Xeref pulled his hand away. “Oh, Selemei, my jewel, my life’s partner, my blessed Maiden Eyn—I’m sorry.”
She shook her head. Tried to breathe.
“Grivi,” said Xeref, “is she all right?”
The Imbati made no answer.
She could hear Xeref stand, pace the length of the table, but if she tried to respond, she’d only moan, or scream. Abruptly, he left through the bronze door to the sitting room; she could hear him out there, murmuring to his Ustin.
“Mistress,” Grivi said in his deep soft voice, “I have vowed to protect you.”
Her Grivi had helped her more in her recoveries than anyone, but could she really ask him to protect her from Xeref? Was that even possible? Would it mean she could never kiss Xeref again, never feel his arms around her? Did she really want such protection?
She sipped a small breath. “I understand, Grivi, thank you.”
Then Xeref came in. Selemei snapped her jaw shut.
“My Selemei.” Xeref’s voice was husky, vibrating at the edge of control. He knelt beside her feet on the silk carpet.
Elinda help me. Surely he wouldn’t demand to have her while she still bled.
His breath grated. “I—Ustin said—you’ve—gnash it, Selemei, this is my fault!”
What? She frowned.
“It’s my fault. When Pelli was being born, I should have—I don’t know what I should have done. How could I listen to you scream and do nothing? I asked the doctors, but I only thought they would take away your pain, not that they’d—” He dragged a breath. “You went quiet so suddenly. I thought Mother Elinda had plucked your soul away, and my own heart too. And then when you woke damaged! And it was my fault!”
She whispered, “But you didn’t do anything…”
Xeref shook his head. He grasped her hand, his fingers pale against her golden skin, and lifted it until her bracelet sparkled in the light. “I didn’t give this to you because blood is precious, Selemei. I gave it to you because your blood is precious. You are precious. I don’t care what the Family Council says, the Race doesn’t deserve your life!”
She managed to look at him. His gray eyes, shining with emotion—his silver hair, falling to his shoulders. Age had given him creases around his eyes; as it had given him more substance, it had also granted him more dignity and determination. And more influence—he often reminded their boys that as the First Family’s representative on the cabinet, he had the Eminence’s ear.
Yet he would put her first.
“Xeref,” she whispered. “Thank you.” Her chest opened slowly. What would happen now? Was there a way forward over cracked uncertain stone?
Xeref leaned close to her cheek for a kiss that barely touched her—the same kind of careful innocence he’d used when they’d first become partners, to soften the age difference between them. He cleared his throat. “My Ustin tells me that in the last couple of months you’ve been missing your friend, Tamelera,” he said. When she frowned in bafflement at the change of subject, he added, “Garr’s partner, who moved away with him to Selimna?”
She couldn’t stop a smile at that. “Dear, I know who Tamelera is; I sent her a radiogram last week.”
Xeref chuckled nervously. “Of course you do.”
Selemei humored him. “Your Ustin deserves credit for turning her powers of observation to Ladies’ concerns. I do miss Tamelera. I could talk to her. We would play kuarjos together, and dareli, and we’d talk.”
Xeref laid a hand against his chest. “I could—would you like me, to talk to you?”
“Don’t we talk?”
A blush turned his pale cheeks pink. “Well, we do.”
Though never before about the terrible things—the real things. “Maybe you could tell me what you and Brinx were talking about?”
Xeref smiled. “You can be proud of him. He’s really getting to know the workings of the cabinet. Cousin Fedron likes working with him.”
“I saw how Corrim listens,” she said. “I’d say he already knows more than you expect him to.”
Xeref nodded. “I can’t believe he’s almost twelve.”
Selemei gulped. Corrim’s twelfth birthday would make him eligible for Heir Selection if the worst occurred. “Mercy of Heile,” she said, “is the Eminence Indal unwell?”
“Oh, no!” Xeref waved his hands. “I mean, he’s well, of course he is. I’m sorry. I scared you, and I didn’t mean to.” He sighed. “This wasn’t how I thought this should work.”
Selemei sighed, too. She and Tamelera had talked of anything, everything, deliberately avoiding any discussion of their duties to the Race. But when had she and Xeref last spoken of anything but family? She tried to think of something else; anything else. Her mind was as empty as an abandoned cave pocket. “I love you?”
“I love you, too. My Selemei.” He sounded awfully disappointed.
“Sir,” said Imbati Ustin, quietly behind his left shoulder. “I believe you enjoy a game of kuarjos?”
Now hope lit his eyes. “Selemei—shall we play?” He offered his arm.
She had been walking with more courage, recently, with less worry that her left hip might fail unexpectedly. She still stood slowly, and walked slowly, but it felt good not to have to grasp Xeref’s arm too hard. In the sitting room, someone—Ustin, most likely—had already moved the kuarjos set from its pedestal in the corner onto the slate-topped table between the couches. Selemei sat, arranged her silk skirts, and fell into anticipating potential moves for the long-haired warriors wrought in gold, who brandished antique weapons upon their posts at the grid intersections.
Xeref turned the marble board so she had the emerald-helmed warriors, and he the sapphire. He opened his hands to her. “You go first.”
She nodded. They played in silence, but when she executed her first entrapment, he glanced up at her.
“Have you always been this good at kuarjos? How is it we’ve never played before?”
She shrugged. “I played with Tamelera.” She took a deep breath. “Xeref, about—what we talked about—are you sure you won’t, or we won’t…?”
“We won’t. I promise.”
“But what should I tell people, when they ask?”
“They’ll ask?” He sighed. “Of course they’ll ask. Say we’ve decided not to.”
She raised eyebrows at him. “They’ll blame me. And think I’ve insulted you. And that I’ve lost my mind.”
“Then say it’s just not working.”
“They’ll think I’m sick. The Family Council would investigate.”
“Then say it’s my fault.” He frowned, shaking his head. “Not that I’ve rejected you, but that my health is to blame.”
“Your health… you mean put your cabinet position at risk?”
At that moment, a wysp entered through the stone arches of the ceiling: a tiny golden spark of light that spiraled down between them, casting a burst of warrior-shadows, then disappearing through the marble game board and table and into the floor.
“Wysps are good luck,” Xeref said. “Maybe no one will ask you.”
Selemei sighed. “Let’s play.”
Nobody could be that lucky.
Selemei put her hands on her hips, feeling uncomfortably like her own mother. Before her on the bed, Pelli frowned stubbornly down at her own small, nightgown-clad body—a too-familiar defiance.
“Nap first, big girl,” Selemei said. “Your cousin’s party doesn’t even start for hours.”
“Mama party.”
“I’m not going. Your father will take you, with Corrim and Aven.” Staying home was the only way to be safe from questions, though writing letters while her entire family helped celebrate a cousin’s confirmation seemed—gnash it!—well, unfair. She blew out a breath.