BMT belongs to Trudi.

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Lorlen's eyes followed Vinara as she continued her pacing of his office. His head was starting to hurt.

'Please,' he begged her. 'Sit down. This isn't helping anyone.'

Vinara stopped, pointing at him in accusation.

'I warned you he wasn't mentally sound,' she reminded him for the hundredth time, her seething anger not abating. 'You all scoffed at my assessment, bah! And now we have a new mess to deal with.'

She resumed her relentless circling of the cluttered room.

'I understand Balkan or Sarin, who have little training in medical arts, but you should be ashamed of yourself, Lorlen! Didn't it occur to you that Akkarin only seemed so serene and restrained because it suited his desired image rather than be seen as a man cringing at shadows? The unmasking Sonea forced him to undergo was costly, and anyone should have seen it!'

Lorlen flinched. He could remember another night not so long ago, and Akkarin's restless pacing as he had discovered Lorlen's damning knowledge. He had been like a caged tusked tiger then, but during the hearing Akkarin resembled more a lamb led to slaughter than any predator. The difference between a victim and a villain was vast indeed. It was a blow to be reminded that he had not only misjudged his friend badly, but also that he had failed to see a stranger in the face Akkarin presented to the world. He had accepted this false face, while his closest friend was trapped inside. Living his daily nightmare alone and unacknowledged.

'You diagnose some stress-induced mental impairment?' he asked doubtfully. 'For it to persist for eight years unnoticed... Vinara, it makes no sense.'

'I diagnose nothing of the sort, but I must wonder. What else would explain Akkarin's sudden transformation?' she snapped angrily. 'But why wouldn't he be traumatized still? He hadn't come to terms with his past, had he? He merely stuffed it all in a mind box, as magicians are wont to do!'

Lorlen had no answer.

'I didn't expect such erratic behaviour, however,' she whispered. 'And I should have.'

The Administrator threw his hands in the air in exasperation.

'By the Eye, Vinara, you couldn't have foreseen he'd choose to suicide, and with such a flair!'

She glared at him.

'Don't you see? It was no suicide attempt, I don't think,' she said heavily. 'He just overreacted!'

'Overreacted indeed!' Lorlen exploded, his eyes bulging. 'He almost went through the death's gates!'

'Your clever ploy backfired, hasn't it?' Vinara said scornfully. 'Instead of two hounds happy to be led on a leash, you've got an untameable beast mad with grief and biting anyone who approaches!'

The Administrator covered his eyes with his hands. But the recollections he wanted to purge out of his mind weren't visual, but auditory.

The screams of utter panic as they all were struck blind by the searing blast of white light, the tremor of thousands of stampeding feet as the magicians fled in all directions, they were convinced they were under attack, and in common hysteria many were trampled under booted feet, sustaining serious injuries. It was a total fiasco.

Only much later, when people thought to Heal their eyes, it became apparent that no attack was underway. Bruised and confused magicians picked themselves from the hard ground to find a weeping Sonea bowed over a prone figure of Akkarin. He looked like a corpse.

Sonea was the only one who ran towards Akkarin, against a human tide. She fought her way forward with stunning strikes and with her fists, to fall to her knees at her guardian's side. He wasn't breathing and his heart was still in his chest. Vinara and Balkan found her there, tears streaming down her face as she worked. Her hands were pumping his chest, forcing a still heart to work. Her lips were blowing air into his lifeless mouth, making the chest rise and fall in response.

'Have you got any magic?' she demanded of them, not ceasing her labours.

Knowing it would be in vain, Vinara bent down and sent a trickle of magic into the corpse. She recoiled in shock as she sensed the dimmest spark of life. Akkarin wasn't dead, but he was so exhausted that his internal organs were failing.

'He gave too much,' she muttered, and plopped down on the grass on the other side of Akkarin. She started sending Healing magic into his body.

'I need your permission to perform Black Magic,' Sonea said quietly. 'Healing magic isn't enough.'

They fell silent.

'No, Sonea,' Balkan said with awful finality.

Akkarin hadn't died. Three days later, and he was still clinging on, breathing unassisted, his heart was beating in a stable rhythm. Sonea brought him back to life through stubbornness alone. Lorlen supposed that Akkarin's condition was slowly improving, it wasn't easy to ascertain with Sonea's constant vigil over his body. The harm that Balkan's refusal caused was insurmountable. Her trust in the guild's good intentions had crumbled to dust.

'If he recovers,' he said hesitantly. 'Something must be done to prevent such overreactions in the future. Have you got a plan?'

Sighing, Vinara finally took a seat across from him. Her fingers tapping in agitation against the wood of his desk, she considered.

'I searched through our annals for people with similar experiences, and how their reliability was affected by them,' she grimaced. 'There aren't many examples, but from what I gleamed I'm not very hopeful. We don't have much experience overcoming mental inhibitions. This area hasn't been studied much.'

'Stop speaking in circles, please,' Lorlen prompted. 'What are we dealing with?'

'Nightmares, attacks of panic, insomnia, intrusive memories prompted by the strangest things, physical reactions to stress, feeling threatened and depressed, I could go on and on,' she grimaced. 'A gruelling list of symptoms and each of them makes a patient untrustworthy in situations of severe stress. Which of them we'll see in Akkarin remains to be seen, but I'm confident I observed a few of those during the hearing alone.'

'I wouldn't say Akkarin is unreliable in situations of stress,' Lorlen said, referring to his successful hunt for Ichani spies.

Vinara pursed her lips in thought.

'Only the last one was an Ichani, and Sonea killed her.'

Lorlen frowned.

'What are you trying to tell me?'

'There was once a case of a young woman, a victim of family abuse. The perpetrator was her husband. One night she tried to kill him with a kitchen knife, but the man woke up in a nick of time. She was armed, he wasn't, but the woman was incapable of action. She was beaten to death by the husband despite the knife clutched tight in her hand.'

Lorlen went pale.

'Akkarin might be unable to confront the Ichani, is that what you're saying?'

She shrugged.

'The ones he's personally afraid of. We must consider this possibility.'

'Where do you get those stories, anyway?'

'Captain Barren offered help.'

Merin would be delighted. He only agreed to mitigate the punishment persuaded that without Akkarin and Sonea Kyralia would likely fall.

'I pray you are mistaken,' he muttered. 'Else our fate will lie with a young woman who hates us with passion.'

Vinara smiled grimly.

'I suspect her anger will ebb as soon as Akkarin opens his eyes,' she said. 'Besides, I didn't imply Akkarin would be useless in a war. We just have to ensure he can overcome his fear of Kariko before he faces the man.'

'And how do you propose to do that?'

'I don't know, yet.'

At a soft knock at the door, Lorlen looked up, and sent a bit of magic at the door. As they swung open, a bleary-eyed Lord Osen entered, immediately collapsing into one of the cushioned guest chairs.

'What news?' Lorlen asked. He dreaded the reply, each time Osen had come it was to bring ill-tidings.

'Bad,' Osen said miserably. 'The king's advisor visited Sonea.'

Lorlen groaned.

'Let's hear it,' he said.

Osen rubbed sleep from his eyes.

'The king summoned Sonea to the palace,' he began. 'She refused, of course, saying if he wanted her to perform Black Magic the king might come to her,' he swallowed hard. 'The advisor seemed to think the comment was a threat and chose to berate her rather harshly, an argument ensued. Sonea's string of foul curses proved more impressive, and the advisor left in haste.'

Lorlen barked a laugh which he managed to convert into a passably convincing fit of coughing.

'Get some sleep, Osen,' Vinara told the young man.

Do you like the cover image by yoanna170? Akkarin thinking black thoughts...