As if anyone could really protect him. Even Sim.
He peered downward through the trees to the city. Arborlon’s people were awake, but almost none of them understood the enormity of what lay ahead. They had heard about the attack on the High Council and the resulting deaths. They had been told that a meeting of the new members of the High Council had been set for midday today. They knew that no one was to leave the city for any reason until permission had been given. Home Guards were blocking all routes, a protective measure to assure that no one would be caught outside the city and left behind. Almost no one understood what that meant. Aside from new First Minister Ordanna Frae and two other ministers who had survived Tragen’s attack, no one understood much.
They would know soon enough, of course. An announcement of what had been done would be made at a general gathering of the populace, once they were encapsulated inside the Loden. Home Guards would be everywhere when that happened. There would be hysteria. There would be anger and disbelief. There might even be insurrection. No one knew. No one had lived through this. Only a handful had ever even heard of the Loden Elfstone before today, and no one at all knew what life inside the city would be like after it was put to use.
It was new country for all of them.
He thought momentarily of his parents, who would be among those discovering the truth for the first time tonight. They had returned to the city in his absence, unaware of what had happened. Upon their return, Arissen Belloruus immediately placed them under house arrest. It was only last night that Simralin had gone to them, had told them they were free again, that the arrest had been a mistake, that she and Kirisin were well and would see them soon. A small lie? He shook his head. No, a rather large lie. He might never see them again.
But Simralin could not tell their parents the truth any more than he could tell the other Chosen. Secrecy must be maintained. Caution dictated what was permitted and what was forbidden. Mistakes could not be afforded.
Even so, he wished he could have seen his parents one more time before the closing away. He wished he could have explained things for himself instead of relying on Simralin. But he guessed it wasn’t the first or last wish he wouldn’t be granted in this business.
Simralin walked over from where she had been talking with the Knight of the Word and put a strong arm around his shoulder. “Are you all right, Little K?”
He nodded and gave her a smile. She hugged him and stood next to him for a moment, leaving her arm draped over his shoulders possessively. She was trying to reassure him, he knew. He was grateful to her for that, but reassurance came hard just now. There were so many uncertainties, so many doubts that beset him. She would do her best for him; she always did. But in the end, he suspected, it would come down to what he could do for himself.
His eyes shifted to where Logan Tom stood by himself off to one side, leaning on his black staff. There was something about him that bothered Kirisin. He was a lot scarier than Angel, who had always seemed a friend despite her service as a Knight of the Word. Logan Tom didn’t seem like a friend to anyone. Although he didn’t seem like an enemy, either. He just seemed . . . apart. As if he might disappear in a heartbeat, gone back to wherever he had come from.
But the boy knew that this impression was faulty, that Logan Tom would stand and fight. You could see it in his eyes. You could tell from the way he moved and talked—steady, confident, determined. Driven. Simralin had told him a few things about the Knight, things she had somehow discovered while bringing him back to Arborlon after he had come upon her at the site of the hot-air balloon. It was a great deal more than what he suspected Logan Tom would normally have given up to someone little more than a stranger. Stories of how he had gotten to them, of how he had found and rescued the boy who was actually a Faerie creature, a gypsy morph who would save them all from the demons. It was scary stuff, but kind of reassuring, too. Because buried in the details was the unmistakable promise that safety for all of them was not just a dream.
“He’s awfully dark, isn’t he?” he said softly to his sister.
She followed his gaze over to Logan Tom. “He’s a lot of things,” she murmured.
“You think we can trust him?”
“I think maybe we can.” She smiled ruefully. “But I thought that about Tragen, too.”
“That was different.”
“This might be different, too.”
“He looks dangerous.”
“No more so than Angel.”
“Much more so, I think. The kind of dangerous that means he won’t let anything get in his way. I wouldn’t want to get on his bad side. But maybe he can do what he says he’s come to do.”