Near death experiences could be very mentally taxing and after so many attempts on his life, she wondered how much more Rorrick's mental barriers could take. Did he fear an attack everywhere he was? Even in the comfort of his own chambers? She had heard that the Crown medics had prescribed him rest. He would physically recover fully, thanks to the protective spells laid by Conal and Caval. And thanks to her quick thinking.
But she didn't feel that what she had done had been enough. Had she not been so distracted by dancing with him, she could have been on higher alert, and more prepared to protect him from an attack. He thought that she was his savior, but she felt she was a hindrance. She had told as much to Alessa, who had brought word that Rory had asked about Blayre.
It had sent a pang through her chest - the knowledge that he wanted to see her. Blayre had longed to go to him from the moment she had returned to that shaken ballroom, but she had steeled herself against the emotion. And she would continue to do so. She couldn't face him yet, and risk that the wall she had constructed would come crumbling down.
Blayre rapped briskly on a door in the sorcerer's wing. "Come in." Called the baritone voice from within.
Caval was sitting in a comfortable looking armchair, eyes closed against the headaches that had been plaguing him since his recent head trauma. The curtains were drawn against the light from outside - not that there was much of it. Heavy raindrops pattered against the windowpanes. A servingman sat at a small table, doing what looked like bookkeeping.
Caval opened his eyes when she entered. She had expected suspicion, or reluctance - something as a result of the information she had pried from him a few days before. But they crinkled at the edges when he smiled warmly, white teeth flashing brilliantly against the dark tones of his skin.
Did she deserve warmth? Or was the warmth something Caval had feigned. Was he just a traitorous rebel, expert at putting on a believable ruse? Or did he have no recollection of the words he'd spoken.
Caval dismissed the servingman, then returned his gaze to Blayre. He motioned for her to sit in the chair across from his.
"How's your head?" Blayre asked.
"Better," Caval admitted. "The headaches aren't coming as often. Now more of just a dull ache. My eyes are still a bit sensitive to light, but the medic says I should be healed up quite soon. Moon and Sun, you don't know how glad I am to have someone finally break up the monotony. A person can only sit here in the dark for so long. And without reading books..." He rubbed at his temples. "Pier reads aloud to me, but it's not the same. And there are certain books that I won't allow him to see."
Blayre wondered how many of the books Pier didn't "see." Then again, the young sorcerer probably had complex magical charms disguising them from the average eye. She smirked, his charms wouldn't work on her magic resistant eyes. Perhaps she would have to search through his collection.
"What are you smiling about?" Caval asked, as the door clicked behind his servingman.
"Nothing," Blayre said, suddenly brought back to the present. She erased the smile from her face - too abruptly probably.
"What's wrong?" Caval asked instantly.
"Nothing," She said again, and then sighed. Denial was pointless. "Okay, not nothing. Caval, do you remember our conversation shortly after that mage-assassin got away?"
His clean shaven face took on a look of grimness. She could feel the slight pulse of magic as he sent out muffling spells. "Of course I remember." He said, sounding almost offended. "And I did not give that information lightly. But I thought it pertinent that you know. And I trust you as someone who will take that information and use it wisely."
"Twelve hells, Caval! You can't put me in this kind of position." Blayre struggled to keep her voice down, but remembered that he had blocked the sound from this room, and allowed her volume to increase again. "The up-and-coming crown mage is an undercover rebel. How is that safe for the crown?" She growled.
Caval didn't flinch. "It depends who you are actually trying to protect here. Or what you are actually trying to protect." There was an edge to his usually calm, and friendly voice. "Blayre, you have always struck me as a person with a high moral compass." He looked at her as if asking for her affirmation of the fact.
She sat tight-lipped, fingertips pressing into the leather arm of the chair. The rain picked up its pace, pattering almost violently against the windowpane. "Yes." Was the only response she gave him.
"If it's alright, I want to tell you a personal story. I think that it would help you to understand my position a bit better."
"I'm listening," Said Blayre tersely. She leaned back in the chair, allowing some of the tension to leave her.
Caval clasped his hands across one knee and began, "I came to this country when I was young - very young. What I know of my home country is mostly stories that my mother told me. She brought me here to escape the war on the Southern continent. We spent weeks traveling across land and sea to come here to Emares, the land of peace and prosperity. That I do remember.
"She imagined a better life for me here. A life where I could live comfortably without the fear of being killed. And in most ways my life here has been better than it likely would have been on the Southern continent. I won't deny that. Here I am fed and well clothed. Here I have money and some power.
"My mother does not know what became of the man who fathered me. I was begot one Ritual Night in a fit of passion." He named one of the holidays celebrated in the Southern continent. An interesting holiday, to be sure. Blayre thought, since children were so frequently a result of that night.
Blayre didn't see what all of this had to do with joining a rebellion, but she was entranced nonetheless by Caval's once mysterious history. She had always wondered, in the back of her mind, how a foreign-born mage had been discovered and raised to be one of the most powerful mages in the realm. She'd known, by his speech, that he had been raised at least mostly in Emares. And from seeing him here and there during her years in the academy.
"I had shown signs of the magic gift from a very young age. My mother did her best to mask it. The one bit of reluctance she had about this country, was their regulatory policy toward mages."
"The registering and marking," Blayre filled in.
"Precisely. My mother brought me here for freedom. And when she realized how much of my magic was showing at such a young age, she tried to mask it for as long as she could, but..." He spread his hands, "One day my power exploded and destroyed an entire shop. The Seekers found me of course. And tested me. Finding my level of magic as powerful as it was, they brought me to the palace for training."
A snake of cold trailed down her spine at the word "Seeker".
"I see. And, were you happy about that?" Blayre asked, wondering how she would have felt had someone discovered her Sense and exposed it. Then forced her into something she didn't want to be a part of. She had been able to choose her path in life. And while she had sometimes envied the magically gifted students in academy, Blayre realized that she likely would have been frustrated at the constraints laid down by the Crown, had she been Gifted in that way.
She was lucky that she could hide her Sense and pretend.
"At first I was. Happy, that is. I thought it a great honor. I was treated well by the magic instructors and other academics. But once I graduated from the academy, and began my understudy with Conal and several other mages," His gaze had fixed on some far-off non-existent object, as his voice trailed off. "I tired of being told what to do. And where to go. And when to do things. And I tired of it very quickly.
"Blayre," He leaned forward and reached out, grasping her hands in his, which were surprisingly warm, tingling with his magic. His dark eyes glimmered like two midnight pools in the lamplight. "I have been observing you. I know that you are hiding something - something enormous. I know how you feel. I won't expose you. But I want you to look deep within yourself, and decide what is more important to you - loyalty to a crown that abuses the power it has over its most talented and skilled individuals? Or loyalty to a cause that aims to peacefully grant those individuals their freedom?"
A/N: THE END OF UNMARKED IS IN SIGHT. I have a sequel in mind, and I am pretty pleased with the way that book 1 is going to end. Any predictions?