The Lost Rainbow Mage: Complete Trilogy Edition, page 32
“Good afternoon.” I offered him a smile. I still hadn’t worked out what to do about Lucian.
I could potentially heal all of the women as I had Greta, but that seemed risky. Even now, Greta was running around the Commune somewhere without her swirlies, and as much as that made me happy, it made me nervous.
“I have something to show you.” He looked a little like an excited child on Christmas morning, his eyes alight with anticipation. “Come.” He beckoned, and I stood.
If he didn’t know about my nighttime explorations, it meant he probably still trusted me. Perhaps this was the opportunity I’d been waiting for.
He led me to his office. “Do you know why I run this commune, Meira?” he asked as he made his way between the crystals.
I trailed my fingers over a couple of them as we passed. I shook my head and then added an audible, “No.”
He seemed pretty much like any other cult leader to me, so I assumed he liked having people at his beck and call. But my throat tightened even at the thought, so it wasn’t a safe one to voice.
“Because light mages are the most powerful people in existence. And soon we will attain our rightful place in society. As leaders, as rulers.” He stopped in front of a bookcase full of old, leather-bound tomes and reached for one near the top. “We’ve waited a very long time to accumulate enough power, and while we are still a small group, we are mighty.” He glanced at me, and I straightened my dress again, drawing my hand over the indigo belt.
Lucian had reminded me I wasn’t as mighty as I wanted to be.
The book Kiran grasped tilted in his grip, and the bookcase clicked and shifted out of place, and I stepped back. My eyes widened. I’d been sure he’d meant to take a book from the shelf.
Kiran turned to me and laughed. “Your face,” he said. “I didn’t expect to surprise you. Of course, I don’t keep the most valuable of our family books on display—they’re in my private collection, down here.” He gestured down the narrow staircase he had revealed as he pushed the bookcase farther out of the way. “They’re too valuable to be left in a communal library or even in the open here. Very few are aware of their existence, but I think it’s time for you to see. They contain a lot of information about your heritage.” His mouth twisted into a grin. “As you have already requested.”
I nodded, unsure what to say. But damn, if only he’d done this yesterday. I was no longer even sure of how many of my questions I’d be able to ask. My throat felt tight even thinking some of them, and I didn’t want to alert Kiran to my new Lucian-gifted status of silent against my will.
Kiran caught a light switch, illuminating the staircase, and I shuddered as a reminder of the previous night passed over me. We descended into the bowels of the sprawling manor, but the room we emerged into at the end was far different from the technology-filled space Lexi had led me to.
This was a picture-perfect antique library, with scrolled ironwork and books far older than any I’d seen elsewhere in the house—including the library I’d talked Alice into visiting. The smell of old paper and ink perfumed the air, and I breathed deeply. One book sat open on a lectern, and Kiran strode toward it. The pages were old and thick and uneven at the edges. The parchment had yellowed and no longer lay flat.
He traced his finger over the paper almost reverently. He was markedly different than Lucian—the two men didn’t seem to complement each other at all. Perhaps the technology all belonged to Lucian. It seemed true to his character.
I glanced around, almost expecting Lucian to emerge from the shadows. When he didn’t, I cleared my throat, but thoughts of him didn’t bring the tight feeling to my neck, so maybe I could also ask about him.
“Where’s Lucian?” I glanced around again as though I was literally looking for him.
“What?” Kiran looked distracted, like he hadn’t quite focused on my question. “Lucian? Busy elsewhere, I assume.”
I withheld a shudder. I now knew what at least one of Lucian’s ideas of being busy was, and it took self-control not to touch my neck. The skin there seemed to prickle with awareness.
“Where did you find him?” I stepped closer to Kiran under the pretense of looking at the book with him. “He’s so different than you.”
“I’ve been amassing light mages for some time now.” Kiran’s familiar tone of self-importance was back. “Everyone here is from a different background, but they are united under me.” He paused then continued as though he hadn’t said the most important part. “After all, they exist here, on this compound, my compound, under my protection. They want for nothing. My hospitality is everything.”
