Archon by Lana Krumwiede Page A

seized the city, they could invade the Republik as a united force.
    Deliverance would be a valuable prize to any of these nations.
    “The war has been going on for decades,” Gevri continued, “but mostly on the other side of the continent, in the West. Lately, things are heating up here in the East, and my father says that if we don’t throw something new at them, something they’ve never seen before, we could be in trouble. He thinks the archons could save this country.”
    Taemon tried to catch Amma’s eye in the lantern light, to see if she’d noticed the same things that he had. But it was too dark to see much of anything except the diagram in the dirt. When he spoke to Gevri, he tried to make his voice sound casual. “I’m curious about these archons. How exactly does your father plan to use them?”
    Gevri frowned, and Taemon could see he was torn. He might not believe in what his father was doing, but that didn’t necessarily mean he was ready to compromise his father’s plans by sharing them with two complete strangers. “Let’s just say that it involves training archons to hone their skills for military purposes. I think that’s why they brought your father here, to help with the training. Who better than one of Nathan’s men to show us how to master dominion?”
    Taemon swallowed. And what would they do with Da when they realized he was powerless?
    “So let me get this straight,” Amma said. “Everyone in the Republik has . . . dominion, but your dad is training some of them to use their power as a weapon?”
    Gevri shook his head. He looked around as though he needed to be sure they were truly alone before he explained. “Not everyone. Only the archons have dominion. And no one knows about the archons except the people at the outpost. Not even the rest of the army knows about them. It’s classified.”
    Wonderful. A supersecret army of archons that the Republikite army didn’t even know about. And Da was supposed to be training them!
    “So why are you telling us?” Taemon asked warily.
    Gevri shrugged. “You’ve seen what I can do. There’s no point denying it. Besides, if you’re here to rescue your dad,” he said, nodding at Taemon, “then I’m pretty sure that means you and I are on the same side.”
    Taemon wasn’t so sure about that.
    Gevri yawned. “Look, we can finish getting to know one another in the morning. Jix and I are beat. Aren’t we, girl? We’ll set up camp nearby and see you in the morning.” The jaguar gave an impressive yawn, her enormous teeth glinting in the lantern light.
    “One last question,” Taemon said as Gevri gathered up his things.
    “Yeah?”
    “These archons . . . They have powers? Still, I mean? They haven’t had any, you know, loss of . . . archon-ness?”
    Gevri hesitated, then laughed. “Of course not! You’re testing me, aren’t you? You either have dominion or you don’t. Gods!”
    “He can be very testy,” Amma said, making a joke out of it. “Good night, Gevri.”
    “Cha, good night,” Taemon muttered distractedly.
    How? How did these people have psi? Even if it was true that psi existed outside of Deliverance — and despite what Gevri might say, and what they’d seen him do, that was still a pretty big
if
— Taemon had gotten rid of psi, hadn’t he? So why would the archons still have “dominion”?
    Let me help you remember.
    Oh, Skies. The Heart of the Earth was talking to him again.
    He saw himself in the past, at the temple, when everything was going wrong and Yens was destroying the temple with an earthquake. He remembered what the Heart of the Earth had said to him then.
    You must choose. On behalf of your people, you must choose.
    He remembered the turmoil he had felt, trying to decide if taking away psi from the world was the right thing to do. Once again, he heard the words in his mind, the words he’d said to the Heart of the Earth:
    Let all psi in Deliverance be done away. Let each man and woman work by the