The Queen's Gambit by Deborah Chester

attention away from Inthiere’s faults, for all the sorting out of blame and fault could wait until the morrow, Talmor felt sweat trickling down his throat and chest. “Must it be so hot in here?” he asked.
    Pears stared at him without expression. “Must it?” he echoed, but with a careful voice.
    Shame burned through Talmor then, with humiliation dragging in its wake. He thought he’d managed to leave the past behind, yet this morning he’d had that premonition of trouble before Lutel sighted the boats. And now . . . it seemed some problems could never be solved, or escaped.
    Sighing, he clenched his fist and felt the heat coiling there inside his palm. He could feel the violence building, both anger and shock entwined and ready to strike out. The air felt hotter than ever, as though the room were on fire. It was oppressive heat, the kind that was painful to breathe. But he knew it could get much, much hotter.
    When he glanced up at Pears, he saw a glimmer of fear in the older man’s eyes, fear swiftly hidden. But he could read the thoughts inside Pears’s mind as plainly as though they were written on a scroll. If he chose, he could read deeper . . . every wish, every fear, every emotion. Swiftly Talmor averted his eyes. It was wrong to soulgaze, wrong. He had sworn he would never do it again.
    A shudder passed through him. Gritting his teeth against the forces he could no longer reliably control, he said, “Quick! Fetch some water.”
    Pears hurried to bring a wooden pail of water. He lifted the drinking dipper, but Talmor glared at him. “Get back!”
    Dropping the dipper, Pears stumbled back just as Talmor felt the violence inside him escape. It spewed from him, ablazing heat that shot down his arm with such power he cried out. A ball of fire burst into flames in mid-air, the force of it pulling him nearly upright. With all the willpower he possessed, he threw the flames at the water pail.
    The fireball extinguished with a sharp crack of sound, and the bucket rocked back and forth. Steam rose from the wood. As Pears crept forward cautiously to peer into the pail, Talmor already knew it was bone dry.
    The air in the sick room cooled at once. The violence in him was gone, spent. Exhausted, he dropped down on his cot and flung his arm across his stinging eyes. He hadn’t lost control like that in years, not since the day he lost his temper with his half brother Etyne and burned him. Although Etyne recovered from his injuries, Talmor’s father had beaten him, starved him for a week, then told him he must leave forever. Ten years had passed since then, and although he kept the hurt buried deep, it remained sharp. Talmor sighed. Ten years of ironclad control, with never a slip while he followed Sanude’s training faithfully, yet tonight had proven his hard work for naught. He might as well still be that awkward boy of sixteen—angry, tormented, and frustrated in trying to find a way to belong and earn his father’s love. He did not want to imagine what either Sanude or his father would say were they here now.
    A faint, rational voice in the back of his aching head reminded him that he hadn’t forgotten his training. He’d been too weak to hold his curse in check. That was all.
    Only it wasn’t all. It would never be that simple.
    All his confidence, his self-assurance that he would never again unleash fire or utilize his other powers vanished before this brutal reality. Until tonight, he’d believed that he’d conquered himself. He thought he’d driven his abilities so far away that they were no longer a part of him, and he was at last a true Mandrian.
    So he’d thought.
    Bitterness welled up inside Talmor’s throat, and he swallowed hard.
    It seemed now he’d only been deluding himself. It was amiracle that Inthiere hadn’t been standing in the room to witness Talmor’s darkest secret. Sir