Reluctant Adept: Book Three of A Clairvoyant's Complicated Life (45 page)

The king's mirth had hardly dwindled to a chuckle when Brassal announced, "High Steward Gilios, Stewards Sùdrach and Urchardan, may I present,
Anóen
, Earth's first adept, most honored friend and favored adjutant of King Faonaín and his people. Let it be known, from this day forward, those who threaten
Anóen
also threaten the crown."

I bristled at the implication that I somehow served the king, but Tíer's fierce squeeze of my hand and Mr. Sociopath's sinister stare wisely instigated my silence.

Terrific
. I had no idea what 'adjutant' would entail, but I was willing to bet I wasn't going to be happy about it. On the plus side, the king had acknowledged my status as Earth's adept, so theoretically he didn't plan to keep me chained in some adept-proof oubliette like Mr. Sociopath surely did. Of course, I didn't for one minute think the king wouldn't try to bend me to his will. I'd have to be on my guard where he was concerned, especially if he ever regrew his tongue. I had a feeling it was pure silver.

As the king came to his feet, Brassal lowered his tablet and addressed the Tribunal leaders, "King Faonaín bids the Tribunal welcome. After these trying few turns, I'm sure you understand that his focus must be devoted to his people as they grieve for their lost loved ones. In the mean time, I will show you to your quarters. If additional billeting is required for your soldiers, the king will create the necessary accommodations."

Brassal stepped from the raised platform as the room exploded into a hive of conversation and activity. All at once, everyone had a job to do and little or no time to do it.

Before Mr. Sociopath turned to follow Brassal and the rest of his associates, he gave me one final penetrating stare, tipping his head ever so slightly in my direction as the hint of a callous smile tainted his thin lips.

I suppressed a shiver.

"There is one who will strip the skin from his live prey and not bat an eye," Alex whispered at my ear. "In case you missed it, take this warning from a predator who knows: He has just marked his next quarry. Even if the chase takes a millennia, he will not rest until he has captured and tamed you."

When I gazed at Tíereachán, I didn't like the flatness of his expression as he watched the otherwise nondescript sidhe walk away. There was a distance, a fateful set to his eyes that said he'd glimpsed his future and knew it wouldn't be ending well.

His reaction had 'prophecy' written all over it, which immediately raised my hackles. I swear, if I ever came face to face with that bat of an oracle, I'd seal her effing lips shut with super glue. The woman was a menace.

I stepped in front of him and got all up in his face, and then, for good measure, I poked his firm chest with my index finger. Hard. "Let me remind you, in case you've forgotten. That oath of ours goes both ways. Make sure you think about that, long and hard, before you go deciding how your future is going to end. Because, for better or worse, we are now in it together. And I can promise you this, right now: Mr. Sociopath over there will not be the cause of
our
demise." I scowled and poked him again. "You got that?"

As I wound up to poke him a third time, he grabbed my hand, squeezing it tenderly, and then held it to his chest. His gaze was patient but resigned. "The oracle has never been wrong, Lire. Not once, in over five thousand years."

"And yet, I still manage to surprise you, don't I?" I raised my eyebrows and then leveled him with a steady glare. "She can't account for everything. Don't be so quick to consign your fate on the say-so of an old woman who's never met me or witnessed the chaos field that surrounds me." I squared my chin and narrowed my eyes at him in challenge. "Embrace the chaos,
mionngáel
. I dare you."

After a beat of silence, Nathan piped up, "Bloody hell. If he doesn't take you up on it, I know I will."

"Good to hear," Alex said dryly, "since, following your punishment, it is
you
who will be answering to
Anóen
for the foreseeable future as proof of strigoi goodwill and the domn's trust."

Nathan blinked, astonished, but swiftly regained his composure. He went down to one knee and kissed the back of Alex's hand. "Master, it's an honor I don't deserve. I will not fail you. I swear it."

"See that you don't," the domn replied, his voice turning to granite as he waved the man to his feet. "My tolerance goes only so far."

When I gazed back at Tíereachán, noting his raised eyebrow, I tipped my head at Alex and murmured, "Chaos field. I'm telling you—it's real."

