Page 32 of Dark Destiny: A New Thread in the Tapestry

His eyelids fell, and his hand went slack in hers.

Annani sat with him until the monitor settled.

"He said yes to Esag," she told Alena without turning around. "And no to Kian. I do not know what to think of that."

Alena came and stood beside the chair. "What happened? What triggered that response?"

"I told him that I named my son after him and that he has been my regent for almost two thousand years. Then I said Kian would visit him when he felt a little stronger." Annani looked at her mate's face, now relaxed again. "He was afraid, Alena. Of Kian. I do not understand it."

Alena was quiet for a moment.

"Khiann does not want to meet your children while he is in diminished capacity." Alena crouched beside the chair. "Put yourself in that bed for a moment. You have no memories. You cannot speak or sit up, and you are fed through a tube that pumps nutrients into your vein. A strange woman you do not recognize calls you her love, then tells you she named her son after you. That son has been alive for two thousand years, while you were twenty when you entered stasis. Would you want that son to walk in here and look at you, helpless in that bed? He isn't afraid of Kian. He's afraid of being seen by him."

It made a great deal of sense, and Annani wanted very badly for it to be the whole answer, but she could not quite believe that it was.

She had spent five thousand years telling anyone who would listen that Khiann was the only male she had ever wanted, and in that same five thousand years she had borne five children to five human men. She had chosen each of those men because something about them reminded her of Khiann, and because a blind soothsayer had told her he would return to her in a different form, and she had interpreted it as him reincarnating. She had never been ashamed of it.

"Do you think it is possible?" Annani asked, then stopped and started again. "Do you think it is possible that he objects to me having children with humans?"

"No," Alena said, but she took a moment too long to answer.

"You hesitated."

"I hesitated because it's an awful question, and I wanted to give you a real answer." Alena placed her hand over her mother's. "Khiann does not remember being mated to you. Why on earth would he object to you having children? And if he remembers you and finds anything objectionable about you doing what you had to, then he is not worthy of your love."

11

YAAF

"Forks on the left," Mattie said. "Knives on the right."

Yaaf looked down at the two handfuls of plastic he was holding. "Why?"

"Because that's where they go."

"Yes, but why?"

"I don't know why. That's the rule." She distributed a row of paper plates down the length of the table. "Ask Anita. Maybe she knows."

"It's simple," Anita said from the kitchen. "The fork goes on the left because you eat with your left hand and cut with your right. But since this is Chinese food, there is nothing to cut. We are supposed to use chopsticks, but I doubt anyone knows how to use them."

Yaaf knew what chopsticks were because he'd seen them in a movie, and so did the rest of the collective.

"It shouldn't be too difficult to master," Dumuz said.

"The restaurant sent a bunch of them with the food." Mattie passed through the butler's pantry into the kitchen. "I've got them." She returned a moment later with a paper bag and started pulling out the chopsticks. "Whoever wants to use them is welcome."

The dining table came with eight chairs and seated fourteen, which was nowhere near enough. Mattie had found two extension leaves in a closet behind the linens, and with both fitted, the table ran nearly the length of the room and would seat twenty-two. Camdor and Voset made two trips across the vestibule to borrow the rest of the chairs from Lady Areana, and on the first trip they invited her to join them.

She sent the chairs and declined the invitation, saying that this luncheon should be just for the families.

As Mattie went around the table, correcting misaligned napkins and centering the disposable cups, Yaaf looked at her hand and noted it looked perfectly healed. But looks could be deceptive, and it might still be bothering her.

"How is your hand?" he asked.

Mattie held it up, made a fist, opened it fully, then turned it over and did it again. "I've got full range back. The island doctor knew what he was doing."

"I'm glad," Yaaf said. "I know that healing is not easy for humans."