Chapter 6

Another shocking dinner... and some news I would have rather not heard

I spent a good half an hour in the library after the incident with Ferryk, sitting in an armchair with my legs pulled up on the seat with me and my arms wrapped as far around my legs as I could get them. That was my comfort position, the one I took when I was particularly shaken or upset, and had I not been in an armchair, I would have been on my bed, or in a hot bath. But the armchair was the most comforting choice, and the fact that this particular armchair was in the library where I could be surrounded by books was even better, since it brought back memories of "my" chair in the library back at the Family residence, which was the place I had run to as a child. I didn't really realize just how much that incident had affected me until I finally calmed down a half hour later and realized that the first place I had run to was the library, and that I had immediately moved into that chair after dismissing the servant with my note to Oren.

At that point, I was feeling a little better, though it still bothered me. I would have to deal with Ferryk himself again until the beginning of the next lesson if I chose to take all my meals in my room until then. I just hoped that that would be enough time to help me get over the incident enough to deal with him, since teaching him was still my job. There was no way I would let this get to me enough to resign; my pride simply wouldn't let me give up that easily.

With that in mind, I spent the rest of the afternoon going over the results of the testing I had put Ferryk through so far and comparing it to the charts of typical results... just in case my instincts were off. Of course, I was right on all counts. His raw potential and strength were off the charts, even those designed to deal with extraordinary Gifts. His ability to concentrate his Gift and his flexibility were also quite high, though certainly not as high as his strength. But his control...

His control was worse than that of most children with newly manifested Gifts. Even a five or six year old who had manifested early and had not had a single bit of training in control or spells would usually have better control than Ferryk did. I suspected it came from the fact that even without the fine control that he lacked, Ferryk was able to get results from his spells just because of his power. I highly doubted he had worked on any spells that required a good deal of accuracy so far, so he had most likely had no need to develop the fine control that the average Gift user developed instinctively. Unfortunately, that same lack of control made him one of the more dangerous people alive when combined with that strength.

I kept all of those results in mind as I started to pick out tests for the next days. There were several tests that I ended up pushing to the side simply because I was afraid of what would happen if something went wrong. There were several tests that I ended up pushing to the side because I knew they would be almost useless because of Ferryk's lack of control. But on the other hand, I found several other tests that were specifically designed to take advantage of excessive power, and the lack of control that frequently came paired with extraordinary power.

In the end, I had had fewer tests that I felt would be useful at this point than I had originally expected. The lack of control, and the danger that a slip in control could cause in some of the tests, was the problem, and it left me with a list of tests that I wanted to try once we had worked on control a little bit. Still, I had three lessons' worth of tests left to work with, and once I had that I could start planning which ones we would do on which day.

By the time I reached that point, it was almost dinner time, so I decided to sort things out the next morning instead of working on it more that night. Surprisingly enough, I had managed to forget most of the non lesson related things that had happened with Ferryk while I had my nose buried in the charts, books, and data, and by the time the knock came at the door signaling that dinner had arrived, I was feeling much, much less worked up than I had been just a couple of hours earlier.

The biggest surprise of the evening, came with dinner, though. When I hurried to the door to answer the knock, I found not a servant, as I had expected, but Lestor. He was alone, but he had a cart loaded with two sets of dinner on it... and a rather large bottle of wine. He gave me a sheepish smile when I opened the door.

"Hey," he said. "I hear you rather forcefully ejected Ferryk from his lesson today. Don't worry, I don't think you did anything wrong. He wouldn't tell me what happened aside from the fact that he was bored and that you ended up sending him away, and when he avoids telling the entire story like that it usually means that he was in the wrong. When I heard that you requested dinner in your rooms tonight, I figured that as someone with plenty of experience dealing with Ferryk, I might be able to help you work some things out before you have to face him again. But if you want to be completely alone right now, I understand completely."

