The Silver Gryphon

it for granted that Amberdrake would know everyone of any importance at all in White Gryphon. She hadn’t known any reason why he shouldn’t. But as she gradually became aware just what her father’s avocation really entailed, she gained a dim understanding that the knowledge Amberdrake possessed was extraordinarily intimate.

Finally, one day it all fell together. She put the man together with the definition of kestra’chern and had a moment of blinding and appalling revelation.

Not only did her father know everyone of any importance, he also knew the tiniest details about them—every motive, every desire, every dream and indecision. Details like that, she felt deep in her heart, no person should ever know about another. Such secrets gave the one who held them too much power over the other, and that would weigh as an unimaginable responsibility.

Not that Father would ever use that power. . . .

Or would he? If he had a chance to manipulate someone for a cause he thought was right, wouldn’t he be tempted to do just that? And wouldn’t the fear of having such secrets revealed to others be enough to make almost anyone agree to something that Amberdrake wanted?

She had never once seen any indications that Amberdrake had given in to the temptation to use his tacit power—but he was her father, and she knew that she was prejudiced on his behalf. For that matter, she was not certain she would know what to look for if he had misused his powers.

Oh, it’s not likely. Father would never do anything to harm anyone, if only because he is an Empath and would feel their emotional distress.

She ought to know; she was something of an Em-path herself, although in her case, she got nothing unless she was touching the person in question.

That was one of the reasons why Amberdrake was so confounded by the idea that she wanted to be a Silver. How could an Empath ever choose to go into a profession where she might have to kill or injure someone?

Easily enough. It’s to prevent the people I must take care of from killing or injuring others.

He would never accept that, just as he would never accept the idea that she would not want to use her Empathic ability.

She shuddered at the very idea. He knows every nasty little secret, every hidden fear, every deep need, every longing and every desire of every client he has ever dealt with. How he manages to hold all those things inside without going mad—I cannot fathom it. And that he actually wants to know these things—I could never do that, never. It makes my skin crawl. I don’t want to know anyone that intimately. It would be like having every layer of my skin peeled off—or doing it to someone else over and over.

She loved her father and mother, she knew they were wonderful, admirable people, and yet sometimes the things that they did made her a little sick inside. All a Silver ever had to do was stop a fight, or break some bones once in a while, and apply force when words didn’t work. That was just flesh, and flesh would heal even if it was shredded and bleeding—it wasn’t as serious as getting into someone’s heart and digging around.

From that moment of understanding of who and what her father was, she had been terrified that people would simply assume that she was like him— that she wanted to be like him. Her greatest fear had been that they would take it for granted that she would cheerfully listen while they bared their souls to her—

Gods. No. Anything but that.

For a while, until the Healers taught her how to control her Empathic ability, she had even shied away from touching other people, lest she learn more than she wished to. Even after she had learned to block out what she did not want to know, she had been absolutely fanatic about her own privacy.

At least as much as I can be while I still live with my parents.

She kept her thoughts strictly to herself just as much as she could; never confided anything about the things she considered hers alone. Even affairs of love or desire.

Especially matters of love and desire.

By now she wondered if both her parents thought she was a changeling. Here were two people who knew everything there was to know about the physical, and yet their daughter appeared to be as sexless as a vowed virgin.

She had made up her mind that she was not even going to give her father and mother the faintest of hints that she might have an interest in partnering anyone or anything. Unfortunately, they would not have been taken aback by any liaison she cared to make. They were, in fact, all too assiduous at suggesting possible partners, and would have been cheerfully pleased to offer volumes of advice on approach and technique once she even hinted at a choice!