Chapter 7
DHOMHES
The search report blamed a fault line on the wrong side of the mountain.
Dhomhes read it again. It was midday on the third day since the ship's arrival, and the search was losing more time.
Elevated volcanic activity along the Verrek fault line. Ground operations suspended until conditions stabilized. Aerial observation to continue at a safe altitude.
It sounded responsible. Someone had taken care with that.
Verrek ran southwest of the burn quadrant. A major disturbance could still matter, but his father's monitoring net showed none. Of the instruments cited, one was reading normally. The other was absent from the current register.
He could hear his mother's voice. Check the instrument before you blame the rock.
He had checked.
His request for the readings came back through three offices without a single reading attached. Meanwhile, his father's cleared inspection unit and its operator were still waiting for release.
Dhomhes sent the discrepancies to the search commander and Stron's office, requesting an assessment from the actual feeds. He saved every version of the order before anyone could make the invented instrument disappear.
His next appointment waited on the display.
Head Hawn.
Dhomhes looked down at the sleeve he had rolled to his elbow. A dark smear marked the cuff. He had no idea how long it had been there.
He went to change.
Fiviel's ju-nak hung on the wall behind his father.
Dhomhes had seen it there before. Had heard Fiviel complain about the hours he spent maintaining its blades, then watched him nearly take Stron's fingers off for touching one.
Now the weapon was clean and waiting, and Fiviel was not here to object to anyone looking at it.
Head Hawn stood beneath the long spiral of his family's weapons. His hands were clasped behind his back. He had Fiviel's breadth through the shoulders, the same habit of lifting his chin a little when he expected to dislike an answer.
“Is my son dead?”
Dhomhes stopped a few paces away.
All the careful language he had brought with him seemed shameful now.
“I don't know.”
Hawn watched him.
“There are sections below the platform no one has reached,” Dhomhes said. “The fire and the damaged slopes have made the work difficult. I have no report that confirms his death. Or Graecey's.”
“I have reports.”
“I know.”
“Every day. Very courteous reports. Apparently everything is ongoing.” Hawn's mouth scarcely moved around the word. “I asked for you.”
Dhomhes held his gaze. “The search has been too slow. I am trying to change that.”
“Trying.”
“Yes.”
There was no useful way to make it sound better. He could have named the offices he had contacted, the requests he had filed. Hawn would still be standing under an unused weapon, waiting for his son.
“Fiviel said you could be relied upon,” the older male said. “That if you said a thing, you would stand behind it.”
Dhomhes looked at the ju-nak before he could stop himself.
Fiviel had gone after Graecey without hesitation. Dhomhes kept returning to that part, though it hurt no less for repetition. The others had been trying to get people away from the edge. Fiviel had seen someone already falling.
Of course he had gone.
“Then I will tell you what I can stand behind,” Dhomhes said. “I don't know whether he's alive. I won't ask you to mourn him on the strength of a report that says nothing.”
Hawn's hands tightened behind his back.
“And I will bring him home. If we can bring him to this door, we will. If he needs the rites, he will have them here. I won't let him be left on that slope because someone decides the search has gone on long enough.”
The hall was quiet. From farther inside the house came the faint sound of a vessel being set on stone.
Hawn turned toward the wall.
For a moment Dhomhes thought he had been dismissed. Then the older male reached up and touched the shaft of Fiviel's weapon, just beneath the lower blade.
“He put this away before he went to meet the ship.”
“Yes.”
“Said it might alarm the females.”
That was so entirely Fiviel that Dhomhes felt a smile begin. It failed before it reached his mouth.
“He may have been right.”
Hawn let his hand fall.
“Tell me when you know something. You. I am tired of speaking to people who will not answer a question.”
“I will.”
“Even if I won't want to hear it.”
“Even then.”
Hawn nodded once.
Outside, Dhomhes stood on the top step and fastened a cuff he had already fastened in the transport.
He had work waiting. Calls he could make from here. There was no reason to stand looking at his hands.
He stayed until he could trust himself to speak, then called his driver.
Sereya had found the courtyard pool.
She sat at its far end, a cup beside her and a narrow fold of russet fabric caught beneath one knee. There were two paths into the courtyard. From that bench she could see them both without turning her head.
Dhomhes slowed.
He had meant to cross through to his rooms. Sereya turned the cup in her hands, and the burn started low in his chest. Two days, and it had found him every time he came near her. He stopped on the path with his pulse beating hard and the familiar excuse of passing through already useless.
