Chapter 21 #2
She also didn’t want anything that could tie her to Jevryn readily apparent.
With Jevryn’s home planet gone, and the Salyrian race along with it, the magic of A-Queltr only existed within the A-Morridahn family.
She couldn’t afford the risk that the councilor within was sensitive enough to magic to recognize the distinct feel of Salyrian death magic and realize exactly who she had to be.
All her life, Nyx had buried that part of herself so deeply she hadn’t even known she had it.
More importantly, even Jevryn hadn’t been able to recognize she possessed it until she actively used it.
So instead of reaching for A-Queltr, she buried it.
On her hip, Alihana sent a flicker of portal magic over her wrist, requesting her attention.
She couldn’t simply grasp the hilt without giving away the fact that the Hidden sword was there, so shoved her hand into her pocket so the bare skin of her arm, trapped between her side and the sword’s hilt, made contact with the latter.
Knowing what they wanted, she thought of what she'd gleaned from Kaliaris's senses, so they could skim it and understand the situation they were walking into for themself.
Do you know which councilor it is? she asked silently.
I have nothing by which to determine this, at present. Remain in contact with me.
Then she was out of time for further conversation, because the Station door was in front of her and she couldn’t delay walking through it without alerting the person watching through the cafe window that she knew something was off.
As it was, she had to have the Station kick up a breeze to catch the front door to explain why it stayed open long enough for the others to walk through unseen.
She walked in, stopping short when she saw the five people waiting, hoping her nervousness translated as the surprise she would have felt coming back from Earth Between to find them there under ordinary circumstances.
“Oh, I’m sorry, we don’t usually allow people behind the counter. Did my Avatar not offer to help you?”
Councilor Loclyn, Alihana said into her mind, and four of his Devoted.
Loclyn studied her silently. He was a man of harsh features, his cheekbones and jawline seeming rough-hewn from unyielding granite. He was the oldest of the councilors she’d seen—she would guess he’d been in his mid-fifties before he’d stopped aging.
Devoted? she asked. The four surrounding him were no easier to read than he was.
A Livkai, male by the rings of black scales on his tail, a Siren woman in her mid-thirties, and two base Humans who looked like siblings in their late teens, their eyes void of irises, white orbs flecked with silver and gold.
If a person is interesting or pleasing enough to him, Loclyn collects them, Alihana answered. They are granted a lengthened lifespan from living in his Station, in return for utter devotion. This extended life lasts until he tires of them, or until someone kills them. He is an energy mage.
Okay, she had dealt with an energy mage before.
Yes, it had been precisely once, and it had been Maruca, who hadn’t actually wanted to kill her—she didn’t think—but it wasn’t as if she had no experience with it.
She wanted to warn Kaden, Morgen, and Tristen, but she had no way of doing that without revealing to Loclyn that they were present.
Besides which, Kaden and Morgen probably knew each of the councilors on sight anyway, and the name—or the energy mage designation—likely wouldn’t mean anything to Tristen.
Entering A-Queltr can provide a barrier to his power, should it prove necessary, Alihana whispered in her mind, but while your father could possibly, with extreme effort, kill him via it, it is unlikely you could.
Loclyn’s own magic provides a shield against the ability.
He is connected to all his Devoted, and can pull from them to fuel it.
You are unlikely to outlast him without becoming lost to death yourself.
So A-Queltr would protect her, but it wouldn’t let her kill him. If it came to a fight, losing her connection to the Station to enter A-Queltr wouldn’t be her best option. Isolating him in part of the Station after Tristen had cut Loclyn’s connection to it would.
Loclyn still hadn’t answered her, so Nyx snapped her fingers at him, because she was certain it was something no one in their right mind would ever do to a councilor if they recognized them as such. “I don’t mean to be rude, but as I said, non-Station personnel aren’t allowed behind the counter.”
Loclyn folded his arms across his chest. “Am I expected to believe you have no idea who I am?”
“Am I supposed to know who you are?”
He made a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat. “Councilor Loclyn.”
She laughed. “If you’re going to impersonate a councilor, you could at least pick the one who oversees my Station.” She pointed to the cafe exit. “The door is that way.”
