by Nalini Singh
“Are we in the right place?” Stefan’s voice was dark velvet against her senses.
She gave a jerky nod. “This way.” Taking his hand, she led him through night-dark streets to a home with a simple door that she knew led to a spacious, graceful courtyard within. It wasn’t locked when she tested the latch, and, heart thudding, she dared walk into the paved front entranceway before sneaking around to the side gate to enter the main courtyard.
A tiny red light flared in the dark just as her foot touched the courtyard. Tazia froze. “Teta.” Her voice shook, her eyes wet.
Dropping her sneaky rolled cigarette, her grandmother rose and almost ran to her. “Tazi, it’s you,” she said joyously in a language Tazia hadn’t heard for years. “My sweet Tazi come home at last.”
Letting her grandmother’s wrinkled arms wrap around her, Tazia allowed the tears to fall. Beside her, Stefan remained a quiet, dark statue. When her grandmother drew back, her own eyes were red, her cheeks wet. “So long you have been gone, Tazia.”
“I wasn’t wanted,” Tazia said. “You know I wasn’t wanted.”
“Pfft!” Her grandmother waved her hand, but there was sadness in her eyes for the years lost. “Come, sit with your teta.”
They sat, her grandmother tiptoeing inside to make them cups of sweet milk tea, over Tazia’s protests, and bring out tiny cakes flavored with almonds and figs. “Your young man is very quiet.”
“Yes,” she said, her gaze meeting Stefan’s.
He’d pulled away the scarf from his mouth and nose to bare his face, a face that was so precious to her now.
“So.” Her grandmother narrowed her eyes at him, switching languages at the same instant. “What are your intentions toward my Tazi?”
Coloring, Tazia went to speak, but Stefan beat her to it. “I would marry her if she will have me,” he said, and her heart thundered. “Yet I cannot, not in a way that could get back to the Council.”
“You’re Psy then.” Her grandmother nodded. “If it’s marriage you want, then there are ways.”
“Teta Aya, as soon as we file the paperwork,” Tazia said, all the while wanting to run into Stefan’s arms, “the Council will—”
“Pfft!” Her grandmother waved her hand again. “Paperwork is a creation of the modern world. Do you think they had paperwork four hundred years ago—no, all they had was love and witnesses. That is how my great-grandmother many times removed was married, and no one said she was unmarried.”
Tazia’s nails dug into her palms. “Will you give us your blessing?” At least one of her family would bless her marriage.
“Always.” Her grandmother put down her tea and cupped Tazia’s face in her soft, warm hands. “You are my grandchild, Tazia. Always you will be my grandchild, should you decide to marry a goat.” A twinkling laugh. “Though your young man is no goat. He is handsome and will help you make beautiful babies.”
Said in English, the words had Tazia blushing and refusing to look at Stefan. For an instant, she almost felt like a bride, shy with her would-be husband, and then the moment passed. Still, the cold within her was not so bad anymore, not with her grandmother’s hands warm on her face. “I love you, Teta.” It was a balm on her soul, the knowledge that at least one person in her family still accepted her.
Her grandmother shook her head, her lips suddenly set in a thin line. “Wait.” Heading inside, she was gone for so long that Tazia began to worry. When she did walk out, it was to tug Tazia inside.
“I can’t,” she whispered, heart in her throat.
“Shh.” Her grandmother glanced at Stefan. “You will wait here.”
Stefan inclined his head in a respectful nod, as if understanding that while Teta Aya was old, she was a power.
Quiet as a whisper, they tiptoed through the house until her grandmother brought her to a standstill in front of the open door to her parents’ bedroom. Given that that door was never open at night, Tazia knew what her grandmother had been up to when she first came in. Leaning into the doorway, Tazia looked at the sleeping faces of her parents and cried silent tears.
I’m sorry I wasn’t the daughter you wanted me to be.
