The Sept Son’s dark eyes found my face and I could feel his gentle probing of my thoughts. I ConProped without hesitation, my talent-related senses went blind, but I didn’t need them to recognize the astonished look on his face. I opened up my senses again.
“She also can tell when others are sending and receiving,” Errol pointed out.
“She reads intents, emotions, and reactions,” Selwyn offered.
Seeing that he was going to need a physical demonstration, Errol prompted me. “Show him.”
I spoke. “Renato is about to knock on the study door and he intends to be heard.”
A loud pounding on the door proved my point. The Sept Son crossed to it and flung it open. Renato stood there frowning like a gold-flecked thunder cloud. He opened up his mouth, but the Sept Son raised a hand and stalled him. Turning to Errol, he asked, “Are you going to tell me next that she can inform me what he is going to say?”
“No, Ilias,” Errol retorted.
“What is wrong with you?” Selwyn demanded. Anger rolled off of him in waves.
The Sept Son turned on his brother as the swells broke around him. An answering emotion snapped in his brown eyes, and he clenched his fists as he struggled to control the well of frustration and indignation that filled his being. His energy was rising with the flood. I tentatively touched my own amoveo and spread my energy in a thin barrier around him. Perhaps it was presumptuous, but I didn’t want him hurting anyone.
“What is so difficult about taking her with you?” Selwyn asked.
Closing his eyes, the Sept Son leaned his head back a moment before answering. “I have watched six men die in my place in the past two years. I am dangerous to be around. If I take her with me and train her as you ask, she will have to be with me all the time. I cannot watch over her wellbeing and concentrate on my work. All it will take is one distracted moment and she will die, or worse, the Elitists will get to her and tear her mind to shreds. Meanwhile I shall have that guilt resting on my shoulders, another death on my conscience. She is safer here.”
Errol rose and came around the desk to stand before the Sept Son. “The man I knew would have never made that speech. The Almighty chose when it was time for those men to die and why. He alone decides when Zezilia, you, or I shall breathe our last breath and nothing that you and I do will change that.” Raising his hands to his face, Ilias sank into a nearby chair. Errol’s voice grew softer. “Stop acting like you are in control, Ilias. You are not. The Almighty is. Start living like He has a plan.”
“How long has he been like this?” Selwyn asked Renato.
I turned my attention to my brother, fighting through the storm coming from the Sept Son and reaching out to sense him.
“It has been about a month. Ever since the death of his latest defender bodyguard, he has been more tense.”
Errol nodded. “Always a sign that something is going on. Renato, could you take Zezilia out? I am sure that the two of you have a great deal to talk about. This is going to take a while to work out.”
Renato looked over at me and then worriedly at the silent form of the Sept Son. “I guess that answers my question. We will be staying the night.”
“Yes, and perhaps a few after tonight. He is not leaving without her, and it is going to take time to convince him.”
“Come Zez,” Renato extended a hand toward me.
As I passed the Sept Son on my way out, I brushed the edge of the black clouds of acute pain shrouding his mind. Please open his heart to Your words again, Almighty. He is in such agony.
Hadrian
MONTHS OF PAIN PRESSED against my eyes, throbbed in my temples, and ached in my chest. This was not what I had come here for, but it seemed to be in the Almighty’s will. Errol was right, as he usually was. For months I had been struggling with feelings of guilt. This job was too big for me, the work too difficult; the torture of watching good men die in my place left me swinging between anger and depression.
“So, when did this truly begin?” Errol asked.
“When Lorne died.” I lifted my head and regarded him over my folded hands. “I realized what the Elitists were capable of doing to another being. Immediately we began taking precautions, closing off the compound and giving Renato, Tristan, and the other aides bodyguards. Everyone watched everyone else day and night.”
“But it didn’t work.” Selwyn’s voice hinted at the foolishness of the hope that it would.
I closed my eyes against the sight of Blandone’s slack face. “Blandone appeared with his pregnant wife and I became angry. How could the Almighty do this to him? How could He allow Blan’s mind to be razed, leaving so little behind? He wasn’t even a shadow of what he had been.”
“We do not understand the workings of the Almighty’s plan.” Errol’s voice repeated the very thing that I had told Renato that day. My words were just that, words. Somewhere, elusively flickering in the depths, there was the faith that gave them value, but for months it had slipped through my fingers. I highly doubted that one session with Errol would whip it back into my grasp.
“He was so gone that he didn’t even know that his wife was going to have their child, Errol. It took two months of work to bring back the memory of their marriage. After that, he has no recollection of their life together. They wiped
