A shiver ran down her spine.
:What do you mean?
:You were already a powerful sorceress when you joined the Circlians. I saw the potential in you long before that. Doesn’t it seem odd to you that the other White were not given this ability?
:Yes, but they weren’t meant to go to Si.
:Weren’t they? You discovered your ability yourself. If the gods meant you to have it in order to befriend the Siyee, wouldn’t they have given it to you in a ceremony, with great fanfare, so that people adored them for it?
:But if Juran is more Gifted than me then surely he could learn it.
:Did you try to teach him?
She paused. Juran’s efforts had come to nothing.
:But that would make me more Gifted - stronger - than him!
:Not if the gods are holding you back. They put you in third place, but since you started showing signs of growing beyond the limits of your position they’ve had to suppress you.
:How do you know this! she demanded.
:I don’t. I am guessing. But I do know that you are stronger than you think. Stronger than the gods intended you to be. I felt it the day you tried to kill me.
Auraya felt a stab of frustration.
:You haven’t answered my question: What circumstances will stop me teaching others your healing Gift?
He paused before answering.
:Only powerfully Gifted sorcerers will be able to learn it. Perhaps your fellow White can, perhaps not.
She felt her heart sink. There would be no priests or Siyee returning to fight Hearteater.
:What other circumstances are there?
:Did I say there were more?
:You spoke in plurals.
:So I did. There is this: if you did manage to find someone Gifted enough to learn my healing method, the gods may have them killed. Remember that Huan said it was forbidden.
:Why?
:That I cannot tell you.
:Cannot or will not?
:Will not.
:Why not?
:I can’t tell you that either.
She felt her frustration growing and took a deep breath.
:So why don’t they kill me?
:You’re a White.
:So if I wasn’t, they’d kill me?
:Yes. Or maybe not. It depends if you’re speaking of yourself before you were a White or not. If before, then yes.
:And if I were a former White, no?
:I’m not sure. Are you thinking of quitting?
She paused, knowing he would sense the lie if she denied it.
:Because if you are, he continued, the gods might be so angry that they’ll kill you anyway. Not that they’d find it easy to kill someone so powerful. You might escape them. But I know what it’s like to be hunted and despised by the gods. You don’t want that life, Auraya.
:No, she said. I have no intention of making myself an enemy of the gods. Thank you for answering my question, Mirar, even if not fully.
:I answered it as fully as you answered mine, he replied. Good luck.
As he broke the link she sighed. He is too shrewd. But shrewd or not, he doesn’t know everything.
He also knew much that she didn’t. She had learned a few things from their conversation, though she had to consider if his claims were true. It was unlikely she would get much sleep before morning.
Yet by the time Mischief leapt softly onto the bed and curled up beside her, she had made the journey from waking to slumber.
Stepping into her sleeping pool, Imi splashed her body. She sighed with relief as the cool water soothed her skin.
How does father do it? He listened as that merchant droned on for hours and hours, and all the weaver woman did was whine and complain.
When Imi had asked her father if she could sit with him as he dealt with the requests, protests and reports people brought to him, he had agreed, but only if she stayed there as long as he did. She soon discovered that he spent many more hours there every day than she had expected, and that most of the time it was utterly boring.
But she suspected her father had insisted she must stay the whole time so that she would lose interest and leave him be. He was testing her resolve. Or perhaps he simply wanted her to begin learning how to run the kingdom. That thought filled her with both fear and anticipation. And sadness, because the day she took charge of Borra would be the day her father died.
Her resolve hadn’t broken and her determination had finally been rewarded. She had realized that many traders and warriors, and even some of the courtiers, would have much to gain from a treaty with the Pentadrians, and she had pointed these reasons out to her father whenever he asked what she had thought of a visitor. When her father had decided to send the messenger to the Pentadrians, her heart had sung with victory.
Now that she’d had time to think, doubts had begun to weaken her confidence. Imi stepped out of the pool and began to pace the room.
What if the Pentadrians did prove untrustworthy? What if they came back and forced their way into the city somehow? What if her people were killed, and it was all her fault?
Imenja would never allow it, she told herself. She’s a good person. And powerfully Gifted. Nobody would dare disobey her.
When Imi was not worried about the future she had set in motion for her people, she worried if it would come about at all. The Pentadrians might not agree to the restrictions her father had placed on them. They might decide that the Elai had nothing worth trading, or that the Elai were too weak to be useful allies.
Even if that is true, even if the alliance doesn’t happen, things have changed for us.
She remembered the bright light in the eyes of the warriors who had sunk the raider ship. Father won’t easily stop them trying that again. Or trying out other ways to harm the raiders. He can order them not to, but they won’t like it. She frowned. Is that the only reason he sent the messenger? Is he afraid people will resent him, or even turn against him, if he refuses them this chance to strike back? Did he feel he had no choice?
Is that my fault?
No, she told herself. Even if he thinks he has to give in to the warriors, he doesn’t have to involve the Pentadrians at all. We don’t need them in order to fight the raiders.
But if the raiders proved too powerful an enemy, the Elai will need an ally like the Pentadrians to help them.
If this. If that. So many ifs.
From the door came a knock. She watched as Teiti emerged from her room to answer it. As Rissi stepped past Imi’s aunt she sighed with relief.
“Hello, Princess.”
