A House Divided (Astoran Asunder, book 1) (18 page)

"He's never said anything about them?" Kila asked, looking dubious.

Color rose to her cheeks. "No. He thinks me too dim or too oblivious to notice, I expect. They simply appear, there one day. Besides, none of it is ostentatious enough to be noticeable to most."

"You notice," he said, and something about his tone made her feel an absurd sense of pride. Was it admiration she heard?

"I've made it my business to notice many things my House could never dream I notice."

"Evidently." This time, the admiration was unmistakable, and she felt as if she were about to crack wide open.

The way she drank up his praise embarrassed her. Was she so desperate for a compliment? Lach provided her with them in abundance, but his compliments never made her feel this way.

You've known for years that Lach can never have any hope of making you feel the way Kila makes you feel.

Her little girl fancies were mortifying, and if Kila were ever to receive any indication of how she felt, she would be humiliated. He could never see her as anything more than the quirky, strange, wounded child she had been when they had first met. Surely he couldn't.

And even if he could, what did it matter? There could never be anything between them. She could hardly march him to her manor and introduce him to her father. An Enforcer and a foreigner to boot, come to call on Cianne Wyland of House Staerleigh? To say it was unimaginable wasn't overstating things.

She had no romantic notions about running away with him. Life was difficult enough for him as it was. Asking him to take that step with her, even if he could ever feel a fraction of what she felt, was something she could never do to him. His not being a native of Astoran didn't matter to her in the least, but it made him an outcast, and if she were to leave her House to be with him, he would be reviled as having corrupted her. That the truth would bear no resemblance to that characterization wouldn't matter. He would be subject to most of the blame, because no House member would be able to stomach the thought of another member being capable of defiling the House in such an unspeakable manner.

A life with her could be nothing more than a life of exile, and while it was a sacrifice she'd be willing to make, she wouldn't ask it of him. Exile had been forced upon him once already.

It wouldn't be a sacrifice, not for me,
a voice whispered in the back of her mind.
Being with him could never be a sacrifice. Being with him would be a privilege.

He didn't seem to notice her inner turmoil, so perhaps she was better at withholding than she thought, even when she didn't intend to withhold. She didn't know what that said about her.

Obviously deliberating, he rubbed his chin several more times, then came to a decision. "Chief Flim suspects the Houses are up to something."

Shocked, she stared at him in disbelief. "She does?"

The current chief didn't pander to the Houses the way former chiefs had, but as far as Cianne knew the House Staerleigh Elders merely considered her standoffish, not a threat. Were they to find out what Cianne knew, though… Kila's trusting her with the information was an immense leap of faith.

Nodding, he said, "It's why she brought me back to Cearova. She knew I had no loyalty to any of the Houses, and she hoped that the fact that I'm an outsider would help me catch anything she may have missed."

Alarm shot through Cianne, though she did her best to control it. "Have you told her about me?"

"No," he said, meeting her eyes.

Crumpling a bit in relief, she nodded too. "Thank you."

"You're a valuable asset, Miss Wyland. I've no wish to compromise your safety."

How should she feel about that? While she appreciated that he had kept her secret, he made it sound as though he had done so because he wanted to keep pumping her for information. Yet she knew he wasn't like that. Deep down inside, she knew. The man who had shown such kindness and patience couldn't do something so mercenary.

Couldn't he? He's been gone a long time, forced to live in obscurity for years, sent away to a place where he could have had no hope for career advancement. How much might he have changed during those years?

Now Chief Flim has brought him back here to work on her special project, offering him a chance for advancement at last. What do you know of the lengths to which he'd go to secure his position?

Perhaps he wasn't alone in his leap of faith, then.

No. She refused to think that way. She was tired of seeing enemies around every corner. Kila was her friend, she was certain of that. He wanted to protect her just as she wanted to protect him. That they both stood to lose so much was a testament to this fact. They could trust one another and only one another.

Chapter 18

Long after Miss Wyland had left, she occupied Kila's thoughts. They had gone through the dates together and made detailed notes about everything she could remember. She had taken the notes with her when she had left, promising him that she had a secure spot where she could stash them. He didn't doubt it. Everything he had learned about her so far had pointed to her considerable skills at deception. She would have made a minor Obscurist proud.

Despite the cautious side of him that urged him to be careful with her, he believed he had found an ally in her. She knew a great deal about him, but he knew a great deal about her as well. This provided him with leverage, should she do anything that might compromise his position.

The thought was vaguely distasteful. Being cautious made sense, but the thought of hurting her turned his stomach. A part of him still tended to think of her as the young, vulnerable girl he had instinctively protected, but another part of him was aware that she was no longer that girl. She was no fainting maiden in distress either, and he admired her wiles, her stealthy skills, and her quick mind.

Not to mention that hair,
a voice whispered. He remembered the masses of curls she had worn the night of the assembly, contrasted with the tight braids she'd worn tonight. The night of the assembly she'd looked like a lovely lady of means, all soft hair, glowing skin, and floating gown. On this night she had looked every inch the capable spy, her body as tightly coiled as her hair, her stride purposeful, her movements assured. He liked the thought of seeing these two sides of her rather more than he should, and he batted away the annoying voice that wondered which was the real Miss Wyland. They both were, of that he was certain.

I wonder how she would look with her hair down, loose and flowing about her.

That thought was certainly one in which he wouldn't permit himself to indulge. He had business to attend, and attend it he would.

It was late, and if he wasn't careful his lack of sleep would catch up to him, something he couldn't afford to have happen. He forced himself to go to bed in an attempt to get some rest, but he spent hours tossing and turning, thinking about his father's book.

