The Heart of Betrayal (The Remnant Chronicles #2) - Mary E. Pearson Page 0,17

a knot. I did the same at my neck, tying a smaller knot at my chest so my shoulders would remain covered. Hopefully the Komizar wouldn’t consider knots a luxury too.

Dignity. My skin chafed under the coarse fabric. My toes ached with chill. I was dizzy with hunger. I didn’t care a whit about dignity. That had been taken from me long ago. But I did need a clear, unfettered moment. That much wasn’t a lie. Was such a thing possible here?

The gift is a delicate way of knowing. It’s how the few remaining Ancients survived. Learn to be still and know.

Dihara’s words swept through me. I had to find that place of stillness somehow. I leaned back against the pillar, hunting for the quiet I had found in the meadow. I closed my eyes. But peace was impossible to come by. What good was a gift if you couldn’t summon it at will? I didn’t need a quiet knowing. I needed something sharp and lethal.

My thoughts tumbled, angry and bitter, an avalanche of memory past and present, trying to find blame, to spread it around to every guilty party. I conjured a sip of poison for each one who had pushed me here, the Chancellor, the Scholar—even my own mother, who had knowingly suppressed my gift. Because of them I had suffered years of guilt for never being enough.

I opened my eyes, shivering, staring at the stained stone wall in front of me, unable to move. I was thousands of miles from who I was and who I wanted to be. My back pressed closer to the pillar, and I thought that maybe it was all that held me up—and then I felt something. A thrum. A pulse. Something running through the stone, delicate and distant. It reached into my spine, warming it, strumming, repetitive. Like a song. I pressed my hands flat against the stone, trying to absorb the faint beat, and heat spread to my chest, down to my arms, my feet. The song slowly faded, but the warmth stayed.

I stepped out from behind the pillar, vaguely aware of heads turning, whispers, someone shouting, but I was hypnotized by a thin, hazy figure on the far side of the hall, hidden in the shadows, waiting. Waiting for me. I squinted, trying to see the face, but none materialized.

A strong jerk pulling me to the side broke my attention, and when I looked back, the figure across the hall was gone. I blinked. Ulrix pushed me toward the table. “The Komizar said to sit down!”

Governors and servants alike were watching me. Some scowled, a few whispered to each other, and I saw some reach up and rub amulets strung around their necks. My eyes traveled the length of the table until they stopped at the Komizar. Not surprisingly, he looked at me with a grave warning plastered across his face. Do not test me. Had I caught their attention with a simple unfocused stare? Or when I squinted to see someone hiding in the shadows? Whatever I did, it didn’t take much. The Komizar may have had zero regard for the gift, but at least a few of them were hungry for it, looking for any small sign.

The regard of a few bolstered me. I proceeded forward, leisurely, as if my torn sackcloth dress were a regal gown, lifting my chin and imagining Reena and Natiya beside me. My eyes swept one side of the table and then the other, trying to look directly into the eyes of as many of those present as I could. Searching them. Bringing them to my side. The Dragon wasn’t the only one who could steal things. For the moment, I had the audience he so greatly treasured, but as I passed him to take my seat, I felt my chill return. He was the stealer of warmth as well as dreams, and I felt an icy sting at my neck, as if he knew the purpose of every move I made and had already calculated a countermove. The force of his presence was something solid and ancient, something twisted and determined, older than the Sanctum walls that surrounded us. He hadn’t gotten to be the Komizar without reason.

I took the only empty seat left, one next to Kaden, and instantly knew it was the worst place to sit. Rafe sat directly across from me. His eyes were immediately upon me, cutting cobalt, bright against the grim, full of worry and anger,