“Then we know the future can change,” Cynara said. “We have the power to change it.”
“As people can change,” Ronan said. “Human, and shaaurin.”
“There’s an old human saying,” Damon said, “‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend.'” Let us hope that the evil these Kinsmen have done will help to bind our species.”
“Captain D’Accorso said to me that not all Kinsmen are treacherous and in search of power. My father was Kinsman, and so is Brit Carter VelShaan. Someday they may serve a new and unforeseen purpose.”
“Are you also precognitive, Ronan?” Damon asked half mockingly.
“No. But I have learned that there are telepaths among shaauri. I have a theory that many of these become ne’li, outcasts, because they are torn between many Paths.”
Cynara lifted her brow. “That’s a very radical idea, Ronan. Will shaauri even consider it?”
“Shaauri must be taught to accept this idea, if it proves valid. As humans may learn from shaauri—as I learned from Sihvaaro—so shaauri may learn from humans that some may walk between Paths for the advantage of all.”
“And who better to teach them than you?”
Their gazes met. Cynara took his hand and led him to the briefing room adjoining the bridge, sealing them away from Damon and the crew.
Ronan opened his mouth to speak, but Cynara pressed her finger to his lips.
“I know what you plan to do,” she said softly. “Go back with Arhan and face the War-Leader. I never expected anything else.”
He caught her hand and turned it to kiss her palm. Her skin was warm with the taste of hope and sadness.
The time they both dreaded had almost come.
“Ronan,” she said, resting her hand on his cheek.
“I know you must remain in the Concordat to command the Pegasus and share what you have learned,” he said. “You do not hate the shaauri, though their ways are strange and often terrible to you. You will speak well for them.”
“I understand so much more now,” she said. “Some of it is in here”—she tapped her temple—”and some here.” She pressed her hand to her chest above her heart. “Because of you, there’s nothing in either place binding me to the past.”
She held up her hand with its golden rings. One after another she pulled the rings from her fingers and clenched them in her fist.
“Sil akai,” she said, and tossed the rings in a gleaming arc across the briefing table, where they lay like a child’s discarded dice.
Ronan took her naked hand between his. “You were always stronger than Tyr.”
“And you were always the equal of any man or shaaurin, no matter what you believed.”
She would not let him deny it, but kissed him as if they had all the time in the world to talk and make love and discover each other again. He knew how much his mind had healed by the way his need fed on hers, by the way her urgent thoughts became entangled with his.
Stay with me, her body said. Stay.
“You can come back to Persephone,” she said, kissing the angle of his jaw, “before returning to the shaauri. Arhan will wait.” She nipped his ear. “You can set things right with the Archon, and Miklos—”
“No.” He set her back so that he could see her eyes.
“Arhan must take action swiftly, without hesitation, and I must go with them. It is the only way to exploit the small advantages we now possess.”
“It is when you face the most difficult challenge that you must call upon all Paths.”
He heard Cynara’s voice as clearly as if she had spoken aloud. But he also heard Sihvaaro’s voice, from the day long ago when he had first taught Ronan that profound lesson.
“Sihvaaro,” he said.
“He lives in me as he lives in you. He was right, Ronan.”
“He spoke of Paths, Cynara, not people.”
“Yet ‘all Paths are One.’ If that is true, then what can stand between us?”
Ronan found it difficult to speak. ” ‘There is a time to battle for what must change,'” he said thickly, ” ‘and a time to accept what will be.'”