Unbound (15 page)

From among the glittering array, she pulled out one of her mother’s favorites, an ancient enameled square with a strange design and a chain apparently added so it could be worn as a pendant. Nasri had traced its provenance to the first decades of Lomidar history. Handed down within House Dilaryn, it was the only one she couldn’t sell, bound as she was by the entail. It would be her daughter’s should she ever have a daughter; as the last of House Dilaryn, she didn’t have a niece nor a nephew’s wife to receive it.

“It is a promise.”
Nasri’s answer never changed, never wavered, even when Asrial was older. But what that promise was, her mother had never said—probably just another sacred trust, worded for a child’s understanding.

Raising the square to the light, she took a moment to once again admire the colorful design that had attended her childhood. Happy memories. The fractals had always fascinated her, even as a child—Nasri had stories of using the necklace to lull her to sleep.

The cabin door’s seals gave a soft hiss, the only hint that she was no longer alone. Still holding the necklace between her hands, Asrial turned, certain she would see Romir. After more than two decs with him on board, she’d adjusted to his constant presence.

“Where did you get that?” His voice was weak, breathless, as though he’d taken a body blow. His gaze was locked on her hands, his eyes stricken, thin silver rings around circles of haunted black.

A roaring in her ears filled her with dread. What now? Why such an extreme reaction to an old necklace? Except for its age and the nostalgia invested in it, there was nothing special about the necklace. “I inherited it from my mother.”

“Your mother?” His head jerked up, his eyes darting around the cabin as if expecting to see Nasri.

Her heart clenched, a sudden pang of guilt and loss. The reminder that she would never see her parents again made her lash out. “Don’t worry, she’s gone. Pirates killed her and my father.”

“That was not what I meant.” His eyes narrowed with sudden, unsuspected temper, silver sparks flaring beneath dark lashes.

Asrial closed her hands around the pendant protectively, clasping it to her chest. “What did you mean?”

“You are alone. I had not considered the existence of your family. For that discourtesy, you have my apology.” Romir gave her a formal bow, absurdly proper in his half-dressed state, his loose pants hanging low on his hips and exposing taut ridges of muscle that drew her eyes to the juncture of his thighs; yet the gesture was fluid and unmistakably sincere. “I . . . would like to know how your mother came to possess such.”

Caught up in his intensity, she swallowed down the thickness in her throat, fully aware of her pulse fluttering against her skin. “Through marriage. It’s an heirloom of my father’s family.” House Dilaryn, which was no more. “Why?”

The weight of his gaze on her hands made her self-conscious, given her pose. He wasn’t staring at her breasts, but the thing next to them. She uncovered the square and held it out for his inspection.

Sure enough, his attention followed. Despite her discomfort at his stare, the loss of his attention gave her a twinge of pique—an illogical response she couldn’t understand.

He turned the pendant over with a finger to reveal an inscription on the back that she’d never noticed before. “This—this was my weaver’s badge. I gave it to . . . my betrothed.”

Romir had been engaged? The thought that he’d pledged himself to another woman made her heart clench inexplicably.

 

 

Without a doubt
, it was his badge, given in faith and honor, to complete their troth to twine the skeins of their lives together. He recognized its presence now—a part of him resided in the badge, its design wrought from the pattern of his blood. The weave that bound it to his essence remained intact, a small knot of power amid the threads of creation that tied everything in the universe.

He clenched his hand to keep from touching it.

So many memories were tied to that small square of metal—his parents’ joy at the ceremony celebrating his mastery, his lover’s acceptance. He wanted none of it. He could not bear to remember what he had lost, those he had failed.

What a bizarre twist of fate for his prison to fall into the hands of the woman who possessed his badge. “An heirloom of your family?”

“It’s been handed down through House Dilaryn for centuries,” Asrial added with some heat, as if he had accused her of falsehood. She closed her fingers around his badge, protective, possessive, holding it as precious above the lavish display of jewelry behind her.

