A Lonely Magic (31 page)

Her brother.

A flush of heat raced through Fen’s body followed by a wave of cold. The pounding of her heart in her ears was so loud that all other sound in the room was drowned out—the muted noise from the observers above, the gentle murmur of the flowing water, the immediately objecting voices of the other council members.

No way.

It was impossible.

But as her eyes met his, her mouth went dry.

The first time they’d met, she’d thought he looked familiar, as if she’d seen him before. And that was why.

He looked like their mother.

Had he known?

When he tried to kill her, had he known she was his sister?

“Dearest, all will be well. You need not fear.” Gaelith took hold of her hand, clasping it tightly. “We shall allow no harm to come to you.”

Fen couldn’t speak. Her eyes were locked on Malik’s. He wore a small, ironic smile. She wanted to glare at him but her lips were quivering and she couldn’t muster it. Instead, she pressed them together.

Her brother.

She’d found her brother. And he was a murderous asshole.

God, that sucked.

From behind her, Fen heard Luke’s raised voice. “Check the damn rules. They mentioned me. That means I’m allowed on the floor.” A mumble from the guard by the door. “All right, not by name, but close enough, Piripi. Don’t be an ass.”

Fen would have turned but her muscles weren’t working. Her bones felt stiff, frozen into immobility. If their mom had been around, her brother would have been in big trouble. She would have kicked his butt.

Luke bounded up to the bridge and skidded to a halt next to her. He took her free hand. “Don’t worry,” he told her, his voice urgent. “They shall never give your care into the hands of the Val Kyr.”

Her care?

A simmer of annoyance started to break through the cold encasing her.

Three years she’d been taking care of herself in Chicago, three solid years during which the government of the good old U. S. of A. had not considered it incumbent upon themselves to lock her up for her own protection.

She fed herself, she clothed herself, she paid her rent, she managed just fine. And without magic to give her a hand.

She didn’t need anyone to care for her.

Gaelith, her voice so soft that no one beyond the three of them could possibly hear it, said, “He must know the Council will not support his claim. So why did he declare the relationship?” She stared at Malik, her eyes narrowed, her frown speculative.

“Does it matter?” Luke asked.

“It does,” Gaelith said, reproof in her voice. “Politics, Luken. Such moments always matter.”

“I loathe politics,” Luke said, his fingers tightening on Fen’s.

Fen clutched Luke’s hand. “They were talking about exiling you.”

He squeezed hers in answer. “It is the penalty. I knew that. I will pay it if I must.”

“It’s bullshit,” Fen snapped. “To lose your home, your family? To never see your mother again? That sucks and don’t pretend it doesn’t.”

Luke paused, looking troubled. “I suppose I had not fully contemplated the extent of the loss. But Kaio would never abandon me to the surface. I would not be alone.”

Gaelith turned her head and gazed at him. “I should miss you greatly,” she said quietly. “But the Council was distracted at a key moment.”

“What do you mean?” Fen asked.

Gaelith nodded back toward the inner chamber. Lips barely moving, she spoke so softly that Fen had to strain to hear her. “Malik distracted them. They have forgotten all about Luke now in their passion over your care.”

Fen frowned.

“Not deliberately,” Luke said with doubt. “Why would he?”

Gaelith opened her free hand. “I can think of no other reason to choose that moment to speak. He interrupted a debate that might have ended with the Great Council determining to exile you. Under the binding, if they had also demanded shunning, even Kaio would have been hard-pressed to help you.”

Luke swallowed. “I would manage.”

Fen lifted her chin. She tried to picture sharing her tiny apartment with Luke. It would be crowded. But if he was forced to leave, she was leaving with him. The hell with the Sia Marans. What could they do to her anyway?

Uh, kill you
, a tiny voice in the back of her head reminded her.
Remember that binding ceremony? You agreed to die if you disobeyed them.

Fen looked back at the council.

The woman from Ys Ker, Riana, was complaining. “Why this haste, Selene? We have not yet investigated these allegations against the Val Kyr. To sever the ties of blood is an extreme decision. Shall we not spend some time in contemplation of the evidence?”

“We have other priorities at this council,” Cyntha Del Mar said, leaning forward. “This is a matter that must be adjudicated and put aside as swiftly as possible so that we may focus on the news from the surface.”

