Ears twitched and whiskers vibrated in argument. When the First faced him again, Ronan knew the others had agreed with her decision.
“Ronan VelKalevi, you will go with this female to secure quarters.”
Ronan bowed to the precise degree necessary, offering honor and thanks but yielding nothing of his neutrality. It was good that the Aarysi didn’t know what to make of him; they would proceed with caution because his place in shaauri society was not in accord with any they knew. Ne’lin he appeared, but no ne’lin was granted such responsibility and adoption into a shaauri House.
So he remained an enigma. He had trusted that very confusion, along with unprecedented boldness, to protect him and Cynara. His assumption had proved accurate… for the time being.
The First and her subordinate va’laik’i left the bay escorted by six warriors, and four other ve’laik’i fell in around Ronan and Cynara. They took the humans at a brisk pace up a companionway to another deck and what Ronan presumed to be one of the ship’s holding cells. What the cabin lacked in comforts it made up for in privacy, and Ronan was grateful when the door was shut and locked behind them.
Cynara slumped against the bulkhead and slid down to the deck. “Poseidon,” she whispered. “I wasn’t sure we’d survive that encounter.”
“Nor was I.” Ronan brushed her hair with his fingertips and sat against the opposite bulkhead, focused on bringing his heartbeat to a reasonable pace. His palms were sweaty, and his hair stuck to the nape of his neck. The shaauri would have smelled his perspiration, but they had chosen to overlook it. Perhaps they had not been sure exactly what he felt.
“You did very well, Cynara,” he said, willing her to feel the depth of his pride in her. “They did not sense your fear.”
She smiled, one corner of her mouth turned down. “I was terrified.”
“Is that not the essence of courage—to act in spite of fear?”
The wry humor left her face. “Courage wouldn’t have been enough. You were magnificent, Ronan.”
Her admiration was quite real, and harrowing. Now that he could allow himself to consider the things she had revealed on the yacht, he was close to being overwhelmed.
Her withdrawal from him, that first night on Dharma, had been devastating. He had only begun to test his abilities against Cynara’s. But the time had come when he was grateful that she did not share his thoughts, or he hers.
On Persephone, they had joined in his apartment without so much as a single mental touch. It had not been so in the lifepod. Something remarkable had occurred. A new passage had opened up between them, and if she had not been guarding her mind, he would know her every thought, her every emotion as if it were his own.
She must be just as aware of the difference as he was, yet during their joining she had managed to conceal the small matter of her intent to remain on the lifepod while her mind gave up far more vital information.
There seemed to be no pattern or sense in this change. Cynara was not prepared to embrace it, and neither was he. Their minds walked an uneasy border, neither daring to take a step over the line lest it provoke a most terrible Reckoning.
Still she believed she loved him. That was impossible to doubt. And he did not understand.
“Why did you come?” he asked.
She glanced at the overhead. Do shaauri keep surveillance on prisoners?
“Our status is not yet determined,” he said aloud. “And shaauri—” Do not spy. But that was not the entire truth, for both the War-Leader and the Kalevi had agreed to send him to the Concordat for just such a purpose.
He was human, and so could not suffer dishonor.
“No one will hear us,” he said. “Answer, Cynara.”
“I told you.” She hugged herself. “Do I have to say it again?”
He recognized how difficult the admission of love had been for her—as difficult as it would be for him. Hers was indeed the greater courage.
“That was not your only reason,” he said, more gently.