Page 34 of Alien Burn

“Has she answered it?”

“She's looking at it.” He tugged the sling higher. “Ellon didn't get one.”

There it was.

Dhomhes had been twelve when Sheira put the baby in his arms for the first time. Tivek had caught a finger and refused to let go. No one in that room had needed a supplementary attestation to understand who he was.

“Send it to me.”

“You can't just make it go away.”

“No. But I can make the office explain why it sent it.”

Tivek glanced up.

“Mother says not to turn it into a fight.”

“Then I shall begin with a very polite question.”

“Your polite questions are worse.”

“And yet people keep giving me reasons to ask them.”

Tivek laughed. Dhomhes felt himself smile before he could decide how much.

“I don't need you to get me through the ritual,” his brother said.

“Good. I wasn't offering to carry you down a shaft.”

“I mean it.”

“I know you do.” Dhomhes put a hand on his shoulder. “You do the work. I will ask why they're putting another form between you and the chance to do it.”

Tivek studied him, then nodded.

“I'll send it.”

“And take that weapon to someone who can teach you to get it around a corner.”

“You were in the way.”

“I so often am.”

His brother went, turning to walk backward long enough to make a rude gesture before disappearing toward the training rooms.

Dhomhes watched until he was gone.

Then he went into the gallery and took some bread.

Sereya sat at a table overlooking the courtyard. She raised her cup, and he caught himself watching her mouth. Heat climbed his spine until his collar felt too close. Under the cuff of his good hand, a ridge of armor pushed against the cloth.

There was no falling platform here. No one was reaching for a weapon. She was drinking tea.

She looked up. He nearly went to her. Then someone at the service door called his title, and he turned too quickly, catching his sleeve on a chair.

He freed it and left with the bread. He had laughed at Khalzin's certainty. He was beginning to dislike how clearly he remembered every word.

Back at the borrowed table, he found no word from Fiviel. The housing report held Roemary's communications requests and a corridor disturbance involving Stron and Adryel. Sereya had opened her door, afraid something had happened. Reassured; returned inside.