Authors: Lynna Merrill

The Seekers of Fire (38 page)

BOOK: The Seekers of Fire

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"Damn you," Dominick murmured, and Maxim laughed.

"So are you a murderer, boy? Would you believe my answer, whatever I said? That night, I had my back turned to you often enough; I could not have seen all. Tonight, you stood with a knife raised above my bed. Did you try to kill me? Only you can know for sure. Did you see a
samodiva?
Ask your own eyes."

Damn Maxim thrice, he was not lying. Playing with words, yes. Withholding information, certainly. But not lying at all. Dominick was not the one, at least not the only one, trying to kill Maxim twenty-three days ago. That much he could infer from the old man's ambiguities. But he had thought about killing Maxim tonight, and perhaps that, in itself, made him a murderer.

Damn the corrupt, iniquitous Militia woman. Couldn't she have done her job properly with him? Damn the little Balkaene peasant and his stone. Even without the stone and its visions, the boy had reminded Dominick of too many things he had been trying to forget for eight years. Damn the Ber woman, too—the angry, beautiful young woman who looked like a
samodiva
herself, who had taken the stone from the peasant boy and let him go even before Maxim had awakened to say none was guilty. She could not just let a boy go like this. She had a responsibility! Damn them all, they all had roles in society and life, they all had a duty to the Master's world, and none of them fulfilled it properly!

Dominick had thought that he had been fulfilling his, for eight years. Apparently not, considering today.

"Old man, can't you see if I am guilty or innocent in my eyes? Can't your detector tell you?" Can't
you,
at least, be a proper Mentor?

"No. As I already said, we have become too set in our ways, and that, my boy, is our greatest fallacy. The world is changing, but we are not keeping up. Come here."

Dominick did, and listened to the old man's words.

Many hours later, he left Maxim's room, and set towards what Maxim had called "
the dark, devastating forest.
"

END OF EXCERPT

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1: Coldness