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By the time Yaden realised what Ivan was about to do, it was already too late. His friend opened himself up wide to the attack, channelling the incoming energy into his own reserves. Yaden would not have been fast enough for a reaction of his own, anyway.
Ivan wasn't supposed to be able to do this yet – they had never practised anything remotely like it. And secondly, it was way too much energy way too quickly for anyone to absorb.
But Ivan managed to draw an entire wall of fire into himself, like water flowing into a sink, with no more heat reaching Yaden than what a tepid breeze carried. For a few heartbeats, Yaden was entirely absorbed in the sheer spectacle of it – until he noticed embers sparking away from Ivan, tiny flames bursting out of his shoulders and neck as though locked inside his body, under too much pressure and looking for a way to vent. Yaden threw up a shield of rock around both of them. Too slow, but hopefully not entirely too late.
Ivan staggered half a step forward, making a sound somewhere between a grunt and a startled laugh and collapsed facefirst. Heroic and incredibly talented he was, no doubt about that, but maybe a little too much of both. They really, really needed to train in channelling energy. If they got out of this alive. Yaden quickly knelt down next to Ivan's smouldering body to feel his pulse and was relieved when he found it good and strong. Only unconscious and severely manaburned after once more funnelling more energy through his body than it could safely hold.
Time to find a way to talk to the frightened child who had loosened a firestorm she wouldn't have been able to control and that could well have destroyed the whole region. Yaden lowered the wall around them, ready to throw it right up again should she attack anew, although he was fairly certain she wouldn't. Where before he had sensed a vast, furious pool of energy, there was nothing. Her chrysalis had been exceptionally strong and violent, but now it had run its course and left her completely drained.
The girl was still standing there, tiny and vulnerable. The fire column had collapsed though, and her flaming aura had gone out. Yaden could see that her skin was a beautiful shade of dark brown and her hair a long, curly, black mass, surrounding her head like a halo. She couldn't be older than twelve or thirteen, he guessed. She was swaying slightly and when she caught sight of Ivan's body she cried out in horror, both hands flying to her mouth.
“Oh nononono...” she muttered, clearly audible over the dying winds. She took a staggering step back and abruptly sat next to the man's body she had been guarding.
Yaden took a cautious step towards her, both hands held up in a non-threatening gesture. “Ssh, I'm not going to hurt you,” he said gently. “I want to talk to you.”
She was crying. She had probably been crying the whole time, judging from how swollen her eyes looked.
“You can't have Papa...” she muttered once more, but now she sounded exhausted and in despair. She huddled next to the man who must be her father.
“I am not going to take your papa,” Yaden tried to reassure her, but she interrupted him.
“Liar! You are with them! With the Guild!” she accused, “You're one of them!”
Yaden hunkered down about two paces away from her, not wanting to crowd her. “I'm not with the Psions Guild,” he said and held up his hands again, showing her his bracers. “See, this is the symbol of the Lotus Knights. I'm Sir Yaden.”
A choked sob escaped her and her eyes darted to Ivan's unconscious form again. “Have I ... is he...?”
“He is unconscious,” Yaden reassured her. “You haven't killed him.” That she was so worried about it was a good sign. She was a frightened child, defending her father with all means at her disposal.
He tried to get a better look at the body of the man, but from this distance, it didn't look good. Her father was lying in a pool of blood and, as far as Yaden could tell, he wasn't breathing. She followed his line of sight and tears streamed anew down her face.
“Papa...” she whispered and reached out to touch him, only to stop before she did. She looked at Yaden again with such bleak despair it broke his heart.
“Your papa is hurt,” he said gently. “Would it be okay if I checked on him?”
She nodded immediately and Yaden got the feeling that she needed an adult to take control of things again. He crossed the distance between them, careful not to make any sudden moves, and knelt down next to the unmoving body. The man looked to have been in his late thirties, with longish blonde hair, pale skin and a well-kept beard, and wore the same sort of sturdy travel clothes the girl did. He also was very definitely dead, apparently from two untreated gunshot wounds in his shoulder and abdomen.
