He laughed softly. "Oddly enough, I think I might." He stepped forward, opening the armoire to reveal several different male outfits hanging up. He pulled out a black long sleeved tunic with soft buttons made from a light silky material. He held the shirt up to Ariana, his back still to her. "What do you think? Does this still say 'dungeon do'?"
She smirked and pulled the gown over her head, letting the fabric fall around her. "It's 'dude' and no, that's fine. Where's the cincher you were talking about?"
He turned around, unlacing his shirt as he walked over to her armoire and began digging through one of the drawers. He pulled out a black one with a red dragon design across the front. "This one will do," he said and handed it to her.
Ariana gawked at his chest, which his open shirt had now revealed. A long scar stretched from right below his collarbone to his navel. The mark was about three inches thick, and she was fairly certain part of it was still hidden by his shirt. She stepped forward, pushing back the material curtaining his sternum to reveal the rest. She could see now the brand was in the shape of a sword, with the hilt stretched across his chest muscles.
"Who did this to you?" she whispered, her fingers gently tracing the edges of the sword's hilt.
His chest rose and fell before he answered. "My people. I was marked as a sign of my calling."
Her eyes grew wide as they found his. "Your people? But you said you were eleven when you left."
Alec enveloped the hand Ariana used to trace his scar with his own. "I was. This was done shortly before I ran away."
She couldn’t stand the idea of an eleven year old kid having this burned into his flesh. "I am so sorry, Alec."
"Don't be," he whispered with a crooked smile. "It led me to you, right? Isn't that your theory?"
She nodded and held out her arms to show off her dress. "Gift wrapped and everything for you."
He scowled, stepping away from her. "Don't."
She shrugged. "Just trying to make light of the situation."
"I don’t find any humor in our situation," he snapped.
"Hey," she said defensively as she took a few heated steps closer. "I'm the one who's supposed to get violated here, okay? So I think I'll be the one deciding what's funny and what's not if I'm the one playing victim."
He glanced at the ceiling, annoyed. "Do you really think you would be the lone victim here? Why do you think she is offering you to me?"
She lifted a shoulder. "To torture me? I mean, she did say if you didn't do it she would find someone else who would. Right?"
"She knows I would never let anyone so much as touch you." He flexed his jaw as his fury struggled to reach the surface. "This is more about me than you, I promise. She knows if I were to…." his gaze shifted down, avoiding the actual words, "take you as my own, I would never be able to return to Estridia. The laws forbid my race mixing with another." He sat down heavily on the bed, twisting the cincher around in his hands. "For one of my kind to have relations with the Duillaine?" He blew out a breath, puffing out his cheeks at the implication. "She's trying to put me in a lose-lose situation."
“I’m sorry.” She sat down next to him, taking the cincher from his hands. "So, you’ve never, ya know, been with anyone? Romantically?"
He laughed, flopping back on the bed and crossing his arms under his head. "I've been a prisoner here since I was a child, Ariana. When would I honestly have had the chance to woo anyone?"
"I just assumed you and Sheridan…." she trailed off, chuckling at her own stupidity. “I guess Kellen would never let that happen."
He turned to face her. "It's more complicated than Kellen. My kind...we don't take this act lightly. When we choose a mate, we choose them for life. We're bonded to them for life," he said heavily. "I can't let anything happen because of what I am."
"What do you mean?" she asked as she lay down beside him, propping herself up on her elbow.
"I can't love anyone, Ariana. It isn't possible. Because of this," he gestured to the scar on his chest. He shifted to where he was staring at the ceiling again. "If I were to follow the path of my calling, my ability to love will be taken from me. I will never know a woman's kiss or love. It is against our highest laws for one like me to experience anything like that because of the commitment involved for my kind and the inevitability that I would eventually abandon the other person. Kellen is trying to use this against me, exploit it as a weakness."
"So you've never even kissed a girl?" Ariana asked sadly.
