'Perspective about what?'
'About the nature of goodness. It's not so easy to explain. I'm not sure I understand it myself.'
'I'm not sure I want to,' Kaanyr countered, waving her away.
'Oh, but you will hear what I say!' Aliisza shouted, angry at his flippant dismissal. 'You are the one who subjected me to it, so you are damn well going to hear me out!'
Kaanyr glowered at the alu, but he finally nodded once, almost imperceptibly. 'Because it's you,' he said.
A flood of old emotions rushed through Aliisza, but she pushed them away and continued. 'I came to understand that I could give myself up, make myself vulnerable, and allow myself to care about others before myself,' she said. 'I learned to surrender to caring, because it can come back tenfold, if you let it. I know it doesn't make any sense to you, because you did not go through what I did, but trust me, there can be times when the benefit you reap is worth the price you pay.'
She could tell by the look on Kaanyr's face that he either didn't understand what she was talking about or didn't care to. She pushed on without letting him interrupt.
'I think Zasian understood what would happen to me and simply lied to you. He might have told you that Tauran's efforts would involve coercion or divine trickery, but that's not how it happened. I came to those conclusions on my own. All Zasian did was plant a trigger that would remind me of who I was before-snap me out of it, if you will.'
Kaanyr pursed his lips in thought. 'So, where do things stand for you now?' he asked. 'Whose side are you on?'
'That's just it,' Aliisza said, rising from the bed to begin pacing. She had to choose her next words very carefully. 'I'm not on anyone's side.'
'So you believe this nonsense that the angel spouts?' The cambion's voice dripped with disgust. 'Or else you claim to in order to torment me.'
'No!' Aliisza said, turning to face him. She clenched her hands, feeling helpless to explain. 'Not like that,' she said, but her voice was faint. She knew Kaanyr wouldn't believe her. She didn't believe the words herself.
The reward you reap is worth the price you pay.
'I love four men,' she said at last, blurting it out before she could think about it.
Kaanyr raised one eyebrow. He looked almost bemused. 'That's just not a word I hear from your lips, lover,' he said, then, when he realized his own irony, added, 'at least not used in that way.'
Aliisza almost chuckled. He thought her notion of being in love was stranger than the fact that she shared it among four men. 'I love each of you in a very different way,' she said, 'and I will not demean any of it by trying to explain them all to you.'
'How noble of you,' he countered. That sardonic tone was back.
'But know that you are one of them,' she said, staring him straight in the eye. 'Despite everything that has happened, despite all that you have done to me, I am still yours, lover.' She almost felt herself slip into that provocative, purring tone of voice. She resisted it.
Kaanyr smirked. 'You have a strange way of showing it,' he said. 'Most of my lovers don't trick me into entering subservient arrangements with angels.'
Aliisza smiled sheepishly in spite of her pounding heart. 'I know,' she said. 'I was angry with you. I wanted to punish you.'
Kaanyr raised that single eyebrow again. 'Punish me?' he asked. 'I don't take too kindly to punishment,' he said. 'From anyone,' he added. His voice carried a dangerous edge to it.
Aliisza did allow herself to slip into that familiar role of temptress then. She sauntered over to Kaanyr. 'Perhaps,' she said, and she was almost surprised at how smoky her voice had become, 'but I do.' She closed the distance until she was standing directly in front of him. She cocked her hips to one side and rested her hands on them. 'Aliisza's been a good girl,' she said softly. 'Make her bad again.'
She held her breath, wondering if it would work.
Kaanyr sat very still, though the alu could see the muscles of his neck working as he swallowed several times. She knew she was getting to him.
'Why are you still here?' he asked, his own voice soft. 'You can flee whenever you want. So why remain, be that angel's lackey?'
Aliisza cast a glance toward the open balcony, saw the roiling storms beyond the opening, and returned her gaze to the cambion's face. Don't think I haven't thought about it, she thought. Almost every second since we got tossed back in here. 'Because I want to stay with you,' she answered, and it was the truth.
Kaanyr nodded. 'And who are the other three?' he asked.
Aliisza fought not to show her fear. What will you do when I tell you? she wondered. She took a deep breath. 'One, I love like a mother. One, like a daughter. And one no longer even lives,' she said. 'But the only one that matters right now, I love in the most mischievous way possible.'
Kaanyr smiled then and reached for Aliisza at last.
CHAPTER FIVE
'But this is a matter of honor!' Tauran argued, his voice rising. It echoed throughout the hemispherical chamber, reverberating back against Kael as he and the deva stood before the Council. Its members sat arrayed in a semicircle, nine solars in all. Each one rested upon a thronelike chair arranged on a raised, curved dais around half the chamber. Kael never liked having to peer upward to face the members. Their silvery faces and golden eyes were inscrutable, and it always left him with the feeling of being on trial.
Perhaps we are on trial, he thought. The whole House has lost its senses. They've never questioned Tauran like this before.
Somewhere beyond the chamber, muted rumbles reverberated from the growing chaos sweeping the plane. Kael could feel the power of the storms in the stones beneath his feet. The entire Court of Tyr shook with the energy of the gods' argument.
So much anger, Kael thought, dismayed. So much energy wasted. Surely they should be-No. Do not think that way.
Do not try to fathom the depths of the gods, he told himself. Serve them well.
Tauran continued. 'I made a bargain with the two of them, and I gave them my word.'
'That may be,' said the High Councilor, sitting in the very middle of the assemblage. 'But in this instance, it might not have been yours to give. There is much occurring here that we do not yet understand, and you risk not only your own reputation within the Court, but the well-being of many that dwell within the House.'
'They agreed to be bound by obligation,' he said, as if that answered all the Councilors' doubts. Kael suspected it did not, and he wondered why. What has Tauran ever done to make you doubt? he wondered, frustrated.
'One of them agreed, Tauran, not both,' the High Councilor said. 'The cambion is an easy read. He is as manipulative and cunning as he is corrupt, and he will cause you trouble. She, on the other hand, is an unknown factor in all of this, and she has already violated numerous laws as our guest.'
Tauran nodded and spread his hands in supplication. 'I cannot defend all of Aliisza's actions to this point, Councilors, but I can also see how our influences have begun to affect her. She has behaved with more compassion than even I would have imagined. She risked injury to herself in order to save a pair of young petitioners in that village today. I believe she has started down a path to redemption.'
Kael frowned while listening to Tauran describe Aliisza's selfless act. Redemption? That did not fit the image of her in his mind. Would she have saved them without the protection of your bargain? he wondered.
'This is the third time you have come before us concerning this being, Tauran,' another of the Councilors said, her feathered wings fluttering behind her to show her impatience. 'Each time before, you have asked us to accept your wisdom, to trust you in these matters, despite our better judgment. In both cases, events did not play out as you expected.'
Kael saw Tauran shift from foot to foot, saw the deva's own wings flutter in agitation. He had never seen the
