Heart Fire (Celta Book 13) Page 18

  “Can you prove GraceLord T’Equisetum riled up the mob against you?”

  He’d heard her!

  Her scalp had heated with all this thinking. Her heart quivered in her chest with all the feeling. She lifted her hair from her neck, sifted her fingers through it. “I don’t know. I think . . . I’m sure T’Equisetum made speeches in the NobleCouncil against us, even went down to the Commoner Council to vilify us.”

  “Because pylor, the paralytic drug that was used against the Black Magic Cult victims, was found on your premises.”

  She couldn’t read his tone, either. Something about this man skewed all of her senses. She said, “Incense with pylor was found in our house, yes. You’ve seen yourself that such incense is a part of Intersection of Hope rituals, and not in any amount that would hurt a person. How would a minister do his job if he was paralyzed? And at that time, pylor was an ingredient in many incense sticks that most people had in their homes.”

  “So the case that you were part of the Black Magic Cult was—”

  “Never made. We, my mother, was never charged, but the ruin was done all the same.”

  He cocked his head. “Why?”

  She chuffed a breath, glared. “Because my father is—was—a judge, and my mother was—is—a SecondLevel Healer. Both professions demand a pristine reputation.”

  “You think?”

  “Yes. I know.”

  Again he shrugged. “Rather like a priestess. Yet here you are.”

  She’d sat up straight and tense and hadn’t even realized that had happened, had lost the sense of her body, and not in a good way as in a meditative trance. “You’re right.”

  “And you can still fight for justice. If you want. I can’t. I can’t even fight for mercy for my lost brother.” A short, jagged gesture. “He’s dead. His memory is defiled by his angry deeds, his murders.”

  Her jaw set. “Yes, I can try to get the estate back . . .” She blinked away stinging tears. “We didn’t have a Residence, and we teleported away as soon as we could, and those watching through the windows saw us, so they left the place alone.” She gulped. “I haven’t been to the house for years.” Swallowing, she continued. “I think GraceLord T’Equisetum had plans for it to be given to a . . . friend . . . of his.”

  “An ally.”

  “Yes.”

  “Huh.” He stared off in the distance a moment as she gathered herself to turn over the idea of how to go about seeking justice at this late date.

  Then, slowly, he said, “And if you follow up on what you just said, getting justice against him for his past hurt of you and your Family . . .” His breath went out; he paused, inhaled, and said, “You could occupy T’Equisetum on another front than the cathedral, distract him from our project.”

  “What?”

  “He’s a member of the Traditionalist Stance movement, and already murmuring to his friends about the cathedral. Started immediately after the press conference. Straif has heard that. Equisetum might even call his own press conference.”

  Shock rattled through her. “Your cathedral. You did say it was your highest priority.”

  “I think I just laid that out.” He frowned. “Not my cathedral. The cathedral.” He shrugged a shoulder. “I told you it was my priority.”

  “But my bringing up old wrongs by GraceLord T’Equisetum would distract him.”

  “Probably.” Antenn shrugged. “But it would be good for you, too.”

  She vibrated with rage. “You’re using me for your own ends.” She found that her hands trembled, so she stuck them in her sleeves and sank into her balance, grounding herself.

  “What! No.” He appeared confused. “Not really.”

  “No? Or not really?”

  At that moment Lucida Gerania strolled up, glanced at them. Her lips curved in a half smile, her brows lifted. “Problems?” she purred.

  Spine straight, Tiana said, “The Temple teaches us to be serene.” She managed not to spit it out, knew that under her flash of rage was a deep hurt, a wound that shouldn’t be so deep but was. And now here was her rival to see her struggle with her temper, but she ignored Lucida though anyone with training would feel the vibrations of her outrage. Since Antenn scowled, she thought he might, too. Her fingers cupped her opposite elbows too hard and she loosened her grip, her mind already sliding into a mantra to settle down . . .

