Warrior's Touch (Deadly Touch book 2)

Useless. All useless.

Aris slapped another book closed. Nothing but lies and half-truths. Perhaps he should have been pleased. They were lies and half-truths he had planted, after all. At least Anya and Llew were unlikely to find anything of real consequence, but it didn’t help him.

What was that child going to be? There was the slimmest chance it could be entirely average, not magic at all. More likely, it would be born either Karan or Aenuk, with every chance of possessing the extra power of the Sy varieties, like its parents. But there was one other possibility: it could be an Immortal. What chance there was of that he couldn’t guess. The old Immortals came only from Immortal parents.

And if it was Immortal, what could he do about it? Of one thing he was certain, he wouldn’t be sitting back watching it live his life. Hard enough living nigh on a millennium without the power he used to wield. It was a sorry state, to live so long, powerless, with the memories he had. Bona fide power. Not borrowed, babysat power. Real power, immense power, in his own blood.

He’d spent too long nurturing one half of his power. The half carried by the Syakara. The half most easily controlled.

Aris could think of nothing worse than watching that child grow to wield his powers. And they were his. It was how the Sy varieties of the Aenuks and Kara had been created. His power divided. Now rejoined.

Maybe.

Regardless of what the child was, or could be, Llew was a problem. Already she was interfering with his control over Jonas. Once that child was born, Aris could guess how much harder it would be to keep Jonas in line. Kierra had caused enough trouble, and she had been his idea, and Syakaran. But she had demanded too much, had thought being married to Jonas meant she had some ownership of his time and his bed. Llew would be much, much worse. She already defied Aris, had done right from the start. For now, Aris still held Jonas’s leash. For how much longer? Until the child spawned, if he was lucky. Possibly not even that long. Indeed. Llew was a problem.

There was a knock, and his bedroom door opened a crack. “You wanted to see me, Captain?”

Aris smiled at the sight of his new star pupil. “Yes, Karlani. Come on in.” He turned his chair to face into the room and indicated for her to take the other chair.

She sat, watching him. It wasn’t the hard suspicion Jonas was nurturing. Respectful curiosity, that was it. He liked it – even underneath all the bruising – as much as he liked the deep plummet of her neckline today. The woman wasn’t shy about leaving an extra button or two open. Such flaunting by another woman would have earned scorn, but Karlani oozed dignity. Probably had something to do with her otherwise hard exterior. She was no trained soldier, but she wore her Syakaran power well. She was not a woman to cross.

Aris let her notice him noticing her. Some might think it an odd pairing; a woman in her late twenties and man in his mid-nine-hundreds. Not that he looked a day over fifty. Maybe fifty-two.

“Tell me, Karlani, how you really feel about Jonas.”

Karlani rolled her eyes and chuckled. “You want my honest opinion?”

Aris nodded deeply.

“Jonas is a spoilt man-child who doesn’t take his gift seriously. He has no concept of the privilege bestowed on him and the responsibilities that go along with it. He’s always known he was special, and why, yet he throws it in your face, sleeping with your sworn enemy. His own sworn enemy. He disrespects you. He doesn’t know what it’s like to grow up surrounded by ignorance. Children can be cruel.” She pouted, but it wasn’t entirely genuine. No doubt she had looked after herself just fine from an early age. “I thought I’d never find anyone like me. The men in my village were useless. More interested in proving themselves against me than to me. When I heard about Jonas, I thought my prayers were answered, only to find out he’s shacked up with that... leech.”

“Leech.” Aris smiled. “I like that.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees and steepling his fingers. “And yet you would bed him for the chance to carry his child?”

“I know the statistics, and while I may rate myself favorably, the world still values the Syakaran male above all. I may not like it, but it’s the world I live in. I will give the world its next hero.”

“What if I told you there was a man more powerful even than Jonas. A man older, wiser, stronger, faster... immortal.”

Karlani cocked her head. He had her attention. “I’d say, ‘Where is this world leader, and why haven’t I met him?’.”

Aris smiled. “I’d like to say that you have, but, while I might not be lying, I could be braggin’ afore my time.” He let his full, charming, Quaven lilt settle in. Flirting. That’s what the kids called it.

Karlani leaned forward in her seat. “Do tell.”

Aris leaned back in his chair, folded his arms. He was about to lay his soul bare to a virtual stranger, but she was probably the only person he would trust with what he had to share. “I have two choices before me, with a range of likely outcomes.”

Karlani nodded. The way she listened made him feel around nine hundred and thirty-six years younger.

“If life works as I think it might, then there is a good chance that leech’s baby might be Immortal.”

Karlani eased back, very much interested, and concerned as she should be.

“Now, I don’t know for sure,” he continued, “so I’m hedging my bets, here. My choices are: I kill the child, or let it live.”

“I have no particular soft spot for it.”

“No. I figured that might be the case. Now, either way, if that child is born, I’ve lost Jonas.”

“Does that matter now I’m here?”

“I have been ponderin’ on that, and it’s a fair question. I don’t mind so much lettin’ him go, but I ain’t so keen on his switching allegiances.”

“Is there any threat of that? He cares for one Aenuk. That doesn’t make him a friend to Turhmos.”

“No, it doesn’t. And if his child should be merely Karan or Aenuk, Sy or not, then there is little to be concerned with. But should this child be Immortal, and I lose any hold I have on Jonas, well, let’s just say I will be looking ahead to an exceedingly long and disappointing life.”

“Just how old are you?”

“Well, now, that ain’t the most polite question to go asking, is it?”

She buttoned her lips, but there was still mirth in her eyes.

“So, the child living isn’t a good idea,” she said. “Killing it won’t be easy, and I don’t fancy facing Jonas in a rage. The way he moves...”

“No. He can be quite the handful, and that’s where I expect to strike trouble. Back in the day, if one Immortal killed another, using the right weapon, he would gain his victim’s powers, becoming that much more powerful. I, myself, racked up a good few kills and wielded quite some power, before it was stolen from me.”

“Stolen? How?”

“An Aenuk, and an Ajnai tree.” Aris sneered. “And from them, the Sy races were born.” He swept an arm out, as if the existence of the now most powerful races was some romanticism.

“Really? My power was once yours? By that logic, I could call you Pa.”

“But you won’t.”

Karlani lowered her eyes at the chastisement before looking up from beneath her brow and letting a cheeky grin light up her face. If he hadn’t had more important things on his mind, Aris might have directed her to his bed there and then. But he did, so he didn’t.

“Fact of the matter is, if I kill this child, I either regain my Immortal powers, in which case all will be right with the world, or I don’t, and Jonas kills me for killing his child. And do you know, I can make peace with that? I would rather die tomorrow than live the next however many hundreds of years I’ve got left watching this child get around with my powers.”

All cheek had fled Karlani, and she nodded, her face sober.

“Now, I have no idea what this child is. Until I lost my powers, there were no Syakara, no Syaenuks. But, for the first time in some nine hundred years, there’s a chance, no matter how small, that I might get my powers back, and I aim to do just that, or die trying.”

“Makes sense,” Karlani whispered, more as an acknowledgeable than to add anything to the conversation.

“I have cogitated the idea of waiting until the child is born, but what do you reckon on the chances that Jonas will leave it unattended?”

“Slim.”

“Slim,” Aris repeated. “But once we get to Quaver, I can have the leech caged, and possibly hold Jonas in custody for his involvement with it, at least for a few days. Am I right in thinking I can count on you to help me with this?”

Karlani shrugged. “I came to perform my duty as a Syakaran.”

“At least someone did.”

Oops. Sorry to my earliest readers, I managed to get a few chapters out of order, there. Apologies. Fi