He pressed my captured hand to his lips and then replied solemnly, "Of that, I've no doubt."

As I stared at him, my heart pounding at this blatant display of affection, his eyes flicked over my shoulder. Languidly, he relinquished my hand. "I believe someone wants a word."

I turned to find a beautiful sidhe woman approaching me from the dais. When she stopped a polite distance away, she bowed her head regally. "
Anóen
, my lord King Faonaín wishes for a moment of your time if it pleases you."

Do you think he actually said those words, 'if it pleases?'
I almost snorted.

Somehow, Tíereachán conveyed his admonishment to 'behave' without issuing a single word through our connection. Pretty sure my grudging 'fine' was received in much the same manner.

In spite of my nervous stomach, I mustered a friendly smile for the king's gopher. "Sure."

But if I see any hint of an oubliette, we are gone like yesterday's chocolates,
I promised.

His means of control will be more subtle. Listen to your instincts and follow your heart, mionngáel. This has served you well.

"Tuck down, Red," I whispered as I followed the woman toward the king, who stood at the edge of the abyss with his back to us.

As we approached, King Faonaín flicked his hand, causing the rock from below to well upward, restoring the floor to its formerly smooth, pristine expanse as though it were made of putty. But it was the nonexistent tremor and whispered rumbling, bearing testament to the true depth of his power, that had my neck and arms breaking into gooseflesh.

Holy dump trucks, Batman
. To manipulate that much rock with nary a jolt, especially after what he'd been through … even the most skilled geomancer on Earth couldn't accomplish such a feat.

When the damaged, indefatigable king turned to watch our advance, he studied me so intently I had the strongest urge to cover up, despite his neutral expression.

"My lord," the woman said as she performed an elegant curtsey and then gestured at me. "
Anóen
."

Crap
. Was I supposed to curtsey too? That was
so
not happening.

He didn't even deign to look at his servant as he waved her away, his eyes focused solely on my own. Before the silence could stretch into awkwardness, he tipped his head in amiable greeting and then gestured me toward an intimate cluster of chairs at the far side of the room. As we walked across the renewed floor, I couldn't help thinking about Lorcán's remains, or what might be left of them, crushed into oblivion by the mountain of rock that had filled the crevasse. Certainly, the area rug would never be the same. It had been neatly severed along the abyss's former edge. I couldn't suppress a shudder at the line of thought, and it was all I could do not to levitate myself over the immaculate surface, for fear of the ground swallowing me whole.

When I glanced in his direction, the king looked distinctly amused and I had little doubt he knew what I'd been thinking.

Gritting my teeth, I sat in the velvet chair he indicated. He took the one adjacent, sitting with his legs extended in a relaxed sprawl, which left our knees separated by scarcely an inch. At this proximity, I could fully appreciate King Faonaín's able-bodied form. The supple leather of his blood-stained pants hugged his thick, muscular thighs, and I just managed to pull my gaze before noticing what else the soft material might, or might not, be hugging.

Once again, his crooked, superior smile told me he'd gleaned my thoughts. At this rate, my molars were sure to fuse together under the pressure of all my grinding.

I think to avoid startling me, the king swept his hand lazily toward the floor and on the upsweep, presented me with a thin slab of stone, similar to the one Brassal had been reading from earlier. It was lighter and thinner than I'd imagined, hardly heavier than my iPad, yet it was twice its screen size. Almost faster than I could fathom, an intricate border of vines and flowers wove their way around the margins of the tablet, drawing an involuntary gasp from my throat. This wasn't some crude, rudimentary means of communication. It was truly artful.

As I looked down in wonder, feathery script letters rose at the center of its flat, lustrous surface, effectively stunning me for a good five seconds before I had the sense to read and consider the words the king had embossed.

'Thank you.'

I snapped my gaze to his and stared at him, those two little words rendering me speechless. I expected a lot of things from King Faonaín, but a thank you hadn't been one of them.

When he cleared his throat and cast a meaningful glance at the stone in my hands, I jerked and stared down at the tablet.