“He's dead, isn't he...?” the girl whispered tonelessly.
“I'm sorry, yes, he is,” Yaden answered truthfully. There was no point in lying to her, she knew anyway.
For another moment she somehow kept a shred of her composure, then she started crying in earnest and Yaden gently pulled her into his embrace. She didn't resist as he snuggled her thin body against his and wrapped her into the steady calm that he drew from the solid earth all around him. He was no empath, but her anguish rolled over him in waves any caring human would have felt.
He fervently wished he could somehow bring back her papa and make it alright again, but her father had been dead before they had come anywhere close to her and, no matter how often he went over what he had done and how much he hated it, there was nothing he could have done differently or faster to come to a better outcome.
It took a long time for her crying to subside into occasional sobs.
“What is your name?” he asked her softly.
“Myriam,” came her muffled reply, “Myriam Tambô.”
“Your papa was hiding from the Psions Guild, yes?”
She nodded without lifting her head from his shoulder. “They killed mama,” she said, “they said she was sick and that they would help her but she died.”
Yaden sighed deeply. It wouldn't be the first time the Psions Guild fucked up royally. After all, they had nearly ruined him too with their fumbling. He tried to limit his contact with them to the absolutely necessary minimum of accepting their teleportation services and the occasional long-distance telepathy call home to Erys for good reason. Most members of the Guild were regular, hard-working citizens, but he hadn't forgotten the stories Florin had told him.
Florin was the Vertex of Erys and a very talented teleporter. And he too was a rogue psion, wanted by the Guild. They said he was psychotic and dangerous to himself and his family. Yaden's mother, the Duchess of Erys, had granted him asylum on her planet mostly to spite the Guild, and as far as Yaden could tell, he was perfectly sane. He had told Yaden about how the Guild mentally manipulated their members to keep them quiet and compliant, how anyone who stepped out of line or questioned their practices was brought in for conditioning and had been turned into happy drones when they came back.
While Yaden wasn't ready to believe that the whole Guild was like that, it had him made deeply suspicious of them.
When the Guild had requested an opportunity to study Ivan after they had learned he was a visceral, he had summarily refused. Yes, maybe it would be helpful if they had a chance to learn more about how a visceral's powers worked so they wouldn't keep making the mistakes they had made with Yaden and Ivan. But Yaden couldn't bring himself to trust them sufficiently to let them have his friend and squire even for a short while.
In this case, things were greatly simplified by the fact that Ivan was now technically Yaden's slave and they had no recourse to get at his property.
“They are going to kill me, too,” the little girl in his arms whispered bleakly.
Her words tugged on Yaden's heart painfully. “No.” Yaden gently pulled her far enough away from his shoulder that she could look at him. “I promise I will protect you. I won't let them near you.”
Myriam sniffed unhappily and looked doubtful.
“I'm a Lotus Knight. I give you my word of honour that the Psions Guild shall never have you,” Yaden told her. She was a rare talent, that much was obvious, and he wouldn't allow the Guild to turn her into some sort of lab rat. He and Ivan would be better suited to properly train her and keep her in check anyway, even if she was a cerebral by the looks of it. They could understand what it meant to have so much destructive power at your fingertips.
“But ... but I hurt your friend.” She gestured towards Ivan incredulously, tears welling up in her eyes again.
“You were trying to defend your papa. I understand that and Ivan will too,” Yaden explained gently.
She swallowed hard. “I ... I also hurt people ... back in town ... I think...” she confessed, so utterly heartbroken that Yaden hugged her close again.
“I know, love,” he said softly. “You didn't mean to, did you?”
“Nooo!” Myriam sobbed more than said and started crying hard again.
Yaden stroked her hair and held her close. “You won't do it again,” he told her, trying to comfort her. “I will show you how to control your powers. I promise.”
This time she calmed down a little quicker, but she also was completely exhausted.
