“I’ll dispatch my best men there at once.”
Saying the words aloud, hearing them in his own voice, gave them a terrible reality. Dimly, Regis realized he needed to eat, that use of laran exhausted physical as well as mental energies. Cold shivered through his gut. He swayed in his chair.
Gabriel bent to steady him. “You’ve had a shock. Let me get you some wine.”
Regis shook his head, trying to remember what was needed. What had Linnea said? Not wine. “Food, I think. Something sweet.”
Regis slumped forward, head in his hands. What a weakling he was and what a fool! Silently he cursed his traitor body for collapsing just when the people he loved most needed him.
He heard voices, people moving through the room, the door opening and closing. Someone shoved a plate into his hands. It smelled of honeyed pastry. With shaking fingers, he broke off a morsel and chewed it. The sweetness melted over his tongue. Moments later, the trembling eased. He was able to sit up, to focus.
“. . . to see Lord Hastur . . . should we . . .” One of the Guardsmen who had captured Kennard-Dyan stood talking to Gabriel just outside the door.
“Yes,” Gabriel said. “Send her in at once.”
Regis got to his feet. “Send who in?”
A clatter of feet at the top of the stairway drew his attention. The next moment, Linnea came running down the strip of carpet toward him. Her green traveling cloak and the leafy pattern underfoot made her look like a wild creature of the forest. Her hood had fallen back, revealing flushed cheeks.
Regis! Her mind touched his, that light, supple contact he remembered so well.
Linnea, here? Of all the people he could have wished for—
Incredulity melted into relief. Disregarding all propriety, forgetting the audience of Guardsmen and servants, Regis caught her in his arms and buried his face in the auburn tangle of her hair.
16
“How could you come so quickly?” Regis murmured. “How did you know?”
They were sitting together in his private parlor, their chairs drawn up so that her slim fingers could easily rest in his. Within moments of Linnea’s arrival, Regis had ordered the tightest security and the best guest quarters for her party. He had wanted Gabriel himself to stand guard over Kierestelli, but Linnea had insisted on keeping the girl with her. Regis had forgotten or not allowed himself to remember the shimmering beauty of the child, the quickness of her mind, the calm, almost inhuman serenity of those silvery-gray eyes. Kierestelli sat on the carpet beside her mother, long legs tucked with unselfconscious grace beneath her, one hand resting on Linnea’s knee.
She knows more than she reveals, Regis thought with a pang. He too had been forced to set aside his childhood far too early.
Linnea caught his glance. “Would you have her face this world ignorant and unprepared?”
Did she mean a world in which children—and Mikhail was barely more than a boy, although adult in Comyn eyes—were abducted from their own homes? A world in which others could be set aside, consigned without their consent to lives of privation and servitude? A world in which a boy like Felix Lawton, immensely Gifted, could be brought near death by the superstition of a parent?
“I did not know,” Linnea said, returning to his question, “not when I set out from High Windward. I was on my way, almost at the city gates, when your telepathic sending reached me.”
“Then you know what happened?”
“I know that your mind was linked to Danilo’s when he was assaulted. I did not know about Mikhail until I reached the Castle.” She stroked his wrist with a featherlight touch, a Keeper’s touch. “I am so sorry about Danilo. This must be dreadful for you. I will help in any way I can. And with Mikhail’s disappearance as well.”
As she spoke, she lowered her laran shields, opening her mind, inviting his presence. The simplicity and trust of the gesture was more than Regis could bear. The contact of skin on skin intensified his feelings. He pulled his hand away, but gently, so as not to affront her.
“What is to be done?” he asked, heaving himself to his feet. “They have taken everyone in Thendara dear to me. If you had been here—”
“Could I have prevented it?” she said. “Sensed it coming, used my Keeper’s sensitivity to give warning?”
He saw that she had misunderstood his meaning. If you had been here, they would have kidnapped you as well. You and Stelli.
