“No.” The High Lord cut him off. “We will speak no more of this.”
Something in his voice made Ged shut up and listen. It made Jacen tense, dread a growing malignancy in the back of his mind. This wasn’t over. The High Lord met Mother Akkani’s pale eyes, and an unspoken message passed between them.
“Brother Kheris,” Avram ordered. “Silence him.”
The words were ambiguous. The meaning was not. Jacen was the interloper in this chamber, the only one outside the tight-knit upper echelons of the Church and House Semira. Ged might bluster, but ultimately, Jacen was the one who could not be trusted.
The only one, besides the scavenger.
There it was—a test.Either Jacen would walk out of there alone, or neither of them would.
Body heavy as lead, Jacen turned toward the poor man as he struggled to his feet.
“I won’t tell a soul,” the scavenger said. “I swear it.”
Jacen looked to Akkani, willing her to sense his bewilderment and alarm. To simply erase the scavenger’s memory might have proved too great a risk, but was there no other alternative?
She didn’t even blink.
Ged watched with her, jaw clenched tight enough to crack a tooth. “Kheris,” said the High Lord. A threat this time.
The scavenger staggered back, eyes bulging. “Please. Brother. I have children. My wife was taken last year; they have no one?—”
“Your family will be taken care of. You have my word as your liege.
Kheris,now.”
Jacen shoved aside every last part of him that was human, that felt the scavenger’s fear as acutely as his own. He’d never even learned his name. At least, by Jacen’s hand, this would be fast.
When the scavenger tried to run, Jacen seized hold of his mind. It lay malleable and defenseless; he wasn’t trained to resist. Few of Zivora’s common people were.
A stranglehold on his motor function, and he toppled to the floor. Jacen dulled his sensory perception before he could feel any pain. He navigated the man’s consciousness like a map, expressed through the brain. Control over vital functions was clustered in one area. Jacen felt that pulse beneath extradimensional fingertips, dense with the Source’s essence. Only Sixth Tier telepaths could sense with such clarity. But if one knew where to look . . . this part was simple.
Ironic, the way a human mind was an impossibly complex entity—until this. First, Jacen put the man to sleep. Then he stopped his heart.Hold . . . hold . . . hold . . .one hundred and thirty-seven seconds of uninterrupted focus to ensure bodily functions would not resume on their own.
Last, Jacen shuttered off his own mind. That was the first rule he’d learned, as a ten-year-old acolyte charged to kill for the first time:Never feel them die.To touch what lay beyond was too great a risk, an act that would drive most to madness.
Jacen had broken that rule only once. He would never risk it again.
He knelt beside the scavenger’s body, head throbbing, too tired to move.
When at last he looked up, Akkani offered him a slight nod. Her white eyes were flat and cold as palestone.
“Very good,” said the High Lord. “Ged, call the guards to clean this up.”
But Ged was once again staring at the skull. “If there’s a chance we could be free of the Harvest, control our own fates?—”
“Quiet.” Avram Semira stood from his throne. His chest rose and fell as if from heavy exertion. Sweat beaded on his brow, and if Jacen had dared to probe closer, he suspected he would sense fear. “You will not speak heresy in my presence, boy.” His eyes flicked toward Akkani. “Orhers.”
“Heresy?” Ged repeated, incredulous. “This changes everything.” “We will not make the same mistakes as our ancestors,” said
Avram. “We have been paying that price for centuries. You have no idea how much worse it could be.” He glanced at Jacen. “Leave us, Brother Kheris.”
Jacen bowed and turned to go. His heart thudded in his ears as he knocked on the doors and waited for the guards tohaul them open. For an endless moment, the scavenger’s corpse leered in his peripheral vision.
As soon as he was clear, guts heaving, he ducked around a corner to a smaller passageway. The only receptacle in reach was an ornate bronze vase, probably more expensive than anything he’d ever been allowed to own. He dropped to his knees and vomited into it.
Not much remained in Jacen’s stomach. He had little appetite these days, and after tonight . . .
