The Traitor Queen

—There could be some interesting advantages in having someone around who knows when you want something.

He rolled his eyes.

—How about we stop thinking of ways you can order me around and work out what to do about Kalia.

Her smile faded.

—We have to tell Savara.

—Can we do that without revealing my new ability to her? Can we just tell her that we overheard Kalia speaking?

—Lie to Savara? I can’t do that. Besides, she’ll want to know who Kalia was talking to.

—Not lie, avoid telling more than we have to for now. We’ll say she was talking to herself.

—Kalia debating betrayal aloud? She isn’t that stupid. Savara is going to need proof if she’s to deal with Kalia.

—Then she’ll have to prove to everyone that I can do this and that my word can be trusted. Kalia will point out that I’ve kept a secret from them all and say it’s proof I’m a spy.

Savara let out a little sigh of frustration. Lorkin took her hand and squeezed it.

—At least we know Kalia is planning something. We can keep an eye on her. Wait until she makes her move, then stop her.

—That’s not going to look good. Savara will be angry that we didn’t warn her. Kalia will claim we set her up. No. We have to tell Savara. I can’t see any other way. But I don’t think she’ll tell anyone else. It will make people distrust you, and that will cause too many problems for us right now.

Lorkin thought of his mother’s warning, then sighed.

—I hope you’re right. When do you want to do it?

—Now. It’s our best chance of getting her alone.

As Tyvara stood up Lorkin followed suit. He resisted looking over to Kalia as they crept out of the room. I hope I’m not going to regret this.

Savara was in the kitchen, sitting at a long wooden table with two of the estate’s former slaves. She sent the women away, invited him and Tyvara to sit opposite her, then listened as Tyvara explained what Lorkin had heard from Kalia. Savara’s gaze fixed on Lorkin, her eyes slowly narrowing.

“So,” she said in a quiet but slightly clipped tone, “what else haven’t you told us, Lorkin?”

Lorkin immediately thought of the slave girl. He winced, then instantly regretted it. He felt Tyvara move away from him, and turned to see her staring at him.

“There’s something else?”

He looked from her to Savara. In unison, the two women crossed their arms and fixed him with a stare of expectation. It would have been funny, if he wasn’t facing an admission he’d been dreading.

He dropped his gaze to the table, took a deep breath and forced the words out from where he’d locked them away. “When I was in the prison, they tortured a slave girl to see if it would make me speak. I... I gave her water I knew was poisoned. It had the warning glyphs you said to watch for. I thought she was a Traitor and knew what she was doing.”

He heard Tyvara’s indrawn breath, but could not bring himself to look up and see if it was from horror at what he’d done, or sympathy.

“You want to know if she was a Traitor,” Savara said.

He made himself meet her eyes. “Yes.”

“You know it won’t make a difference.”

He shrugged. “But I won’t be wondering any more.”

She sighed and shook her head. “She was not, as far as I know. You made a hard and terrible choice, and one you can never know was right or wrong.” Savara reached across the table, took his hand and squeezed it.

“Our spies make these choices all the time,” Tyvara told him. “We can hardly hold it against you.”

Savara let go of his hand and smiled. “Anything else you wish to confess?” she asked lightly.

He thought of the stone he was carrying. Either I reveal what I know now, or never confront them with the truth. If the Traitors find out later that I’ve learned about it, and that the Guild has discovered their secret, they will be angry. And with Kalia trying to make them mistrust me, and Savara now having reason to worry about me because of my ability to read surface thoughts...

“You’re not actually looking for things to confess, are you?” Tyvara asked, shaking her head.

“Not exactly,” he said. He turned to Savara. “There are going to be things I won’t want to tell you. Things about the Guild. I may not be a Guild magician any more, but I don’t want to make them my enemy, either. Or yours.”

Savara nodded. “I understand.”

“I also don’t want to bring about harm to the Traitors from not having told you something.”

“I’m pleased to hear it.”

He reached into his pocket and brought out the stone from the wasteland. As he placed it on the table in front of Savara her expression changed to dismay.

“Ah.”

He looked at Tyvara. She looked a little sheepish, he was glad to see.

“Mother gave it to me,” he told them.

Tyvara cursed.

“Indeed,” Savara agreed. “But we’ve been very lucky that nobody worked out what they were before now. We’d be even more so if what our predecessors did was never discovered.” She looked up at him. “You understand why they did, don’t you?”

“To do what the Guild was accused of: ruin the land to keep Sachaka weak.”

She nodded. “Not permanently. It will recover.”

“And you’ll get the credit for restoring it.”

She reached out to take the stone. “Now that the Guild knows, I doubt we will.” She placed her elbows on the table and rested her chin on her hands. “In the long term, it won’t matter. We will win, repair the damage and be forgiven, or we will lose and the Ashaki will do it and we’ll be forever hated. The land will be restored either way.”

“So what do we do about Kalia?” Tyvara asked. “Can we lure her into making her move?”

Savara straightened. “No. If we do she’ll claim we set her up, by taking advantage of her doubts. We do nothing.”

“But...”

The queen looked up at Tyvara. “Don’t think that I’ll ignore her, or trust her.” She shook her head and sighed. “When offering a person a chance at redemption, you can’t force them to take it.”

“And Lorkin’s ability?”

“Tell nobody of that, either. The Traitors are tolerant, but this will stretch their trust too far.” She stood up. “Halana is always telling me I need guards. I choose you two. You’ll have to stay close to me at all times, even sleep nearby, but at least you can keep an eye on Kalia when my attention has to be elsewhere.”

Tyvara smiled. “You know I’d be the first to offer. And you know we’ll be good company as well.”

“Yes.” Savara sighed, then she looked at Lorkin and narrowed her eyes. “No reading my surface thoughts, though.”

He shook his head. “I would never dream of it.”

* * *

As more pages broke from the spine of the old record, Dannyl sighed. He really ought to leave it be, but he