A House Divided by Nicole Ciacchella (the giving tree read aloud txt) 📕

"We are, I think. I don't know. It's a complicated situation," she said. To her horror, she felt her cheeks blaze. How could she possibly explain the situation to him? It was awkward beyond endurance, and she hadn't managed to make sense of it herself.

She didn't love Lach, that she knew, not in the passionate, all-consuming manner of lovers. As a friend, yes, but she was devoid of any physical or emotional desire for him.

That wasn't the case for him. Cianne knew he desired her, and the knowledge of it was a constant torment. He cared for her, of that she was certain, but she wasn't certain his feelings for her could survive the blow she would have to deal them. He carried a blazing torch for her, everyone could see that, and she didn't know how he would react when she extinguished it. She desperately wanted to believe the best of her friend, desperately wanted to rest in the assurance that, like his father's, Lach's heart was too pure for bitterness to corrupt him. Yet whenever she dared to test the waters, to dip her toe in, the depth of the hurt on his face was enough to tell her that refusing his suit would devastate him. What would she do if her best friend grew to despise her rather than love her?

Wasn't it selfish of her to delay the inevitable because she dreaded finding out?

Kila's presence in the city was dangerous, far more dangerous than he knew. Not only was she asking him to take on the Houses, she was doing so while cherishing feelings she shouldn't have. She had told herself time and again that her adoration of him had been nothing more than a childish infatuation. She had never believed herself.

"Do you and Captain Stowley have an understanding?" Kila asked.

Gods, but having to speak to him about this was excruciating. Still, he would hear it one way or another, and she would rather he heard it from her.

"Everyone expects me to marry him. He hasn't asked me to be his wife, but he's made his wishes plain. I won't marry him, though," she said softly, staring down at her hands.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to pry into your personal life."

"You didn't," she said, shrugging a shoulder. "And all this may seem irrelevant, but I don't think it is. You should know what the situation is like in House Staerleigh, and I suspect my relationship with Lach factors into it."

"How so?"

"As I said, I've no real evidence. But I have noticed some things. For instance, the presence of the Elders at the Stowley manor felt odd."

"Isn't it standard practice for the Elders to visit the family in times of loss?"

"It is, but they arrived at the manor even before Lach, my father, and I did. The moment we received the news, we raced to his home. As you've seen, the manors are all close to one another, so it isn't inconceivable that they could have reached the manor before we did, but it was still odd."

"Do you know what time it was when you received the news?" Kila asked, his face suddenly intense with concentration.

Cianne thought carefully. "Lach and I left the assembly at around eleven. I remember because it was somewhat rude of us, but allowances are always made for Lach, and he wanted to catch up with me away from the crowd. He was supposed to report to the Elders in the morning to discuss his next excursion, and his mother told him not to be too late because he would need his rest."

"Do you get along with his mother?"

"She despises me," Cianne said baldly. She tried to keep the bitterness from her tone. "She's never thought me good enough for Lach. I have no Adept abilities and no position of any prominence. Were my father not as powerful as he is, I would likely be relegated to second-class status within the House."

"Would she approve of a match between you, then?"

"She would to secure an alliance with my father."

His face pensive, Kila rubbed his chin. "Forgive me, I didn't mean to interrupt you. Please continue with what you were saying."

Concentrating, she did her best to pinpoint a time, which was difficult as she hadn't consulted a clock and could do no better than estimate. "We had finished tea, but Lach hadn't yet said anything about leaving. It was perhaps midnight, or a quarter past."

"Was your father at the manor with you?"

"He was, but he was in his study. The messenger didn't say that Lach's father had died, but he said there was an emergency of a dire nature, and Lach should return home immediately. Lach was alarmed, and there was a commotion as I called for servants to bring his things. My father came out of his study, and Lach told him about the message, at which point my father said he would come with us."

"He said he would come with you? Or Captain Stowley asked him to come along?"

"He said he would come. Lach was concerned only with getting out the door as quickly as possible."

Kila's face was pained. "Annali—Miss Wyland, is it possible that your father is connected to whatever you think may be going on in your House?"

"Yes," she said. It was a betrayal, and she knew it, but she wanted to find the truth, even if it implicated her father.

Or especially if it implicates him?

No, she refused to believe that. She and her father had their differences, but she wasn't acting out of malice. She wouldn't allow either guilt or a misplaced sense of duty to dissuade her.

