Page 7 of Stranger's Choice
Auraelie considered the best way to make Tjalik urge the prince to dismiss her and realized it would be easy. The man was terrified of her. Or rather, of her power. Auraelie had met many people over the years who reacted similarly. Humans often feared what they couldn’t understand.
Auraelie had little interest in seeing Tjalik’s future, and he was beneath the Emperor’s notice, so she had no need or desire to risk herself with contact, but to scare him, she need not take much of a risk at all. If she got close enough that he thought she might be scanning him, his fears would do the rest.
Not everyone inthe imperial court had a personal attendant at their beck and call. Sebin wished he could be among their number.
The oracle had become his shadow. Every morning, she appeared by his side and followed him around like a duckling. He couldn’t forget her presence. If he was about to sit, she was there offering him a cushion. Before he even realized he was thirsty, she placed a goblet in his hand. He couldn’t fill his own plate or straighten his own shirt—though she had become a trifle less assiduous in the past day or two, thank the heavens. Then, in the evening, she faded away, only to reappear the next morning.
He tried ignoring her. It was how the Emperor dealt with the half a dozen servants seeing to him. The other courtiers with personal attendants also treated their servants as nothing more than moving furniture. It felt horrible to Sebin, but what else was he to do?
She hadn’t come out and accused him of having a charm blocking her power. She was almost certainly serving as a lowly attendant instead of tending to more important tasks as the Emperor’s Oracle in hopes of bypassing his protection, even if she didn’t know how he came by it. If Sebin didn’t want to give away that he had a charm and not some sort of natural immunity that he couldn’t control—and possibly wasn’t even aware of—he couldn’t be the first one to mention her inability to see his future.
Plus, as far as she knew, he couldn’t even speak her language.
But it was hard to ignore her. Quite apart from her overzealous attention to his possible needs, she was, quite simply, stunning. He had noticed it the first day when she washed his feet, but he had been too busy making the right impression on the Emperor and worrying if his charm would work to do more than notice in an intellectual sort of way.
His current notice was not in any way intellectual. Thick black hair cascaded down her back. Long dark lashes only drew more attention to her emerald green eyes. Sebin had tried, he really had, but he could not think of her eyes as anything but emeralds. They were her one spot of color. Black hair. Black veil. Black tunic and trousers. It all framed her eyes, turning them into nothing less than jewels. He wanted to know if her lips were ruby red to match those emerald eyes.
Instead, he didn’t even know her name.
He wondered if it was time to change tactics with the oracle. No more pretending he didn’t see her. No more ignoring her presence. He’d thank her for her help and try to build a relationship.
Sebin glanced over at Tjalik and reconsidered. Waiting behind and a little to the left of where Sebin lounged, the rebel looked stiff and uncomfortable. He had replaced most of his nerves with anger in the time he had spent at court. He hated seeing the luxury the Emperor indulged in. Sebin sympathized, but had yet to hear a coherent plan for how to make things better after ousting the Emperor from power.
He had heard plenty of the man’s opinion of the oracle, though. Somehow, Sebin doubted using Tjalik as a translator would aid him in befriending the woman. Tjalik hated her nearly as much as he despised the Emperor. He blamed imperial oracles for destroying every chance the people of Pynth had to revolt for generations. He blamed this particular oracle for the delays and setbacks to his own rebellion.
As if on cue, Tjalik snapped out an order as the woman approached Sebin with a filled plate. “Approach the prince from his right side, Oracle.”
Sebin glanced over his shoulder. Tjalik now stood further back, arms crossed, his expression stony. While he watched, the oracle placed Sebin’s plate in front of him and backed up, forcing Tjalik to move further to maintain his distance from her. Then she stepped back to her usual spot behind Sebin’s right shoulder as if nothing had occurred.
And Sebin saw the spark of mischief in her eyes.
“You must dismiss her, Your Highness.” Tjalik moved closer and spoke quietly in Continental. “She is a threat; you can’t allow her to remain close longer than necessary.”
“The risk of keeping her close is less than that of angering the Emperor or rousing his suspicions by asking for her to be reassigned,” Sebin told Tjalik, not for the first time.
The oracle suddenly leaned close, pouring wine into a goblet that was nearly full already. Tjalik jerked backward. Sebin considered the glass in front of him, now so full that he’d be lucky not to spill trying to take a sip. A few days of never-empty goblets, followed by a day of never having his drink topped off, and now this. Perhaps the oracle wanted to get herself reassigned as much as Tjalik wanted to see her go.
More and more, Sebin wanted to know her name. He wished he could converse with her directly.
Tjalik shuffled closer after the oracle put down the pitcher of wine. “You need only report to the Emperor that she does not fulfill her duties to your satisfaction, Your Highness. He will never know your true reason for dismissing her.”
“And what am I to cite as these lapses?” Sebin carefully did not look at his overfilled goblet.
“You have seen how her service has reduced in quality since the first few days. She is too tardy when fetching your food and drink. She does not ensure your comfort.”
The lapses Tjalik named were the only reasons Sebin hadn’t gone insane in the past day. He had thought he might lose his composure there a time or two the first few days when he couldn’t even move without the oracle suddenly jumping in to make him more comfortable. Forget about wanting to find out the real reason the oracle was hovering over him, Sebin refused to risk gaining a more attentive imperial servant.
“No,” Sebin said and carefully raised his goblet to his mouth and took a sip.
“No?”
“No, I will not ask to have her dismissed or reassigned.”
He thought he heard Tjalik’s teeth grind, but the man said nothing else, stepping back to his usual spot for when he wasn’t actively translating.
Sebin decided toapproach the problem of the oracle without Tjalik present.
He couldn’t do much, as limited as he was by not wanting to betray his mastery of Imperial, but he could at least learn the oracle’s name.