None of the other jewelry glowed with a power similar to the knot around his badge. That knot would have told anyone with a weaver’s sight that he lived—and kept her bound to him. “I am certain it has. She must have wanted it so.”

“She?”

“My betrothed.” She would have known—or at least suspected—that he had been captured. The knot would have dissipated at his death, leaving her free of their troth, and she could set his badge aside in all honor to pledge to another. Had she wed after his capture, she could not have given his badge to be handed down.

Yet another betrayal on his part: to have bound her to him without hope of release. It had been selfish of him to do so in the midst of war with the Mughelis.

Averting his eyes, he bowed his head. “Forgive me, I do not remember her name.” He could not bear to remember . . . and stir other memories best left forgotten.

“How could you forget something like that?” Asrial’s voice lilted with shock and disbelief. As might be expected from one so openhearted.

“It was necessary.” Romir bit his lip, choking down the scenes of death and devastation that fought to rise—the deaths and destruction he had wreaked. To remember what he had lost was the path to insanity.

Asrial stared at him, obvious disappointment thinning her lips, the golden sparks in her eyes muted to a dull brown. Her silence was sufficient condemnation. Of course she did not understand the necessity of forgetting; she would not be the woman she was if she did.

He was glad she did not understand, but still he fled the room and the bitter reminder of his many failures. Such cowardice was easier than seeing himself reduced in her estimation.

 

 

Asrial stared at
the door of the work cabin, trying to sort out the bewildering storm of emotions Romir’s disclosure had roused: confusion at his abrupt departure, shock that he didn’t remember the name of a woman so important to him, relief that her rival had no name.

Rival?
Wasn’t Romir just another man who warmed her sheets? Why such an extreme reaction to a woman long dead? And what did he mean when he said forgetting his betrothed’s name had been necessary?

Metal bit into her palm, the smooth edges digging hard lines into her hand. The enameled square pulsed with warmth, the inscription rasping her fingertips. Now that she knew it was there, her incessant curiosity wouldn’t let her rest. She had to know what it meant.

She scanned the inscription on the necklace and set the comp to search her mother’s library for similar scripts. Identifying a time period would give her a starting point. The search would take time, but time was something they had in abundance on the way to Lyrel 9.

After a short internal debate, Asrial slipped the enamel badge with its chain over her head and tucked it under her T-top. It didn’t weigh much, but its invisible presence was warm reassurance. It was her mother’s and . . . She huffed, bringing her wandering thoughts back under control. The connection to her mother was all that was important, nothing more.

Romir still hadn’t rejoined her by the time she resumed the heart-rending task of cataloging the Dilaryn jewels. She would have welcomed a distraction, but he stayed away, which was unlike him. She usually had to ask him to leave her alone in order to have some privacy.

This was the first time she’d examined the Dilaryn jewels in their entirety. Nasri had never worn them in Asrial’s presence, but her mother had researched their histories and told her about them, just as she’d shared with her the provenance of Romir’s badge. Every piece had a story attached to it, be it Nasri’s or Jamyl’s or some ancestor’s or distant relation’s. Great or small, those stories were the history of House Dilaryn.

And here she was, planning to sell them.

Guilt scraped her nerves yet again. But really, if she was an ordinary Rim rat, there was no reason for her to hang on to such things. Weren’t they just excess weight that took up storage space? It was high time she disposed of them.

Time crept by on broken limbs, painful and unconscionably slow. Stubborn pride kept her tapping away on the data logger, determined to finally complete this one task before they reached Lyrel 9. After all, there was nothing else to do while waiting for the drive to power up between Jumps.

 

 

Four Jumps later,
Romir was still avoiding her. He was around. Asrial sometimes caught glimpses of him out of the corner of her eye, but he played least in sight, appearing just when she began to worry that his prison had pulled him back. Puzzling over his unusual behavior got her through the catalog of the Dilaryn jewels, but it was a relief to finish.

