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By Root 1298 0

back. His detachment and trained calm had deserted him. With his hair matted with sweat and his eyes wide and fearful, he looked like a boy in over his head instead of a master healer with a prestigious appointment to the imperial court. “You cannot be my uncle’s son. You are no kinsman of mine. Not with the things you do, with the knowledge you have. I’ve heard the stories,” he went on before Caelan could interrupt. “I heard about warding keys. Even Papa used to say that Uncle Beva was mad to take on a son like you. He never should have struck that bargain with the Choven.”

“What do you mean?” Caelan said, desperately trying to follow Agel’s angry spate of words. “What are you saying? What bargain with the Choven?”

“Pretend all you like. But I know, Caelan. You are not... the elders were right to drive you from school. In their wisdom, they saw the makings of evil.”

“I just saved your life, you fool,” Caelan said furiously.

“And what will you demand for it?”

Rage and intense hurt battled inside Caelan. He could not believe Agel was saying such things. What had turned his cousin into this petty, fearful, small-minded man?

“I loved you like a brother,” Caelan said softly. “I came to you for help and your sage council. Instead, you have insulted and slandered me. Now, after I just saved your life, it is not thanks you give me but harshness. Why, Agel? Is it only jealousy that has made you so small?”

Agel’s face turned white. He glared at Caelan, his jaw tight, his lips thin. “Always you are the injured one, the innocent one,” he said in a harsh voice. “But why did the evil lurking in the prince’s body not touch you? You carried him for hours, or so you claim. Yet it did not strike at you.”

Caelan’s mouth dropped open. “I did not seek to heal him. That must be what triggered the trap and unleashed it.”

“Yes, and who suggested that I examine him?”

“I didn’t want him treated!” Caelan said in disbelief. “You insisted. You want my master to be grateful to you.”

“Master?” Agel snorted. “You do not know the meaning of the word. Rebellion is your name. Yes! Rebellion and disorder.”

There was no getting through Agel’s fear. It shielded him from reason and logic. It closed out all truth. He had no intention of listening to anything Caelan said.

Yet still Caelan tried. “If I had known a demon lingered inside the prince, I would have warned you.”

“Not if you wanted to entrap me and turn me to your darkness.”

“I—” Caelan threw up his hands. “What is the use?”

Agel stared at him, eyes glittering with condemnation. “This all begins to make sense.”

“Finally!”

“There has been no treason. You lured the prince out into danger. You did this to him.”

Caelan blinked in disbelief. “What are you saying? Why should I?”

“Casual Devil! You are aptly named. You—”

“Are you blaming me for the attack of shyrieas?” Caelan shook his head. “Why not claim next that I commanded them?”

“Do you?”

“No.”

Agel nodded, but his expression did not change. “No, you do not command them. No, you do not run with them. Yet you emerged from their attack unscathed.”

“Hardly—”

“You were not hurt by the wind spirits either.”

“Yes, I was.”

“You survived,” Agel said, his voice cutting and hard.

“Would you rather I died?” Caelan retorted bitterly. “Am I to be condemned for living?”

“There is something about you that is unlike other men,” Agel said. “Something inside you that makes you different.”

Caelan wanted to laugh. “And therefore I am evil?”

“The elders of Rieschelhold thought you were.”

“They were secret followers of the Vindicant sect,” Caelan said. “Or something worse.”

Agel took a quick step toward him. “Don’t you dare slander them!”

Now Caelan did laugh, throwing back his head to crow with derision. “How long have you been in Imperia, cousin?”

Agel blinked at the sudden change of subject. “Two months.”

“Oh, only two months? Then you’ve scarcely had time to learn your way around the city.”

“What has this to do with—”

“And when did you graduate from the school? A year past? Two?”

“Five months past.”

“Five months,” Caelan said with