I smiled. My initial reaction had been one of not wanting to deal with anyone quite yet, but as I listened to his little speech, I realized that he had a point. He had obviously dealt with Ferryk more than I had, and he seemed to know the young prince rather well. Of course, there was also the fact that he was friendly and a surprisingly good conversation partner, as I had learned at lunch. With that in mind, I stepped to the side of the door and invited him into my rooms.

He pulled the cart in with him and wheeled it over to the small table in the sitting room (which was where the main entrance to my rooms was located). He placed the bottle of wine and two glasses on the table and gestured for me to be seated before handing me one of the two large trays that were on the cart. He took the other large tray and sat down with it.

"You don't mind eating like this, do you?" he asked. He seemed to have taken control of the situation, even though we were eating in my rooms. "If you would rather eat at a table instead of from a tray in your lap, I'm fine with that too."

"This is fine." I had no worries about spilling anything on myself, despite the less than stable surface that my lap made. As much as I disliked using my Gift for trivial purposes, I disliked having to throw out a dress that the servants just couldn't get clean even more. And sitting there eating a meal seemed like it would be much more comfortable in my current state of mind than moving to a proper table would be.

He picked up the bottle of wine and poured a fair amount into each glass. After setting the bottle down, he took a sip out of his own glass and turned to look at me. "So, do you want to talk about what happened this afternoon? As I said earlier, I managed to get out of him that he was bored, but I didn't think you were the type who would throw him out of a lesson just for that. Besides, he was definitely hiding something. Of course, if you don't want to talk about it, I understand, and I won't push you."

"No, I don't mind," I said. "Or rather, it would be better for me to talk about it with someone, I think."

He smiled. "You'd be surprised how often that's the case when it comes to Ferryk."

I told Lestor what had happened that afternoon, stressing the fact that I had ended up on top of Ferryk completely by accident. Ferryk's comment was bad enough, but I didn't think I could live with myself if someone decided that I had deliberately maneuvered the situation to end up on top of Ferryk like that. Some women might do that, even with knowledge that Ferryk was supposedly not interested in women. After all, he was a prince. But not me. I had no desire to be involved in that type of situation, and especially not with a prince.

The end of my story was met with silence on Lestor's part. I briefly remembered dinner the night before, specifically sitting at the table with Lestor before Ferryk and the king had arrived, and how I had relayed the tale of my first meeting with Ferryk to him then. That story had elicited laughter and surprise. This story seemed to have gotten the surprise as well, but a far more stunned, shocked type of surprise.

"I take it you see why I had him leave?" I asked, and he nodded. He then took a fairly large drink from his glass of wine.

"I have to hand it to you," he said after a few more moments of silence. "You have managed in a little over a full day to completely shatter my expectations of Ferryk's behavior. I would never have expected him to come up with a line like that, though it does seem like the sort of reasoning he tends to use. Still... I feel for you."

"He's never done anything like this before?"

"Never. I mean, no matter how difficult it can be to tell male and female purebloods apart... it's more that your men look girly, not that your women look manly. I honestly can't see how anyone could mistake you for a man."

"I would be inclined to agree with you," I said, though inside I wondered if he would say the same thing if I chopped off all my hair and wore a pair of pants. He had only me to look at as a reference, but I was well aware that I resembled Theran, my brother, more closely than I resembled any of my sisters. I suspected that he would not be able to say that with quite as much conviction if he were to see me standing next to Theran.

"And to come to the conclusion that you must be a man because he likes you and he just doesn't like anyone but men... that's just insane!" he exclaimed, gesturing wildly with his fork. "I wouldn't worry about it too much, though. I doubt he's really serious about that. He's probably just scared of a situation that's new to him."

"Scared?"