'I may be many things, but an ungrateful cur is not one of them. You saved my life at grave risk to your own, an act very few, if any, would have undertaken, especially with escape so easily within reach.'

At the scrape of nearby footsteps, the king frowned, his gaze diverting past my right shoulder, and then nodded at a towheaded boy, the first youngster I'd seen. Having received King Faonaín's approval, the boy approached me, carrying a stoneware tray that held two steaming white rolls. The child looked not more than eight years old, prompting me to wonder if the sidhe matured in the same time frame as humans did, even though age didn't wither them.

It took me a moment of frank bewilderment to realize the objects on his plate were hot towels. "For your … comfort, my lady, a small … charity free of … obligation," he said in the sweetest, most delightfully halting English I'd ever heard from a sidhe.

Was he nervous or simply unaccustomed to speaking English? I looked into his perfectly formed brown eyes and decided he was both. When I didn't receive any warning from Tíereachán, I rested the stone tablet flat on my thighs and reached for one of the hot towels.

"Thank you," I said as I unrolled it, alert for any unusual smells or tingling in my fingertips.

I shivered at its warmth. When the boy didn't move away, I realized he planned to wait until I was finished so he could take my dirty towels back for laundering. He might have been cute and sweet, but there was no way in hell I was presenting anyone here with a gift of my blood.

"Please, leave the plate there," I pointed to the floor at the foot of my chair.

"I am … instructed to … wait, my lady."

"All right." While I toweled my face and neck clean, I speculated whether this was King Faonaín's idea or someone else's, possibly an underling hoping to score the king's favor with the means to control me. Or, worse, someone in league with Mr. Sociopath. Even with Maeve and Lorcán and Azazel out of the picture, it seemed there was no shortage of predators drawn to the scent of my blood.

Finished, I folded the now filthy towel, intending to incinerate it to ash, but the king kicked my foot, startling me. He glared at the tablet. When I looked down, the previous words had disappeared, replaced by new ones.

'Do not give him the cloth. I wish to know who instructed the boy to offer them to you. Ask him.'

I looked up. "The king wishes to know who gave you the towels and asked you to bring them to me."

He blinked and then turned to the king. Timidly, he uttered a short reply in Silven. If there was a name in there, I wasn't able to pick it out.

I glanced down at the tablet. This time, the text wasn't addressed to me. I frowned and looked at King Faonaín who impatiently waved his hand, telling me to get on with it.

Nonplussed, I turned to the boy. "The words I'm going to read are from your king, okay?" I wondered if this was as weird for him as it was for me.

When the boy nodded, I began reading, "You will confine your replies to English. When you were told to bring the towels, did you understand the reason you were instructed to wait and not relinquish the plate."

"Y-yes … my lord." The poor kid had started trembling.

"Were you promised something in return?"

His head hung so low, his quavering chin practically touched his chest. "Y-yes, my l-l-lord."

"Members of my household do not act as tools for others and their loyalty is not for trade or purchase," I read, marveling at the speed at which the king was able to emboss the words across the stone. "Knowing Màili's intent, what should you have done instead?"

The boy switched to Silven blurting a hasty series of words as if he were trying to get as many out before being told to return to English. I heard the word 'Brassal,' at least once.

After the boy had run out of things to say, King Faonaín blew out an annoyed breath, but he didn't order the boy to repeat it in English.

"Report to Brassal, immediately," I read to him. "You are hereby ordered to divulge nothing of what we have discussed to anyone, including Màili. Do you understand?" When the youngster nodded, I continued reading, "For the entirety of the next four seasons, you are Brassal's to command for every menial task he can divine. Leave the tray and go. Brassal is expecting you."

The boy didn't need to be told twice. He placed the platter at his feet, bowed, turned in military fashion, and scurried away.

I tossed my cold, dirty towel onto the plate and focused my pyrokinesis on it, burning it to ash.

When I looked at the king, he'd raised an eyebrow.

"You thought I didn't know?" I scoffed and shook my head. "
Please
. I'm not a complete moron."

I glanced in the direction of the retreating boy. "What about this … Màili? Will he or she be punished too?"