Book 4 Excerpt

That got her attention. She’d been prepared to let that matter drop, because there really wasn’t any way to find out who the guilty party was without a mind scanner… but then Alarin was a mind scanner in his own right.

“I’m all ears,” she said.

“I was standing at the back of the ceremony, when I caught a particularly strong emotion from the center of the crowd,” the adept began. “I focused in on that, because the feeling didn’t match the event we were attending.”

“Alarin. Who is it?”

“So I found the individual, and against all rules I explored their thoughts as they had them,” the adept continued, dodging her question for the moment. “The emotion was sorrow, regret. The person thinking it realized that a lot of people who were attending the event had lost friends and loved ones because of his actions.”

Sarah grabbed the man by his shirt. “If you don’t tell me who we’re talking about, I’m going to punch you in the nose.”

“It’s <name redacted>,” Alarin said. “But he didn’t think Orson would be violent. He wasn’t aware of the monster he was sleeping with. The plan had been to force you to step down and stop any more fighting.”

“That makes no sense,” Sarah said. She punched her commlink.

“Ops.”

“This is Admiral Dayson. Send four marines to intercept <name redacted> at the shuttle port before he returns to <name redacted>. Arrest him and hold him until I say otherwise.”

“He thought he was doing the right things for the people,” Alarin said.

“There can only be one commander,” Sarah replied. “Only one. Everyone else follows that person without question. Or people die. In this case thousands died, because <name redacted> thought he had a better plan.”

“I see your point. Merik was of similar thought, although she tended to just burn her challengers alive toward the end, not arrest them.”