Page 1 of Xel: Broken Bond

CHAPTER ONE

XEL

Istared at the body lying on the floor, in the centre of the hotel’s dining room. So it was true. My master was really dead.

I stepped closer, feeling a morbid curiosity about it. He’d always been so animated in life, talking, gesturing, bustling about. It was hard to imagine how such a lively man could be dead.

But there he was, lying motionless on the floor. His face was pale, his moustache neatly trimmed, as always. His arms were splayed out on either side of him and his suit jacket was rumpled. He wouldn’t be pleased about that. He’d always gone to a lot of trouble to dress well, wanting to impress the guests as he worked his way through the crowd at breakfast.

Today, though, the trays of pastries, scrambled eggs and miniature sausages were going to go uneaten. The guests had all been shooed out of the dining room, and it wasn’t likely anyone would have an appetite now anyway.

“You’d best keep out of the way, lad,” a police officer said to me, gently moving me away from the body. “Not a pleasant sight,I’m sure. How about you go take a seat, if you’re not feeling too good.”

I wasn’t sure what I was feeling. But, not wanting to get in the way of the cluster of police officers and paramedics, I retreated to the side of the room, sitting down on an abandoned chair. There was a half-eaten plate of breakfast sitting on the table, and I pushed it away, the smell making me nauseous.

Or maybe that was simply the creeping realisation that without a master, I had no idea what my future held. He’d been the centre of my entire world; him, and his grand hotel, and the staff who kept the place running.

I watched as one of the paramedics removed a tablecloth from one of the tables and carefully draped it over my master’s body. My master disappeared underneath the white sheet, and I once again tried to figure out how I was feeling. I was supposed to be feeling sad, wasn’t I?

Well, no, ‘sad’ wasn’t nearly a big enough emotion to be feeling about the death of one’s master. According to my trainers back on Eumad, I should beelatedto have a master,delightedto serve him, and bedevastatedby the thought of even disappointing him, never mind losing him entirely. So it felt like something of a betrayal to him that I couldn’t even muster up a generic feeling ofsorrow.

If I could dare to admit it, then I might have realised that what I was feeling was more like… relief.

But that couldn’t be right. He was my master. He was my entire reason for drawing breath. How could I be feelingrelievedto be away from him?

“I don’t know what happened,” Kathy, the head housekeeper, was saying to one of the officers, a short distance away. “I was talking to some of the guests over near the entrance. They had an issue with the shower leaking in their room. Then suddenly people started shouting, and I turned around and MrRonson was lying on the floor. Dolo and Raf did CPR until the paramedics arrived. They’re two of the kitchen staff. But that’s really all I know.”

“Are you aware of any medical conditions Mr Ronson had? Or any medication he was on?”

“No, not at all. He was a very private man. Even if he’d had any health problems, he wouldn’t have told his staff.”

“Do you know of anyone who might have wanted to harm him?”

Kathy’s eyes opened wide. “No!” she said, sounding shocked by the idea. But then her forehead creased in a frown, and she added, more quietly, “Well, no, I don’t think so.” Interesting that she wasn’t terribly confident about it.

But if I was being honest, then I couldn’t disagree with her. No one would have emphatically declared that my master was the sort of man that everyone loved.

Was it disloyal of me to be thinking that? Or, given that my master was now dead, did it even matter anymore?

What was going to happen to me now? I’d never been told what happened to a dimari after their master died. There were rumours that masterless slaves were sent to labour camps, since mindless labour was all we were good for after our bond with our master was broken.

A labour camp had always sounded like a horrible thing; a cold, sterile place devoid of friendship or meaning. But on reflection, was that all that different from the life I lived now? Repetitive work, shallow conversations, lonely nights.

“Excuse me… Xel? Is that your name?”

I looked up, seeing the police officer standing in front of me. I stood up, knowing that was the polite thing to do. The man was a human, and not a small one, but I still stood a good three or four inches taller than him. “Yes, I’m Xel,” I said, suddenly feeling profoundly tired.

“And you are Mr Ronson’s dimari, is that correct?”

“Yes,” I confirmed again.

“Were you here in the dining hall when he collapsed?”

“No, I was around the back in the laundry. Kathy came to get me after the paramedics were called. She thought it was important for me to know what had happened.” It probably was important. But I still didn’t have a clue what to do with the knowledge.

“You’re referring to Kathleen Norris? The head housekeeper?”

“Yes,” I said.