His stomach seemed to congeal inside him as that familiar thought went thought him once more, and his glance lingered on Gadrial, who was busy poring over her PC, studying the Sharonian primer she and Shaylar had put together. She was now very nearly as proficient in their language as the Sharonians were in Andaran, and her expression was rapt with a scholar’s joy as she worked on becoming even more proficient. Jasak’s heart twisted as he watched that expression, watched the light play across Gadrial’s face while the slider whipped across the last hundred miles toward home.
He wanted Gadrial to share that home with him.
Desperately.
He hadn’t spoken to her about that. Not yet. And as the final miles flashed past, all the reasons he hadn’t-the reasons he couldn’t-crashed in upon him. It was like a vast weight, slamming down on him, blotting away the amusement he’d felt only a moment before. The moment was coming when he’d have to say something to her…one way or the other. And he couldn’t. He simply couldn’t.
He wasn’t free, couldn’t be free, to say a single thing to her about his hopes and dreams. He didn’t want to think about what it would mean to him, personally, if a court-martial found him guilty, and not because of whatever sentence it might hand down. A woman like Gadrial deserved the very best in life, not a future tied to a man drummed out of the military in disgrace. He wouldn’t-could never-even ask her to endure that.
Yet even if he was acquitted, would a Ransaran whose deeply held convictions about personal worth had been tested and turned to granite in the volcanic fires of Mythlan prejudice, even be willing to accept a proposal that would tie her to an Andaran officer and aristocrat? Submerge her in the suffocating web of obligations and honor-debts that comprised the only world Jasak truly understood? She’d had years of experience with Andaran customs during her time at the Garth Showma Institute, but that was a very different thing from joining that culture. She and Magister Halathyn had been enormously respected scholars and teachers, and that’s what she still was. In their cases, Andaran custom had accommodated itself to them, not the other way around, and rightly so. But if he asked her to share his life, he wasn’t simply asking her to live in Garth Showma with him, or even to accept the outer forms of culture and custom. He was asking her to marry the heir to Garth Showma, to accept the knowledge that one day he would become Duke…and she would become Duchess. One of the things he’d learned about her-one of the things he most loved about her-was that she would never, ever shirk an obligation she’d assumed, and she wouldn’t shirk that one…if she accepted him.
He didn’t see how she could.
True, one day he would be Duke of Garth Showma, a man of immense political power and wealth, whatever happened to his military career. Assuming, of course, that none of the charges which might be levied against him carried the death sentence. But the mere inheritance of a title would carry less weight with Ransarans than with almost anyone else in the Union of Arcana. Many of them actively despised hereditary titles and the-in their opinion-unearned power that went with a mere accident of birth. Gadrial wasn’t one to be prejudiced against someone by the mere fact that he possessed a title, but she was no friend of aristocratic privilege, either. If she ever had been, her time in Mythal would undoubtedly have cured her of the infatuation!
Why should one of the most gifted theoretical magisters-Ransaran theoretical magisters-in the entire Union chain herself to a man who might soon find himself stripped of his commission and utterly disgraced? A lesser woman might accept him based on the Olderhan wealth and title, but no amount of money could make a man worthy of Gadrial Kelbryan. She was too exceptional, too accomplished, too brilliant in her own right-too strong-to ever live as a man’s shadow. She deserved everything. He could only complicate her life and add extra responsibilities to interfere with her passion for magical research.
And even if she might be willing to entertain the thought of accepting his proposal, what about her family? How did they feel about aristocrats? What if, unlike her, they did despise the very concept of aristocracy? And how would they feel about his dishonor if the court-martial did strip him of his rank and expel him from the military in disgrace? About the part he’d played, whatever a court decided, in launching the first inter-universal war in human history?
He was afraid to even suggest his parents travel to Ransar and speak with hers, for what could Sathmin Olderhan say in his defense? “He didn’t mean to” was such a paltry apology for the man who’d begun a war that had already claimed the life of Gadrial’s mentor. Not the kind of troth gift that convinced a family to permit an engagement. But the thought of her going out of his life-the thought of one of those men on the streets of New Ransar standing beside her, instead-left him feeling like the ashes of last week’s campfire: cold and gray and utterly desolate.
Perhaps it was the intensity of his inner turmoil or perhaps it was just the helpless stare that he couldn’t help, unable to pull his eyes away from her face, but she lifted her head, abandoning the display on her personal crystal to meet his eyes. The instant their gazes touched, a jolt like lightning blasted through him. Blessed Torkash, how he wanted this woman to stay in his life!
Gadrial, too, jolted when their gazes met and she saw the look-the longing, the hunger…and the fear-in his eyes. She knew in that moment, as clearly as if she’d had Shaylar’s Talent as a Voice-exactly what he was thinking, exactly what he feared…and why. She knew it, yet for a long, wrenching moment, she didn’t know what to do about it. Anything she said or did-or didn’t say or do-was likely to push him in a direction she didn’t want him to go. Then she thought about what a future without Jasak Olderhan in it would do to her.
She put away her personal crystal with brusque movements, quite suddenly angry clear through. Angry over the massive injustice of the whole situation, angry that he would back away without ever giving her the chance to say yes or no to whatever it was he wanted to say or ask her. So she stuffed her PC into its carrying case, jerked to her feet, and strode over to his seat. She felt Shaylar’s startled gaze follow her, with Jathmar’s joining it an instant later.
“Jasak,” she said in a low voice, “would you walk with me for a moment?”
Surprise flared in his eyes and a frown of uncertainty drove between his brows, but he stood up without a word. Once she was sure he’d follow, Gadrial turned and marched toward the door that led into the enclosed space between their private car and the one behind it. The instant Jasak had joined her there, closing the door behind him, she turned to glare up at him.
“Gadrial?” he asked warily, reacting to the anger surging through her.
Anger at the enormous, insufferable, idiotic weight of Andaran pride and Andaran stupidity stacked against her, against Jasak. Against them.
“You look like a man about to make a decision, Jasak Olderhan,” she said in a low, hard voice. “An irrevocable decision.”
His eyes widened. She read alarm and the beginning of genuine panic in his expression. She didn’t give those reactions time to solidify.
“I just want to make one thing perfectly clear, before you start making decisions your insufferable pride won’t let you back away from or reconsider.”
She grabbed his uniform lapels and jerked hard. He might be well over a foot taller than she was, but Gadrial was in superb physical condition and he wasn’t expecting her to jerk him forward, off balance. The instant his head was in range, she let go of his uniform, plunged her fingers through his hair, and kissed him with every ounce of creativity and passion she could summon from her admittedly limited repertoire.