Knowing she couldn’t chance staying too long, she was about to leave when her grandmother pointed to something on the bed stand. Frowning, she squinted . . . and felt her whole world tilt sideways. Half a year ago, Alaris had allowed a photographer to come on board, do a photo essay. To her extreme embarrassment, a wrench-carrying Tazia had ended up on the cover of the magazine—in blue coveralls and complete with a streak of grease on her cheek as she stood laughing beside the guts of the facility.
That image sat lovingly framed in pride of place on the bed stand, beside photos of her brother’s family. Shaking, she stepped back and out of the house. “Thank you, Teta.” For giving her a gift of love that could never be stolen from her.
Her grandmother’s hug was fierce. “You make us all proud, though some are too stubborn to show it.” She kissed Tazia’s cheeks. “Your father, he misses his small spark so fiercely. If only you weren’t as stubborn as one another.”
Tazia frowned. “I’ve tried so many times.”
“Letters? Money?” Scowling, her grandmother shook her head. “You are the child, Tazi, a beloved child. If you wish for forgiveness, you must ask for it in person, as is respectful.”
“She doesn’t need forgiveness for she has committed no crime,” Stefan said into the quiet, her grandmother having spoken in English.
Rolling her eyes, Teta Aya looked from one to the other. “Foolish children. It may be truth that you committed no crime, Tazi, but you broke your father’s heart.” The words hurt Tazia’s own heart. “Whether he was right to feel thus is irrelevant; whether he is being a stubborn goat who is wrong in his thinking is irrelevant. Do you understand?”
Tazia stared at her grandmother’s wise and elegant face, nodded slowly. “He can’t set aside his pride, so I must set aside mine.” When Stefan stirred, she knew he didn’t understand. “My father is a wonderful man,” she told him, “but if he has a flaw, it is that he can’t bear to be wrong.” She touched her fingers to Stefan’s jaw. “I don’t mind bowing my head to him, Stefan. He is my father and I can forgive him this flaw.”
Stefan nodded. “I understand now, Tazi. We are none of us perfect.” He stroked her hair. “And you are strong enough to be the one who bends.”
“Ah, he understands you.” Her grandmother smiled in beaming pride. “Yes, my Tazi bends, she does not break.”
Turning, Tazia went to ask her grandmother how she could do this, how she could meet her father and apologize in a way that would let him save face with the village, when there was a noise in the doorway to the house. “Tazia?”
Her blood a deafening rush in her ears, she turned to find her father there; her mother stood behind him, her eyes sheened wet and a trembling hand raised to her mouth. There was no time to think, no time to come up with a plan, to work it all out. Wanting to wrap her hand tight around Stefan’s but knowing that wouldn’t be acceptable, not yet, she instead clasped her hands in front of her and bowed her head.
“I’ve come to ask forgiveness, Father,” she said softly, barely able to hear her own words through the pained hope that was the hard beat of her pulse. “And your blessing on my marriage.”
A gasp from her mother, silence from her father for so long that she began to worry . . . but then she saw his slippered feet in front of her, felt his hand on her hair. “So now you think to marry a man I do not know.”
Tears in her throat, she swallowed. “That’s why I’ve come home, Father. So you could meet him.”
“Why should I listen to a daughter who takes so long to come home?”
That was when Tazia knew she’d been forgiven, because that was how her conversations with her father had always gone when she’d done something wrong. And her answer was the sa
me as it had ever been. “Because I am your spark who does not always do what she should.”
Enclosing her in his arms, her father squeezed her so tight that she couldn’t breathe. She didn’t care, and when her mother tugged her away to clasp her close, both of them crying, she forgot the world . . . but never Stefan. Wiping away her tears, she went to introduce him to her father but her mother squeezed her hand in a silent warning, a reminder that the man who came to ask for her hand would be judged on his own strengths and merits.
“So,” her father said to Stefan, “you wish to marry my daughter.”
“Yes. I am Stefan Berg.” Stefan bowed his head enough for respect, but not enough that it would be seen as obsequious. “I would walk proudly with her, but to do so would put her at risk, so I ask you to give her to me in secret—I promise you I will guard her honor with my life, for I have no life without Tazia.”
