"What are they going to ask for?" I didn't want to say yes if I didn't know what I was agreeing with.
"You will learn of it soon enough. Now, you should come with me to Le-Ath Veronis. Much work waits for you there."
"Yeah. I was afraid of that," I muttered with only a hint of sarcasm in my voice. Kifirin had been feeding me energy the entire time he'd held me. I wasn't nearly as weak as I'd been before. Now I had to find a way to deal with my life—living without my wizard. I wanted to cry again, just thinking about it.
"They will regret their decision one day," Kifirin nuzzled my temple, before placing warm lips against it. "While you may not have kept track of all who have mistreated you, I will not be so generous."
Surprisingly, Kifirin folded me to Casino City. We walked down one of the main thoroughfares, taking in the sights. I hadn't been in this part before—I'd only been to the landing station, where the shuttles delivered tourists and gamblers from the space station. And then inside the Chessman, Adam's casino, for a party honoring his and Kiarra's anniversary. Actually, the Chessman was three blocks away from the street where Kifirin and I walked. My hand was tucked in the crook of Kifirin's elbow as I stared around me.
"Honey, this makes me want ice cream," I said as we strolled brick-lined streets amid exclusive little shops and boutiques. "Or a cookie," I added. It did. Either of those things sounded good.
"There are no shops offering either," Kifirin smiled down at me and patted my arm. "You could open them, love. That would be a ready income for you, to use any way you pleased."
"It would, wouldn't it?" I agreed with him. I still had the funds that had been turned over to me—money that had originally come from Sergio Velenci, which Merrill had invested. A tidy sum in the beginning, it had grown exponentially since then and had been recently moved to a bank on Le-Ath Veronis. I was running through this in my mind—I could open sweet shops and sell fresh baked cookies and ice cream made onsite. Maybe brownies or other goodies. Visitors flocked to Casino City; they'd buy, I think.
"I'm going to do this," I breathed. "I just need to find someone to run all this for me."
"Many would leap at the chance," Kifirin agreed. "They will come to you, avilepha. I know they will."
Kifirin and I sneaked into my study later and pored over a map of Casino City with Grant and Heathe, both of whom gave me a big hug when I arrived. I knew Kifirin was distracting me from the Shadow debacle, but it was working for the moment. I just wasn't looking forward to the time when Kifirin left, as he invariably did. I'd have to face my other mates, then. How had things come to this? How? Glendes and Raffian had known what I was when Shadow made his proposal in the beginning. They were throwing a wrench into the works now, instead of at the start of our relationship. I didn't understand this at all.
"Avilepha, you are wandering away from me," Kifirin touched my face gently and drew me back to the map. I sighed as I examined available spaces in the shopping districts of Casino City.
"This one," Grant pointed out a shop that had recently come up for sale—it was a jewelry and souvenir shop—one of many on the same street, and couldn't compete with its neighbors. It was large enough, too, to house a bakery in the back, plus ice cream machines.
"Grant, can you and Heathe get on that for me? Ask the sellers to quote a price, and make sure they're not gouging. That looks like the perfect spot to open our first business." I looked at both my assistants—Heathe was grinning—he was excited about this, I could tell. And since both of them could now eat normal food if they wanted, well, so much the better. Grant was already planning this out in his head—I recognized the signs of turning wheels.
"I think you should name it Niff's; that is what Gardevik and the others were calling you when you woke among the High Demons," Kifirin teased me gently.
"Yeah, that's better than Queenie's any day," I agreed. "And we can use my cookie recipes."
"If you sell apple pie, you'll have people lined up at the door," Grant sighed. He loved apple pie.
"We'll sell apple pie and you can eat what we don't sell," I gave him a hug. We settled on half interest for me and a quarter interest each for Grant and Heathe. It made me miss Davan—I think he would have loved to be a part of this.
"Lissa, I must go," Kifirin leaned in to kiss me. "I will return in a few days and I will spend the night." He bumped his forehead against mine. Nights with Kifirin were sporadic at best, so I wasn't about to tell him no, even though I wasn't in the mood to have anybody else in my bed at the moment. Karzac would have a screaming fit anyway, I think, if I considered sex with anybody until he said otherwise. I just nodded, gave Kifirin a kiss back and stared at the space he'd occupied when he disappeared.