Perhaps there was none blinder here than Kiran. The women couldn’t speak, but he couldn’t see the truth laid out in front of him.
“But do you trust Lucian?” I asked the question and waited to see if it hurt, but apparently it was still a permitted subject.
Kiran laughed. “Of course. He’s my right-hand man.”
“But what are the markings about? You said he did those.” I held my breath as I waited. I had no idea if Kiran would tell me the truth or just how open he was planning to be today, but his answer to this question would tell me a lot.
“Lucian knows what he’s doing,” he said, his tone dismissive, bordering on disinterested. “It’s nothing you need to concern yourself with. It’s simply a temporary measure to prevent dissatisfaction in the lower ranks. No one family can grow more powerful than any other now.”
“It’s about power?”
Kiran laughed again, although it had a disbelieving ring to it. “My dear,” he said. “Isn’t all of life about power? About authority? About being the authority or being… less.” He grimaced as he flipped a page in the book, and the turning paper made a soft shushing sound. “But now that you’re here, we can maintain authority together.
Irritation rose within me. Was Kiran so stupid that he simply trusted people to help him with his objectives without questioning theirs? Did he not know people rarely acted selflessly, that they prioritized their own wants and needs over others? Apparently, Kiran had no clue Lucian was working against him.
“You’re wrong.” I bit the words out as my throat tightened, and I coughed to clear it. “You’re wrong, and you don’t know what’s really going on.”
Something, not my words, but my thoughts or my intentions were activating the magic Lucian had somehow left inside my body. My throat squeezed.
Kiran looked at me and lifted an eyebrow, just an amused quirk. “I’m wrong, am I? You’ve been here for how long, and you’ve already made that judgment?” He shook his head. “I think you might be the only person I’d tolerate that much judgment from.” He shook his finger at me, and his body language definitely added young lady to the end of his sentence.
I shook my head. He was being so obtuse.
“No?” He widened his eyes. “What do you mean no?”
I gritted my teeth. “Revolt,” I forced out. “Coming.”
“What?” he snapped.
My throat burned and tightened so fast that I clawed my fingers at the base of it like I’d seen Alice do so many times and Greta yesterday. I dragged in a thin stream of precious air—too thin—and my sight dimmed, graying around the edges. I bent over.
“Meira?” My name was clouded with uncharacteristic worry as Kiran wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “Meira, are you all right? Can you breathe?”
I choked on nothing but a sickening magic. Kiran had to know, though. He lived with all of these marked women. How could he not know the signs?
“Do I need to send for someone? Alice?” He withdrew. “Lucian will know what to do.”
“No.” I forced that word out too, but it was easier. Then I dragged the neckline of my dress to one side. I stepped closer in case he couldn’t see.
But his eyes widened. Damn it. He hadn’t even known. Lucian certainly hadn’t touched me on my father’s orders. And Lucian had felt my power. Of course he’d taken the first opportunity available to him to throttle those. The strangling eased slightly.
Kiran’s face reddened. “What did you do?”
I opened my mouth to reply, but he held up his hand.
“No. Stop speaking. Don’t say another word.” He flipped his book completely closed, and I cringed at the thud it made. “What the hell?” His finger didn’t wag this time. He jabbed it toward me to punctuate each word. Then he turned and stalked away, throwing his arms up as he turned back. “You aren’t even useful to me like this. What can I do with you now?” He gritted his teeth and seemed to war with himself over whatever he wanted to say next. “Just… Just go to your room and think about what you’ve done.” He pointed toward the stairs.
The words were so ridiculous I would have laughed. I should have laughed at this near-stranger ordering me about like a father-figure from my teens. He had no sense at all.
I took a deep breath. “I’m not a child. You can’t just send me to my room.”
But the words made me sound more like a child than I’d ever sounded before. I hadn’t even spoken those words to my mom, and we’d argued a lot when I was a teenager.
Kiran sniffed, but he didn’t reply.
