Lee, Sharon - Liaden 11 - Mouse and Dragon

His anger was building again. Grimly, he brought his heartbeat down, smoothed his breathing.

Small wonder she had spoken so distantly of her daughter, he thought, remembering how cold she had seemed, entirely unlike the woman he knew. With her brother on the lookout always to harm her, how could she regard her child? The best she might do for the girl was disdain her, and hope that Ran Eld Caylon never looked in her direction.

“Daav?” Soft as it was, Aelliana's voice jolted him.

He turned his head briefly and offered her a smile.

“Aelliana?”

She extended a hand, rested it on his arm; withdrew with a sigh.

“You—I feel that you are distressed. I regret it. If it had been possible, I would have gone alone, but—” She gave him a smile, well-intended, but wavering visibly at the edges. “Truly, van'chela, it was only the knowledge that you were in-house that gave me the courage to resist Mizel.”

He blinked and glanced over to her, meeting eyes in which worry was plain. And yet—she felt? Had she informed herself of the state of his unruly emotions through that fleeting touch? Hope rose, twined with confusion, and a measure of disquiet. Perhaps Master Kestra's estimation of her results had been pessimistic? Perhaps Aelliana would, after all, know him as her lifemate? Yet, to subject her—or anyone!—to an intimate knowledge of his thoughts and feelings . . .

“Daav?”

“Forgive me,” he said. “I am stupid today. Notwithstanding, I think we came away from Mizel as gracefully as possible. It was well done of you to invoke Guild law.”

“It was all I could think to do, though it cannot, you know, stand against kin.” she said, sounding rueful. “Cat-ice, I thought it, even for Sinit.”

“Thin as it was, it bore us up, and no one's melant'i has taken harm.”

“Excepting Mizel's.” Aelliana sighed. “She offered me nadelm's duty.”

“You should have been nadelm all along!” he said, more sharply than he had intended.

“Yes, my grandmother thought so, as well. But you misunderstand, van'chela. She offered the duty; I did not hear that she offered the rank.” Abruptly, she pointed at her screen.

“Daav—the turn for the ferry station!”

“Ah, but we have no need to depend upon public ferries.”

She turned to him, lips parted. “You have a ship here?”

“Korval has a yard here,” he said, shifting for the turn.

“It keeps slipping away from me,” she said, slowly, “that you are Korval.”

“Yes, but just at the moment, I am your copilot,” he answered, guiding the car through the gate and gliding to a stop before the yard office. He powered the vehicle down, and pressed his thumb against the ID screen. “Master Fis Lyr was kind enough to lend me the use of the yard's car. Now, if you are game for a small walk?”

“Even a long one,” she said, suddenly gay. “So long as we need not walk to Solcintra.”

“Now, that is too long a walk,” he said, popping his door.

Aelliana laughed, working the mechanism on the passenger's door. By the time he had gotten 'round the car, having paused to retrieve her box from the boot, she was looking around her with frank curiosity.

“Ought we to tell the master that his car is back?” She asked, using her chin to point at the office door.

“It will already have done so, I fear,” Daav said. “Aelliana.”

She looked up at him, surprise edging the pleasure in her face.

He raised a hand, reached inside the collar of his shirt and slowly drew out a silver chain. Depending from it was a set of ship's keys.

Aelliana's eyes blazed. “You brought The Luck!”

“Of course I did. How else?” He slipped the chain over his head and offered it to her. “How could I know my pilot's plans? It could have been that she wished to lift immediately. In which case her ship should be nearer to her hand than Solcintra.”

She grasped the keys tightly, her face tilted up, but not, he considered, seeing anything other than her thoughts. He held himself as still as he might.

I will not, he told himself, influence her by so much as the twitch of a muscle. If she decides after all that lift is less chancy than Liad, even under Korval's wing . . .

“It was very good of you, Daav,” Aelliana said.

“Nonsense, you know that I like a lift as well as you do! And what pilot worth his leather would sit on the ferry by choice?” He leaned forward, conspiratorially “Besides, you know, the ferry takes too long.”

She laughed, and waved her free hand, capturing the yard, the car, and the office in one fey movement.

“If it will please my copilot to produce our ship?”

Our ship. The words thrilled him. It was what she had offered, before—and she had almost died of his refusal. Had he been with her the next morning, when her brother had come to Binjali's in search of her . . .

“Has my copilot,” Aelliana asked teasingly, “forgotten where he left our ship?”

“Indeed no!” he assured her, rallying. “See? I have a map drawn right here on my palm.”

He made a show of turning his free hand up, subjected it to a moment of frowning study and strode off, deliberately long-legged, but not so much that she had any trouble keeping up.

* * *

“A hotpad!” Aelliana threw a hand out and caught Daav's arm, calculating the expense between one breath and the next. Ride the Luck had money in her account, of course, but she was no wealthy merchanter.

“Forgive me, Pilot,” Daav said seriously, looking down into her face. “I should have said—this is where I bring my own ship down, when I fly to Chonselta. A courtesy of the yard, and no expense attached.”

Korval Himself, she reminded herself, yet again. Of course there would be a hotpad available for the delm's use at a Korval yard.

She sighed and looked up at him. “I am . . . somewhat unused . . . to such courtesies.”

“Perhaps you should try to accommodate yourself,” Daav said, still in that tone of utter seriousness. “Aelliana Caylon will doubtless be extended like courtesies.”

“For a few days, perhaps,” she said, frowning. “But it will soon be forgot, you know—our lift.”

“If you insist. However, I would point out that the ven'Tura Revisions are not so easy for pilots to overlook.” He nodded at the ship, sitting proud and beautiful on her hotpad.

“Shall we?”

“Yes!” she said decisively. “We shall!”

She went up the ramp first—her right as pilot and owner. Her hands were steady as she slotted the key. The hatch opened and she stepped inside, aware of Daav's presence at her back, but more than that—aware of the presence, the actuality of her ship.

Before the tragedies of yesterday, she had loved Ride the Luck as well and as truly as she had been able. Though it had given her the courage to defy Ran Eld, she now knew that emotion for a weak and impotent thing. What filled her now was heat, and light; awe and pride—there was no power of which she could conceive that would wrest this ship from her care.

Half-dazed, she entered the piloting chamber, putting a hand on the back of the pilot's chair to steady herself. Her hand showed stark against the white leather, the Jump pilot's ring flashing in the test lights from the waking instruments.

“We could lift now, this minute,” she whispered. “Set a course for up and away . . . ”

“Aye,” Daav answered softly, “so you could. Nothing holds you here but gravity.”

Stricken, she turned, one hand rising toward him.

“No,” she breathed, “More than that, van'chela.”

He came forward one short step, and took her hand between both of his. His skin was warm, the band of Korval's Ring cool. She felt longing, and a hesitant sadness.