“And got yourself shot with an arrow,” Daks finished, frowning at her.
“Nobody’s perfect,” she replied, giving him a wry smile he rarely saw when they were outside of Samebar.
“I try to tell you that all the time and you get mad at me.”
Instead of laughing with him or giving him one of her stern, exasperated glares, her expression sobered. He squirmed under her continued study.
“What’s wrong, Shur?”
“I’ve missed you, Vaida….”
“But?”
She dropped her gaze and fiddled with the edge of the blanket draped across her middle, making Daks’s stomach twist. She was never shy. She never held back with him.
“Spit it out, Shur,” he poked, and she threw him a glare.
After taking a deep breath, she said, “You will want to return to your home as soon as you can with him, yes?”
“Not until you’re well enough to travel.”
She shook her head impatiently. “I know that. I know you would not leave me… unless I asked you to.”
That uneasy feeling in his stomach doubled. “Talk to me, Shur.”
“I am… conflicted. For the first time in many years, I… I want something solely for myself.”
“You know I’ll give you anything you want. Don’t be stupid.”
She leveled her dark gaze at him. “I want someone for myself.”
Daks followed her gaze past his shoulder, though no one was there. When he turned back to her, he was grinning. “Well, obviously, I can’t you give you that. But I won’t stand in your way. You know that. Go for it. What’s stopping you? Gods, Shur, you had me worried for a sec—”
“Will you be quiet for a minute?”
He blinked at her but clamped his mouth shut.
“It isn’t that simple anymore, Vaida,” she continued, sounding tired but determined. “Fara will not be accompanying us to Samebar. She has found the answers she was seeking here. We talked a great deal before the fever got bad.” She actually blushed, but cleared her throat and plowed on. “In Scholoveld, she would have to fight for information and deal and trade in foreign lands, the results of which are uncertain. While here, the brother and the wizard seem more than happy to share. Here, she has found possible allies for her cause and her people—much more than she would ever get coming with us—allies they’ll need.”
Conflicted, she’d said. His chest felt tight. He might be a little slow on the emotion front sometimes, but not that slow.
“Do you want to stay here with her?” he asked. “Is that what you’re telling me?”
She wouldn’t meet his gaze. “I am sworn to you.”
He sighed and took her hand. “That’s not what I asked, and you know it.”
Her hand tightened in his, and she met his gaze with tortured dark brown eyes. “I am oathbound.”
The best Daks could manage was a sad twist of his lips. “You know I never asked for that. You’re my partner. That’s how I’ve always seen it. I respect the ways of your people and I honor the gift you gave me, but I would never hold you to that if it stood in the way of your happiness.”
She stared unhappily back at him in silence until Daks squirmed under the weight of it. “You told me years ago, when I asked, that there was no way I could free you from your vow without bringing shame on you and your whole family, so I won’t ask again,” he continued soberly. “But is there a way I could, I don’t know, order to you stay and make sweet sweet love to Fara for a decade or something?”
Shura snorted out a laugh, as he’d hoped she would.
“Idiot,” she said as she pulled her hand out of his grip and slapped his arm.
“What? It’s a valid question.”
He glanced over at Ravi’s sleeping form, and his expression turned wistful. It seemed he and Shura both wanted things they hadn’t in a long time. Change wasn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Shura gripped his wrist, drawing his attention back to her. “Daks—”
He held up a hand to silence her. “Let me do some thinking, okay? Just give me a little while. You know the thinking part is harder for me.”
She rolled her eyes at him.
He rose and stretched stiffening muscles, trying to work the tension out of his neck. “Keep an eye on him. I’m not going far. I’ll be able to see if anyone other than Fara heads your way.”
“I will.”
At the door, he paused and threw what he hoped was a comforting smile over his shoulder. “We’ll figure something out. We always do.”
Outside, he found the nearest tree and slumped against it with a gusty sigh. People eyed him curiously as they went about their work, but he didn’t see anyone he knew, and almost everyone turned the other way under his forbidding glare, which was just fine with him. His head was throbbing, his skin felt too tight, and he needed time to think. Damn, he wished he still had some of that mead he’d dropped earlier, but he wasn’t going to risk dealing with anyone new right now to get it.
AFTER A brief scan of the area outside the building where he’d awoken, Ravi spotted Daks’s broad back leaning against a tree. He sat stiff and unnaturally still as strangers bustled around him, giving him a wide berth. That, combined with Shura’s oddly guilty look, made Ravi’s stomach churn even more than the Vision hangover.
“Daks?” he called, when he was within easy earshot.
Daks started, his face drawn and troubled when he met Ravi’s gaze. “Oh, hey. Feeling better?”
“Not much, but getting there. What happened?”
“You gave us another prophecy.”
He smiled gently and lifted his arm in invitation. Ravi should have been embarrassed at how quickly he rushed forward to accept it, but he was too tired for that. Daks’s arms
