Lee, Sharon - Liaden 11 - Mouse and Dragon

“Val Con-son?” he asked.

The boy sighed and handed over his pod, too.

“I want to be able to open my own,” he commented.

“Then you will want to grow stronger,” Daav told him, returning the pieces.

“Yes,” Val Con said. He sat down without ceremony on the grass and began to eat his treat.

Daav looked to Aelliana, who had disposed of hers while he had labored, and smiled.

“How was Clonak?” he asked, breaking his own pod, and taking up a bit of kernel.

She tipped her head, considering.

“I find him changed, but cannot say precisely how,” she said slowly. “I believe that security must suit him. He spoke of standing captain of a team.”

“Good,” Daav said. “Having folk to care for is a tonic.”

“I would wish him more than a tonic,” Aelliana said.

“Clonak said I looked just like you, Father,” Val Con stated.

Daav lifted an eyebrow. “Much as it must pain me to say so, it seems that the Scout's eyesight has betrayed him. You, my child, look like your mother.”

“I look like myself!” Val Con asserted.

“More so every day,” Aelliana agreed, reaching to comb her fingers through his hair.

“Indeed, one sees signs of an emerging style,” Daav added, eying the torn pants leg.

He glanced at Aelliana. “This state of disarray is notable, even given the source. I hesitate to ask, but feel that I must.”

“I fell,” Val Con said, matter-of-factly.

Again? Daav did not sigh.

“Well, then, that explains it. Falling is historically hard on the wardrobe.” He tipped an eyebrow at the boy. “Would you like a flight upstairs to display yourself to Mrs. pel'Cheela?”

Val Con fairly danced. “Yes!”

“Very well. All aboard the Dragon Flight!” He swooped the thin body up and onto his shoulders. Val Con shouted his laughter—and again, as Daav surged to his feet.

Aelliana rose with him, the basket of darsibells in hand.

“I'll just drop these off with Master Rota and meet you in our rooms, shall I? We're promised to the play tonight, recall.”

“I do recall,” Daav told her.

“Jets full!” Val Con commanded, and perforce the good ship Dragon Flight took off down the path, flying low and fast.

He came out of the 'fresher to find her in a charming state of half dress; her hair wisping about bare shoulders. She smiled at him and came forward, running her palms over his chest in teasing circles before stretching high on bare toes and fitting her mouth over his.

The kiss was long and thorough; he, a surprised but willing participant, fair panting by the time she was done with him.

Or perhaps not quite done with him. She leaned against him, snug in the circle of his arms, cheek on his shoulder, breasts pressed against him, shivering.

“Aelliana,” he managed, his voice nothing like steady.

She moved her head, idly nuzzling the skin beneath his collarbone.

“Aelliana, we will be late.”

Her lips moved, trailing fire. She sighed and looked up at him, eyes as bright as he had ever seen them.

“Daav,” she murmured. “I think we should have another child.”

He considered her. “Do you plan on murdering the one we have, or is this to be in addition?”

“In addition,” she said.

“Very good. I approve in principle.”

Her hand slid inside his robe, and he gasped, ready all at once.

“Are we,” he asked shakily, “to begin construction at once?”

Aelliana smiled, her fingers moving maddeningly. “I think that would be perfect.”

“I can scarcely argue with a lady who has a plan. However, I point out that we will miss the play, which means that we must on the morrow write a note. I mention this only because I am aware of how little you like to write notes.”

Her other hand crept up 'round his neck and pulled him down to her.

“We only have to miss the first act,” she whispered.

* * *

Aelliana slipped her hand through Daav's arm, letting the familiar and ever-new wash of his signal buoy her. They had parked in Korval's usual space by the theater. Ahead, she could see the intermission crowd just beginning to return to the theater, for the beginning of the second act.

“There,” Daav said. “We shall be seen by all the world; no notes need to be written—truly, a most satisfactory outcome!”

Something moved in the shadows ahead. She felt Daav take notice, but no more than just that—notice. They walked on, quickly enough that they would merge with the last ripple of returning theatergoers, thus making it appear that they had been there for the entire time. They would go up to Korval's box and—

From behind them, a shout. Daav half-turned; she felt the stab of his concern.

A shadow stepped out of the shadow ahead; a tall, broad-shouldered man—a Terran, she thought with cold clarity. He brought his gun up, unhurried and certain.

Aelliana saw him acquire his target. Inside her head, she saw the bullet's trajectory, saw Daav's head explode. She jumped, twisting, striking Daav with every bit of her strength, throwing herself forward and up—

The last thing she knew was satisfaction, and the beloved sense of him holding her close, and forever.

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Liaden 11 - Mouse and Dragon

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Al'bresh venat'i . . .

“Daav.”

From the silent, freezing dark of outspace, he took note. Of the word. And of the voice.

“Daav.”

He drifted closer. The word had a certain familiarity; there was a worn feel to the voice. It was not, perhaps, the first, or even the fiftieth, time it had spoken that word.

“Daav.” The voice caught. “Brother, I beg you.”

He was close now; close enough to know whose voice it was—one of two in all the universe, that might have called him back.

“Er Thom . . . ”

He felt—a grip. Fingers closing hard around his—around his hand. Yes. He gasped, groped, as if for controls, and opened his eyes.

For a heartbeat, there was input, but no information. Colors smeared, shapes twisted out of sense, a whispery keening disordered the air. The strong grip did not falter.

“A moment, a moment. Allow the systems to do their work, Pilot . . . ”

He had weight now, and a form that stretched beyond his hand. The colors acquired edges, the shapes solidified, the keening—he was producing that noise, dreadful and lost.

“Daav?”

He blinked, and it was Er Thom's face he saw, drawn and pale, lashes tangled with dried tears.

He licked his lips, and deliberately drew a breath.

“Brother . . . ”

The keening stopped, unable to fit 'round the fullness of that word, but the sense of it remained at the core of him, jagged with horror, blighted by loss.

Fresh tears spilled from Er Thom's eyes. He raised his free hand, and tenderly cupped Daav's cheek.

“Denubia, I thought you were gone from us.”

“Where?” he asked, meaning, Where would I have gone? but Er Thom answered another question.

“High Port Medical Arts.”

The hospital.

“Why?”

Er Thom moved his hand, smoothing Daav's eyebrows, brushing tumbled hair from his forehead.

“The response team brought you both in, of course,” he whispered; the tears were running freely now. “They—there was no visible wound, and yet—you did not wake. Your life signs grew weaker, and the Healers—Master Kestra herself—said she would not dare to intervene, for she did not know what she was seeing.”

The horror at the core of him grew toothier. He tried to pull his hand away, but Er Thom held on like a man with a grip on a lifeline.

“Aelliana?” he asked, and that was an error, for as soon as he spoke, he remembered: the shout, his turn, the sound of the gun, and Aelliana leaping, graceful and sure—her body torn by the blast, slamming into him, and a vortex of absence, sucking him out, out, alone, gone, dead . . .