to lean against a table and gasp while she fought off threatening dizziness. She’d come
that
close to passing out, and the ringing in her ears said it could still happen. But if she didn’t regain control and balance it was still possible she might die, so fainting was completely out of the question.

It took a reasonably short time for Jovvi to pull herself together, which was fortunate for Selendi Vas. Jovvi had set the Mardimil woman in attack on the Air magic user, and the command continued to hold. Mardimil was beating at the girl who now lay on the priceless carpeting, and when Jovvi canceled the command and sent the older woman back to her chair, Selendi Vas was barely conscious. But she
was
still alive and no longer a threat, so Jovvi found a chair of her own and sat down to finish the work she’d begun.

When all those layers of command had been stripped away from the girl’s mind, Jovvi inserted the command for Selendi to stay there in the room and not make any more trouble. Then she got to her feet and headed back to the corridor she’d come in by, anxious to find out how the others were doing. The Mardimil woman had returned to being sunk in shock, but she, too, had been ordered to stay put. Later Jovvi and the others could decide what to do with the two of them, but right now there were much more important concerns—like how the unequal confrontations were turning out…

* * *

Selendi Vas lay on her back, her semi-conscious mind streaming in all directions. It was almost as though she were half asleep, and the condition was
so
familiar. Pain throbbed in her body and she lay on something hard rather than soft, just the way things had been when she was much younger. Those were the times when Father had come to visit her, to give her all his love and attention. For a long time it had been her sister who had gotten that love and attention, but then it had become
her
turn. She’d hated the pain and that other thing Father did, but it was worth it just to have him be with her so much.

But then she’d gotten a bit older, and one day her sister managed to regain Father’s attention. Selendi tried to bring him back to
her
instead, but she’d never been able to accomplish it. He’d never given her that sort of attention again, and she’d spent years going through man after man in an effort to feel that special once more. But it hadn’t worked, it never worked, and Selendi hated her sister more than anyone in the world for having stolen what Selendi needed and wanted so badly…

A particularly violent stab of pain in her middle brought Selendi closer to true consciousness, close enough for her to wonder why she felt that particular pain. She’d taken the counteragent that morning, after all, and wasn’t due to take it again until tomorrow. So why did the pain feel just like what it had before she’d been given the counteragent? It didn’t make any sense…

And then a terrible thought came to Selendi, one which filled her with a great deal of fear. That woman she’d faced, one of
them
… She’d said that the counteragent would begin to stop working, and then the poison would begin to kill her. Selendi moaned with terror and increasing pain, trying to figure out what to do. Delin had to have the antidote she needed, but he was so far away. And she hadn’t done what she was supposed to have, which was kill the one of
them
she faced. She would have to use her body again to get what she needed, just as she’d always used it…

Selendi rolled over onto her stomach in an effort to ease the pain in her middle, but it didn’t help. The pain was quickly turning into agony, bringing her knees up and putting a scream in her throat. It hurt so
much
, she didn’t know how she was going to give Delin what he wanted … even though she didn’t
want
to give it to him… She’d already had him, and there were so many other men she hadn’t yet gotten to.
One
of them would be like her father, one of them
had
to be…

The scream in Selendi’s throat tried to escape, but she only had the strength to make it a moan. She now hurt more and more and more, and the silly thought of what it might be like to be loved flitted for an instant across her mind. And then the thought was gone behind the sole awareness of pain unending, worse than the pain she’d begun to be given at the age of six. It filled her entire mind and consciousness to the exclusion of everything else—

—and didn’t even let her notice it when she slipped over the edge into death…

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Rion watched Jovvi until she disappeared from sight, made sure that Vallant was also definitely on his way, and then he turned to Naran.