Page 66 of Dark Destiny: The Fates' Bargain

"You look well," she said.

"You also look well," Dumuz answered.

They stood facing each other with identical straight spines and identical level chins, their rigid postures mirroring one another, and Sullha could not tell whether the sight was sad or hopeful or both.

Karina and her son did not speak at all. He came to her, and she looked up at him. He took her hands, and Karina's shoulders relaxed a little.

Bardov had no one walking toward him. He stood a half step back, his face unreadable, but then Anita walked up to him, said something, and pointed at the pastries.

Yaaf watched the reunions the same way she did, letting them unfold before crossing the room to her.

"Sullha." He looked at her hands, still clasped with Tomek and Leehy's.

"Yaaf." Sullha looked up into the serious blue eyes that warmed for her the way they warmed for no one else.

"Yaaf!" Tomek pulled his hand from hers and thrust out the other, which was clutching two small toy cars. "I brought my cars." He took off his backpack and handed it to Yaaf. "You can pick yours, and we can race them. Just don't pick the red ones. They are mine."

"Let me see." Yaaf peeked into the open backpack. "So many. I don't know which one to choose. Can you choose for me?"

Tomek took the assignment very seriously, his forehead scrunched as he rummaged through the collection.

"Here." He came up with one gold and one silver car. "These are the nicest. After the red."

"Perfect." Yaaf folded himself down onto the floor, sitting cross-legged beside her five-year-old son.

He bent his head over the cars, listening to Tomek explaining the racing rules, which were long, contradictory, and heavily weighted in Tomek's favor.

"That's cheating," Yaaf said.

"It's not cheating. It's my race, so I make the rules."

Sullha pressed her lips together to hold the laugh in and glanced at her mother.

Leehy was watching Yaaf, but not in the glossy unseeing manner she looked at most things. Her eyes were focused, moving from him to Tomek's bright face and back, and there was approval in her expression, which Sullha had never seen on her before.

Leehy caught her looking and turned away. She headed toward the food table, and the moment was gone.

Mattie clapped her hands. "Food is ready, please fill your plates."

Bowen translated, and people started drifting toward the food table, including Tomek, who collected his cars, stuffed them in his backpack, and handed it to Sullha. "I'm going to eat, Mama. Can you hold it for me?"

"Of course, sweetie." She shouldered the backpack. "Nana can help you fill your plate."

When he joined Leehy in line at the table, Sullha and Yaaf were suddenly alone.

Yaaf held out his hand, and as she put hers into it, his fingers closed around hers, warm and familiar.

A hand clasp was all they could have in a room full of mothers and Guardians and her son and her own mother. It wasn't remotely enough, and as his thumb moved once across her knuckles, her breath turned shallow.

"You look amazing," he said in a near whisper.

She smiled, feeling suddenly shy. "It's the dress. The sandals. The hair products."

He shook his head. "It's you. You are radiant."

"Mama!" Tomek arrived with a full plate. "You need to stand in line. Nana says that if you don't, all the food will be gone before you get any."

Sullha looked up at Yaaf. "We should do as he says."