Thawed Fortunes (11 page)

On'li snorted and started pacing again. "That
is a typical male response to the situation. You should have shared
the information with the Council. We could have solved all of this
without resorting to an arms race among the candidates."

Ah'bi looked up at the Councilor with an
expression of pure disdain. "The Council wouldn't have done a
Powers-cursed thing except maybe to have made them reverse the
augmentation, and even that would have taken months. None of you
have been able to put a leash on him in all the time he's been
here. You're so worried about creating a precedent that might
impinge on your ability to sponsor whoever you want regardless of
the consequences, that you refuse to do anything to save the few
decent candidates we have left."

On'li opened her mouth to defend herself, but
the younger woman didn't give her a chance. "You weren't here. You
didn't see him coughing up blood and holding onto life by his
fingernails. That piece of filth broke most of the ribs on his left
side and it's only luck that none of them punctured his heart like
they punctured his lungs. I can't bring myself to sponsor the poor
thing, but if he is going to bleed to do all the things that we
can't, I'll at least do whatever else I can to give him a fighting
chance of not dying on Be'ter's blade."

##

A cycle later, On'li stumbled back home and
found Mar'li waiting for her. "I'm so sorry, dearest. You deserved
better than that."

The younger woman had obviously been crying,
but she smiled bravely at her sister-wife. "As long as you really
mean it, I suppose I can forgive you."

The two women hugged, and then On'li guided
Mar'li over to a chair. "I need a cup of tea, but this time, you're
sitting while I make it."

Once the water had been put on to heat, On'li
turned back to the woman who'd become her and Javin's best friend
in the years since she'd come into their lives. "It was Ah'bi and
Fi'lin. I went over there mad enough to strangle someone with my
bare hands, and she proceeded to rebuke me for the fact that they
had to turn to Va'del as a way of countering the bad influence
Be'ter is having on all of the other youngsters."

Mar'li opened her mouth in surprise, but
didn't say anything.

"I could rationalize that away. There's a
real danger if we start impinging on the ability of individual
families to sponsor people who fit with their bloodline, but who
the rest of us wouldn't come in out of the blizzard to share a way
cave with. That's the real problem we face with Va'del. He's
perfect for us, but scares the hell out of everyone else."

The water was hot now, so On'li pulled it off
of the heating sphere and poured two glasses. "What I couldn't
rationalize away was the fact that Be'ter nearly killed Va'del, and
I never even visited the boy to see how he was doing."

Mar'li shook her head violently. "It isn't
your fault; you were both in emergency meetings still. I should
have gone and visited him."

On'li handed her sister-wife one of the cups
and a small teabag. "That isn't an excuse. I wouldn't have let that
stop me if you or Javin had been hurt. It wasn't your place to go
and I wouldn't have expected it from you. No, it was my
responsibility and my failure."

The younger woman dipped her teabag into the
hot water and then looked up. "What will you do?"

"I don't know. I want to somehow make it up
to him, but I'm afraid he won't give me the chance. He really was
right, you know, he's done all of our dirty work, and all anyone
does is slap him around for it."

##

Jain closed her eyes and wished she was
somewhere else, but when she opened them she was still sitting in
the common room and Mali and her friend were still huddled five
feet away trading gossip.

"I know, he's so gorgeous, and the way he
refused to fight Va'del was so brave. That freak is obviously a
danger to everyone around him, but Be'ter knew he didn't need to
prove anything to me, so he didn't fight him."

More like after he saw Va'del take apart
those two jerks, he was worried he might lose, and then where would
he be?

Jain stopped trying to read her history book
and instead just listened to Mali's simpering voice.

"I know. He'll surely pass the rest of his
tests and then he'll propose and we'll be married. We'll have to
follow his sponsors around for a year of course, but then we'll
lead a group down and create the first ever standing diplomatic
mission to the lowlands. He's been studying lowlander culture for
months now. Nobody else begins to know who the real power players
down there are like he does. It's almost assured with the way
everyone's still worried about where the bandits came from."

