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“You know nothing,” Warrehn bit off, his jaw working. “Your perspective is biased.”
Sirri raised her eyebrows mockingly. “And yours isn’t?”
“Enough,” Rohan snapped, fed up with both of them. It was an old argument between them, rehashed over and over. Warrehn and Sirri were stubborn hotheads who never knew when to admit defeat. “If you wanted to quarrel, you should have stayed on Tai’Lehr. One more word and I’m sending you back. Both of you.”
Warrehn glared at him mulishly, but Rohan stared him down until Warrehn finally averted his gaze, frustration rolling off him in thick waves.
“You’re not the boss of me,” Sirri said, lifting her chin. “You can’t send me back. It’s my mission, not yours. You’re just tagging along for no good reason!”
Rohan turned away and continued walking, given them no choice but to follow him.
He knew Sirri was right.
He shouldn’t be here. He shouldn’t have come back. The bond that was pulsing at the back of his mind, like an itch he couldn’t scratch, was proof enough.
“If I weren’t here, you two would have killed each other instead of accomplishing anything,” he said flatly.
Neither Warrehn nor Sirri said anything, thank fuck. He was in no state of mind to tolerate their bitching, and they seemed to realize that.
“Do you know where you are going?” Sirri said at last, her voice calmer. Careful.
“He said he would meet us by the Shmei tree. There’s only one in the area.”
“We’re a little late,” Warrehn said. “It’s already ten.”
Rohan held back a scathing retort. They wouldn’t have been late if Warrehn and Sirri hadn’t sidetracked them with their useless argument.
“He will wait,” he said, walking faster.
“If it isn’t a trap,” Warrehn said, checking his blaster.
Rohan didn’t say anything. The possibility was always there, of course.
“It still doesn’t feel like a trap,” Sirri said.
Rohan relaxed slightly. It was one of the reasons she had been chosen for this mission. She had a gift for premonition, a gift that was as rare among the telepaths as Rohan’s own gift for compulsion. If Sirri said that she didn’t have a bad feeling about their meeting, things were unlikely to go south.
“It still could be a trap,” Warrehn said, ever the optimist. “Considering who we’re meeting.”
Rohan made a face, knowing he was right. Unlike Tai’Lehrians, the adepts of the High Hronthar trained in the mind arts their whole lives. There was no telling what kind of mind tricks the monks were taught at that creepy monastery of theirs. For all they knew, they might be able to trick even Sirri. It was extremely unlikely, but it wasn’t impossible.
“It’s still worth the risk,” he said. “If the guy isn’t lying, he’s our only real chance to prove that we had nothing to do with the crimes we’re blamed for.”
He still couldn’t believe the wait was finally over—or almost over. All these months since his return home they had been waiting for this: for someone inside the Order to be willing to talk—to betray the High Hronthar. The plan had seemed unrealistic, even insane, when Rohan had heard it the first time. But Aroka and Sirri had convinced him that it would work, that there were always people unhappy with the way an organization like the High Hronthar was run.
And it seemed the wait was finally over.
The man waiting for them under the Shmei tree was all but a boy. He couldn’t be older than twenty, perhaps younger.
Sirri studied him before gesturing to Warrehn to go ahead of her.
Rohan stayed back, looking around the small clearing and stretching his senses as far as he could. There was no one else within at least half a tarsec. Not that it meant much, considering that teleporters could function in this area. They were still within the Blind. And it was very likely that the High Hronthar knew about the Blind, because the fact that Jamil’s husband had supposedly been murdered in the same area couldn’t be a mere coincidence.
Jamil.
Rohan bit the inside of his cheek, trying to ignore the surge of want that rolled through his entire being. Want. What an inadequate word. He used to think it meant sexual desire, lust, but this want was different, uglier, needier, desperate and essential. It had little to do with physical lust.
He wanted to see Jamil.
Squashing the thought down, Rohan forced himself to focus on his immediate surroundings.
The boy looked fidgety, his eyes flicking from Warrehn to Sirri. “Are you—are you the rebels?”
“Maybe,” Sirri said. “And you are?”
“Master Xhen,” the boy said, lifting his pointy chin.
Sirri snorted. “If you’re a master, I’ll eat my boots. Try again, kid. And this time you’d better tell the truth.”
The boy glared at her, his pale cheeks turning crimson. But after a long moment, he grumbled, “I’m Initiate Xhen.”
Rohan frowned. They knew very little about the High Hronthar’s hierarchy. The monks were a secretive bunch.
“I’m guessing that means you weren’t deemed good enough to be called master,” Sirri said.
Rohan pinched the bridge of his nose. Antagonizing their potential source wasn’t Sirri’s brightest idea.
As expected, the boy bristled. “I’m young! You generally don’t become a master at my age.”
“I thought masters’ pupils were called apprentices,” Sirri said.
The boy—Xhen—scowled. “They are,” he said, averting his gaze. “I wasn’t chosen by a master. There are more initiates than there are masters.”
Rohan nodded to himself. So they were dealing with someone who felt unappreciated and bitter—bitter enough to betray the High Hronthar. While he would have preferred their source to be someone who genuinely thought the Order was a bunch of power-hungry bastards, this they could work with too.
“Look, what does it matter?” Xhen said, looking around nervously. “Do we have to stay here?”
“Do you think you were followed?” Sirri said.
“No, but…”
Rohan leaned against the tree and closed his eyes. He listened to the rest of the conversation with half an ear, paying more attention to his senses. The boy radiated anxiety and bitterness, but Rohan couldn’t sense any deception from him. Sirri was toying with the boy, making him open up. She might lack diplomatic skills, but she knew what she was doing. Warrehn… he seemed torn between impatience and something that felt a lot like loss. He was probably thinking about his little brother, who would have been around that boy’s age had he been alive.
Rohan couldn’t sense anything else. Anything but the golden bond pulsing softly at the back of his mind. Hungry. Yearning.
Just one more time, it whispered. You’re already on the planet. One brief visit wouldn’t change anything. Just one more.
Rohan bit his lip hard until he felt the sour taste of blood. He forced himself to focus on the conversation. This was important. This was what he was here for. Not anything else.