Roemary's account of the blasts still bothered him. That one word. Flushed. Where she had heard it. Sereya might know. It was a sound reason to stop, and he was uncomfortably aware of how eagerly he reached for it.
He could begin with the injured hand. Ask after her comfort. Or he could admit, at least to himself, that he would have wanted to sit beside her even if Roemary had never spoken to him.
Sereya looked up.
“I know you're not actually interested in talking to me,” she said. “What do you want to know?”
He stopped.
She waited, composed, with her uninjured hand resting beside her cup.
“You might give a male time to say good afternoon.”
“Would it have helped?”
He considered that.
“Apparently not.”
Her mouth moved. Not quite a smile.
“Roemary isn't here.”
“I can see that.”
“Then you either want me to find her, or you want to ask about her while she's gone.”
He had earned that.
The bench was wide enough for two, with room between. He indicated the empty end. “May I?”
Sereya moved her cup onto the pool's stone rim.
He sat. Water slipped over a shallow lip into the lower basin. Somewhere behind the greenery, an attendant was moving dishes. Ordinary sounds. No one asking him for the name of the person responsible for a forged report. No father waiting for news of a son.
Beside him, Sereya adjusted the cuff covering her dressing.
“You haven't answered,” she said.
“No. I haven't.” He rested his forearms on his thighs. “I did have questions about Roemary.”
“Did?”
“I find I don't much like the way I was going to ask them.”
She studied him. “You could ask plainly.”
“Another time. If I need to.”
“And this time?”
Dhomhes looked at the water.
He could leave. It would be the neatest ending to a poor beginning. Instead, he felt the stone warm beneath his palms and discovered that he wanted to sit here a little longer.
“I would like a few minutes without needing anything from anyone.”
Sereya's eyes went to his face. Whatever she found there made her look away again.
“That sounds nice.”
“Doesn't it?”
She picked up her cup, tasted what was in it, and lowered it with a small grimace.
“Except for the tea.”
“That bad?”
“It was lovely when it arrived. I've spent too long admiring the surroundings.”
“I can have more brought.”
“You've been here half a minute and already found something to arrange.”
He looked at her.
This time the smile escaped.
It changed her face enough that he forgot, briefly, what she had said.
Then she lifted one brow, and he laughed.
“A fair criticism.”
“I wasn't criticizing.”
“You were. Rather well.”
She leaned back a little. The hand at her cuff relaxed.
“Do you spend much time here?” she asked.
“In this courtyard? Almost none.”
“Then I may know more about it than you do.”
“An alarming possibility. Tell me something.”
“The pool is warm enough to put your feet in.”
He glanced at her shoes.
“Not now,” she said. “Yesterday.”
“I wasn't accusing you.”
“You looked as though you were about to.”
“I was considering taking mine off.”
She laughed then, a small surprised sound she tried to hide behind the cup.
There it was again. That urge to stay.
“You must be allowed,” she said. “Being a Gol-Vett.”
“I'm allowed a great many things that would cause considerable discussion if I did them.”
“Feet in the pool?”
“Someone would have to write to my father.”
“Would he mind?”
“He would want to know why I'd left my shoes where someone could trip over them.”
Her smile lingered. Dhomhes found himself watching it, relieved beyond reason to have put it there after his clumsy approach.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
She gave him a patient look.
He deserved that one too.
“I like your smile,” he said.
Sereya went very still. Then her fingers tightened around the cup.
“You could have said that.”
“I just did.”
“Before staring.”
“Would that have been better?”
She glanced down. “I would have known what you were looking at.”
He leaned toward her before he caught himself. Barely a movement, but she saw it; her eyes dropped to the space he had narrowed.
“Now you do.”
She looked at him again, and this time neither of them hurried to look away.
Warmth stirred along his spine. His armor lifted beneath the jacket, the same response he had felt when she stood at the top of the ramp.
He had told Khalzin they could control this. Standing on the platform, certain of himself, before he'd even seen her.
Two days of trying to explain it away had changed nothing. His body had recognized her. All he had managed was to keep the knowledge to himself.
“Is the stone uncomfortable?” Sereya asked.
“No.”
Her gaze flicked to his shoulder, then back to his face. A little color rose in her cheeks.
She had noticed. He owed her more than a joke about his jacket.
Sereya set down her cup. It rocked on the rounded edge, and they both reached to steady it.
His fingers closed over hers.