“For this, we must be alone.” Linnea bent to the girl at her side. “You understand, chiya preciosa? This is leroniswork.”
Gravely the girl got to her feet. Regis did not know how much she had understood, certainly far more than any other child her age. She was too young for her laranto have fully developed, according to what he had been taught, and yet . . .
“With your approval, I will place her in my sister’s care,” Regis said, then to Kierestelli: “You do not yet know your Aunt Javanne, but she is as fierce as a mother cloud leopard.”
Kierestelli giggled.
In only a few minutes, Javanne bustled into the room. She was clearly affected by all that had happened, but she held herself together. An impeccably correct copper butterfly clasp held her hair smoothly coiled on the nape of her neck, and she wore a dark green gown, plainly styled. For moment, Regis thought there was something wrong with her eyes, as if something in her had broken at losing Mikhail a second time, something that might never be mended. Then the moment passed, and Javanne was gathering the little girl with brisk motherly competence.
“It’s past your bedtime, little one. Are you hungry? I’ll have warm honey-milk sent up and then straight to bed with you.”
In her wake, Javanne left a turbulence of psychic currents. Regis had laranenough to feel his sister’s distress even after she had left. The room fell quiet. He took a breath.
Linnea’s back was as straight and poised as a dancer’s. She had been looking down at her folded hands, her eyelids half lowered. Only the slow, controlled rise and fall of her breathing indicated she was not a beautifully carved statue. Her face, shadowed beneath the braided auburn crown, betrayed nothing.
“Are you sure this is safe?” he asked, lowering his gaze to her softly rounded belly.
“I would not have agreed if I had any doubts of my control. It would be better if we had a monitor, but I can manage for a short time without one. I could not do this work regularly, and I will have to rest and clear my channels afterward, but yes, for this great a cause, I can keep our son from harm.”
She lifted her head, and Regis saw the steel in her eyes. When she spoke, her voice rang like a tempered sword, a Keeper’s voice resonant with power. She was no longer the sweet, impulsive girl or the passionate woman, or even the friend so generous with herself and her heart.
“Now we will begin.”
“You have never worked in a matrix circle, I think,” Linnea said.
Regis shook his head. After he had come to terms with the reasons he had suppressed his laran,he had never felt the need to study at a Tower. In any event, it would have been impossible for the Heir to Hastur to shut himself away even if he had wished it.
“Normally, each member of the circle focuses her or his laranthrough his starstone. The psychoactive crystals amplify psychic energies.” Linnea sounded as if she were lecturing a class of novices, but Regis did not interrupt her. She was not being patronizing; as she spoke, he felt her thoughts spin a subtle web between them.
“The Keeper functions as the centripolar point for the diverse mental patterns. She gathers them, weaves them together, harmonizes them . . . controls them.”
It was the ultimate test of trust to turn one’s mind over to another without reservation, without holding anything back. To become utterly vulnerable. Could he do it for Danilo’s sake? For Mikhail’s? For Rinaldo’s? Regis was willing, but did not know if he could overcome the barriers forged over a lifetime.
One of the servants had stoked the fire, and now the flickering orange light reflected on Linnea’s eyes and burnished her skin with coppery shades.
I have to try, no matter what the price to myself.
“We will begin with your memories of the attack on Danilo,” Linnea said. “I will not alter your mind, I will only clarify what is there. You may already have the answers you seek, and we need not go farther.”
Regis nodded. “What must I do?”
“Take out your starstone and look into it. Let your gaze rest lightly on it.”
Opening the silken pouch from where it hung on a cord around his neck, Regis slipped his starstone into the palm of his hand. The crystal awoke with a shimmer of cool blue light. On contact with his bare skin, it warmed immediately.
“That’s right,” she said, her voice taking on a hypnotic quality. “Follow the patterns of light. Do not force the memory. Simply wish to remember . . . allow it to fill your mind . . .”
Drawing a breath, Regis imagined himself floating on her words, even as his eyes floated on the light. Deeper and deeper he went, until the stone came alive. Patterns of brilliance pulsed within its faceted core.
“Gently now . . .” Linnea’s voice sounded far away, and Regis could not be sure whether he heard it with his ears or his mind.
As the blue light swelled and brightened, he felt the power of the crystal infuse him. The stone filled him with fire.
“Think of Danilo . . . the last contact you had with him . . .” Linnea’s larancaressed his own psychic energy fields, as deft as a feather brushing the breast of a newly tamed hawk . . .
Regis remembered his first view of DomFelix Syrtis, the stubborn pride of the old man, the dark eyes so like his son’s . . . He drifted with the images.
Danilo standing on a ladder in the apple orchards, wearing a much patched farmer’s smock—
Abruptly, the scene changed. Danilo walking in a darkened street, his figure outlined by lamps to either side. Underfoot, cobblestones gleamed wetly.
Concentrate on the image, Linnea’s thought touched him like spidersilk. Hold it steady . . .
Then he was inside Danilo’s mind, seeing the street through Danilo’s eyes . . . men in fur-lined cloaks, the thin drizzle of rain . . . the smell of wet cobblestones and grime. In his gut, a rising sense of urgency. Thinking,This district isn’t safe for a man alone and unarmed, an innocent with a purse worth the taking. He could just make out the towers of Comyn Castle, glittering above him in the gloom.
“Whatever possessed Rinaldo to wander into this pit?” he muttered.
Peering into shadows, searching . . . Breathing, “Thank the blessed St. Christopher!” as he hurried toward the tavern with its brightly painted sign of stars.
“Dom Danilo Syrtis?”
At the sound of his name, he paused. Instead of Rinaldo, grateful to be rescued, he saw it was one of the Ridenow cousins by the green and gold trim of his cloak. Haldred, he thought, but could not be sure. For a moment, it seemed there were more men hiding in the shadows.
“What brings you here alone at this hour, my lord?”Yes, it was Haldred by his voice.
“I am looking for Lord Hastur’s brother, Rinaldo. He has taken it into his head to go sightseeing and went off without an escort. Or even a guide . . .”
“Between ourselves,”Haldred replied, slyness edging his voice, “that loss would not grieve me much.”
Danilo felt a touch of anger that anyone would speak so of any Hastur. “Be that as it may,Dom Haldred, he is one of our own caste. I ask you in all charity and honor to help me. I do not know these streets well.”