Page 47 of The Lost Art of Revealing Hidden Truths (The Lost Arts #3)

Chapter Twenty-One

H e held up his hands, protesting immediately, “Whoa, no! I didn’t ever try to kiss Cormal.”

But Renny was shaking her head.

“Not Perian. Kee. Kinan tried to kiss Cormal. On his sixteenth birthday. That morning. Said it was his birthday and he should get what he wanted. You said he was a spoiled brat, and he should try to get some manners instead.”

They all looked back at Cormal, who was looking pale and shocked.

“He, uh, cornered me.” He cleared his throat and sounded incredibly awkward. “I wasn’t sure how to, uh, extricate myself.”

It was the youngest that Perian had ever heard him. He’d been, what, twenty-two when this had happened? And the sixteen-year-old heir to the throne had decided to come on to him? Yikes.

Cormal was staring at Renny like he’d never seen her before. “Why would he tell you that? ”

“He didn’t tell me then. I was six! He says it’s one of the most embarrassing things that’s ever happened to him.

He told me just now, so that you’d stop screeching like an idiot and actually listen, for once, to what Perian and I are saying.

Kee is here, he’s always been here, and I am not making him up. ”

“But how could he be here?” Brannal wanted to know.

She turned to him, eyes huge. “None of us know. But you know how chaotic that fight was. There were wraiths everywhere, and bodies everywhere, and Mage Warriors and Warriors trying to stop it, and your shields, Brannal. Could you say what happened every moment in that room?”

His face was a mask of pain and confusion, but after a moment, he shook his head. She speared Cormal.

“Or you?”

He shook his head. “But this… this just isn’t possible.”

“And carnalions consume energy, they don’t give it, but look at me,” she demanded, gesturing at herself.

“Look at everything Perian has done for me. Does it have to make sense?” She tilted her head, huffed a laugh.

“Kee says that he loves me very much, but if there’s a chance he could talk to someone else and they could actually respond, he would really appreciate that.

And he’d like to read some more complicated books in the Old Tongue. ”

She eyed them all sternly. “Do you want to know the last thing he said to each of you?” She looked at Brannal.

“His party was all polite pleasantries, so he doesn’t count that.

He says it was two days before. Three?” She huffed.

“He can’t remember the exact day anymore.

He wanted to know if he could sit in on the Mage Warrior training again.

He told you that he thought it was important that he learn more about them and be able to work with them, but it was actually because he liked to watch them work. ”

Brannal looked kind of shocked, but he looked faintly amused, too. “I knew that. It was why he asked me instead of Summus.”

Her lips tipped up, and then she looked at Cormal. “He avoided you for the rest of the day because he was so embarrassed.”

Cormal still looked stunned, but he also looked like he was starting to believe.

Renny turned towards her mother .

“He told you that he was sure it was going to be all right, that father was going to get well and there would be plenty of time for him to learn to rule, so you shouldn’t be in such a hurry.”

The Queen sucked in a sharp breath, let out a stuttering nod, and didn’t say anything at all.

Should Renny and Kee have done this years ago? Would it have mattered, without Perian here?

“Do you really think you can help my son?” the Queen asked.

“I don’t know,” Perian answered, swallowing.

“I know as little about this as the rest of you. But what the doctor said made a lot of sense, and if I could help Renny and Kee be better without being aware of what I was doing, without consciously trying, then it surely would be better if I was doing it deliberately. At least, I think so.”

Perian didn’t know anything about anything . But it still felt like he had to try.

“It sounds dangerous,” Brannal said. “I don’t think now is the time to make such an attempt.”

Of course that’s what he’d say. Perian felt his jaw tighten. He wasn’t lobbing fireballs at Perian, but maybe that was just because he had more control than Cormal.

“I don’t think it will be,” Perian said stiffly. “I don’t see how trying to give energy to Kee could harm him. I can’t see it getting any worse than the situation already is.” He looked at Renny. “No offense, Renny.”

She shook her head. “I know this hasn’t been easy on Kee, even when he insists that he’s fine with it.” She looked at the corner where Kee was standing and sniffed. “Love you, too.”

Perian drew a deep breath, made himself be reasonable, even if he was annoyed with Brannal right now. “It’s true that I don’t actually know what would happen. Something could go wrong, or maybe it won’t work the way we think it will. Kee, I think the choice is up to you.”

