Angel of Storms (Millennium's Rule, #2)(150)

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous, Dahli,” she said, cutting him off. “Just because I don’t feel the same loyalty to Valhan that you do doesn’t mean I want him dead. Far from it. You know I never want to kill anyone ever again. Nothing will change that.”

Though his face barely moved, several emotions were betrayed in tiny shifts of muscles. Knowing. Guilt. Realisation. Hope. The latter three intrigued her. It was as if he had realised she wasn’t aware of something. As if he knew he’d got away with something. Perhaps it was time she asked the questions.

“What do you think would change that?”

He looked away. “The same motivation that drives the rebels. Freedom to do as you wish, regardless of the consequences.”

She did not believe one word of it. “After all you have done for me, and everything Valhan has shown me?”

Again, the flash of guilt. What he has done for me? Or is it something he has done to me.

“Teaching me magic…”

No reaction.

“… and to become ageless,” she continued.

He swallowed and his eyes widened slightly.

“Though I’d have liked to have known the costs beforehand,” she added.

His face froze.

That is it. Either the dangers he’s already told me about are worse, or there is something else. For the first time, she sought his mind.

It might not be true, he was thinking. I thought I saw something, when I first arrived and she was drawing.

And she saw what he feared. Valhan had told Dahli of a belief, perhaps as ancient as Millennium’s Rule, that a Maker who learned to pattern-shift always lost the ability to generate magic. He’d never known a Maker strong enough to learn pattern shifting, so he was curious to know if it proved to be true.

This was why it was said that Makers were never strong sorcerers. The truth went in the other direction: strong sorcerers–ageless sorcerers–could not be Makers.

It’s just a myth, Dahli told himself. Like Millennium’s Rule.

Yet if it was true, he feared that she would never forgive him for not warning her. She would turn on him, and Valhan. And if it also proved true that she was the Successor then he would have brought about Valhan’s demise. That thought sent a familiar and overwhelming panic through him, and as she saw why, she let out a breath in surprise.

Dahli loved Valhan. Not just as a loyal servant, or friend. He desired him as passionately as she had once desired Izare, with a need as strong and undeniable as hunger. Which had never abated despite the fact–perhaps because of the fact–that it was not reciprocated.

It explained the flashes of jealousy and disapproval she had seen. It explained why he was prone to suspicion and fear. Yet though his loyalty would always be to Valhan first, he still liked her enough to feel remorse at what he had taken from her. For that, she could forgive him a great deal–though perhaps not all.

He was staring at her now. The silence had stretched on too long.

“You’re reading my mind!”

“Yes. Though I read your face, first. I read your guilt. I knew you were hiding something from me. Something important. Don’t you know you should never lie to a portraitist?” He hadn’t exactly lied, but she was not going to spoil a good saying by quibbling.

“Breaking your promise not to read my mind won’t encourage me to trust you,” he pointed out.

“Do you really think I’d have read your mind if you hadn’t given me good reason to distrust you?”

He sagged, as if all the fear and anger in him had been air, suddenly removed.

“You know that I don’t believe it’s true.”

“That I am the Successor, or no longer a Maker?”

“Both.”

“You really think I could be as strong as he?”

“He does, though he is not entirely sure. He can still read your mind.”

That he was not sure was still too incredible to contemplate. And it did not matter as much as…

“It was Valhan’s decision, to conceal from me what I might lose when I became ageless,” she reminded him.

Dahli nodded. “He does tend to decide what is best for others without consulting them.”

She shook her head. “Agelessness or the ability to generate magic? What would I prefer? I don’t know. Until recently, I had no use for generating magic. I still don’t. Whereas not ageing, perhaps not dying until some distant moment when I get tired of living or someone or something kills me… I can see how that would be the better choice.”

“I hoped you would—”

“But these last few days,” she continued, ignoring him. “Drawing and painting have not felt the same as they used to. Something is missing. I reasoned that my mind was too busy, or there were too many interruptions, or I was out of practice.” She looked at him. “If it was a choice between the way making art feels, that sense of fulfilment and joy, and living for hundreds or thousands of cycles never feeling that way again, I would not have chosen agelessness.”

He bowed his head. She let the silence lengthen. No doubt it was a short space of time compared to the hundreds of cycles he had lived, but she gained a small satisfaction at extending his discomfort.

But her heart ached, and it was a petty, unsatisfying victory. Rising, she walked around him to the door to the kitchen. She rested a hand on it, then looked back.