"What is this? You come back and do not inform us?" Gavin, Tony, Garde, Winkler, Drake and Drew all folded in. It made me wonder where Erland and Roff were, but then Roff was probably at the winery. I hadn't seen my Larentii, either, but I didn't question what kept them—probably big Larentii secrets or something. Rigo and Thurlow appeared moments later, while Gavin stared at me, his arms crossed over his chest.
"Honey, things haven't gone well since I woke up," I muttered, hanging my head. If Kifirin hadn't come to get me on Harifa Edus and fed me his energy, I might not have made it off the planet. He'd helped with my misery, too, but it had only been tabled for the moment. I expected it to come calling again very soon, when I had time for it to catch up with me again.
"We heard about Shadow." Drake and Drew didn't sound happy about that, but they'd been friends with Shadow before I came along.
"I'm not going to interfere with your friendship," I muttered.
"We know that, but you ought to talk to him—he's really upset," Drew told me. "Baby, he had a meltdown when Raffian took your ring back. Now he won't speak to anyone from Grey House."
"Uh-huh. What am I supposed to do about that? Good old Dad and Granddad saw fit to tell me, in the nicest way possible, that I wasn't a fit mate, so they had to bring in reinforcements. All while saying they'll treat the reinforcement like crap just so they can get heirs out of the whole thing. That really made my day." I was just about to walk away from the rest of my mates, right then and there. Honestly—how did they think I was going to feel about all this?
"Lissy, they didn't handle this very well. If they were going to do this, they should have done it at the beginning, instead of blind-siding you with it two years later." That was Tony talking, and he was voicing my concern over the whole thing. Why wouldn't they say something right away? I didn't understand at all.
"You have a lot to discuss with your, uh, mates," Grant rolled up the map we'd spread across my desk. "Heathe and I will get to work on this project, and report back to you later." Grant and Heathe sidled out the door, which allowed someone else to walk in—someone I didn't recognize. Gavin rubbed the space between his eyebrows—his signal that this wasn't in the plans.
"There you are," the new arrival announced. "I have been waiting weeks and had assurances that I would be notified as soon as you were up and around, yet here you are, holding a meeting and I come across it by accident." His fists were on his hips in angry indignation.
I stared at him, most likely openmouthed. Nervous energy radiated off him, otherwise he might be quite pleasant. He was around five-ten or so, with medium-brown hair, green eyes and a nice nose. Actually, his nose was his nicest feature. That didn't mean I knew a single thing about him, including his name.
"I'm sorry, have we been introduced?" I asked, as politely as I could.
"No! We have not been introduced. In fact, I've been informed that your health was not sufficient for you to meet with me. Please explain the miraculous recovery."
"You expect me to explain myself to you?" I'd been leaning against my desk, but that brought me upright in a hurry. Garde was already blowing smoke and scowling at the new guy.
"Look, I really don't have time for explanations," new guy growled. "All I know is that Solar Red is disguising itself as a legitimate religion on Twylec and people are dying. Since their Queen was killed on Nemizan by those monsters, her cousin has been trying to run that world, but word is he's dying, too. That doesn't include the rumors that Satris and the former Queen accepted money to allow Solar Red to set up shop, or any number of other things that have come to my attention. And that is only the barest tip of that mountain. There are dozens of other reports, and I have to sit here, with my staff and my agents, waiting for you to get off your ass and give permission for me to do something about it." New guy wasn't mincing words. I wasn't about to mince anything, either, except for a few Solar Red, maybe.
"You say Solar Red is on Twylec?" I'd expected as much, but then I hadn't been conscious since the Conclave, except for the past two days, that is. "Come on, then." I misted to him, grabbed his arm and folded him straight to Twylec. If Kifirin hadn't given me some of his strength, I'd never have been able to do what I did.
New guy got tossed onto the floor of Solar Red's huge new temple in the capital city of Rolanthis, and then he watched while I went to mist and blew the whole thing up around him, allowing huge blocks of marble, brick, stone and other building materials to rain down on four hundred Solar Red priests. Sure, they tried to run, but the building collapsed too fast. It was such a tragedy that the murderous assholes were all crushed to death.
When I was satisfied the priests were dead, I destroyed the floor surrounding new guy. He found himself standing on a small island of tile near the center, with the dungeons beneath the temple exposed. New guy wobbled to keep his balance as he stared into the dark depths of Solar Red's torture chambers. As usual, their victims were imprisoned there. I gathered new guy into my mist and we pulled all the victims into my mist as well, delivering them to the nearest medical facility afterward.