Behind her back, Kaio looked grim, his teeth so clenched that Fen could see the muscles in his jaw.

Fen felt her heart sinking.

The look on Kaio’s face said bad shit was underway.

The woman from Lan Tis said, “So, resolved: for her own safety, the custody of the minor child, identified as Felicia Elizabeth, House Naylor of Wai Pa, shall not, at this time, be granted to any of Val Kyr, regardless of blood relationship.”

Great.

They were making resolutions about her.

Malik glared at her.

Damn, why had he gotten all the good genes? She was nowhere near as pretty as him. She glared back at him, narrowing her eyes.

Bastard.

She half-wanted to touch her crystal and see if he could receive that message if she yelled it loudly enough. But no, Luke had said that none of the Val Kyr on the island had heard her speak through her crystal.

Except… she and Malik, they had the same genes.

Same gene pool.

And Elfie had told her, Gaelith, too, that the persuasions—their term for the different types of magic skills—were genetically-based. Had she truly gotten all the magic ability while he got all the looks?

“Gaelith,” she said slowly, her eyes still on Malik. “What were you saying about his timing?”

He’d tilted his head at her, like he was saying, “What are you, stupid?”

“I believe he chose his moment to distract them from Luken’s crimes,” Gaelith said, again barely moving her lips. “It is the only reason I can envision for why he spoke then. A smarter choice would have been to save the knowledge for when he could use it more effectively as a bargaining chip or a weapon. To speak at that precise moment accomplished only one goal—it ended the council’s discussion of Luken’s exile.”

Fen stared at Malik.

What was he trying to tell her? His stare had a message in it, if she could only read it.

And then, slowly, obviously, ostentatiously, Malik of Val Kyr turned his head and looked at the empty chair next to him.

Oh, hell.

He couldn’t be serious.

Fen’s eyes lifted as she tried to calculate how many people were standing on the balconies. The answer was somewhere between “a hell of a lot” and “way the fuck too many.” No way was she walking up there in front of the entire population of Syl Var to sit in that empty chair.

The whole Wai Pa thing had been a joke. Not the funny kind of joke, the ridiculous kind.

Still, she’d felt the binding fall on her. And that meant she was a member of the council.

Fen looked at the empty chair. It matched the chair on which Malik sat, with plain wood, straight legs, and even straighter back.

Why?

Why had Kaio wanted her to speak for Wai Pa?

She didn’t realize she’d said the words aloud until both Gaelith and Elfie answered.

“He fears the Val Kyr’s plans,” was Gaelith’s response.

“To shift the balance of power,” Elfie said.

“He knows they plot, but not their plans,” Gaelith continued. “I am sure he did not anticipate your appearance striking such fear into the heart of Baldric that he would attack you so publicly. Kaio would never put you at such risk.”

Luke snorted.

“And what does that mean?” Gaelith demanded.

“Kaio could have taken Baldric easily. He’s the best dancer in Syl Var.”

“The Val Kyr are the best dancers in all of Sia Mara. It is their art,” Gaelith replied.

“Kaio studied with them. He knew he was better than Baldric. Baldric knew so, too. He didn’t fight Kaio, he took hostages.” Luke’s voice raised in scorn.

Gaelith put a hand up and replied in a gentler tone, “Let us not disrupt the council so that they must have us removed. My time here is ended and yours should not yet have started. I prefer we remain unnoticed.”

Fen wasn’t paying attention to them. She knew the answer. Destruction for destruction’s sake, Kaio would have said. A land grab with millions of human lives at stake.

The man from Lu Mer was speaking, his hands spread wide, the others listening intently with varying expressions.

Val Kyr had allies. They must. Fen didn’t remember much about Kaio’s speech to her, except that Ys Ker had been a long shot. If Val Kyr had approached Zach, who else was already on their side?

Malik still stared straight at her. When he caught her gaze again, he raised his eyebrows. The expression looked like a demand.

Fen was seriously tempted to stick her tongue out at him. Creep tried to murder her. What right did he have to make demands?

“At any rate, I believe Kaio wanted a seventh vote on the council to defeat whatever maneuvers Baldric had planned,” Gaelith continued.

