Watcher's Web (39 page)

Jessica stood
amongst the councillors, the soft and squishy arm of a rotund
councillor around her waist, the councillor’s daughter’s hand on
her shoulder.

Merilon Damaru
shook his head. “Do you really think they’ll be gone forever?”

Councillor
Semisu snorted. “Of course they won’t. They’ll make life as hard
for us as they can.”

*     *     *

Sunlight had
turned orange and gilded the trees that half-covered the façade of
the Barresh Exchange. The heaving mass of Pengali revellers had
left for Far Atok and once again, the square lay deserted. For the
first time in over three hundred years, no Mirani soldiers stood
sentry at the airport.

Jessica sat on
a bench under a tree, reluctant to go back to Councillor Semisu’s
house, reluctant to mingle with the crowd. She felt sick and dead
tired, like she could sleep all day. Recover from all the emotions
of the past few days and prepare to start studying for the Union
citizenship.

A rustle of
cloth sounded next to her.

Without a
word, Daya came out from behind a tree and sat down on the bench.
He sighed and sat in silence for a while longer. Finally, he said,
“You’ve been busy.”

That was true.
In the morning, two keihu girls had come in, the first ones who
wanted to be taught, but she didn’t want to talk about that; she
shrugged. “So have you.”

He glanced at
her and then looked away. “I’m sorry . . .
I’m . . .”

“Sorry?”

“Well
. . . I noticed . . . I heard
that . . .” His gaze strayed to her stomach.

Disappointment
flooded her. He knew, and she had wanted to tell him, and he didn’t
even seem happy. “I’m not sorry.”

“But I
shouldn’t have treated you as I did. I hurt you, and that was never
my intention. It was the smell—no, that sounds like I’m shifting
the blame and I’m not . . .” He jumped up, clawing
his hands at the sky. “I’m no good at this personal stuff.”

“Daya, stop
it. I said I’m not sorry and I mean it. A few days ago, I decided
to have the baby. That was my decision. I’m happy with it.” Her
voice cracked as she added, “I don’t want to be alone any
more.”

He averted his
eyes, fiddled with the hem of his tunic. Jessica sent out a careful
tendril of power, but it bounced.

Daya,
please.

“I came for
this.” He pulled out a small box and pressed it in her hands. “You
may have noticed I wasn’t there for the counting. I would have
liked to be there, but Jisson said, no he insisted, that I take
time off from official things and do this first. Open it.”

Jessica pulled
the ribbon, wondering, dreading maybe, what she would find inside
the box. She wasn’t ready for another marriage proposal, and seeing
the tenseness on Daya’s face, it had to be something like that.

Her hands
trembled. What would she say?

Was
there a good way to tell him
I need more time?
A way that wouldn’t hurt him and drive him away?

No, she knew.
If he asked, there was only one thing she could say.

Yes. It had to
be yes, because he was the father of her child, because no one else
could be beside her when she wandered off to places no other person
could go, but ultimately, because his smile warmed her heart.

She opened the
lid . . . no wedding ring, or any piece of jewellery,
just an oval device, made of gleaming metal, a few buttons on the
side that faced her.

“What is
this?”

Then she
noticed the note tucked underneath it. Her hands trembled when she
unfolded it. “Number one, Sunset Street? What is there?”

He rose, a
spring in his movements. “We will have to go and have a look then,
shall we?” Puzzled, she followed him across the square, past the
market stalls, and into the street that ran along the very edge of
the island.

They stopped
at a freshly painted gate. Jessica recognised the flower pattern in
the wrought iron, even if she didn’t recognise the yard. Someone
had swept the path and removed all loose tiles, cleaned out the
fountain, which once again twinkled with water. The old furniture
had gone from the porch, including a solid wood door replacing the
one that had fallen off its hinge. The old Pengali safe house.

Daya opened
the gate, which no longer creaked. He took the box from her hand,
passed her the device, pointing at the buttons. “Go on, press
here.”

