However, Daav was not.
He spun in a graceful arc, arms extended, as unhurried as if there were no possible danger, swooped the hurtling body out of the air and continued his spin, faster now, the child slung over his shoulder screaming with laughter.
Daav slowed, coming to a halt with his back toward her. Shan grinned at her, blithely upside-down.
“Hi, Aelli.”
“Hi, Shannie,” she returned, over the frenzied pounding of her heart. “Perhaps next time you might consider an approach less fraught with peril. How if your uncle had missed you?”
“Uncle Daav never misses,” Shan said comfortably.
The subject of this encompassing trust gave a shout of laughter, snatched the child off his shoulder and set him upright on his feet.
He dropped to one knee, and peered down into the small face.
“Even the quickest pilot sometimes misses,” he said, seriously. “And it is not at all the thing to be ambushing your kin from the shrubberies.”
Shan frowned uncertainly. “No?”
“No,” Daav said firmly. “Also, you had frightened my pilot, a circumstance of which I am required to take a very dim view, indeed.”
Silver eyes sought hers.
“Were you frightened, Aelli?”
“Yes,” she said, kneeling beside Daav on the grass. “I could see the path of your fall, and I could see that you would strike your head, and that I was too far away to catch you.”
“Oh.” Shan looked down, frowning ferociously.
“You see numbers,” he said at last, looking up again. “Like sparkles.”
She had previously been introduced to the concept of “sparkles,” by which Shan would have one believe that he could see another's emotions. It said much for the change in her circumstances, that she had not found this odd in the least, though he was young, so Anne had told her, to be showing Healing talent.
“Perhaps, a little,” she admitted. “Recall that I cannot compare directly, for I do not see sparkles.”
He nodded, and abruptly bowed.
“Forgive me,” he said formally.
Aelliana inclined her head. “It is forgotten,” she answered properly.
“Very well,” Daav said, rising. “Now, if you please, young pirate, lead us to your parents!”
Their arrival was greeted with embraces, and exclamations about timing and the luck. It transpired that Er Thom had only arrived home himself within the last two-day, and had scarcely, as he told Daav with perfect solemnity, had time enough to sort through his mail.
Shan being returned to the care of his nurse, with whom Daav had a quiet word apart, the adults repaired to the patio overlooking the twilight wild park, where a cold meal was served, over which she and Daav were quizzed on every detail of their trip.
Anne asked the majority of questions, while her lifemate contented himself with studying Daav's face, his displaying what Aelliana could only say was tenderness. It was very much pilot and copilot work, Aelliana thought, though she could not have said for certain who sat which board.
“No more!” Daav protested at last, falling back in his chair and raising his hands, as if in surrender. “You now have every crumb upon which we had hoped to dine out for the next relumma!”
Anne laughed.
“We won't tell a soul,” she promised. “Besides, you know that Lady yo'Lanna refuses to believe anything she hears of you, unless it comes from your own lips.”
“Whereupon she disbelieves it doubly! But, here—turnabout is fair play. Tell us all and everything that has happened to you while we were apart! And mind you tell it well!”
“I'm to be interviewer and interviewee? What will you do?”
“Sip my wine and be entertained,” he retorted. “I hope you don't believe that I memorized that long list of inquiry.”
She laughed, and shook her head, brown eyes dancing.
“If you want it then, laddie, here it is—I was dull and held at home, teaching my classes and playing with my son while Er Thom went out on the route. He came home once, between, and then we were merry.”
“A pleasant tale, if a short one. Brother? Have you nothing with which to embroider this spare narrative?”
“A single thread, I fear, though perhaps it will please.”
He extended a hand to his lifemate, who received it with a smile so brilliant Aelliana felt her eyes tear.
“yos'Galan will soon welcome a second child into the house.”
Anne laughed.
“Don't let him cotton you,” she said. “I'm only just caught, so it's more 'eventually' than 'soon.' ”