Her father’s eyes were unreadable. “Come, Stefan Berg.”
Watching after them as they walked off into the darkness, Tazia looked desperately to her grandmother. Who shook her head and said, “Sit, talk with your mother. If the man is worthy of you, he will prove his worth.”
“He’s never prepared for—”
“Who prepares?” her mother interrupted, eyes still teary. “Your father, he almost sweated off half his body weight when he came to ask my father for my hand after seeing me at a festival.”
Nerves fluttering, Tazia nonetheless allowed her mother to lead her inside the house and to the kitchen. There, Kaya Nerif bustled around, making more tea and setting out snacks. “Mother,” Tazia said, “this is a lot of food.”
“Of course it is.” Her mother tapped her on the cheek, then leaned down to press her lips to Tazia’s forehead. “We’ll have much talking to do if you are to be married before you leave—and others will come.”
“No.” Panic and fear bloomed in Tazia’s heart. “We have to be careful. Stefan—”
“Is Psy.” Her mother smiled. “I know, baby. Your brother, his wife and child, your friend Mina, who, you will be glad to know, has been cross with us this whole time.” Her voice shook and she came to take Tazia into her arms again. “I am so sorry, my baby, but I had to stand with him in public. You two always made up before—I expected you would again in a heartbeat.”
Tazia hugged her mother, the two of them rocking one another gently. “It’s all right,” she whispered, knowing her mother had been caught in a hard place. “I expected the same. I just . . . I didn’t know I could simply come home.”
“That is our fault,” her mother said and her grandmother nodded. “We didn’t love you enough that you ever doubted that.”
Tazia started crying again. “No, you loved me so much.”
They cried many more times through the hours, and in between the tears, Tazia learned that while her parents had given the money she’d sent to the holy man, they had done so as an offering, asking the holy man to pray for a cherished daughter who was alone so very far from home. More tears fell then, and all their eyes were red rimmed by the time her father and Stefan returned home.
Tazia was at the table rolling out sweet dough for tiny pastries, while her grandmother drank strong coffee in a small cup, and her mother put together fresh fruits and breads for breakfast. None of the food, Tazia was happy to see, would challenge Stefan.
Neither man said anything as they took their seats at the table with Teta Aya, the huge wooden sprawl of it big enough that Tazia could continue rolling out the dough as dawn colored the sky outside and the men ate. She was bursting to ask what had happened, but she knew she had to be patient, wait for her father.
He laughed suddenly, eyes on her. “Still my spark, so impatient!” Kissing his wife’s hand as she came to put tea in front of him and Stefan, he said, “We will hold your wedding in the courtyard at dawn tomorrow, while the village sleeps.
“Today, you will rest, then you and your man will spend time with your family, and the villagers will know only that my Tazi has come home to ask her family’s blessing on her marriage, for she is a cherished daughter who knows that family is everything.”
• • •
Tazia had no private time with Stefan in the hours that followed, the two of them surrounded by family at every instant. Despite her mother’s urgings, she didn’t sleep, not even for an hour or two—she didn’t want to waste a moment. Joy filled her veins at being with those she loved, and she kept looking over to check that Stefan was all right, especially when her brother insisted that he hold the baby.
Taking the fat, happy babe gingerly into his arms, Stefan looked very carefully into the child’s face. “Your son’s eyes are Tazia’s,” he said at last.
Tazia’s brother grinned and looked to his wife. “Did I not say the same when he was but two days old?”
Tazia’s sister-in-law, a sweet woman, smiled affectionately. “You did.” Turning to Tazia, she said, “He insisted our son’s second name be Tazir.”
Tears burned Tazia’s eyes again, and then she was being hugged by her brother, who whispered, “Why did you never sneak in to see me?” A question that held hurt and anger both. “I waited for you.”
Tazia sobbed. “I thought you were angry with me.”
“I was—but you are my sister.” A crushing squeeze. “I will always protect you.”
