Chapter 49: Concentration

A candle flickered before Chloe's eyes, close enough to make her face feel hot in the cool winter evening. Instinctively, she focused her attention on the flame, crossing her eyes.

"Are you concentrating, Highness?" Stephan asked. He stood by the window, staring out at the snow and the trees. He'd been there for most of the afternoon, hardly paying attention to the training he was supposed to be giving Chloe.

Turnabout, she supposed, was fair play.

She mumbled, "Mm."

"Good." Stephan didn't turn.

Chloe's eyes relaxed as they adjusted to the flame. So did she.

"Concentrate, Highness," Stephan repeated.

Chloe sighed. "Sorry, Stephan. I don't know what's wrong with me this evening."

He didn't respond. He acted almost as distracted as Chloe felt. There was an odd tightness to his voice, as if he were only paying half attention to their conversation and training. As if something else held more of his interest.

The minute Chloe let her thoughts wander, she lost her concentration completely.

She wondered where Rudy was. What he was doing. Since Stephan returned, she hadn't had much time to spend with Rudy. First making sure Stephan was all right – he had risked his life for hers, after all –, then, at long last, training to use her powers.

Not that she'd learned anything so far.

She watched Stephan light and move candles with his mind. She tried to do the same.

She failed.

Either he hadn't explained the technique properly or she didn't have the talent for it. He insisted the latter was impossible.

Chloe was beginning to wonder.

She wondered where Milissa was, too. Normally, the Kyrillos girl provided an audience for her training sessions. Milissa never participated, but her presence raised Chloe's spirits anyway. Not exactly a friend, she was at least someone to talk to.

Besides, if Milissa was watching Stephan train Chloe, she wasn't with Rudy.

Were they together now, Chloe wondered, talking about Rudy's career as a tournament mechaneer? Milissa's knowledge of and passion for the subject seemed inexhaustible.

Chloe wished she'd thought of a word other than 'passion.'

She gulped.

"Concentrate," Stephan said tightly. He stretched the word thin as monofilament wire and sounded as lethal.

Chloe blinked. She'd completely lost track of the candle.

Suddenly annoyed, she said, "What am I supposed to be learning here, anyway?"

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"Concentration."

"Oh." Chloe suppressed another sigh. No point in complaining. She wanted, needed, to learn this stuff. If she didn't, how was she supposed to rescue her parents?

She hadn't expected it to take so long, though! In the stories she'd read, a noble's awakening occurred in a day, an hour. Seconds even. Once she learned to gather her powers, she just had them.

No such luck.

Sometimes, Chloe wondered if it wasn't all just some cosmic mistake. Maybe her hunches were just that, her supposed powers fake, the strange story of her parents finding her nothing but a fairy tale.

"Stephan," she said, "how long is this going to take?"

"Until you're ready, Highness," Stephan said.

Chloe doubted a real princess would put up with his sharp tone. Too bad. He'd provided a haven for her and Rudy, he had fought to save them – and he was her best hope to save her parents.

"My parents are imprisoned while I sit here," Chloe said. "If I could learn just a few actual techniques, maybe –"

"You could crack open the planet they were held on trying to save them?"

Chloe stared at the back of his head. "You're kidding."

"I almost wish I were, Highness."

If Stephan weren't just exaggerating, Chloe understood why the Feds, why everybody, hunted her. One person with the kind of destructive power an entire fleet struggled to match?

Chloe shuddered.

For an instant, she saw herself, or rather her birth mother's silvery mecha, floating above the shattered ruins of a small planet. Perhaps a prison planet where undesirables were sent to die in obscurity. Die they had. Died by her hand, her mind. Died by the thousands. Somewhere amidst the ruins below lay Jack and Ellie Hughes, the victims of their daughter's hubris.

It wouldn't happen like that. It couldn't!

"You're growing agitated again, Highness," Stephan said. "Please try to concentrate, or this will take even longer."

"I understand what you're saying, Stephan," Chloe said. After a vision like that, she understood all too well. "Only, why can't you save my parents?"

"Doesn't my battle with the Reformer and the Divine Auric Drake speak to the outcome of such an attempt? Awakened to and in control of your powers, you, Highness, might challenge the Federal Senate directly, but no other can."

"Don't challenge it directly, then," Chloe said. She rose from her chair and strode to his side, grabbing his arm. "Rudy says you control a criminal syndicate across human space. Why can't you kidnap my parents from their kidnappers?"

Stephan's gaze didn't waver from the window even then. Chloe couldn't imagine what had him so fixated.

"Why, Stephan?" Because you're afraid I'll leave, she thought. Like she could walk away from her powers now? If she simply rescued her parents and fled, she just bought them time. Not much time, either. She needed power to save them.

She needed power for Rudy's sake, too. He might have forgotten his demand for knowledge and power, but that didn't mean she didn't think he deserved both from her. He and his company lost so much because of her. She'd feel responsible for that no matter what he said.

"These things take time," Stephan snapped. He took a deep breath. Slowly, he added, "Highness."

Before Chloe could respond, Stephan suddenly bent forward, eyes wide, gasping. His long fingers clenched on the windowsill.

Chloe grabbed his shoulders. His frame coiled so tense he nearly shook. "Principle, Stephan! What's wrong?"

He didn't answer. From the way he ground his bared teeth, he might have lacked the ability. His back tightened even more and his legs bent like he meant to leap clean through the window.

Chloe tried to drag him from the glass.

Abruptly, he shook her free and spun on his heel. His long black coat flapped in his wake as he sprinted for the door.

Chloe ran after him. "Stephan," she shouted, "what's happening?"

He didn't turn or stop or even slow in the slightest. When he answered, she understood why.

"My sister," he said, all the emotion drained from his voice, "is going to die."