Rising, Lorlen moved into his bedroom, splashed water on his face from a bowl, and checked his reflection in the mirror. Two dark smudges under his eyes told of the sleepless nights he'd endured. Smoothing his hair, he combed it to the nape of his neck and tied it neatly.
Leaving his quarters, he began to make his way to the Seven Arches. After Akkarin's warning last night – more like blackmail, Lorlen thought bitterly – he did not dare skip his customary appearance in the Night Room this evening. The cool night air helped him feel a little more relaxed as he walked across the silent Guild grounds.
Lorlen greeted two magicians as they, too, reached the entrance. As he expected, they asked if he was well. He assured them that he was. He could tell from their sidelong glances that they were eager to talk about the last topic Lorlen wanted to hear – now that she had been settled in a few weeks, what were the High Lord's long term plans for Sonea's education?
As the inner doors opened, heads turned to see who had entered. The buzz of voices changed, first diminishing, then growing more intense. Lorlen made his way across the crowded room toward his favourite chair, which was next to the High Lord's empty one. He saw that several magicians, including many of the Higher Magicians, had already gathered around it.
"Wine, Administrator?"
"Thank you, Lord Garrell," Lorlen said warily, accepting the glass and bracing himself for what was no doubt going to be the first interrogation of the evening.
Lorlen had never personally had an issue with Lord Garrell, but he tended to avoid the man. Lord Garrell liked to walk around flanked by two Warriors who seemed to do his bidding at all times, which reminded Lorlen of some less than pleasant memories from his novice days. His own House had always kept their distance from members of House Paren, Lorlen remembered, and the warning seemed to have stuck in his mind from childhood.
But he couldn't openly be seen to show any magician particular favour or disfavour, as Administrator. Lorlen attempted a polite smile and gestured to one of the empty seats nearby. Lord Garrell promptly took it as if expecting the invitation.
"Does the High Lord plan to visit the Night Room this evening?" Garrell asked.
"He sends his apologies; he is otherwise occupied this evening."
Garrell nodded with a glint in his eye that Lorlen didn't like. "No doubt, no doubt," he replied pompously, taking a sip of his wine. "As a guardian myself, I know how much of our time is taken up by our novices. The High Lord should not tax himself too much, however. The dwell girl is fortunate to be here at all."
"Akkarin saw much potential in her," Lorlen replied, trying to check his irritation.
"How generous of him," Garrell said smoothly, not missing a beat. "I can only imagine the time commitment it will be for the High Lord to… try to help the girl fulfil this potential. I find myself devoting quite a lot of time to Regin's education. Bu then again, he is the most powerful novice in his year group."
Lorlen suddenly was filled with a feeling of amusement that was not his own. Looking down quickly at the ring on his finger, he realised Akkarin was listening in. He waited a breath for him to communicate with him, but the ring was silent.
"You forget that I read Sonea's mind at Fergun's trial last year, Lord Garrell," Lorlen replied, his own disapproval displacing the feel of Akkarin's amusement. "I would not be too hasty to assume Regin's powers surpass all of his peers."
Garrell's smile turned strained. "Has he tested her, then?"
Lorlen noticed Lord Peakin, Lord Osen and Lord Yikmo had all circled around them with their drinks, listening.
– Tell them I have. Sonea is nowhere near yet her full strength.
Akkarin's voice sounded incredibly close and quiet; it was an altogether stranger experience than the usual mind-to-mind communication. There was a touch of tension in his mental voice. The High Lord did not admit to his novice's strength with the pride that befit a guardian, but rather with the cold calculation of a powerful man sizing up a young challenger to his supremacy. Could she really be a real threat to him?
– Don't be ridiculous, Lorlen. She may be the first "natural" in a century, but she would be a fool to cross me.
Akkarin's tone was sharp and aloof, but Lorlen knew the subtle undercurrents he had felt through the ring. Whatever the High Lord had seen when he read Sonea's mind, it had disconcerted him.
Lorlen cleared his throat and nodded to his spectators. "He has. And he saw that Sonea's strength is still not at its full maturity yet."
Lord Yikmo smiled smugly at Lord Garrell, who scowled and moved away to join a newcomer and no doubt spread this information.