  “The Temple also teaches us to let the Lord and Lady deal with those who have harmed us . . . because they will be dealt with, and to focus on the now and the present.” She turned to Lucida, modulated her voice. “Isn’t that so, FirstLevel Priestess?”

  Lucida flushed a little and stood straighter herself, the smile wiped from her face as if embarrassed to be caught enjoying Tiana’s discomfort. She inclined her head. “Yes.”

  Slowly Tiana inclined her head to Antenn. “I must deliver the envelopes. I’ll see you later.”

  Much later, as later as she could humanly manage. She walked away from him, through the doors, and didn’t look back.

  * * *

  As she finally put the items she had in her office to rights, with some help from her in-Temple friends, she brooded until she made a decision.

  The architect had angered her, but his words were the truth. It had been easier for her just to live as an example, be passive, than to work to clear her Family’s name. Though she also recognized another truth: the Priests and Priestesses of the Celtic religion on this planet should be as whole and stable as possible, so they could counsel others. And she’d aimed for that.

  But she did have a pocket of inner fury, one she’d thought she’d worked through and drained off during the years but had really just tamped down . . . Well, she must have drained some of it off, but unfortunately she found too much anger remaining.

  Because there had been no justice.

  Because the person who’d caused her Family harm had not, in turn, been punished. And she realized that she wanted her society to punish him for his greed, his envy, his hubris.

  Because GraceLord T’Equisetum had never said he regretted his actions . . . Well, he couldn’t, could he? He couldn’t admit that he’d wanted that position that her father had also wanted and T’Equisetum had manipulated others’ fear to smear her father and be appointed. He probably couldn’t even say he was wrong to hate the Intersection of Hope. He certainly couldn’t admit that he’d been behind the instigation of the mob that had firebombed the T’Mugwort estate. That was simply criminal.

  According to all she believed, that hatred should have eroded his soul. His misdeeds should have come back upon him by three . . . spiritually, physically, emotionally.

  But she hadn’t seen or heard that it had. And, apparently, that was a problem for her.

  The man who’d ruined her Family had not suffered as they had. Perhaps he hadn’t prospered, but he was still wealthy and respected.

  No, she hadn’t been able to forgive, and the High Priest and High Priestess had seen that flaw in her and it had been a detriment to her career, not only her soul.

  So, if, in her innermost being, she thought that she would Heal from lingering childhood wounds better if she pursued a societal justice, that was exactly what she should do.

  And that was what she should admit to her superiors that she was going to do. She didn’t anticipate that the conversation would go well, but she’d already been through all the counseling and rituals to root out the unforgivingness in her and they hadn’t stuck.

  The rest of her Family seemed to have worked through whatever fear, anger, and resentment they held at their ruination better than she.

  She grimaced at that notion, but she was human, and apparently, in this one matter, she carried a grudge that couldn’t be banished just by meditation and journaling and all the other tools she’d already used.

  Even when the Lady had touched her in ritual, when the Goddess had flowed from Tiana, there yet remained a kernel of ire that she couldn’t root out.

  Time to work for
change, then, for justice.

  And she did know the difference between justice and revenge. She could be satisfied with justice.

  She also knew the first person she should approach—her brother-in-law, the man who felt like a true brother, her sister’s HeartMate, Private Investigator Garrett Primross.

  Tiana had never been to Garrett’s office, but she scried him and asked for an appointment.

  “I think I know what you want to discuss, and it’s about fliggering time someone in your Family talks to me about it,” he said with a predatory smile.

  “Oh.”

  “I don’t have any appointments today, and my current caseload is full but not urgent, so come on by. Public Carrier number five stops just a block from the building.” He gave her an address and she nodded. As she left GreatCircle Temple by the east door she saw the number five going in the right direction on the street bordering the wide grounds. Other people stood at the plinth. “I’m on my way!” she shouted to Garrett on her perscry.

  She ran, recalling that she might not have to do this alone. She had a Fam. Felonerb, I’m going to Garrett Primross’s office. Want to come? She hoped he did and sent the visualization of the public carrier she was jogging for to him.

