The expectant look in his eyes remained, though there was now a spark of appreciation. His mouth hooked up and he tilted his head forward, a silent acknowledgement.
“That means…” I spluttered out the words as the epiphany crashed into me. “That’s why your sons refused to let me meet with the Klovoda! They knew that you were only allowing me to stay with them because I hadn’t tried meeting with the Klovoda.”
Weston still refused to give me any vocal confirmations, but his body language remained open and honest, clearly admiring of my deductions so far. I really was important to Weston, but it didn’t entirely make sense to me. I found myself thinking about the conversation that I had overheard between him and Kingsling while locked in Kingsling’s basement, since that was the first time I had really begun to gain an understanding of how important Weston assumed me to be.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Dominic. I’m still the Voda, and I don’t plan on dying anytime soon. You need to release the girl. We agreed that we wouldn’t force her. She needs to be properly taught and integrated, like the others—not tested and tortured. Do you really think that she will help us now, after what you’ve done to her?”
“Frankly, I don’t care what she does,” Kingsling replied, sounding casual. “I don’t see why we need her, when we have the others. Can’t three of them be enough? We never expected any of them to survive, we hardly need four of them. Leave the girl to me, let me experiment on her.”
“She was always the strongest of the four. I’ve had my eye on her for a long time, and you know it. She is my choice. She will be the one to save us.”
“How…” I began, rolling the words around inside my head before I released them. “How… am I supposed to save you?”
He burst into a short, astounded laugh, slapping his hand against his knee. “You’re something, Seraph Black. You really are. I always knew it, but sitting here and seeing it play out the way I always imagined…” he shook his head, a wry smile settling about his lips. “You’re going to save us because you won’t be able to help yourself. I’ll bet that nobody ever explained this to you, but as Atmás, our powers directly influence our personalities, our preferences, our future. My power is the ability to control people, so that’s who I am now: I’m a manipulator. I’m driven to control people and outcomes. Your power is very specific… it’s a weapon, as we intended it to be… but you can also use it to heal people, which was a surprise to me. That means that you’ll be an instinctive, and a fierce protector. I won’t even need to tell you to do anything, you’ll do it all yourself.”
I scoffed a little bit. “I see what you’re saying; you really do think you’re some kind of master puppeteer.”
“If the shoe fits.” Weston’s tone was bland, showing no outward reaction to my insult.
I intentionally mirrored his pose, loosely crossing my arms low over my chest and parting my knees to better brace my feet against the floor of the limousine. I straightened out my shoulders and tilted up my chin, guarding my eyes and my nervous heart against his manipulation. Though in truth… some small part of me whispered that he was right. I only ever used the valcrick to protect or heal, and it had never even occurred to me that it could be used for any other purpose. I was capable of using it in other ways, but it wasn’t a natural thing for me; it was something that demanded a lot of concentration and delicacy. I had used it to hurt people, without a doubt… but that had only ever been to prevent harm from being done to myself, or to other people around me. It had never even occurred to me to use the valcrick for fun, or to get something that I wanted.
And what about the forecasting? If Weston was right… how would that influence me?
“Did anyone ever warn you about the perils of creation, Weston?” I asked solemnly, pushing away my private concerns.
I was lucky that he hadn’t yet attempted to touch me and draw on my thoughts, but I wasn’t going to push that luck. I assumed that the best way to prevent him from trying to read my mind would be to keep openly speaking my mind.