“I have to talk to you before I leave.”
He stood and watched me, the light in his eyes a challenge. “Go on.” But it was like he knew I couldn’t. “Go ahead.”
As soon as the thoughts formed in my head to tell him about what Lucian had said to me, my skin burned and my throat pulsed. I wheezed as I sucked in a breath. It took twice as long to breathe, and I only had as much air as I could get through a straw.
Kiran gestured toward the door again, his displeasure radiating from him, and I whirled from him, impotent rage seething inside me. What the hell magic had Lucian used that he had this much control over me, over any of the women?
I touched my neck. I’d healed Greta. I could damn well heal myself, too. But I hesitated. That would be risky—especially now Kiran knew what Lucian had done. I couldn’t just show up with my marks erased.
Damn Lucian. I pressed my fisted hands to my sides and slowed, almost expecting Kiran to call me back. But he didn’t. I didn’t look at him, either. Anger and pity for him warred inside me. On the one hand, he was choosing to be really stupid for not recognizing Lucian for exactly what he was. He’d gifted so much control to a man who didn’t have his best interests at heart—who only had his own interests at heart.
Yet Kiran was content to remain in complete ignorance to this—even after seeing with his own eyes that Lucian was doing what he wanted. Undermining Kiran by marking me. Stealing my voice. Making me into less so he could be more.
I began the ascent back up to Kiran’s office, my footsteps soft, but I halted near the top, out of sight of Kiran, and out of sight of Lucian, talking somewhere in the office. His voice carried toward me as he spoke on a cell phone, and I pressed back against the wall, quieting my breathing as I tried to listen.
Lucian was in Kiran’s office. Did Kiran know? I glanced back down the stairway, but Kiran wasn’t there. Of course he didn’t know. Still, if he did know, he probably wouldn’t care. He trusted Lucian, even now. Lucian was slowly working out a plan to usurp Kiran, and Kiran was waltzing right into it.
Hell, I didn’t trust Lucian. No, it was more than that.
As I stood and listened some more, I pictured the perfect way to bring Lucian to his knees.
eighteen
Shit. When I held my breath, I still couldn’t hear. So I edged closer toward the sound of Lucian talking. He didn’t mention a name, so I had no idea who he was talking to, but it wasn’t hard to work out who he was talking about.
Apparently, Lucian felt a lot more scathing and careless about Kiran than even I knew—because here he was in Kiran’s office being less than cautious that Kiran himself might overhear the conversation. Lucian was becoming blatant in his disregard for Kiran.
I moved a little closer still. The bookcase was mostly pulled across back into position, so I could view Lucian through the gap in the opening without him seeing me. I hung back a little, in the shadows, watching as Lucian paced back and forth, his energy deliberate and strong rather than nervous and frenetic. He was working on some kind of plan.
Imagining I heard someone coming up the stairs, I glanced behind me. I needed Kiran to stay in his private library for now if I wanted to remain undiscovered by him. Because if Kiran found me here, that would alert Lucian to my presence, too. And Lucian had implemented his punishment on me for merely being in the war room… so he’d probably do worse for directly spying on him.
But there was enough noise from downstairs it sounded as if Kiran was having a temper tantrum, with banging and slamming of what could have been cabinet doors or chair legs knocking against each other. Or maybe he was opening and closing books. Hopefully, he’d continue for a little while longer. I’d probably know when he was on his way up. The silence would tell me.
But how the hell had he been able to manage the Commune for so long if this was how he reacted to a setback? Sending me away and banging things around was no way forward to a solution. Why did he let Lucian do as he pleased so freely? I didn’t understand it at all.
Surely, we could have worked together to remove the marks or I could have shown him how I’d healed Greta… My throat tightened, just a twitch, and I stopped thinking about the little girl, refocusing instead on the noise from the library.
Lucian cocked his head toward the bookcase, listening as well, and I shrank farther away in case he paid too much attention in this direction. My discovery would help no one.
