Edge Of Oblivion

10

“Once in Rome,” Leander said quietly, still gazing out the window, “you will stay two weeks, not one day more. And if in that time period the exact location of the Expurgari headquarters is not determined by the person you will accompany, if the detailed information we seek is not gathered, you will do what you do best.” He turned his head and his gaze flicked over Xander once in keen, cold assessment. “You will kill her.”

“Her?” Xander echoed, shocked, though his expression remained stoic as ever.

But before he could say more, there was a sharp knock on the library door. When it opened to Leander’s curt “Come,” Xander was shocked once again, this time into silence.

“That’s the best I can do,” Jenna said, her voice strained, and released Morgan’s fingers. She fell back into the riot of scarlet and pink peonies that decorated her overstuffed silk chair and rested a pale, shaking hand over her eyes.

Morgan sank back into the spine-numbing chill of her own metal chair set across from Jenna’s and tried very hard not to vomit. She still fought against that sideways, lurching pull, that disorienting loss of gravity, those vivid images that had popped and flared and drunkenly reeled from the first moments Jenna had grasped her hand. The Queen’s Gift of Sight was extraordinary, as powerful and elegant as the woman herself. She could read a person’s thoughts with a touch, see future plans and past remembrances, glean information, and find the truth behind lies. She could also replay that information back to someone else in a kind of silent, maniacal movie, just as she now had. But Morgan had never thought being inside someone else’s mind—someone else’s memories—would be quite so terrifying. Or quite so nauseating.

She’d seen everything. Everything they’d done to the Queen, everything she’d suffered at the enemies’ hands, and it literally made Morgan sick.

A guard stepped forward, black-clad and muscular, one of the dozen or so that stood watching with hawklike intensity near their facing chairs in the solarium. It was a soaring, glass-ceilinged chamber of enormous potted palms and frescoed walls and silk sofas, surrounded on all four sides by arched windows, slick with rain. The room housed an extraordinary variety of exotic birds in hanging gilt cages, beating clipped wings impotently against the bars. Morgan thought it a perfect allegory for her entire life. Their chirps and whistles made an eerie symphony with the relentless drumming of the rain on the glass panes overhead.

“Majesty,” the guard murmured, throwing a dark glance in Morgan’s direction. He stepped near and hesitated a few respectful feet away. “Are you unwell?”

“Fine,” Jenna said, cross, waving him away. “I’m perfectly fine. It wasn’t her,” she added, knowing they suspected Morgan of some nefarious Suggestion, akin to the little scenario with the viscount yesterday. The Queen pinched the bridge of her nose between two fingers and muttered, “Always this hovering. It’s enough to drive you mad.”

“Yes,” Morgan said, very softly. “It is.”

The guard retreated to his place with the other men, and Jenna opened her eyes and leveled her with a look so clear and compassionate it made her want to shrink away in shame, so undeserving was she of the kindness there. But she couldn’t shrink away; all she could do was close her eyes to avoid it.

“I’m so sorry,” Morgan whispered. Her face grew hot; tears threatened behind her closed eyes. “I’m so sorry for what they did to you—that I’m responsible—for that.”

With a rustle of fabric, Jenna leaned forward in her chair. A gentle hand touched Morgan’s knee. “I know you are. I know you didn’t mean...I know that wasn’t what you wanted.” Almost as an afterthought she added, “I can See it, you know.”

Morgan opened her eyes, looked into the pale, somber oval of Jenna’s face, and endured a moment of self-loathing so gut-ripping it felt like she’d swallowed a grenade. “Why are you doing this for me? Why not just let them kill me?”

She didn’t think it possible, but Jenna’s face went a shade paler. She removed her hand from Morgan’s knee and leaned slowly back, settling into her chair with the barest of melancholy sighs. It was a sound with a lifetime of pathos behind it. Her gaze drifted over Morgan for a silent moment before she began, low and halting, to speak.

“I made a promise to you once. Not that long ago. Do you remember?”

Yes, she wanted to say. I remember. Of course I remember. My freedom for my silence. But she didn’t say that. There were others here—men, guards, unquestioning loyalists—who would never understand how the seed of friendship can take root and flourish in the dark soil of a shared secret. “But that was before...” she began in protest, then trailed off, unwilling to even speak it aloud.

Jenna’s lips quirked, and for some bizarre reason, Morgan thought she might be hiding a smile.

“My father used to tell me, ‘A promise made is a promise kept.’ He never went back on his word and neither will I. All I’m offering is a chance, Morgan. A chance for us to gain the upper hand and for you to make things right. If it pans out, you’ll be pardoned. You can come back to Sommerley or move to one of the other colonies and start a new life for yourself. Realistically, it’s not much of a chance—Rome is a very large city. I didn’t see anything specific from the Expurgari who tortured me”—she said it, tortured, unflinchingly, and Morgan’s face again—“that would lead us to their headquarters there. No address, no outstanding landmarks, not even a general idea of neighborhood. Only that hideous room full of...”