The Shattered Land_ The Dreaming Dark - Keith Baker [79]
“Lei—what’s wrong?” He kept his voice low, trying to avoid drawing Gerrion’s attention.
She shook her head and looked away again, but she raised her left hand and clung to his arm. “I don’t know,” she said, a quaver in her voice. “It’s all so—chaotic. What’s happening to you. Lakashtai. She—I just don’t like her, but I wonder if I’m just jealous because she can help you and I can’t, and by the Nine, I died yesterday! I should be in the claws of the Keeper right now.” The dawn light caught the first glitter of a tear in the corner of an eye. “How am I supposed to feel?”
Daine put his hand on her cheek, turning her face toward him. Her fingers tightened around his wrist. “Lei …” his words felt like iron in his throat, but he forced himself to stumble on. “You’ve helped me in ways Lakashtai never could. I’d never have made it this far without you.”
She closed her eyes, and a tear ran down her cheek. He could feel her shivering.
“I don’t know what’s happening to me,” he said. “I don’t know what will happen, but we’ll survive it. We always do. A month from now, Lakashtai will be ominously helping some other poor soul, but still we’ll be together.”
“I know.” The sun broke the horizon, and the light turned her hair into a halo of copper flame. She opened her eyes again.
A moment passed before he even realized he was kissing her. The crashing water, the warmth of the rising sun, the feel of her skin against his—it merged together in a rush of emotion, a flood of sensation that swept all thought away.
Then she pulled back.
“This … we can’t,” she said, and now the tears were flowing. She put her hands against his chest and pushed him away, and she couldn’t meet his gaze. “You know that. We can’t.”
Daine was still dazed by the moment, by the release of the emotions he’d kept buried for so long. “What?” He kept his hands on her shoulders, and struggled against the urge to pull her back to him. “Why?”
She sighed, and despite the warmth of the sun she was shivering even harder than before. “I—I care about you, Daine. You know that. You’ve got to know that. You … Pierce … you’re the only family I have left.”
“Lei—”
“I always thought that there was something, that—behind your mockery of my life, my betrothal—that you felt something for me, even if you couldn’t say it. Even if I wouldn’t. What would have been the point? My path was already set in stone.”
“Lei. We were at war. You had a husband waiting for you. I … don’t think I even knew what I was feeling.”
“What does it matter?” she cried. She pushed him with unexpected strength, breaking his grip and knocking him back. “You told me! You’re Deneith! You know what that means!”
Caught by surprise, Daine had struck his head against the edge of the boat. Between the motion of the water and the ringing in his head, it was difficult to focus his thoughts. “I renounced the house before I even met you. It’s not part of who I am.”
“Of course it’s a part of who you are!” Lei rose to her feet, flinging the blanket aside. “It’s not something you can just abandon. It’s in your blood, and our blood can’t mix.”
Understanding washed over Daine. The politics of the dragonmarked houses were a complex dance of power, and Daine had assumed that this was what Lei was referring to. Now he remembered the stories he’d heard as a youth.
“You’re not serious. You’re worried about mixed marks? I don’t even have a dragonmark!”
“The potential is still in you. My blood would fight yours, and our child would suffer. Remember the Tarkanans?”
“Who’s talking about children?” Daine’s head was pounding, and not just from the blow. “I just thought we could comfort one another.”
“I’m from the House of Making,” Lei said. “We always look to the future.”
“You were.”
Lei’s eyes narrowed, and Daine knew he’d gone too far. He opened his mouth without knowing what he was going to say, just hoping to find some way to pull back that terrible mistake.
And the boat shook.
“Get down, both of you!”
In the heat of the moment, Daine had forgotten the