Renny had her listening face on, and then she snapped, “That’s not true! Don’t say something like that!”

Perian laid a hand on her arm. Her face had gone mutinous.

“Renny?” he asked gently.

Her lips were pressed together in a thin line, and she sniffed again. “He said it’s worth the risk, and he wants to do it because he’s hurting me. But he’s not. He’s not hurting me!”

Perian wrapped an arm around her and held her close.

The truth of the matter was that he had, in fact, been hurting Renny, just entirely inadvertently and involuntarily. He hadn’t even been able to leave Renny’s side without getting pulled back, so it wasn’t like there was an alternative.

Perian could feed energy to him, and he was willing to keep doing that. He was willing to stick with the two of them forever if he had to… but he wasn’t certain it would be permitted.

Perian didn’t care what some of them thought, but he would always be willing to try for Renny and Kee.

“What do we need to do?” Renny asked.

Perian’s mind went totally blank.

“Uh. Well, if I’m being honest, I’m pretty sure it requires something I definitely can’t do in front of you.”

She just stared at him for a moment, and then she let out a crack of laughter. “Oh, you need to have sex first!”

Cormal flinched, the Queen and Brannal looked kind of horrified, and the doctor looked as though this was the sort of thing that she talked about every day. What did she normally talk with her patients about?

The Queen ran a whole country . But maybe sex didn’t come up that much.

Perian could feel his cheeks burning, but he was glad that Renny, at least, was amused. He’d take that moment of normalcy.

“It wouldn’t be on my list of things to ever talk about in front of you, but even with my limited understanding of how this works, I don’t think I can do it without that.”

Perian had been struggling for days, and he was definitely running on empty, so how could he give energy away right now?

“Is that absolutely necessary?” the Queen asked.

“How can we trust you?” Cormal demanded.

Perian shot him a look. “Seeing as I’ve never kidnapped anyone and delivered them to a convicted felon, I don’t really think it’s me who should have to answer that question.”

“I had no idea Venoran was there!” Cormal said hotly. “I only— ”

“And we will discuss that thoroughly later,” Brannal interjected, voice dark.

Perian couldn’t deal with those two right now. He looked at the Queen. “I believe it’s the only way to proceed. It’s how I get energy, and I need energy to give it.”

He still didn’t totally understand the process, but this was the only thing that made sense, and it seemed to be corroborated by how he’d reacted when he’d been injured. They were making a lot of assumptions, but he didn’t know what else to do.

If this was one of his last actions, it was worth it for Renny and Kee.

The Queen’s lips were pressed into a thin line, and she still looked deeply unimpressed by this plan, but Perian was sure that for her children, she’d try it.

Sure enough, after a long pause, she said, “Very well. What do you… require?”

Perian would have laughed if he wasn’t so filled with the urge to cry.

“I don’t have to have sex with anyone directly,” Perian said stiffly, because this was, quite possibly, the most awkward conversation he’d ever needed to have. He swallowed. “I just need to be nearby when people are, uh, climaxing.”

Yes, he’d just said that to the queen of his country while Renny was tucked up in his arms with a roomful of people watching. This was just great .

He cleared his throat and hurried on. “I guess the more people the better, if I’m meant to have lots of energy?

I mean, not crazy amounts of people!” he added hurriedly, before anyone could think he was suggesting a castle orgy or something.

“I don’t know if I have a limit of how much energy I can, uh, absorb.

But I think everyone would feel… safer if I wasn’t absorbing it from just one person. ”

Brannal hadn’t even looked at him through this entire awkward conversation. Up until the truth about Perian had been confirmed, it had been a we , hadn’t it? Perian didn’t think it was a we anymore.

“I don’t have the slightest idea how it can be reasonably achieved,” Perian said, suddenly feeling exhausted and like the urge to cry had increased a great deal. But that didn’t matter. He wasn’t doing this for himself, he wasn’t doing it for Brannal, and he certainly wasn’t doing it for Cormal.

He was doing it for Renny and Kee.

He’d always said how much he wished he could make her better. Well, here was his chance.

“How close do you need to be?” Cormal demanded.

Perian blinked at him. “Um, I’m not sure exactly. But relatively close, I think. I mean, I’m not absorbing desire from the entire castle right now.”

Cormal’s eyes narrowed. “What if you were in one room and people were in the room next door? Isn’t that how you noticed Venoran?”