The conversation continued on in the same
boring vein for several minutes, and Jain found herself wondering
what had her so out of sorts. It wasn't just the book or the fact
that she had to listen to Mali's foolishness. There was something
else fundamentally wrong.

Jain had almost decided to retreat back to
her room and go to sleep early, when she heard Mali say something
interesting. "What would I change about him? I don't know. He's
almost perfect except for the fact that he is always asking which
of the Daughters is more powerful than someone else. He always
blows it off as a joke, but he does it so often."

I'll bet he asks about the prettier girls
more often than the plain ones too.

Only Mali and her friends would be stupid
enough not to realize that Be'ter was trying to figure out which
Daughters would bring the most power into a potential marriage.
What a jerk. If there was even the slightest bit of justice in the
universe Mali would be the weakest of all the Daughters rather than
one of the most powerful in the last several years.

Overcome with disgust at how naive Mali was,
Jain stood to go to her room, only to turn and look with everyone
else as Ah'bi entered the room.

"Jain, I need to speak with you at once."

Her mind whirling with questions about what
she might have done wrong, Jain grabbed a cloak from where it was
hanging just inside her room, and followed the quickly-moving woman
out into the corridor.

The Guadel didn't say anything until they had
been walking for several minutes. "On'li stormed into my room a
cycle ago demanding I explain why we'd modified Va'del."

The older woman waved off Jain's
protestations of innocence. "I don't think you told her, I don't
even think that Va'del told her. If either of you were going to do
that you would have done so long ago. All that isn't important.
What is important is that I don't think that Va'del is in a good
way right now."

Jain felt a wave of worry crash through her,
and almost broke into a run. Ah'bi grabbed her student before she
could take more than a couple steps. "Hold on you foolish child.
I'll take you to his room so that you don't get in trouble. If he
isn't there, then it will be up to you to find him, but I can at
least get you that far."

The trip to Va'del's room seemed to take
forever, but finally they were there, and Jain rushed inside as
Ah'bi turned and headed back down the corridor.

Va'del looked up as she
came in, and Jain's heart skipped a beat as she took in the
incredible pain shining out of the blue of his eyes.
Oh Powers, he has the knife out again.

Neither of them had ever talked about the
little knife that Va'del had owned for so many years, but Jain knew
that he kept it nearby so that he could kill himself if things ever
got too bad for him to go on.

"Leave me alone, Jain. On'li knows. I
threatened her, but no matter what I do you'll get dragged into it.
This is the only way I can protect you."

As she stepped more fully into the room, Jain
saw that he already had the blade pressed against one of the veins
on his arm.

"What about me? Don't you understand how much
I'll suffer if you kill yourself? If you do this, you kill more
than just you."

Va'del shook his head, causing tears to fly
wildly around the room. "You'll be better off this way than if you
continue to get more attached to me. Don't you see? They won't ever
let us be together. You told me yourself. If I don't become a
Guadel they won't let me marry you, not even if you decide to
become a healer. The longer I'm alive the worse everything gets.
For both of us."

Tears were making their way down Jain's
cheeks now, but for the first time since Ah'bi told her that Va'del
might be in trouble, she was thinking clearly. "We still have other
options. We can run away, go down to the lowlands and keep
traveling until we are far enough away that the Guadel will never
be able to find us."

The surprise on her beloved's face would have
made Jain laugh in another time and place. "That's right; you don't
have to do this. You don't have to kill yourself. You don't even
have to remain here in the Capital dancing their tune. We can steal
whatever we'll need to leave, and just go."

Va'del started to tremble, almost as if the
emotions inside him were too much for his tired body to contain any
longer, and then he let the knife slip from his fingers.

"I'm so sorry."

Jain reached out and wrapped her arms around
him. "It's okay. You should have come to me before it got this bad,
though."

"I didn't want to be a burden. I thought I
finally had everything under control after last time, but when
On'li turned on me it was just too much."

