Mizel's stare was equal parts disbelief and anger.
“I beg your pardon, daughter?”
“Daav is my copilot,” she said, arguing Guild rule as if it had meaning here, in the heart of her own clanhouse. “He has a right to be here.”
“Having delivered you to your kin, his protection—which Mizel honors—bows to mine. Korval is aware of these things, daughter, if you are not.” She looked to Daav once more.
“Korval, I do not ask by-your-leave within my own walls, but I will plead your indulgence. There has been a death in this House. Further, it would seem that the child you return to us is . . . beyond herself, and perhaps yet burdened with the effects of her misadventure. Pray, withdraw.”
“Ma'am,” Daav said gravely, “I cannot. My pilot requires that I stand with her, and here is where she stands.” He paused, and Aelliana had a sense of weighing, as of two courses of action, and then—
“If my pilot has fulfilled her commission here, then certainly, I shall leave with her.”
“Leave with her?” Mizel's voice expressed disbelief. “She is only just arrived, and in a state quite unlike her usual self. Where would she go?”
Aelliana cleared her throat. “In fact,” she said, her voice sounding much steadier than she felt, “I had only intended to stop for a moment, ma'am, to speak to Sinit. I have . . . ” She took a breath, squeezing Daav's hand so hard her fingers ached, felt a rush of certainty, and met her delm's eyes.
“I have placed myself under Korval's protection.”
For three heartbeats, Mizel stared into Aelliana's face, her own devoid of expression.
“I see,” she said at last, and again addressed herself to Daav.
“With Korval's permission,” she said, in the mode of delm-to-delm, “Mizel will speak with the clan's daughter Aelliana in private.”
Once again, that thrill of frigidly intense, short-lived anger.
“That decision of course rests with Pilot Caylon,” Daav said, also in delm-to-delm.
Mizel sniffed. “Indeed.” She gave Aelliana a hard look.
“Step into my office, if you please, Aelliana.”
For a moment, she thought she would not; that she would declare that anything Mizel had for her could be heard by her copilot as well.
The weight of culture, however, is not always so easy to shrug aside.
Aelliana inclined her head, licking lips gone suddenly dry.
“Daav,” she said, and her voice quavered, now. “Pray wait for me. I will be—I will be no longer than a quarter-glass.”
There was a sense of weighing, and of worry. Then he slipped his fingers away from hers and there remained only—worry.
“Pilot's choice,” he said, in the mode between comrades. “I will wait for you, Aelliana; never doubt it.”
“Very good,” Mizel said, acidly. “Pray accept the hospitality of our House. Sinit, fetch refreshments—and call your sister down to entertain our—guest.”
“Now, Aelliana, you will tell me truthfully: This placing of yourself into Korval's hands—was that coercion?”
The door to the delm's office shut very firmly indeed, and no sooner had it done so than Aelliana's throat closed, all the old fear clawing in her belly. Mizel walked behind her desk and stood, hands gripping the back of her chair, waiting with visible impatience.
“Well? Or am I to take silence for assent?”
“No!” The word tore her throat, as if it were edged. “Daav would not coerce me!”
Mizel sniffed. “Korval did not arrive at their reputation by accident, daughter. I learn—from news reports, and . . . other sources . . . rather than from your own lips—that you have some skill as a pilot, and are also the owner of a spaceship. Korval cannot help but to covet you for those reasons. Pilots and ships are at his clan's core; and it is well-known that dragons are acquisitive of treasure.”
Daav only desired her ship? For the blink of an eye, she believed it, as the herself of only a day past would have done. Surely, he would need some reason, other than the dubious pleasure of her company . . . But no. She knew him better than that.
Aelliana took a breath and looked into her delm's eyes.
“Clan Korval owns dozens of ships of all classes, ma'am. There is nothing about a Class A Jump to tempt them. As for Daav—he is my copilot. He offered his best care, as he is bound to do, and I accepted the course he proposed, after consideration. You do not know him, and cannot speculate upon his reasons.”
“I have no need to speculate upon his reasons; they are quite apparent.” Mizel pulled her chair back. “He must look to the best good and profit of his clan. As must we all.”
She sat down behind her desk and pointed peremptorily at the stiff wooden chair to Aelliana's right.
“Sit.”
Unwillingly, she obeyed, placing her feet carefully, so that she might rise quickly, and balanced, should there be need. The back of her neck prickled as if in anticipation of the door opening behind her.
“You may not yet have received the news,” Mizel said slowly, giving Aelliana a hard stare. “Your brother will—no longer disturb your peace.”
Disturb her peace? A dozen memories rose: Ran Eld striking her across the face; twisting her hair; slamming into her room in the dark of night, dragging her out of her bed to huddle, impotent, in the corner while he hurled the contents of drawers and shelves randomly about. Ran Eld, gloating at the course her marriage had taken, and lovingly telling over each bruise; smiling when she flinched from the shadow of his raised hand . . .
“Disturb my peace?” she repeated. “Say rather that he sought to destroy me by every means at his hand!” She took a breath, meaning to stop there, for surely she had already given a grieving parent pain enough—but her traitor voice continued, in a tone so cold she shivered, hearing it: “Though not too early, nor too easily. There would hardly have been any pleasure in that.”
Mizel inclined her head. “He has paid the final price,” she said, her voice stringently steady in the mode between delm and clan member. “Your safety and your peace is now assured in our House.” She took a breath, and continued more briskly.
“Ran Eld's . . . departure leaves Mizel thin. Your resources and your intelligence are needed in the service of your clan. Your grandmother had thought highly of you, and considered that you might best stand as nadelm. We had, as you know, disagreed upon the point—where two are worthy, it is often the case, and no dishonor to any. Now it is come time for you to take up duty, and learn what must be done to husband Mizel's interests. I do not hide from you that we are in . . . unfortunate straits. I believe that we may make a recovery, if we are diligent and wise, and if all the clan accepts their duty, and, in the case of those more able, beyond their duty.”
Aelliana swallowed, her stomach tight, breath short. She could feel the bars snapping in place around her, shutting her away from Daav, The Luck, her comrades . . .
“To absent yourself in these times of turmoil is less than even the simplest duty to the House demands. Korval will accept this, when you tell him that your clan has need of you. As I have said, and as I do swear to you, on the honor of our clan, you are safe here among us.”
Safe. In this house where she had been tortured, while the delm preferred not to see. Where she and her resources—her ship!—were suddenly seen as precious. In this clan where both her delm and her mother knew her for the murderer of her brother. And would never forgive her.
“So!” Mizel said, placing her hands flat atop the desk. “It is decided. You will inform Korval of your obligations, thank him—graciously, mind you, Aelliana!—for his many kindnesses to yourself, and release him to his own affairs. You will be able to rest easy here, and recuperate further—”
Aelliana stood. She must stand, she thought, her heart pounding, or the weight of Mizel's words, the weight of duty, would bind her where she sat and she would never, never free herself; never fully realize this new self, who was not entirely ruled by fear . . .