First Apprentice

Chapter 28 Part 4

Lips pursed, I studied Kevin's aura. No obvious signs of deception, which meant he believed he could solve the problem. Did his abilities justify his belief? Did it matter? Between the Central Keystone and the Marstow Gate, I barely had time to eat. Sleep was swiftly becoming an unaffordable luxury.

"Boughs work in a pinch, but they are not beds. You will have real beds with mattresses and blankets, bathing facilities approved by our new healer, and anything else Helen says you should have."

"We can't afford that!"

"Thirty years ago," my tone turned cold, matching the ice that crept out from beneath my feet, "my house numbered one thousand eight hundred ninety-seven members — all Ivers by blood — with over seventy-five thousand adults from all walks of life sworn to our service." Blood vassalage mostly. Their oaths passed down from parent to child for millennia. They managed our businesses and lands, shared the profits, sent their children to the same schools, and mated into our line. They were family, too. "Ask me how many survived the plagues."

Kevin rocked back on his heels, distancing himself from me without taking a full step back. Did someone teach him that daes viewed backing away as a submissive act or was he acting on instinct? "How many?" he whispered.

"Two. Grandparents, parents, third cousins five times removed, all died except me and Grandfather, who's actually a many greats uncle. Gold, land, mines, investments, a few hundred vassals, an old fortress, bones, and me — that's Iver. Gold won't resurrect the dead, but it can help us stay alive. Worst case, we contract your services to Iver, have you build what we need with Iver gold, then rent it back. Considering the sum I lent our office last night, I doubt that will be necessary."

"You still shouldn't waste your inheritance on us."

"Ensuring the people responsible for watching my back while I seal are well armed, trained, fed, and clothed is not and will never be a waste. What the Seven allowed is a travesty. One I will see corrected. As for my inheritance, I could raise my own army without touching the principal."

A good thing. Thanks to my ancestors' bizarre restrictions, no one could access the principal unless a gate fell or a clan assassinated the family head, which was probably why we still had gold. Among his other sterling qualities, including child abandonment, my father was a spendthrift. Grandfather dolled out my allowance every month and required I account for every last quarter pip. The senteris coins around my wrist cost me nine months allowance — thirteen months worth of savings because I outgrew my wardrobe and Grandfather only provided two outfits and a formal gown. I had to join the Border Guard before I could touch a pip of my ancestor's money.

"Gold isn't an issue. Time is. I placed a bounty on my gates last night. That buys us some time," assuming the gold lured in a few competent guardians to maintain them for few months, "but I still need you all maintaining gates yesterday."

Kevin's shoulders quivered as he held his breath — a common calming technique most daes learned as children. Air whooshed out of his lungs. The tension bled out of him. "Thank you. The other apprentices," he shrugged. "Luis would if he had it, but with his sister the way she is he's worse off than we are."

When I looked at Kevin askance, he clarified, "a seal blew up in her face a few years ago. She's blind and paralyzed from the waist down. She was an independent researcher, not Border Guard. If Joel-dae hadn't stepped in and paid most of the bills, Luis'd be indentured by now. Arash, Gemma, and Victor don't see the problems. Priya and Rena cause them."

"Don't thank me yet. I'm supplying the funds and a handful of seals."

Worrying my bottom lip with my teeth, I mulled over the situation and the resources available. I knew people like Amit. Their entire lives revolved around acquiring power then doing anything and everything necessary to keep it. Simply put, my candidates were threats because their magic surpassed his.

Take Maria — a middling class two dae — arm her with Daneian sentirus, train her up, and let her challenge Amit. Unless Diane got involved, Amit died. Every time.

A battle between two equally trained and armed daes, both experienced, almost always came down to raw magic. Simply put, Amit would run out of fuel before Maria did.

Ensuring Maria never received the training, arms, and all the other enticements the Border Guard offered daes of her station to lure them away from their clans was in Amit's best interests. If I was Amit... My lips curled into a snarl.

"After what happened this morning, I suspect there's already a case pending against me."

Kevin looked at me in shock. "But you haven't done anything wrong!"

"The Seven set the standard," I said, tempering my tone so he understood I wasn't upset with him. I hoped. "You have assigned housing."

"Tenements where they pack us in like sardines in a can without any consideration for our instincts and safety."

Another matter to investigate. "The point is you never refused it."

"We couldn't without Terry's signature."

"The Seven will not care. They will look at Terry's expenditures for last year and my current budget. They will see an item labeled 'Permanent Dwelling Rents Payable'. Then Amit will send an investigator to whatever address is listed on Terry's paperwork from last year. He or she will ask the neighbors when they last saw you. Then they'll toss up a few magical signature detection wards.

"The longer you spend at a location, the more your magic lingers. If you slept there within the last six months, they will know when and for how long. It is very easy to tell you don't live there, which begs the question where do you live. Eventually, they will find your dugouts and rake me over the coals because you were mistreated. They will not care when it happened, why, if it was your choice, or anything else. All they will care about is their checklist!"

"The dugouts helped us survive!"

"Your dugouts will bury me if I'm not extremely careful, which may not matter after the Dracon Gate falls because we'll all be dead. You felt her the other day. She won't get better, Kevin, only worse. Get the Seven's checklist and meet every point on it as quickly as you can.

"Run your ideas past Helen. She survived both clan wars. Few can say that. Even fewer guardians fought during the second. She knows better than anyone what we need to survive a third. Whenever possible, farm the work out. You can spare a few hours a day. No more. If you need a shelf built, hire a carpenter. For seal work, break the seals out by level and hand it off to the infirmary. Those who can't seal, research writs, calculate how much water we need in our reservoir, etcetera."

"Consider it done, Alannah-dae."

I shifted my right thumbnail into a claw and sliced my fingertips open. Blood dripped from my hand, spattering against the rock. "I, Alannah Rhian Claise, the Iver, chosen daughter of Ancient Guardian Endellion formerly clan Dracon, swear on my life's blood to protect all information discovered by merging with," I looked at him expectantly.

"Kevin of Morgan's Reach, chosen son of Lord Simon, second of the Seven."

When I repeated his name, my fingers tingled as the oath-bound itself to my magic. "As if such information were my own secrets, keeping them unto myself in this life and the next."

Dandelion flames twirling in his aura like dancers at a ball, Kevin repeated the final phrase, sealing my oath. I placed bloody fingers on Kevin's temples and nudged his magic with mine as I drew a single line across his forehead then repeated the action with my own.

With a click, our minds linked together. Maybe this situation wasn't as hopeless as I feared.