The Talented (37 page)

“
I didn’t—” “Did you—” they
both asked at once, eyes wide with amazement.

Louella turned and saw
Malokai, his hand outstretched, attention completely focused on the
teacup. Slowly, the teacup rose, shaking slightly as it made its
ascent.

Adrienne and her friends
were waiting nervously in the otherwise empty corridor outside of
the commission’s meeting room. Today, the commission would deliver
its decision regarding what had happened two days ago at Louella’s
house. The day that Malokai had so unexpectedly discovered his
Talent.

Malokai’s extraordinary
ability to move things with his mind had sent the commission into a
flurry of activity—if intense meetings counted as activity. It was
proof to them that Adrienne’s Talent was not a fluke, that it was
possible to create an army of Talented soldiers.

The commission was not as
afraid of Malokai’s Talent as they were of Adrienne’s, but she knew
that not all of the commissioners were happy with the state of
events. She suspected that many of them had probably seen her
ability to develop a Talent as an aberration and had not expected
Malokai or anyone like him to be able to develop an
ability.

And despite the fact that
the commissioner’s saw Adrienne’s Talent with fire as being more
dangerous, many of them still viewed the tall M’bai man as an
inherent threat. To them, Malokai was a savage that could not be
trusted with such power.

Adrienne thought that view
was even more ignorant than the view the commission held of
soldiers. At least the view about soldiers was a sweeping view that
they had adapted before any of them had met any soldiers, but they
knew Malokai now and still did not trust him.

“
What do you think they’re
saying?” Louella asked. Like the others, she had wanted to be
present for at least some of the discussion. Unlike the others, she
had been surprised that they were not included.

“
Ben is probably telling
the commission that everything is working as planned,” Pieter said.
“The training is going well, the Talents the commission was looking
for are finally being developed, and we should continue training
more soldiers and warriors.”

“
And Lady Chessing is
probably saying that even one more soldier in Kessering will
threaten the entire city,” Adrienne said.

Malokai said
nothing.

“
I heard some of them want
to stop the training,” Louella said. “They don’t want more
Talented.”

“
They’re afraid,” Pieter
said, resting one of his big, dark hands on Louella’s light
one.

“
And jealous,” Adrienne
added.

“
What will they do with us
if they end the program?” Malokai asked.

Louella looked up at the
warrior in surprise. “What do you mean?”

“
If they decide that they
don’t want more Talented. What will they do with the ones that they
have?” He looked at Adrienne, and she knew that they were both
thinking the same thing. Would the commission decide that their
duty was done and send them home?

Although Ben had not said
much, Adrienne knew that he was worried that the commission would
end the training program. As the only Talented commissioner, ending
the program would affect him in a much more personal way than it
would the others on the commission. But he had not told Adrienne
what would happen to her if the training was ended.

Adrienne stared blankly at
the wall, transfixed by the fading pattern on the tapestry. She
lost track of time, and the tapestry began to to blur in front of
her eyes, the colors bleeding together until all pattern was
lost.

“
They have to say yes,”
Louella said. Adrienne jumped as the silence was broken, turning
away from the tapestry to look at her friend. “The commission has
to decide to train more people to become Talented,” Louella
explained, her face earnest. “They had such success with you and
Malokai.”

“
With us as well,” Pieter
interjected.

“
Yes, of course.” Louella
shot the blacksmith an exasperated look. “I only meant that they
wouldn’t stop now that there are finally Talented who could fight
Almet. Right? Isn’t this why the king formed the commission in the
first place?”

Malokai shrugged, and
Adrienne didn’t know what to say. Over half a year in Kessering,
living under the commission’s rule, had taught her that the
commission was not always logical, nor did their actions always
seem to be in the best interest of Kessering or Samaro. Too often
the decisions the commission made did not even seem to line up with
their objectives, at least not the objectives given to them by the
king. Adrienne wondered if perhaps the commission had its own
agenda, separate from the one laid out for them by King Burin.
Either that or King Burin was more of a fool than she had supposed
and had picked the worst possible group to help him end the
conflict with Almet. If the commission decided to stop using
soldiers and warriors or ended the training program altogether,
Samaro would have no way to end the conflict with the larger
country to the north.

But Louella trusted the
commission, as did most of the others in the city, and Adrienne did
not want to damage that trust before she heard the verdict. Perhaps
the commission would make the decision to continue the training
program with more soldiers instead of less. If that was the case,
all of her worry would have been over nothing. “I’m sure they’ll do
the right thing,” Adrienne said, though her words were far from the
truth.

“
Of course they will,”
Louella said. “They—”

The door opened, and
Louella popped up from her seat like a cork from a bottle. Adrienne
and Pieter rose more slowly, and Malokai straightened from where he
had been leaning against the wall with a false sense of casualness.
They had all wanted to be here, together, to hear what the
commission had decided, and Ben had finally agreed to allow
it.

However, they soon saw
that the door had not been opened in invitation. Instead, Ben came
out of the room and closed the door firmly behind him.

“
Elder Rynn has given me
permission to inform the four of you of our decision,” he said
formally.

“
Ben, I thought we were
going to hear directly from the commission,” Adrienne said, her
voice sharp after two hours of anticipation. Her muscles were
tense, as if she had been waiting too long for a battle to begin,
not for a meeting.

“
I am a commissioner,
Adrienne,” Ben reminded her coolly. “There was no need to have
everyone stay behind when I can deliver our decision
myself.”

