“Well, no.” A wave of confusion washed over me. “Of course, they can’t. I am an acolyte here, and Elex is part of the Education Guilds. We belong here.”
“They want you despite your alliances,” Tymon said. “It doesn’t matter. They are convinced that controlling you will control the Breaking.”
“I don’t control the Breaking.” I tossed a look between the masters in the room. “I can control a class of students, and that’s about it.”
Danai forked a few pancakes on to her plate. “No one here is sure what the Breaking will bring. We have only prepared as much as we can. We don’t know what will come. None of us. But weareancient, and we are far more acquainted with the people and our island.”
“What we aren’t sure of,” Dorian said, “is who these people are. They have managed to stay in the underground, away from our prying eyes. So, in addition to saving your ass last night, I was hoping we would find out more.”
Most of my life, I had joked about how safe S’Kir was and how anything going even slightly off-kilter was utter dissension toward the plan.
I never thought some people spent their lives going against the will of the temple and its masters. It never made any sense. S’Kir was as close to a utopia as we could get, with happiness and health, long life and lifelong learning and friends.
Only accidents marred us. I knew those well.
I pushed some of the breakfast around on my plate while considering what he’d said. Dorian made excellent points. They were the oldest and the closest to the Lost God.
Why would anyone ever go against such a clear-cut plan designed to preserve things as they were? Our society was fun, free, intelligent, and loving. That was the way the Lost God wanted it and how the masters had set it up.
Had the masters known the Lost God?
I pushed the thought away. I still had questions about last night. “So you weren’t helping Elex?”
Dorian eye’s narrowed as he trained them on me. “Everything I do has more than just you or Elex at the heart of it. My reason for saving you, for helping your male, was many-fold. Your life was one. My information was another.”
I hated this man. He couldn’t seem to just have an honest, singular motive. “Did my imperiled life help you gain your information?”
Elex rested his hand on my arm, trying to calm me.
I was not in a mood to be calm—or calmed.
“It did, yes. Thank you.”
Danai’s head whipped up and around to find Dorian’s eyes. “Wow, Dorian. That was perhaps the most dickish thing you have ever said. To anyone.”
A casual flip of his hand dismissed her. “She asked.”
“I asked to prove you are on your own mission and not actually acting nobly to help mymalerescue my kidnapped person.” It had been a very long time since I harbored this much anger toward anyone. “And you have clearly provided the evidence.”
“Do you want me to lie?” His anger came close to matching my own.
“I want you to very carefully examine your duplicity in every damn thing you do!”
“Kimber, please.” Elex’s voice was laced with worry.
“I am angry, Elex. He didn’t want to help us—he was once again helping himself. The self-serving Master of the Temple.”
“You’ve known me as nothing more than a distant master for under two months, you insolent child. You have no idea what I am or what I can do. You have no idea what my motives are or why I chose to help yourmalerescue you.”
“You’re right. I don’t. And I don’t ever want to.”
With an angry move, I shoved the chair back and out from under me. It flipped over, crashing onto the wooden floor, but I didn’t care.
Snapping around, I marched out of the room, through the rotunda, and out the door of the temple.
I had so much anger that I could scarcely believe it. I had to walk almost violently through the massive gardens around the temple.
Where was this coming from? I taughtchildren,I didn’t have a mean bone in my body—at all. I didn’t want to be angry. It took too much energy to be angry.
