Disclaimer – I do not own BMT world, it belongs to Trudi Canavan

Reflections

The sights and smells of the busy market evoked a rush of memories she hadn't thought about for years. Sonea remembered the excitement of stealing fruit from traders' stalls, of running wild with her friends, and of staying out late into the night. She remembered the tricks she and Cery played on long-suffering food vendors, in order to get hold of a few meat pies or sweet cakes and nowadays she felt a little ashamed of the ragged dwell child she had been. We were lawless, she thought. No concern or care for those we harmed. It was all just fun to us. At least Cery had the excuse of wanting to become a Thief. I had no such excuse.

She was sitting on a bench, close to the centre of the market, sipping raka and watching the world go by. Despite the hustle and bustle, it was a good place to think. She had never really been able to think properly in the Guild. Even when she was a novice, she would go to her secret place out by the rocks to try to get things straight in her mind.

Of course, I thought it was a secret place, she thought ruefully, but naturally Akkarin knew all about it and found me there when he needed to.

She smiled to herself. Akkarin and the need to sort out her chaotic thoughts, the two things went hand in hand. It occurred to her that Akkarin had been dominating her thoughts in one way or another for almost a decade now. Sometimes she thought it was useless to even try to sort out what she felt or what she thought he felt. But old habits die hard, so she had come into Imardin to think through her various problems. It was Freeday and she was trying to make full use of it.

She had left the Guild early without waiting for breakfast. Her first call had been to the house where Justen was living. He seemed pleased to see her, but not as overjoyed as she had imagined, although he had smiled warmly and rushed to show her some of his favourite books. She had checked his progress with the mental exercises she'd taught him and he had shown off his ability to do them smoothly and quickly. She taught him a few more and stayed while he practised. But when she told him she must go, he had hugged her briefly, before turning away and going back to his books.

She must have looked upset, because Takan had hastened to reassure her that Justen was really pleased to see her, but had developed a good control over his emotions.

"He is a lot like Akkarin," Takan had said. "He is happy to exist within his own thoughts and not pine for what cannot be. He concentrates on the task he has to fulfil at that moment, and not on regrets or longing for something he can't have."

Those wise words had stayed with her during her walk to the market because they summed up Akkarin completely. Since his return to the Guild, she had not caught even a glimpse of his true feelings about the task the King had set him. Not that I've seen that much of him, she thought, not without bitterness, only at some meal times and a few snatched minutes of conversation. It seemed to her that he had slipped back into his cold High Lord persona, as unreadable as he had ever been. To her surprise and annoyance, she found herself intimidated by him in a way she had not experienced for years. Her lover had gone and in his place was the distant figure she remembered fearing as the newly designated High Lord's Novice.

She had tried to put all of these uncertainties aside and made a positive attempt to breach Akkarin's steely reserve. But nothing she could say would shake his resolve not to include her in whatever he was doing with the Warriors. In the end, she had resorted to a full-blown argument, complete with raised voice and cutting words, in an attempt to force him to change his mind. But Akkarin had simply assumed his cold High Lord mask, looked down his nose at her and commanded her - and yes, it was unmistakeably a command – to keep herself out of his affairs and concentrate on the task he had given her.

"You didn't even want me to come with you, did you?" she flung at him during the height of the argument.

"No, I did not," was his cool reply, "but of course, you had other ideas, as usual."

After that, her only satisfaction was a slammed door as she took herself back to her rooms, only to remember a little later that they'd planned a night together. Her pride wouldn't let her go back, so she spent yet another miserable sleepless night in the Guild.

By morning, she had convinced herself that he was simply using her and had been ever since she had followed him into exile, if not before then. He hadn't even wanted her, so her thoughts ran, until she had practically thrown herself into his arms, and even then, he had tried everything he could to turn her away. Oh yes, he had turned out to be a skilled lover and they had had some extremely pleasurable and passionate moments, but all she could think about now was the many attempts he had made to escape from her and his reluctance to say the words she had always longed to hear.

She rose from her bed, determined to put their relationship on to a more businesslike footing. They both had a task to perform, and once it was over, she would take Justen and go away somewhere, leaving Akkarin free to follow his own inclinations. Perhaps he will come with you, her treacherous mind whispered slyly. All her newfound resolve couldn't prevent the way her heart leapt at the thought.

