A Prince Among Killers - By J. B. Redmond Page 0,60
visited Cobb? Three years?… Four… During Lady Vagrat’s last visit.
Aron eyed the happy little girl, who looked more like her father than her mother. It was easy enough to count out the cycles and years. His gaze then moved back to Stormbreaker and Lady Vagrat, and a flicker of his graal told him that he wasn’t watching the reunion of two lovers who pined for each other, but rather two friends who remembered their history fondly.
Dari didn’t seem to realize that the emotion between Stormbreaker and Rakel Seadaughter was something from the past, not the present. Her tears flowed, but after another few moments, she straightened herself and turned toward Aron, Blath, and Iko. The misery in the depths of her black eyes couldn’t be missed, nor could the burden of dispatching Galvin Herder’s essence, or the sudden concern for Aron after his night in the box.
He gave her a quick bow, to relieve her of any worry over his well-being, and as she approached, he said, “You should rest. Will you allow Blath to escort you back to the Den?” Blath gave Aron a strange look, as if she might have been expecting him to exploit Dari at this troubled moment instead of doing what he could to ease her discomfort.
Aron frowned back at Blath without planning the expression, or considering it.
Did she not understand?
If Dari ever came to him with affection, Aron wanted it to be of her free choice, something that would make her happy, lighter of heart—never more weighted, sadder, or more at a loss.
Dari stopped in front of him. “She’s come, I think, to force Stone’s hand about the orphans and make some peaceful solution to the demand.”
Aron wondered at that, at why Lady Vagrat, who had been ill treated by at least one of Eyrie’s greater guilds, would involve herself in such a pursuit, but he didn’t think Dari was up to that conversation. She seemed like she wanted to ask something of him, and he waited, hopeful she might give him some concrete task he could complete on her behalf. Instead, she gazed at him, seeming to view him differently, and when she spoke, it was a simple question, friend to friend, not student to teacher, or anything else reflective of their previous difference in status.
“Did you know who it was?” Dari’s voice was soft, and so terribly pained.
Aron couldn’t help glancing toward Stormbreaker. “No. I knew only that he cared for someone in his past. He never told me the who of it, or the how.”
Dari looked away, toward the sky, then back at Aron again, and this time her gaze was deeper and more searching. “You’ve never reminded me of that, even as I tried to forget it. Even when it might have worked to your benefit.”
It was all Aron could do not to touch her in some way, even just his fingers to her elbow, to connect with her somehow, and let her feel the truth of his conviction in this matter. “Of course not.”
She kept up her steady scrutiny, but Aron withstood it, wondering if for the first time ever, he was finally doing something correct where Dari was concerned.
“It would have been painful,” she said, fresh tears gathering in the dark centers of her eyes.
Aron could think of nothing else to say beyond, “I’m sorry.”
“Yes,” Dari whispered, retreating inward and pulling her arms across her chest, crossed at the wrists. Aron couldn’t help realizing that something inside Dari was shifting, or perhaps breaking. That the tie of her heart to Stormbreaker had loosened, and maybe even snapped.
Why, then, could he find no joy in that fact?
“Don’t lose hope,” he told her, desperate to ease her misery. “I believe this marks an end for them, not a new beginning.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, not relieved at all, from what he could see. “At least not to me.”
She walked past him, headed in the general direction of the Den with Blath at her side, and Aron knew better than to follow her.
“Giving Stormbreaker a beating would be only a momentary satisfaction, and likely more trouble than it’s worth.”
Iko’s comment startled Aron so badly he spun toward the Sabor, then stared at Iko’s face to see if Iko was somehow making fun of him. He saw nothing but stolid regard in Iko’s countenance. The way Iko’s fists were clenched, he, too, might have been considering defending Dari’s heart in the literal sense.
The wild fury in Aron reached the tipping point, and