He bent to her, brushed her forehead with his lips. "Let me concentrate, beloved. The Enemy has, by this time, undoubtedly given her a priest or priests to build her a personal staff equivalent to mine; there may still be a place on that staff for you."
"But …" Blackfoot was getting even more confused. "Even if there is a place, what makes you think they'd accept me? Or that I'd want it?"
"They would accept you because you know me and are almost sinless—and you will want it once the compulsions that have held you for over fifteen years have been dissolved. Now be silent; what I need to do will be dangerous, even without distractions."
Without waiting for an acknowledgement, he reached out, searching for mental traces he'd never felt before but didn't think he could mistake. The Protector's priests should feel both free of sin and erotic, an unmistakable combination he'd kept from coming together for millennia … yes, there was one … another. One male, one female—Sister Mary Piety and Father Mike Odeon. Piety was no surprise, but he'd have thought it too early for Odeon's tempering, and he frowned at the timing. He'd expected perhaps another year; now, it seemed, contact and final testing would be within months. Part of him regretted that the speed would cut short his enjoyment of Odeon's suffering—at his hands, anyway; if Odeon survived the tempering and made the correct final decision, his foes in the wars to come would insure far more suffering than Shayan himself could hope to inflict. Well, time to begin the tempering, with a lesson his "student" would never forget. *Wake up, Priest!*
20. Lesson
Odeon woke, a scream caught in his throat, pain knifing through his head. When it eased, he found himself gasping, staring around in the dark. "Who—"
*Do you always ask foolish questions, priest? You belong to the one you call Cortin; you should be able to sense who I am. And you need not speak aloud; survive, and this will be only your first taste of mental speech.*
*With that clue, I think I do know who you are.* Odeon braced himself, wondering what Shayan wanted with him.
*A service that will be to both my benefit and Cortin's—and so indirectly to yours. And you're right—I do not generally do things for others, especially enemies. Nor am I changing that policy; this is primarily for myself, if that will relieve your mind enough to listen.*