He laughed. "From what you said he did to you before that wonderful proclamation of his this afternoon, he's treating you the same way he treats any attractive guy who catches his eye. He doesn't like to wait very much when he wants something, and sometimes he moves a little too quick. Sometimes I think he makes his move before he even realizes that he wants to make a move, too. You, in this case, are outside of his normal strike range, but he still seems to feel some sort of pull, and he made that move. But rather than admitting that you're just the first woman to catch his eye, he's more comfortable trying to explain the situation away by saying you're really a guy. After all, he's always said that he has no interest in women whatsoever and has shown a considerable aversion to most of them in the past. I guess to him, saying that you're the one exception to that would be the same as saying he was lying before."

"You make it sound like you think he's afraid of liking women..." I said.

He nodded emphatically. "That's exactly what I'm saying. Yeah, I know it's weird and all, but think about it for a moment. How would you feel if all of a sudden you found yourself lusting after a woman? ...Or if you're one who likes women, if you suddenly started lusting after a man? I know it threw me for a loop the first time it happened to me."

I stared at him, wondering if he had realized what had just come out of his mouth. It seems that he had realized it, and that he had intended to say it from the beginning, though. When I stayed silent for several more moments, still looking at him half in surprise, he finally laughed and ducked his head down a little.

"I take it you hadn't realized yet that I'm one of Ferryk's "conquests"?" he asked, sounding just a little embarrassed. That surprised me even more than what he had said just a little bit earlier, and I shook my head, feeling just a little shocked. "I'm not like Ferryk - I prefer women, but I don't mind men. And when he approached me... well, it's not every day you get to bed royalty."

"Does the king know?" I remembered how he had been rather insistent that I not let the king know that he had told me about Ferryk's... leanings, since the king preferred it not to be well known. I had gotten the feeling that everyone in the palace knew, and that the king was not approving of any of Ferryk's activities in that direction. With that feeling, I had a hard time thinking that he would approve of whatever there was between Lestor and Ferryk.

"I think he suspects something. But I think he realizes that Ferryk's relationship with me is quite a bit different than, say, the ones that Ferryk likes to form with the stable boys or with any cute guy he spots in town. And it's different from what happened between him and his other Gift tutors too."

"..." I had run out of things to say. I wasn't sure how to react to the things he was telling me anymore, and any words that came to mind just didn't seem right. There was something tickling at the back of my mind, some information that I wanted to get from him before I would be happy with the situation, but I just couldn't grab hold of it to figure out what it was.

"I guess I probably shouldn't have told you that," he said, his voice soft and tinged with just a hint of sadness. "I figured you would find out eventually if you stay long enough. Ferryk doesn't really make any efforts to hide his actions, except from his father, that is. I know your predecessors were for the most part disapproving... until they fell themselves, usually, but I got the feeling that you would be a little more accepting."

"I..." I said, still not quite sure what to say. Then, finally, the issue that had been bothering me stepped forward, and before I could even determine whether it was something I wanted to say or not, it came out. "...Do you like him?"

He looked at me with a shocked expression on his face. We sat like that for a moment or two, and finally he smiled a bitter little smile. "If you're asking if I'm serious about wanting to be with him for the rest of my life or anything, then no. Eventually I will have taught Ferryk everything that will benefit him as a prince... and later as a king, and the type of scholar he needs will change. At that point, I will take my leave and find work elsewhere, and probably get married to a nice girl and have lots of children. I want to have a family someday, you see, and I certainly can't do that with him."

"Then why?"

"Why what?" He looked genuinely confused.

"You... are still carrying on with him, are you not?" I asked. He hadn't come out and said that, but that was the feeling I had gotten. As I had expected, he nodded. "Why do you do something like that with someone you don't like? You don't have anything requiring you to do those sorts of things with him either. Won't it just hurt that much more in the end?"

"I do like him," he said, laughing. "I just don't love him, at least not that way. Sure, he's a spoiled rotten brat sometimes and has a tendency to fall in lust way too easily, but he's quite cute once you get to know him a little better. And he can be surprisingly erotic when he's in the mood. The sight of him naked and spread out on top of the sheets is one of the most... Vihr?"

