She swallowed with difficulty. "I can see that," she said awkwardly.
A heavy silence lay between them. "I had intended to tell you this long before you came to this point," he said at last, with a shy and painful smile. "I had honestly thought I would be able to tell when you were attracted to me. Evidently I am not as good at reading you as I had thought I was."
She hid her confusion by rebraiding her hair, concentrating all her attention on that homely task. "I take it that this is the same quandary you came to when you first discovered your-true nature."
She heard him sigh, but kept her attention centered on the thick strands of hair in her hands.
"In a word, yes," he said finally. "And I was fortunate, in the end, because my lover had a friend that she loved as dearly as a brother-and only as a brother-who was attracted as deeply to me in my female form as she was in my male form. And the fates were kind to all of us. If Faro were-perhaps as he must have been before he was sent to the arena-" He sighed again. "Or perhaps not. I call myself 'Wara' in my female shape, and the person that Wara loves must be as unique and special as the person Ware loves-and Faro is simply too filled with hate and bitterness toward women for him to love any woman, and Wara must beloved , Xylina."
She nodded; her mind understood. Perhaps at some point, her heart might, too.
"And there is an added complication." He coughed with that inflection that she now knew was embarrassment, and Xylina looked up from her task. "Again, there is no delicate way to put this. A demon is, in and of itself, sterile. But-" He reddened; and she felt her eyes widen in surprise, for never had she seen him flush with embarrassment before. This must be something very hard for him to say. "But-once we found-this man-you would be likely to bear children. For what he-gave to me-I would in turn be giving to you. And that is another reason why Faro is-not suitable. I do not think that you would care to bear his children."
It took her a moment to put that together as well, but when she did, she flushed even redder than he, and looked away from him in confusion. He rose.
"I think perhaps it is time for me to go," he said, hurriedly. "Good night, Xylina. I-please think on all these things, and take your time. This decision is one that should not be made until you are very, very certain of how you feel."
He did not even leave by the door; he dematerialized and wafted through the wall, as if to emphasize how very inhuman he was. Human considerations simply would not apply to him.
She sat staring into her little fire, braiding and unbraiding her hair. Her mind was in turmoil; her emotions so confused that she could not even begin to untangle them. She did not think that there was any way that she would get any sleep this night.
It was just as well that this days journey had left her so physically exhausted-for in the end, her body decided for her. She did not even remember falling asleep-until she woke the next morning, her half-braided hair still in her hands.
Her gold, which she had proffered-and which had not been accepted. Not quite.
• Chapter 16
Xylina wrestled with her thoughts and her doubts all the next day, and the day after. Ware did not approach her once in all that time, except in Faro's company. In that, he showed extraordinary sensitivity, for she was able to keep up a calm front with him when there were others present, but she might not have been able to do so had he approached her alone. The men did not seem to notice her preoccupation, or if they did, perhaps they put it down to the fact that she was tired from purely physical exertion. Pattée, too, found the walking fatiguing, so that it was easy for the men to dismiss Xylina's distraction as that. It helped that the terrain they crossed required little in the way of thought, and that the men had no real need of leadership at the moment, for all her attention was focused inward.
No one spoke to her unless it was absolutely necessary, a precaution urged by Ware, who feared that voices would carry for some distance out on these plains. She could have been completely alone, out in the sea of grass, and the "solitude" helped her concentration. Nothing threatened them, and there was nothing much to distract her, so she was able to examine everything as dispassionately as was possible under the circumstances. And although it was difficult to set her emotions aside and try to consider every aspect to the situation, she had long practice in reducing a problem to its component parts and dealing with them one at a time. That discipline helped her here, as well.
So much time for concentration enabled her to set her thoughts and strengthen her resolve before she approached Ware a second time. She made certain that she had weighed all her options, and there were many. She did not want him to be able to say that she had not considered every possible aspect and complication before she decided on a course of action.
For after all, whatever decision she made, it would be for life.
One possibility was simply to go on as before. She might even be able to say with complete justification that her debt had been discharged; she had, after all, offered Ware what he wanted. That he had not accepted had no real bearing on the situation as read that way. She could be considered legally free of the debt, since he had not immediately accepted her offer-although she would not herself, in all honor, consider herself free. Still, there were those who would.
But the fact was that she could pretend that none of this had happened-that she had not even made her offer. She could complete this quest and discharge her debt with true gold, just as she had always planned. And she would be free of him, and of this disturbing emotion of love.
Well, no. She would never really be free of it. She would always want him, and knowing that he wanted her would be sheerest torture. She could never really spend the rest of her life alone. Not now.
The next alternative was to wait, as he said, until they got back to Mazonia and he could hunt for a suitable male. If they waited until they returned home, and together they could scour the slave-markets, looking for someone with a compatible personality....
But that did not seem practical. It did seem very, very cold-blooded; as if they were looking for a pet dog, or a nice goose to roast. So what else was there?
He had made some hints, once or twice, that there might be a man he had already considered for such a-liaison. Perhaps he did not realize that he had let such a thing slip, but Xylina had heard the tone of his voice, and she had a shrewd notion what it meant. After all, although Ware was male, he must have had a great deal of experience in knowing what "Wara" would find attractive; really, in many ways, these things would be the same for either of his aspects, incubus or succubus. In some ways he might always be looking for potential mates, on the chance that he would be able to find a matching pair.
And unless she was greatly mistaken, Ware had said that he not only was born in this region, but that he continued to visit. Putting two and two together was no great feat... the man surely existed, and must be alive and living in this very realm.
And that was what finally decided her. As Ware was no doubt already aware, the chance of finding a "matching male" for Xylina was very slim. The chances of finding two such were much smaller. Why take a chance that there might be another of sufficient intelligence and independence?
She decided at that moment that if such a man already existed, Ware must go to see if he could persuade that man to join them. Or rather-Wara must. That night, she made some pretense of bringing him something as he stood his watch, and once they were out of earshot of the other men, she put her proposal to him. Or rather, her supposition that this mysterious "perfect" male existed and was in this very realm.