He pulled on her Station. It wasn’t much—a little nudge that had the floor rippling to push her off balance—and it was everything she could do not to instinctively counter it and give away every ability she wasn’t supposed to have. She stumbled forward, coming far closer to him than she preferred.
“Does that clarify the issue of my identity?” Loclyn asked.
“My apologies, Councilor,” she said grudgingly. “To what do I owe the honor of your visit?”
“Do you know how long you have been gone from this Station?”
“Do you know how few visitors Earth gets? I have more than enough free time to spend in Earth Between,” she replied, wishing she had any idea how long he thought she’d been gone.
How long he’d been waiting. While she didn’t think he’d been standing in the cafe for days, watching for her to return, she could very easily see him leaving his lackeys to do just that and summon him as soon as they noticed her.
She felt a pull on her connection to Kaliaris and opened the channel between them.
They couldn’t affect much of the physical reality of the Station without her actively directing it, but they were getting better at working through her.
A clock appeared on the wall behind Loclyn.
Its hands marked seven, then spun backward.
She counted the hours. Twelve. Sixteen. Nineteen.
Shit. Loclyn had been here for nearly a day.
“And you have been there the entire time you have been gone? In that town?” He sank enough disdain into the last word to make it clear he viewed the city of Earth Between as something more akin to a hovel.
You are dumb and flighty and spoiled, she told herself, because projecting that felt like the safest option for convincing him that, yes, she had just been on vacation. “Look, is this about me not being in the Station? Did someone complain because they couldn’t buy books or coffee or something?
“Because that’s ridiculous. My Avatar can do that. I didn’t have any Arrivals and it’s boring here. So what if I wanted to stay in town for a few days? Is that a crime?”
Loclyn studied her. “If you were truly in town, no.”
She frowned, trying to look like it was a weird question. “I can’t go anywhere else.”
“Can you not?” His gaze roved over her. At first, she didn’t know what he was looking for, and once she did, she knew she was in trouble.
The Hiding over her portal magic bracelets required a sudden influx of power to maintain.
He didn’t know she had them, as was evidenced by the fact her Hiding strained but didn’t break, but that he was looking for them at all meant she was well and truly fucked.
She tried anyway. “Look,” she said, “I appreciate that you’re kind of my boss, I guess? But this is really weird, and since I haven’t broken any rules, maybe you could just get to the point?”
He shrugged. “If you wish.”
He nodded to the siblings with with the iris-less eyes. Those strange orbs fixated on her. Their magic unfurled, reaching for her. She wanted to run, or throw up A-Queltr as a shield. But she couldn’t do either of those things without giving away that she had something to hide.
The siblings’ magic washed over her. It felt like promise and opportunity, like if she just opened her mind to them, they would show her all the things she had not yet even decided to do.
Their magic whispered promises. It could show her so much, so many things about herself she didn’t yet know.
It could show her the future. Everything that would happen to her, everything that would be.
All she had to do was let it in. To show it everything that she was, everything that she had been, so it could know where life would take her.
She wavered. The promise was intoxicating.
She wanted the surety offered, the certainty of knowing that she would succeed, that her friends would live, that her fathers would live.
Yes. Let us in, and we will tell you.
A hand, large and warm and rough, covered the nape of her neck. Warm breath landed softly on her ear as someone whispered, “They can’t show you anything that’s real, Nyx. Anything they’re offering you is a lie.”
Kaden. The voice, the hand, the breath—it all belonged to Kaden—and it grounded her. The magic whispering in her mind didn’t want to show her her future—it wanted to take her past so it could give it to Loclyn. She could not let that happen.
She shook herself like a dog and Kaden’s hand fell away as she came fully out of the grip of the siblings’ magic. She glared at them, her voice descending into ice. “Don’t do that again.”
Loclyn leaned forward, excitement in his eyes. “There it is. That disdain, so like his. And to think I doubted it could be true.”
Nyx’s body went rigid, but she forced her voice to remain calm. “What are you talking about?”
“Jevryn A-Morridahn has a daughter.”
Her expression must have given her away, because he laughed, a low sound like rocks tumbling over each other.
“How did you find out?” she asked. Could others find out the same way? Had he told anyone else?