Jessica
pressed, and a flood of light came on. Under the porch, inside the
rooms, in two lines along the path.

Jessica
whispered, “Wow.”

Slowly, she
walked across the yard, past newly planted flowers, up the steps to
the porch. The door clicked open. Late afternoon sunlight shone in
through coloured glass in the ceiling, making coloured spots of
light over the fountain in the hall. All cleaned-up, the place
looked amazing.

Daya followed
close behind. “This was all I could get done today. Most rooms are
still a mess, but there’s one room upstairs that’s very
comfortable. You should see the view. Much better than living with
Councillor Semisu and his gossiping wives, I’d say. Look at the
size of the hall. You could have your lessons there. There’s also a
perfect room for a library—”

She
interrupted his nervous stream of words. “Daya.”

He froze; his
eyes met hers. “Go on, go inside. It’s yours.”

The whole
house? “What about you?”

“Oh, I’ll stay
in town, at least for the time being. I’ll live in a different part
of the house, unless you don’t want me here at all, which I could
understand, but—”

She grabbed
his hand. “Daya, stop it.”

He eyed
her, drops of sweat pearling on his upper lip, then he averted his
gaze.
I’m no good at
this.
“I can do all
the arranging.” He shrugged. “Buy you a house, arrange for the
parts assembly to come here, talk to Union delegates, work for the
council, but . . . up until I met you, I mean really met
you, and we . . . I thought I knew everything. Now I
realise I know nothing. I cannot expect you to share my
ideals.”

“But you still
need me for the plan? You still want to resurrect our race?”

“Yes
. . . no. Maybe there would be a keihu woman who has
enough Aghyrian blood to cross with a zhadya-born man, but the
other men are still in Miran and I need to think of a way to get
them out . . . Yes, my plan needs you, but I’m not
talking about that. I’m talking about you . . . me
. . . us. I need you, too. I don’t want to be alone. I
had never envisaged our relationship like this—” His voice
faltered. He took a deep, shuddering breath. Moisture glistening in
his eyes.

You
discovered you have feelings.

He looked
away.

“Daya, listen.
Of course you have feelings. We are to be parents. That is not
something you do without having feelings. A child is not just some
dot on a line in a breeding programme; it’s a living being to love.
This child will probably share our abilities. Do you think I’d want
to cope alone with that? We don’t want to abandon this child, like
we’ve both been abandoned.”

Then a
silly thought struck her.
I guess I do want to be a breeding cow, with some
provisos.
She did
want to bring her race back, put back the pieces until they had
enough genetic material for an Aghyrian settlement. A community of
people who shared her ability and her looks.

Slowly, he
unclenched his fists. He licked his lips.

Jessica
pressed her hands together before her face and an instant later,
let the light float into the air. It hovered before his face until
Daya, too, made the light without even using his hands. The two
lights frolicked around each other like a piece of firework. Heat
radiated from him into her, first a trickle, then a flood. Images
of dark tunnels, of Jisson Semisu’s face, all dirty, looking up at
a drain cover from below. Then there was a bolt of
jubilation
I’ve found
her
and an image of
herself, wide-eyed and frightened, emerging from a rubbish
compartment, and herself staring up at him, running her hands over
his back.

Whoa,
stop. Not everything at the same time.

He withdrew
his light and her vision cleared, but his warmth still surrounded
her, caressed her like loving arms. His face was so close she could
count his individual eyelashes. Then his arms were around her in
soft warmth and he kissed her. She groaned softly, nestling in his
arms, breathing his delicious scent. When he released her to catch
his breath, she said, “Can I see the rest of our new house?”

A Word of Thanks

Thank
you very much for reading
Watcher's Web
. The story is not finished here! I hope you will go on to
read
Trader's Honour
,
the second book in this series. (Turn the page to see a sample
chapter.) Find out what deeper secret is responsible for Iztho
Andrahar's betrayal and how a young Mirani woman gets horribly
tangled up in this mess.
Find out where to get Trader's Honour
here
.

