Page 4 of Stranger's Choice
No. He trusted the magic protecting him. She could not scan his future. She hadn’t even glanced at Tjalik, and no matter whether or not Sebin ended up helping the man, she certainly would have seen something incriminating in the rebel’s future where it intersected Sebin’s.
Then again, she hadn’t reacted at all as she washed his feet with warm water.
The cool touch of skin on skin almost made Sebin jump. He tilted his head and watched the oracle in his peripheral vision. She had kept the cloth between her hands and his skin the entire time she washed his feet, but now, as she dried the last drops of water, she pressed her fingers against his ankle.
Her eyes narrowed, and she switched to the other foot, dabbing up water and deliberately letting her hand brush his skin.
Sebin couldn’t see her mouth through the opaque veil shielding the lower half of her face, but he’d bet his entire fortune that she was frowning at that moment.
The charm worked.
Auraelie let herfingers drift against the stranger’s foot one more time while she replaced his footwear. Nothing. No tingles of premonition, no falling headfirst into a vision, no pull on her magic that she was powerless to stop. She had wondered, at first, if the lack of a vision related to his foreign clothes. Maybe they used some strange material across the Mladin Ocean, though the boots felt like plain leather and the socks of wool. Even with those layers separating her skin from his, she should have seen his future. Then when she used the simple cloth, the same as she had on countless other guests of the Emperor, she knew something else was blocking her power.
She risked direct contact, expecting to be sucked into a kaleidoscope of images from the foreign prince’s future, but nothing happened. He was opaque to her power. No, it was worse: he didn’t exist for her magic. There had been no spiraling out of control as her power latched on and refused to free her. Touching him didn’t send her into convulsions as her body reacted to the drain on her magic.
Grateful that her opaque veil shielded her frown from view, Auraelie nevertheless kept her head down as she carried the bowl of water and cloths out of the great hall. Her eyes could betray her thoughts as easily as her lips, and she did not want anyone to know that the stranger was immune to her magic.
She took her time cleaning up. No one would look for her in the great hall again now that she had performed her duty. Even without skin contact, the ritual washing of the foreigner’s feet ought to have drained her to the point that she was useless to the Emperor for the rest of the day. The Emperor would not call for her until the evening. Not when she hadn’t signaled to Lhashiki that she had seen anything critical.
She should have signaled. Uncertainty worried the Emperor as much as clear threats. But she needed time. She needed to decide what to tell the Emperor. How to tell him.
Auraelie set about tidying the room where she had put the bowl away. If she looked busy, no one would disturb her until the Emperor’s summons came.
She could not lie to the Emperor. If he caught her lying, all of her people would suffer the consequences. She was bound by a treaty that had kept the peace between the humans and magical races for generations. She could not risk upsetting that balance.
She found it hard to think about such a broad, abstract doom, however. If she didn’t conceal the truth from the Emperor, she faced a far more personal and immediate danger. Nine years as the Emperor’s Oracle, and for the first time she feared suffering the fate of all the imperial oracles before her. There had to be a way to protect herself without lying.
She cleaned the entire tiny room, avoiding the rest of the Emperor’s Will all afternoon. She pecked at her supper. By the time the Emperor summoned her, though, she had crafted carefully worded answers to every question he might ask her—she hoped.
“Auraelie,” Lhashiki said, her smile clear through her sheer veil when she opened the door to the Emperor’s chambers. “It has been forever since we have chatted. We need to catch up. However, we can’t keep the Emperor waiting. We should dine together tomorrow.”
“I’d like that,” Auraelie said to the older woman who had helped her adjust to life as a member of the Emperor’s Will. Having spent the first fifteen years of her life among the oracles, rather than being raised as a member of the Will, Auraelie did not always agree with Lhashiki’s blind loyalty to the Emperor, but she considered the woman a friend.
“His Imperial Majesty awaits you in the inner room.”
Auraelie nodded her understanding and crossed the outer chamber in silence. Lhashiki followed in her wake. Not surprising. The Emperor would have no fear of hearing sensitive reports in her presence. The woman’s devotion was unquestionable. She would never betray the Emperor. She wouldn’t even call him anything except “His Imperial Majesty.” Auraelie wondered if Lhashiki called him that even in bed.
The thought of Lhashiki’s intimate relationship with the Emperor—the reminder of how so many of the members of the Will served, whether or not it was the Emperor’s bed they warmed—had Auraelie swallowing as she pushed aside the beaded curtain to the inner room. The careful answers she had crafted had to be enough to protect her.
Auraelie took three precisely measured steps into the room and prostrated herself. Oh, how she hated this. She was the Emperor’s Will. She had no say in her own life; she could only accede to the Emperor. But she still controlled her own thoughts and feelings, and she could never abase herself without that spark of hatred welling up.
From the corner of her eye, she watched Lhashiki press her own forehead to the ground in a manner both seductive and submissive. How did the woman make such stillness as graceful as a dance? Auraelie knew better than to ask. Lhashiki would love the opportunity to teach Auraelie the skills she would have learned had she grown up among the Will. Auraelie did not want to learn how to be seductive.
“My Oracle,” the Emperor said after a minute. “What did you see in the future of this foreign prince, Sebin Velor?”
Auraelie lifted her head, but otherwise remained pressed to the floor. “His future is opaque, Imperial Majesty. Though I tried, I could not see what path he will take.”
“Even when skin-to-skin?”
Auraelie let out a silent sigh of relief. The Emperor was frustrated. That meant he had not caught the true meaning of her words. As she had intended, he assumed she meant that the prince’s future was too muddled to be predicted with any clarity. Some people had too many critical choices in their future, too many turning points, for even an oracle to untangle.
She had never met one herself. At least not one whose probable pathshecould not decipher. All oracles had their own talents, strengths, and weaknesses. Auraelie’s nearly debilitating weakness balanced out her extraordinary ability to see futures so in flux most of her people would get lost in the possibilities.
Everyone knew that certain people, certain events, confounded even the oracles. In an effort to muddy the waters and keep people from identifying when an oracle was working as blind as a human, her people had mastered the art of vague predictions and misleading phrasings. The oracles had likewise never shared with the Emperor just how powerful Auraelie was.
He knew her limitations, but assumed her powers went no further than those of the imperial oracle who had come before her.
“Even skin-to-skin, I could not see the prince’s future, Your Imperial Majesty.” There. Auraelie had told the Emperor the exact truth. He could not claim she had lied and demand restitution. She had misled him, certainly, and discovery of her deception might make her life worse, but her people were safe. And she would risk the punishment for deceiving him over telling him the truth any day.