“Shall we bury your papa here so the Guild can't get to him?” Yaden asked her.
Myriam nodded and disentangled herself from him to kneel next to her father. “I'm sorry, papa,” she whispered.
Knowing what he did of local culture, Yaden was struck once more by the stark difference in their skin colours, but right now was not the time to question her.
She couldn't bring herself to touch the body by herself, so Yaden took her hand and laid his hand and hers on the man's chest. “I promise I will take good care of your daughter,” Yaden promised solemnly.
He opened the earth under the body and let it sink down, deep into the rocky foundation of the ground they were kneeling on. Myriam let her hands rest on the earth, her head bowed in grief. Yaden let her have the time to say goodbye and instead went to check on Ivan, who was lying where he had fallen. He was out cold and singed all over but apparently no worse than that. But, for the manaburn alone, he needed a trip to the Lotus Compound med bay. And the sooner, the better.
Yaden returned to Myriam. Under normal circumstances, she would probably have considered herself too old to be picked up, but she didn't protest when he did so anyway and slung her arms around his neck, hiding her face against his shoulder. Apparently, she had decided to trust him. He scanned the burned ruins of the small cottage Myriam had been standing in front of. “Is there anything you want to take with you?” he asked her.
“It all burned.”
“Right, let's get out of here.”
Yaden firmly and loudly thought the emergency signal that would get him the attention of Shiraz Vertex. It took only a moment for the psion to respond.
—Yes, Sir Yaden, how may I help?—a calm female presence contacted him, Shiraz Vertex.
—I need a connection to Lieutenant Marlonne in the town nearby,—Yaden explained.—And after that, I will need a port to Lagoona, straight to my apartments in the Lotus Knight dormitories for me and the girl with me. And a port to the med bay in the Lotus Knight Compound for my squire Ivan. Please contact the Psions Guild representative on Emperor's Island, Master Ian Forlano, for the coordinates.—He wouldn't risk taking Myriam anywhere someone might think they could take her from him. The last thing the girl needed now was to witness a confrontation like that. The safest bet by far was to take her to his quarters and work out the rest. The folks at the med bay would know what to do with Ivan.
—Right away, sir.—
Yaden felt the shift in focus and then he was connected to an untrained and much more confusing mind.—Lieutenant Marlonne?—Yaden thought at her, trying to limit his own communication to words.—This is Sir Yaden.—
—OH! SIR! OHMYGODICANTBELIEVEHESINMYHEAD!—came the rather muddled reply.
—Lieutenant, we have neutralised the rogue psion.—Yaden informed her calmly, carefully emptying his surface mind of all the details. Lying was very hard over a telepathic connection, but leaving out things was possible.—Your town is safe now.—
—Thank you, sir! I don't know how to thank you for your assistance. This is so freaking awesome! A real Lotus Knight!—Her mix of proper communication and excited mental babbling was charming. It was accompanied by the mental images the touch of his mind apparently elicited in hers – images of tall mountain ranges with snow-capped peaks, dense forest on their lower slopes. Endlessly calm and reassuring. It was nice to know that this was what he felt like to others.
Yaden smiled and made sure it bled over into the connection as well.—Lieutenant, my squire and I are urgently needed elsewhere. Will you be able to deal with the clean up on your own?—
—Of course, sir! I wonder where they are going now, probably some huge monster or something. But holy cow that squire of his is so cute!— She answered, entirely unaware of Yaden catching the last part of her thoughts.
He looked down to where Ivan lay unconscious and slightly charred. He would definitely have to let the PR team know that his new squire was a success from their point of view, and considered 'cute'. They'd surely find a way to spin that into a useful legend.
—Good luck, lieutenant. If there is anything else you need, please feel free to contact the Lotus Knights again,—Yaden thought at her and pulled back from the connection.
—Your port is ready, sir,—Shiraz Vertex immediately reported in.
“We will be ported now, dear,” Yaden told Myriam. “Don't be afraid.” He gave Shiraz Vertex the okay, without giving the girl time to panic about the fact that a Guild psion would do it.
