Free The Silence Within (The Young Ancients: Tiera) by P.S. Power Page B

everyone for a long time. After about twenty minutes of this Tiera understood that she was lonely , as strange as the idea really was. Not a lot of people spent much time with her anymore, it seemed, being a traitor and all that.
    Sure, that was a trick, but even the other rebels, the real ones, were all busy enough that they didn't spend a lot of time talking about flower arrangements or new clothing styles, at least with Maria. Over the last years almost all of her friends had probably vanished, one by one. She didn't whine about that directly, but it kind of explained why she wanted Gerent, and her own mother, to come and stay with them.
    Tiera stood up and tried to smile. It was harder than it used to be, and there was no way that it looked real. Countess Ward could see that too and frowned a bit, understanding that something was wrong. She didn't bother to glare, just sighing sadly.
    "Do you need to leave already?" It sounded sad. The kind of thing that reminded her of her little brother Tenant when he thought someone was being mean to him, but couldn't prove it directly.
    "Yes. I have a day trip into Austra. Tim would be going, but has a meeting here today. If you aren't needed for that, why don't you come along?" She waited for a reaction from her little brother, and an explanation as to why that was a stupid idea, but he just stood himself.
    "Good plan. We should look like we're making contacts there anyway. Maria, why don't you go and meet with Brown and Alice Orange? Make friends or whatever? So far the only people going over there have been supporters of King Richard, at least on paper, so it would make sense to be able to show that our side has the ability to do the same thing." It was a little weak, but no one called him on the idea or said that as a Countess, Maria was too valuable to risk on adventures like that.
    Instead he handed over one of his new Fast Craft to Tiera, which was on silver and had a stylized horse on it in profile. It didn't glow or anything, but that wasn't the point. This was, after all, something that Tim had made, not Tor. Even if he could have made it seem the same, he wouldn't have.
     Maria... Squealed .
    "Oh! We can all go! Well, not you boys, but Trice, Collette and Gerent. Not that you're a girl, but rather that you're not really involved in our other mess yet and probably shouldn't be. Just tell everyone that I'm seducing you over to our side and it will work well enough." Her face fell though and she shook her head so fast that it had to hurt. "Damn. I can't do it though, can I? I'm going to be needed here to entertain."
    Marvin looked sad about it too, but Kedrin stood, his vast form taking twice as long to do that as a regular person would.
    "Nonsense. No one will begrudge you a trip to a foreign land. I think you should all go, as suggested. Perhaps speak my name a few times to interested parties?"
    That actually seemed to decide it, even though Tiera couldn't really tell why. The man was a rebel, but he couldn't really expect to gain anything from dealing with their old enemies, could he? Except that... As nice as Brown was in the main, he'd allowed Austra to go to war with Noram several times in the last century. It was just possible that he might really throw in with them, if they had a good enough sales pitch. Or at least, some of his people might.
    She shrugged and started to the door, which was a bit rude, but waved for those that were planning to come to do so.
    "All right then. Everyone that's going, come along. We need to pick up some things from the market I hear? Do you have a list and some coin for that Tim? Otherwise they're going to get very little, if I have to use mine." She had about two silvers left on her. It wasn't everything she had, but carrying more than that was a bad habit. It left you mentally lazy and unable to find real world solutions to problems. That was her current idea on the matter at least. Real people didn't have a gold in their pocket most of