The Sea Devil's Eye - Mel Odom [29]
"Lady, I don't know what to think," he admitted. "These are very confusing times."
"For all of us." She held his gaze with her eyes and said, "When things get confusing, people who are together should be most truthful with each other."
"Aye."
Jherek's temples pounded. He hoped she wouldn't steer their conversation in a direction that would force him to lie.
"Your name isn't Malorrie."
"No. Malorrie is the name of a good friend and teacher."
"Your name is Jherek. I know you feel that you have reasons to conceal your identity. I promised you I'd never push you about it." Her eyes searched his and he saw the pain there. "But times have changed. I can no longer bide my own counsel. There are things I must know."
Jherek's stomach protested, wanting to purge its contents. Even though the wind raced over him to fill the sails, he felt like he'd come to dead calm inside, the last place a sailor wanted to find himself in an uncharted sea.
"Are you a wanted man, Jherek?"
"Aye."
Sabyna didn't bat an eye. She'd already been mostly certain of that, the young sailor knew.
"Is it for something you have done?"
"I've never done anything in my life to harm another soul out of greed or anger."
"I believe you," she said.
Relief flooded through Jherek.
"So your guilt, the price on your head, came from association with others?"
"Aye."
"So how did you come to be with these people that earned you the price on your head?"
"Through no fault of my own, lady," Jherek replied honestly. "It was ill luck."
"When did you leave them?"
"I was twelve," Jherek whispered.
"By the Lady's mercy," Sabyna said in a hushed voice, "you were only a boy."
Jherek remained silent, hoping she had probed enough. Every question she asked-skirting so closely to the truth he felt he needed to keep hidden-felt like a healer lancing an infected wound. Only in this there was no release from pressure and misery, only the promise of even more, sharper pain to come.
"What did they do?" Sabyna asked.
"Lady, please, I can't talk of it."
"Why? Jherek, don't you see that there doesn't have to be anything unsaid between us?"
Her question caught him by surprise. He shook his head, unable to voice what she wanted to hear.
"Lady, I would never have anything unsaid between us."
"But there is something?"
He couldn't answer.
"I told you before, when we first met on Breezerunner, that I could be very forward," Sabyna said. "Most men feel uncomfortable around a woman who knows her own mind. Sailors especially. They're not used to it."
"Aye, but that is not true of me. Sometimes," Jherek said quietly to give his words weight, "no matter how hard you struggle for something, it's not meant to be yours."
"Is that a threat?" Sabyna's voice hardened, but it was only a brittle shell over uncertainty.
The young sailor laughed when he wanted to cry. "No, lady. May Umberlee take me into her deep, dark embrace this very moment if ever there was a time I would intentionally hurt you."
"Back in the diviner's cave, she asked you what you believed in. You told her that you believed in love." Sabyna gazed deep into his eyes. "Did you mean that?"
Jherek hesitated, but in the end he knew she would know if he lied. "Aye," he said, "I believe in love. Perhaps, lady, it's the last thing I do believe in."
"So many things, evil as well as good, have been done in the name of love."
"There is no evil when the love is true," Jherek stated.
"How much do you believe that, Jherek?"
He shook his head. "Lady, with all that I am."
"Then how can you be so far from me? Surely you must know how I feel."
The question hammered Jherek like a fisherman's billy.
Tears trickled down Sabyna's face. "Never have I met a man," she said hoarsely, "that I've wanted as much as I want you. From the moment I saw you hanging onto Breezerunner's side scraping barnacles, to the time we sit here together. Yet you don't acknowledge it."
Helplessly, Jherek watched her cry, not knowing what to do or what to say except, "I didn't know."
Her eyes remained steady on him and dark sadness clouded