Author: Alessandra Hazard
Category: LGBT
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/alessandra-hazard/page,15,561046-princes_master.html
He could still remember Castien’s response. The false sense of security makes one careless and vulnerable.
It was such a Castien thing to say that Eridan had scoffed at the time. But now he understood what his Master had meant. The rebels had had no idea that the Order was aware of how they traveled between Calluvia and Tai’Lehr. Having their only means of escape cut off so efficiently must have blindsided them.
“Are you a rebel?” Eridan said, figuring that learning more about his kidnappers couldn’t possibly hurt.
Warrehn didn’t say anything, though Eridan could sense a strong negative emotion rolling off him.
Eridan cocked his head to the side. “You are not, are you?”
“Quit talking or I’m putting the gag back.”
Eridan snorted. “Please. You can’t seriously think I’ll believe it when you can’t even look at me without feeling guilty.”
Warrehn turned his head and glared. “I’m looking at you. And I don’t feel guilty. You are a member of an evil psycho cult that brainwashes billions of people.”
Eridan wrinkled his nose up. “An evil psycho cult? Don’t be ridiculous.”
“So you aren’t denying the brainwashing part?”
Eridan gave him an innocent look. “I’m neither confirming nor denying it.”
Warrehn scoffed and averted his gaze again.
Eridan chewed on his lip, trying not to show that the guy’s words had hit a little too close to home.
He’d always had… misgivings about the source of the Order’s power on Calluvia. On one hand, was it right to have such enormous control over a planet, control that was achieved by underhanded means?
On the other hand, the Chapter of High Hronthar wasn’t completely evil or something. The unpleasant business with Prince-Consort Mehmer was more of an exception than the rule. In essence, the Chapter was just a bunch of very ambitious and power-hungry political figures. Yes, many of the Masters were corrupt and selfish, but wasn’t that true for most politicians? Eridan had seen enough of the members of the Calluvian Council to know that they weren’t much different from the Chapter’s Masters: they were greedy, and they all had their own agendas and ambitions. Even if the High Hronthar disappeared, the Calluvian Council wouldn’t suddenly become less corrupt. Without the High Hronthar’s supervision, they might become more corrupt. Evil was relative, after all.
“What is evil?” Eridan said, looking at his own hands. “What are the criteria?”
He felt Warrehn turn back to him. “Brainwashing billions of people definitely counts as evil,” he said. “No matter how you try to swing it.”
Eridan scoffed. “First of all, even if you were right about the Order—and I’m not saying you are—do you really think the Order brainwashes billions of people? That’s just impossible considering the ratio between the number of mind adepts and the general population.”
Warrehn’s eyebrows furrowed. “You still force the Bond on all Calluvians,” he said.
“That’s not brainwashing,” Eridan said. “Binding the population’s telepathic strength isn’t brainwashing. Their minds are still their own. One might argue that if there were a lot of powerful telepaths just running around, there would be a lot more brainwashing going on, because it wouldn’t be controlled at all.”
“Of course you would think that,” Warrehn said with a sneer. “They brainwashed you, too.”
Eridan rolled his eyes. “Yes, the Masters of the Order have nothing better to do than brainwash toddlers. Come on, they can be total assholes, but don’t be ridiculous. I can think for myself, thank you very much.”
The guy gave him a look that was a cross between suspicious and curious. “You talk nothing like an apprentice of the High Adept.”
Eridan chuckled. “And how would you know how an apprentice of the ‘High Adept’ should talk?” He’d always found the title the outsiders called the Grandmaster of the Order a bit strange. “How many members of the Order have you actually met? We don’t do evil chants and plot world domination all the time. We’re just people.”
“Right.”
Eridan heaved a sigh. “I don’t get why you have this idea that the Order is some kind of epitome of evil. Sure, there are some ‘evil’ people in the Order, but there are just as many good people. There is evil everywhere, Warrehn. Your friendly neighbor might actually be a mass murderer, and your loving relative might be plotting your death.”
