Drakonius.'
'Who wasted no time making it expedient for Galen to work for him,' said Aradia. She sat on the edge of the worktable, facing Lenardo. 'You have learned quickly, now that you are over the blindness your empire instilled in you. You will be a great leader, Lenardo.'
'I was not meant to rule. With every day that passes, I wonder what mistakes I have made.'
'You think I do not? Every conscientious ruler worries, but he acts. I did not know whether you could act, Lenardo. That's why I gave you Zendi. You have proved yourself here.'
'Insulated. Untested.'
'When the test comes, it will be against all of us, and we have passed the test against Drakonius. It will be a long time before anyone will dare attack us. But if we do nothing for long enough, that attack will come.' Again her fingers traced the brand on his arm. 'Lenardo, I don't want to leave you.'
'I don't want you to leave.'
'Then-'
'No. Don't say it. Come here.' He drew her onto his lap, where she leaned against him, her head on his shoulder. 'Aradia, I don't know protocol among Lords Adept, so I've been making up my own rules.'
'You have the right to make the rules in your own land.'
'Then in my land, the right and honorable thing for me to do, because I love you and I want you with me always, is to ask you to marry me. I realize that that will present difficulties. We each have a land to rule, and your people might well object to your forming a permanent alliance with a Reader, and one who has been on this side of the pale less than half a year. Still, I want you to know what I would do if it were possible.'
She was glowing with serene happiness. 'I'm glad you said it first,' she murmured. 'We'll combine our lands and rule jointly. We have the right to set precedents. Lenardo, I was willing to sacrifice some of my powers for you, as my parents did when they married. After that first time, my strength and accuracy were greatly diminished.'
'So were mine,' said Lenardo. 'But later-'
'Yes,' Aradia whispered fiercely, 'later. There is something fated between you and me, foretold in ancient legend. When I woke today, after you had gone, I tested my powers. I removed one of the cobbles from the forum floor and lifted it. I split it, Lenardo, and then I crumbled part of it to powder, and I still felt so strong that I broke off a small piece and disintegrated it.'He recalled what she had said about disintegrating her father's tumor. 'How is it you are not exhausted?'
'I don't know. I have never had such strength. And you?'
'I can Read farther and 'more easily than ever before. I was having difficulty reaching Julia at Wulfston's castle, and then this morning I discovered that without effort I could Read all the way to the sea, I haven't yet dared to try leaving my body. I felt as if I could Read the whole world.'
'Leaving your body? What do you mean?'
'The highest, most difficult form of Reading is to dissociate one's… self… from one's body. I did it the day I first Read Drakonius's stronghold for you. You thought I had fainted, remember?''
She studied his face, and he could feel her trying to Read him. 'No, I don't think you're lying,' she said. 'I'm sure you believe that some sort of separate spirit leaves your body. But if that were possible, legends like that of the ghost-king would be fact, not fairy tale.'
Lenardo considered. 'Was this ghost-king one of your ancestors, Aradia?'
'I'm not joking.'
'Neither am I. Someone like you, both Adept and Reader-'
'No!' She wrenched out of his embrace, shoving hard against his chest as she jumped to her feet. 'No. There cannot be any life separate from the body. The legend of the ghost-king is meant to warn of the folly of such nonsense.'
Reading how upset Aradia was, Lenardo recalled what he knew of savage beliefs. No dieties, no afterlife. 'Life is the greatest value,' Aradia had once told him. She believed that there was nothing more than her physical life; he remembered that the subject was particularly painful to her because her mother had taken her own life, the worst thing a savage could do. He decided that it was best to change the subject.
'You will understand more as your abilities increase. There's nothing to fear, and we have joyful plans to make.'
'Indeed we have. Lenardo, let's not tell anyone yet. I want Wulfston to know first.'
'And Julia.'
'Julia,' Aradia said. 'Oh, my. Do you think she'll accept your marriage?'
'You do see the point precisely. As long as she is assured that she will not be losing me but gaining you, I have no fear that she will object. However, there is the matter of explaining to a literal-minded child my seeming hypocrisy. I told her that Readers never marry.'
'In the Aventine Empire,' said Aradia. 'And most Readers are married off, if I understand the system, to produce new Readers. What seems wrong, though, is that only second-rate Readers reproduce; where do Readers like you come from?'
'My parents were, as you put it, second-rate Readers. I don't remember them very well.'
'Has there never been an instance of two Master Readers having a child?'
'Male and female Readers are rigorously segregated.'
'But you Read each other.'
'Yes.'
She put her hand along the side of his face. Ill fell in love with you before I could Read you, but now there is so much more. Lenardo, how can man and woman touch minds like this and not desire to join bodies?//
//They do. That is why the marriages arranged for those who do not reach the top ranks of Readers are generally successful. But for those who remain in the Academies, the mental union with other Readers far more than suffices for physical touch. Aradia, you need not touch me now.//
Ill want to touch you!// Her fingers slid into his hair, and she bent to kiss his mouth possessively. Fire stirred in his veins, and she laughed. //You see? You excite me, Lenardo, and now it will be even more exciting to touch, to make love-//
Passion threatened to overwhelm his control, but he forced common sense to prevail. 'I love you, Aradia,' he said aloud, 'but I don't think we want to announce our intentions to the world by having Helmuth or Arkus walk in on us like this.'
'Very well, then,' she said wistfully. 'Later.'
But later, although she moved into Lenardo's room and into his bed, Aradia did not want to make love. Now that she was open to Reading, Lenardo knew that it was not teasing, that she wanted him but felt compelled to wait. He could not find the reason without invading her privacy, but he sensed that she was waiting for something she both feared and longed for.
But when he tried to ask her about it, she avoided the subject, again demanding that he try to exercise Adept power. ' 'Fire talent is the most common and the easiest of all even for the Lord Adept,' she told him. But although he tried to 'cooperate and then at her insistence tried to make the silken hangings move, all he achieved was a tension headache. He wondered idly if that was what she had intended.
Three days later, Julia arrived home with Wulfston. When Lenardo lifted his daughter down from her horse, he did not resist her embrace but squeezed her in return, enjoying her happy surprise at his leniency. He could feel her trying to Read him, knowing that something important had happened while she was away.
Wulfston, too, was brimming with curiosity. As soon as they were all together in Lenardo's room, he demanded, 'Now, what scheme are you two plotting?'
'No scheme,' Aradia replied. 'Just happy plans.'
Wulfston looked from one to the other and said, 'I think I can guess.'
'In the Aventine Empire,' said Lenardo, 'I would have to ask your permission, Wulfston, as Aradia's nearest male kin. Here, however, Aradia is her own mistress.'
The black man nodded. 'I've been expecting as much ever since fate dropped a man of appropriate age and endowments into Aradia's path. In fact, I feared this very development at first. Aradia, are you certain?'
'I'm certain. Lenardo and I have agreed to marry, unite our lands, and rule jointly. We wanted you and Julia to be the first to know.'
Julia was wide-eyed. 'But Father, you said-'