Distracted by thoughts of that terrible day Akkarin had found out what he knew, Lorlen did not pay attention to his surroundings until a murmur from an unfamiliar voice reached his ears. He tried not to change his expression, but he almost jumped at how close the young Alchemist sounded when he saw, out of the corner of his eye, where the conversation had come from. The magician stood quite a few paces away, and he was speaking in low tones to a Healer. He probably did not think their voices could carry as far as the Administrator's and High Lord's chairs.
Lorlen's mouth twitched as he realised there was a reason that the High Lord's favourite chair in the Night Room was this one. Something about the acoustics of the room meant that conversations held in certain secluded corners actually reached these chairs quite audibly.
Nodding at regular intervals to pretend he was listening to Lord Peakin complain about the King's new decree, Lorlen focused instead on the conversation of the young Alchemist and Healer in the corner.
" – only a bit of harmless fun, Devin."
"She was all but drained, Varron," hissed back the Healer. "The boy has some nerve. You'd think he'd have dropped it now that she is the High Lord's novice!"
"You remember how we were at his age," the Alchemist responded. "Do you really want to ruin the boy's future by bringing this to the High Lord's attention? Regin of Winar is spirited, but he isn't a fool – "
The Healer dropped his voice further. "So what am I supposed to do? Just pretend I didn't see it?"
"Yes!" The Alchemist replied exasperatedly. "Since you don't know what you saw, say nothing."
"The boy had… had pinned her to the wall. He was using forcestrikes on her and… and he was tugging at her robes!" The Healer whispered fiercely.
"You don't think…?"
"That's why I found her exhausted – he terrified her enough for her to give it all she got, and blast him off. Only real fear gets a magician to exhaust themselves that critically. Garrell needs to take that boy aside and talk some sense into him," interrupted the Healer in hushed but angry tones. The two magicians were then joined by a third, and the Alchemist immediately changed the topic to horse-racing.
Before Lorlen could try to collect his thoughts, he felt a cold rage wash over him in strange waves, as if something was churning at the edge of his mind. He looked down at the red-jewelled ring on his finger.
– Did you hear that? He asked.
– I did, came Akkarin's response, cold as ice.
– We know that boy's bullying has been going on for months. The lack of repercussions has clearly emboldened him.
A frightening sensation washed over him from the ring; the cold rage seemed to be peeling away to leave a kind of calm in its wake. A more terrifying sense of calm than the rage.
– Evidently.
Lorlen waited. Wasn't the High Lord going to take any action? Or betray any kind of thought at all at having just found out that his novice was almost seriously assaulted? The Administrator was not one to speculate baselessly – Regin may have wanted to rough up Sonea's appearance, or steal and hide her robes. But he knew what Lord Devin had implied was also a possibility. The Winar boy may have thought he could get away with something unspeakable.
– Aren't you going to do anything? This sounds like it is going too far.
– Oh, I will. When and what it shall be, however, does not concern you, Akkarin replied smoothly. No sense of emotion emanated from the ring now; it was like the High Lord's mind had disappeared, but his measured tones were still crystal clear in his ear.
– Now, I think that's quite enough for one evening. I will retire; I suggest you do the same, Akkarin added.
"Excuse me," Lorlen said to Lord Peakin and Lord Osen. "It is growing late and I want to have an early night. Good evening." Osen gave him a piercing look. No doubt he realised that Lorlen's mind had been miles away for the past few minutes, but he said nothing, and bowed goodnight.
When he left the Seven Arches behind and found himself long on the grounds, he stopped and looked down at the nondescript ring on his finger, glinting in the moonlight.
Looking around furtively, Lorlen suddenly grasped the ring and began twisting it off.
—Stop, Lorlen. Don't force me to make things worse. Akkarin's voice in his mind was soft and threatening.
Letting the ring go, Lorlen clenched his fingers in anger and defeat.
—
It took a while for Akkarin to notice the embers in the grate of his library had dimmed from orange to red. His long fingers were steepled under his chin, and he rested both elbows on his desk. His dark eyes hardly blinked as they looked, unseeing, as the dying fire.
Had anyone been in the room, they may have thought the High Lord, looking aloof, cultured and serene in this pensive pose amidst tasteful surroundings, was lost in thought.
But Akkarin's sharp, strong jaw was set hard, and his chest rose and fell beneath his black robes like a caged animal's after a run. The words he had heard through Lorlen's ring pounded in his ears as if they had been shouted.
