Page 23 of The Seeker

I nodded at his assumption, my lust-addled mind already trying to think of how I could trick him into drinking more doses now that the book was done.

“See, Runa? This is why you should listen to me. That book only works on weighted pairs. Now I know for sure that we are weighted.”

Anger flooded my veins, and I bit my tongue, aching to snap that I felt nothing akin to love since reading the book. But I knew that would reveal my whole plan, and it was much too soon for that.

This also proved to me that he didn’t know me at all. Not like I knew him.

I stayed silent as Leif retrieved a towel to clean us both up before pulling me into bed at his side. As I expected, it didn’t take long for his snoring to reach my ears. As soon as they did, I shifted myself out of his embrace.

The room was shrouded in darkness as I tiptoed to the bathroom. I assumed there was still a guard posted outside our door, but I knew I would need light for what I wanted to do.

In the bathroom, I lit the lamp on the carved-out counter, watching as the flame flickered in the mirror. My eyes still had the gold circle, as did Leif’s, as only one power was needed to activate them. Over the season, I’d grown used to them looking like this, and I didn’t think I would ever be comfortable without them again.

All that aside, I started by lifting my hand and using my wind power to blow a puff of air at my hair.

While it worked, my hair flapping with the slight breeze, it was more muted than normal.

Which meant the potion I consumed might be working. But it was too soon to celebrate, and that wasn’t the real reason I’d come to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

No, I needed to figure out what power had been in the book I’d pretended to read to Leif.

I spent the rest of the night flicking my hands this way and that, trying to figure out what exactly felt different. But no matter what I tried, nothing changed. The book Leif had me read had no discernible power.

Or if it did, it was so subtle, it wasn’t worth agonizing over.

When I finally returned to bed, the light of dawn peeking through the curtains on our single-bedroom window, I was exhausted and fell right to sleep for the first time in days.

It wasn’t until after I woke to a knock at the door, summoning me to lunch in the formal dining area, that I started to make connections.

People were less suspicious of me. First Derek—the male escort hadn’t been bothered at all by the task he’d accompanied me on, even when we left the keep walls, stopping by a market on the other side for me to purchase some fruit. Then, when I’d visited Friar again, she said nothing of the missing jar I’d stolen several days before, and handed me more love potion without fuss.

And later, Leif hadn’t deigned to mention the scar-reducing potion, or asked why he’d found me reading a book on Seid history when he’d come to bed.

It all made so much sense. The power I’d gained was trust. Or the lowering of suspicion. Either way, I understood why the book was commonly read in a weighted pair and why Leif would have wanted me to read it to us, even if he didn’t realize its true purpose.

And why he wanted that power, though he hadn’t known the full extent of it.

The next day, I requested a lunch tray be brought to my room, but by the time it arrived, it was all I could do to sit still to pick at it. I was eager to try my new power. Not only test it, but ensure that it didn’t go both ways—that I wouldn’t be unnaturally trusting of others. But something told me that wouldn’t be an issue.

I’d barely managed a few bites before I was pulling on a dress and knocking back the second portion of the other potion I’d created. I ached to write down my trials, as more than just scribbles in the margins of a magic book, but I knew that I needed to keep whatever information I was gathering now to myself. It was too dangerous to share.

Too dangerous for what I was trying to do.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor, my mind floated to the dream I’d had about Otho several days before. Well, the non-dream dream, according to him. In the Seid book, I’d found very little about the dream space, as Otho had called it, which gave me an inkling that he was correct when he said it wasn’t necessarily just a Seid thing—rather it was something that anyone could access with the right training. Combine that with the fact that Otho had no magic, his gray eyes remaining rimless, and I knew I was right even though I couldn’t confirm it.

That wasn’t why I was sitting on the floor, though, attempting to meditate. Time and time again, Otho had insinuated that weighted pairs could feel one another’s locations, but it was still something I’d yet to experience and the Seid history book mentioned something similar. Pressing my eyes closed, I rested my hands on my knees, inhaling deeply while clearing my mind. Based on what Otho had said about meditation bringing one to the dream space, I should be able to find his location as well.

It took far more time than the last time I’d chosen to meditate, and when I finally found that dark spot in my mind, the one with the glowing threads, it all appeared as I had left it. There was no shining beacon, no map with illuminated locations. Honestly, I wasn’t sure what exactly I’d been expecting to see, but nothing had changed.

I mentally wandered around the area for a few breaths, before giving up and allowing my body to come back to life one joint at a time. It wasn’t until I blinked my eyes opened, forcing away the heaviness that was there that I came to the realization.

I’d met Otho before, the first time I’d meditated.

Which meant the location, as he spoke about it, was already there. I just needed to figure out where to search.

I shook out my shoulders as I stood, heading for the door.

Location or not, I’d given up waiting on a certain general.