"No," he answered, then sat up and scooted off the bed. He walked back over to his armoire and resumed exchanging his clothes. "We should finish up. We want to be ready as soon as the opportunity presents itself."
She nodded her agreement, picked up the cincher, and twisted the belt-like accessory around in her hands. It reminded her of the belts wrestlers would win. "So how do I put this thing on again?"
He gestured for her to come to him, and she reluctantly did. He turned her around to where her back was to him and lifted her arms up in the air.
"Usually this takes two people to get these things on," he explained as he wrapped the cincher around her waist and began tighten the laces. When he was done, he turned her back around to face him and began adjusting it. His cheeks reddening as he smoothed the dress at her hips. "Is it too tight?" he asked.
"No," she said as she adjusted the top part of the dress and then the cincher to where it fit snuggly under her breasts. "How do I look?" She gave him an exaggerated twirl. "Do I fit in enough now?"
He rubbed his lips together to hide his laughter. "Yes, you do. We should go over the plan again."
She nodded, walking over to the bed and making herself comfortable as she prepared to listen to him explain his doomed plan once more.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Rhaya was one of the first to enter the massive room that looked like an oversized courtroom, and an ominous setting for what everyone kept referring to as the 'review'. The wall opposite the door had a raised platform where five ornate and high backed chairs were placed. All five were already filled. Nolan sat at the very end, and Rhaya assumed the similar-looking bearded man next to him with the worried face was his father.
And, of course, one of the three other chairs would be occupied by her own father. She had no idea which one he was as she’d never before seen him. No matter how Tate explained away the importance of all the meetings that kept her parents away from her, she could not help but feel the sting of rejection. Raemann would go through hell or high water to get to her. She knew that as fact.
Her round eyes drifted to Raemann, standing with the other three Cynewards in front of their chairs, which faced the audience just below the raised platform, as people filed in and made themselves comfortable on the many rows of benches spread across the room. As if sensing her attention on him, Raemann gave a subtle wink, and the corner of his mouth lifted ever so slightly, but no more than what might be mistaken as a reflexive twitch. She knew better. She knew he was trying to reassure her, and she wondered if he could feel her apprehension of the whole proceeding.
Tate claimed the seat beside her that she had saved for Zelene. He noticed the look of consternation on her usually soft features. "Penny for your thoughts?"
"Yeah," she answered abruptly and swiveled around to face him. "Why are they doing this? They've been asking questions pretty much since we got here, and most of the time they've got the same questions on repeat. What more could they possibly learn from us in public?"
He blew out a breath as her barrage of questions came to an end, and threw a weary look to the counsel, then spared a sympathetic one for the Cynewards. He shifted in his seat to give Rhaya his full attention. "It's politics," he said succinctly and at her frustrated glare elaborated. "Look, what they did eighteen years ago was unheard of. It's one thing to send the Duillaine Ainnir on a journey with a Cyneward, but to put the Cyneward in charge of rearing the Duillaine Ainnir? To give a race already physically superior to us power over those mea
nt to lead us?" He shook his head. "When the people found out you would be raised to believe your Cyneward was your father...well, let's just say the news didn't go over well."
She thought she could guess the answer to her question, but decided to ask it anyway. "How did everyone find out the Cynewards were raising us?"
His look told her she knew what he would say. "Your father, Leone. That’s him in the middle, next to Arland. He’s never been fond of the Cynewards and their race, the Athucreans. He doesn’t trust them, thinks they have too much power over the Duillaine. When he first joined the counsel, he sought to eliminate their roles. He had a lot of support on the issue."
"What happened?"
Tate shrugged as he eyed the man in question. "The magic binding the Cynewards to the bloodline of the Duillaine is too strong to be broken. That is more than a simple matter of politics."