And that was how it continued for all the hours of the day, family and only the most trusted friends allowed in. Mina and her family, her father’s dearest, oldest friend and his wife. That friend also happened to be the village official authorized to marry people.
“I will make the legal papers,” the white-haired elder told them solemnly when he met with her and Stefan. “But I will not file them. Instead, I will give them into your keeping. When and if you can, you will file them.”
“Thank you,” Stefan said. “We’ll do so the instant it becomes safe.”
The older man nodded. “It is a thing for the world. You will be married in the eyes of the family and the village as soon as the dawn ceremony is complete.”
Stefan disappeared for an hour after that, and Tazia worried until she saw his tall form beside her father and brother in the courtyard, where he was helping to put up the wedding pavilion of hanging silks. Not strictly according to tradition, for the groom wasn’t meant to be at the bride’s home until the time of the wedding, but the family was being flexible.
It was hard to sleep that night, and she twisted and turned. Part of her hoped Stefan would teleport to her, but she knew he was too respectful of her family to do so. The hours passed torturously . . . and heatedly, as she imagined the intimacies they would share once they were man and wife. She wanted to touch him, wanted to kiss him again and again, wanted his hands on her, wanted . . .
Sheets tangled around her legs, she came awake to her mother’s soft, “Tazi, my Tazi. It is time to bathe and dress for your wedding.” A gentle hand brushing back her hair, a kiss on the forehead, a smile in Kaya Nerif’s dark gaze. “He loves you very much, your Stefan.”
“I know,” Tazia whispered. She didn’t need words, saw the truth in those eyes that said so much.
It wasn’t until a half hour later, after she’d bathed in rose-scented water that left her skin soft and silky, and her mother came in to help her dry her hair, that Tazia realized how her mother knew the truth of Stefan’s love. “Oh.” Her lower lip quivered.
In her mother’s arms lay the beautiful aqua and silver outfit she’d admired, complete with the stunning scarf of fine silver lace.
Smiling, her mother laid out the clothing and cupped Tazia’s cheeks. “You did well, daughter. A quiet man who does such things is worth far more than a man who says much and forgets to care for his treasures.” Another kiss on her forehead. “Now sit and let me dry your hair. Today, my daughter gets married and I would have her look a princess.”
Chapter 10
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Tazia felt exactly like a princess when she entered the wedding pavilion in her finery. Stefan, dressed in formal black but for a black and silver man’s scarf she recognized as her father’s, waited for her.
Oh, but she could not wait to call him her husband.
The ceremony was simple and poignant, the embraces afterward warm and loving.
“I wish we could stay,” she said to Stefan when they had a moment together in a quiet corner as the delicate hues of dawn became true daylight.
“We can stay another day or two,” he replied. “That’ll give us enough time to get back to the Alaris offices on the jet and get in some exercise to further strengthen our bodies before we go back under.”
“No.” Tazia ducked her head, cheeks heating. “Much as I want to stay, I want more for us to have time as husband and wife.”
Stefan cupped the side of her face. “As do I.”
Turning her cheek into his touch, she blushed as Mina came over and waggled a finger. “Not yet, Tazi.” Laughter filled her friend’s expression. “You are yet in your father’s house.”
They stayed for another two hours and the leave-taking was filled not with tears but with joy, as they were ordered to return on their next trip upside. Many kisses and hugs later, Tazia walked into Stefan’s arms, and with a last look at her family until the next time, they ’ported directly to their hotel suite.
It was warm with sunlight, the windows opened by the staff.
“I don’t know how far we’ll be able to go,” Stefan said. “If there’s a risk my ability will totally slip the leash, hurt you—”
She pressed her fingers to his lips. “I know. We go as far as we can go.”
They kissed in the light, but the heat between them had nothing to do with the sun. His hands on either side of her face, Stefan glanced at the windows.
They all shut with a quiet snick, the shutters just open enough to color the room with a soft light that allowed them to see one another but kept the world out. When he lifted his hand to the pins that held her veil to her hair, she curled her hands against his chest and waited quietly. He took it off with care, and she saw it float to a gentle rest on the table.
