The Talented (25 page)

“
I didn’t mean to move
ahead against your wishes,” Adrienne replied calmly, for what
seemed the hundredth time.

“
I told them that,” Ben
said, “but they say that is beside the point. I am surprised the
commission didn’t expel you from Kessering, though frankly they
probably believe that it is best that you be contained here.” He
was breathing hard, and his frail shoulders had fallen inward,
returning him to his typical slump.

“
Contained?” The thought
that the commission wouldn’t let her leave had never occurred to
her.

“
Don’t you understand the
implications of your Talent? How dangerous it could be?”

“
Of course. But that was
the point, wasn’t it? It’s why the commission finally decided to
train soldiers. They needed people to develop Talents that could be
used in a fight.”

“
Yes. And
they—
we
—needed
time to decide what to do with you if you did develop such a
Talent.”

Adrienne almost felt sorry
for the young man, caught as he was between her and the commission.
He was both Talented and a commissioner, and being caught between
two pieces of himself could not be a comfortable
position.

“
Perhaps everything
happened faster than you and the other commissioners planned,”
Adrienne began in what she hoped was a reasonable, reassuring tone,
“but that is done and cannot be changed. Now we have to focus on
the fact that I have developed one of the abilities that the
commission was looking for and move forward.”

“
Fine,” Ben said, though it
was clear to Adrienne that she had not heard the last of his
complaints. “The first step is figuring out the limits of your
power.”

Adrienne nodded, knowing
that such a priority was two-fold in her case. The commission had
tested the limits of every new Talent developed in Kessering, but
she sensed that the commission wanted to know as soon as possible
how potentially destructive her Talent could be.

“
You were angry last time.
Do you think it is necessary for you to be angry to use your
ability?” Ben asked.

That possibility had never
occurred to Adrienne, and it was one that might have worried her
had she not already known the answer. “I don’t think so,” she said,
not wanting to reveal that she had just spent an hour experimenting
with her Talent.

“
Good,” Ben said, seeming
genuinely pleased for the first time since Adrienne had discovered
her Talent with fire. “Let’s see what you can do.”

Adrienne repeated the
exercise with the candle that she had performed for Louella,
pleased that Ben seemed impressed by what she was able to do. It
seemed that for the moment the scholar in him was stronger than the
commissioner, and that he had put aside his personal feelings.
Whatever disappointment he felt for her as her teacher was
outweighed by his eagerness to see what else she could do with her
Talent.

“
Do you have another candle
in here?” Ben asked.

Adrienne stood up and got
the candle from atop the mantle, setting it across from the other
candle on the small table her room offered. “What do you want me to
do?”

“
I want to see if you can
light the candle.”

Adrienne knew this was a
real test of her Talent, and she concentrated hard on the cold
wick. The already burning flame from the candle beside it beckoned
her, and she knew without trying that she could transfer the first
flame to the second candle without difficulty. But that was not
what she wanted to do. She needed to know if she could start a fire
from nothing.

She stared at the wick for
a long time with no result. She could feel no fire there, and was
nearly ready to give up when she became aware of her surroundings
in a new way. She did not focus on the nearby beckoning candle, but
on everything else: the heat in the air, the last rays of the
afternoon sun, the energy emanating from her and Ben. With supreme
effort she pulled them all together, focused them all into the
wick, and the candle lit.

“
You did it,” Ben said with
surprise. “It took nearly an hour, but…you did it!”

Adrienne had not realized
how long she had been at it, but she knew that she would be able to
light the candle much quicker next time. “I want to do it again,”
she told Ben eagerly, leaning forward to blow out the candle she
had just lit.

“
Tomorrow,” Ben told her,
but his smile was filled with understanding.

Adrienne thought about
arguing, but the memory that the commission already viewed her as
being disobedient stopped her. Besides, she was tired from working
with her Talent, first with Louella and then with Ben. It seemed
that although using her Talent was a mental process, the effects
were physical. “What time?”

“
Noon should be soon
enough,” Ben said. “Make sure to eat before I get here.”

“
Of course,” Adrienne said.
The meals Adrienne got at the inn were considerably better when Ben
ate with her, but after speaking with the cook and several of the
maids over the course of the last two months, she had finally
stopped getting meals that looked as though they belonged in a pig
trough. She thought that the cook might almost like her by
now.

Ben left, and Adrienne
stripped out of her
swa’il
, leaving her in only her
skin. She blew out the two lit candles and slipped into bed,
falling almost instantly asleep.

••••••

Adrienne sat at a table
placed in one of the corners of Louella’s shop. Her friend was
dusting the room, but Adrienne hardly noticed her. She was too
intent on trying to form balls of fire in her hand.

The tales spoke of people
being able to hurl fire the way others threw balls of leather, but
her efforts on that front grew increasingly frustrating. Adrienne
knew that fire would be a tremendous weapon if she was able to
throw it, but she was having trouble forming a fireball at all, let
alone being able to throw one. Lighting candles was easy and seemed
natural to her now, but sustaining a fire off of nothing but
willpower was a different story altogether. Adrienne could barely
get a fireball bigger than a slingshot pebble to form before it
winked out of existence, unable or unwilling to burn without
fodder.

But the tales Adrienne had
heard from Tam and Ben, as well as the accounts in Asmov’s journal,
said hurling fireballs was possible, and Adrienne was determined to
keep trying until she could do so. She was in Kessering to become a
weapon, though the commission might deny it, and a weapon she would
become.

She looked up briefly when
someone entered the room and saw a middle-aged woman standing just
inside the door. The woman was holding one arm still with the
other, and Adrienne thought perhaps she had broken or sprained it.
Since the woman did not appear to be a threat, Adrienne went back
to working with fireballs, leaving the woman in Louella’s capable
hands.