He trailed off, leaving his sentence unfinished as I started choking on my dinner. I was quite thankful for that - the fact that he had stopped talking, that is - since he was starting to go into far more detail than I wanted to hear about. As it was, the image that he had just been describing had all of a sudden decided to make itself quite present in my head, and nothing I could do would make it go away.

The most frightening part of the entire situation was that, even though I had definitely never seen Ferryk naked, I couldn't help but think that the - detailed - image floating around in my mind was accurate. I had the sinking feeling that I had unconsciously picked the image out of Lestor's head, which was something that I was prone to doing when those without strong Gift-shields (especially the non-Gifted) were thinking of particularly strong thoughts or images while in my presence. The image itself was provocative enough, but the thought that it was real was enough to make it even worse, and I felt my entire body start to heat up. I suspected that my face was glowing red with embarrassment... and more.

"...I would appreciate it if you would refrain from completing that thought," I said, clenching my teeth the entire time.

Lestor laughed, and then apologized heartily in a voice still very much tinged with laughter. Oddly enough, that seemed to have cleared all of the discomfort that had originally risen from his revelation, and we managed to pass the rest of the meal chatting comfortably. The fact that he was sleeping with Ferryk didn't change any of the other things I had found out about him so far, and it seemed that he truly did care for Ferryk, just not quite in the way I had expected. And I found that none of that really mattered as the night wore on.

After we were finished eating - including the luxuriously sweet and decadent dessert that Lestor had asked the cook to make up for him when he found out that I was in a less than pleasant mood - Lestor started to pack the dinner things back onto his cart in preparation to leave. I offered to help, since he had done everything so far, but he declined, insisting that it was one last bit of his "service" for the night... apparently all part of some apology on his part for Ferryk's actions of that afternoon. Then, just as he was putting the last of the trays and glasses back onto the cart, he turned to me.

"Oh yeah, I just remembered something that Oren told me about this afternoon. His Majesty finally decided to take on another Family advisor, it seems. Someone from the Neyl Family, from what Oren has been told. He's apparently going to be arriving sometime tomorrow, most likely in the morning. I know you're from a low Family and all, but I figured you might want to know, being a fellow pureblood and all."

I, of course, already knew about this. I had almost forgotten about that part of my installment into the palace with all of the bustle of getting ready to leave... and then the stresses of dealing with Ferryk. But his mention of Moros, even though he hadn't actually said his name, reminded me that I would have to do something about that if I wanted to stay "just a low Family Instructor."

"Has it been long since the last time there was a Family advisor here?" It was something I had wanted to know anyway, especially since usually the Family advisor to the king of Nuin would be a Leirem, not a Neyl, and I figured Lestor had a better chance of being able to tell me than anyone I could ask outside of the Council.

"Last one I know of was from before the first queen died. I hear His Majesty considered taking on another one when he married the second queen, Ferryk's mother... but the Leirem Family wanted nothing to do with a palace where a low Family queen resided. Oren says this one actually requested the position himself."

I suspected it was more that Father had forced Moros to request the position, but that wasn't something I could tell Lestor. Still, what he had said made a bit more sense. I knew that Ferryk's mother had been a pureblood, but not that she had been low Family. Suddenly it became much easier to understand why there was no Leirem Family presence in the palace, despite the fact that the current head of the Family could call the king his grandson if he so wished.

"I see."

"Anyway, I just thought you might want to know that. I know I'm looking forward to seeing if he'll work with me a bit on the histories of the Council that I'm compiling at the moment. ...But you probably don't care about that, do you?"

I shook my head, and that was the full truth.

"I thought so. Well, I think I've spent enough of your time for the night. I have some things of my own to attend to before I go to bed, so I'll bid you good night. Will I see you at breakfast tomorrow, or are you going to try to avoid Ferryk completely until it's time for your lesson?"

"I think I might be up to breakfast with everyone," I said, smiling. I hadn't been thinking that before dinner, but spending time with Lestor had cheered me up a bit and given me a boost of confidence that made facing Ferryk after the events of the afternoon a bit less... frightening.

