Ties of Power (Trade Pact Universe) Read Online Free PDF Page B

teacher? No.” He reached out carefully, as if afraid I’d disappear, and pressed the ball into my unresisting hand. Words, borne over the barest hint of deep emotion, flooded into my mind. Humor my humanity. This reminded me of you.
    I clenched my fingers into a fist around Morgan’s gift, feeling a hard roundness within it. All I could do was to hold myself rigid, looking down at our hands still touching, using all of my will to stay apart, to refuse to acknowledge the currents of need charging the air.
    My hair betrayed me, slipping over my shoulders, alive, twining up his arms, brushing softly against his cheeks. I followed its movements with my eyes, unwilling witness to the paling of Morgan’s tanned face, the working of his throat, the triumphant darkening of his clear blue eyes. The straining between us was intolerable as our eyes maintained that contact.
    I broke first—tearing away, turning to lean against the counter, breathing heavily in near sobs. “There is no other way. You know that. We must be apart, I your teacher only, or we are both doomed.”
    “Sira—” softly, a sound like warm air stirring my hair.
    I shook my head, glad I wasn’t facing him. “Unwise, Jason. You are very unwise.”
    There was no answer.
    He was gone. I reached up to order my now-obedient hair and felt Morgan’s gift still in my hand. Rage at my lack of control—and Morgan’s easy accomplishing of it—made me start to fling the thing across the room.
    I forced myself to stop. There was nothing to be gained by continuing to react on this emotional level. So Human, I thought, without the scorn of my heritage and training. In many ways, the time I’d thought myself Human had been the best, or at least the simplest, of my life. I put Morgan’s gift on the counter and smoothed out the leather. I gasped at what lay within its wrapping.
    It was a small gemstone, crudely shaped and polished by hand, yet arresting in the clarity of its deep blue color and fierce reflection of light. Its shape, like a pair of merged ovals, was very familiar. I created an illusion of this same stone on my forehead each time I appeared as a Ram’ad Witch in the Haven—for this must be a true witchstone such as given to initiates of magic among the tribes on this planet. Morgan must have had enough truffles to keep the Fox out of debt for months, yet he had bought this.
    The gift, and its giving, held a message I could not misunderstand. Morgan wanted an end to the illusions—for me to return to an existence where I could be who and what I was. With a sudden deep calmness soothing my mind, I knew he was right. I might be his teacher in matters of power, yet Morgan was my teacher in matters of life. So be it.

INTERLUDE
    “It does not matter who or what she is,” insisted the voice, faceless as any gathered here in the darkness of nonreality, distinctive in its flavor of overwhelming power and purpose. “What matters is what Sira becomes.”
    “Fine words, Jarad di Sarc.” The M’hir carried the taste of scorn far better than any expression, a scorn leavened by a hint of wariness. “You try to convince us the House of di Sarc would abandon its prize? That you view the future of our kind above your personal ambition?”
    A rippling of force, as though something huge passed under the surface of an otherwise placid lake before diving deeper. Shields tightened without alarm. Meetings of the Clan Council were often laced with threat. It was expected that power would be tried, tested, and used—else why have it?
    Jarad’s mind voice was without emotion. “I view the future of my House as the future of our kind, Degal di Sawnda’at. Would any dispute this?” The M’hir was silent. “Are we agreed, then? The Council stands prepared to act?” A feeling of building pressure. “I warn you. If you continue to delay, we will face the ultimate perversion. Are you willing to taste Human in the M’hir?”
    A different silence, as purpose and