As author of
this book, I would appreciate it very much if you could return to
the place where you purchased this book and leave a review. Reviews
are important to me, because they help readers decide if the book
is for them.

Also be
sure to
put your name on my mailing
list
, which I
use exclusively to notify subscribers of new fiction. All other
chat about my writing or worldbuilding and interaction with readers
happens on my blog
Must Use Bigger Elephants
, which you are welcome to
follow.

from:
Trader’s Honour

Chapter 1, Book 2 of
The Return of
the Aghyrians

T
HE ENVELOPE LAY
in the middle of the table, between the silver tableware and the
gold-rimmed plates. A bowl with rolls of fish bread stood on one
side, and a steaming terrine of bean soup on the other. Father,
dressed in his Lawkeepers tunic, sat at his usual place at the head
of the table, Mother on the other end and little Liseyo with her
silken hair on Father’s right hand side. Old Rosep stood at
Mother’s elbow while ladling soup into her plate and talking to her
in a low voice.

All of them
were looking at that envelope.

Mikandra
hesitated in the doorway. Her face still glowed from having run
from the hospital against the biting wind to be home in time for
dinner. Father cast a Meaningful Glance at the envelope, and then
met her eyes in that severe way of his that said
Young lady, I demand an
explanation.

Mother stopped
talking to Rosep, and Rosep scurried out the room as fast as his
sore knees and bowlegs allowed, shutting the door behind him with a
soft snick. The fire popped.

“Good evening,
Mother and Father.” Mikandra sat down at her regular spot at the
table, facing Liseyo, who looked at her with large eyes.

Into the heavy
silence, Mother said, importantly, “A Trader Guild courier brought
this for you this morning.”

Totally
unnecessary. The envelope could have been anything if it wasn’t so
unforgivingly carmine red, and that colour meant only one thing:
Trader Guild. And the Guild only ever used couriers to deliver
these types of messages.

Mikandra
licked her lips and, avoiding her father’s penetrating gaze, picked
the offending object off the table. The paper was heavy and smooth
in her hands. It exuded a faint smell of ink, which was
old-fashioned and classy all at once. A white label affixed to the
front held her name, written by hand by the Guild’s calligraphers
in Coldi and Mirani script. Mikandra Bisumar. As if there was any
doubt.

She
clutched it on her knees, out of the reach of her parents’
penetrating gazes, and met Liseyo’s eyes, whose expression
said,
Well, aren’t
you going to open it?

Mikandra
didn’t want to, not here where her parents were watching her; not
now, before she’d sorted out this part of her future, because
certainly, the Trader Guild wouldn’t use a courier if her
application to the academy had been rejected, would they?

The thought
filled her with panic. She hadn’t expected a reply so quickly; she
had expected a rejection, because almost everyone who didn’t come
from a Trading family got rejected, right? Because at night in bed,
she’d been telling herself that she was full of stupid dreams to
even have applied and that she should prepare herself to bandage
frostbitten fingers in the hospital for the rest of her life. And
if her dreams ever came true . . . well, didn’t the older
people say that dreams looked good when you were young, but seemed
silly in a yeah-like-that-is-going-to-happen way when you were
older?

Going to
the academy had been such a silly dream, something she’d never
seriously thought would happen, but now she had this letter and all
of a sudden, the dream that had been her childhood wish became
frighteningly
real.

She didn’t
want to open the letter at the table while her family was
watching.

But Father
would never let her leave the room. He’d stop her before she could
reach the door, grab her by the arm and lift her up so that her
shoulder would be jammed up against her ear and then his fingers
would dig into the soft flesh under her arm and he would demand
that she show him the contents. She still had the bruises on her
arm from last time he’d done that. That time it had been about her
not wanting to audition for the boring classic theatre. This was
worse. Much worse.