“True on both counts,” he allowed. “However, there is a third thing, which perhaps it did not tell you.” He nodded at the pod. “The tree . . . engineers its gifts, from time to time. If you eat that, you may become bound to it.”
“As you are,” Aelliana said.
He inclined his head. “As we all are.”
She held the pod out to him. “How does one proceed?”
He took a breath—but who was he to deny her the benefits the tree's gifts so often bestowed? She was his lifemate, and thereby tree-kin. She had a right to the gift.
Taking the pod, he cracked it between his fingers and returned the pieces to her.
“The kernel is what one eats,” he said, and extended his hand, warned by a rustle in the leaves overhead. Another pod dropped into his palm.
He held it up, and gave her a wry grin. “I believe that we are being coddled.”
“A little coddling may not go amiss, surely?” Aelliana murmured, as he cracked his pod. “Your sister—”
“Pray put my sister out of your mind,” he said, teasing the kernel free.
Aelliana tipped her head. “This smells so—odd.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “In what way?”
“Well, it smells not of something—like mint or spice—but rather of the idea that the food is good.” She looked up at him. “Is it always thus?”
“No, sometimes they do smell of mint, or spice, or new leaves. I posit an encryption system peculiar to the tree. These, though . . . ” He paused to sniff his own kernel. “I believe they may have been produced especially for this event. And if that does not frighten you, then you are bolder than I am.”
She laughed, her eyes brilliantly green, and put the kernel into her mouth.
“That's put me on my mettle,” he said, and followed her lead.
Usually, when one ate of the tree, the result was a pleasant taste, and perhaps a mild, pleasurable euphoria. This was not usual tree fruit.
His mouth cooled, as if he had drunk iced water, and the sensation flowed through him, informing each bone, muscle and cell, until his strength was frozen and he sat down, hard, and leaned his back against the massive trunk, eyes closed, shivering.
“I wish,” he said, and his voice was shivering too, “you would at least give one warning. What have you done, wretch?”
“Daav?” Aelliana's voice was not shivering. Indeed, it was remarkably firm.
He opened his eyes and turned his head, carefully. She was kneeling at his side. Green eyes looked directly into his, mild concern apparent.
“Are you well?” she asked.
“I expect I will be,” he said, breathless still, but gaining strength. “Surely it has no need to murder me today, and good reason to keep me alive for just a few days more.”
She frowned. “I don't think the tree means to murder you,” she said seriously. “Though what reason?”
“yos'Phelium is grown dangerously thin. At least I must survive until I've done my duty to the bloodline. Unless, of course, it means to give over breeding yos'Pheliums entirely, which I might do, in its place.”
The shivering had passed, leaving him slowly warming, and in a state of not-unpleasant languor.
Aelliana shifted off her knees and sat on the grass, her shoulder against the great trunk. Her expression was thoughtful.
“I had forgotten,” she murmured, then seemed to shake herself. “Van'chela, perhaps the tree means to—to repair the damage, and render you—able to hear me.”
Well, and there was a thought—and not at all beyond its range. “Though one would still count it a kindness if a warning were issued before the blow falls.”
A leaf floated from one of the lower branches and landed on his knee.
“Your concern warms my heart,” he told it, ironically.
“Are you well?” Aelliana demanded.
He took a breath, and took stock. The languor was fading, though he felt no immediate need to rise and go about his day.
“In truth, I seem to have taken no lasting harm, and only a glancing blow to my pride.”
She blinked. “Pride?”
“One does not like to appear a complete idiot before one's pilot, after all.”
She smiled at that.
“Here,” she said, and put her hand flat against his chest.
“Can you,” she said, and he heard hope raw in her voice, “hear me?”
He closed his eyes, but if there was anything other than his own chaotic thoughts bouncing inside his skull, they were too faint for his inner ears to hear.
He put his hand over hers and opened his eyes.
“Alas.”
She wilted, a little, then straightened resolutely. “After all, it is a complex problem and may require several attempts.”
If it could be repaired at all, he thought, but did not say. Instead he smiled for her, and inclined his head.
“Very true.”
She sighed, and took her hand away from him.
“Your sister,” she said once more, and pressed her fingers against his lips, silencing him.
“Hear me,” she said firmly, and he perforce subsided.
"I know that she wished to warn me away, but she built her argument on a foundation of fact. I am not High House, and hold but an indifferent acquaintance with the Code, despite my late adventures. I am not traveled, nor have I been accustomed to making decisions based on the best good for all. For too many years, my decisions were made from fear, and concerned only my own safety.
“While I do not believe that you would send me away from you for embarrassing the High House of Korval before the world, yet the High House of Korval ought not to be embarrassed.”
Daav caught her wrist and lifted her hand away from his lips to cuddle it against his shoulder. “I note that Thodelmae yos'Galan is Terran, and despite earnest study, does yet from time to time err in small ways. The world makes nothing of it.”
“Nor should it. The fact that Anne is not of Liad is there for all to see. She cannot be expected to stand Code-wise and the fact that she errs only in small ways must be to her credit. But from one born to Liad, van'chela, more is expected.”
This new decisiveness was fascinating.
“What solution do you propose?” he asked.
She drew a breath, her fingers curling hard around his.
“I propose that we return to my original plan, with appropriate emendations.”
His heart sank. Of course she would fly her ship, nor was he the one to deny her, wing-clipped and planet-bound as he was.
“You wish to put Ride the Luck to space?”
She smiled. “I had always intended to do so—now more than before. Surely it must only improve my condition within the House, to captain my own ship. I might even undertake to learn the Code.”
She leaned forward, looking deep into his eyes, doubtless seeing his hurt and his jealousy and all the small unworthy pains.
“Will you sit my copilot?” she asked.
His eyes filled, and he closed them, unwilling to allow even her to see him so vulnerable.
“Aelliana, I am Korval.”
“So you are,” she said briskly. “What has that to do with the case?”
His eyes sprang open in shock. “The clan's business ties me to Liad. A day or two away, I might arrange that, but—do you plan a trade loop? Or will you go for courier?”
“That is but one of the many things I had hoped to discuss with my copilot, who is far more space-wise than I,” she said with some asperity. “Come, Daav! I don't know how it is done among the High, but among the Mid Houses, it is common for the delm to hold employment!”
He stared at her. “It has been . . . tradition,” he said slowly, and so it had been, since they had grown so thin, and the dangers of space had begun to be counted as more compelling than its joys.
“It is an absurd tradition!” Aelliana said decisively. “And I see no reason why you should be made ill because of it—or that we be denied the joy of sitting the same board, as surely we are intended to do!”