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Cori
“How do you know it is Aliver and not Dariel?”
Hanish shrugged. “I thought you might clarify that for me. Is it Aliver? Is it Talay that he was sent to?”
“Would it help you to know?”
“Yes, I admit it would.”
Cori
Hanish did not look quite so pleased with her anymore. He looked like he might push free of the desk and close on her, but instead he crossed his arms and spoke in Meinish. “You have changed a great deal, haven’t you, from the girl who stood before me nine years ago? Remember how we nursed you through the fever? The Numrek curse. Believe me, Princess, without our knowledge of the illness, you would have suffered much more greatly. Perhaps your siblings felt the full brunt of it, with no one to explain to them that it would likely pass. They will have changed also. It may be that you would not recognize them. Perhaps they would not recognize you. Maybe, Cori
Cori
“Princess, where are your siblings?” Hanish pressed, speaking Acacian once more.
“You have asked me that before.”
“And I will ask you again and again and again. It may be that you speak truthfully, but I would happily ask you the question five times a day for the next twenty years if it would help.”
“After that would you stop?”
“After that I would ask you ten times a day for the next forty years, should I stay apart from the Tunishnevre that long. Cori
“Wherever they are they are free,” Cori
“You’re so sure of that, are you?” When Cori
“May I go?” she asked, framing the question defiantly.
“You may always come and go as you please, Cori
She turned without answering and put her back to him. She knew his eyes would follow her out of sight, fixed on her figure. This made it difficult to walk casually, but she managed it. She passed from one area of the chambers into another, and then turned a corner so that Hanish was soon far behind her. She had just exhaled a pent-up breath and started to let her face relax when she realized she was not yet free from observation.
Maeander stood in the passageway she would need to go through. He had just stepped in, and was saying something to somebody in the hallway. He noticed her, paused. Larken stepped in from behind him and took a few steps into the room before seeing the princess. He looked instantly amused. Though he was an Acacian, he spoke only Meinish now. Standing near Maeander the two of them were tall, slim, sculpted testaments to all things manly in their respective races.
Cori
As if recognizing this thought and considering it, Maeander did not speak now. He leaned toward her and touched the finger of his free hand to her chin. After studying her a few moments, he brought his face beside hers. The coarse hairs of his bristling beard brushed against her cheek. He turned and pressed his wet tongue against her temple, licked her with the warm flat of it.
Cori
CHAPTER
The brig was going to run aground at full speed. It was right up against the reef, so close to it that the ship cut diagonally through the waves as they started to curl, teetering from one side to the other like an inebriated monstrosity. Spratling could see it all perfectly from the small platform that served as the Ballan’s crow’s nest. He was about to watch as the prize he had been chasing for four days had its hull ripped out and its bounty spilled into the sea. He would have a bird’s view of it, and he would have to tell Dovian all about it when he returned empty-handed. Do something, he thought. Bloody do something, you fools! I haven’t chased you all this way just to-
The old pilot, Nineas, shouted up at him. The veteran sailor had a way of making his voice heard no matter the circumstances. “They’re tacking back toward us! Spratling! You still want me to hold?”
The young captain yelled back that of course they should hold! Of course! Their quarry was a league vessel, not one of their large open ocean crafts, but still a catch of enormous value. It was one of the brigs they used to transport their senior members from the coastline out to their platform base, a floating city anchored to the ocean floor about a hundred miles northwest of the Outer Isles. Normally, the brigs traveled within the shelter of several warships, each of these ma