bedroom door, straining to hear anything from the muted discussion inside. It was juvenile, I knew, but I couldn’t seem to help it. I had already been anxious about Sarah and Avva meeting so soon, though I’d done my best to hide my worry from Sarah, who had her own needless nerves to deal with. Little did she realize that far from disliking her, Avva was in much greater danger of becoming more attached than was good for him. I knew that as soon as he saw us together, he would not be able to stop himself from hoping.
Then Avva, on top of being so determined to request an audience, asked to speak with her alone.…
What for? What could he be discussing with her that he didn’t want me hearing? Was he telling her the parts that I had evaded giving so far? About her ultimate role in all of this? About his…fading?
I didn’t worry about him botching any explanation he saw fit to give—this was Avva, and unlike me, he almost always knew what to say and how to say it. He had a clarity of sight and way with words that I despaired of ever matching, even if I had another hundred and twenty years to strain at it. If he had been the one sent to find Sarah, she wouldn’t have been in this mess I’d brought on all of us, I was sure of that.
No, I worried about what he would convince her of, and what he would ask her to do because of it.
The only clarity Avva consistently lacked was about himself.
And yet, despite my best efforts at eavesdropping, I heard nothing except the unintelligible murmur of voices. Sarah spoke little, mostly listening. Though that fit in with what I knew of her so far, it was still worrisome. The long pauses in which I heard nothing weren’t reassuring, either.
Then, much sooner than I thought it would, the door opened. I happened to be pacing in the storage room’s direction, so I stumbled and hurried on another couple of steps before turning as innocently as I could manage when Sarah called my name.
“Ben.”
“Oh,” I said with overdone casualness. “Done already?”
I tried to examine her without being obvious about it, and my gut twisted. Her eyes glistened and looked red, as if she had been crying, and just before she answered, she sniffled.
“Yes,” she said, and then laughed weakly. She smiled and continued so quietly she must have been intending Avva not to hear. “I’m not sure how much more I could take, anyway.”
I knew what she meant. She had that look that I knew all too well: that one of wonder mixed with equal parts chagrin and adoration. Avva had that kind of effect on people, especially one on one. On anybody decent, anyway. If they weren’t decent…the adoration was replaced with the opposite feeling. Avva had made quite a few enemies for no other reason than he saw through them to their black hearts.
But if they had a heart as bright as Sarah’s.…
Well, let’s just say it was a good thing that Avva was over seven times her age and a committed widower, because she looked half in love with him already. And that bothered me more than it should have.
As I passed her in the doorway, I paused and put a hand on her shoulder in wordless comfort. She smiled up at me and put a hand over mine. “I’m fine,” she whispered. “Like you said…nothing to worry about.”
On the contrary, I thought with a mental groan as I passed her into the room.
At least as far as Sarah was concerned, their first meeting was every bit as bad as I’d feared it would be.
Sarah went out into the hall and back to whatever she had been doing before, no doubt to give me privacy, but I left the door open anyway. Avva had probably said all he had wanted to both of us.
“Well?” I asked him when I came into view.
“That will be all, I think, Koriben,” Avva said. He was leaning back in his chair, looking wearier than he had a right to be after just sitting in conversation for a half deken. I hated that weariness, and it was only becoming more frequent over the past year.
It made my father look…old.
“Avva.…” I trailed off, knowing how useless it was to scold or urge him to rest. Or ask, even circumspectly, just what had been discussed while I wasn’t in the room. If Avva wanted me to know what that was, he wouldn’t have asked me to leave.
As if he didn’t even hear me, he gazed without focus on something else on his wall, and his lips pulled into a slight smile. “She’s a rare one, son.”
My gut twisted again. I said with a shrug, “She’s a Tree’s chosen, so of course she is.”
Avva’s eyes flicked to mine, and his smile deepened, letting me know he, as always, saw more than I let on. More than I admitted to even myself. My flameheart thudded.
Mercifully, he didn’t press the point. Instead, he let his smile fade. “Take care of her.”
“I will.” This, at least, I could say with genuine feeling. “As I’ve said I would.”