Brushing dark strands of hair back from his
face, Jain kissed him. "It doesn't matter. You aren't a burden. We
help lift each other up, that's what families do. And that's what
we are, a family."

Va'del watched Tim'i practice a new slashing
combination, and then moved in and adjusted the boy's arms. "You're
letting your left arm drop too far after the second movement."

The younger boy nodded, and then tried the
attack again. "Like that?"

"That's it, now practice it another hundred
times and you can go. We both know you'd rather be in your books
than here trying to learn how to stop some bag'lig from making you
his next meal. Watch your technique though. Practicing it
incorrectly is worse than not practicing it at all."

I never would have guessed that I'd enjoy
teaching this much.

After Jain had convinced him not to kill
himself, Va'del had been at a loss for what to do next. He'd known
that he'd never be allowed to become a candidate, and consequently
going to class had seemed completely pointless.

He didn't know if Jain had said something to
Ah'bi, who in turn had talked to her husband, or if Fi'lin had just
turned up on his own, but the Guadel had strode into Va'del's room
early the day after he missed all of his classes and all but
dragged him to weapons practice. "You can miss your other classes
if you want. I talked to your instructors and they all said you'll
do fine studying by yourself, but you will be to weapons practice
every day or I'll have both your ears."

The weapons master had then proceeded to make
Va'del his third assistant, despite the fact that Va'del wasn't
even a candidate, let alone a Guadel like the other two.

Teaching filled up the depressing cycles that
Va'del otherwise would have spent thinking about Be'ter's promotion
to what everyone was calling a sub-Guadel. With the new position
Be'ter no longer had to take a full load of classes, just the one
or two that the testers had judged him deficient in.

Not only that, he could start his field work
at any time--all of the rumors said he was just waiting to marry
before proceeding with the extended tour of the villages that would
mark his last real test before being raised to a full Guadel. A
year from now Be'ter would be a Guadel unless the majority of the
Council refused to ratify the decision, a scenario that was highly
unlikely considering that they hadn't gotten rid of him
already.

Va'del stopped to show one of his students
where to place his foot in the sixth movement of the second form so
that the poor boy would stop losing his balance, and then continued
his circuit.

Interestingly enough, Jain seemed to think
Be'ter was trying to delay picking a wife. She seemed to think
Be'ter was still trying to make sure Mali was the most powerful of
the girls his age, but Va'del had wondered once or twice if it
wasn't that Be'ter was scared of linking.

Fi'lin walked over and nodded to his newest
instructor. "They're coming along nicely."

Va'del felt a small flush of pride. "They
really are. I suspect it's more to do with the fact that they are
getting more individual attention than for any other reason."

The Guadel shook his head in resignation.
"You never will accept a compliment, will you?"

Va'del smiled. "Not if I can help it."

"Did you at least bring your sword with you
today like I requested?"

The teenager nodded, pointing to a
carefully-wrapped bundle against the closest wall. "It's over
there, but I still don't know why you had me bring it."

Fi'lin's dark eyes twinkled. "Well, you may
not have noticed it, but unless I'm mistaken you've added another
inch of height and near thirty pounds of muscle since you arrived.
At this point, you're in great need of a new weapon, something a
bit longer and heavier. We'll be meeting up at the blacksmiths as
soon as the class is done so we can put in an order and get you a
proper sword."

Va'del was speechless as the older man turned
and walked away. Only the Guadel and the highest level of the Guard
ever got weapons specially made for them. Everyone else picked
through the armory looking for something that was a close enough
fit to work.

On'li and Javin never would
have thought of that.
Even as he
registered the thought, Va'del felt a little guilty about it. Up
until recently Javin and On'li had been too busy trying to get him
made a candidate to worry about little things like a new sword.
Va'del really should have gone back and apologized to On'li the
next day, but he'd still been so hurt and angry. Now, after so
long, an apology would be even more awkward and less likely to make
any kind of real difference. It was starting to feel like the best
thing would be just to hope he didn't run into her.