He chuckled and spoke to the person on the other end of the phone. “I guess he might have found out I silenced the daughter he was so excited about.” Then he laughed again, and I recognized the malevolence in the sound.
Goosebumps rose all over my arms, and I shivered. This was the Lucian who liked to punish. I had flashbacks of Dr. Anderson.
Lucian snorted. “Ha… Yeah.” He paused, but the voice he was listening to was little more than a muted buzz of masculine sound, and I couldn’t learn anything useful from the reply. “Yeah, I’m glad I found her snooping too, the dumb bitch. I was already pretty sure I couldn’t convince her to work alongside me, anyway.” He laughed again. “She kept bleating about how her powers were for healing—so I went for the permanent solution. Crude, but it works.”
I didn’t withhold my shudder this time. I had no idea he’d wanted to work with me, but he was right—I wouldn’t have let him. Not the things he wanted to do. Not now that I knew. I would have never participated in the silencing of women.
But as I thought about it, his opinion didn’t make sense, anyway. Because I hadn’t known what Lucian was doing—not before he’d already marked me and made his madman’s confession. Up until then, Lucian was simply Kiran’s right-hand man. Kiran himself had told me. I’d seen them working alongside each other, seen them meeting in Kiran’s office. Hell, I’d heard them talking and I’d also heard them not talking. I’d seen Lucian stonewall me completely and not say another word when I was in the room. That was the man who’d hoped to work with me? He hadn’t even manifested one inkling of that desire; he’d kept it all internal.
Kiran had forced that proximity when he’d claimed he needed to rest.
But Lucian’s touch had made my skin crawl. The way he’d siphoned my magic through his hold on me had been forceful, and him pulling energy from me had hurt. It had been like my magic hadn’t wanted to go, like there was a barrier, but Lucian had ripped it from me anyway.
Although up until Lucian discovered me in the war room, I’d assumed that I would work with him while I worked with Kiran as well. In my head, the two had come as a pair. An unwelcome pair, but I’d hoped to eventually shuffle Lucian to the side and work solely with the man who claimed to be my father.
I leaned against the wall and sighed quietly. This was all such a mess, and Kiran couldn’t see a damn thing. He had no idea what was happening right under his nose. Even though he claimed to be leading the Commune, everything was happening around him. Did he truly have this much gullible faith in people?
Although, when I thought about it, I was probably no better than him. Initially, though I hadn’t liked Lucian, I would have worked with him because Kiran had wanted things that way. Because Kiran trusted him. Maybe because I’d wanted more. A family. To belong. It would have been the stupidest place to try to make it work. Maybe so. But it didn’t stop the longing.
Lucian was nuts if he thought he needed to silence me. I would have worked with him. That thought pounded through my head again, but it was tinged with self-recrimination and also a degree of amusement. That Lucian had thought I was suspicious of his motives before the point he marked me pointed only to his own paranoia. And maybe that paranoia was what made him truly dangerous.
But who the hell was he talking to out there? The conversation was a long one, and he clearly didn’t fear discovery. But with all of the women in the Commune under his control, why would he bother to fear anything at all?
I needed to see Lexi again. She seemed to know a hell of a lot more than me about this place. And those damn blueprints. What were Kiran and Lucian doing? Had the map of the Facility been simply what they used to rescue me? Why did they need such an extensive map of the Commune?
Did Kiran even know about them? Surely, he knew about a basement in his own quarters. He knew about the one where he kept his books. I had far more questions than answers now and not a lot of time left to answer them.
I could probably ask Kiran what I wanted to know, though. When I thought the questions to myself, they certainly didn’t feel off limits. They didn’t hurt me. I didn’t want to have a coughing fit with Lucian so close, though. It was interesting how his magic controlled not only what I was able to say but what I allowed myself to think.
Kiran was still crashing around downstairs, and every so often he swore and there was a thud that could have been a book slamming on the lectern, like he was going through all of them, looking for something. Hopefully, he was damn well looking for something. I needed him angry. I needed him ready for action because Lucian had spoken like things were about to change.