Rhaya drifted into a somber silence as she turned to watch the many people file in around them. She recognized a few faces, like the paion Bianca and Zelene's friend Cedwen who seemed to be following her around. Terrena took her seat in the front, and she realized this must mean her sister’s case would be presented first. She felt overwhelmed with sympathy for her, knowing this meant her heartbreak over Garrett would be put on display for all to see. She sensed the same sadness coming from both Terrena and Kenward, the Cyneward who had posed as her father for all these years. The pair of them put on brave faces for everyone after their relationship had shifted away from the father-daughter one they had shared for almost two decades, but she could feel the mourning they experienced for one another.
Rhaya fixed her attention angrily back on the treior beside her. "You said this whole thing was a matter of politics. What did you mean? What do the Cynewards have to do with politics?"
He lowered his voice so as to not be overheard. "It's more about the people than the Cynewards. Like I said, the news that the Cynewards were caring for the next generation of Duillaine wasn't very well received. By placing your care in their hands alone, they gave them power. That's power the people don't want them to have. By doing this," he gestured around them, "in front of everyone, they are visibly taking the power back."
"But why don't they want the Cynewards to have power?" she asked in exasperation. "I mean, they give up their lives to protect us. Doesn't that warrant a little bit of trust?"
"No," he answered bluntly. He placed his arm around the back of the bench and leaned closer. "People don't view what they do as a sacrifice. They don't think they have a choice. The bond calls them and ties them to their duties, so they know nothing else but the safety of their ward."
"Okay, so it's duty and not sacrifice," she said as if the idea were ludicrous. "But that still doesn't explain all the hate. I mean, I can sense it, Tate. They hate them."
His gaze drifted over the crowd. Rhaya followed it, her gift pouring over the masses. Most of them were there not on principle and not to demand answers. They were there for the theatrics.
"See?" she nudged him, sensing his disgust as he looked around. "You aren't happy about all of this either. You don't hate the Athucreans, so why should they?"
He took in a deep breath, his nostrils flaring, and Rhaya could tell he was annoyed she had shifted her gift toward him. "It's different for me, Rhaya. My personal experiences with them forced me to overcome the prejudices ingrained in me since birth. People judge the Athucreans by their history, and it's not one they are willing to forgive or forget."
Rhaya opened her mouth to further question the fount of knowledge she had found Tate to be, but at that moment her father called the room to order. She wondered if he might lead the counsel somehow. Whether his leadership was an official position or just one he had taken up himself, she wasn't sure, but he was definitely in charge. He had dark hair bordering on black and a forced smile shadowed by a bulbous nose—a nose he seemed to be looking down on them from. Leone introduced the counsel—which consisted of her uncles Morissey and Devland, she learned—and informed the room they would be starting with the Ainnir Terrena.
The affair was a sullen one from that point on. First, they called Bianca forward so the paion could report on the state in which Terrena arrived back in Anscombe. Rhaya guessed they wanted this to be the first thought in the people's minds: though the Duillaine Ainnir had left Anscombe whole and healthy, they were returning in a far different condition.
Kenward was then called forward. Rhaya’s attentions turned back to the Cynewards and she wondered why they were still standing in front of their chairs. The Cynewards’ firm stance—almost as if they were at attention—was such a stark contrast to the relaxed postures of everyone else. With a sickening shock, Rhaya realized they hadn’t been given permission to sit yet. She choked back the fury pounding in her chest as she watched her adoptive father and protector stand before the people as if he were a trained animal on display.
Kenward was asked a series of questions about the many different places he had resided in with Terrena, but he recalled them all with perfect accuracy. The counsel then launched into questions directed at her training and her upbringing, challenging his ability to instill the skills and qualities necessary in a leader. Rhaya stifled a laugh as Kenward retorted to this line of questioning.
"I beg your forgiveness, Maistir Leone. When I was raising her, I was bursting with pride over her many skills and qualities, certain Terrena would do her real father proud upon her return." She could hear his voice shift darkly as he continued. "I did not believe it was possible for her to fall short of your favor and feel my failings must be to blame for this."