Due to the prolonged battle against the firestorm, it had felt to Yaden as though they had been on Shiraz for hours, so he was a little surprised to find Colin still at home. He was dressed in finery already and getting ready to leave. Yaden had expected the movie premiere to be well underway already. With Darios standing in the doorway to the kitchen it looked like he had interrupted their goodbyes.
“What the...?” Colin yelped, as startled as Yaden, only to immediately switch to deeply worried. “Oh my god, Yaden! Are you alright?!”
Looking down at himself, Yaden thought he looked a little scorched and ruffled, but not hurt. Definitely not half as mangled as poor Ivan, who was nowhere in sight, but hopefully safely deposited at the Compound med bay. Suddenly Yaden felt the deep urge to check that his squire was indeed there and hadn't been snatched away by the Psions Guild during the port, but he suppressed that bit of obvious paranoia. First, they needed to take care of Myriam.
“I'm fine,” he reassured his beloved.
Myriam snuggled closer to him like a dead weight. She was losing her fight against exhaustion, Yaden realised. The chrysalis of a psion left them completely drained and the added emotional stress had been tremendous. She was close to completely shutting down.
Colin didn't look entirely convinced, but his attention shifted to the little girl now, too. “And who is this...?”
“This is Myriam,” Yaden introduced. He smiled at Colin hopefully. “She has just lost the last of her family. She is also a strong psion and needs our protection.”
A dark frown immediately appeared on Colin's face. “Is someone threatening her?” he asked, taking a step towards Yaden with that clear protective air Yaden loved him madly for.
“Maybe,” Yaden answered. “She is very tired. Let's put her to bed and I'll tell you about it?”
Colin nodded, but then looked around in dismay. “Where is Ivan?”
Yaden couldn't help but smirk. “He did exactly what you told him to – put himself between me and a fireball. Burned to a crisp.” He quickly shook his head at Colin's horrified expression. “He's not dead. Just slightly charred and severely manaburned. I had him ported straight to the med bay.”
“Shit.” Colin rubbed his face, looking shaken. “I didn't mean it that literally.”
“He did save both of us.” Yaden would have loved to take his lover in his arms to reassure him, but that wasn't an option while he was holding Myriam.
Colin looked like he wanted to say a lot of things, but his eyes returned to Myriam as well. “Let's put her to bed,” he agreed with the unspoken promise of talking afterwards.
Darios had watched them in what Yaden called his 'approving silence' so far. “I'll call PR and tell them Colin won't make it to the premiere either,” he now volunteered. It was a detail neither Yaden nor Colin would have remembered, and Yaden was deeply grateful that neither he nor Colin would have to deal with the PR team right now.
It left Yaden with the question of where exactly he was going to put Myriam to bed. With Ivan already claiming the couch, there wasn't any spare space left, but putting the girl anywhere outside the apartment was out of the question. Yaden had given her his word that he would protect her and at the moment that included keeping her close by. So the only readily available bed was the one he and Colin shared. Colin had obviously arrived at the same conclusion as he was already heading towards their bedroom and opening the door for Yaden.
When he settled Myriam on their big bed, he realised that she had fallen asleep already. He took off her travelling boots and tucked her under the blanket. It tore at his heart how small and defeated she looked. Gently, he brushed some strands of hair from her face. “I will keep you safe,” he promised her again in a whisper. He was grateful when Colin put his hand on his shoulder comfortingly. When Colin picked up the big, green lizard plushie from where it had resided under the one chair in the bedroom since Colin had won it for him at the Amadeus Fairgrounds, he couldn't help but smile. He tucked it in with Myriam so she would have something to snuggle with if she wanted to.
