The Farther Shore - Christie Golden [56]
She licked her full lips. They were already burned and cracking. “If you’re sure ...”
“Of course I’m sure.”
Allyson smiled, sweetly, gratefully. She took the waterskin and drank every last drop. “I’m sorry!” she said as she realized what she had done. “I shouldn’t have ...”
[166] “Don’t worry. They’ll give us water again in a few hours.” At least I hope so.
She was still looking at him, smiling a little. “You remind me of my uncle Alexander.”
“Was he strong, brilliant, and incredibly handsome?”
Allyson laughed aloud at that. “He was the nicest man I ever knew. I never knew my Dad, so he was ... he was more like my Dad than anything else. He was the one who encouraged me to try painting. He saw something in me that no one else did.”
A trumpet blew. Allyson flinched visibly, and the fear settled on her features like snow on a flower.
“They just want us to get back to work,” he said. “That part of the monument is in shadow. Maybe we can go over there. It won’t be as hot.”
He headed toward the shadow of the great pyramid, hoping he was right. Allyson followed him like a shadow herself, occasionally reaching to touch him so they would not lose one another as they made their way through the throng of organic slaves. Her touch was light, like a butterfly.
She herself was like a butterfly, bright and fragile. Vassily resolved at that moment that no harm would come to the child. He’d protect her—with his life if necessary. And for the hundredth time since his abduction, anger boiled inside him toward Oliver Baines.
Chapter 14
B’ELANNA TORRES stared, disbelieving, up into the face of her mother. For a long moment, their gazes locked, and then Miral rolled onto the ground, releasing her daughter.
“Mother,” B’Elanna breathed. “I did it. I really did it. I found you.”
Miral snorted. “I think rather that I found you, little one. Don’t you know that building a fire in the wilderness is a sure way to attract trouble?”
Torres stared. Part of her wanted to cry. She couldn’t believe it. After all she’d undergone, after leaving a husband and an infant behind, all she was getting from her mother was still more criticism.
The other part of her was angry. How dare Miral do this to her?
But Miral had risen and moved over to the campsite. [168] She took a sharp breath and turned eyes glowing with renewed appreciation on her daughter.
“You made a kill, ’Lanna. A good kill. But you should have eaten the meat raw. It is not so cold that you need a fire’s warmth to survive.”
Finally, B’Elanna found her voice. “Well hello, B’Elanna. Glad you’re not dead. Hope you had a good seven years in the Delta Quadrant. Thanks for coming to find me, for leaving your husband and your friends and your career and your three-week-old infant daughter and caking yourself with filthy—”
“Daughter?” Miral had picked up a stake and had been about to take a big bite of the roasted meat, but now she stared. “You have ... you have a daughter?”
Torres blinked hard. She would not let her mother see this weakness. “I do. I got married, and I gave birth to a daughter nine weeks ago. I left her when she was three weeks old to come find you. I’ve been away from her for two thirds of her life because of you. What was this all about, Mother? Why did you put me through this? I could have died out here, for no good reason!”
She realized she was shouting now. The pain was almost unbearable. This was not how she had imagined encountering her mother. B’Elanna had envisioned a joyful reunion, with hugs, even. Maybe. But at the very least she expected some gratitude for undertaking the Challenge.
“A grandchild,” Miral said, her voice going strangely husky.