It took Ahren a long time to realize what was really happening. She wasn’t distancing herself at all. She was very much a part of the conversation, but in a way the Elven Prince hadn’t recognized. She was hearing his words and using them to feed her talent. She was turning those words into images of his friends, trying to project visions of them. She was using him in an attempt to track them down.
He was so stunned by the revelation that for a moment he just stopped talking in mid-sentence and stared at her. The silence distracted her where his words had not. For a moment, she came back from where her visions had taken her, and she stared back at him.
“Don’t do this,” he told her softly, unable to conceal his disappointment.
She did not reply, but he could read the anguish in her eyes. The Morgawr immediately ordered him taken back to his cell, an angry and impatient dismissal. He saw his real use then—not as a hostage for negotiation or as a puppet King. Those were uses that could wait. The warlock’s needs were more immediate. Ahren would serve him better as a catalyst for Ryer Ord Star’s visions, as a trigger that would allow her to help find the Ilse Witch and the others who eluded him. Unsuspecting, naive, the boy would help without even realizing he was doing so.
Except he had realized.
Ahren was locked away once more, closed off in the storeroom and left to celebrate in fierce solitude his small victory. He had foiled the Morgawr’s attempt to use him. He sat with his back against the wall of the airship and smiled into his prison.
Yet his elation faded quickly. His victory was a hollow one. Reality surfaced and crowded out wishful thinking. He was still a prisoner with no hope. His friends were still scattered or dead. He was still stranded in a dangerous, faraway land.
Worst of all, Ryer Ord Star had revealed herself to be his enemy.
In the Commander’s quarters, the Morgawr paced with the restless intensity of a caged animal. Ryer Ord Star felt the tension radiating from him in dark waves of displeasure. It was unusual for him to display such emotion openly, but his patience with the situation was growing dangerously thin.
“He knows what we are trying to do. Clever boy.”
She did not respond. Her thoughts were of Ahren’s words and the way he had looked at her. She still heard the anguish in his voice and saw the disappointment in his eyes. Understandably confused and misguided, he had judged her wrongly, and she could do nothing to explain herself. If the situation had been bad before, it was spiraling out of control now.
The Morgawr stopped in front of the door, his back to her. “He has become useless to me.”
She stiffened, her mind racing. “I don’t need his cooperation.”
“He will lie. He will dissemble. He will throw in enough waste that it will color anything good. I can’t trust him anymore.” He turned around slowly. “Nor am I sure about you, little seer.”
She met his gaze and held it, letting him look into her eyes. If he believed she hid something, the game was over and he would kill her now.
“I’ve given you nothing but the truth,” she said.
His dark, reptilian face showed nothing of what he was thinking, but his eyes were dangerous. “Then tell me what you have learned just now.”
She knew he was testing her, offering her a chance to demonstrate that she was still useful. Ahren had been right about the game they were playing. She was feeding off his words and emotions in response to the Morgawr’s questions in an effort to trigger a vision that would reveal something about the missing members of the company of the Jerle Shannara. He had been wrong about her intentions, but there was no way she could tell him that. The Morgawr must believe she could help him find the Ilse Witch. He must not begin to doubt that she was his willing ally in his search, or all of her plans to help Walker would fall apart.