They left the bedroom and closed the door behind them as quietly as possible. Back in the living room, Colin pulled Yaden into a firm hug. To reassure himself that he was alright, Yaden guessed, but he used the opportunity to lean against his lover, breathing in the scent of his aftershave. So far he had ignored how dangerous the struggle against the firestorm and the fight against Myriam's barrage of fire had been, but now he felt a little jittery. He could have died. Ivan could have died. They needed to train so much harder. And without limiting themselves to make sure they didn't damage anything. Being careful in their training might very well get them killed on a mission.
He could hear Darios talking in the kitchen, apparently on the phone. Yaden could only marvel at the calm in his voice as he must be talking to the PR team.
Colin gently disentangled himself from Yaden. “So?”
“Apparently, her father was hunted by the Psions Guild as a rogue psion.” Yaden launched into his explanation without preamble, knowing that Colin preferred to get to the facts. “I have to find out why exactly. Town guards on Shiraz recognised him and tried to arrest him, he was hurt and in her panicked attempt to protect him, her psionic talents awakened.”
Colin looked down at Yaden's singed clothes. “Let me guess – fire.”
“Yes, she might well be a peak talent.” Yaden sighed. “She did a lot of damage, but it was too late for her father. By the time we got to her, he was already dead. The Guild will very badly want to get their hands on her and she is terrified of them. And I very much doubt they will be able to properly handle her anyway. I gave her my word I would protect her.” He wanted to say more to explain to Colin how important that was to him, but Colin laid a finger against his lips.
“You don't have to convince me.” Colin smiled at him with a twinkle of amusement in his eyes. “I surely won't throw a child in need out of my house.”
Of course, he wouldn't. After all, he was an orphan himself. Yaden leaned his brow against Colin's. “And that is one reason I love you so very much.”
“You realise that you will need something more legally binding than 'you can't have her!', though, to make sure a Guild representative doesn't show up here tomorrow and claims her,” Darios chimed in from the kitchen doorway. Apparently, he had managed to shut up PR.
The notion that the Psions Guild might try to take Myriam from him with some legal hubbub made Yaden bristle with fury instantly.
Darios knew him well enough to notice. “Yaden,” he admonished calmly. “Go talk to your Commander. You need to report in anyway. I'm sure Hamilton will easily figure out something to keep the girl safe.”
As usual, he was right. “I'll do that,” Yaden agreed. “And check on Ivan.”
“I'll stay here and defend the home front,” Colin said. He looked around the living room with a sigh. “And figure out where we will sleep tonight. And tomorrow I will start looking for another place for us to live in earnest. This is getting ridiculous.”
***
Yaden's visit to the med bay turned out pleasantly short and satisfying. Ivan had arrived safely via port and the staff had immediately taken care of him, putting him to bed, treating his burns and giving him some heavy painkillers and a sedative to numb the effects of the manaburn. Ivan had channelled way too much energy through his body when he had absorbed Myriam's flame wave and his nervous system hadn't taken kindly to the abuse. Normally, this should be nothing that wouldn't heal on its own, but it would be excruciatingly painful and debilitating until the worst was over. Much like a sunburn, only inside your body, Yaden knew from his own experiences in trying to gauge his limits and to expand them.
Knowing the quality of their medical team, Yaden didn't bother looking in on Ivan personally. His squire was currently asleep and waking him up would make him aware of everything that hurt. He allowed the medic on duty to treat his own minor burns and politely listened to the admonishment to take better care of himself, which included not ignoring minor injuries. He didn't disagree with the medic, he wasn't doing it on purpose, he just wasn't paying enough attention to himself.
Once he had escaped the medic's care, he continued to Commander Hamilton's office. By now, it was well past sunset in Agami, but the Commander of the Lotus Knights usually still worked at this hour. He could have worked around the clock with everything that landed on his desk every day. From what Yaden had heard from Sir L'jao, one of the older Lotus Knights, there had been times when the Commander had done so, but, as Sir L'jao had said with a fond smile, Hamilton was getting to an age where he was wise enough to realise that the work never stopped, no matter how hard he tried.
