29
When Sean reported the contact with Dillon, Cylian needed a few moments to accept that an action she’d thought impossible had happened. Then she left and returned with Carver, whose own set of questions pretty much matched Cylian’s.
Sean did not mind their interrogation, not even with the clock ticking in the background. He needed to fit his experience into the realm of possible. Carver then described for Cylian the events leading up to the alien invasion and the role those thought-bombs had played. She had heard it all before, but this was different. This was not some past improbability. This was now.
After Carver left to obtain the gold, Cylian insisted on preparing Sean and Aldo a meal. The senior Messenger who had deposited Dillon on the rogue planet was sent to her balcony. Cylian asked Sean to join her in the kitchen. She set him to washing and chopping vegetables, then said, “Your brother is a complete and utter rogue.”
“No argument there,” Sean replied. “Is that why you like him?”
“I never said . . .” She bit her lip. “You are every bit as much a rogue as he. Handsome adventurers with cavalier spirits.”
“No one has ever called me handsome before,” Sean said.
“It’s true nonetheless.” Her voice carried a new undercurrent, a soft music that rushed electric currents through his gut.
Sean asked, “How old are you?”
“Almost thirty in Serenese years.”
Which made her twenty-four in Earth years. He said, “Dillon and I are twenty-five Serenese, almost twenty-six.”
She stirred a sauce on the stove, her eyes fastened on her work. “You appear much older.”
Abruptly Sean realized the discussion was no longer about Dillon. And Sean found it necessary to focus hard on the knife and the veggies. “Thanks, I guess.”
“I am told high levels of danger and peril will do that,” Cylian went on. “Not to mention a broken heart.”
He turned around and stared at her back. “You know about Elenya?”
“I am now assigned to her father’s staff. I made it my business to know.” She paused, then asked, “Do you consider her a bad woman?”
He watched her reach into the shelves for a glass vial and sprinkle some spice into the sauce. A new fragrance filled the air, one he didn’t recognize. “No. Causing a bad end to our relationship doesn’t change her nature.”
“I don’t understand the question. I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Some strong people who are crushed by love, they see the world through rage and a need for vengeance on the innocents who pass their way.”
Sean hesitated, then asked, “Is that what happened to you?”
When she turned around, he was half expecting to confront the frigid mask, the hyper-intelligence, the blank gaze. Instead, she said, “My story will come another time. If you like. Right now I am asking about you.”
“The challenge is not to survive,” Sean replied. “What I need to do is grow into something better.”
The tip of her tongue emerged and touched her upper lip. But whatever she was about to say was halted by the Messenger entering the kitchen and demanding, “How much longer will you be? Whatever you’re making smells both ready and fabulous, and I’m famished.”
They ate on Cylian’s veranda, a broad outdoor parlor that overlooked Serena’s placid sea. During the meal, she and Aldo gave Sean an overview of the Cygneus system. They dined on a grain very similar to brown rice and vegetables cooked in a spicy sauce. When the table was cleared, Cylian asked if Sean had any questions.
“Most of what you’ve said, I already learned for class,” Sean replied. “But I didn’t mind hearing it a second time.”
Carver arrived then, dressed in his formal Praetorian officer’s uniform. He set a leather satchel on the veranda floor, listened as Cylian recapped their discussion, then said, “The Ambassador is waiting for me. The evening reception is under way.” He nodded to Sean. “Stay safe. Return with the evidence we require.” And he was gone.
The hour of their departure was fast approaching. Over a final mug of tea, the Messenger nervously described the chaos of their arrival. “Your brother was as calm as a seasoned general.” He hesitated, then confessed, “I fell apart.”
“The first time I was in a live-fire exercise,” Sean replied, “I froze.”
“I don’t believe that,” Cylian said. “Not for an instant.”
“I lay flat on this massive pillar and tried to dig my fingernails into the stone,” Sean recalled. “Dillon was singing. And laughing. I hated him.”
“Your brother pushed me down and saved my life in the process,” Aldo said. His smile was slightly canted. “I hated him as well.”
As the final minutes counted down, Aldo started sweating so hard he stained his uniform collar. He fretted, “We don’t even know if your brother is alive, and here we are risking another life, carrying more gold—”
“Give me a minute alone with Sean, please,” Cylian said. When Aldo remained standing in her parlor, she walked over, gripped him by the arm, and led him back onto the veranda. She shut the door, swept drapes over the glass, then turned to Sean and declared softly, “Time is not our friend today.”
He didn’t know what to say to that.
She closed the distance between them. “I will be direct with you out of necessity. Your brother is nice, and I’m sure he is a very fine Praetorian. But he does not interest me. Not emotionally.”
“Sure, I get that,” Sean replied. “I figure Dillon does too. Flirting is just his way—” He stopped in mid-flow because she reached out and pressed one finger into the center of his chest.
“You, on the other hand, most certainly do.”
Sean had no idea how to respond.
“I have been attracted to you since I watched you in court. Perhaps even before then. In the prison great room you were completely in charge of our conversation. Under such pressure, your freedom at stake, you defied the Assembly’s might and made a mockery of Kaviti’s authority.”
Sean just stood there, a stone statue entitled Man with Gaping Mouth.
“I know Elenya personally,” Cylian went on. “Would you like to hear why I think she left you?”
Sean managed a nod.
“She saw in you what I do. You are born to lead.” Her voice lowered to a rich burr. “But I think Elenya wants to be the leader in her family. The only leader. She spent her early years fighting her father’s authority. She did not want to play that same role in her own family. I don’t think she realized this until your relationship began to mature.”
Sean was close enough to see gold flecks in Cylian’s smoky gaze. Close enough to catch a hint of some exotic fragrance. He managed, “What do you want in a relationship?”
She smiled, clearly approving of his question. She whispered, “Come back and find out.”
Then she kissed him.