Susan Krinard - Dark Journey

Would he have been tempted to make a new life here, with Trinity?

No, Daniel thought, not without sending word back to Avalon. And to him.

Daniel spent the wee hours of the morning in his new quarters, sleeping in fits and starts, haunted by ugly dreams he couldn’t remember after the sun rose over Tanis.

But he remembered Isis. She was the first thing he thought of when he opened his eyes. He bathed and dressed, considering how he could get her to agree to show him the city in spite of last night’s firm rejection.

Of course, it would be easier with some other guide, someone who wouldn’t simultaneously attract him and remind him of the shame of his past. Easier, but not nearly as useful.

If he were more careful, more respectful of Isis—if he kept his physical and emotional distance—he might persuade her to show him more than the average guide might be permitted to do.

Because he already felt that there was something not quite right in this city. It was only gut instinct, but he had learned to trust that instinct long ago.

Isis mustn’t know about his doubts, of course. All he had to do was pretend to believe what she did, and she would give him all the help he wanted.

Chapter 5

It was not Isis’s intention to go back to Daniel. Like all Opiri, she didn’t require sleep, so she had tried to distract herself with books and music and a long stroll through the gardens until dawn brought the realization that she couldn’t simply walk away from him.

There were still too many things she didn’t understand about him, and she so badly wanted to understand. He had an effect on her that she had never experienced before.

And too much remained unresolved: he had accused her of fearing him because she thought she might want him again. It was a ridiculous notion, and yet part of her was afraid. She had gone too far with him, and there was no undoing what had occurred between them.

Still, she could not allow herself to fear anything or anyone in Tanis, not if she was to play her part in the future she envisioned. Surely there could be no question of seduction now. Not on her part. And Daniel would have no reason to touch her again.

Daniel had been correct: she had made herself responsible for him, and she could not fulfill her promise if she put him into the hands of another.

So she dressed in a very simple white gown, casually adorned with a gold sash and a beaded pectoral necklace a human craftsman had made for her. She put on plain sandals and pulled her hair back, just as she would wear it on any occasion when there was work to be done. The unembroidered day coat, with its protective cowl, was the finishing touch.

Instead of summoning a private cab, she caught a shuttle with humans and Opiri on their way to jobs in the administrative offices. It was a pity that Daniel couldn’t see her then, among the people like any average citizen.

You have nothing to prove, she reminded herself. And nothing to regret.

When she reached the Immigrant Center, Daniel was pacing in the lobby, each movement imbued with a powerful grace, muscles sliding easily against each other in perfect harmony. He looked up as soon as she entered, and she saw as well as felt the change in him: his blue eyes lit as if a fire burned behind them, and there was a subtle shift in his body, as if he were shedding an invisible weight.

Isis felt her own body respond in spite of all her determination to hold herself aloof, warmth gathering between her thighs and her heart beating more quickly. She smiled at Daniel with the most neutral expression she could manage and approached him as cautiously as she might a lion in the wilderness.

“You changed your mind,” Daniel said, his voice warmer than she’d ever heard it.

“Yes. I realized that I was being unreasonable in refusing to guide you.”

“I’m glad,” Daniel said, bowing his head. The simple act confused and angered Isis, as if he were mocking her with his show of respect.

But he wasn’t mocking her. The cynicism she had expected seemed to have vanished, along with the hardness in his face and eyes.

Why the change? she thought. But she knew she should accept his manner as a gift instead of questioning it. Now she could enjoy showing him the city. If he could come to believe in it as she did...

He might stay.

She shook away the thought and smiled again. “Are you ready to begin your tour?” she asked.

“I look forward to it.”

“Then let us begin. We will walk much of the time, but there are areas where we will need other transportation.”

Daniel nodded, and she turned for the door.

They began in the main plaza. The sun shone in open sky above, and Isis was careful to keep her cowl over her head when they were exposed to the daylight.

She showed Daniel the multistory apartment buildings the citizens had built after Tanis had been established on Tartaros’s foundations. Very few Opiri lived in the apartments, but the humans there acknowledged her and Daniel with smiles and words of greeting. She was relieved that none of them actually bowed or showed her any particular deference, and astonished that she should be thinking about it at all.

Daniel’s accusations had made her aware of things she had simply taken for granted.

She pointed out the Council chambers and the Hall of Justice, built in the Greek style with wide stairs and columned porch, and showed him the other government buildings, some adapted from the old, pre-Tanis days, others more recently constructed.

“Your Council is made up of Opiri, humans and half-bloods?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said. “They also serve as judges on those rare occasions when a citizen breaks the law beyond the scope of the Lawkeepers and must be evaluated.”

“No juries?” Daniel asked.

“Witnesses are called during the hearings,” she said. “All testimony is accepted.”

“But the Council makes the final decision.”

“An elected Council,” she said quickly. “All citizens have their vote.”

As they left the vicinity of the Hall, they passed a number of Lawkeeper patrols as well as a few guards who served in other capacities, and Daniel noted that none of them appeared to be human. Isis was compelled to admit that guards and Lawkeepers were by custom either half-bloods or Opiri. Daniel’s terse nod forced her to realize that the lack of humans in law enforcement would seem strange, even problematic to an outsider.

She had never even thought about it.

“That building, there,” Daniel said, indicating the featureless walls of a two-story structure at the far edge of the plaza. “What is that?”

Isis felt a strange reluctance to answer. “The blood depository,” she said. “It is where humans go to—”

“Contribute blood.” Daniel’s expression was neutral, but she felt the tension in him nonetheless.

“As I said before, no human is forced to do it,” she said.

“But this city would collapse if the human population refused.”

“They know that as well as you do,” Isis said, her words sharp with annoyance.

“They’d be compelled to donate in short order,” Daniel said, still staring at the building.

“That is why Tanis is built upon cooperation and sacrifice. Our citizens do not allow themselves to surrender to their instincts, no matter how powerful they may be.”

“That is reassuring.”

But his doubt was apparent, in spite of his attempts to hide it.

Isis was relieved when they caught a private shuttle that took them away from the clusters of multistory buildings and deep into the human sector, where older, lower buildings had once housed the Citadel’s many Freebloods, former Opiri vassals who had yet to establish a Household or claim a serf.