So strange. She’d thought she preferred to be alone. Hadn’t she been looking forward to regaining her solitude? Yet now, though Romir had been on the
Castel
for only decs, when she was alone, it felt wrong—lonely.

Asrial rubbed her eyes, trying to throw off the gloom. If this kept up, she might find herself in tears.

The flask called to her, the one connection to Romir in the cabin. Just holding it made her feel less alone. His prison fascinated her. Why this shape? Why the etchings? How could pottery contain a djinn? She studied the designs etched on its neck, wondering if they had some purpose other than decoration.

Though she knew how easily appearances could deceive, she still had difficulty viewing the rare piece of golden brown pottery as a prison. What did the blend of slavery and art say about the Mughelis? Was the shape a deliberate choice, or was it simply a result of whatever had been done to Romir to make him a djinn?

Despite the climate control’s night setting, the flask was warm and seemed to invite her touch. The curve of the base and the stretch of long neck fit her hands as if made for them. The edges of the etching were smooth, lacking a burr. She traced the design with wondering fingers. It was almost as if it had been stamped on the flask, not etched, yet it seemed too fine for stamping.

“I wish you would not do that.” The heated objection nearly jumped Asrial out of her skin. When had Romir joined her in the work cabin?

She fumbled for a better grip on the flask, finally clutching it to her chest to keep it from falling. “Do what?”

He swung his arm, waving at her hands, the gesture so violent she felt the wind of its passage. “Do not touch it.”

Taken aback by his vehemence, she stared at him. “Why?”

His hands clenched, opened, then clenched again repeatedly as he glared at the flask, though he did nothing to remove it from her grasp. “I can feel it . . . like hands over me, inside me . . . touching me intimately.”

“What?”
He wasn’t just glaring at the flask, he was glaring at—she started when she realized the focus of his fury: her fingers, which were stroking the flask as if they had minds of their own.

Romir turned on his heel and slammed his hands on the bulkhead. His nails gouged old paint off of the metal, gray flakes showering down amid hoarse gasps. His panting filled the work cabin, harsh, rapid and erratic. It hurt just to hear it.

“I can feel it,” he repeated in a desperate whisper of horror and yearning, his head hanging down between his arms. He slumped there like a man on the brink of exhaustion or the edge of despair.

Alarmed, she hurriedly set the flask back on the worktable.
He can feel it?
The magnitude of his reaction shocked her, but in the depths of her heart, she was relieved—at least he wasn’t avoiding her now.

Though she no longer touched his prison, he continued to pant, his back jerking in an unnerving display of loss of control in so guarded a man.

Asrial went to him, reached out—and stopped. Her hand hovered over his shoulder, indecision holding it back. She was at a loss how to handle him. Since her parents’ deaths, she’d spent most of her time in the Rim. Alone.

Romir shuddered, his fists on the bulkhead so tight his knuckles were white. His long hair shielded his face, hanging down his chest in a straight fall of black that swayed to his pain.

Guilt scored her. She was the cause of his distress, however unintentional. She had to do something. Steeling her nerve, she wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her cheek against his broad back.

His chest quaked under her hands as he struggled to regain control. And it was a struggle, she could tell. His chest’s motion was proof of it: he’d forgotten he didn’t need to breathe.

“Did it hurt?” Had her thoughtlessness contributed to his pain?

Romir flinched at her question. He wasn’t one to put his vulnerability on display. “No, it did not. It felt . . . good. Too good.”

Pleasure?
“What’s wrong with that? Make me understand.”

 

 

Make her
understand?
He wanted to laugh. He could not make her do anything. A djinn had no such freedom.

A fleeting caress of soft lips on his nape sent a shiver through Romir. Her hands were flat on his belly, living heat branding him with Asrial’s essence. She remained pressed against him. The heat of her body along his back did not shift, the softness against his shoulder blades an external delight unlike the sensations from his prison.

“Talk to me. Please.”