The Dream Spheres - Elaine Cunningham [8]
Arilyn flung her knife onto the bed. "Damn it, Dan! Why do you insist upon creeping up on me like that? It's a marvel you're still alive."
"Yes, so I'm often told."
The silence between them was long and not entirely comfortable. Arilyn suddenly seemed to remember her disheveled appearance. Her eyes widened, and her hands went to her tousled hair. "The Gemstone Ball. I don't even have a costume yet."
He was absurdly pleased that she remembered and that she cared enough about his world to consider such matters. "If you like, we need not attend. After all, you've only just got back."
"Late this afternoon," she agreed, "after a long trip, and the last two nights of it steady travel. You're expected, though, and I promised to be with you."
She seemed to hear her words as he might, for her eyes grew dark with the awareness of other promises she had made, and not kept. She cleared her throat and nodded at the table. "What's in the package?"
Danilo allowed himself to be distracted. "When word reached me that you were delayed on the road, I took the liberty of acquiring an appropriately gem-colored costume."
"Ah. Let me guess: sapphire?"
They exchanged a quick, cautious grin. In their early days together, when Danilo went to great pains to convince her and everyone else that he was a silly, shallow dandy, he composed a number of painfully trite odes comparing her eyes to these precious gems. To drive the knife a bit deeper, Arilyn lifted one brow and began to hum the melody to one of these early offerings.
Her dry teasing shattered the restraint between them. Danilo chuckled and pantomimed a wince. "The best thing about old friends is that they know you well. Of course, that is also the worst thing about old friends."
"Old friends," she repeated. The words were delivered in level tones, but they held a question. Was this what they were destined to be-old friends, and nothing more?
Danilo had long sought an answer, and he thought he had finally found one that might avail. Arilyn's teasing comments made as good an opening as he could expect to get. Their lives might have changed, but one constant remained: the intense and often inexplicable love born on the day she had kidnapped him from a tavern. He ripped open the paper that bound the package and lifted from it a length of deep-blue velvet-a gown of exquisite simplicity, elf-crafted and rare.
"Sapphire," he confirmed with a grin, "with gems to match. I'll spare you the song I prepared for the occasion."
Arilyn chuckled and took the gown from his hands, then tossed it aside with the same casual disregard with which she had discarded the knife. Danilo opened his arms, and she came into them. "I have missed you," she murmured against his chest.
It was a rare admission from the taciturn half-elf. In fact, Danilo could count on his hands the times they had spoken of such matters since the night, four years ago, when they had planned to announce their betrothal at the Gemstone Ball. Events had forestalled this, rather dramatically, and had set their feet upon a path of deepening estrangement.
That path, he vowed, was to end this night.
He took her shoulders and held her out at arm's length. "Look further in the package. Look carefully at what you find, for you will never see it again so close at hand."
Arilyn gave him a puzzled smile, then did as she was bid. Her eyes widened as she drew a black, veiled helm from the wrappings.
"A Lord's Helm," she murmured, naming one of the magical artifacts that marked and concealed the Hidden Lords, men and women drawn from every walk of life to rule the city. Understanding flooded her face. "Yours?"
Dan nodded ruefully. "An uneasy fit it has been. Khelben foisted it upon me four years ago. I would have told you long before this, but…"
His voice trailed off. Arilyn gave a curt nod of understanding. It was common knowledge that the secret Lords told no one of their identity but the person they wed-and even