Rebels Asending

Chapter 13

he felt, whatever impulses raged through him, he owed it to her—

not to mention to all standards of proper, decent conduct—to treat her with all the respect due a Comynara.

“Whatever happens,” he murmured, his voice trembling with effort, “I’ll take care of you. We’ll always be together.”

Only when the words were spoken and could not be called back did Domenic realize that, as Heir to Hastur and the next Regent of the Comyn, he had no right to make such a promise. Not to Alanna, not to any woman of his own choosing. Moreover, they were blood kin, but what of that? Not so long ago cousins were permitted, even encouraged, to marry.

There were a hundred reasons why he must not think of Alanna as a lover.

In that moment, with the weight of her head resting against him, his body trembling with fire and thirst and things he could not name but that only she could fulfill, he did not care.

spring swung into early summer, the weather turned mild, with only a few thin clouds. Danilo Syrtis-Ardais began walking the streets of Thendara. In his late fifties, he still retained the slender, graceful form of a much younger man. His hair, worn longer than was fashionable, was still dark, but shadows haunted his eyes, and the creases around his mouth betokened his deep suffering. He had been handsome as a youth, pretty enough to attract unwanted attention, but time and grief had honed away that beauty, leaving his features stark but no less compelling.

The lung-fever the previous winter had left him debilitated, but now, with the coming of warmer days and burgeoning green, a new vigor rose in him.

Wrapped in his fur-lined cloak, he paced the marketplaces, inhaling the awakening vitality of the city. Turning his face to the brightening sky, he sensed winter loosening its grip from his own heart.

When Regis died, he could not imagine how he could go on. Now, as that pain began to subside, he discovered new strength.

Once we have shared love with another human being, he is part of us forever Danilo could not remember who had said those words, but with each passing day, he felt their truth. It would be years yet before the aching As

wound within him ceased to haunt his dreams, but that time would come.

Perhaps a man never recovered from such a loss; perhaps he should not. But life continued, and so would he.

Danilo paused at an open-air cookshop, where a woman, her face reddened from bending over a pot of hot water, scooped out steamed dumplings. The next food stall offered leaf-wrapped sausages, baked apples, and skewers of tiny golden onions. A half-grown boy in tattered clothing waited at the back of the shop, and Danilo watched as the woman filled his clay bowl with savory morsels.

He knew that secret meetings were being held within the Castle, schemes and shifts of power. As yet he had no place there. Here, in the marketplaces, the craft districts, the watering fountains and stable yards, along the poorer residential streets, he would find his true direction. He had already begun reestablishing the network of informants he had created during his years as paxman to Regis—innkeepers, stablemen, Travelers, a smith or two, people who might see and hear things hidden from the Comyn.

All was not peaceful on the street. Twice now Danilo had come upon groups of rough-garbed men lounging on the corners, who regarded him with frank suspicion. They muttered words like, ” Comyn spy

!” followed by a curse, before they shuffled away.

He spotted Domenic at the edge of the market square, shadowed by two uniformed Castle Guards. A hooded cloak covered the boy’s hair, but there was no mistaking his posture, both wary and excited, or those eyes of almost luminous gold-flecked gray. Something in Domenic’s way of moving reminded Danilo of Regis as a young man, the way he held himself a little apart, diffident and intense.

Danilo had had little contact with Domenic over the last few years, but the boy seemed to have avoided the worst consequences of growing up with two charismatic parents; he was neither a bully nor a self-indulgent child. He’d had an independent spirit as an adolescent. Then he’d studied in a Tower for some three years. After such early freedom, it could not be easy to accept the presence of a protective escort.

Domenic smiled as Danilo approached and bade him good morning. The Guards bowed to him and retreated a step or two, remaining watchful.

“It’s a fine day to be abroad,” Danilo said.

“Yes!” Domenic agreed. “I thought winter would never end.”

Some impulse led Danilo to say, “Shall we walk together and pretend for a moment that we are just two ordinary men?”

“If that were only possible!” Domenic rolled his eyes in the direction of the Guards.

“Some things never change.” Danilo strolled toward the leather-workers’

stalls, leaving the Guards to follow. “In his day, Regis longed to be accountable only to his own conscience and not the Comyn of all Seven Domains. He dreamed of one day traveling to the stars. Did he ever tell you that?”

Domenic shook his head, his expression astonished. “Great-Uncle Regis?

No, he never said.”

“Of course, as Heir to Hastur, Regis never had a chance to leave Darkover,” Danilo went on. Anguish surged up in him, for his own loss, for his beloved’s sacrifice. What choice had any of them had? “He often said that he did not choose his parentage wisely.”

“Mother repeats that saying to me.” Domenic grimaced. “Ala