A day or so later, in sheer desperation to find out what Akkarin was up to, she had followed him to the Arena. There she had seen him training a group of Warriors, his black outer robes discarded as he played a full part in the physical exercises he'd devised. He easily dominated the proceedings, drilling the Warriors ruthlessly, making them repeat moves over and over again until their weariness began to show. She unashamedly listened to some of the comments from others in the audience. They were divided between those who felt he was attempting to form his own faction with a view to obtaining power again, and others who felt that at last, someone was taking an interest in the Warriors' proper role of defending the Guild, rather than its current one of spying on its members.

She watched the exercises avidly and wished she were down there with the others. It was funny really, she had fought Akkarin tooth and nail when he had instructed her to have special Warrior training with Yikmo, only discovering during the course of her private lessons that she rather liked the opportunity to exercise her physical body and her magical powers at the same time. Now, forced to be a secret spectator, she yearned with all her being to be on the floor of the Arena, hurling forcestrikes, stunstrikes and all the rest at a variety of opponents.

What do you want? Akkarin's cool mental voice intruded on her thoughts and she glanced down to find him standing in the midst of the Warriors looking directly at where she was sitting.

She didn't reply, but got up and left. When she saw him later, he'd merely repeated his instructions to keep away from any activities involving Warriors, and she was too tired to argue.

So, where are we? That was the question concerning her at the moment. When Lorlen had come to say the Guild needed Akkarin and when the King repeated the same thing, she had been clear about what they both needed to do. Now, however, she had no real idea of what progress Akkarin was making. The brief session she had observed told her that Akkarin had collected a group of around twenty Warriors, barely enough to hold their own against the Ichani, if they attacked on several fronts. Of course, that might have been one group among many. She sighed in frustration. She didn't know and Akkarin wasn't telling!

She had thrown herself into the rather dull task she had been given. People were more used to seeing her around the Guild now, so she was able to overhear snippets of conversations, which she carefully stored away in her memory. These she noted down each evening, along with her impressions. She also spent a lot of time in the library examining the Guild's records for the various Disciplines, seeing if there were any connections between particular groups or individual magicians.

She noticed that the Warriors and Alchemists often formed little groups apart from the Healers. On the surface she couldn't find a reason for this seeming alliance. She had met with Irun quite a few times now, but frustratingly, the Healer was nearly always accompanied by Neeve, who seemed determined to probe Sonea about her life away from the Guild, no matter how many times Sonea turned away her questions. Her latest line of questions was mainly about Akkarin, poorly disguised as Neeve's own speculations about their life in exile.

Fending off Neeve and her intrusive questions meant she couldn't get as close to Irun as she wanted. The Healer seemed slightly in awe of Neeve and always deferred to her, letting the novice dominate any conversation. Sonea made a mental note to try to get the Healer on her own, even if it meant camping outside her door early one morning to catch her as she went to the bathhouse or to breakfast.

Sonea finished her raka and sighed. To answer her own question, where they were now was somewhere which might be called nowhere specific. Akkarin was seemingly only concerned with Warrior training and her own investigations had turned up a lot of loose ends and she couldn't yet see any clear pattern. The only obvious fact was that Balkan was using Warriors more like a secret army of spies than Guild defenders. I need to look more closely at Balkan and what he is doing, she thought. That's going to be a bit tricky, I think! She got to her feet; it was almost time to return to the Guild.

She turned away from the market and as she did so, she caught a glimpse of purple robes out of the corner of her eye. She took a closer look and saw it was Rothen, deep in conversation with someone she couldn't quite see. A pang went through her as she recalled their last meeting and she stifled her first inclination to go over to him. She was about to resume her journey when the person he was talking to came into full view. It was Neeve.

They hadn't yet seen Sonea, so she slipped behind a convenient stack of empty packing cases and sent out a thin probe of magic to see if she could hear what they were saying. Her probe met a barrier. Now why would a magician and a novice need a sound shield for a conversation in the market? Sonea's suspicions were aroused. Surely the only reason Neeve would have for talking to Rothen was to find out more about Sonea and Akkarin. Neeve and her blasted questions! But why would Rothen be willing to answer them, and behind a sound barrier too?