“So why am I not up there?” Fen asked.

Gaelith opened her mouth as if to answer, but closed it without saying a word. Her eyes rested upon Fen, half amused, half speculative.

“You were injured,” Luke answered.

“I move for a vote,” Gera from Lu Mer said.

“Motion seconded,” Dineth of Ku Mari replied.

“Your votes?” Selene asked.

Hell.

Hell, hell, fucking hell.

What were they even voting on?

Her brother’s expression was decidedly mocking. She could read in the curve of his lips his scorn at her cowardice.

Fen dropped Gaelith’s hand and tugged her other hand out of Luke’s. “Excuse me,” she said, feeling breathless.

She took a step and then another and then strode forward, hearing Luke’s, “Fen, what are you—?” behind her and ignoring it.

She didn’t have to care about these people.

She didn’t have to panic.

She didn’t have to freak out.

What they thought didn’t matter.

The magic loved her.

Maybe it was binding her. Maybe it would kill her if she disobeyed the Council or disagreed with its decisions.

But she’d felt it under her hands. She’d stirred it into life. It quivered with delight when she touched it and okay, probably she was simply anthropomorphizing some weird chemical interaction caused by hormones or DNA, but no—the magic loved her.

She knew it did.

She reached her chair.

She couldn’t hear a thing. Her heart was pounding too loudly in her ears. Was the audience yelling? The council protesting?

She touched the wood arm of the chair. The nanomites danced ferociously under her fingertips.

“Be mine,” she whispered to them.

She wasn’t even touching her crystal. These nanomites were obviously the newest of the new, freshest of the fresh, direct off the assembly line, whatever that looked like, because they burst into life, shooting through design after design, form after form, shape after shape, before finally settling into the most gorgeously ridiculous chair she’d ever seen, something like a hanging nest of lace and cushions.

“Nice!” she said, as she turned and dropped into her seat. Underneath her, the cushions sighed with satisfaction and joy.

“What are we voting on?” she asked.

Malik, sitting next to her on his plain wooden chair, said, voice dripping with politeness, “We vote on whether I shall ever be your guardian. The vote so far is five to one against.”

“No need for my vote then,” Fen said, trying to sound brisk. She still felt breathless, like there wasn’t quite enough air in the room, and her face was hot. Shit, so many people were looking at her.

She stuck her chin in the air.

One of them was Kaio. His eyes were warm, though, and his lips—damn, he had nice lips—his lips were encouraging.

“I propose a new resolution,” she said. “The Voice of Wai Pa will maintain custody of herself. It’s called Emancipated Minor where I come from. Feel free to debate.”

The objections started immediately. She ignored the words, looking at the faces of the council members. “Elfie?” she subvocalized.

“Assumptions: given context, you would like my assessment of the varying Voices’ reactions to this idea? Contingent upon said assumption, Lu Mer is delighted and a sure vote in favor. Lu Mer had no valid basis upon which to maintain a demand of custody so views this as an opportunity.”

Fen didn’t nod but she thought Elfie had it right. Gera’s sulky look was gone, replaced by a smirk.

“Ku Mari disapproves and considers you impudent. She shall vote against. Lan Tis is horrified. Such a concept does not exist in Sia Mara tradition and she will fight it to the end. Another opposing vote. Ys Ker is uncertain. At the best of times, Ys Ker is uncertain.”

Fen’s lips twitched. She needed to find out why Gaelith was so freaked out about Elfie, but maybe she wouldn’t share Elfie’s sarcasm with Gaelith any time soon.

“Syl Var…” Elfie paused. Kaio was whispering in his mother’s ear. “Cyntha Del Mar is conservative. Under most circumstances, she would certainly oppose your resolution. Under these, I cannot say.”

Fen didn’t nod, but she wanted to. Cyntha was listening to Kaio but her lips were tight and unrelenting.

“Val Kyr… I regret, but I have no idea.”

Fen looked at her brother. He was expressionless. Motionless. He didn’t even blink when she glared at him.

What was his problem? She’d done what he wanted, hadn’t she?

Why had she?

Had she fallen into some sneaky trap, some evil Val Kyr plan?

But she couldn’t worry about that now, not when her future was on the line.