Linnea’s gray eyes widened. Regis sensed her horror, her outrage, and then her dawning recognition. She was one of those most dear to him. In a distracted, emotional moment, he had been able to communicate what he had never been able to say aloud. Her face softened, her heart opening like a rosalys in the sun. From Kierestelli, at her side, came a mental starburst of joy.
It was too much, too intense, all a tangle in his mind. He had to think clearly, to plan, to act decisively. He forced himself to sit down again.
“From the beginning, then. If you did not come to Thendara because of this night’s events—and how could you travel all the way from High Windward in a night?—then what brings you here?”
“It seems foolish to think of personal concerns now,” she said, lowering her gaze for an instant. “I came to set things right between us. We parted so bitterly, I could not let matters rest. Especially when—when I had had a time to consider things other than my own vanity and temper.”
“You are not the only one with a temper,” Regis said.
For a moment, she regarded him with that cool, direct Keeper’s gaze. “No, but I am responsible for what I say and do when I am in the grip of mine. I rejected you so cruelly and sent you on your way without a shred of hope. I acted selfishly as well as rashly.”
Regis thought she was the least selfish person he had ever met, but his tongue had gone inert. He could only hope his admiration for her showed in his eyes. Mentally cursing his clumsiness, he said, “I did you no honor in the manner of my address.”
“That does not excuse my behavior,” she responded. “I thought about—I considered what I was throwing away because, like a spoiled child, I wanted everything. And so I lost much of value, too much. Here in Thendara, I can be both mother and leronis. At home, as you know, my choices are limited. And—and you want to know your children and be a good father to them. How could I deprive them of your care? I decided that I would rather have a life with as much love you can give me than a life without you in it.”
Her voice wavered. She glanced away, blinked hard, then met his gaze again.
I will never ask you to choose. I will only ask you to love me as much as you can.
Carya . . . His fingertips brushed her lips, soft and firm.
Her next words jarred him back to the present moment. “Now Danilo has been seized, dragged away—as prisoner, as hostage? Has a message come? And Mikhail is gone as well.”
“And my brother,” Regis added grimly.
“Your brother?”
He had never seen her so astonished. “My older brother, my father’s son but not my mother’s.” Quickly he told her of his grandfather’s deathbed confession, of the search and discovery, and of the journey to Nevarsin.
“A Hastur cristoforo? This is very strange,” she murmured. “Are you sure he is missing?”
“I think it certain by now. It may be that these three abductions were carried out by different people and for various reasons, but I do not believe it. Not on the same night.”
“Why would anyone want so many hostages?”
Regis glanced down at Kierestelli, who had been following the discussion. How much more could he reveal in front of the child?
“She stays,” Linnea said. “For the moment, anyway. She may have need of this knowledge.”
“Danilo. Mikhail, my heir. Rinaldo, my brother,” Regis ticked off the names on his fingers. “Abductions, not murders. Obviously, whoever is behind this wants them alive. That can mean only that he—or they—aim to force me into some action.”
Linnea’s expression
darkened. “You have never lacked enemies, a hazard of being who and what you are. Is there anyone you suspect? Surely they will contact you with their demands.”
“No doubt they will,” Regis agreed. “But if I can find out who is behind this and what he wants, I will be far better prepared to act when the time comes. Gabriel and his men are scouring the city, but I do not think he will find them. With your help—”
“You have it without asking. What do you want me to do?”
Regis hesitated. Of the three men, his closest bond was with Danilo. Would Linnea agree to contact her rival?
I meant what I said about never asking you to choose! Her thought shimmered in his mind. I do not love Danilo as you do, nor do I think I ever could, but I will do whatever is necessary to protect him for your sake.
Regis closed his eyes, gathering his thoughts. “When Danilo was captured, he was looking for Rinaldo, who had been gone for hours. He searched one of the poorer areas of the city. There he met someone he recognized, a man I think—I hope—who can provide key evidence. I sensed images, bits of speech, emotions, but not enough to identify the other man. It was all too quick. If you could help me to recover those mental impressions—maybe even contact Danilo . . .”
