she got most of the traditional words correct, or at least close enough. She also hoped Shalla meant what she said about wanting a sister. “And to invalidate any agreements between her biological parents and the deceased.”
Raia’s parents were sputtering. “You can’t—!” “She’s our daughter!” “We know what’s best for her!” “All we wanted—”
Ignoring them, Tamra said to Yorbel, “Everyone deserves a family that loves and respects them.” If Tamra had had that . . . Well, she knew how important it was.
Beside her, Raia said, “Trainer Verlas, you really want me—”
“This is nonsense!” Raia’s father blustered. “And a distraction! Celin of Seronne lies dead, and this woman is trying to shift attention from her own culpability.”
Augur Yorbel held up his hand again. “You have a point. The dead man must be addressed before anything else.” He inclined his head toward Tamra. “Your request will be filed after the current matter is resolved. First, though, I must speak with the owner of the kehok. Am I correct that this is Lady Evara of Peron?”
Tamra bit back everything she wanted to say to Raia’s parents. She was so angry that she felt as if she were vibrating. To have a child as smart and driven as Raia and to treat her like this. . . .
“Trainer Verlas?”
“Yes—you are correct.”
“Summon her here, please.”
She hadn’t been able to think of what could have made this worse, but now she knew. Tamra also knew that tone of voice—she’d used it often enough with students and kehoks alike. It was a “don’t argue with me” voice, and since it was coming from an augur who held her future in his hands, as well as Raia’s and Shalla’s, she was absolutely going to obey.
She exited the room and hurried to the cabinet where they kept the messenger wights. Sliding one of the drawers open, she lifted out the wight. It twitched at her touch.
This wight looked like a crumpled paper bird. She stroked it until its wings unfolded. She didn’t know what exactly the wights were—it was said they were bits of excess soul that were shed when someone or something was reborn. They weren’t precisely alive or dead, and they had no feelings, thoughts, or memories of their own. But they were ideal for delivering messages. You could imprint them with a simple message and destination. “Lady Evara of Peron,” Tamra instructed it. She hesitated for a moment. She didn’t want to use the word “emergency,” but she also didn’t want Lady Evara to ignore the message. She settled on: “Augur requests your presence at the training grounds.”
She released the wight and watched as it wobbled into the air. Other facilities could afford fresher wights that didn’t look as if they’d disintegrate in a stiff breeze, but they were stuck with these.
After watching the wight flutter its way toward the river, Tamra went back inside. Augur Yorbel was seated cross-legged in the center of the room, his hands on his knees as if he were meditating. Raia’s parents were clasping each other’s hands, sitting silently by the cold firepit. Raia was also silent, curled up in the chair with her arms wrapped around her knees. Not wanting to break the quiet, Tamra crossed to her and put her arm around her.
No one spoke for a long while.
Tamra wondered what Augur Yorbel had said to quiet them. She’d never had this much luck with her students. She studied him as they waited.
He didn’t look overly impressive. Older. Or more accurately, her age. His head was shaved bald, but his beard had flecks of white and gray checkering the black. His skin looked soft, as if the sun had never scorched it or even touched it much, and his face was thin and long. She wouldn’t call him handsome in a classic way, but he was peaceful to look at, especially in his meditation pose. His breathing was soothingly even, and his back was as straight as a palm tree—not stiff, just straight, as if he never thought about his posture but achieved it naturally. She’d seen Shalla spend hours trying to perfect her posture for meditation, yet this man made it look easy. He looked, in short, like what she’d imagined an augur would be like when she was a child—until she met real augurs up close and they shattered that image. He looked like a good man . . . who has the power to destroy my life with only a few words.