“Oh, no,” Teyla said. “No, no. I think there has been some great misunderstanding. Rodney is a good friend. I care for him as if he were my own kinsman, but…”
“I must have misunderstood,” Kanaan said after a moment. He looked as though he were at a loss for words now, and as if he would give anything not to have just made himself look like a fool. It was a way that they were alike, both of them all too conscious of their dignity.
“Kanaan,” Teyla said. For a moment she was tempted to embrace him, relieved by how silly and normal this all was, two parted lovers making a great fuss over who they loved next as if it were of great consequence to everyone. She still held back, remembering against her will what actually was important. “The things you said when I was last here were not a misunderstanding.”
“They were not,” Kanaan said, reluctantly but without apology.
“It is not easy for me to come among my people and wonder if I will be seen as a stranger,” Teyla said.
“You will never be a stranger,” Kanaan said. “Believe me, if you had said to me five years ago that I would challenge your place as leader…”
“Is that what you want?” Teyla asked. He had never been an ambitious man in the time she had known him, content with his work and his family. But then she supposed he might have changed as much as she had in nearly six years, when they had spent most of that time apart.
“It may not matter what I want,” Kanaan said. “The people look to me to protect them from the Wraith because I have the Gift. It does not matter how many times I say that I am not you.”
“They have been content with Halling as leader in my place,” Teyla said.
“Halling is a good man,” Kanaan said. “But he has stood in your place these six years, and he is not sorry to have another strong voice to speak beside him in council. And more than that…” He hesitated. “He is a good man,” he went on finally. “But he would like our lives to return to what they were when we lived on Athos.”
“I think many people would like that,” Teyla said.
“Wishing will not stop things from changing,” Kanaan said. “How can we go back to a time before the Lanteans came? Or, for that matter, before the Ancestors themselves returned, only to turn their backs on us?” He shook his head. “Those things happened. Just as generations ago the cities of Athos fell. The survivors could not go on living as if they had not been destroyed.”
“We chose not to try,” Teyla said.
“And now we must make new choices,” Kanaan said. “We must talk of what bargains we wish to make with the Lanteans, not just for a season but for many generations, and we must talk of what it means that the Ancestors were not as we had hoped.”
“Many people do not want to talk about difficult things,” Teyla said. “Or so Charin told me often enough when I was a child.”
“You never held back from asking hard questions,” Kanaan said. “But now you are gone, and someone else must ask them instead.” He shook his head. “You know how few we are,” he said.
“I know,” she said, with an old familiar stab of grief for their childhood, when the questions had all seemed easier.
“We will have to find more people who wish to be Athosian, or we will be absorbed into someone else’s people and disappear,” Kanaan said. “It would be easy to be absorbed by the Lanteans. They are a generous people, and we have made ties of friendship with them. But the easy path is not always the best one.”
“When we are so few, will you really say I am not one of you?” Teyla said.
“You are my kin,” Kanaan said. “We will always be kin, now that we are bound by blood.” He watched Torren, who had abandoned the game of chase and was making his way back toward them, dragging a stick behind him.
“But you still do not want me to speak in council.”
“I still think you will speak for the Lanteans,” Kanaan said. He smiled a little, a flash of spirit in his eyes as if they were still children playing their own game of chase. “Does that make us enemies, Teyla? I think you would be a bad one to have.”
She shook her head at him, smiling just a little in return. “It does not,” she said. “But I am still not happy about what has been decided.”
“I did not expect you to be,” Kanaan said. “There is no answer that will satisfy you and everyone else as well, and I cannot make there be one by wishing it.”
“I know,” she said, and then she did put her arms around him, bending her forehead to his. She felt awkward almost at once, too near not to be reminded of their ill-favored months together after Torren’s birth, but when she drew away, she thought something had eased between them.
Torren came running toward her, then, and flung his arms around her neck. “My stick,” he said, showing it off to her.
“It is a very nice stick,” Teyla said. In the distance, she could see Ronon looking out over one of the fields at Halling’s side. She suspected he was saying that it was a nice field.
“I have work to do,” Kanaan said. “Find me when you are ready to leave.”
“We will be here for a while,” Teyla said, sitting down and drawing Torren into her lap, even though that meant dodging his stick.
“Go home now, Mama?” Torren asked, sprawling in her lap.
“You must stay here with Papa just a little while longer,” Teyla said, stroking his hair, and hoping he would not ask her to promise that was true.
Chapter Twenty-four
Quicksilver’s Test
*We must Cull soon,* Bonewhite said.
Guide frowned at the screen. He had known this was coming, had hoped they could stave it off just a little longer. *How soon?*
*Now, ideally,* Bonewhite answered. There was a touch of rough humor in his thoughts. *But, knowing the situation — thirty-six hours. We will have to find a hunting ground, you know.*
*I know.* Death had devastated too many worlds, picked them clean and spoiled what remained. *Riath is near, and Arcola.*
*I have sent scouts to both,* Bonewhite answered. *Death has been there already. Arcola may serve us, but barely. I would like to hunt further.*
Guide nodded. *That would probably be wise.*
*Will you join us?* Bonewhite paused. *Our people grow restless, they worry we do not seek our own queen.*
Guide grimaced. That, too, he had expected, but it still sent a pulse of fear through him. He was not nearly ready to defy Death, had barely begun to find a few allies among his peers. The failure of this last attack had helped, made some of them reconsider his suggestions, but it was too soon yet to try to build on that. Part of him was glad of the excuse, of the chance to leave the zenana and its dangerous undercurrents, to deal only with the ordinary work of keeping the hive alive and fed. And, of course, to deal with his missing queen, the one who did not truly exist — yes, he would have to deal with that as well, and soon. They could not keep up the pretence forever; perhaps it was time to disclose that Steelflower had died tragically, her cruiser overwhelmed by another hive before she could summon Consort and hive to save her. Yes, perhaps it was time, and perhaps this would be the excuse he needed to make that adjustment. Of course, it would leave him at Death’s mercy, but he was beginning to build his own alliance again — which brought his thoughts full circle. He suppressed a snarl, focused on the matter at hand.
*I will seek leave of the queen,* he said, *and join you if I may.*
The assembly room was empty except for the drone guards, and the doors of the inner chamber were closed, but he could feel the tension like a shout. The young blade who watched outside the door looked harried, and dipped his head more deeply than was proper, hiding his nervousness.
*Is the queen within?* Guide asked, though he could feel her presence.