Affinity

Chapter 6 - Aaralyn

When Aaralyn woke on the third morning after her meeting with Nicholas, the first thing she noticed was the lack of the odd, oppressive feeling that she was being watched. The unnerving tingle had not subsided since the evening Pierre had picked her up for dinner. And with every hour that passed since then, she had convinced herself with increasing certainty that a coven spy had been assigned to her. Clearly, she hadn't been as convincing in Nicholas's sitting room as she had hoped.

His doubts must have lingered, most likely helped along by Lexander's excessive whispering in his ear. Now, every one of her moves was under someone's scrutiny and probably being reported to Nicholas for his review, and there was not a thing she could do about it. She had dared not let on that she suspected anything. Instead, she could only follow Nicholas's orders as best she could and put on the appearance that nothing was amiss.

For two days she had barely left her house and had flawlessly played the part of an innocent and dutiful coven member. She had supervised the contractor as he had taken measurements around the perimeter before ordering supplies, she had slowly been cleaning and organizing the weapons scattered about the inside of the house, she had spent a good part of the previous afternoon dusting the old furniture and straightening the paintings and mirrors hung on the walls, and she had even washed the linens and hung them up in the front yard to let them air out. And throughout it all, she had been haunted by the slight yet constant feeling in the air of a hidden stranger's presence.

She had thought of Nicholas's offer often in those long tense, silent hours with only the ghosts of spies and a busy, grunting carpenter to keep her company. He had promised her companionship, but no companion—even Raj—would ever be real for as long as her life continued this way. Anyone Nicholas placed at her side would only be an informant.

He had said that Raj was "someone to steady her." It was only a slightly different way of asserting what Raj himself had told her: that he would keep her "where she was meant to be." Even if Raj did forgive her transgressions of the past several days, his couldn't ever be an honest friendship as long as he believed in the coven more than he believed in her. Nicholas wasn't encouraging a relationship; he was encouraging her to confide in someone whose loyalties were with the Celandine and would later be with the fortress.

Still, she hated being alone in the too-big house. She wished desperately for Raj's return, but she dreaded it at the same time. She needed the closest thing to a friend she had, but if she was still being watched by the time Raj finally returned to her, he was almost certain to sense it, or at least sense that something was off. And then he would only have questions for her that she would be either unable or unwilling to answer.

But, at least in the stillness of that morning, a sense of loneliness came as a relief. Was Nicholas finally so satisfied with her performance that he had called off whoever he had assigned to watch her? Perhaps. But she dare not take the chance of assuming. It was too likely that her spies were only trading shifts, or that whoever had been stationed outside had finally learned how to mask their presence from her detection. So, cautiously as ever, she got out of bed and dressed slowly, taking every moment she could to savor some sense of peace and privacy, however false it may be. She still made sure the shutters were tightly closed while she dressed.

The battle with the Atilla was approaching quickly, but not so quickly that she could spend her morning preparing for it, so she was trapped in the house once again. She could see about organizing the books and various ledgers downstairs, or she could start on cleaning the floors; at least that way she would be moving around. Neither idea was particularly appealing, so it was with the same grim resolve of the past few days that she made her way downstairs.

The tap, tap, tap of the hammer began as she reached the lower landing. The carpenter had arrived. How nice. It would be another day of pounding and sawing from this early morning hour until the fading light of late afternoon forced him to end his day. According to his estimates, there would be at least one more day of it before he mercifully moved on to the painting and staining that would complete the job.