“That would mean submitting yourself to me as your Keeper. Are you willing to do that, Regis? How much do you trust me? With your mind? Your life? With his life?”
With her cool, steady gaze, she measured him. Regis remembered one of the many arguments with his grandfather, when the old man had been pressuring him to marry. He remembered shouting, “When I meet the woman I wish to marry—” and realized he had indeed met her.
“For this, we must be alone.” Linnea bent to the girl at her side. “You understand, chiya preciosa? This is leronis work.”
Gravely the girl got to her feet. Regis did not know how much she had understood, certainly far more than any other child her age. She was too young for her laran to have fully developed, according to what he had been taught, and yet . . .
“With your approval, I will place her in my sister’s care,” Regis said, then to Kierestelli: “You do not yet know your Aunt Javanne, but she is as fierce as a mother cloud leopard.”
Kierestelli giggled.
In only a few minutes, Javanne bustled into the room. She was clearly affected by all that had happened, but she held herself together. An impeccably correct copper butterfly clasp held her hair smoothly coiled on the nape of her neck, and she wore a dark green gown, plainly styled. For moment, Regis thought there was something wrong with her eyes, as if something in her had broken at losing Mikhail a second time, something that might never be mended. Then the moment passed, and Javanne was gathering the little girl with brisk motherly competence.
“It’s past your bedtime, little one. Are you hungry? I’ll have warm honey-milk sent up and then straight to bed with you.”
In her wake, Javanne left a turbulence of psychic currents. Regis had laran enough to feel his sister’s distress even after she had left. The room fell quiet. He took a breath.
Linnea’s back was as straight and poised as a dancer’s. She had been looking down at her folded hands, her eyelids half lowered. Only the slow, controlled rise and fall of her breathing indicated she was not a beautifully carved statue. Her face, shadowed beneath the braided auburn crown, betrayed nothing.
“Are you sure this is safe?” he asked, lowering his gaze to her softly rounded belly.
“I would not have agreed if I had any doubts of my control. It would be better if we had a monitor, but I can manage for a short time without one. I could not do this work regularly, and I will have to rest and clear my channels afterward, but yes, for this great a cause, I can keep our son from harm.”
She lifted her head, and Regis saw the steel in her eyes. When she spoke, her voice rang like a tempered sword, a Keeper’s voice resonant with power. She was no longer the sweet, impulsive girl or the passionate woman, or even the friend so generous with herself and her heart.
“Now we will begin.”
“You have never worked in a matrix circle, I think,” Linnea said.
Regis shook his head. After he had come to terms with the reasons he had suppressed his laran, he had never felt the need to study at a Tower. In any event, it would have been impossible for the Heir to Hastur to shut himself away even if he had wished it.
“Normally, each member of the circle focuses her or his laran through his starstone. The psychoactive crystals amplify psychic energies.” Linnea sounded as if she were lecturing a class of novices, but Regis did not interrupt her. She was not being patronizing; as she spoke, he felt her thoughts spin a subtle web between them.
“The Keeper functions as the centripolar point for the diverse mental patterns. She gathers them, weaves them together, harmonizes them . . . controls them.”
It was the ultimate test of trust to turn one’s mind over to another without reservation, without holding anything back. To become utterly vulnerable. Could he do it for Danilo’s sake? For Mikhail’s? For Rinaldo’s? Regis was willing, but did not know if he could overcome the barriers forged over a lifetime.
One of the servants had stoked the fire, and now the flickering orange light reflected on Linnea’s eyes and burnished her skin with coppery shades.
I have to try, no matter what the price to myself.
“We will begin with your memories of the attack on Danilo,” Linnea said. “I will not alter your mind, I will only clarify what is there. You may already have the answers you seek, and we need not go farther.”
Regis nodded. “What must I do?”
“Take out your starstone and look into it. Let your gaze rest lightly on it.”