Leone stumbled over his response, claiming he was, of course, proud of the daughter Terrena had already proven herself to be and mumbling about how it must be in her blood. Rhaya was unconvinced. She doubted he had even gone to see Terrena since she had arrived. Rhaya was still furious she had been forbidden from visiting her sister in the leigheas again since being locked in her room.
She leaned over to Tate and whispered, "Is it wrong I'm enjoying watching my father get punked like that?"
He grinned as if to say he wouldn't blame her, and they both turned their attention back to the counsel as Arland took control of the questions. He was far more reasonable and calm, his wording kind and curious with no hint of malice at all. Nolan acted in much the same way. Morissey seemed indifferent, showing neither hostility nor sympathy for the Cynewards. Devland seemed to be somewhere in-between Morissey and Leone, clearly disapproving and distrustful, but not hateful in any way. He was the one who asked the question Rhaya knew her sister had been dreading, and she watched as Terrena’s back visibly stiffened in response.
"As you know, Cyneward, Banair Solanna was still able to use her gift to check on Ainnir Terrena from time to time. In her reports, she made mention of the young man traveling with you, which I must confess I fear might have been a risk you should not have taken. Perhaps you would explain to us your line of reasoning so we might better understand how this came to pass."
Kenward's eyes passed over Terrena, whose chin was raised high as if she were bracing herself. This wound was still raw, and Rhaya knew he would not reopen it to be displayed for the onlookers to gossip about later. Thankfully, Nolan seemed to notice this interchange and jumped to his rescue before whatever lie Kenward was concocting had a chance to form on his lips.
"Yes," Nolan with enthusiasm as he leaned forward, "I have to say I am quite eager to hear this explanation as well. Banair Solanna also reported that before the young man joined you, you had many troubles being accepted into towns because they feared you to be an Athucrean outlaw with an illegal child. How did you come about the idea to use the young man to help you blend in? Your plan worked magnificently from what I understand. Once the young man joined you on your travels you were welcomed into most towns you came across, were you not?"
Rhaya saw Terrena's head lower with relief as her Cyneward finally caught on and affirmed Nolan's assumption that Garrett had been nothing more t
han a tool to help them manage their transitions from town to town. Rhaya had no doubt Nolan knew better, and that his questions were meant to spare her sister, something she would be forever grateful to him for. Terrena was then called up to recount her version of events, but she didn't contradict Kenward's tale, so her time in front of everyone was short.
Isauria's portion of the review was much shorter, as she was not able to be there to answer any questions herself. A great deal of focus landed on her gift and when her visions had manifested. Both Tate and Liam were called to give their answers. Liam's quiet voice carried throughout the silent room though Rhaya would swear he was whispering. They questioned Tate mainly on Isauria's gift as she had confided in him many times. He made a point of describing in detail her vision of Nandalia's death, including the part where her Cyneward had been murdered before her. This was received by many gasps and contemptuous objections from the crowd, which Leone brought back to order.
Before Rhaya realized it, the time for her portion of this charade was at hand. As Tate had been warned to keep his distance from her on Dhara because of her gift, his role in this was very small. Her father seemed to take great issue with the fact Raemann had warned Tate away from her, and he steered the line of questioning back to that topic almost immediately when they called Raemann to speak.
"So," Leone began as he folded his hands in front of him, both elbows resting on the ornate chair he was regally perched upon, "you believed it prudent to keep the treior, who the Duillaine Banair personally assigned the task of assessing the gifts manifesting themselves in the Duillaine Ainnir, away from Ainnir Rhaya? Because of the strength of her gift, you claim?"
"Yes," Raemann answered simply, no trace of the usual humor on his face.
"What was your evidence?"
"Ainnir Rhaya had a knack for knowing things she shouldn't," the Cyneward explained. His cheek twitched, and Rhaya wondered if he was replaying the same memories in his mind as she was. "She could sense when people were being dishonest. Secret relationships were not so secret anymore as she read the emotions the people were feeling and trying to hide."
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