Kila accepted the information without saying anything more, though his eyes were sympathetic. "How long do you think it took you to get to the Stowley manor?"

"No more than ten minutes from the time we received the message."

"So in order to have beaten you there, the Elders would have had to receive the message at around the same time you did, if not sooner."

"Precisely. Which raises many questions, at least for me. Moiria would have wanted the Elders informed, but shouldn't her first reaction have been to inform Lach, then the others?"

"It does seem odd," Kila conceded.

Glancing out the window, Cianne saw that the night was fleeing. She had best get back to the enclave. "I must go. I know I haven't given you much to go on. I have more to tell you, but it will have to wait for another time. No one in the House can know that you and I are meeting privately."

"Not even Captain Stowley?" he asked, evaluating her.

"Not even Captain Stowley," she confirmed. "I assume it goes without saying that I'm asking you not to speak to Officer Burl about this either."

"I give you my word."

"One last thing," she said as she stood. "After Lach was sedated and I went into the sitting room with the Elders, Elder Borean gave me this to dry my tears. I noticed it smelled strange, but I didn't think much of it at the time."

His eyes followed as she tugged a pouch from the pocket at her hip, and it made her fingers tremble. She handed it to him and watched as he opened it, pulling out Elder Borean's handkerchief. Raising it to his nose, he sniffed it, his eyes widening.

"It smells like the substance Advisor Stowley used to commit suicide."

She might have been tired before, but now Cianne was exhausted. "I suspected as much."

Chapter 12

True to his word, the next day Kila said nothing to Burl of his meeting with Cianne Wyland. Even had Miss Wyland not extracted the promise from him, he wouldn't have said anything. The handkerchief could connect Elder Borean to the incident at the Stowley manor, or it could not. Either way, Kila didn't trust Burl with such information. If Toran Stowley's death hadn't been a suicide, if someone had, in fact, killed him and staged it to make it look like a suicide, Kila couldn't trust that they'd done it without assistance. The Elders would have known that Burl would arrive at the scene, but they couldn't have trusted that she would be the sole Enforcement officer to arrive.

He mentally went over the scene in Toran Stowley's study again. He had thought things seemed very neat there, but he couldn't allow himself to pursue that train of thought without solid proof. Determining that the evidence didn't fit based on his personal view of what a suicide scene looked like was a real, dangerous possibility for him.

Curiosity ate at him. He was certain his conversation with Miss Wyland had barely scratched the surface, and he wondered what more she had to tell him.

For the time being, he had decided to also withhold the information from Chief Flim. Yes, Miss Wyland had asked him not to tell anyone, but perhaps she didn't know that there were Enforcers who were skeptical about what was going on in the Houses. Chief Flim could be a valuable ally, but he would wait to establish a connection between her and Miss Wyland until he had a better idea of what was going on.

Exactly how many sides was he playing, he wondered. Enforcement had been his life, necessitating subterfuge from time to time, so he didn't feel guilty about keeping things from his chief or from the House, but he did feel guilty about keeping them from Miss Wyland. He didn't know why. Perhaps it was because he sensed she might see it as a betrayal if she found out. Perhaps it was because she seemed desperate to believe that someone could be working with her instead of alongside her. What she had said of her relationship with the captain, of the interplay between her father, Moiria Stowley, and the Elders, indicated that the poor woman was surrounded by machinations and searching for someone she could trust not to manipulate her.

Is she at that? Or are you being taken in by her? You think members of the Houses are incapable of forming their own agendas, agendas that might not mesh with those of the rest of the House?

The doubt chafed at him. He remembered those earnest eyes, that lovely face, her delicate form. But he also remembered the fluid grace of her movements, the skill with which she'd produced the dagger. He'd been expecting the move, but he had been impressed nonetheless. Testing her would be the wise thing to do, perhaps even asking her to practice with him as she once had. She might only have perfected the first form, but even executing that with the level of skill she'd displayed would have taken a great deal of practice. When coupled with her skill at sneaking up on him, leaping from the wall and down to his garden without making a noise, he felt it was safe to assume that Miss Wyland had plenty of useful skills. The question was, were they truly a secret from the rest of the House as she had claimed, or were they solely a secret from select members of the House? After all, what she had told him of the good captain suggested the man would be willing to do just about anything for her.

Kila would have to observe her. She wanted to meet with him again to give him more information about the House, and he would encourage that. Spending time with her would help him draw a conclusion about her motives, and it would give him a chance to match what she told him against what he was able to observe himself and gather from his