"Well then, I'll see you tomorrow morning. Good night."

"Good night."

And with that, he left, pulling the cart behind him.

Once Lestor was gone, I locked the main door to my rooms behind him and retired to my library. I had indeed almost forgotten about Moros over the past several days, but now that I had been reminded of him, I realized that I needed to think of something I could do to prevent him from leaking my identity to everyone at the palace. While I didn't think that there would be quite as much of a fuss over having a daughter of one of the Seven Families teaching a prince as there had been in the past with less notable positions, now that I had established myself as Vihr Krestin, I was afraid of what would happen if all of a sudden Moros told them I was his cousin Vihr Carles.

Unfortunately, as Vihr Krestin I had no connection to Moros other than the fact that we were both purebloods. He was a full Scholar, and I just a "lowly" Instructor. He was a Neyl, from one of the Seven Families, and I was just the daughter of a low Family. I was sure someone would take note if I tried to talk with him privately too soon after he arrived, and the longer he was there before I managed to talk with him, the greater the chances that he would let something slip. No... I had to find another way to work things out.

I decided to do it in writing. It would take a great amount of effort and would tire me out more than I really cared for, but I could use my Gift to find him on the road and get my letter to him that night if I got moving somewhat quickly. The fact that we were cousins did not change the fact that we had met only a handful of times in our respective lifetimes, and I was hoping that that distance between us would be exactly the thing that I needed to convince him to play along with me. I kept that thought in mind as I pulled out a sheet of fine paper and started composing my letter.

When I was done writing, I read over the letter one last time, and then folded it up and sealed it with my own personal seal. Much like the seal on official Council correspondence, my seal was partially sealed with the Gift as well, and for this letter I added in several other spells that I had studied and practiced, but had never had reason to use. These spells clouded the letter from all but the intended recipient and made it impossible for anyone but him to break the seal. I then wrote his name on the front and my true name on the back, spelling both to only appear once Moros himself was in possession of the letter.

That done, I tucked myself into the same armchair that I had fled to for comfort earlier that afternoon. The next spells I needed to work required concentration and would be particularly draining, so making the body comfortable was of utmost importance before I started. Once I was settled down, I closed my eyes and started the "easy" part.

Easy in this case was a very, very relative term. I had to find Moros on the road, wherever he was, and the only thing I had to work with were a few vague memories of him, the fact that he would most likely be the only Neyl in the area, and the fact that he was fairly close, possibly already in Lyrat, but staying the night in an inn instead of presenting himself at the palace at night. I cast my mind outward in a spiral, looking for purebloods. It took me several tries, since there were far more full purebloods in the city than I had expected, but I eventually found him - without being noticed myself, oddly enough - in a rather upscale inn at the edge of the city.

Then came the hard part. Casting my mind out to search for a person or a thing, while draining and tedious, was one of the areas of the Gift that I excelled at. Finding a person by looking at his mind was even more aligned with my strengths, even though I had never chosen to train in that particular branch of the Gift because of my own hatred of mental manipulations. I had an affinity with moving things over distances and other spells working with invisible forces as well, but that affinity was nowhere near as strong as the one for searchings and mental operations. And that was why actually sending the letter to Moros was the hard part.

It was draining, but I managed to send the letter to the place I had found, where Moros sat at a table in the common room of the inn drinking, alone. He was obviously pureblood, Family, and even better, Council, so I figured there would be little uproar with a little bit of Gift work happening in front of him. And this way, I could be sure that he would notice the letter and read it, thus accomplishing my goal as completely as I could ensure given that I had no control over what Moros chose in the end.

The entire happening left me feeling weak, but satisfied with myself. At that point, I knew that the best thing I could do to make up for the energy I had just used would be to sleep, so I took that opportunity to retire to my bed. It was still quite early, but given what I had just done, I knew that I would sleep the entire night without pause.