Page 95 of Dark Chains: First Link
Tomek was still staring at his portrait. "Can you draw my mother too?"
"Sure." Asira turned to Sullha. "Would you like that?"
"Maybe another time. We need to go."
Asira smiled. "You're welcome anytime."
The warmth in the invitation was genuine, and Sullha felt the instinct that she had learned to trust above all others settle into certainty.
Asira could be trusted. She didn't have evidence for it. She hadn't tested the girl or asked probing questions or conducted any of the careful evaluations that someone smarter and more experienced might have employed.
She just knew, and she was going to tell Yaaf to put Asira on his list.
36
YAAF
Once again, Number One walked through the gate of the enclosure alone, but this time, he was carrying a present. The construction paper he'd wrapped the eight books in had been far from decorative, but then Mattie had added drawings of flowers and hearts that made it look a little more special.
The other seven remained outside with the Humvee, close enough to maintain coherence and provide cover if needed. The guards at the gate had been thralled to forget that they had let Number One in and to ignore the others waiting for him in the vehicle, but it was always possible for a patrol to stop by, and if that happened, the seven would take care of the problem.
The human guards inside the enclosure were child's play, and Number One manipulated their minds en masse as he searched for Sullha. He no longer bothered with the inspection cover story and just thralled them to forget that he had ever been there. The same went for the women and children he was passing by. The thrall didn't need to be invasive, it was just a mental suggestion to ignore him as if he weren't there.
The only one who would see him was Sullha. When he found her, he would remove the haze of his thrall just from her, similar to a worker wiping clean just one window in a building and leaving all the others obscured by grime.
The enclosure was quiet in the late afternoon. The midday heat had driven most of the women indoors, and the yard was occupied only by older children who no longer napped during the day. They chased each other around the climbing frame, their occasional shrieks and laughter sounding odd in this gloomy place.
Yaaf wished he could take all of them with him, so they could grow up free to choose who they wanted to be, but he couldn't.
At least not yet.
He found Sullha sitting on a bench, watching her son and the other children running in circles and occasionally stopping to argue about rules that were being invented on the spot.
None of them could see him, or rather acknowledge his presence, so he took a few moments just to observe the dynamic in the playground. It wasn't as innocent as it looked at first glance. The children's world was a microcosm of the adult world, including power plays, intimidation, and the formation of cliques. The difference was that it wasn't serious. Grudges were forgotten almost as soon as they arose, and the peacekeeper in the group, who had his hands full negotiating a truce every couple of minutes, was the most respected kid on the playground.
It wasn't the aggressive bully.
Yaaf reached into the minds of the other mothers and the children and implanted a suggestion not to look at Sullha. Afterall, his invisibility trick wouldn't work if they saw her talking to someone who wasn't there.
He walked over to her bench, sat beside her, and implanted a suggestion in her mind that counteracted the general thrall.
Startled, she gasped, and her hand flew to her throat. "How do you do that?"
"Do what?" He pretended innocence.
"Appear out of thin air."
"Stealth."
Her eyes narrowed. "Did you thrall everyone not to see you?"
He allowed himself to smile. "I did. I also thralled them not to look your way so they wouldn't think you are talking to yourself."
She glanced at the nearest woman, who was sitting three benches away and showed no sign of registering his presence. "What about Tomek?"
"He can't see me either."
Sullha looked at her son, who was chasing another boy around the climbing frame. He showed no awareness of anyone encroaching on his mother's space.