  I do not like being inside a common glider box, he replied, but sounded a little distracted.

  There was not a creature more common than Felonerb.

  I can teleport later. After I GET him.

  She sensed him wiggle his butt, in pounce mode.

  Get who? she asked automatically, then rather wished she hadn’t, as a bloody mess of rat along with the intention to KILL was sent to her by her common Fam.

  There is a rat hole in the wall of the house next to TQ. None of the cats here have been able to GET him, her Fam sneered. I will! He is not TOO CRAFTY for FELONERB RATKILLER!

  See you later, she sent as she hopped onto the carrier and took a seat, blocking any more images and bloodthirsty communications from her Fam.

  Twenty

  A quick ride later Tiana was in a shabbier part of town and walking up a short set of steps to a reinforced door set in a brick building, so square and minimalist that she didn’t think it could inspire Antenn the architect.

  Several cats watched her from the stairs and she had to step over them. A week ago she’d have thought them scruffy. All of them appeared sleeker and better cared for than her poor Fam.

  Bloody thoughts or no, she must give Felonerb her best. She sent him a spurt of love and received one back from him.

  Smiling, she walked up to the door then through it as the illusion over a spellshield thinned.

  Garrett awaited her outside his open office door, a few strides down the nondescript corridor. “Come on in.” He turned into his office.

  When she entered the small chamber he was behind a large, scarred wooden desk but sitting in a brand-new comfortchair. She closed the door behind her and smiled. He looked good in his place of business. Seriously competent.

  “Sit,” he said.

  She did and realized his two client chairs might look old, but the cushions were plump enough under her . . . better than her own patron chairs.

  He leaned over the desk. “You want me to look into the firebombing of your house when you were a kid.”

  She stiffened. “That’s right. I want to hire you for that. I can pay—”

  “There is no payment among Family members,” he said gruffly. He swiped his hand across his desk and a folder appeared. A fairly thick one with caff stains on the red, red cover. Red for fire? Tiana swallowed.

  “As you can see, I’ve been checking it out myself, but a lot of years have passed. No mob members came forward after the fact, of course, for either the harm to your house—which was the worst case—or the other two homes firebombed.”

  “Of course they wouldn’t come forward,” she snapped.

  He grinned. “Not sounding very compassionate and priestessly.”

  “I get irritated when I think of that.”

  “I’d get infuriated, myself.” He opened the file. “The guards found some leads but couldn’t prove who might have been in the crowd. ‘Rumors’ from what the Air Mages heard when they arrived on scene to put out the small blaze in your house, and from the guards who came and only saw fleeing folk, stated that there was an in-person instigator who led the mob to your home.”

  She looked at Garrett Primross across his desk and shook her head. “You’ve done some work on this.”

  “I opened a case file, yeah. Did you really think I would let the wrong to your Family stand? That I hadn’t already begun to investigate that fliggering incident? But I’ve come to a tangled web, haven’t been able to prove who was in the mob that night and whether anyone had ties to T’Equisetum. Who you once said you thought had caused it. You stated T’Equisetum also denounced your father in NobleCouncil during the Black Magic Cult hysteria. That was proven.” Garrett’s voice lowered, softened. “But why do you think T’Equisetum is involved in the riot and firebombing, Tiana? You are the only one who believes that.”

  She flinched. “He made speeches against us.”

  “He, like many Lords and Ladies of the time, emphatically railed against the Black Magic Cult murders and got caught up in the rampant fear that lasted a few days. After all, their children were targeted for human sacrifice.”

  Scowling, Tiana explained, again. “When the information that pylor incense was being used in the murders leaked from the guards—”

  “Or was planted by one of the Black Magic Cultists,” Garrett reminded. “Evidence showed.”

