Page 47 of Dark Chains: First Link
"The flowers are a nice touch," Tamira added. "I wonder what Amanda will do for the wedding."
"Probably something more elaborate," Syssi said. "She has a special talent for designing weddings around the personalities ofthe couple. Though in Ruvon's and Arezoo's case, I have no idea what that could be."
"Books," Tamira said. "When I was in the new market the other day, I heard Arezoo's aunts gushing over how Arezoo and Ruvon had bonded over Persian poetry."
Syssi chuckled. "I would never have suspected a former Doomer of being a fan of poetry."
"Wonders never cease," Kian murmured while glancing at his phone.
Was he referring to the phone call they'd gotten from the Russian scientist on the island? Had he told Eluheed about it?
She doubted he'd had time to talk to the shaman. The call had arrived yesterday, and since then, Kian had been constantly on the phone with Turner, Onegus, and Toven.
"Trouble?" Eluheed asked.
"Perhaps." Kian lifted his head and put the phone on the table. "What can you tell me about Dimitri Volkov and Constantine Petrov?"
"Kian," Syssi admonished. "Now is not the time for this."
"The second phone call is tomorrow, so it's not like I have much time. Besides, Elias lived in Russia for a long time, so he has better insight into the character of people from there. I want his take on the scientists."
"Where in Russia did you live?" Syssi asked.
"All over." Eluheed looked around to see if anyone was within hearing distance, then leaned down and continued in a lower voice. "I crossed into Russia from Turkey, and I kept movingthrough different regions. I stayed the longest in a small village near the Polish border. The people there minded their own business. They didn't ask too many questions, even if they noticed that I didn't seem to age."
"The Polish border. My family on my maternal grandmother's side had roots in the same general region. How long did you live there?"
"Nearly twenty years," Eluheed said. "Much longer than I should have stayed. I made it a rule to never remain in the same place for more than a decade, so people wouldn't notice that I wasn't changing, but I liked that village and was too contented there to pick up and leave again."
"What made you finally leave?" Syssi asked.
He glanced at Tamira. "A woman."
"That's interesting." Tamira crossed her arms over her chest. "You've never told me about that."
"I'm an old immortal, and I wasn't living as a monk, so there are many women I didn't tell you about, but that particular case stuck in my memory because I'm not proud of it." He sighed. "In fact, I still feel bad about it."
Tamira frowned. "What did you do?"
"In those days, the options were limited, and it was either widows or married women who were unhappy with their husbands. Back then, divorce was unheard of. It was almost a taboo, but affairs were rampant."
"So, you had an affair with a married woman?" Kian asked.
Eluheed shook his head. "I let myself get seduced by a young maiden and got her in trouble." He closed his eyes for a moment. "Her name was Rosa, and she was such a wild spirit, so smart and so unsuited for life in a small village. I should have resisted the temptation, but she was a force of nature, and I just couldn't say no to her. I'd been so lonely for so long, and she was so different from all the other women I'd been with since arriving on Earth. When she discovered that she was carrying a child, she expected me to marry her, but I couldn't risk my immortality being discovered. I told her that I couldn't do that, but I couldn't tell her why. She was so angry. She threw every item she could lift at me in my house and then stormed out. The next day, her engagement to some unsuspecting guy was announced, and I was relieved and devastated at the same time. They left shortly after that, emigrating to America, so I don't know if she carried my child to term or not." He smiled sadly. "I might have descendants somewhere on this continent."
Rosa had been a popular name in that area, it still was, but something about the story made Syssi's pulse quicken.
"My great-grandmother's name was Rosa," she said. "She came from a small town near the Polish border. She married a guy named Boris and emigrated to the United States in the early 1920s. He died shortly after they came to America, and Rosa remarried."
Syssi had always assumed that her grandmother was Rosa's daughter from her second marriage. But what if she wasn't?
Eluheed's face had gone pale. "Did Rosa have a sister named Perla?"
"Yes. She married Boris's cousin Yanek. Did you know them?" Syssi asked, even though she already knew the answer to that.
"I only knew Rosa, but I knew she had a sister named Perla." His voice dropped to barely above a murmur, and he looked at Syssi like he was seeing her for the first time.
As the implications of what they had possibly just discovered registered, the sounds of the party, the music, the laughter, and the clinking of glasses seemed to recede around them.
