Part 6 (1/2)
Deep in conversation with his people, Eldri walked through the hall. He continued to hold Roca's hand, keeping her at his side. The curiosity of everyone around them washed over her like a fountain, soaking through her s.h.i.+elds. Although she knew almost nothing of their language, she was developing a feel for its cadences and sounds, aided by her node. It sounded as if Eldri was making arrangements of some kind.
She earnestly hoped they included warm, dry clothes for the riding party.
Roca suddenly felt as if her shoulders heated up. Turning, she looked past the people around her.
Across the hall, Garlin was coming through the entrance, his hair disarrayed from the wind. A woman in a red robe walked at his side. He was watching Roca with a scowl, but when her gaze met his, he turned back to his robed companion.
Eldri slowed to a stop and took Roca's hands, drawing her to face him. ”We will have a ceremony for Jacquilar in the morning. Then I will take you back to the port.”
”Jacquilar?”
His voice caught. ”The man who died.”
She squeezed his hands, offering comfort with touch rather than words. His staff hastened off to take care of the arrangements, tactfully leaving their Bard alone with the unknown woman he had brought into his home.
Eldri curled his fingers around hers. ”Tonight we will have a dinner in your honor.”
She spoke gently. ”You need not do this.”
”But I must. I asked you here. It is not your fault we had a tragedy.” He released one of her hands and raked his fingers through his hair, tousling the shoulder-length mane. ”Never before has it been such a problem to come up here.”
She ran her thumb over his thick fingers. ”I wish I knew a way to make it better.”
”You do just by being here.” He lifted her hand and pressed his lips against her knuckles. Then he lowered her hand, turning it this way and that. ”You have beautiful fingers. Strange, but pretty.” A hint of his earlier mischief returned. ”One wonders what you could do with them.”
Roca flushed, remembering her fantasies about his hand. She disengaged her grip, feigning a coolness far different from what she felt. ”Does one, now?”
”One does indeed.” He led her over to a more private niche in the wall. ”Surely we could learn-what is the word? Brad told me once.” He paused. ”Ah. I know. Anatomy. You must teach me your anatomy.”
”Diplomacy.”
”You have diplomatic anatomy?”
She barely managed to hold back her laugh. ”I come here for diplomacy. Not anatomy.”
”You break my heart, beautiful lady.”
She slanted him a dry look. ”Your heart is as strong as big, st.u.r.dy lyrine.”
Eldri grinned, his grief seeming to ease, at least for this moment. He set her against one wall, in a carved archway that went nowhere. ”Will you not give me a single kiss?”
”No.”
He wasn't the least deterred. ”You are an ice queen beyond compare, Roca. A matchless woman.” He put his hand against the wall behind her, his palm near her head. ”Can no man melt your heart?”
Roca couldn't help but smile. ”Oh, Eldri, stop.” She ducked under his arm.
”Come back,” he protested. By the time he turned around, she had moved several paces away.
”We agreed,” she said. ”We do business here. No personal.”
”I remember you saying this.” His lips quirked. ”I don't remember agreeing to it.”
”You must behave.”
Eldri sighed. ”Very well.” He approached her with more decorum. ”Shall we have a conversation?”
Roca could tell he was hiding his sorrow behind bantering. She gentled her voice. ”I wondered what call you this world.”
He said a beautiful word, his voice chiming. Roca thought he must have incredible vocal cords, to create such melodic sounds. It happened when he spoke English, too, but much less so, perhaps because the phonetics didn't lend themselves as well to the music.
”Is a lovely word,” Roca said. ”Can you say again?”
”Lyshriol.”
”Lyshriol.” It sounded so dull and pedestrian on her lips.
Eldri smiled. ”Something like that.”
”So you not call this place Skyfall?”
He waved his hand in dismissal. ”Brad's friends at Starlane Resorts call it that.”
”Is wrong?”
”Not exactly.” He paused. ”It is hard to translate Lyshriol. It means something like 'the clouds have come to the ground.' ”
Roca had to admit it was a clever interpretation by the resort planners. Skyfall resembled Eldri's translation, but at the same time it would have meaning to people from Earth, where the sky was the color of the clouds here. ”Does it bother you that they say Skyfall?”
”What they say matters little.”
”But when the others come, will not this bother you?”
”Others?”
”The people who want to build here.”
”You talk in puzzles.” When she started to answer, he shook his head. ”Let us enjoy this night.
Tomorrow is so soon.”
Roca let it go. His sorrow had come closer to the surface of his mind, clear now despite her barriers.
She wondered if she and Eldri could ever fully s.h.i.+eld their thoughts from each other. The compatibility that linked them went further than desire or fascination. If only she had more time to know him. If only she wasn't supposed to wed Dayj Majda. If only.
Roca realized then that she felt more than Eldri's grief. Another anguish went deeper in him, the suppressed pain he had revealed in the plains when he had spoken with such vehemence:No! I am not different!He wanted to enjoy tonight, not because tomorrow would come too soon-but because he feared it would never come at all. It startled her that someone so alive and vibrant could feel such despair. He guarded that part of himself so tightly, she doubted she could pick up the reason for his dread even if she dropped her barriers all the way.
Outside, the snow continued to fall.