  “Well, T’Equisetum denounced the Intersection of Hope religion . . . because they used it. He set the guards upon us, searching our home because my father had more influence than he, because my father was going to be considered for an important appointment! T’Equisetum used my mother’s religion to ruin us.” Her hands had clenched and her voice had risen. Oh, yes, the quickest way to blow her tranquility to smithereens was to recall that night. No, she had not worked through all of the pain, obviously.

  “And how did he ruin you?” Garrett pressed, though he must know . . . not that the Family often talked about the past.

  “He cast doubt on my mother, my father . . . just dark enough and just for long enough that he got the appointment instead.”

  “All right.” Garrett inclined his head, leaned back in his comfortchair, and linked his fingers over his flat stomach. “So that’s a matter of record in the NobleCouncil. And Councils and such take away rights and privileges a whole lot easier than they grant or reinstate them. But why do you think Equisetum’s behind the mob, too?”

  “Because he’s a hater, a fanatic . . .”

  Garrett looked thoughtful. “Or he’s . . . thorough.”

  Her shoulders sagged. “I suppose. It’s hard to deal with such people. Those who have one idea of right and wrong in their head, and that idea might not correspond to reality, but they won’t change it, can’t change it without wreaking their worldview. Emotional dissonance. It’s difficult to counsel such individuals. Though T’Equisetum is the worst of that bunch that I’ve met.”

  “Is that all you have against him?”

  “He was behind the mob!”

  “How do you know?” Garrett shot back.

  Flashes of orange and yellow. Flickering sheets of fire seared in the vision of her memories of that night. She put the heels of her hands over her eyes and pressed to get a clearer picture. “I . . . I . . . saw an employee of his . . . one of his lesser relatives who worked for him . . . that night.”

  Garrett’s chair whooshed forward, pushing him upright, nearly across his desk, definitely into her space.

  “Are you sure? Who?”

  “Someone who worked in his office.” She still huddled in on herself, trying to remember, to see!

  “How did you know the person?”

  “The man.”

  “How did you know the man?” Garrett was relentless.

 
; Her mouth opened and closed. “I was at home one day when the . . . that man . . . came to the door . . . to pick up a formal papyrus decision with regard to a case of Father’s to take to Lord T’Equisetum.” She found herself whispering. “I think I saw him in the mob. You must know, we are a small Family, and we didn’t have staff. I remember him, and others, from the mob. GraceLord Galega . . . who died later that year. I remember.”

  “All right.”

  “We were minor Nobles and our house was not a Residence . . . though it might have had stirrings.” She’d tried not to think of that. “I hope if it did, its new Family treated it well.” Tears pressed behind her eyes and she blinked hard to keep them back as she straightened. “If the house is coming to sentience, it would think of that Family as its own. Not us.”

  “A great deal was taken from you. And in the murders and the outcry, I know why you didn’t press for redress at the time.”

  “Terrible.” Tiana swallowed. “That time sent fear into the very bones of my parents. My mother couldn’t worship as she wanted . . . we couldn’t worship as we wanted. You know that the hiding crippled Artemisia’s Flair when her Passage came. She should have FirstLevel Flair, but we repressed it.”

  “The mania passed quickly,” Garrett said, and though his face didn’t give much expression away, he was her brother now and she knew he kept a tight rein on his temper. He picked up a coin and sent it rolling back and forth across his fingers.

  “Yes.” Tiana gulped, murmured a spell couplet to banish the tears. “I think that the next morning, those people who’d been in the mob were ashamed of themselves.”

  “Can you remember faces?” he pressed.

  She shuddered. “Yes.”

  “But you did not prosecute.”

  “We had nothing! My father’s judgeship was stripped from him, given to another, as had been the appointment . . . and T’Equisetum holds grudges. And the HealingHalls were too . . .” She stopped herself from using curse words. Cursing showed a lack of control. “. . . self-righteous to accept my mother back into Primary HealingHall. She occasionally worked at AllClass HealingHall, but she did not disavow her religion and other Healers didn’t want to work much with a person of the Intersection of Hope. Our Family reputation was ruined forever.”