His life as a political candidate now included a steady stream of professional news Voicecasters, sometimes following him individually and sometimes simply appearing among the prospective voters. The best of them had a Talent control that exceeded his own and kept complete mental silence until they pounced. The small town reporters like the two from rival news organizations covering this particular stop, on the other hand, leaked like toddlers trying to keep a secret.
Slight shifts in the nearest Voicecaster’s level of excitement warned Darcel he expected something interesting to happen.
The next woman in the newly formed line was a grey-haired lady with a self-important if not exactly regal bearing. She held his hand and professed her eagerness to see him take a seat in the new Imperial House of Talents.
“Lady Durthia,” Darcel repeated the woman’s name back to her and thanked her for the support using one of the standard polite phrases he could now murmur in his sleep. People seemed to appreciate him cycling through six or seven different ways of saying the same thing rather than repeating the same precise lines again and again. Politics. He kept his sigh strictly internal.
The woman leaked irritation at him. In his surprise at having an emotion projected at him, he didn’t catch what she actually said.
“I appreciate your support, Lady Durthia.” Darcel answered a beat too late, echoing a suggested response from Alazon.
Only the Talented were eligible to vote for members of the new empire’s House of Talents, since-like its equivalent in the Ternathian Parliament-it was to be the only part of government authorized to introduce legislation binding exclusively on the Talented population. Since that was the case, Darcel fully expected most of the crowd to be Talented. What he hadn’t expected was an untrained if very weak projective. She squeezed his hand once, and immediately Darcel had no doubt that, for all her smiles and gentle words, she quite viscerally despised him. And that she also hadn’t realized she’d just pushed that angry mental outburst at him.
Not everyone with a Talent trained and used it. This woman should have at least applied a basic effort to learn control but clearly hadn’t.
He wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake her. Politeness for the grey in the woman’s hair was all that stopped Darcel, a child of New Farnalian university professors, from chastising her on the spot for wasting that shriveled remnant of a very rare Talent.
‹Be nice to the donors, Love.› Alazon chided him silently. ‹Even the idiotic ones.› She’d felt the projection also, but only because she and Darcel shared the lifemate bond unique to Voices.
“Lady Durthia.” Alazon leaned across and said out loud, “Thank you for the kind words. Darcel appreciates your support.”
He waved a cordial goodbye at the projective and turned to Alazon during a brief pause in the receiving line.
‹What was that?› He sent with a pulse of pure bafflement. ‹Why is this woman pretending to support me?›
Lady Durthia fluttered an affected wave at the two of them as she flitted off into the crowd turned campaign stop party. Her beaming face looked as if meeting Darcel had been the best thing in the known multiverses.
‹Oh, I think Durthia will probably vote for you, so she isn’t pretending about the support. She’s just pretending to like it.› Alazon answered the wave and subtly nudged his attention back towards the next woman.
Darcel welcomed the next person in line, relieved when she proved to be a soft-spoken Animal Speaker serving as Whitterhoo’s veterinarian for all the pets in town. She was also planning to vote for him. A light handshake and a few words exchanged seemed to leave that woman just as happy as Durthia had appeared to be. The line moved on.
Darcel waited for Alazon to continue the mental explanation. Something in the feel of the pause told him she was organizing complex thoughts before sharing them.
‹She expected a nephew to have a place in the new parliament. They’ve been a political family for several generations.›
With so many years as Emperor Zindel’s Privy Voice and effective political chief of staff, Alazon held an intuitive grasp of political interactions. Darcel still had to think things through and ask questions to make sure he understood.
‹Is her nephew running?› he Asked.
‹Not at all.›
Startled by her response, Darcel failed to avoid a bear hug from an overly friendly man accompanying the next league member.
The newest intern, the one with the forgettable face, deftly drew the man off before he could follow up with anything more enthusiastic and kept the crowd moving. The political team Alazon had built for him was a masterpiece in action. Darcel credited her practical experience in politics and deep personal network for assembling such a skilled support staff for his campaign.
Kelahm somehow deposited the man farther off in the crowd in front of Lady Durthia, who welcomed the newcomer and his wife with mutual hugs.
‹The nephew’s family, meaning his Aunt Durthia, just wishes he were running.› Alazon continued after a moment’s pause ensured Darcel was able to keep his focus on the crowd and his political duties. ‹Unfortunately for what they might’ve wanted, the nephew found your Voice report compelling. A lot of the younger Talents did. Their generation’s been drawn to service more than I’ve ever seen…and many of their parents wish they’d follow in the family businesses instead. Or at least select safer, less dangerous ways to serve.›
‹The nephew enlisted to fight Arcana?›
‹Yes.› Alazon confirmed, sending a mixture of deep pride in the many youths rushing to join the Empire of Sharona’s armies and equal dismay at the potential loss of so many young lives.
Tears blurred Darcel’s vision for a moment before he forced them away. ‹Gods bless him.›
* * *
Alazon Yanamar left Darcel to handle the rest of the long line of well-wishers. The team had finally gotten him off the train platform and into the assembly room proper that had been rented for this campaign stop. They’d also made sure it had a good strong roof to hold off the rain if another squall came through.
He was good at these moment-by-moment meetings with Talents young and old who wanted to lay eyes on their candidate. He’d also work the line faster if she wasn’t mentally whispering in his ear, and that meant a shorter wait for those at the end of the line who might simply leave if forced to stand too long.
She scanned the room to reacquaint herself with the mood of the rest of the crowd and caught the nonverbals passing lightning-quick between the Voice she’d drafted for campaign coordination, Istin Leddle, and the double handful of Darcel’s political staff scattered across the room.
Two of the staff took station farther up the receiving line to gush about their excitement for the campaign and subtly remind the constituents not to crush Darcel’s hands. They might also encourage those at the end of the line to stay for the long wait to see the candidate himself.
The team was good. And Alazon watched her husband-to-be with a deep sense of pride. He was good too. Other campaign managers taught their candidates complex tactics for pretending empathy with potential voters. Darcel didn’t need any of that. He liked people, and it showed.
The next pair in line had brought a baby, and Alazon suppressed a laugh as one of her interns produced a baby blanket. Darcel deftly laid it over his arms and bounced the cooing infant without ever touching the child directly. He’d insisted on something being found to keep the babies safe when the first of the mild campaign illnesses caught up with him and even the smallest infants kept being pushed into his arms anyway.