By now he had knocked on the Commander’s door often enough not to feel nervous or wonder whether he would ever feel like he was doing a good job as a Lotus Knight. While he would have preferred a happier outcome to the mission on Shiraz, he knew that he had done everything he could and that this very likely was the best outcome anyone could have achieved. After all, no one had gotten seriously hurt by the firestorm Myriam had unleashed and they had managed to contain her before she could completely lose control.
“Come in?” a female voice called from inside the office, startling Yaden out of his thoughts.
He opened the door to peek in and found Lieutenant Commander Li Ma behind Hamilton's huge desk. She looked tiny, dwarfed both by the desk and by the responsibility, judging by her slightly panicked expression.
“Lieutenant Commander?” Yaden greeted her with the same sloppy salute the Lotus Knights reserved for Hamilton. “I was looking for...”
“Yes, he went home early today,” Li Ma answered in a tone of voice that told Yaden it wasn't the first time she was saying so. “And yes, he is alright,” she continued, answering what would have been his next question. “He is going out to have dinner with his wife. I'm finishing up some of his paperwork.”
That was about the best reason Yaden could think of for the Commander to be off-duty already, he very much deserved quality time with his wife. “Ah, good.” He smiled at Li Ma, hoping to appear non-threatening, but his smile slid into a frown when he realised that he needed the Commander right now. Reporting on the mission could have waited until tomorrow, but ensuring Myriam wouldn't be taken away by the Psions Guild could not.
Li Ma's expression turned from hopeful to quizzical to slightly panicked once more to finally settle on determined. “How can I help you?”
With Commander Hamilton absent, she was the most senior official at the Lotus Compound and she did have the authority to make any decisions the Commander would have needed to make. After all, she was supposed to take over the job at some point. Still, Yaden was unsure whether he should burden her with his worries.
“I assume it is about the Shiraz mission?” Li Ma asked, gaining confidence, now that she had made the decision that this was her business.
“Yes, it is,” Yaden said, making his own decision and stepping into the office, closing the door behind him. “It was a bit of a mess.”
“Well, please start at the beginning and tell me everything that happened,” Li Ma said and gestured at one of the two visitors’ chairs in front of the desk. Just as Commander Hamilton would have.
So Yaden sat down and reported what had happened, from their arrival in Mirabelle and what they had learned from Lieutenant Marlonne to how he had tamed Myriam's firestorm, and finally to what little Myriam had told him about the Psions Guild being responsible for the death of her mother. “I'm worried the Psions Guild will try to collect her,” he finished his report. “I'm sure Shiraz Vertex will have picked up on her Chrysalis, violent as it was, and passed on the information. Her talents are very strong so they will try to make a case that only they can control her.”
“Which you think isn't true?”
Yaden shrugged. “I have contained her once, I could do so again. But she has no reason to fight me. She is mortally afraid of the Psions Guild and I have promised to protect her.”
Li Ma rubbed her nose in a thoughtful gesture she had picked up from Commander Hamilton. “I see. Normally we have an excellent working relationship with the Psions Guild and I am aware of your personal misgivings towards them. Are you sure that isn't clouding your judgement in this case?”
His gut reaction was to say no, but Yaden forced himself to carefully consider Li Ma's question. Yes, he did not trust the Psions Guild, but Myriam's fear had been very real and not related to his own distrust. Maybe it was all a misunderstanding, or her father had lied to her, but right now he couldn't in good conscience hand her over and hope for the best. First, he had to find out what exactly her father had been wanted for and what had happened to her mother.
“It may play a part, but I also want to dig deeper into the background that resulted in this tragedy. People have died and a little girl has lost both her parents and was forced through a traumatic chrysalis. I want to know who is responsible.”
“Spoken like a Lotus Knight.” To his surprise, she smiled somewhat indulgently. “Well, it is your case and as long as you don't consider it closed, you have every right to keep digging. But make sure you have the girl under control, we can't have a child incinerate the Imperial Palace in a tantrum. For now, I will declare her evidence in an ongoing investigation, that should keep the Psions Guild at bay. I'll pass your report and my notes to the Commander tomorrow so he can get back to you if he has follow-up questions. Do you need any help with the child? If she is traumatised, she may require professional care.”
