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Andrin wasn't concerned about her own impending demise. She was worried—deeply and desperately—
over the continuous flickers of Glimpses about Janaki. She longed to be able to nail those down. To choke the truth out of them. But there were too many other people tied up in them, too much violence, too many images which made no sense.
Yet what frightened her even more than that was the possibility that her father's understanding, his obvious concern for her, meant he was Glimpsing something about her future that worried him deeply.
She knew her father would face anything to protect her and her sisters. What frightened her was her growing suspicion that he was afraid of something not even he could protect her from.
And how does Voice Kinlafia figure in all of that? she wondered, turning to gaze back over her shoulder at the handsome, brown-haired man perched in the one-person float behind her. She knew he had to be scared to death. Triad knew there were enough butterflies dancing in her middle, and she'd been riding in parades like this since she was younger than Anbessa! But if he was anxious, he was concealing it well.
That was good. Andrin had already discovered how frequently famous or important people failed to to measure up to others' expectations. She couldn't say Kinlafia was exactly what she'd expected from the power and the anguish and the clarity of the Voice transmission SUNN had broadcast throughout all of Sharona. She'd expected someone taller, bigger than life, with a granite chin and piercing eyes.
What she'd gotten was a man who needed no steely jaw or granite chin. A man whose brown eyes were wounded, not piercing, yet still remained warm and compassionate. A man whose heart had taken savage wounds, yet refused to close inward upon its pain. A man who was not yet fully aware of his own strength. She wondered if she were catching just a faint echo of the Glimpse her father had obviously experienced when she and voice Kinlafia first came face-to-face.
I don't know you ... yet, she thought, glancing back over her shoulder at him again. But I will. I know I will ... and that my father approves of whatever will happen when I do. But Glimpses never show gentle, happy things, do they, Voice Kinlafia? So how much pain, how many tears, are waiting for you and me? And will you someday curse the day you first became entangled in the Calirath destiny?
She didn't know, and as the parade to began to move at last, she turned unquiet sea-gray eyes away from the man behind her with a silent prayer to any god who might be listening.
He's lost enough already, she told whoever might hear. Don't let me cost him even more. Please. Spare me that debt, at least.