Avva sighed. “I know you will. Forgive me. I just can’t help but.…”
He stared wistfully in the direction Sarah had gone. His look turned the twist in my gut into a knife.
Every bit as bad.
“Avva.…” I said uneasily. I inhaled deeply, trying to scent if Sarah was close enough to overhear. “You know that.…”
He waved a hand, smoothing out his expression. “I know that too. I have not forgotten. But I do not need your…intervention to call her my daughter. At least in private.”
I blinked. And felt rather stupid that the possibility hadn’t occurred to me. It was just…Avva had informally adopted so many dramá by this point that I’d taken his fathering instincts for granted. His nature was to help whoever needed him—whether or not they knew it or even wanted him to. Yet none of his informal “daughters” had seemed to quite fill that void I learned was inside him, the one that I could only halfway fill as a son.
There seemed to be something different about Sarah. No other young woman that he’d taken under his wing had brought that look of wistfulness to his eyes.
Avva continued with a thin smile. “Think of her as your sister, if that’s what you wish.”
That…didn’t sit right. At all. In fact, it kind of made my lunch sour in my already twisted and stabbed gut. And I did not appreciate Avva’s chuckle at my expression.
I braced my hands on the desk and lowered my voice. “Look, Avva, we can’t lose sight of—”
A hint of sternness entered Avva’s eyes. “I am not the one likely to lose sight of what must be, son.”
I put my face in my hands and prayed to the Tree for calm.
“Is that what you discussed with her?” I said from between clenched teeth, daring to push that far.
“Only in the briefest sense.”
I lowered my hands in surprise.
He met my eyes calmly. “I didn’t tell her…specifics. Today, I focused on her needs, not mine.”
I let out a breath of relief. Which was strange. Avva’s confession might have been the final capstone in Sarah’s decision to embrace her role and help us. But perhaps that was one reason I’d delayed telling her. Because as soon as she knew.…
She would think she had no choice.
Avva nodded slowly, as if reading my thoughts. “Don’t tell her just yet. She has too much to process and decide before then. My needs can wait.”
I agreed with the request but not the last sentiment, so I only nodded in grim assent.
His eyes softened, another kind of wistfulness entering them. “Take care, Koriben.”
I swallowed with difficulty. “I will, Avva.”
Trying to prevent any other gut-wrenching requests or looks, I reached up and touched his scale. Avva’s image faded, and it once again became simple gold.
I had only a moment to sigh before I felt the itch of my own scale, and a moment later, I recognized the touch. Sighing, I brought out my own scale, swapped it with Avva’s, and sat down. This would not be a restful call, either—especially since this was the third time she had tried to contact me that day. Then, with a last sigh, I touched my scale to accept the connection.
As I’d known it would, Svyer’s anxious face faded into being on the surface.
“Thank the Tree!” The relief gave way to fury. “I’ve been—”
“I know,” I said, letting my full exhaustion show as I propped my forehead on my hand. “I’ve been busy, Svyer.”
She took a deep breath, visibly trying to calm herself. “I get that. I do. And I’m not the type to badger—”
I snorted, and she huffed.
“I mean, badger you.”
At my raised eyebrow, she folded her arms and tapped a finger against her skin. “I mean when it isn’t important. But Ben, when I heard you hadn’t reached Kergin Hold.… And no one knew where you were.…”
I softened my expression. “I told Avva where we were—last night and this morning. He said he would pass the message on to the elders.”
“I know, and that’s why there hasn’t been a general panic. Still, they wouldn’t say where. You can’t expect me to have gotten a restful night’s sleep, not knowing if all of you were out in the middle of.…”
Her voice trailed off as her eyes darted around me to what she could see. Which clearly wasn’t in the middle of the Athalin Jungle.
Her eyes widened. “Where are you?”
I hesitated. I loved my cousin, trusted her, and knew how worried she must have been about me and her new chick. And yet, Avva and I both had agreed that specifics about this hold must not be shared. Besides, this wasn’t even our jurisdiction anymore—not ours to rule, and not ours to disclose. This hold was Sarah’s, and here, she answered only to her own Tree.
I heard a rap on the door, and when I looked, I saw Sarah standing tentatively just outside my threshold. “Is that…Svyer? I thought I heard her voice.”