"The boy had… had pinned her to the wall. He was using forcestrikes on her and… and he was tugging at her robes!"
Akkarin's pulse leapt in his taut, pale neck. Before he could realise what had happened, he had swung his right arm down and sideways sharply. He hit the half-full glass of wine on his desk with the back of his hand, and knocked it forcefully away. It hit the floor next to his desk and smashed. The thin, ringing tones of high-quality crystal shattering into a million pieces echoed about the room.
The High Lord took in a deep, angry breath through his nose. An urge filled him to wrap his now throbbing hand around that Winar boy's neck and squeeze slowly, ever so slowly. No magic necessary; the pleasure of this would be in its sheer physicality. To see the glint of horror in the terrified boy's gaze as he realised this was the end. Akkarin's dark eyes narrowed and the corner of his lips curled into a cruel half-smile.
– Master? Is everything alright? Takan's voice reached him faintly through his blood gem, knocking him out of his far-fetched imaginings.
– Just an accident. I'll take care of it. Goodnight, Takan.
– Goodnight, master. Takan's voice sounded unconvinced, but he did not press him.
Akkarin rose slowly from his chair and walked around his desk. He stared at the red stain on the carpet and the broken glass, then waved a hand over the mess. Every piece of glass dislodged itself from the carpet and hovered in the air, before floating over to the grate of the fireplace. The stain would have be taken care of later by the Guild's laundresses.
Another wave of his black-robed arm and the glowing embers in the fireplace were doused with a hiss. The library plunged into darkness, and Akkarin's eyes adjusted comfortably after a few moments. After all these years hunting down spies in the dark, he preferred to keep his residence in low light. A creature of darkness belongs in the shadows after all, he thought sardonically. People may think him harsh, but little did they know that the High Lord reserved his most cutting words for himself.
He left the library and crossed the dark threshold towards the curved staircase. Gliding up without so much as a rustle from his robes, Akkarin paused at the landing of the first floor. Maybe it was the lingering effects of what he had heard tonight, but an impulse he couldn't place led him to face Sonea's bedroom door instead of continue down the corridor to his own.
For a moment, Akkarin simply stood and looked at the dark wood of the door, his gaze so intense that it was almost like he was willing his eyes to pierce right through it and see inside.
He didn't know what made him do what he did next, but with the help of magic, he probed the room to check that its inhabitant was, without a doubt, asleep. Then the High Lord silently unlocked and opened the door. A part of him was telling him to stop – that she could wake up at any moment, terrified to see him in her bedroom. But that unplaceable impulse was driving him to look, to see – to check.
Akkarin stopped himself short from snorting softly in self-derision. Since when have you decided to play guardian?
But he pushed open the bedroom door wide, and his feet brought him right up to the threshold of their own accord. The moonlight spilling into the room allowed his eyes to see Sonea's sleeping figure quite clearly. The large bed and fluffy white duvet almost swamped her small body. Dark hair spilled across her pillow.
For once, the usual tightness between her black eyebrows wasn't there. In the oblivion of sleep, her face was devoid of the concentration it showed in classes, and the fearful anxiety and simmering anger it oscillated between whenever she was in the High Lord's presence. He had never seen it so relaxed and unguarded. The delicate skin below her eyes showed signs of exhaustion. She was breathing steadily through her mouth, and her small, pearly upper teeth were slightly visible behind her parted lips. Her shapely, pink lips.
The High Lord abruptly turned away and stepped back towards the landing. A bout of his magic softly and silently shut Sonea's bedroom door behind him. Akkarin stepped into his own bedroom and locked the door. Only in the privacy of his own chamber did he release the breath he wasn't even aware he had been holding.
He had not intervened in the Winar boy's bullying because he was proving to be the best teacher Sonea could have. Each incident had so far pushed that little thorn in his side to fight back. And he much preferred her anger to her reticence.
But Akkarin felt irked that he had clearly underestimated the depth of that little Winar snake's hateful obsession. Creating the conditions for Sonea to learn to defend herself was one thing; allowing this boy to think he could humiliate – could try to possess – the High Lord's novice was another matter.
As Akkarin undressed and slipped under the cold covers of his bed, that wave of sweet, ice cold rage washed over him again. Perhaps it is time to show I do not suffer the mistreatment of what is mine.