Horizon Storms - Kevin J. Anderson [61]
Once he’d discovered that Nira still existed, then-Prime Designate Jora’h had been foolishly willing to scrap the work on Dobro, to wreck centuries of careful experimentation, to threaten the future of the Ildiran Empire—all for the love of one woman. And not even an Ildiran woman at that, but a human, whose telepathic potential and connection with the sentient worldforest offered unsurpassed opportunities.
For years, Udru’h had listened to his best lens kithmen and mental experts while they trained Osira’h and her siblings. He would smile and observe unobtrusively, but all the while he, too, had been exercising his skills, learning mental techniques, strengthening his own abilities. Maintaining a bland expression on his face, the Dobro Designate had learned to scour his mind, erect invisible barricades around certain thoughts, and isolate some of his secrets from his comrades.
It was a game at first, then a challenge—and finally a genuine ability that his fellow Ildirans would never guess, because they had never dreamed that anyone could wish to do such a thing. Udru’h had always feared what ill-advised measures his brother might take. And while he could never speak against the rightful Mage-Imperator, never disobey Jora’h‘s instructions, Udru’h could plan for certain eventualities.
After the Dobro Designate had learned how to block certain clear thoughts from the thism, he worked with meditation and deep study until he discovered a way to divert his brother’s mental threads. Unless Jora’h pried particularly hard, he would never realize the Dobro Designate was lying.
In the dark days before Jora’h was able to ascend, Udru’h had used the chaos to whisk Nira from the breeding camp. Following instructions he had left behind, his guards had beaten the green priest woman unconscious—in fact, so much more violently than he had ever intended that they had nearly killed her. But at least they had known to keep her alive, holding Nira in a drugged stupor. Then, before the thism could be reconnected, Udru’h had set up a place to keep her, hide her.
Considering Jora’h‘s obsession with this woman, the Designate knew she might prove useful as a bargaining chip, if his plans fell apart.
Udru’h trusted no one—absolutely no one—to keep the secret firmly walled inside. He could not place her where she would be tended, fed, cared for by other support personnel. No, Nira had to be entirely alone and absolutely self-sufficient. By himself, he had created a perfect cage, an expansive yet inescapable cell where a green priest could survive, and where no one would know where she was.
During the days of crisis before the new Mage-Imperator’s ascension, Udru’h had rushed from Ildira back to Dobro, taken the drugged and comatose woman from where the guards kept her, and personally delivered her to the southern hemisphere, far from the breeding camp, in an entirely different climate zone. He’d found a small but lush island in the middle of a vast lake, and he had marooned her there before hastening off to Ildira for the ascension and funeral ceremonies. In the turmoil, Jora’h hadn’t even noticed his brother’s brief absence.
Now, weeks later, Udru’h was returning to the island to make sure Nira still survived. As he circled, he saw where the woman had built a shelter for herself out of dead wood. Her emerald skin would photosynthesize sunlight for nourishment. For an Ildiran, such isolation would have been the most appalling punishment. But Nira was strong. He had observed that much through her tribulations in the breeding camp.
Landing his ship in an area without dense trees, he climbed out of his craft and breathed the moist air, so different from the dry grassy hills to the north. The sun prickled his scalp as he narrowed his eyes and looked warily for her. He wondered if Nira had gone mad, if she would rush out at him holding a rock as a weapon.