Relieved, I waved her over. “Yes! It is. Come on in!”
Sarah brightened and hurried over. I tried to act casual as Sarah put her hand on my shoulder to brace herself as she leaned into view of the scale. But her touch, even through my shirt, and the swirl of her scent coming from her hair falling in front of me, made me hot and dizzy in the best—and worst—way. I found myself thinking of doing things I should not think of or do. Such as gently pulling her into my lap, immersing my face in her hair, pressing my lips to her throat.…
Sister! I chanted in my head, no matter how it turned my stomach.
“Svyer!” Sarah exclaimed, blessedly oblivious to what she was doing to me.
Cousin? Maybe second cousin. Three times removed.… No! Sister!
Svyer’s face similarly brightened, and she grinned as if the two of them hadn’t seen each other in months, rather than only a day.
“Sarah! How are you? Are you alright? You look alright, but are you? Has Ben been taking care of you?”
Sarah laughed. “What do you want me to answer first?”
Using every ounce of my willpower, I began scooting out of the chair—and away from Sarah. If my face looked as hot as it felt, I hoped they pinned it down to masculine embarrassment. “I’ll just let you girls get caught up, shall I?”
Sarah readily took the chair I’d vacated, but her beaming look of thanks was another dagger to my greatly abused gut. “So sorry for hijacking another conversation.”
“Please,” I said, gesturing at the scale. “Svyer didn’t want to talk to me, anyway. I was just the one she could get ahold of.”
“That’s not true,” Svyer said, rolling her eyes. “I was worried about you, too, you big lug.”
“And on that touching note, this lug is leaving, before he becomes irrelevant.” But I winked at Sarah to show her I didn’t take it amiss.
She grinned at me, grabbed my hand with both of hers (tangling my intestines in another knot), and mouthed Thank you.
I smiled as best as I could as I pulled away from her and left without another word—trying hard not to feel as if I were fleeing for my life. But Sarah’s handprint was burned into my shoulder, and her scent followed me far longer than it had any right to.
I braced my hands on the balcony railing in the central chamber of the hold and took in great gasps of clear air. Once my head cleared and the brand faded, I looked up at the waterfall. Grimly, I suppressed every unbrotherly impulse I felt toward Sarah with a ruthlessness I hadn’t ever had to use before.
Ever since my vow years ago, I’d had a lot of practice ignoring the way females made me feel—a trait that came in handy as a single Heir around plenty of skillful coquettes who wanted nothing more than to become a King’s consort one day and were willing to use quite a few tricks to get to their goal. We dramá were a touchy race, so I’d had to learn how to avoid or keep those casual touches from becoming anything more—and to control myself when my guard slipped.
But never had I had as much difficulty recovering as I had just then, much less when the touch was so innocent. Perhaps that was the problem: Sarah had no ulterior motives. She simply was comfortable around me, trusted me. Wanted nothing from me except friendship.
Blessed Flame.…
That was a heady blend I had never tasted before. And it was utterly intoxicating.
How am I going to do this? I thought. Even now, just the thought of her.…
Heat rose, my flameheart thudded, and I gripped the stone railing with renewed tension.
But the waterfall only roared on, silent to my question.
Perhaps the only advice I was ever going to get came, ironically, from my father. Even if Sarah refused her title, Avva had made it clear that she was going to remain a part of our lives from now on. And that was good. That was what I wanted. Because as much as it was going to hurt to keep my distance, I knew it would hurt far worse to keep us apart. I needed Sarah now, separate from what I needed her to be, to do. Now that I’d had a taste of her friendship, I knew I couldn’t go back.
But that made it even more necessary to do nothing to poison it, to betray her trust or ruin her comfort. So, I would take Avva’s teasing advice far more to heart than he’d meant me to.
I brought Sarah’s face to my mind’s eye. Then I said the word—this time with grim determination. Sister.
I ignored the wrongness that echoed like a discordant chord through my whole being and repeated the word firmly. I don’t know how long I stood there, repeating the word, but I didn’t stop until I had iced the heat and numbed the wrongness to silence. Hopefully for good.
Sister.
That’s what she would be to me. Even if it killed me.