Warrehn looked away. “It still doesn’t make what your precious Order does okay.”
Eridan shrugged. “But what does the Order do? Give a person one loving partner for life? Is it that bad?”
“Don’t try to make it pretty. You’re taking people’s choice away.”
Eridan’s lips twisted. “Choice? You mean their choice to cheat on their partner and treat them like shit? The marriage bond weakens one’s telepathy, I won’t deny it, but it also gives people a sense of belonging, a bondmate who will always love them, who will never cheat or hurt them. Is that so bad?” He looked away, hating how wistful his voice sounded. He cleared his throat. “Calluvia has the lowest homicide rate in the Union of Planets for a reason. Calluvia had the highest homicide rate before the introduction of the Bonding Law. Millions of people would have died of things like jealousy and adultery if it were not for the Bonding Law. That’s a fact.”
Warrehn opened his mouth and closed it, a deep wrinkle appearing between his brows. “Shut up,” he grunted at last, looking annoyed—clearly annoyed that he couldn’t find a flaw in that logic.
Eridan smiled, amused despite himself.
“What was your name again?” Warrehn said, breaking the silence.
“Eridan,” he replied, figuring it wouldn’t hurt anyone.
Warrehn turned back to the window, his shoulders stiff.
Eridan eyed him, curious about his reaction and wondering whether he should try to read his mind.
He’d never liked delving into other people’s minds. Although his distaste for it had lessened over the years under his Master’s demanding tutelage, Eridan still found poking at other people’s minds unpleasant, Castien’s orderly mind the only one he actually enjoyed touching.
Castien.
Eridan’s stomach twisted into a tight knot. He honestly had no idea how his Master was going to react to his kidnapping. Part of him doubted that he would even care, but if the Order blockaded the Hangar Bay 4 area already, it implied that Castien at least didn’t want the rebels to take him off the planet, which made sense. He wouldn’t want to lose his asset, after all.
The thought made Eridan’s lips curl into a bitter smile.
He and his Master… Their relationship had become terribly strained over the past year. It was his own doing, of course: the distance he’d put between them had completely changed their relationship. There were no more kisses on the cheek, no more sneaky hugs. They were a Master and an apprentice, nothing more.
The distance between them was supposed to help. It was supposed to help Eridan get over his idiotic… fixation on his Master. Instead, it felt like a punishment for him. Instead of helping him get over his stupid thing for his Master, the distance just made him yearn for what they had once had—for the easy companionship and comfort—and hate himself for it. How could he miss something that had never existed? That had been a lie? A delusion?
But how could he not? He missed the feeling of security and certainty in his place in the world. He missed feeling important to his Master. He missed feeling pride at being addressed as Apprentice Idhron—it meant his Master had chosen him, had seen his worth and liked what he saw. Now that those delusions had been taken away from him, he felt terribly vulnerable, like a fraud.
The worst part was, it didn’t seem as though Castien even appreciated the effort he’d put into distancing himself and playing the part of a perfect apprentice. It seemed there was no pleasing him, no matter what Eridan did. Part of him wanted to think that Castien just missed his affection, but Eridan locked those
foolish thoughts away. He was done deluding himself.
Stop thinking about him, dammit, Eridan snapped to himself. How are you supposed to get over him when all you do is think about him? Instead of obsessing about Castien, you should obsess over how to get out of this situation.
Right. Okay.
Eridan forced himself to focus his attention on Warrehn.
Carefully, he stretched out his senses and poked at the guy’s mental shields. He could sense anger, mixed with grief and regret. He probed deeper, bracing himself for the usual nausea that he felt at the touch of another mind.
It never came.
Eridan paused, confused. Perhaps Warrehn’s mind was just compatible with his. It was certainly possible: telepaths didn’t have just one person compatible with them. But he didn’t feel even a hint of the pleasure that he usually felt when Castien touched his mind. Clearly there was something else at work here.
