Xilanada - Unforsakable Birthright/Part 12

The 22nd Day of Ascending Wood, 766 in the Year of Our Empress.

A dozen evenings later, the wind left its perch over the sleeping woman. It barely brushed the door as it left, careful not to set off any wards she might have left in place. It hadn't seen any, but she could still have resources beyond its ability to detect.

The wind was careful. The wind was cautious. The wind was subtle. It had not been caught because it was these things.

The wind crept along the corridors, silent and unnoticed. The hour was late enough that no students were up, and what the stray rat might find would be nothing more than that passing breeze. It moved past closed classrooms, workshops, libraries and lounges, past cleaners and washers and sweepers. It reached the Founder's Wing of the School and still it kept on, past bedrooms and baths.

Until it reached the very end of the Wing. The door to the Master of the School's private residence was tightly sealed and locked, with wards the equal of some high-security facilities in the Realm proper. Certainly more than a match for almost any that would seek unauthorized entry.

But the wind was invited.

The door opened for it and in it went. It moved along thick rugs and elegant tapestries rendered bright by small balls of everlasting light. It moved past the dark oak paneled walls that gleamed lustrously. It moved past bookshelves laden with tomes too valuable, too important, too dangerous to be entrusted to the library.

And then the wind reached the old man sitting in front of the fireplace. He was wrapped in a thick fur robe and he dangled a rounded glass of wine as he shifted comfortably in the heavy upholstery of his chair.

"Sen. Enough." Those words were all he spoke, and they were as heavy as the atmosphere, and more menacing.

The wind cast aside its shroud of Essence and from it stepped a man. Tepet Ajalat Sen, Fire-Aspect and Sorcerer, and cunningly clever in the ways of concealment dropped into a chair next to the old man.

"Father. I found nothing." He poured himself a glass of that wine quickly and downed it even more swiftly than it had poured. The taste was pleasant, lingering like an old friend. He helped himself to some more, despite Tepet Ajalat Malias' glare.

"Nothing at all?"

"No, Father. Nothing at all. Nothing," he clearly enunciated.

"No tests of our wards. No attempts to use Essence. No sly innuendos or the beginnings of building a network of power for herself. Nothing?" The old man's voice, and face, was clearly skeptical.

"Father, I told you, there's nothing special about her at all," Sen said, weary of the demands his Charms had placed upon him. Weary of his father's unending suspicion. Weary of it all. "I did my job, the one you asked me to. I watched her at every moment. The only thing the least bit unusual about her is her lack of memory, if you believe it. And no, I don't either. But she hasn't the strength of Essence to be much of a danger to anyone."

"No? Use your brain, boy, or what passes for it in that wine-laden mess between your ears. She knew enough to correct a Third-Tier mistake in a ward, but she doesn't have enough Essence to even power a ward up? She's able to teach an advanced course in First Age lore, she speaks Old Realm, something no one bothers to learn unless they're deadly serious about Old Sorcery and dealing with Spirits or Demons. She's that far along, but she never bothered to gain the power herself?"

"I don't know that I believe it either, Father," spoke up the third person here. Sen smiled at Seya, who smiled back. "But it's true. You can see for yourself. She hasn't the Essence to light a candle."

"And you don't think she could conceal her Essence Mastery if she was strong enough?" he sneered.

"No, Father," Sen replied automatically, not bothering to keep the fatigue out of his voice. "We both know better. Nothing in Creation can do that. Not if you know what you're doing, and we do."

"Did you have to hurt her?" Seya asked coolly. Sen could see she was upset. Not that he was surprised. She had always taken this School more seriously than any of them. Whether their father admitted it or not, she was also mostly responsible for its success. A pity that compassion was getting in the way right now.

"Yes, yes," Malias replied irritably. "We had to be sure, of course. None of us think she's really honest about her past. You don't seem to think she's any kind of a security threat. Well, I do."

"I'm with Seya," Sen said as he downed another glass of the wine. Good drink should be savored, especially wine, but he was in the mood to be drunk, not to savor. And wine was all Malias would carry in his quarters.

"With your sister, are you?" Malias sneered. "I thought you had more sense."

"I do have more sense, Father," he said with a sardonic grin to Seya. "More sense than you do, maybe. Yes, yes, so she knows far more than she should. But she's about as Exalted as...as that cushion you're sitting on." He pointed vaguely at the pillow with his glass while taking the bottle to refill it.

"And you know this for certain?" Malias snorted.

"No, Father, of course not," Sen sighed. "But not only did that knife blow wound her badly, but she bled just fine for a mortal. If I had meant to kill her...that knife would have done the job, she would be dead, and we wouldn't be having this terribly boring conversation, now would we?"

"She could be faking it...somehow," Malias muttered.

"Somehow is correct, Father," Seya stated. "She bears no sign of Essence Mastery despite our efforts to gauge it. She suffers harm like a mortal and bleeds as one, as Sen's thorough job would attest to." Her glare was mostly blunted by the increasing haze he could feel spreading across his body as more wine found its way into his stomach. "Please. We have been over this. Do not be unreasonable."

"You be reasonable!" snapped Malias, as he tugged his robe more tightly about him. "I don't have time for reasonable."

"It happens to us all, Father," Sen said, swirling more wine around in his glass. He understood why his father was so irascible but it didn't make being around him any easier. "It will happen to Seya and I. Just as it happened to your father. We all get old."

"Don't expect me to just give in to it, then," Malias grumbled. "I won't. I have too much to do before I die. And I won't have some upstart Exalt posing as a servant girl interfering!"

Their father turned to look at the fire and sat there, drinking and brooding. Sen felt too tired to be uncomfortable and his sister never got too riled up over anything.

"Did you really have to hurt her?" Seya asked, still plainly irritated.

"By Hesiesh, I didn't want to," Sen complained. "But you know Father. And it was a good test, you have to admit. An Exalt can choose not to use their Essence and try to mask their power, but who ever heard of one who'd let themselves bleed with a wound that bad?"

"Her sickness isn't proof of that?" Seya grumbled.

"Good point," Sen acknowledged. "There's something that troubles me about that. She's been sick for a couple of months now, from what I hear. And yet her symptoms seem...familiar, somehow. I feel like I should be able to place them."

"That seems unlikely," Seya said with raised eyebrows. "You were never very interested in medicine, at any point in your life, Sen."

"Just the same, Sis, I know I've seen it before. What she's said, how she looks...hmmm... I'll think about it."

"Tell me, Sen. What happens to her now?"

Sen looked at his sister with interest. Yes, this Xilanada had already made a favorable impression on her. Enough that she was willing to chide him for doing his job and push him even after for his intentions.

"What happens depends on her. She'll be watched, of course. But that's true for any of the Professors. Seya, please. I don't get off on killing innocent girls. You know that. I'm not going to let Father's paranoia infect me."

Seya looked at him for a long moment, seeming to search his eyes and through them his heart for what he really meant. Having no reason to hide, he let her study him. At last, her lips firmed and she nodded in satisfaction.

"I am going to bed, Sen. You should think about doing the same. It has been a long day for you, too."

"In a minute, Seya. I have a little more thinking and a little more wine to drink." Sen watched his sister leave and leaned back in his chair. His Father, Tepet Ajalat Malias, was far too preoccupied in his own thoughts to notice his son's, and that was just as well.

It was silly. It was trite. By the Five Elemental Dragons, it was unprofessional. But Sen couldn't deny his feelings, or what he had experienced today in doing his job. Xilanada was still a risk here, an unknown quantity. Something wasn't quite right about her and he hadn't figured out what it was.

But he knew, with a degree of resignation, that it didn't matter.

It was love at first sight.