A House Divided

Chapter 27

When Cianne woke the next morning the turmoil started up anew. Touching her fingers to her lips, she couldn't slow her racing pulse as she remembered what it had felt like for them to be claimed by Kila's. Nothing she had ever imagined had compared to the reality, and she wouldn't have stopped kissing him if he hadn't stopped kissing her. She might have kissed him the entire night, might have kept kissing him well into the following day.

It was stupid, dangerous, and she knew it. Hadn't she promised herself that she wouldn't allow something like this to happen because she knew there was no hope for it? The thought of being apart from him brought her nothing but pain, but she couldn't see how being with him would bring her any less. How long could they carry on a clandestine love affair? At what point would stolen moments cease to be enough to satisfy her?

And what of Kila? She didn't think he intended to use her, especially not after she had heard the vehemence in his voice as he had vowed that he never wanted to hurt her. She trusted that his intentions weren't untoward, but what good did that do either of them? He knew as well as she did that there was no hope of anything between them, no matter how much they might both want it. They couldn't be together.

Can't you? You know you can't remain here, and at any rate you might soon have no choice. Why can't you be together?

Yet there was no use in revisiting previously trodden ground. She couldn't ask it of him. She wouldn't ask it of him.

What if he were to offer?

No. She refused to think of it. Too much was happening, too many things conspiring to throw her emotions into chaos, and she couldn't afford to be so distracted. She would have to keep her wits about her if she were to have any hope of keeping all the balls she was juggling up in the air. She couldn't afford for everything to come crashing down around her, for her own sake and for Kila's. Everything she did put not just herself at risk, but him as well. She might well have to destroy Lach, there was no way around that, but she would not be responsible for being Kila's downfall as well.

Her hands shook as she dressed. Every part of her longed for Kila, longed to feel his touch, and the wanting made her weak. Never before had it hurt her this much to deny herself something, and the recognition that she now had some inkling of what Lach was going through exacerbated her discomposure until she began to wonder if it might be wiser to hide in her bed the entire day, claim she was ill.

But no, she couldn't do that either. Lach had asked to come see her and tell her when he was leaving, and she wouldn't hide from him. He deserved better than that.

That she also needed the information pricked at her conscience, regardless of the fact that it wasn't she who had orchestrated the situation. Many times she had been overcome with anger and frustration at her father, but this was the first time she had begun to feel true rage. How could he do this to her?

What if it's nothing? a very faint voice wondered, but she barked out a laugh at the thought. Of course it wasn't nothing. She was well beyond the point of believing that, of deluding herself into believing she was reading more into things than what was there.

She spent the morning cleaning her weapons, conditioning her leathers, and performing the deshya in her rafters, and all these things helped to calm her, particularly the deshya. Emotions were a force, and she could gather that energy and use it to her benefit. She didn't have to be ruled by it, and it helped that she had the chance to remind herself of this.

Lach arrived shortly after she had eaten her lunch alone, her father tied up at the Council Hall. She hadn't much taste for her food but she forced herself to eat anyway. With the amount of energy she was expending training with Kila and working herself up into a state about Lach, she would need the fuel.