Gently, Eridan withdrew. He didn’t want Warrehn to sense his spying.
Frowning, he eyed Warrehn’s profile. There was something… almost familiar about him.
Pursing his lips, Eridan finally forced himself to examine the errant thought he had pushed out of his mind when he’d first heard Warrehn’s name.
No, Warrehn wasn’t that rare of a name.
But all the little tidbits of information he had learned about Warrehn so far… It all fit.
It was widely presumed Prince Warrehn had been kidnapped and killed by the rebels. Sirri had implied that Warrehn wasn’t actually a rebel even though he was with them.
The man also emanated grief and loss when he heard Eridan’s name, which was somewhat similar to Prince Warrehn’s younger brother’s.
Warrehn’s hair and eyes were the right color. His face… it was hard to compare a grown man’s face with a picture of a ten-year-old boy, but theoretically, Prince Warrehn could have grown up to look like this man did.
But all of this was circumstantial evidence at best. It didn’t prove anything. And Eridan didn’t feel any familial bond to this man.
Then again, he wouldn’t feel one. All familial bonds were broken when a child brought to the Order was Named.
Except… except it didn’t exactly matter, did it? Familial bonds were natural. As his Master had once told him, they were the result of similar telepathic marks.
Siblings were supposed to have similar telepathic marks.
His heart beating faster, Eridan closed his eyes and started breathing evenly, trying to sink into a deep meditation. Meditation was still far from his favorite pastime, but by now he was proficient. He didn’t even need to focus on his thaal anymore. With such a demanding teacher as Castien, he had been forced to learn. His meditations with Master Tker had helped, too.
Once he achieved the state of deep meditation, Eridan stretched out his senses. They confirmed that there were only two other people in the small house besides him. Outside the house, he could feel other minds, more primitive and muted. Animals. The house must have been located somewhere isolated, in a place with a lot of wild animals, perhaps a forest.
He stretched his senses further, looking for one telepathic presence he would recognize anywhere. He found it, but it felt incredibly distant. This house must have been a significant distance away from wherever Castien was.
Giving up on connecting to his Master, Eridan focused his senses on the telepathic presence closest to him.
Warrehn.
Carefully, he dissected Warrehn’s telepathic mark, stripping away all the distracting emotions Warrehn was feeling and comparing it to his own. It was long, tedious work, made more complicated by the fact that Eridan’s own telepathic mark was hopelessly intertwined with Castien’s. Strong bonds tended to do that. As years passed, Eridan had noticed how much his mark had been affected by his Master’s. Much to his surprise, he had found traces of his own in his Master’s telepathic presence, too, though it was harder to tell with Castien, since Castien could completely mask his mark if he wanted to. Even the distance between them lately hadn’t seemed to dim their connection at all, and Eridan had trouble separating their telepathic marks.
Finally, after what felt like hours of work, he succeeded at making a mental replica of his own mark—what it would look like without Castien’s—and then compared it to Warrehn’s.
The result made him inhale sharply.
It was unmistakable how similar their telepathic marks were. How familiar. Such an uncanny similarity could exist only between close relatives.
Eridan pulled out of his meditation and stared at the man who was still moodily looking out the window.
At his brother.
Brother.
It seemed unthinkable.
Unbelievable.
Such a coincidence seemed ridiculous. What were the odds?
But one’s telepathic mark didn’t lie. Eridan knew he hadn’t made a mistake; his Master had taught him better than that. A telepathic mark analysis was almost as foolproof as a DNA analysis.
This man was his brother.
Eridan chewed on his lip, trying to understand how he felt about it. His feelings were all over the place, a horrible mix of contradictory emotions that ranged from anger to irrational elation.
Part of him wanted to snap at Warrehn, Where have you been all this time? Why have you abandoned me? Why didn’t you come back for me?
Eridan squashed down the urge, trying to erase the hurt in his chest. Blood was nothing. It didn’t matter. This man was a stranger. A stranger who had abandoned a three-year-old him more than eighteen years ago. They were nothing to each other.