Shock had crashed over him when Miss Wyland had handed it to him. As he had told her, he had been certain the book had been lost. It hadn't occurred to him that she might keep it all these years, nor had he ever imagined he would see it again.

It had been a complicated gift. Watching her struggle with remembering each position and how to transition to it had reminded him of his own youth, of the days he had spent with his father, alone in the forest clearing that his father had declared their secret world. His mother had known about it, of course. She had known everything, and though she had pretended to mind that she had been banned from it, Kila knew she hadn't minded one bit. Laurisha had loved her son and her husband, and seeing the two of them in harmony had been one of the great pleasures of her life.

And Kila and his father had been in harmony, at least then. They had spent hours together, and there had been nothing his father had been unwilling to tell him, nothing he had been unwilling to share. The general assumption had been that Kila would gravitate more toward his mother; after all, they shared a common bond in their Adept gifts. But though he had loved her, his father had been his favorite. Kila had thought everything about his father was wonderful, even some of the things others had seen as his shortcomings. So Sylosh had trouble remaining with a job, had a tendency to get restless and move from one thing to the next. So what? His father's mind was of such a curious bent that of course nothing could satisfy his intellect for long. Kila had found it natural that Sylosh would want to try everything he could, learn everything he could.

Laurisha had tried teaching Kila the deshya, but the truth was she hadn't the talent for it. Somewhat impatient by nature, she had never been able to grasp why what she felt was her clear, succinct instructions failed to make sense to her son. Sylosh had taken over from her, a twinkle in his eye when he had teased his son that they would go to
their
secret spot, away from Laurisha's prying eyes.

Kila hadn't been reluctant to learn the deshya, but having been granted cerebral Adept skills as well as a keen intellect of his own, he had always been more interested in matters of the mind than matters of the body. It was his father who had shown him how the deshya could help him focus, how physical exertion could clear his mind, opening the door for his thoughts to flow freely.

That didn't mean teaching his son had been an easy matter for Sylosh. Kila wasn't naturally in tune with his body like his father had been, and Sylosh had soon realized that his son wasn't likely to catch on to the subtle movements, or to master with ease the strenuous muscle control that the deshya demanded. Relishing the challenge, Sylosh had treated it like a game, trying out technique after technique to help his son, devising riddles and songs and competitive bouts until his burst of insight: since his son showed such a marked preference for books, why not teach him using a book?

Laurisha had been appalled. The deshya was never depicted in books, it simply wasn't done. The form was meant to be passed down from parent to child by way of practicing together, going through the movements in tandem, the parents correcting the child where necessary. The idea of committing it to written record had scandalized her, but Sylosh hadn't been dissuaded. In addition to Kila's love of books, he had been transfixed by his father's drawings, a skill Kila had never been able to master, no matter how he applied himself. Sylosh had known that the combination of the two would be irresistible to his son.

And it was. Within months Kila's form had improved to such an extent that even his mother had grudgingly admitted that perhaps Sylosh had been onto something, and that maybe she should have listened to him. His father had pretended not to hear and had made her repeat herself four times, until all three of them had dissolved into laughter.

For many years Kila had cherished that book, and then it had become an object of pain to him. It was no use denying that when he had given Miss Wyland the book a part of him had hoped it was the last he would see of it. To study those pictures, to let his eyes travel over the attentive lines his father had drawn, to imagine the day his father had given the precious book to him, were memories too painful for him to bear at that time. He had arrived in Cearova with wounds barely scabbed over, and that had been a large part of what had prompted him to take Miss Wyland under his wing. Yes, he had been caring for her, helping her, but she had cared for him and helped him as well, even if she hadn't known it.

Perhaps that's why you're willing to grasp at the possibility that Toran might have been murdered. Perhaps you will never be able to accept that someone would be so selfish as to take their own life, despite all your personal evidence to the contrary.

Rolling over in his bed, Kila refused to let it occupy his thoughts any longer.

When he woke the next morning his mind was buzzing, telling him it had been hard at work during the night, his subconscious busy sorting and storing the information he had gained from Miss Wyland. He had no new insights as of yet, but he had to admit that the manner in which the pieces were beginning to fit together did point at something strange going on within the Houses.

Could
Burl have helped Moiria Stowley and the Staerleigh Elders stage her husband's death as a suicide? The suicide letter could have been a forgery. Were Burl a highly gifted Enforcer, someone with gods-granted skill at noticing the finest of details, replicating handwriting would pose no real challenge for her.

Kila thought again of the handkerchief Miss Wyland had given him, a handkerchief redolent with the stale tang of sophoria. Had the sophoria belonged to Toran Stowley as Moiria had claimed, or had Elder Borean procured a more potent concentrate for her? It would have been a simple matter for Moiria to slip it into her husband's tea and then set the vial on his desk after the fact, lending credence to the claim that he had dosed himself.

It would explain the lack of signs of struggle as well. Toran wouldn't question his wife's bringing him his evening tea, would he? It appeared he had been keeping his suspicions about the House under wraps, which meant he would have had to feign normalcy around his wife. Even if he had suspected her of something, would it have ever entered his mind that she might be capable of murdering him?

The scenario was straightforward and possible, with or without Burl's involvement. Yet House Staerleigh would have known they would be taking a risk, if they had orchestrated Toran's supposed suicide. They would have known that the high-profile nature of the incident would have required Chief Flim's presence. Had they murdered Toran, they would have wanted to ensure that no one would be able to prove that it had been a murder, which made Burl the obvious suspect, as far as collaborators went.