Free Tokus Numas by D.W. Rigsby Page B

kneeling beside her. “Are you not well?” he asked, looking upon her with concern.
    “I’m fine. Just tired. I’ve been up many nights since I learned you were coming for Petro. It’s been troubling me.” She looked into Vetus Sepher’s eyes. “You look to be a man who is trying to do the right thing, but also a man who is only following his orders.” She smiled at him. “Are you soon to be an Experiri?” She softened her eyes, and Vetus Sepher noticed how she moved past a lingering pain. Perhaps it was Petro’s leaving.
    Queen Lilith was an Alcoyte, a follower of the Numas’ ways. She’d been prepared at a young age and had taken the sacrament at the age of twelve. Her mother and father, as well as their parents, were Acolytes.
    “May I?” He gestured to the bench. She nodded, and he took a seat next to her. He tilted his head backward slightly as he straightened his back and then turned his focus to her. “No, Your Highness. I am to remain a vetus for now,” he said. “I don’t care for spending long, tedious hours in a lab, research facility, or study. Maybe in my late years, but I’m still at an age where I need to feel the ground under my feet as I move from city to city or train new recruits,” he said.
    She rested her hand above her heart. “Why have you truly come back? Can you at least afford me that?” Her hands cupped together. “Please do not make the mistake of thinking that I do not know there is real danger here. I sense it in you. I’m certain the Numas could have left Petro with some other family, a noble one perhaps, but I believe he was brought here for protection.”
    Perceptive , he thought. He breathed in and let the air out slowly. He wanted to say, I’ve come back for your sake, queen, and the sake of us all.
    “Do you ignore me?” she said flatly. “This is not what I’m accustomed to, that is certain.” Frustrated, she got up and paced about. “We’ve cared for Petro and played the Numas’ game of ‘this is an ordinary child.’ But we knew that he wasn’t, and we protected him from unknown dangers because the Numas trusted us to protect him while being unworthy to know why we were put into this position of trust.” Her eyes bored into Vetus Sepher’s.
    He did not flinch but only stared back. “You know King Offing is under siege. You know Petro has a special purpose. You know I am here. What reasoning is there behind all these things?” he said and stood.
    She glided over into a sliver of a sunbeam trying to cut through the cloudy sky and passed her hand through the light. “Petro was supposed to stay with us until he was of age. Why has that changed?” Her voice was at a lower pitch, and the corners of her eyes slanted.
    Vetus Sepher’s brow furrowed. “I did tell you he would be in your hands until he was of his own, but he’s now ready to come to Tokus Numas, and there is urgency.”
    Her hands trembled slightly. “Changed, has it? His name was recently added. You’ve come here demanding to take Petro from me, and you expect me to go along with it? I understand the concern. I treated Petro as my own, as much as I could in my position as queen,” she said with a mother’s look about her. “If you take him from me, I don’t know how it will change him. Do you understand my concerns?”
    “Of course, Your Majesty,” Vetus Sepher said. All the wealth of the kingdom was in her hands, but he could see that the wealth of her love for this boy was a hundred times more.
    Queen Lilith straightened herself and said, “It is my decision to fulfill. We are one in our ways; you know this, so we must act as one, each taking a part on the stage of life. It seems unfair to Petro, I must admit. I wonder what he must have thought when I looked into his eyes and told him you were coming.” She paused, and it looked as though she was struggling slightly with some deep emotion, but her training persisted in overcoming it. “He knows you are here and will be