When they entered the t-chamber, Idhron told the computer their destination and finally said, “I do not remember ever saying that I did not want you as my apprentice.”
Eridan scowled, looking down at his boots. “You didn’t need to say that. Actions speak louder than words. You have ignored me for eleven years.”
He felt a flicker of irritation coming off Idhron as they left the t-chamber. “It has nothing to do with you. I am a busy man. I do not have time for children.”
Eridan flushed. “I’m eighteen. I’m not a child!”
Idhron finally turned to him and gave him a pointed a look.
Eridan glowered at him, his face warming. All right, maybe he wasn’t exactly being mature right now, but still, his point stood.
“I am not talking about your age,” Idhron said. “Age does not equal maturity. I was seventeen when I became a Master Acolyte.”
Eridan tried to hide his amazement. A Master Acolyte at seventeen? Way to make someone feel inadequate.
“I am not telling you this to make you feel inadequate. I am telling you this to show you that you could have achieved far more by your age instead of being an emotional, temperamental child.”
Eridan looked at him suspiciously. “Are you reading my mind?”
“I hardly need to,” Idhron said, pausing long enough to let the security scanner do its job. The gates unlocked and he gestured for Eridan to follow him inside. “Your every emotion is written on your face, which only proves my point.”
Eridan frowned. Absent-mindedly, he registered the spacious front yard of the handsome mansion, but his attention was entirely on the man walking slightly ahead of him.
“So you don’t actually hate me?” he found himself saying, his voice smaller than he would have liked.
Idhron’s expression became rather pinched. He pushed the front door open.
Eridan followed him into the house, into the large living room.
Idhron turned to Eridan with a slight frown on his face.
“I do not know where you got the idea that I hate you. First of all, I do not know you enough to hate you. Second, if I hated you, I would not have chosen you out of hundreds of initiates. I chose you because you showed promise as a child. But your progress has not been as good as I hoped. That is why I am making you serve a probationary apprenticeship.” He looked Eridan in the eye, his gaze stern but not unkind. “It is not a slight, Eridan. I want to help you improve, but I am a busy man, and I cannot commit myself to an apprentice who may not suit me.”
Looking down, Eridan chewed on his bottom lip. That sounded… reasonable. Could it be possible that he had been wrong about Idhron and he was actually a good, kind Master?
But just as he thought it, he knew it was wrong. It was too good to be true, considering what he’d observed of Castien Idhron.
Eridan lifted his gaze and said, “You’re lying.”
“Pardon?” Idhron said.
Eridan crossed his arms over his chest and glared at the man. “You can drop this kind act. I’m not buying it. I always know when people lie to me.” That was a lie, but there were telepaths that had such a gift, and how would Idhron know that Eridan wasn’t one of them?
Idhron stared at him for a moment before something shifted in his expression, any trace of kindness disappearing from his face. “Is that so?” he said, eyeing Eridan with a strange new intensity. He seemed to somehow become larger and taller.
The hairs at the back of Eridan’s neck stood on end. He suddenly felt like he was in a room with a predator, dangerous and unpredictable.
“Yes,” he said, squashing down the urge to run away from this room, from this man, as far as possible.
Idhron’s blue eyes seemed to sharpen. For the first time since meeting him, Eridan felt like he actually had become something interesting to Idhron. “You are a liar, too,” Idhron said, walking over. He gripped Eridan’s chin and lifted it to make him look him in the eye. “You do not possess such a talent.”
Eridan shivered, his stomach in knots. “Maybe not, but I can choke the life out of you if you try to do something to me.”
Idhron smiled. It was a smile that seemed to lack any sort of emotion besides cold amusement. “You do show promise, after all,” he said, letting go of Eridan’s chin. “Sit down.”
It was impossible not to obey that voice.
Eridan sat down on the couch, a little glad to do so, because his knees were shaking.
He stared up at this imposing man, who looked back at him with an unreadable expression.
The silence stretched.
“Very well,” Idhron said at last. “I will speak frankly with you.”
Eridan looked at him skeptically but didn’t voice his doubts.