Louella ushered the woman
into a chair, asking in a low voice what had happened. Their voices
were no more than murmurs, but Adrienne could imagine what was
being said. Louella would ask for the woman to tell her what had
happened to her arm, and the injured woman would confide the story,
likely receiving as much comfort from Louella’s soft words as she
would from her Talent. The healer was good with people, and would
ask other things, things about family and friends, things that
Adrienne would never think to ask about, to put the injured woman
at ease before she got to work. It was Louella’s way.

She focused again on
forming a fireball and attempted to ignore Louella and the woman.
It was harder than it should have been to ignore them; being in a
state of Oneness meant Adrienne was acutely aware of their
presence, and she could sense every time the woman looked over at
her.

Although Adrienne was
aware of the woman’s pain through the connection Oneness forged, it
was easy to block out. What she did have trouble blocking were the
mounting nerves that arose in the injured woman with every sideways
glance in Adrienne’s direction.

Finally, Louella stood up
and came over to Adrienne. She had her small hands fisted on her
narrow hips, and looked as disapproving as anyone with such a
delicate face could look. “Adrienne, do you think you can stop that
for just a few minutes?” Louella asked.

Adrienne raised one dark
eyebrow in a questioning arch. “Stop what?”

“
Stop with the fire,”
Louella said. “You’re scaring that woman.”

Adrienne looked over at
the woman, and the woman looked away quickly. Fearfully.
“Oh.”

“
I’m having trouble
convincing her to stay,” Louella said, her temper sounding sharper
than Adrienne had expected. “Now stop with the fire until I mend
her arm.”

Adrienne nodded and let
the glimmer of a flame that was wavering weakly in her palm die
out. “Fine.”

The woman relaxed when
Adrienne’s fire did not reappear after Louella returned to her
side. Mending the woman’s arm was quick work once Louella received
some cooperation, and when the woman left with her arm and a
variety of small, unnoticed aches and pains healed, Adrienne
resumed trying to cultivate her Talent.

She refused to feel guilty
for scaring the woman. If her Talent, like the fact that she was a
soldier, scared people, that was their problem. Even Louella’s big
blue eyes could not convince her otherwise.

••••••

After tossing and turning
in bed for what seemed like hours, Adrienne gave up on the thought
of sleep and got dressed. She hesitated over her
swa’il,
thinking of the
blouse and trousers Louella had convinced her to buy after Adrienne
had adamantly refused to buy a dress. Women did not wear trousers,
Louella had insisted, but Adrienne had finally convinced Louella
that even the tightest trousers would be more modest than
her
swa’il
,
though Adrienne found nothing provocative about the leather outfit
she usually wore.

Maybe if she showed up at
Louella’s dressed in the outfit Louella had chosen for her, the
healer would be less displeased by the late-night visit.

She dressed quickly and
made her way through the dark streets to the healer’s shop. She
went around to the back door and knocked softly so as not to wake
Louella if the other woman was already sleeping.

“
Adrienne,” Louella said in
surprise. “What are you doing here?”

“
I couldn’t sleep,” she
admitted.

“
Come in, come in,” Louella
said, stepping back so that Adrienne could enter.

“
I’m sorry it’s so late,”
Adrienne apologized.

“
I’m glad you stopped by,”
Louella said, setting a cup full of tea in front of Adrienne before
going around the table to sit in her own chair. She took a sip of
tea from her own cup and sat back with a sigh. “Have you been busy?
I haven’t seen you for days.”

Adrienne shrugged. “Busy
enough. I’ve been trying to work on those bloody fireballs…” She
shook her head angrily. “Ben says to keep trying, but the practice
doesn’t seem to help much.”

Adrienne was sick of
working with fireballs. She had grown better at forming them, and
could sustain a small ball of light above her palm without too much
difficulty now, but throwing the balls still seemed all but
impossible.

Her research in the
library was no less frustrating, and something that she still
hadn’t confided in her friend. She saw no point in telling Louella
about the hours spent in the library until she understood more of
what she was reading herself. For now, Louella could think that all
of her frustration was from working with her Talent.

Louella smiled around the
rim of her teacup. “I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but
have you considered that your Talent might not develop that
way?”

Adrienne scowled. “My
Talent is working with fire. In the stories—”

“
My Talent is healing, but
I’m no good when it comes to illnesses,” Louella said reasonably.
“In the stories those who could heal seemed to be able to heal
everything from a flu to broken bones to stab wounds, but I cannot.
Maureen can take care of sicknesses, but it is much more difficult
for her to stop a cut from bleeding, whereas for me it’s the
opposite. It’s all I can do to break a mild fever.”

“
That’s different,”
Adrienne muttered.

“
Why?”

“
Because I’m the only one
who can use fire,” Adrienne said. “I’m the only one with a Talent
like this, and I should be able to do what the stories
say.”

“
Maureen was the only one,
for awhile. Just because you are the only one now doesn’t mean no
one else will develop your Talent. Perhaps they will be able to
throw fire. You must discover what
you
can do.” Adrienne didn’t
respond, and Louella seemed to realize that the soldier was not in
the mood to be reasonable. about the limitations of her Talent.
“What else have you been doing? You can’t be spending all of your
time practicing with fire.”

“
I’m trying to work on my
soldiering skills as much as I can without a partner to practice
with,” Adrienne told her. It was the truth, if not the whole truth.
She did spend a portion of each day training. “I wish there was
someone here that I could spar with, but even running through the
forms is helpful.”