Nothing.
“Do you have a family?” Eridan heard himself say. He winced, annoyed with himself, but it was already too late.
Warrehn turned back to him, frowning. “What is it to you?”
Eridan shrugged. “Just wondering. We know very little about you rebels.”
“I’m not a ‘rebel,’” Warrehn bit out, turning back to the window.
Eridan stared at his profile, something about it vaguely familiar. He told himself it was just confirmation bias. He told himself he was just imagining that he remembered his brother’s face. He told himself a great many things, but the part of him that had always craved belonging couldn’t help but feel something when he looked at this grim-faced man.
What Eridan remembered of his brother wasn’t his face, but his bright, infectious laugh and the way he allowed him to ride on his shoulders. This man with unsmiling, hardened eyes was nothing like that.
“Then who are you?” Eridan said.
Warrehn was silent for so long he thought he wasn’t going to reply.
But he did.
“I don’t know,” Warrehn said, and there was something painfully familiar in his eyes now.
Eridan’s stomach knotted up as he recognized that look.
He’d seen it often enough in the mirror.
Chapter Sixteen: Captivity
Days dragged by.
Eridan felt the tension in the house become more and more uncomfortable with every passing day. Warrehn and Sirri had nasty arguments several times a day, their words getting uglier and harsher the longer they were stuck inside. They seemed to have a history. At first Eridan had wondered if they used to be lovers, but he soon realized that their relationship was closer to that of siblings after some ugly fight. Eridan hadn’t been sure what that was about, but as they let their guard drop around him, they became careless, and he was able to piece things together.
It seemed Warrehn had been living on Tai’Lehr all these years and pretty much had grown up with Sirri’s distant cousin, Rohan. They had known each other for years. Sirri’s problem with him seemed to be Warrehn’s refusal to call himself Tai’Lehrian despite living most of his life there. Sirri called him ungrateful. Warrehn told her to mind her own business. It was all rather interesting—or would have been, if Eridan hadn’t felt a little sick every time he heard of their childhood and teenage years, every time he heard of that R
ohan person, who was apparently “like a brother” to Warrehn.
It shouldn’t hurt.
It shouldn’t.
But it did. He didn’t want to listen to this anymore.
He wanted to go home.
He wanted his Master.
Eridan hated himself for these thoughts, hated feeling this way, but he couldn’t help it. No matter how strained their relationship had become lately, he still associated the word “home” with his Master. Even when they were fighting, there was still a certain comfort in being around Castien, the sense of rightness under his skin.
Eridan told himself it was just a habit, but deep down, he knew he was lying to himself. Even thinking about Castien made something inside Eridan tighten with terrible, achy yearning—the pent-up yearning he’d been trying and failing to extinguish for a year. He missed his Master. He had been missing him for a long time now, but the actual, physical distance between them pushed the feeling to the forefront of his mind. It was impossible to ignore anymore.
He missed him.
He didn’t even want anything special. He just wanted to curl up by Castien’s side while his Master worked on his datapad. He wanted to go to sleep lulled by Castien’s telepathic presence wrapped around him and delude himself into thinking that he was loved.
He didn’t want to be stuck in this tiny room, bound to the chair or chained to a couch like some kind of animal. He didn’t want to listen to Warrehn and Sirri arguing with each other or worrying about that Rohan person. He wanted to forget he’d ever met his brother, this stranger who worried about his pseudo-brother instead of looking for his real one.
He wanted to go home.
Eridan had tried to escape a few times, but after the time he’d tried to mind-trick Warrehn into leaving him alone while he took a bath, even Warrehn became pretty strict with him while Sirri became downright paranoid.
They shouldn’t have bothered. Eridan felt too shitty after his last escape attempt to try again. He was annoyed with himself for failing. If he had managed to feel enough anger at Warrehn to use his gift and strangle him into unconsciousness—which was the plan—he wouldn’t have had to resort to mind-tricking him and would have escaped.