“I think for the moment, we are actually pretty well equipped to deal with her. After all, Darios is an expert at raising difficult psion children. Between me and Ivan, we should be able to contain any psionic outburst and the Jansahar shrine is right next door, too, if she needs additional counselling.”
“What about living space? Wasn't Ivan sleeping on the couch already?”
So even the Lieutenant Commander was aware of how cramped their apartment was. “We're figuring out sleeping arrangements,” he answered, “but in the long run we'll have to move out in any case. The Lotus Compound doesn't have the kind of quarters we need available and I'm not sure Agami is a good option either. There's simply too many people and structures around for me and Ivan to train properly. Colin wants to start looking into where we might move tomorrow.”
Li Ma nodded. “Sounds sensible. If you move out of Agami and somewhere less crowded, prices should be more reasonable. And as long as you stay on Lagoona, you will be close enough to be available for emergency missions. If Colin needs any assistance, please tell him to talk to Simon. He isn't just a great quartermaster, he also knows where to get everything, and that includes real estate.”
“I'll let him know.” Yaden rose from his chair. “I think that is all for tonight?”
“Yes, I'll file the paperwork and send a notice to the Psions Guild so they don't get any funny ideas and give them a heads up that you will have questions for them.”
“Thank you.” He gave her the same salute again and this time her return nod looked much more confident and not harried at all. She was actually handling the situation as professionally as the Commander would have. The thought that she was a bit like himself – always doubting whether she was doing well enough when really she was good at her job already – was startling but also reassuring. She would probably make a fine Commander, once Hamilton deemed her ready to take over.
Back at home, he found the apartment unusually quiet. Normally, the radio would always be playing in the kitchen and, at this hour, Colin and Darios would often be discussing everything from the latest events on 'Even Nobles Cry' to Agami gossip to their schedules for the next day, while Ivan could be found in front of the TV in the living room. Now no one was in sight, but he couldn't imagine that Darios and Colin would have left Myriam alone.
The kitchen was empty, but when he looked into the bedroom to check on Myriam, he found Colin curled up in the chair, reading in one of his baking textbooks while watching over her. Myriam herself had grabbed onto the green lizard plushie Colin had placed next to her and buried her face in its furry belly. So that had been a good idea. Colin looked up at him with a smile and quietly left his post to join Yaden outside the bedroom.
“She hasn't woken up. Probably completely exhausted,” he reported, “but I thought it would be a good idea if someone was with her if she did wake up. Being in a strange place as she is and probably not fully remembering how she got here.” Colin was the best and very good at reminding Yaden why he loved him so much. “How did your talk with the Commander go?”
“I talked to Li Ma. She will declare Myriam evidence in my investigation for now, so no one will be able to touch her unless I allow it.”
Colin nodded approvingly.
“Ivan is okay. They have him heavily sedated for tonight so he won't feel much of his manaburn, but they think they will be able to let him come home tomorrow.”
“Darios has gone to talk to Simon to see if he has any clothes in Myriam's size in store and get her a basic kit – toothbrush, hairbrush,” Colin said and eyed Yaden critically. “Have you eaten anything yet? You look a little grey.”
The mere mention of food made Yaden's stomach growl. He had expended a lot of energy in taking down Myriam's firestorm. It hadn't been as violent or enormous as storms on his native Erys, but it was her will behind it that had made it hard to tame. Nature had, for a change, actually aided him in restoring its equilibrium.
“Darios has left a tray of rice casserole in the oven for you.” Colin gently steered Yaden towards the kitchen. “I'll stay with Myriam. Go eat and get some rest. I've set up the couch for you to sleep on. We'll figure out everything else tomorrow.”
Yaden gladly obeyed while Colin slipped back into their bedroom. There was something immensely comforting about the fact that at home, he could follow orders and know that he was well taken care of.