And there, they’d come to the question Faren had come to ask.
“Did Isolde hate you when you took her away from Terra?”
If anyone else would have asked about such a personal matter from Diego, Faren doubted they would have walked away from the conversation.
For a moment Diego’s eyes did indeed flash, but it passed.
“Oh yes,” he said and his voice was dark and terrible.
“Did she forgive you?”
Diego didn’t need the real question to be asked, after all.
“Yes,” he said. “She forgave me. But no. It is not a guarantee that Leiya will too.”
So be it.
Faren had never had a weakness before, not an exploitable one or any for that matter. He was too powerful to be touched, but that was him alone. Now he felt like his heart ticked in two bodies, and while one of them was strong and mighty, the other was gentle and helpless.
Somewhere inside him, there was a spark of life that definitely hadn’t been there before. It burned for her, dying to find out what she could do to him. If she could make him truly burn. But for that to happen she had to live.
I have a gesha now, Faren thought.
It made sense to him that she was bound to hate everything he was. He had always been broken. Had he truly thought the binding might fix that?
CHAPTER EIGHT
Leiya
Leiya had never been so confused in her life.
She had fully expected to see handsome men at the reception and get swept away by a few of them, from a distance of course. It was a perfectly natural expectation for a reception, but…
Well, she hadn’t expected Faren, that was for sure.
The next morning, she woke up from a dream of strong arms holding her up in the air, flying over Briolina. The symbolism was clear enough, Leiya thought wearily, but the motives less so. Only a day ago they’d talked about how terrifying the warriors were and especially generals. Especially Faren. And then her tumble had happened.
Oh yes, that happened, her memory chirped in cheerfully.
And she had really meant it all too. Something about Faren’s coldness was truly unsettling for her, a feeling that even being in his arms hadn’t banished.
Then again, she had to admit she’d loved his arms around her. There was no denying that General Faren was a gorgeous man, even Aya said that. Leiya was just surprised – no, shocked was a much more apt word – to find herself thinking so. Or, rather the fact that she was still thinking about it. Her entire morning came and went without her being able to think of something else for a second.#p#分页标题#e#
He’d done something to her, definitely.
Damn those stormy eyes, she thought, smiling. It felt good somehow, to allow herself to think about the great general like that, at a safe distance from him. She could spend a few days dreaming about those eyes and the feel of his powerful arms around her. After that, maybe she could get her mind back.
Definitely not going to be a song though. I have my reputation to maintain. What would it sound like? I have said that the Brion generals give us all a bad name. But it is okay for Faren, because he has such dreamy eyes…
Leiya sighed. It was material for a perfect song, but she’d be damned if she was the one to sing it.
Her friends were bound to never let her live it down, it seemed. After the reception day, they naturally gathered to hear whether someone had found their fated and simply catch up. They only had a short while together, after all. Soon work would scatter them all over Briolina, and they’d only see each other when they visited. So they were intent on making the best of the time they had left.
There weren’t just the three of them that day either. Quite a few of them had grown up together around that part of the city. Leiya’s house was straight in the imaginary middle, so that’s where they usually met. On that day, they were sitting on the soft, rare, priceless green grass in front of the house, watching hovercrafts race a little further.
Distant sounds drifted to them from one of the arenas where future warriors practiced before the start of their real training. Leiya was definitely going to move to a more quiet part of the capital as soon as she found a place she liked.
She was trying to listen to what the others were saying, she really did. Only in her mind’s eye she still just saw the stormy eyes, flashing, looking straight into her soul. It seemed unbelievable that someone so dangerous could have eyes like that, but she supposed storms were dangerous too. Maybe it was just her that really liked the look of them.
There were quite a lot of them there. Leiya sat with her closer friends right under the protective shadow of the great tree growing under her window. The boy – no, a young man now – sitting next to her was just recounting the time he’d climbed it to her room.
“Never would have believed that of you, Leiya,” Aya was saying, dragging her out of her daydreaming.
“Mm?” she asked, to the general laughter.
“I was telling them of the time I climbed this tree,” Miren explained. “They drew conclusions.”
Leiya smiled.
“He climbed the tree,” she told them all. “That is literally the only thing that happened. He nearly fell, too.”
Miren started denying that loudly, while Leiya just smiled to see them all there. It might be their last time together like this, laughing like they were still children. Miren was really enjoying his last free day before he was stationed on one of the great Brion battle ships to take up his position. He was the only warrior Leiya felt comfortable around, because she’d known him since they were children.
She chuckled to herself. If the man before her tried to climb the tree the boy had, it would surely break under his weight before he got halfway up. Like all warriors, Miren was big, although not as tall as Faren. And there, she had had exactly a minute of not thinking about the general, but there she went again. Pathetic.
“See?” she heard before all her friends started laughing again.
“What happened?” she asked, but that for some reason just made them laugh harder.
“I told you,” Iloya said, grinning. “She’s been off the whole day. Dreaming of her General.”
“That can’t truly have happened,” Kalen, Iloya’s brother, said. “I don’t believe you.”
“What did she tell you?” Leiya asked, sending Iloya a non-sincere glare. “If she said he climbed into my room, that did not happen.”
More laughter, before Iloya finally repeated,
“Leiya climbed on a table at the reception – no, I don’t know why. Maybe she liked the view. Anyway, me and Aya were talking a little away, but we saw her yellow dress at once. So, long story short, Leiya fell right off the table right into General Faren’s lap.”
“Can’t have happened,” Kalen repeated. “I don’t even believe he was there.”
“Oh, he was there,” Aya chipped in. “My heart nearly stopped when he stepped in. If you think he looks terrifying in images, you should see him in person.”
“Leiya didn’t think so,” Iloya teased. “I thought she was just going to stay there in his arms and have him carry her home.”#p#分页标题#e#
Oh, that would have been lovely, a part of Leiya thought. She longed for a mirror, because she didn’t recognize herself anymore. Gods, it’s not like I’m a little girl anymore. I’ve sung too much love songs about falling for pretty eyes, now I’ve started to believe them too. I can’t believe it.
Out loud, she chuckled.
“Yes, that all did happen.”
“I knew you had admirers,” Miren said, “but a general. Good for you, Leiya.”
She hit him playfully, long used to his teasing. She knew Miren had always liked her, had even expressed his regret that she wasn’t his gesha. Leiya liked him too, but she didn’t feel the longing he clearly did. The tree story was true, because Miren had been just a child then As they got older, he’d been one of the two Leiya had taken to her bed. Just once, to see what it was all about. She felt no particular desire to repeat it, although it had been nice, but it was obvious Miren would have loved it.
“Seriously though,” Iloya said. “You sat in his lap for a long while. And he was looking at you, straight at you. Are you sure you’re not his gesha?”
Leiya nearly choked on her drink, giving them all a cause to laugh again and a headache for her. Honestly, she hadn’t considered it. All she had been able to think about were Faren’s deep, gray eyes. And fighting down the part of her that would gladly have found another place to fall off from if she’d known he’d be there to catch her. She was clearly, obviously going mad.
“I… don’t think so,” she offered, unsure.
That set off a wild round of speculation, while Miren still kept his eyes on her. Leiya didn’t doubt the thought of leaving soon to war was playing on his mind. Just as she didn’t doubt she knew how he’d like to spend his last night on Briolina’s surface.
“Can you imagine,” Aya said. “Leiya and Faren.”
Like it was summoned, they suddenly saw the shadow of the Unbroken further in the sky. The huge battle ships of the Brion army stayed well out of even orbiting the planet for their sheer size. Sometimes they even blocked the light from the stars when they were suitably aligned. They were so massive you could see them with a naked eye.