Lee, Sharon - Liaden 11 - Mouse and Dragon

“I thought you said a nap,” she managed.

He smiled and raised their hands, bending his head above hers.

“There's time,” he whispered, and kissed her knuckles lingeringly.

His lips were cool, exciting in their remoteness, giving the lie to the passion licking across their nerves. She wanted to move closer, to achieve a fuller embrace, but their relative positions did not allow it. Daav completed his salute, unhurried, raised his head and turned, his hand still beneath her fingers.

Bland-faced, as outwardly indifferent as if they were two strangers about to go into a formal dinner together, he guided her across the piloting tower and down the short hall to their quarters.

The snow drifted prettily, glinting like mirrors among the lights of the port. The flakes were cold, which she had known they would be, but which still surprised, and she turned her face up into them, laughing as they showered burning kisses on her cheeks.

Snow play was limited to the air. Underfoot, the walk was heated and dry. Daav had approved of that, and settled the pack holding Hedrede's fragile treasure more firmly on his shoulder. She had protested that she could carry it just as well, but he claimed copilot's right.

“But that leaves me to protect you, and you know what my marksmanship is!” she'd protested, which had gained her one of his tightly edged smiles.

“I repose every faith in my pilot,” he'd replied, which was no answer at all, but nonetheless put her on her mettle.

Avontai Port was not so large as Solcintra, nor even Chonselta, though it enjoyed good custom. The walks were crowded; gem-colored light from the shops splashed across the walkways, scandalously painting the faces of passersby.

Aelliana looked from right to left and back again, trying to see everything at once. Her first new world—with snow! Perhaps, she thought, they might take a day, after the package was delivered, and explore Avontai more fully.

It came to her then that Daav, too, was being watchful, but in an entirely different manner. She considered the side of his face and the set of his shoulders. Not worried, she decided, but on guard.

Cautiously, she looked about, trying to see what might have made him wary, but saw nothing untoward. She swayed a step nearer to his side, though she did not take his hand. There was a chance that such contact would break his concentration, which she in no way wished to do until she more fully understood their position.

“Does the port feel strange to you?” she asked.

He looked down at her, black eyes, his hair starry with snowflakes.

“I have no comparison; this is my first time on Avontai Port.”

Aelliana bit her lip, and glanced about, but all she saw were shops and shoppers and people moving quickly, as if they had an errand in hand.

“Your friend Clarence had said that he was hearing from pilots that the ports felt . . . odd. To me, Avontai feels unlike Chonselta or Solcintra, but surely that is as it should be and nothing odd?”

“There are certain things to notice, when one is on-port. Do the natives seem unconcerned or anxious? Are proctors or security very obvious—or absent entirely? Does it seem that pilotkind cling close to each other, or that there are too few about on the common ways?” He moved his shoulders. “I will try to be a better teacher, Aelliana, though I suspect an experience of several ports may be necessary to build a sense of what is not odd.”

“That seems reasonable,” she granted, and gave him a grin, inviting him to share the joke. “So, we see a necessity to raise many ports!”

Daav, however, did not laugh; rather, and unexpectedly, he frowned.

“There is a matter of melant'i,” he said, slowly, his voice taking on a formal cadence, though he kept yet to the mode between comrades. “Clarence O'Berin is not my friend.”

“But of course he is!” The words were out of her mouth before she had time to consider propriety. Who was she, to tell Daav's affections out for him? And yet—

“I beg your pardon, van'chela,” she said more moderately, but with a degree of determination. “Recall that we were linked during the exchange with—with Pilot O'Berin. I grant that . . . I understand that there is a confusion of regard, but certainly there is . . . affection. Indeed, he must hold you likewise, else why step off of his path to speak of this . . . oddity among the ports?”

Daav sighed, and said nothing. Aelliana bit her lip. She had transgressed; she had feared it. She curled her hand into a fist so that she not reach out to him, and cleared her throat.

“It is ill-done of me to—to correct you on such a matter. As clearly as I might hear you, it is not I but you who must know best . . . ”

“No, that will not do,” Daav interrupted, very gently indeed.

His hand touched hers, and she gripped his fingers greedily. Wistfulness flowed from him, and a sort of wry amusement, thinly edged with resentment.

“We have what we have, and a pilot who wishes to survive uses the information in her hand, no matter how it comes to be there. So, there will be no forgive-mes, my lady, nor any regrets, though I may sometimes be abashed, or even embarrassed. I will engage to do my best not to become angry, but my temper is not always biddable.”

“Nor, I fear, is mine,” she whispered.

“Well, it's a pair of hotheads we'll be, then, and no help for it. As for Clarence . . . ” He paused; she received the sense of him marshaling his thoughts.

“You are correct that I hold Clarence in some esteem—we are of an age, of like temperament, and bear the burden of similar melant'is. If circumstances were otherwise, we might indeed be friends. As it is, I have the honor to be Korval, and Clarence—is the final authority for the Juntavas based on Liad.”

So, Aelliana thought, she had judged Clarence's melant'i rightly. As for the Juntavas; the Guild handbook would have them be thieves, grey-traders, and warned pilots away from their employ.

“Korval and the Juntavas,” Daav continued, “have long ago agreed to a policy of . . . avoidance. Which means that, value him as I might, yet I cannot by policy assume Clarence to be trustworthy, nor may I consider that he holds Korval's best interest first in his heart.”

“Nor should he,” Aelliana murmured. “He must care for his own folk first.”

“So he must and so I must. Thus we meet seldom, with pleasure tinged by regret.” He glanced up into the dancing snowflakes. “Here is our street, I think.”

Hand in hand they walked down a narrower and only slightly less-well-lit street. It seemed to Aelliana that Daav was easier now—less chagrined—yet still on point. She caught a glimmer of concern, and a thrill of pleasurable curiosity, growing more intense as they found the door.

It was recessed, hidden deep inside a series of arches, the first so black it seemed to swallow the light from the street lamps. The second arch was dark grey, the third foggy blue, the fifth ivory, and the sixth pure white, lit so brightly that no shadows were possible. The door itself was crimson, as bright as blood in the blaring light.

She felt Daav hesitate—the tiniest catch between one step and the next—then they were walking side by side down the short tunnel; at the end of it, Aelliana put her hand against the plate.

The door opened into a room dimly illuminated by red light. Aromatic smoke drifted between the tables; the servers moving languidly among them wore red shirts with billowing sleeves and tight white trousers.

Beyond the half-moon of tables was an open area floored in black tile so glossy that the ceiling was reflected in its depths. On the far side of the floor was a stage. Thick white smoke rose 'round it, mixing with the ruby light. Inside the resulting pink mist, Aelliana could see instruments set up on racks, awaiting musicians who had yet to arrive.