Adrienne’s stomach
twisted. She didn’t have to hear Ben’s words to know what the
commission had decided. She could see the decision written on his
unusually drawn face.

“
The commission has
determined that there is no immediate need for more people with
abilities to be trained,” Ben said. “It is now clear to us that
some people are capable of developing abilities that can be used
against an enemy. If the need for such abilities arises in the
future, others will be trained, but until they are necessary the
commission sees no reason to uncover abilities in more people.” Ben
nodded decisively, as though he were in full agreement with the
commission’s decision, but Adrienne knew Ben was disappointed as
well.

She bit her tongue to keep
from saying how stupid and ill thought out the commission’s
decision was. Anyone with even the most basic understanding of
strategy knew that one didn’t wait to train soldiers until they
were needed, but kept them in reserve in case they eventually were.
She wondered how Ben had felt when the rest of the commission had
made the asinine decision, and if any of them saw the inevitable
drawback of needing more Talented but not having them.

Ben knew better than any
of the other commissioners how hard and precarious it was to
develop a Talent. Not only was he Talented himself, but he had
trained many of the Talented in the city. He knew that it was not a
short process, and that it did not always work.

“
But I thought the
situation in Almet…” Louella trailed off, confused.

“
The struggle with Almet
has not escalated to the point where special abilities are
necessary,” Ben said. “Things are momentarily stable on that
front.”

Adrienne knew that by
stable Ben meant that the normal amount of killing and looting was
occurring. Civilians were being harmed and soldiers were dying in
an ongoing struggle to keep Samaroans safe from being killed or
enslaved by Almetian forces.

“
So they are just going to
wait?” Pieter asked. Louella let out a relieved sigh, and Pieter
shot her a look. “You can’t be happy about this?”

“
If they can find a
solution to open war,” Louella hedged.

“
They can’t.” Pieter looked
fierce, and Adrienne remembered her old sword, which still hung
proudly in Pieter’s shop. The blacksmith understood better than
Louella what this decision meant on a larger scale, and that
sometimes bloodshed was necessary to maintain freedom.

“
We don’t
know
that,” Louella
said. “Do you really want to risk your life before everything else
has been tried. Do you really want people to
die
if they don’t have
to?”

“
Of course not,” Pieter
said. “But we’ve tried other ways.” He looked at Ben in accusation.
“Talented soldiers were supposed to
be
the other way. The Talented were
the way to win the war.”

“
Until real war breaks out,
abilities such as Adrienne and Malokai have developed won’t be
necessary,” Ben pointed out.

Adrienne wondered if
anyone on the commission had ever heard of making the first strike,
or thought about how many would likely die in a war before enough
people could develop useful Talents to make a difference. Compared
to Almet, Samaro was too small to not take every advantage they
could get.

She tried to believe that
the commission was right, but their decision went against
everything she had ever been taught. She wished to be back in
Kyrog, where the orders made sense and, even if they didn’t, she
trusted the person who had issued them. She could not bring herself
to trust the people here. “Wouldn’t it be better to have more
people with powers in reserve, ready to be called up when needed?”
Adrienne finally asked, unable to help herself.

“
We have decided that it is
better to hold off on any further training,” Ben said with
finality.

••••••

“
We can’t stay here,”
Malokai said abruptly. He had been lying on the other side of the
camp, looking up at the sky that was slowly turning a darker shade
of blue as the sun fell toward the horizon. Now he sat up and
looked at her out of those intense blue eyes.

Adrienne looked around the
sparsely wooded area where she and Malokai had set up camp the
night before. They had left Kessering after the commission’s
decision, needing space from the confines of the city. It would
take only a few hours to walk back to Kessering from where they
camped, but here they were momentarily away from the sights and
sounds of the city, and the control of the commission.

Neither Adrienne nor
Malokai had told Ben about their unexpected trip, though Pieter and
Louella knew. Ben would likely be angry that they had left without
first asking permission, but Adrienne no longer cared what Ben
thought. The commission had decided against training any new
Talented; they did not need to manage every part of Adrienne’s
life.

“
Well, no, of course we
can’t stay,” she said, hoping that Malokai did not mean they had to
go back to the city right at that moment. It was peaceful out here,
away from the bustle and chaos of civilian life. “We’ll have to go
back eventually. It’s just nice to get away for a while.” Not that
there was much for her to get away from, now that her own training
was at an end. She had promoted Edward to captain before hearing
the commission’s decision, and he was now solely in charge of the
city guard. Except for Louella and Pieter, there was little in the
city of importance to Adrienne. Her studies about the Dark Mage had
come to a halt: no matter how hard she tried, she could not
decipher the Almetian script. There was probably a book in the
library that would help with such a task, but she could not ask the
librarian or one of the scholars without giving away what she was
trying to do.

“
I meant we can’t stay in
Kessering,” Malokai said, drawing her from those bleak thoughts and
focusing her attention more fully on him and what he was
saying.

“
What?” Adrienne hadn’t
expected that.

“
You heard the commission,”
Malokai told her. “They aren’t going to train anyone else like
us.”

“
They will,” Adrienne told
him. “Ben said they would, when it becomes necessary.” They had all
talked about it. Adrienne, Malokai, Louella, and Pieter had spent
hours discussing the decision the commission had made, trying to
understand it and what it would mean for them and for the future of
the Talented. Adrienne and Malokai had continued to discuss the
situation even after they had left Kessering, and she was sure
Louella and Pieter had done the same.