Opening the silken pouch from where it hung on a cord around his neck, Regis slipped his starstone into the palm of his hand. The crystal awoke with a shimmer of cool blue light. On contact with his bare skin, it warmed immediately.
“That’s right,” she said, her voice taking on a hypnotic quality. “Follow the patterns of light. Do not force the memory. Simply wish to remember . . . allow it to fill your mind . . .”
Drawing a breath, Regis imagined himself floating on her words, even as his eyes floated on the light. Deeper and deeper he went, until the stone came alive. Patterns of brilliance pulsed within its faceted core.
“Gently now . . .” Linnea’s voice sounded far away, and Regis could not be sure whether he heard it with his ears or his mind.
As the blue light swelled and brightened, he felt the power of the crystal infuse him. The stone filled him with fire.
“Think of Danilo . . . the last contact you had with him . . .” Linnea’s laran caressed his own psychic energy fields, as deft as a feather brushing the breast of a newly tamed hawk . . .
Regis remembered his first view of Dom Felix Syrtis, the stubborn pride of the old man, the dark eyes so like his son’s . . . He drifted with the images.
Danilo standing on a ladder in the apple orchards, wearing a much patched farmer’s smock—
Abruptly, the scene changed. Danilo walking in a darkened street, his figure outlined by lamps to either side. Underfoot, cobblestones gleamed wetly.
Concentrate on the image, Linnea’s thought touched him like spidersilk. Hold it steady . . .
Then he was inside Danilo’s mind, seeing the street through Danilo’s eyes . . . men in fur-lined cloaks, the thin drizzle of rain . . . the smell of wet cobblestones and grime. In his gut, a rising sense of urgency. Thinking, This district isn’t safe for a man alone and unarmed, an innocent with a purse worth the taking. He could just make out the towers of Comyn Castle, glittering above him in the gloom.
“Whatever possessed Rinaldo to wander into this pit?” he muttered.
Peering into shadows, searching . . . Breathing, “Thank the blessed St. Christopher!” as he hurried toward the tavern with its brightly painted sign of stars.
“Dom Danilo Syrtis?”
At the sound of his name, he paused. Instea
d of Rinaldo, grateful to be rescued, he saw it was one of the Ridenow cousins by the green and gold trim of his cloak. Haldred, he thought, but could not be sure. For a moment, it seemed there were more men hiding in the shadows.
“What brings you here alone at this hour, my lord?” Yes, it was Haldred by his voice.
“I am looking for Lord Hastur’s brother, Rinaldo. He has taken it into his head to go sightseeing and went off without an escort. Or even a guide . . .”
“Between ourselves,” Haldred replied, slyness edging his voice, “that loss would not grieve me much.”
Danilo felt a touch of anger that anyone would speak so of any Hastur. “Be that as it may, Dom Haldred, he is one of our own caste. I ask you in all charity and honor to help me. I do not know these streets well.”
“I suppose you are right.” Haldred stepped from the shadows into the pooled light beneath the tavern lanterns. Teeth glinted in a humorless, almost feral grin. “It is indeed my duty to assist you—”
Haldred’s shoulders twisted, then steel whined as he pulled his blade free.
Instinct and training sent Danilo reaching for his own sword. Even as he drew on Haldred, he sensed a second assailant coming at him from behind, and another—
Darkness.
. . . lying on a thinly carpeted floor, by its lack of vile smells not a tavern . . . leather thongs tight around his wrists . . . pain throbbing through his head . . . voices, too distorted to recognize . . . struggling to clear his vision—the huddled forms of two other people. Sleeping? Abducted as he had been—or even—O Blessed Bearer of Burdens, may it not be so!—dead!
. . . more voices . . . Some time must have elapsed, for now there was but one other body. Slender as a youth, flax- pale hair like a golden waterfall—Mikhail?
I was right! Regis thought. They are together! Was the third man Rinaldo? What had the scoundrels done with him?